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Meeting Abstracts

2020 Annual Meeting

Virtual Meeting

Meeting Begins11/29/2020
Meeting Ends12/11/2020

Call for Papers Opens: 1/7/2020
Call for Papers Closes: 3/11/2020

Requirements for Participation

  Meeting Abstracts


"wa huwa alladhī jaʿalakum khalāʾifa l arḍi..." (Q. 6:165): “Succession” (خلف) as a Major Theme of Surat al-An‘am Regarding the Dialectics of the Inter-Communal Relations
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Surah Studies (IQSA)
Jáchym Šenkyrík, Charles University

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.


Seeing the King in Isaiah: Disruptive Metaphor in Isaiah 6 and 33
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Andrew Abernethy, Wheaton College

By nature, prophecy disrupts the status quo, the eternal now with its lie that everything at the moment is how it should be and always will be (Brueggemann). Metaphor is one of the chief modes by which the prophets provoke hearers and readers towards a new perception of themselves, their God, and their world. Yet, metaphors depend upon a reader to pick up on contextual cues to decipher how to understand a given metaphor. This paper illustrates how a metaphor shared between two passages operates differently in its respective literary context. Two similar statements in Isaiah 6:5 (כי את־המלך יהוה צבאות ראו עיני) and 33:17 (מלך ביפיו תחזינה עיניך) utilize an extended metaphor SEEING THE KING. In both passages, SEEING THE KING disrupts a reader, yet in different ways. In Isaiah 6:5, the metaphor is colored by holiness and glory, evokes terror, and coordinates with devastation across the land. In Isaiah 33:17, SEEING THE KING is colored by beauty, evokes hope and bliss, and coordinates with rejuvenation and peace throughout the land. Through this dual use of the metaphor, SEEING THE KING disrupts modern worlds by projecting a world where, despite immediate perceptions, a terrifying divine king is bent on purging evil, and where, also despite immediate perceptions, gazing upon this same king is a treasured hope.


Imagined Dynasties: Interpreting and Over-Interpreting מַמְלָכָה in 1 Sam 13:13–14
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Diana Abernethy, Huntingdon College

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.


The ASOR/SBL Policy on Unprovenanced Artifacts
Program Unit: Documentary Texts and Literary Interpretation
Susan Ackerman, Dartmouth College

In April 2015, ASOR adopted a comprehensive "Policy on Professional Conduct," which included, among other policy affirmations, a statement regarding the publication or presentation of unprovenanced artifacts in ASOR journals and monographs and at the ASOR Annual Meeting. More specifically, the relevant lines from the ASOR policy read, "ASOR shall not serve as the initial place of publication or announcement of any object acquired by an individual or institution after April 24, 1972, which is the date of entry into force of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property." Subsequently, the ASOR Policy was adopted by the SBL as the "SBL Policy on Scholarly Presentation and Publication of Ancient Artifacts" and came into effect regarding submissions to SBL meetings and SBL publications in 2017. This paper describes the ASOR/SBL policy in more detail, including its strengths (e.g., its stress on the importance of provenance and why this matters), ongoing attempts at revision and refinement (e.g., the recent AIA decision about how unprovenanced artifacts should be signaled in publications), and concerns that continue to be raised (e.g., the so-called "cuneiform exception").


The Cup and the Development of Bread-and-Water Eucharist
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Paul Olatubosun Adaja, Loyola University of Chicago

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.


Enemies and Friends as Constructs in Proverbs
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Klaus-Peter Adam, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

This paper attempts to describe hallmarks of the construct of private enmity and hate in the various areas of conflict to which Proverbs allude and to probe whether these constructs are informed by biblical law. I consider how Proverbs reflect on elements of conflict settlement, such as forms of speech as verbal activity and on means to solve conflict settlement between opponents. Typical aspects of conflicts between enemies and friends in kinship based societies are well known from studies of ancient law: honor and shame as fundamental categories, the public nature of conflicts, the typical pattern of escalation between enemies, the mutual solidarity in conflict settlement between friends and kin members. I will consider how the specifics of the construct of private friendship and enmity plays out in selected behavioral roles in conflict settlement and principles of justice that are extant in Proverbs. I will consider the relevance of the findings about private enmity and friendship in the five typical areas of conflict between individuals in Proverbs: physical violence, boundary disputes, conflicts among kin members, theft and finally a miscellaneous category of conflicts around fraught, deceit, falsehood, despising others, the plotting of evil and the support of injustice. I intend to shed light on how Proverbs allude to a number of typical forms of closure in a quarrel or in a conflict between private enemies, such as “instruction” (יסר pi; מוּסר) and “rebuke” (יכח hi). Rather than presenting a comprehensive lexicography and the concepts of conflict settlement and their development, I cover the constructs of friendship and enmity in an honor-shame society in the key passages Prov 17:27-18:24, and the markers of the construct of private friendship in Prov 14:19-24,31; Prov 19-20. The latter two compositions reflect on the construct of friendship in light of traditional expectations of solidarity with a family member and invite a contrasting perspective on the construct of enmity as informed by biblical law, and contribute to clarify the more neutral category of the neighbor.


What Are the Odds? Eusebius, Serapion, and Secret Mark
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Grant Adamson, University of Arizona

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.


Mary and the Virgin Birth in the Age of Reason and Book of Mormon
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Grant Adamson, University of Arizona

I argue that much of Joseph Smith’s description of Mary and the virgin birth within the Book of Mormon (1820) was meant to be a defense against Thomas Paine’s assaults within the Age of Reason (part one: 1794, part two: 1795, part three: 1807; often reprinted). Paine had challenged, not to mention derided, the belief on several grounds. According to the arch-infidel, Mary’s word as a woman was unreliable, and so was Joseph’s dream of angelic reassurance about her son’s paternity, or lack thereof. Furthermore, the virgin birth could not be credited because it was not attested in all four gospels. Mark had not seen fit to mention it, nor had John, who was supposed to be an apostolic eye-witness along with Matthew. Plus, the Isaianic prophecy in the first gospel, “behold, a virgin will conceive” (Isaiah 7:14; Matt 1:22-23), had nothing to do with Jesus or Mary or parthenogenesis at all, on Paine’s historical-critical reading. Facing this deist threat, Smith defended the virgin birth but not the holy mother per se. None of his ‘translations’ of ancient texts or his modern-day revelations allow her to speak for herself, as it were. Rather, in keeping with the Matthean instead of the Lukan infancy narrative she is always spoken about, by men: firstly by Smith, of course, and secondly by his male parabiblical characters. In the Book of Mormon, a heavenly messenger appears to a certain Nephi, like the Matthean angel. But the sustained vision that the messenger brings is no ex post facto dream, and Nephi is no Joseph. As a sixth-century B.C.E. prophet from Jerusalem, Nephi represents the indisputably Christian Isaiah who predicts the virgin birth of Jesus in plain terms. As an evangelist and revelator, Nephi also more explicitly represents the apostle John by pre-viewing both the gospel and the apocalypse (see 1 Nephi 11-14). In one fell swoop, then, this extra-canonical maneuver allowed Smith to bolster support for Matthew and reinforce traditional christological interpretation of Isaiah 7:14, John 1:12-13, and especially Revelation 12:1-6, the woman, the dragon, and her child, as references to the virgin birth, all neatly packaged in the form of a visionary prophecy given some half-millennium before Jesus was born.


The Taʾwīlāt ahl al-Sunnah of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944): Reconsidering Genres and Disciplines of Knowledge
Program Unit: Qur’anic Exegesis: Unpublished and Recently Published tafsir Studies (IQSA)
Kamal R. Ahmed, Princeton University

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.


The Smell of Cultural Trauma: 9–11 and Dan 3
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
John Ahn, Howard University

Sociologists begin their works with “social reflexivity.” I begin by referencing Jeffrey Alexander’s central thesis surrounding the seminal event that led to his work on cultural trauma – that horrific day in American history – when the Twin Towers were set ablaze by hijacked airplanes that fueled as rockets striking and exploding, melting the structure of the most recognized edifice in the world. The incendiary fall was slow. The images of falling “bodies” were captured on that day. Everyone reading this paragraph will remember where she or he was on that day. I had to be in Brooklyn on that day. I drove down on I-95 from New Haven to Brooklyn. There wasn’t a car on I-95 for stretches and miles. As I approached Whitestone Bridge, all the lanes were open on both sides- as my car was the only one crossing the bridge. It felt like an apocalypse. After crossing the BQE, as I approached the Kosciuszko Bridge, across from Manhattan, NYPD was directing all cars off the bridge – for fear of additional attacks on NYC bridges. I got out of my car momentarily because we were at a total stand still. As I got out, I could see the smoke billowing up. And that smell. I will never forget the smell of 9-11 – the smell of burnt hair (and bodies), kerosene, and metal. Daniel 3:27 says “…fire had no power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them.” The text says two guards were burned because of the blazing fire (3:22). There was a fourth walking in the middle of the fire (3:25). This text is supposed to be read and understood in its antithesis. As a martyr and apocalyptic text, with unresolved trauma (Cathy Caruth), the author or tradent was likely familiar with the smell of fire on bodies, “the smell of trauma,” which is read against the smell of the holocaust (brunt) offerings in select P(G) and (S) texts. This paper offers a close reading and interpretation of Dan 3:19-30 using current works on trauma theory in biblical studies (Garber, Frechette, Boase, Claassens, among others) to relate to ancient, modern, and contemporary historical moments with on-going experiences in lives and communities.


Egypt’s Jewish Diaspora Communities: Elephantine
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
John Ahn, Howard University

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.


Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: Visual Hermeneutics as an Effective Pedagogical Method for the Gospel of John
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Adesola Akala, Durham University

In his essay entitled “Aesthetics and Hermeneutics” Hans-Georg Gadamer states, “The experience of art does not only understand a recognizable meaning, as historical hermeneutics does in its handling of texts. . . it expresses something in such a way that what is said is like a discovery, a disclosure of something previously concealed” (Gadamer, 1964). Based on Gadamer’s statement, the objective of this study is to demonstrate how visual exegesis can be used as an effective pedagogical interpretative method to uncover meaning in the Johannine narrative. Indeed, the vivid, powerful dramatic features of the gospel render the text suitable for utilizing visual hermeneutics as a credible and creative pedagogical method. The fascinating episode of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman in 4:1-42 evokes a captivating image, which has been depicted by artists from as many perspectives as the text has been interpreted by scholars. First, this paper will discuss three principles from Gadamer’s visual hermeneutics that enable a dynamic reading of the text and its practical application. The principles state that art: 1) functions like semantic units, 2) is an experience of excess of meaning, and 3) says something present and contemporaneous. Using selected 17th and 18th century European artists’ paintings of the Sychar pericope, the second part of this study will demonstrate how visual hermeneutics actively engages with the text to elicit meaning. Elements to be discussed in the critical analysis include relevant biographical details of the artists, and their use of colors, positionings and expressions of subjects in their paintings to highlight aspects of the text. This application of visual hermeneutics to the Johannine narrative reveals how the Samaritan woman is depicted as both a disciple of Christ and an evangelist of the good news. The paper concludes with observations about the prominent role of women in the Johannine narrative and the relevance of visual hermeneutics as a pedagogic method within contemporary visual culture.


Literary Diversity and Collections: The Case of the Opisthograph
Program Unit: Qumran
Ayhan Aksu, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

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.


Onomastica Sacra and the Beginnings of Septuagint Interpretation
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Joshua Alfaro, Universität Salzburg

Onomastica sacra—lists of biblical proper names with their etymologies—can be traced back to Jewish writers before the common era. It has been demonstrated that Philo was dependent on an earlier onomastic list and papyri such as P.Oxy. XXXVI 2745 and the Heidelburg papyrus onomasticon (P.Heid. Inv. G 1359) show the ongoing development of these lists. In this study, I argue that biblical onomastica were developed concurrently with some of the LXX translations, if not made by the translators themselves. Building on recent arguments that the LXX translators made and employed glossaries, I compare the creation of onomastica as similar auxiliary texts. When examining the question of whether the LXX translators may have compiled onomastic lists, we need to consider their function. I situate the onomastica within the frequent name wordplay and folk etymologizing found in biblical texts themselves as well as allegorical interpretive practices. Etymology of names became prominent in allegorical interpretation of Homer, which in turn influenced Hellenistic Jewish interpretation of the LXX. This leads to the suggestion that one early function of the onomastica sacra was to facilitate allegorical interpretation.


Evangélicostal No More: Latinx Pentecostals within US Evangelicalism
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Sammy Alfaro, Grand Canyon Theological Seminary

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.


A Collaborative Model of Parenting: Jairus’ Family Revisited (Mk 5:21–24; 35–43)
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Amy Lindemann Allen, Christian Theological Seminary

This study revisits the healing of Jairus’ daughter (Mk 5:21-24; 35-43) in order to shed fresh light on family dynamics between parents as they relate to their child(ren). We read Mark’s text with a focus on the role of each parent in the narrative, drawing out a new model of collaborative parenting. We understand collaborative parenting in the sense that each parent shares responsibility for their child by acting within and beyond gendered roles. This does not mean that the Markan narrative suggests an egalitarian or “equally shared” model of parenting. Rather, it is our thesis that collaborative parenting, as we read it in Mark’s account, makes space for both parents to be actively involved in shared responsibility for the well-being of their child, both within and across gender roles. There is a scholarly tendency only to emphasize Jairus’ action at the expense of attention to his wife. While feminist scholarship has done much to reclaim the importance of women in Mark, with emerging interest in the role of the daughter in this story, little attention is given to Jairus’ wife. As such, Jairus’ role as a father is treated in isolation from the larger parenting unit represented by both father and mother. Jairus is rarely, if ever, considered together with his wife as a cohesive parenting unit. This creates a lacuna in current scholarship, which fails to address the larger picture of family dynamics. We propose a narrative-critical reading within the socio-historical context. Sketching a model for distinct, but shared, parenting roles in Mark’s first-century context, we scrutinize each parent’s role, followed by a re-reading of Jesus’ final exhortation for them to act together. Such a close reading considers the roles of both father and mother in collaboration with one another, acting sometimes separately and other times together for the sake of their child. In the first half of the narrative, Mk 5:21-24, each parent acts out of their distinct sphere, while still both acting out of concern oriented towards their child. On the one hand, Jairus as father acts within the male-dominated public sphere, seeking a healer. On the other hand, Jarius’ wife as mother acts within the female-dominated private sphere, remaining at home with their daughter. In the second half, when attention returns to Jairus’ family in Mk 5:35-43, we see a stretching of gender roles. On one side, Jairus’ wife has begun funeral arrangements without consulting her husband, which may be considered beyond traditional female roles. On the other side, Jairus is included in Jesus’ command to feed the child, potentially drawing him into a traditionally female act. These actions of Jairus and his wife can be read as bringing both parents into collaborative action to care for their child. Taken together, we propose reading this text on the basis of collaborative parenting in order to highlight the text’s potential to break down gendered household hierarchies through shared parental concern and action, oriented towards the well-being of the child(ren).


The Sword, Plague, and Hunger: Covid through the Eyes of Jeremiah
Program Unit: Meals in the HB/OT and Its World
Peter Altmann, Universität Zürich

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.


The Historical Development of Temple and State Administration in Persian-Period Yehud: Emphasizing the Extra-Biblical Sources
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Peter Altmann, Universität Zürich

The nature of the relationship between the biblical texts depicting the Persian period and their posited historical contexts remains contested. Therefore, without complete avoidance of the biblical texts, this paper will investigate the picture that emerges when beginning with extra-biblical sources for the nature of administration in Persian-period Yehud. On the basis of stamp-seal impressions, archaeological, and epigraphic remains, it will argue that while the temple was a central institution for Judeans in Yehud and the diaspora, the governor was the highest administrative authority in the province.


Partners in Creation in I Corinthians 11:8–12: An Investigation of the Relationship between Paul and Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
Aaron Amit, Bar-Ilan University

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.


Narratives, Tablets, and Ostraca: A Conversation
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Monika Amsler, University of Maryland - University College

The late antique narrative, as has long been noted, is shaped by allusion to and quotes from other texts (e.g., Fontaine 1977; Formisano 2007). On a higher level, this trend is mirrored in the poikilographic arrangement of whole books. It has further been noticed that this patchwork pattern seems reflective of a burgeoning new fashion of decorating the toga with colorful patches and the arrangement of mosaics in individually conceptualized blocks (Roberts 1988). These blocks are at the same time confined in themselves and part of the whole picture, enabling different viewpoints, but also an endless continuation of the picture (Lavin 1963). The segments can/could be removed or rearranged without disturbing the picture. Late antique stories exhibit a similar pattern in that they join confined episodes. The thread that pulls them together might be thematical or simply personal in that the same protagonist/s appear in every new scene. The present paper complements these observations with the materiality that enabled the distinct shape of the late antique narrative in the first place. It will be shown how the increasing literacy encouraged writing on surfaces such as tablets and ostraca that, in turn, encouraged the production of such string stories. Leaf tablets, for example, seem to be an invention of the first century CE. They are a handy and lightweight carrier of important or spontaneous notes while at the same time forcing the author to be concise. I will illustrate my claims with narratives that have hitherto not been associated with any form of materiality yet seem strongly reflective of it – those in the Babylonian Talmud.


Reconsidering the Rhetoric of Temporality: Communal Time and Family Tree in 1 John
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Chang Seon An, Chongshin University

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.


God’s Speech through Gabriel’s Words: Sunni Ash‘arī Conceptions of Qur’ānic Revelation
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Khalil Andani, Augustana College

Belief in the Qur’ān as the Speech of God appears to stand as one of the core tenets held in common by all Muslims regardless of their diverse legal, ritual, theological, and spiritual affiliations. However, various Muslim discourses – including tafsīr, fiqh, and kalām theology – conceive the Qur’ān’s theological/ontological status in quite different and sometimes mutually contradictory ways. Differences in Muslim ontologies of the Qur’ān, often subtle and nuanced, remain theologically significant and far-reaching. The present paper focuses on Sunni Ash‘arī understandings of the Qur’ān as God’s Speech and the process Qur’ānic Revelation during the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. I specifically analyze how Ibn Kullāb, al-Ash‘arī, al-Bāqillāni, al-Juwaynī, and al-Ṣiqillī defined God’s Speech, differentiated between God’s Speech and its Arabic Qur’ānic Recitation (qirā’a), and framed the revelatory process by which God’s Speech takes on the form of the Arabic Recitation dictated to the Prophet. My argument is that classical Ash‘arī thought, by the end of the eleventh century, developed the position that the God’s Speech (kalām Allāh) is ontologically distinct from the Arabic letters, sounds, and expressions (alfāẓ) of the Qur’ān, and that the Arabic Qur’ān is the word or utterance (qawl) of Gabriel. To demonstrate this claim, I offer three arguments. I begin by considering second-third/eighth-ninth century positions on the Qur’ān from the tafsīr of Muqātil b. Sulaymān and early Mu‘ṭazilī kalām theology; I show that these discourses primarily conceived the Qur’ān as a pre-existent Arabic text in the Guarded Tablet, whose “sending down” (inzāl) was a process of physical descent to the earth where Gabriel memorizes and then dictates the Qur’ān to the Prophet. Second, I examine the views of Ibn Kullāb and al-Ash‘arī, who both held that God’s Speech is an eternal attribute ontologically distinct from the Arabic Qur’ān. I show that they reinterpreted the Qur’ānic concept of inzāl (causing to descend) to mean “causing to know” (i‘lām) and “causing to understand” (ifhām); they also insisted that “descent” (nuzūl) only pertains to the angelic messenger, not to God’s Speech itself. Finally, I turn to the views of al-Bāqillānī, al-Juwaynī, and al-Ṣiqillī over the fifth/eleventh century, and argue that their understandings of Qur’ānic Revelation completely bypass the role of the Guarded Tablet and instead present the Arabic Qur’ān as the speech-utterance (qawl) of Gabriel, where Gabriel has agency in both understanding God’s Speech and expressing it as the Arabic Qur’ān in order to recite it to the Prophet.


Drunken Noah and His Sons: Ostracism and Acceptance in Human Relationships
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Royce Anderson, Independent Researcher

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.


New Hymns and Old: 4Q433a and the Composition History of 1QH^a
Program Unit: Qumran
Patrick J. Angiolillo, New York University

The various hodayot (thanksgiving hymns) collections were composed over a long period of time and evince a complex redaction history that has interested scholars since the discovery of the Thanksgiving Scroll (1QH^a) in 1947. At the same time, the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus has revealed several examples of fragmentary works that appear to have an affinity with the hodayot form, as known from manuscripts like 1QH^a, but whose relationship to known hodayot collections is obscure. In other words, these hodayot-like texts are psalm-like hymns, but they do not align textually or materially with any known hodayot or psalm manuscripts from Qumran. Among this group of texts is the manuscript 4Q433a, also known as 4QpapHodayot-like Text B. This is the longest and best preserved of the four manuscripts labelled “hodayot-like” (4Q433, 4Q433a, 4Q440, 4Q440a). This study proposes a new view of 4Q433a that will better explain its relationship to the known hodayot collections. It demonstrates how this text likely played a role in the composition of part of the hodayot collection in 1QH^a. Building off of the recent textual analysis of hodayot scholars like Angela Kim Harkins and employing a methodology developed from David Carr’s redaction critical work on the Pentateuch, this study both (1) proposes an answer to the scholarly question of how exactly 4Q433a relates to the known hodayot corpus and (2) expands our understanding of the compositional history of 1QH^a. Analysis of linguistic features, themes, and a blind motif in 4Q433a and 1QH^a suggests that 4Q433a likely served as source material in the composition of the long hodayah which spans 1QH^a 13:22–15:8.


The Syllable Typology of Tiberian Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Matthew Anstey, Flinders University

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.


Mythological Concepts and Arrogance in Isa 25:6–8 and Isa 28:7–22
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Avigail Aravna, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Chapter 28 in the book of Isaiah provides a glimpse of Isaiah's quarrel with the leadership of the people in Jerusalem. The prophet aims to condemn "the scoffers "[אנשי לצון] – the royal advisors, the prophets and the priests who are summoned for criticism. Their corrupt behaviour is reflected in their excessive drinking and arrogance. Boasting in the treaty made with death and with Sheol (28:15,18), this passage, is in sharp contrast to the Isaiah's famous passage 25:6-8 in which God overcomes death [בלע המות לנצח]. H.C Paul Kim and J. Blenkinsopp show how the two myths, "Enuma Elish" and the "Baal epic", are juxtaposed and reconceptualize this text to inform that such chaotic powers have no control over YHWH. The altercation of Isaiah with the leadership in Jerusalem in Isa 28:7-22 seems to be focused on that issue. In this paper I would like to highlight the motif of the pride [גאות/גאוה] that is a key concept in both chapters, Isa 25 and 28, by expanding the discussion to the use of the book of Daniel in Isaiah’s language. The large number of unique phrases (see: כשל, נשבר, נלכד, שטף, עבר, כלה ונחרצה) that exists in Isa 28 reflected in the depiction of the arrogance of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in Daniel 11, is standard way of referring to the military power of Assyria and of the king of Assyria in Isaiah chapter 7,8,10. Following A. Teeter who demonstrates that texts pertaining to “king of Assyria” in Isaiah (also Isa 14) his vanity, aggression and cruelty, including his role in God’s hands in order to punish the people of Israel up until his breakdown, are applied to a Seleucid Syrian king in Daniel, it is possible to draw conclusions from this reflection. The malicious governors of Jerusalem who believe that they have protected themselves from death and from the netherworld (28:15,18), appear as rebellion against YHWH’s rule and in contrary to his victory over Mot (25:8). This mythological concept adds another layer to our understanding of chapter 28, given the importance of this chapter for the redactional development of the Book of Isaiah, and in particular with regard to its position in relation to its continuity with chapters 24-27.


᾽Αδιαλείπτως in the Remembrance-Motifs: Did Paul Really Pray Constantly for His Recipients?
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Gillian Asquith, Australian Catholic University and Melbourne School of Theology

᾽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.


Updating the Biblical GPS: ‘Eglat Šelišîyāh as ‘Ataroth in the Oracle against Moab (Isaiah 15–16)
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Luiz Gustavo Assis, Boston College

Among the oracles against the nations of Isaiah 13-23, the one directed against Moab in chapters 15-16 stands out: It contains dozens of toponyms, more than any other oracle in that collection. This feature highlights the Isaian scribe’s familiarity with the geography of that Transjordanian polity. An intriguing feature of this oracle, however, is the apparent absence of the important city of ‘Ataroth among the Moabite toponyms. ‘Ataroth figures preeminently among Mesha’s victories narrated in his monumental inscription, and the recent excavations at Khirbet ‘Ataruz by La Sierra University have demonstrated the administrative importance and the religious prestige attached to this city from the 9th century BC until the beginning of the 7th century BC. Given its clear significance, which is verified both archaeologically and textually, why is the city not mentioned in Isaiah’s oracle? In this presentation, I will argue that ‘Ataroth does, in fact, appear in the oracle against Moab of Isaiah 15-16, but under the alternative name ‘Eglat Šelišîyāh (15:5), an enigmatic cipher that has long puzzled historical geographers of the Hebrew Bible. I argue that this equation fits the geographical logic that the Judahite scribe used, mapping all the Moabite toponyms in this oracle. Furthermore, I suggest that this scribe invented this unusual name in order to associate it with the bovine deity worshipped in ‘Ataroth, which is prominently attested in the iconography discovered at the site.


The Word Was Godward: Divine Directionality in the Johannine Prologue, Hellenistic Judaism, and Middle-Platonism
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Christopher Atkins, Yale University

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.


Gender Rhetoric in the Qur'an: A Feminist Literary Analysis of the Qur'an's Annunciation Scenes
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Halla Attallah, Georgetown University

Gender Rhetoric in the Qur'an: A Feminist Literary Analysis of the Qur'an's Annunciation Scenes


Abraham’s Argument in Q 6:74–84: A Literary-Critical Examination of the Type-Scene in Sūrat Al-Anʿām
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Surah Studies (IQSA)
Halla Attallah, Georgetown University

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.


Seeing Is Believing: Considering Viewership in Ancient Greek Religion via Indian Darśan
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Ranjani Atur, University of California-Santa Barbara

Our understanding of ancient Greek religion, once disproportionately founded on textual evidence, has in the last five decades increasingly acknowledged the value of material evidence and the unique insights it gives us on the topic. New media, however, are accompanied by new challenges in interpretation. Given our chronological and cultural distance, it is difficult to analyze the relatively few extant objects and even more challenging to theorize the relationship between the object and the absent ancient worshipper. Some studies have made valuable contributions to our conception of the theological significance of images of gods (Gaifman 2016; Platt 2011); yet, a Geertzian “thick” description continues to elude us. This is of course a reflection of the nature and amount of evidence, but also a product of the culturally western perspective from which most scholars examine the material. In my paper, I offer a new model for approaching the relationship between the ancient Greek viewer-worshipper and images of gods based on a comparison with darśan, the process of divine gazing by which viewer and god see and recognize each other through the medium of a statue in Indian religious traditions. By engaging our ancient Mediterranean evidence with an observable, and usefully polytheistic, tradition, we can advance our understanding of Greek religion’s reliance on material objects. Viewing images of gods was an integral part of ancient Greek religious experience; communal and personal interaction with gods was often organized around the ritual display and viewing of objects like sacred statues. The importance of this kind of activity, however, has proven difficult for western scholars to conceptualize. First and most obviously, the objects we possess are no longer in their religious context and therefore most often analyzed aesthetically. More foundationally, these objects now exist in a cultural context that does not ascribe religious value to materiality. This is to say, the perspective from which most attempt to understand materiality in ancient religion impedes the realization thereof. Thus, I am suggesting that darśan provides us with a valuable way of considering the importance of the relationship between an ancient religious object and its intended viewer. In my paper, I use a model of darśan proposed by William Elison (himself engaging Lacan and the Hegelian master-slave dialectic) in which religious viewing establishes a connection between viewer and object that satisfies the desire for mutual recognition (Elison 2018). Elison’s work focuses on divine images in the public spaces of present-day Mumbai, but his approach can help to fill in some of the interpretive vacuum present in studies of Greek religion. Viewing material evidence in this way, we see that sacred images were potent and dynamic agents in the religious experience of ancient Greece. To illustrate how Greek sacred images functioned as indices of divine agency, I will reexamine the story of Parmeniscus from Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae. Materiality offers one of our best opportunities to explore religious belief in the ancient Mediterranean, and cross-cultural methodologies, like the one I offer here, advance our ability to seize this opportunity.


The Divergent Senses of λύω
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Michael G. Aubrey, Wycliffe Bible Translators

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.


Josephus and the Midrash
Program Unit: Midrash
Michael Avioz, Bar-Ilan University

Flavius Josephus is usually known as a historian and less as an interpreter. In the last two decades, there is a paradigm shift, and more scholars acknowledge the interpretive contribution of Josephus. When comparing the biblical record with Josephus' retelling, one finds three types of changes: omissions, additions and rearrangements. Our focus in the following paper will be on the additions that Josephus entered into his retelling of the biblical record, mainly in Ant. 1-11 and their links to the Midrash. Thackeray notes that Josephus has expanded this material by incorporating ‘a miscellaneous mass of traditional lore, forming a collection of first century Midrash of considerable value’ together with material from Philo and a number of gentile authors. Ninety years ago, Salomo Rappaport published his important book Agada und Exegese bei Flavius Josephus. In this book Rappaport tried to show that Josephus did not invent haggadic materials, but rather followed Second Temple traditions, which he borrowed from the Aramaic Targum. Rappaport cites hundreds of instances where Josephus parallels midrashic traditions. In fact, no similar book ever appeared since. Rappaport's work is the only one that systematically attempts to note Josephus' divergences from the entire Bible. He assumed that Josephus' additions always parallel rabbinic tradition, even though he must admit that there are some additions not found in rabbinic or Apocryphal literature, and even though he adds that there are places where Josephus definitely shows his independence of rabbinic exegesis. My paper seeks to correct some problems in Rappaport's work and to offer a more nuanced methodology of locating similarities between Josephus and the rabbis.


The Love of Baal for a Cow: Its Background, Dissemination, and Development in Ugarit
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Noga Ayali-Darshan, Bar-Ilan University

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.


The Qur’anic Commentary of Muḥammad al-Ġazālī (1917–1996): Introduction to the Tafsīr and analysis of Q. IV:2–4
Program Unit: The Societal Qur'an (IQSA)
Francesca Badini, Fscire

The political and religious role of the renowned Azharite scholar Muḥammad al-Ġazālī (1917 – 1996) as well as his link with the Muslim Brotherhood are explored in various works, but there are no studies in European languages that analyze his thought from qur’anic studies contemporary methodologies based on his work al-Tafsīr al-mawḍūʿī (Dar El Shorouk, Cairo 2016). This introductory contribution, which is part of a larger research project, aims to fill in this gap. Al-Tafsīr al-mawḍūʿī presents itself as a thematic commentary and is widely quoted as an example of this genre in the secondary literature on the methodology of contemporary Qur’anic exegesis. A first reading of this tafsir allows to present its structure and the methodology used by al-Ġazālī to comment on the Qur’an. Al-Ġazalī organizes the themes of the Quran according to his modern context; for example, he discusses the issue of Muslims’ relations with the People of the Book in the context of colonialism and how the latter complicated these relations. This paper examines al-Ghazālī’s discussion of Q. IV: 2 – 4: “Give orphans their property, do not replace [their] good things with bad, and do not consume their property along with your own – a great sin. If you fear that you will not deal fairly with orphan girls, you may marry whichever [other] women seem good to you, two, three, or four. If you fear that you cannot be equitable [to them], then marry only one, or your slave(s): that is more likely to make you avoid bias. Give women their bridal gift upon marriage, though if they are happy to give up some of it for you. You may enjoy it with a clear conscience.” These verses deal with the role of the orphans, of the widows, on the management of their property in a Muslim society and on polygamy. The aim is to compare the comment of al-Ġazalī with the analysis of al-Ālūsī, so as to understand how and to what extent the former is connected to classical exegesis. While al-Ālūsī comments the verses in a very specifically way, with a lot of referments to the tradition, al-Ghazālī takes into account the historical context of society, but always underlining the ethical and moral superiority of the Muslim community, compared to modern secular-liberal societies of Europe and America which officially refuse polygamy. The present report deals with a case study of a research and will have as its final objective the delineation of a wider history of exegesis whose starting point is al-Tafsīr al-mawḍūʿī.


Translating "in Christ": A Case Study
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Nicholas Bailey, SIL International

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.


Lifestyle and Desire in the Face of Ecological Crisis: Eco-Stoic Reflections on Col. 1:9–14
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Victoria Balabanski, Flinders University

ne of the most intractable challenges humanity faces in adapting to climate change is the issue of lifestyle. How do those of us with consumerist lifestyles find the impetus to limit ourselves and contract our ecological footprint effectively, positively and quickly? How do we do so in contexts where desire has been effectively co-opted by consumerism? In the face of this intractable challenge, what contribution can the Pauline tradition make? This paper introduces some Stoic concepts, particularly in relation to defining what a ‘good life’ is and the role of desire in our lifestyle choices. Drawing on the Eco-Stoic approach established in my recent commentary, I examine Col. 1:9-14. The letter links the shaping of our desire (areskeia) and hence our lifestyle closely with the knowledge of God in Col. 1:9d-10. The ‘wisdom and spiritual insight’ (Col. 1:9) articulated in the letter emphasizes the virtues of endurance, patience and fortitude – virtues that have been neglected in the consumerist desiderata, but which are already proving crucial as we are confronted by the pandemics and by ecological tipping points (such as the 2020 bushfires/wildfires). Reading Colossians with a Stoic framework helps us to move away from defining a ‘good life’ as accumulation of happiness-inducing goods and experiences, and towards virtue, understood as living in harmony with nature and with God.


Can a Tree Help Where It Is Planted? The Metaphor of Roots and Soil in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Nature Imagery and Conceptions of Nature in the Bible
Amy Balogh, Regis University

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?


Papyrus 43: An Intentional Opisthograph of the Johannine Epistles and Apocalypse
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
James W. Barker, Western Kentucky University

This paper presents a full-scale reconstruction of P43 (= BL Pap 2241, LDAB 2824, TM 61673) as an intentional opisthograph of 1–3 John and Revelation. Measuring approximately 7 x 3.8 cm, the fragment is dated between the sixth and eighth centuries, and it reveals fewer than 100 letters of John’s Apocalypse (2:12–13; 15:8–16:2). In a recent essay (“The Curious Case of P43,” Book of Seven Seals, WUNT 363, 2016, pp. 33–49) Jeff Cate has reassessed the manuscript’s oddities: the earlier portion of Revelation is written along the vertical fibers; the text flips upside down for the later portion, which is written in a different hand; the lines were exceedingly long; and a bookroll beginning with Rev 1:1 could not fit the remaining text of Rev 16:2–22:21. This paper shows the curiosities of P43 to be neither unprecedented nor inexplicable: the text of Rev 1:13–20 in P98 is written along the vertical fibers; although opisthographs from Oxyrhynchus did not flip upside down, such scrolls are attested at Qumran; and the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Ḥever is written in two different hands. The line lengths are best explained by the late date of the manuscript itself—its scribes were unaccustomed to reading bookrolls. I reconstruct column widths of 28 and 34 cm, which doubles or triples the standard widths of earlier rolls. However, by the sixth century the codex had long since supplanted the scroll. Accordingly, the scribes likely relied on visual art, which often depicts bookrolls open shoulder-width (see Figs. 92, 93, 98, 100–102 on pp. 159–65 of T. Birt’s Die Buchrolle in der Kunst, 1907). In other words, having seen images of wide open bookrolls, the scribes mistakenly assumed a single column of text. Finally, a scale model of P43 reveals that if the Johannine epistles preceded the Apocalypse, then the bookroll neatly begins on one side with 1 John 1:1 and ends on the other side at Rev 22:21. First John (5:21) ends with a warning against idolatry, which recurs in two of the epistles embedded in the Apocalypse (2:14, 20). And the opisthograph format is inspired by the text itself, for Rev 5:1 describes the scroll sealed with seven seals as written on the inside and outside. In the end, P43 is best explained as an intentional opisthograph, the result of antiquarian experimentation by early medieval Egyptian scribes.


Harmony over Synopsis: Counterintuitively Comprehending the Synoptic Problem
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
James W. Barker, Western Kentucky University

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.


“I Will Strike Them Down”: The Function of Threats of Divine Violence in Numbers
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Joel Barker, Heritage College & Seminary

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.


"Did God Really Say...?" Speech Act Theory and Divine Violence
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Kit Barker, Sydney Missionary and Bible College

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.


Rethinking the Text-Critical Value of Rewritten Scripture: Deuteronomy 17 in the Temple Scroll and 4QReworked Pentateuch
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Jordan Barr, West Virginia University Medicine

“Rewritten Scripture” designates a grouping of texts that share content, compositional strategies, and other features with biblical texts. These rewritten texts were—and in some instances still are—relegated to the post-compositional interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Recently, Rewritten Scripture has been re-examined in light of the textual fluidity during the Second Temple period. The existence of rewritten texts not only requires a reimagining of the development of biblical texts, but, as this paper argues, Rewritten Scripture directly bears upon the nature and practice of textual criticism. I begin with a brief review of the often-confusing nomenclature that is used to describe these rewritten texts, while revealing how terminological imprecision predisposes scholars to approach these texts in anachronistic ways. I then move to a few specific cases where rewritten texts transmit variants that directly bear upon the practice of collating and mapping variants among witnesses. The final section reflects upon the larger text-critical implications of Rewritten Scripture.


Biblical Formation for Reparation: Missional and Moral Logics for a More Just Future
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Michael Barram, Saint Mary's College of California

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.


A Tale of Two Kings: The Royal Motif in Joseph and Aseneth
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Peter Battaglia, Marquette University

The story of Joseph and Aseneth has enjoyed immense popularity over the centuries in a variety of communities, not least within scholarship of the last few decades. This easy-to-read fictional story is complicated by an incredibly messy textual history, unknown origins, and a treasure trove of imagery that offers tantalizing possibilities for comparison with a multitude of comparative literature and religious themes. Much of the scholarship on Joseph and Aseneth has revolved around Aseneth’s transformation and identity within the narrative, particularly within the first part (chapters 1–21). One theme that has received somewhat less substantial treatment is the allusion in Jos. Asen. 27–29 to the David and Goliath story found in 1 Samuel 17. The goal of this paper is to analyze this allusion in its narrative setting in order to identify what function it performs within the broader narrative, particularly with regard to the depiction of Joseph as a royal figure in the text. The hypothesis set forth is that the purpose of recalling the figure of David is more than merely to highlight a non-retaliatory ethic (emphasized in Jos. Asen. 22–29), though the allusion certainly does function in that way. The allusion to David functions within the broader context of the narrative to rewrite Israel’s history in relation to kingship and an ethic of Gentile inclusion. By alluding to David and recasting Joseph as a king, David’s kingship is contrasted with Joseph’s kingship. The resulting message of Joseph and Aseneth is this: David exhibited violence towards foreigners and conquered people of other nations, but Joseph saved foreigners and married a foreigner who taught non-retaliation and Gentile inclusion within Israel. Perhaps more poignantly, David’s kingdom was supposed to be forever, but Joseph’s only lasted for 48 years. This contrast does not mean Israel has lost its distinction as worshipers of the Most High God. On the contrary, Joseph and Aseneth demonstrates that following God instead of [Egyptian] idols ultimately leads to blessing. Furthermore, the blessings of Israel are now open to any and all who repent like Aseneth. In this way, Joseph and Aseneth promotes harmony between Jews and Gentiles while still maintaining ethnic and religious distinctions. It promotes and encourages participation in the Jewish faith while demonstrating that this faith is not a threat to the ruling political authorities. That is, Jews can and should worship their God and invite Gentiles to join in that worship, but the only king Jews want or need is the king of Egypt.


Is taqwa Fear? Revisiting Qur'anic taqwa and Related Terms
Program Unit: Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus (IQSA)
Karen A. Bauer, The Institute of Ismaili Studies

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.


Jesus and Gospel Tradition in the Apocryphon of James
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Kimberly Bauser McBrien, Trinity University

Like most other Nag Hammadi texts, the Apocryphon of James has received little attention as a source of Jesus tradition, primarily because scholarship concerning Jesus tradition has long been equated with scholarship concerning the so-called historical Jesus. As a likely early third century text, which draws on other precedent Jesus traditions, it has been de facto excluded from these historical Jesus conversations by criteria that would prefer early and independent material. Jesus scholarship has, however, been undergoing a shift over the last several decades, at least within some pockets, as a result of an improved understanding of the social and dynamic nature of human memories. This social memory theory controverts traditions’ being sorted into more and less “authentic” parts and, therefore, has the potential to expand the list of sources considered relevant to Jesus scholarship to include texts like the Apocryphon of James. This paper proposes to attend to the Jesus tradition contained in the Apocryphon of James as a product and production of social memory. As a product of social memory, this text interacts with and incorporates precedent Jesus traditions, particularly those found in now-canonical gospels. As a production of social memory, it repurposes those traditions to fit its own socially-informed circumstances. In its allusions to the sayings of Jesus tradition in particular, the Apocryphon of James exhibits a curious pattern of playing with the memory of a saying, reversing, subverting, or otherwise altering its meaning. In this way the voice of Jesus found within this text becomes that of a trickster-like sage, speaking in riddles and parables to adjure those who would be disciples not only to follow but to exceed him in nearly every way. This Jesus even derides and dismisses alternative versions of his voice or tradition. By considering the Apocryphon of James in this way, we are better able to see how this voice bears witness to the dynamic and social–even competitive–nature of memories of the voice of Jesus in the first several centuries C.E.


The Nature of the “Law(s) of Nature” in Flavius Josephus
Program Unit: Josephus
Carson Bay, Universität Bern - Université de Berne

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.


Joshua as Hebrew Hero of Late Antique Christian Historiography: Iesu Naue in Pseudo-Hegesippus
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Carson Bay, Universität Bern - Université de Berne

The little work done on the figure of Joshua within Christian antiquity has demonstrated how ubiquitous his portrayal as a type of Christ was (e.g. Farber 2016). At other times, the biblical Joshua provided fodder for articulations of Christian doxa and praxis (see survey in Franke 2005). Less frequently, Joshua was remembered by Christian authors as a martial hero, founder and figurehead of Israel’s ancient military legacy (see Elssner 2008). This paper helps expand our ability to imagine the reception and transformation of the figure of Joshua in late antiquity by presenting a little-known yet striking portrayal of Joshua: namely, that which emerges in the late fourth-century text known as De Excidio Hierosolymitano (On the Destruction of Jerusalem) or Pseudo-Hegesippus. This text, written between 367 and 378 CE, rewrites Josephus’ first-century Greek Jewish War by means of the ideology and language of fourth-century Christian Latinity. Within this rewriting, the figure of Joshua emerges a number of times, providing an aggregate picture of the Hebrew hero and also initiating some interesting allusive and intertextual engagements with episodes from the biblical Books of Joshua. This paper argues that the self-conscious generic and literary identity of De Excidio––i.e., as classical historiography modeled on Sallust rather than on any of the overtly Christian iterations of historiography from late antiquity (church history, chronicle)––provides the necessary hermeneutic for understanding the Ps-Hegesippus’ construction of Joshua and his treatment of biblical traditions in the Book of Joshua. (This analysis also provides opportunity to examine Ps-Hegesippus' treatment of the Book of Judges, and several particular judges [Gideon, Samson] along the way as well.) By reading the portrayal of Joshua and the treatment of the Book of Joshua in De Excidio in line with the Roman tradition of historical exemplarity (Roller 2018; Langlands 2018), this paper introduces to scholarship for the first time an idiosyncratic construal of Joshua from Christian late antiquity that omits completely the Christological and theological fixations so common in early Christian literature. Instead, in Ps-Hegesippus we find a Christian articulation of classical values that identifies and appreciates Joshua as a purely military hero of the noble Hebrew past. Presented in terms intelligible to a broader late Roman readership, De Excidio’s deployment of Joshua and its treatment of several sagas of his scriptural legacy, while also doing important rhetorical work within Ps-Hegesippus’ historical narrative, illustrates a singular late ancient treatment of Joshua and thereby enhances our capacity to envision the ways in which Christians could understand, adapt, and transform the heroic Son of Nun within the later Roman world. (N.b. – This paper also engages recent discussions in reception history as ‘transformation’ associated with the recent Berlin research group on “Transformations of Antiquity,” on which see Helmrath 2019).


Fig Trees in the Prophetic Imagination
Program Unit: Nature Imagery and Conceptions of Nature in the Bible
Brady Alan Beard, Emory University

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.


Nomina Sacra in Libro Iob: Theological Exegesis in Verses of LXX-Job Containing ὁ θεός and ὁ κύριος without Any Counterpart in MT?
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Bryan Beeckman, Université Catholique de Louvain

In recent years, more attention has been paid to the theology of the different Septuagint (LXX) books. In order to examine whether the LXX-books attest a different theology than their Hebrew counterpart, I have recently analysed the theology of LXX-Proverbs by means of a new approach: the analysis of the additional attestations of ὁ θεός (EABS 2020) and ὁ κύριος (Revue Biblique, forthcoming) without any counterpart in the Masoretic Text (MT). Since this approach focuses on the explicit differences between MT and the LXX, the analysis of these additional attestations might elicit a specific theology. In this paper I will analyse the additional attestations of ὁ θεός and ὁ κύριος in LXX-Job in order to examine whether or not the Greek version attests a different theology than the Hebrew version. Moreover, the results of this analysis will also be compared with the results obtained in my studies on LXX-Proverbs (see supra) in order to provide an indicative answer to the question whether LXX-Job and LXX-Proverbs were translated by the same translator.


The Lord as ἔκδικος in 1 Thess 4:6: A Voice for Vulnerable Children
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
David Bell, University of Manchester

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.


Homeric Textual Criticism and Biblical Texts from Qumran
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Jonathan Ben-Dov, University of Haifa

Alexandrian literature from the Hellenistic-Roman period offers much information on textual criticism of Homer’s works. Hellenistic text critics – the most famous of whom are Zenotodus and Aristarchus – prepared critical editions of Homer’s text, and addressed various exegetical problems with regard to the epic’s consistency and clarity. A central problem in the Homeric texts was caused by superfluous duplications inserted in them, resulting from the typical Homeric style, and critics found themselves marking these additions in order to obliterate them. According to a book by Niehoff (2011), Jewish critics in Alexandria concerned themselves with similar questions and applied them to the Greek Bible, while other Jewish-Hellenistic writers objected. While we know the ideological debate about the biblical text in Alexandria, only little is known about the actual Bible texts resulting from it. In contrast, in contemporary Judea we have a large number of scrolls, with a huge variety of readings, but we lack the argumentation revolving around them. In this paper I aim to connect Judea and Alexandria, shedding mutual light on both. The diversity and dynamics of biblical texts from Judea can be explained according to the criteria propagated in Greek. For example, the duplications and harmonizations attested in many biblical scrolls, as well as in the pre-Samaritan Torah and the Pentateuch, can be explained on the background of Greek academic texts, as well as the effort to avoid such duplication in the emerging MT. Moreover, an examination of Homeric papyri form Oxyrinchus makes the comparison with Judean scrolls more tangible. In some sense, this paper updates the monumental work by Saul Lieberman on the same topic.


"Our Father Jacob": Racial Rhetoric in John 4:4–26
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Andrew G. Benko, Southwestern University

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.


Abraham's Seed, Nobody's Slaves: John 8:31–36
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Andrew Benko, Southwestern University

In John 8:31-36, Jesus tells the "Judeans who had believed in him," that if they abide in his word, "you will know the truth, and the truth will free you. In response, they insist, “We are the seed of Abraham (σπερμα Αβρααμ) and have never been slaves to anyone!" But what do the Judeans hope to gain by mentioning Abraham in this context? What does their identity as the sperma of Abraham have to do with slavery or freedom? I will read this passage in light of the widespread trope of enslaved, and slavish, races. By the first century, the description of entire races as “slaves” had a long history. Subjugation under empire was also conceptualized as slavery. The verb δουλευω, “to be a slave” or “to serve as a slave,” was applied to entire nations (by both Jewish and non-Jewish authors). Subjection supposedly enervated subject peoples, so that once-spirited nations became slavish after long rule by others. This was no temporary shift in character, because acquired characteristics were thought to be inherited by subsequent generations. Cicero, Josephus, and Tacitus all agreed that, once acquired, slavishness became a permanent feature of a race. Subject peoples might have some chance of reclaiming their freedom at first, but each successive generation born under slavery will be more servile than the one before. This widespread description of certain races as “slavish” is a plausible context for the Judeans' reaction to Jesus words. I will argue that the invocation of descent from Abraham was meant to attribute the patriarch's virtues—particularly his freedom to obey God—to his descendants. The concept had been used this way in other sources, such as the exhortation: "Therefore, O children of Abraham (ω Αβρααμ παιδες), die nobly for your religion!" (4 Macc 6:22). Perhaps John's “Judeans who had believed in Jesus” attribute to themselves the heroic freedom of spirit that Abraham had possessed, the sort of spirit that allowed him to defy the idolatry of his father, as some traditions held (Jub. 12:1-14; Apoc.Ab. chs. 1–8). Whatever the intended connection between Abraham and freedom, their insistence that they are the free σπερμα of Abraham is clearly a claim for an entire group based on collective ancestry—that is, a racial claim. Seemingly taking Jesus' words about freedom as a reference to their current domination by Rome—a domination widely understood as “slavery,” both by Judeans and others—they respond by affirming a collective identity in which they take pride.


The Topoi of Characterization, Irony, and the Mixed Chreia of Luke 20:20–26: An Early Christian Chreia Its Varied Expressions
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Susan Benton, Baylor University

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.


The Aristotelian Afterlife of Midrash: Rabbinic Interpretation in RADAK's Allegorical Commentary on Genesis
Program Unit: Midrash
Yitzhak Berger, Hunter College (CUNY)

On Genesis chapters 2–4, Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak; c. 1160–1235) supplements his standard commentary with a sustained and detailed allegorical exposition in the Maimonidean-Aristotelian tradition. Drawing on a series of concise and cryptic esoteric interpretations provided by Maimonides, Radak sees the text depicting an internal moral drama, wherein a prototypical individual, driven by competing inclinations toward good and evil, makes pivotal choices and reaps their consequences. At the same time, Radak departs from Maimonides’ exegesis in some notable ways, so that his own reading ultimately proves highly creative and original. As does Maimonides, Radak draws on earlier rabbinic interpretation for support, maintaining that the rabbis anticipated his own approach. Accordingly, Radak cites numerous rabbinic statements in his allegorical commentary—especially from midrashic sources—and deploys them in a variety of ways. In this paper, I highlight Radak’s creative application of midrashic material in the service of his esoteric objectives. Where appropriate, I note comparisons and contrasts to Maimonides’ own deployment of the same rabbinic sources. Consider the following illustrative example, which pertains to one of Radak’s fundamental theological assumptions. In Radak’s view, the Tree of Life signifies the metaphysical knowledge by which an individual attains a connection to the Divine Intellect and achieves immortality. In support of this position, he invokes a passage in Genesis Rabbah—likewise cited by Maimonides—affirming that the Tree of Life “extends over an area equivalent to a five-hundred-year walk,” and that “not only the expanse of its branches is equivalent to a five-hundred-year walk, but also its trunk.” For Radak, “its trunk” means the height of the trunk, which, he explains, spans from the earth to the top of the firmament. Thus, it signifies knowledge of the physical world, which serves as the basis for knowledge of metaphysics. “The expanse of its branches,” by contrast, extends well above the firmament, signifying knowledge of the higher, metaphysical realm. Partaking of the fruit that sits on these branches, in turn, represents the acquisition of metaphysical knowledge that yields eternal life. In presenting this interpretation, Radak offers a crucial elaboration of the relevance of this midrash to an allegorical reading rooted in Aristotelianism, possibly even transcending Maimonides’ intention. One additional, especially notable example highlights Radak’s synthesis of Maimonideanism and midrash including in cases where Maimonides himself does not invoke the rabbis. According to Radak, the cherubim and flaming sword that stand before the path to the Tree of Life exert opposing forces: the cherubim represent the force of the metaphysical aspect of a person that promotes the nurturing of the intellect, whereas the flaming sword signifies the force that militates against this. In support of this view, Radak cites a midrash that equates this latter force with an angel, implicitly invoking Maimonides’ view that an “angel” may refer to a force that influences a human being. Beyond these examples, Radak’s deployment of midrashic material takes a variety of other forms, which I catalogue accordingly in the presentation.


Speech Identification as a Literary-Translational Technique in Targum Psalms
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
AJ Berkovitz, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

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.


Measuring Style Using the Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible Isaiah: The Case of Isaiah 34
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Joshua Berman, Bar-Ilan University

Scholars routinely discern the diachronic development of the prophetic books of with a discreet focus on vocabulary, phrases, themes and motifs. All but absent from consideration are the distribution and recurrence of grammatical, morphological and syntactic features within the text. This study serves as a proof-of concept for the linguistic analysis of such features now available with the launch of the Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible (https://tiberias.dicta.org.il/#/). 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. Measuring and weighing the linguistic features of Isaiah 1-33 and Isaiah 40-55, the study brings to light the morphological and syntactic features most characteristic of each text corpus. The study demonstrates that Isa 34 is much closer in morphology and syntax to chapters 1-33 than to chapters 40-55. The implications of these findings are examined in consideration of the scholarly debate concerning the provenance of these two chapters.


Determining the Significance of Lexical Features as Indicative of CBH and LBH: Insights from The Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Joshua Berman, Bar-Ilan University

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.


Two Aramaic Poems for the Ninth of Av: Liturgical and Literary Contexts
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Moshe J. Bernstein, Yeshiva University

The principle by which Yahalom and Sokoloff operated in choosing the material for inclusion in their volume, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity (שירת בני מערבא), was strictly linguistic. Those texts in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic that were published were furnished with no context and minimal commentary. This approach has a serious downside for students and scholars whose interests are not strictly linguistic. Literary corpora that develop over time should not and cannot be neatly sliced into dialectical segments like linguistic ones. Composition of Aramaic poetry in other dialects, but in the same genres as Sokoloff and Yahalom present in JPAP, continued uninterrupted, both in Eretz Yisrael and elsewhere. As a result, if we are interested in literary, as opposed to linguistic, history, we do not have all the texts conveniently available, and many of those that did not meet the Sokoloff-Yahalom linguistic criteria remain unpublished and unstudied. This paper will address some of the issues that I have just raised, employing as a joint example two poems for the fast of the 9th of Av, one a text published by Sokoloff and Yahalom (#24 ארים עיני לשמי מרומא, although they express regrets about including it for dialectical reasons), and one that has remained unpublished. For the latter, both a text and a translation will be furnished. Our first question, of course, will derive from the fact that these poems are composed in different dialects of Aramaic, and yet they are juxtaposed in both of the manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah in which they appear. These manuscripts themselves differ from each other in all other respects, which increases the likelihood that these poems were perceived as linked, even when being copied in different contexts. Evidence for that conclusion is supported further by the fact that the opening lines of both poems are also found together in more than one list of poems for this day of mourning. Complicating the question a bit further is the observation that in both of the manuscripts where these poems are copied the other surviving texts are in Hebrew (in one case, another hitherto unpublished poem). The Hebrew poems, in both manuscripts, furthermore, are penitential poems (seliḥot), usually taken to be typical of Babylonian practice for the day, and not lament poems (qinot) like the Aramaic ones, characteristic of Palestinian custom. If, then, these manuscripts reflect liturgical usage, this phenomenon leads to the not unlikely, but somewhat unexpected, implication that both languages, and both literary forms, were employed side-by-side in some liturgies. This would differ both from almost all liturgies for the fast day of the 9th of Av with which we are familiar, which were generally completely Hebrew, and from an unusual one in CUL T-S 14.64 which is all in Aramaic. The responses to the questions posed in this paper should open up further lines of inquiry into the ways in which Aramaic poetry of differing dates and provenance were employed and the nature of the 9th of Av liturgies in late antiquity.


Philo on the Superiority and Universality of the Torah in De vita Mosis 2.12–24: The Significance of Philo's Roman Context
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Katell Berthelot, CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research)

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.


Philo and Tacitus on Conversion to Judaism, Inclusion, and Exclusion
Program Unit: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Katell Berthelot, CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research)

Within the field of Ancient Judaism, the topic “Including/Excluding the Other” may relate to the inclusion or integration of Jews within the Greco-Roman world and to the opposite experience, of exclusion and Judeophobia (to use a term put forward by Peter Schäfer). It may also refer to the inclusion of the Jews’ Other, the non-Jew, within a Jewish community (as either a God-fearer or a convert) and to the opposite phenomenon, the exclusion of non-Jews because of their idolatry or impurity, as well as rejection of the very possibility for a non-Jew to convert, and other attitudes and discourses of that kind. In this paper I focus on the issue of conversion to Judaism in its dual dimensions of inclusion and exclusion. Whereas the notion of conversion to Judaism is often said to have developed in the Hellenistic period (notably by Shaye J. D. Cohen in The Beginnings of Jewishness), Hellenistic authors hardly deal with individual conversions in their accounts of Jews and Judaism, as if the phenomenon had not been noteworthy in their time. By contrast, Roman authors such as Horace, Seneca, Tacitus, and Juvenal occasionally refer to it, generally in negative terms. A first question that arises is whether Roman converts are described as people who must be excluded from their community of origin. A few texts that mention expulsions of Jews from Rome allude to the spreading of Jewish customs and thus suggest a connection between “proselytism” and expulsion. However, none of them clearly states that these measures targeted converts in particular and were meant to exclude them from Roman society. Roman legal texts, which admittedly stem from later compilations, do not mention any loss of rights for Roman citizens who became Jews in the first centuries, even though some sources—from the second century onward—forbid circumcision. According to Tacitus (Hist. 5.5.1-2), it is the converts who exclude themselves from their native communities, be it at the level of the familia, the res publica, or the fellowship with the gods. Tacitus understands conversion to Judaism as implying a radical break from the natural ties and duties that a Roman citizen must hold dear and sacred. Strikingly enough, Philo’s description of the proselytes’ journey from the false teachings of their polytheist environment to the truth of the Mosaic politeia in On the Special Laws 1.51-53, which was written about seventy years before Tacitus’ Histories, emphasizes the same aspects of conversion as the hostile work of the Roman historian. How are these paradoxical convergences between two radically opposed accounts of conversion to Judaism to be explained? This paper analyzes the context, the structure, and the rhetorical dimension of these authors’ texts before turning to a systematic comparison of their arguments, in order to highlight the deep connection between inclusion and exclusion that is at work in both of them. Finally, we shall reflect on the possible links between the inclusion of proselytes within Jewish communities and the hostility of some non-Jews toward Jews in Antiquity.


Irregular Grammar in John's Apocalypse: Ineptitude or Artistry?
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Garrett Best, Asbury Theological Seminary

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)


Textual Criticism and the Homeric Epics
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Graeme Bird, Gordon College

In the quest to establish a “standard text” of Homer, one runs up against problems that tend to thwart such an endeavor. Such include, among others, the inability to form a satisfactory, or even a vaguely convincing, stemma, as well as the existence of textual variation which by its extent defies the very possibility of any kind of “autograph.” When the realities of “oral poetry” and “oral performance” are fully taken into account, there emerges the need to rethink the concept of a standard text with its apparatus criticus, in favor of more appropriate ways of displaying the multiformity presented by our surviving manuscript – and other – evidence.


Gender Distinction in Israelite Personal Names
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Phyllis Bird, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

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.


The Yeridah as Actual Descent Born of Ancient West Asian Mythology
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Josiah S. Bisbee, Brown University

When ascent is described in the Hekhalot literature, such descriptions typically follow the logical order — the character “ascends” to the chariot (‘alah) and subsequently “descends” (yarad). And yet, throughout Hekhalot Rabbati descriptions of so-called ascension appear in the opposite order. The character descends to the chariot (yeridah la-merkavah), when supposedly ascending, and ascends (‘alah), when presumably descending. Gershom Scholem described this enigma as “a very curious and so far unexplained change of phraseology” and since then a number of scholars have sought to solve the riddle, mostly via linguistic parallels to Biblical, Rabbinic, and post-Talmudic texts, preferring primarily Jewish materials as their data base. Very few have considered looking outside of Jewish literature — Gedaliah Strousma being the exception. Strousma relates the yeridah language in HR to a long history of Greco-Roman myths that describe actual descent (katabasis) into the Netherworld, for the purpose of gaining supernatural powers. While Strousma’s theory is provocative, his preference for Greco-Roman materials actually limits his argument to a particular data base that, if augmented, would strengthen his claim that descent mythology “was so widespread in antiquity” and therefore yeridah as an actual descent is a sensible description. This paper seeks to do just that by presenting examples of the continuity of Ancient Mesopotamian mythology in texts from the late antique period — the Greek Magical Papyri, the Babylonian Talmud, Classical, and Manichean Literature. This ultimately, demonstrates that there existed a widespread, geographical, knowledge of and continued re-interpretation of Netherworld descent mythology across both the Roman and the Sassanian Empire. The final section of this paper will then hone in on Hekhalot Rabbati, presenting specific examples of parallels between it and Ancient Mesopotamian myth, ultimately contending that this enigmatic text actually describes descent into the Netherworld for the purpose of gaining prophetic powers.


In the Footsteps of the Translator of the Peshitta: The Case of the Unclean Birds
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Aurélie Bischofberger, Université de Lausanne

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.


Reification or Abstraction: Mark 4:24b–25 and Its Synoptic Redactions
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Jonah Bissell, Duke University

The Synoptic Gospels often invoke commonplace socioeconomic realia with sophisticated literary purpose. Early Christian interpreters, however, quickly began to abstract such material from its original cultural context for use in devotional, ecclesial, and theological domains. The Gospel writers themselves even abstract such realia, transmuting its original material import for the sake of dogmatic expression. However, despite such aims one must not assume that every invocation of contemporary socioeconomic phenomena exhibits literary abstraction. On the other hand, the redactional evidence itself suggests that on some occasions the Synoptic material depends upon and even reifies invoked agrarian realities from early Roman Palestine. A prime example of this phenomenon can be found in Mark 4:24b-25 and parallels (Matt. 7:2//Lk. 6:38; Matt. 13:12//Lk. 8:18; Matt. 25:29//Lk. 19:26). The Markan text features an aphoristic dyad which both Matthew and Luke split and place in different loci of their works. Not only this, but Matthew and Luke also modify the wording of certain portions of the dyad, omitting, rearranging, and adding to the preexisting material. Given its agrarian cultural content and its strong recurrence throughout the Gospel-tradition, Mk. 4:24b-25 and parallels offers striking evidence of redactional abstraction and reification. By carefully attending to Matthean and Lukan redactions of the Markan material, one can determine where the saying’s original agrarian connotations are abstracted and where they are seemingly reified. Thus, by acknowledging the socioeconomic texture of the Markan aphorism and by tracing its redaction in Matthew and Luke, one can confidently determine the various shades of meaning evinced in each Synoptic deployment. Over the course of this paper, therefore, I will: (a) examine the literary and material inspiration(s) behind the Markan aphorism; (b) trace Matthean and Lukan redactions of the aphorism; and (c) discuss the broader interpretive possibilities our study unveils (i.e. when social-scientific methods of interpretation are exegetically warranted and when they are not).


A Great Co-mission: Heeding Women’s Problematization of “Teaching Them”
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Sarah Bixler, Eastern Mennonite University

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.


Of Brambles of Briars: Ecocritical Readings in Isaiah and Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Øyvind Bjøru, University of Texas at Austin

This paper examines the imagery of wilderness as alterity and the liminal spaces where humans negotiate the relationship with nature in First Isaiah and the corpus of Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions through an ecocritical lense. While punishment is largely a divine prerogative in Isaiah, a subversive concept of ecological catastrophe on its own terms challenges the predominant perspectives in the text. The ecocritical reading brings to the fore the discursive impetus in Isaiah that reintegrates humans as a species within a larger biotic system where beings are not ranked by relative value. The disproportionate and dangerous excesses of nature are cast as weather phenomena, insects swarming, plagues, and the landscape attacking and changing from the "domestic picturesque" to the "scenic sublime" and outright "wilderness" along the continuum of ecological space developed by Peter Barry. Whereas Isaiah sees cultured space receding in the face of a nature that is not necessarily intrinsically divine, the Neo-Assyrian imperial project mounts a discourse that seeks to neutralize and domesticate the threatening wild. The propagandistic descriptions of how king and army navigate and appropriate challenging spaces employ what Joseph Meeker has called the comedic mode of ecology, and we can trace the competing strategies of othering certain spaces while absorbing them into the sphere where the empire claims suzerainty.


Performing Tamar: Tirso, Calderón, and Gálvez de Cabrera
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Chloe Blackshear, University of Chicago

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.


Unity in Ambiguity: The Multivalent Lexeme yqr as a Core Metaphor for Understanding the Narrative and Sayings of Ahiqar
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Seth A. Bledsoe, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

“My brother is precious” is the fairly standard rendering of Ahiqar’s name among his few scholarly admirers, a combination of ’ah “brother” (or, generally, “relative”) and yqr “precious, rare.” The latter lexeme, however, has an alternative nuance “difficult.” Both renderings are secondary metaphors from a root concept of “weightiness”, with an eye toward the material value and burden of “weighty metals” such as gold. When one attends to both possibilities, I argue, it becomes clear that, rather than being quaint trappings, the very name of the drama’s protagonist and likewise speaker of the wise sayings can illuminate the text’s fundamental ethical outlook: ambiguity. Briefly, the narrative illustrates poignantly that one’s “kin” can (unexpectedly) be a “burden” rather than something “cherished.” This is not an incidental feature. In fact, the impetus of the plot depends on Ahiqar’s lack of an heir and his subsequent adoption of Nadan. Of course, Ahiqar’s assumption that his “brother” would be “precious” is unrealized in Nadan, who betrays him at the first opportunity. The irony is compounded by the entrance of Nabusumiskun who is presumably not Ahiqar’s “kin”, and yet Ahiqar names him “like a brother” and, moreover, this almost “kin” proves to be quite “precious” to Ahiqar. The narrative drama explicitly raises and complicates familial ties and the concomitant ethical expectations. This issue is subsequently raised in the wise sayings, where the lexeme yqr appears in a few key occasions that likewise evoke an ambivalency, particularly as it relates to ethical behavior and social relationships. Again, this is evident only when one allows for the term’s multivalent and, paradoxically, conflicting meanings to be at play. After elaborating further on this term’s uses in both the narrative and the sayings, I will demonstrate that yqr and really the name “Ahiqar” itself point to : (1) the thematic unity of the narrative and sayings, which has been generally underappreciated or outright refuted; and (2) the overall ethic of this wisdom text is one of ambiguity and uncertainty.


De vita Mosis 2.31–44: A Sample Commentary
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
René Bloch, Universität Bern - Université de Berne

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


Discerning Affections: Paul’s Strategy of Emotions in Philippians
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Isaac D. Blois, Biola University

Attending to the central motif of joy has become de rigueur within scholarship on Philippians, but the complexity of Paul’s deploying this emotion throughout the letter has only recently begun to be explored. As Inselmann observes: “In keinem anderen Zeugnis des Paulus wird das Motiv der Freude so häufig aufgenommen und komplex thematisiert.” Paul writes a passionate appeal in order to encourage the Philippian believers to maintain a pattern of behavior that is oriented around that of Christ. To strengthen this appeal, the apostle reveals his own emotional state in his opening prayer as a way to show his reliance upon these brothers and sisters in the Lord—they have the power to determine his emotional and even spiritual well-being. One of the most interesting ways that Paul’s emotional dynamics of persuasion appear in Philippians is in the display of emotions both in his prayers on their behalf and in theirs on behalf of him. As Reumann notes, “prayers and feelings” form the link between Paul and his congregation, which affective link allows for Paul’s ensuing exhortations. Paul opens his letter with reference to his joyful prayer for these believers (1:3-4). In this way, the apostle builds ethos with his auditors, showing how it is his genuine affection for them as those he “longs for” (1:8; cf. 4:1) that motivates his prayers for their progress in the faith (1:9-11). This emotional and prayerful connection then enables him to issue necessary correctives for the community’s overall health (cf. 1:27). Paul also presents a reciprocal dimension to his prayers on behalf of the Philippians, since their prayers for him are similarly interlaced with emotions, with Paul’s confidence in deliverance at the upcoming Roman tribunal grounded upon their “supplications” for him (1:19) and prompting his “eager expectation” (1:20) that he will be released. These emotion-steeped prayers reflect the “emotional community” (cf. Chaniotis; Rosenwein) reflected in Paul’s koinonia with the Philippians, since they are bound together in a mutual joy (1:18; 2:17-18) which undergirds their shared gospel ministry. Then again at the close of the letter Paul returns to the topic of prayer, urging the community to continue in the kind of “prayer and supplication” that both expresses and flows from a commitment to “rejoicing in the Lord” (4:4-6). Building on prior scholarship treating the emotion of joy in Philippians by e.g., Bloomquist, Holloway, Inselmann, von Gemünden, and Jennings as well as upon recent scholarship on emotions in the ancient world by e.g., Konstan, Chaniotis, Kaster, and van Nijf, this paper will argue both that 1) Paul’s strategic connection between prayer and emotion in Philippians correlates with emotional communities in the ancient Hellenistic and Roman world, and that 2) the apostle accordingly uses this focus on “prayers and feelings” to create discernment within the Philippian Christ-followers.


Isaac and The Walking Dead
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Liz Boase, University of Divinity

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.


Review of Luke by Aaron Kuecker
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Darrell L. Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary

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


Isaiah in Zechariah: Assyria and Babylon in the Redemptive Plan for Zion
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Mark Boda, McMaster Divinity College

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


Achaemenid Administration of the Southern Coast: The View from Ashkelon
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Ryan A. Boehm, Tulane University

Recent research on the Persian levels excavated at Ashkelon has shed new light on the nature of the Phoenician reoccupation of the site after the destruction of the Philistine city in 604 BCE and the development of the settlement in the following centuries. This paper examines the urban form and economic life of the re-founded Persian-period settlement. It argues that the site is best conceptualized as a Tyrian emporion that was closely connected to the network of Tyrian and Sidonian outposts along the southern Levantine coast and depended on the relationship of this network to Achaemenid imperial policies. Finally, it considers Ashkelon within the broader context of the coastal zone of the southern Levant and explores the varying ways in which Persian rule impacted settlement and urbanism in this region. Direct Achaemenid influence is most clearly seen in the sitewide redevelopment of Ashkelon in the early fourth century, when Egypt had revolted from Persia and the southern Levantine coast, particularly the region around Ashkelon, became a border zone and staging ground for attempts at retaking it.


The Qur’an as a “Text and Commentary”: A New Paradygm for Qur’anic Studies?
Program Unit: Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus (IQSA)
Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau, Université de Strasbourg

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 Tirelessness of a Woman: An Analysis of the Character of Ruth in the Second Chapter of the Septuagint of Book of Ruth
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Beatrice Bonanno, Université Catholique de Louvain

The Greek version of the Book of Ruth is defined as a literal and relatively precise translation of the Hebrew text. However, a closer look at the details shows divergences or variations with respect to the Masoretic text, which, if not inconsistent, could be explained as a translator’s choice aiming at achieving better clarity, or adding particular nuances or bringing innovations to the text at the level of the sense of narration. This is, for instance, the case of the character of Ruth, whose Greek translation underlines her tirelessness. Therefore, an analysis of the character of this woman is proposed here in the second chapter of the Septuagint (LXX) of the Book of Ruth, where she tirelessly works in the field of Boos. The aim of this analysis is twofold: to better characterise the translation technique of the LXX-Ruth, and to better understand its innovations or its specificities, both in terms of meaning and ideology of the LXX-text.


The Place of the Dialogue between Jesus and the Devil in the History of the Antichrist
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Chance Bonar, Harvard University

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.


Breaking the Silence: The Violation of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

This paper will present an analysis of 2 Samuel 13:1-22 in light of the set of chapters often called “The Court History of David” (2 Samuel 9-20). I will pay close attention to the words of the different characters, especially those assigned to Tamar as they highlight her erudition and her capacity to use rational argument under extreme duress. We will review the function of the story in its immediate context in 2 Samuel as well as in the larger narrative. Finally, I will explore once again various options for sources of the Court History in light of modern patriarchal assumptions regarding authorship of biblical texts.


The Psalms as a School of Emotional Regulation
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
David A. Bosworth, The Catholic University of America

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.


Paul and the Goddess
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Pieter J.J. Botha, University of South Africa

Aspects of goddess veneration did influence the formation of Christian worship in late antiquity, yet the power and socio-cultural role(s) of the Greco-Roman goddess cults are mostly neglected by biblical and early Christian scholarship. Although some censure of ethical aspects of the goddess cults can be found in Paul’s letters, it is interesting that he does not address the phenomenon of female divinity (or feminine deities) at all. This raises various intersectional questions, particularly considered in light of the pervasive presence of female divinities in Paul’s world and especially the urban context of his activities. Paul probably faced several confrontations along the lines of the depiction in Acts 19. Despite Paul’s avoidance of such express discussion, exploring aspects of Greco-Roman goddess worship can be informative to understand (and critique) Pauline perspectives on masculinity, women teachers, sexual ethics and family life.


The Marble Economy of Ephesus
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Anna M. V. Bowden, Nazareth College

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.


Sophia in Wisdom of Solomon and the Goddess Isis: A Comparison
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Nancy R. Bowen, Earlham School of Religion

There is not a great deal of commentary on or study of Wisdom of Solomon. However, what there is consistently notes connections between the depiction of personified wisdom, Sophia in Wisdom 7-10, and the Egyptian goddess Isis in her Greco-Roman incarnation. These connections are developed in reference to anywhere from three to more than a dozen relevant Isis texts. To date, these connections have not been systematically developed. James Reese 1970) and David Winston (AB 43; 1970/not letting me type number nine, so think nine where you see-) primarily note commonalities of vocabulary. John Kloppenberg (1982) considers two similar themes in Wisdom and Isis texts. Andres Glicksman (2011) is more explicit in his comparison but only focuses on Wis 10. I am the primary author for the commentary on Wisdom of Solomon for the Wisdom Commentary Series (Liturgical Press). As part of that project I conducted a more thorough and systematic analysis of the Isis materials and comparison to Sophia in Wis 7-10. My method was to begin with the Isis texts in order to have a thorough understanding of how Isis was portrayed before comparing to Sophia. I examine seven texts dated before the first century CE, so before or concurrent with the dating of Wisdom of Solomon, and that are most frequently associated with Wisdom of Solomon studies. These texts are Hymns of Isidorus (Medinet Madi, Egypt, early 1st century BCE); Maroneia (Greece, 2nd century BCE); Andros (Greece, 1st century BCE-1st century CE); Diodorus Siculus (Sicily, Italy, mid-1st century BCE); Kyme (Asia Minor, 1st/2nd century CE); Cyrene Aretalogy (North Africa, 103 CE); Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1380 (Egypt, end of 1st century/beginning of 2nd century CE). In this paper I will primarily share my conclusions regarding the comparison of these texts and their depiction of Isis with the depiction of Sophia in Wisdom 7-10 with some specific examples. These conclusion are: there is not a one-to-one relationship between the two; there are clearly connections that can be made between the two, aspects of Sophia that can only be explained in association with Isis; features that are similar but not exactly parallel; there is much that is different; finally, there is no adaptation of Isis without significant revision to a Yahwistic setting in Alexandrian Egypt in the late Hellenistic period.


Investigating and Theorizing: The Small Artifacts in the Temple of Isis at Pompeii
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Frederick E. Brenk, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome

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.


Female Gestures: Gender Performance in Luke 7:36–50 and 8:43–48
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
Clarissa Breu, University of Vienna

The two female characters in Luke 7:36–50 and 8:43–48 are connected on the narrative level. Both passages end with Jesus’ words: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace”; both deal with the transmission of divine forces upon women who touch Jesus. In my presentation, this narrative connection will be analyzed within the theoretical framework of Judith Butler’s gender performance. Gender performance is not the expression of a given behavior, but a citational act. This performative approach will be connected to a field that has not yet been explored within Biblical Studies: a theory of gesture and touching (cf. Barad: On Touching; Butler: Geste). According to Butler gestures do not express a reality that is independent of them, but they “constitute a reality” by “rendering social laws explicit”. According to Barad, touching reveals an alterity within the self. In my paper, I will analyze the two women’s gestures of touching within their sociocultural background in order to ask how they perform gender. Loose hair and weeping, e.g., were mainly female gestures in the Greco-Roman world. They belonged to the field of ecstatic, emotional and uncontrolled behavior, whereas male gestures should perform self-control and rationality. The anointing of feet was frowned upon if performed by men. Bodily porosity – like hemorrhaging – was connected to women and a notion of disease caused by the penetration of the body by evil forces in the Greco-Roman world. The hemorrhaging woman is “leaking”, thus “porose” and typical female (cf. Moss: Man with the Flow). In valuing the woman’s gestures in Luke 7, Jesus reverses the opposition of purity vs. impurity. The woman’s “impurity” enables her to commit a purifying act. A closer look at comparable sources from the Greco-Roman (and Judean) context shows that not only the purity/impurity opposition is challenged by this passage, but also the opposition between human/divine, healer/healed and man/woman. With its socio-historical background in mind, the passage in Luke 7 can be interpreted as a transmission of divine (cleansing) force with a focus on Jesus’ mediality. The woman is not simply a silenced object, but she knows how to “use” Jesus’ force. The mediality of the woman’s gestures in Luke 7 makes her and Jesus mediums: She cleanses his feet and in return his effective word cleanses her sins. The woman makes Jesus a means of her wish to obtain forgiveness of her sins. The same applies to the woman in Luke 8. She also transmits divine force upon herself as she draws away dýnamis from Jesus (cf. 8:46) thus stressing the porosity of his body. The faith that saved the women can be described as their audacity to touch “the other”, to touch the inhuman force within the human Jesus and thus submit to the “infinite alterity” within themselves. The women reveal that also Jesus’ subjectivity is transitional and thus offer a new point of view on Lucan Christology.


Jesus and Jesus on Banqueting Behavior: Luke 14:7–14 in Light of Sirach 32:1–2
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Eric Brewer, Baylor University

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.


Visions of Beasts and Wild Animals: The North Aisle of the Huqoq Synagogue
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Karen Britt, Northwestern Missouri State University

The ongoing excavations in the monumental synagogue in the ancient village of Huqoq in Lower Eastern Galilee have unearthed a series of colorful and evocative floor mosaics populated with figural scenes that have captivated scholars and non-specialists alike. The Huqoq mosaics depart significantly in both subject matter and design from what has been considered the common repertoire of images found in other synagogues in late antique Palestine. The mosaics excavated in the north aisle during the 2018 and 2019 seasons are no exception, adding a number of new biblical scenes to the already impressive range of figurative and narrative panels in the synagogue. The scenes are arranged in individually framed panels organized in two superposed rows of nine panels each. These panels include: the four beasts of Daniel 7; a youth leading a leashed wild animal (Isaiah 11); two spies returning with grapes from Wadi Eshcol (Numbers 13:23); the showbread table from the wilderness tabernacle or Jerusalem temple; and the three youths who survive the fiery furnace from Daniel 3. At the same time, the mosaics of the north aisle are set apart from the rest of the mosaic pavement, forming a discrete compositional unit within the larger space of the synagogue. The individual panels possess a high degree of uniformity in size, arrangement, subject matter, and the use of biblical labels. This paper explores the meanings that this distinct group of panels carried, both on its own and in relation to the other mosaics in the Huqoq synagogue. The panels depicting the four beasts of Daniel 7 provide a key for understanding both the compositional arrangement and the thematic emphasis of the north aisle mosaics as a whole. We first offer a reconstruction of the composition of the north aisle pavement. The sequence of the four beasts of Daniel unfolds from the top to bottom row and from west to east. This arrangement indicates that, within the north aisle, a single biblical narrative could be distributed across a series of contiguous panels. This fact enables us to reconstruct the four severely damaged panels at the east end of the aisle as four interrelated scenes from the narrative in Daniel 3. Thus, two groups of four panels depicting scenes from the book of Daniel were used to “bookend” the west and east ends of the north aisle. We then consider the meaning or message of the north aisle pavement. The Daniel 7 and Isaiah 11 panels are concerned with the themes of messianic eschatology, while the panels depicting the spies returning from the Promised Land and the showbread table may gesture toward the promise of restoration or redemption. At the same time, the cycle of panels narrating the story recounted in Daniel 3 may indicate that the governing theme of the north aisle mosaics was divine deliverance more generally.


The Motif of Docility in Cultic Animals of Mediterranean Antiquity
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Jeffrey Brodd, California State University - Sacramento

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)


A Letter and a Love Spell in the Context of Woman-Woman Marriage
Program Unit: Documentary Texts and Literary Interpretation
Bernadette J. Brooten, Brandeis University

Documentary sources related to woman-woman marriage in the ancient world exist alongside literary representations. In this context I would like to present a papyrus letter in which a mother refers to her daughter's wife. Alongside this, documentary evidence can provide a glimpse into how categories like sex and gender were navigated in antiquity. As an exemplar of such material, I will refer to a set of lead tablets that include a love spell with a Pantou/Paitous (masculine name with male prefix) who is referred to with female pronouns.


Interpreting Gentile Women in Matthew: Misrepresentation, Misappropriation, and a Missed Chance
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Jeannine Brown, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN)

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.


Foundations of a Genre: The Early Corpus of the Ethiopic Miracles of Mary
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Jeremy R. Brown, Catholic University of America

The Miracles of Mary (Tä’ämmərä Maryam) is a widely-copied and foundation work in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition. It is thought that the Miracles of Mary were translated from Arabic into Ethiopic in the fourteenth century during the reign of Emperor Dawit II (r. 1379/80–1413). Emperor Zär’a Ya‘əqob (r. 1434–1468) then elevates this work as a central element of the reverence of Mary, introduces it into the liturgy, and commissions the copying and dispersal of Miracles of Mary manuscripts. This project will analyze the earliest extant manuscripts of the Miracles of Mary, such as EMML 9002 and a contemporary manuscript kept at Betä Ləḥem Gayənt. It will then track the development of the corpus of miracles through the reign of Zär’a Ya‘əqob and into the early decades of the sixteenth century. This project will explore a number of questions that remain about the early development of the Miracles of Mary in Ethiopia. For instance, do manuscripts that contain smaller collections of miracles limit themselves to those seventy five miracles initially translated from Arabic and attested in EMML 9002 or do they quickly add and expand the corpus of miracles? The manuscript of the Miracles of Mary in the Biblioteca Giovardiana in Veroli attests one hundred and fifty miracles and demonstrates that the corpus of miracles had at least doubled from the number initial translated from Arabic by the reign of Ləbnä Dəngəl (r. 1508–1540). This project will explore the development of the corpus of the Miracles of Mary between the initial translation event and the reign of Ləbnä Dəngəl.


Bridging the Hebrew/Greek Divide: New Possibilities with the CATSS Database in Accordance
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Joel Brown, Accordance Bible Software

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.


Aspects of Shame in 2 Samuel 10:1–5
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Jordan Brown, University of Wisconsin-Madison

After the death of Nahash, king of the Ammonites, David sought to establish a relationship with Hanun, son of Nahash, who was installed as king in place of his father. David desired a peaceful alliance with Hanun and he sent some of his servants to express his condolences (2 Sam 10:1-2). However, Hanun, under the advice of his officials, saw malice behind David’s actions (v. 3). Hanun believed the messengers to be spies who would advise David on how to take over the Ammonites. As a result he did not welcome David’s messengers. Instead, he “shaved off half of their beards” (v. 4) and he “cut off their garments in the middle at their buttocks” (v. 4) and sent them back to David. That is, Hanun declared his rejection of David’s offer by shaming David’s servants. This was ultimately an act of war and David did not take kindly to Hanun’s response. The Ammonites were eventually destroyed by David’s forces (11:1). Many scholars have weighed in on the significance of Hanun’s actions, but none have provided a full treatment of the shame inflicted upon David’s men. This current paper engages in a comparative thematic and linguistic analysis of 2 Samuel 10:1-5. It proposes four aspects to this shame which are worthy of consideration: (1) emasculation, (2) asymmetry, (3) mourning, and (4) public exposure. Though an examination of selected Assyrian texts and works of art, this paper explores the concept of masculinity and power in connection with beardedness and the display of nudity. It examines the communicative force of the asymmetry which of Hanun inflicted. It also demonstrates how the aspect of mourning impacts our reading of the text. Finally, it asserts that the concept of gazing is a key aspect to shame and that gazing upon nudity can be considered an act of sexual abuse. All of these aspects serve to demonstrate the complexity of the interchange between Hanun and David.


A Variant Quran: Further Discussion of the Text and Special Features of MS.474.2003 and Related Fragments
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism (IQSA)
Daniel Alan Brubaker, Rice

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 Flow and Blending of Religious Textures in Luke’s Account of the Mission of the Seventy (Luke 10:1–24)
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Bart B. Bruehler, Indiana Wesleyan University

Luke’s account of the mission and return of the seventy in 10:1-24 displays Luke’s creative work with the commissioning tradition and the incorporation of several other sayings of Jesus into a coherent discourse. The discourse demonstrates the use of various religious textures used in the rhetorical culture of Luke’s milieu: wisdom, prophetic, miracle, apocalyptic, and priestly. The first half of Luke’s account (vv. 1-16) features a pairing of wisdom discourse with proverbs setting up household visits (vv. 2-7) set alongside more confrontational visits to cities in a prophetic mode (vv. 8-12). The religious texture of miracle appears briefly in vv. 9 and 13. The mention of Sodom in v. 12 opens the way for apocalyptic discourse and a much more densely blended passage in vv. 13-16. The second half of the account (vv. 17-24) is dominated by apocalyptic texture, using the end of the first half as a springboard. This apocalyptic section features the theme of joy/happiness (vv. 17, 21, 23) but also blends in elements of priestly (praise in v. 21), wisdom (father and son in v. 22), and prophetic (prophets and kings in v. 24) into the commissioning discourse. Thus, Luke’s account of the mission of the seventy demonstrates both how Luke builds the discourse through interconnected religious textures embedded in the traditions he has received and how he uses those textures in juxtaposition and occasional denser blends in a creative and persuasive account of the commissioning of the seventy.


The Manuscripts of the Old Slavonic Bible and the Problem of the So-Called Heresy of the Judaizers in Late-Fifteenth-Century Russia
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Alessandro Bruni, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

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.


Finding a Character in a String of Characters: Using TEI to Support Digital Character Analysis of the Anthropomorphic Angels of the Jewish Novels
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Rebecca Bultman, University of Virginia

Within the ancient novel-like stories of Tobit, the Testament of Abraham, the Testament of Job, the Life of Adam and Eve, and Joseph and Aseneth, we find instances of angels who walk, sit, eat, smile, and cry all within the human plane of existence. Although varied and diverse, if one reads these texts with a literary eye, a class of characters emerges that has heretofore escaped scholarly attention. These characters, a group of angels with surprisingly human qualities, actions, and emotions, act as a window into the concerns and beliefs of communities living in the diaspora. In the case of the ancient Jewish novels—texts in which so many anthropomorphic angels appear—scholarship has largely underappreciated how the literary appearance of the angels has influenced the mechanics and meaning of the narratives in which they appear. In this paper, I demonstrate my development of a pipeline using TEI, natural language processing, and the Classical Language Toolkit to analyze these fascinating figures. This presentation focuses specifically on how TEI encoded texts produced by digital editions can be used to support digital character analysis at this level. I begin by describing the difficulties in connecting semantic concepts like “character” to the actual, literal text characters of a text as a computer would process them. Then, I demonstrate how creative use of the Classical Language Toolkit, a Python library for natural language processing of ancient languages, can be used in conjunction with TEI to bridge that gap. This approach allows me to quantify the language of the angels’ presentation in a particular text, comparing it among the corpus of novels and to other examples of highly anthropomorphic figures in the Hebrew Bible and early Christian literature. This paper demonstrates how small-scale digital humanities projects can complement and extend more established research methods within the field.


"Rehearsing the Signs of God All Night Long": The Bible, the Qur’an, and Night-Vigils (tahajjud)
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Stephen Burge, Institute of Ismaili Studies

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.


Choosing the Right Master: Negotiating Liminal Ownership in Plautus and Romans 6
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Katherine H. Burgett, Duke University

In Romans 6 Paul introduces a slavery metaphor to describe the effect of the death and resurrection of Christ on Christian believers: Christ has freed believers from enslavement to Sin and enslaved them (in a paradoxically liberating way) to righteousness (6:6-7, 14, 17-18, 20-23). This transfer of metaphorical ownership, according to Paul, changes everything; Paul likens it to the believer’s own death and new life (6:3-4, 6-8, 21-22). But the slavery metaphor seems to strain when Paul shifts from proclaiming God’s action to instructing the Romans on how to act accordingly: Paul exhorts the Romans to choose their master rightly. “Do not let Sin rule in your mortal bodies,” he insists (6:12). Or later: “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey?” (6:16). These exhortations seem to make little sense of the experiences of literal slaves in the Roman Empire. Slaves, after all, did not generally choose masters; masters chose slaves. Has Paul simply lost control of his metaphor? This paper argues instead that Paul’s metaphorical directives to the Romans reflect the lived experiences of Roman slaves in states of liminal ownership (e.g., recent sale to or captivity by a new master, or ownership by multiple members of a family) who are forced to navigate between the whims of masters with competing aims. The historian of Roman slavery may have a surprisingly transparent window into this dimension of enslaved experience in the plays of Plautus. Amy Richlin has argued persuasively that Plautus’s plays, as the collective productions of largely enslaved theater troupes, offer genuine (though limited) access to the lived experiences of enslaved men in the 200s BCE. In these plays enslaved characters act creatively within the constraints imposed upon them by slavery: they privately express desires for freedom, subtly direct their masters’ actions, and sometimes risk beatings by publicly acting contrary to a master’s wishes. They also skillfully negotiate between competing masters for their own ends. Tyndarus, for example, chooses loyalty to his former master over his new, abusive one in Captivi; Leonida and Libanus choose sides in their master’s feud with his wife in order to win money and social standing in Asinaria. This paper examines these examples (and others) of Plautine slaves navigating liminal ownership, and suggests that Paul has similar experiences in mind in Romans 6. The Roman Christians have experienced a metaphorical transfer in ownership from Sin to righteousness/God. But they, too, remain in a state of liminal ownership, able to make choices that will effectively enslave them either to their old master, Sin, or to their new master, righteousness/God.


Democratizing Jesus’s Share in God’s Temple and Throne: Reading Col 3:1 in Light of Greco–Roman Royal and Imperial Temple and Throne Sharing
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
D. Clint Burnett, Johnson University

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.


The Beautified Feet of Jesus: The Isaianic Re-narration of Synoptic Tradition in Luke 7:36–50
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
David A. Burnett, Marquette University

Despite the trove of scholarly attention paid to this pericope, the Lukan account of the woman with the ointment in Luke 7:36–50 continues to draw the attention of modern interpreters. This is likely due to the lack of consensus among scholars on a host of questions—whether traditio-historical, source critical, or interpretive—relating to the provenance of the passage. Of those questions, the present study seeks to address the lack of consensus regarding the provenance of the Lukan account and the nature of its relationship to the similar episodes in the other canonical gospels (Mark 14:3–9; Matt 26:6–13; John 12:1–8). I will argue that the position put forward in 1988 by D. A. S. Ravens, though neglected and at times criticized, is correct and needs to be revived and developed. When the relationship of Lukan account is considered in its immediate narrative context (7:2–8:3), a unifying theme can be found which underlies the whole of this section, namely, that Luke re-narrates the Markan account with Isaiah 52:7 in mind, seeking to portray Jesus as the anointed Isaianic prophet whose feet have been beautified to preach the good news of the reign of God. Developing Ravens’ initial proposal, I will provide supplementary stylistic and structural evidence for Luke's Isaianic re-narration of the tradition from Mark. I will advance further narrative connections from scenes prior to the anointing episode in 7:36–50, from the episode itself, and from later in the book, all of which serve as evidence for a similar tendency to redact previous Markan material to serve Luke's Isaianic theme.


The Nag Hammadi Apocalypses from the "(Gnostic) Revelation Dialogues" to the "Apostolic ‎Memoirs"
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Dylan M. Burns, Freie Universität Berlin

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. ‎


"Your Statutes Are My Songs": On the Ideology of Reading the Torah Psalms as Poetry
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Sean Burt, North Dakota State University Main Campus

Psalms 1, 19, and 119 are commonly grouped with one another as texts that dwell on a concept that became central to ancient Judaism, Torah. At the same time, each of these psalms are known to be deeply invested in elements of literary craft, such as metaphor (1), metonymic imagery (19), and the interplay of synonyms (119). Each of these psalms are, in other words, poems. Yet, what does it mean to read the Torah Psalms “as poetry”? Does such a reading transform these texts? Some readers have resisted reading them as works of literature. One talmudic tradition, for example, argues that David was punished because 119:54 parallels divine statues with mere songs. On the other hand, neither is the choice to read a text “as literature” a neutral act, as such a reading necessarily cannot be constrained by an adherence to a purported “original context.” This paper explores the ideological issues entailed in reading texts that straddle the border between the literary and the theological.


The Art of Ezekiel’s Poetry
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Sean Burt, North Dakota State University Main Campus

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.


Pauses and Possibilities: Missional Theology in Dialogue with Theologies Grounded in the Positionalities of Women
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Stina Busman Jost, Bethel University

Pauses and Possibilities: Missional Theology in Dialogue with Theologies Grounded in the Positionalities of Women


Greek Lexicography in Greek, ἡ κοινὴ ἐν τῇ κοινῇ (But This Lecture Might Still Be in English)
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Randall Buth, Institute for Biblical Languages and Translation

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.


Inscriptions of an Empire: Qur'an and the Imperial Visual Landscape
Program Unit: The Societal Qur'an (IQSA)
Syeda Beena Butool, Florida State University

Do inscriptions channel power? In the Islamic world, the written word of the Qur’an induces awe in its beholders. But can qur’anic imagery tell us about the ethical arguments for authority and command? As authors of this study, we argue that qur’anic verses, when inscribed on monuments, act as signposts for power. Our main inquiry in this study was to find out whether our initial assumptions about our argument were valid theoretically? Also, were these assumptions backed by any evidence from actual monumental inscriptions. In light of the immense work on Islamic architecture, we found a chasm in the study of Islamic art. Scholars did not perform hermeneutical scrutiny of monumental qur’anic inscriptions. Although qur‘anic inscriptions have been studied both in their formal and functional aspects but apart from a few exceptions, their hermeneutical aspects have largely been ignored. Therefore, there is a huge scope for studying the content and the interpretation of qur’anic inscriptions, making our study both methodologically and theoretically valuable. The purpose of this paper is to explore the deployment of qur'anic verses within various types of Islamic monuments, primarily from the Umayyad and early ‘Abbasid eras. We study two monuments: the Nilometer and the Ahmad ibn al-Tulun Mosque in Egypt. We chose these two sites because they were both embellished between the seventh and ninth centuries, making them some of the first Muslim structures to feature qur’anic inscriptions. We raise two questions: Is the content (or meaning) of the inscriptions relevant? And, are qur’anic inscriptions a symbol of power? We argue that qur’anic monumental inscriptions can be mined for justifications of Islamic conquests, and for the transformation of dar al-kufr (sphere of unbelief) into dar al-Islam (sphere of Islam).


John and “the Other” in Early Christianity: Schismatics, Secessionists, Strangers, and Other Evangelists
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Andrew Byers, Cranmer Hall, St John's College, Durham University

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.


Ritual Hand Placement: Aspects of a New Cultural History
Program Unit: Ritual in the Biblical World
David Calabro, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library

In 2017, I published a new analysis of the biblical gesture of hand placement in the context of the sacrificial cult. Based purely on philological considerations, I argued that previous studies assuming a one-handed form of the gesture are untenable and that the gesture uniformly involved the placement of both hands on the head of the animal. Reactions to this new analysis illustrate the divide between philological and theological approaches to biblical ritual. Given this situation, a new, thorough cultural history of the gesture is needed. In the present paper, I will address two aspects of this history. First, I will discuss the text-critical evidence for cultic hand placement in the Pentateuch (particularly the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions and the Targums), assessing the witnesses with regard to their historical contexts in order to show the degree to which direct knowledge of the ritual correlates with the representation of a two-handed gesture. Second, I will discuss the shifting contexts in which hand placement was used from the pre-exilic period to late antiquity as attested in the Hebrew Bible and in postbiblical sources. These contexts include animal sacrifice, the scapegoat ritual, blessing, ordination, and healing, among others. In this discussion of ritual contexts, I will draw attention to the crucial relationship between the function of the gesture itself and the function of the larger ritual in which it is used. The conflation of these two functions has been a stumblingblock in previous treatments of the gesture, while an understanding of the relationship between these functions both clarifies the interpretation of the ancient Israelite gesture and impacts the search for parallels outside of ancient Israel (of which I will show some examples). Ultimately, this study demonstrates that a careful peeling-back of historical layers can yield insights into biblical rituals and their afterlives, insights that may be missed by rushing too quickly to conclusions based on the Masoretic text.


Activating Gospel Animality in the Filmic Imagination
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Jared Calaway, Illinois College

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.


Epaphtha: Powerful Speech and Transformative Touch in the Synoptic Gospels
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Jared Calaway, Illinois College

In Mark 7:31-37, Jesus heals a mute and deaf man by putting his fingers into his ears, spitting, touching the man’s tongue, and saying, “Epaphtha.” Matthew 15:29-31 turns this into a general discussion of healing. Luke drops the story entirely. Why? While most discussions of "Jesus and Magic" have focused mainly on Luke and Acts, this paper will systematically discuss Jesus' works of power in terms of nature miracles, healings, and exorcisms, and whether there is any speech, physical manipulations, and other emphasized elements, including faith and especially the authoritative source of such power throughout the synoptic gospels. While Mark emphasizes Jesus' speech in exorcisms, Jesus' healings have a greater emphasis on both speech, sometimes in Aramaic, and physical manipulation. Yet many of these elements disappear in Matthew and Luke; otherwise, Matthew and Luke engage in narrative strategies to downplay Jesus' words of power and physical manipulations. While Mark’s Jesus blurs the boundaries between holy man and magician, Matthew's and Luke's revisions sought to - and ultimately failed to - evade the charge of magic.


Dwelling above and Among: Divine Presence in the Temple Scroll
Program Unit: Qumran
Annie Calderbank, Oxford University

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.


Prohibited Mixtures: A Comparative Interpretation
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Nicholas J. Campbell, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

The nearly parallel passages in Deuteronomy 22:9–11 and Leviticus 19:19 have been interpreted in a variety of ways. Interpretations can be divided between allegorical and literal. These further divide as interpreters try to decide what the allegory is (typically either keeping Israel separate from the other nations or maintaining the distinctions of “like kinds” from the creation event). The literal interpretation splits on how the mixture prohibitions align with other passages that appear to break them (the priestly garments being of wool and linen or the Israelite use of mules). The drawback of the allegorical interpretation is that it fails to show any clear textual indicators of allegory and whether the Israelites would have attempted to follow it in any sense. The breakdown of the literal interpretation is that the laws are followed but the meaning or purpose of them is obscure. I will argue first that a single, blanket interpretation covering all the forbidden mixtures is insufficient and, second, a clearer literal interpretation can be found for each prohibition by comparing it with Hittite law codes and literature. The Hittite texts address subjects similar to the biblical mixture prohibitions, including clothing restrictions and mixed sowing, but address them in different terms and with more specific punishments. The overlap and variances between the Old Testament texts and the Hittite texts shed light on the shared cultural background that gave rise to the prohibition of certain mixtures.


Autographs and Archives: The Apologetic Purchase of Bookishness in Contra Apionem
Program Unit: Josephus
Warren Campbell, University of Notre Dame

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.


Scripturalizing Alchemy: The Chemistry of Moses in Late Antiquity
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Warren Campbell, University of Notre Dame

Ancient alchemy remains an undertheorized category in the study of the Ancient Mediterranean world, occupying space in between and among medicine, magic, and religion. Filled with detailed references to the manifold operations of an alembic, the various types of flasks, and workable substances, ancient alchemy stands firmly within the history of science. Yet many of the ancient alchemy traditions have mythical origins, such as Zosimus of Panopolis’ notion of angels as the first teachers of alchemy, or reflect a cacophony of philosophical and so-called ‘gnostic’ motifs, as represented in the Corpus Hermeticum. In building upon a larger translation project currently underway, we consider a neglected Greek alchemy text set as a divine revelation given to Moses at Mount Sinai for dissemination to Bezalel. Found in a prominent fifteenth-century parchment manuscript, Parisinus Graecus 2327, the so-called Chemistry of Moses uses Exodus 31 as a means of translating alchemy into a distinctly religious phenomenon. After introducing this text and its manuscript history, this presentation makes two contributions. First, we revisit the pioneering work of Marcellin Berthelot (Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs, 1888) who argues that the Chemistry of Moses as well as lost works of Maria the Jewess testify to an early Jewish influence on the development of alchemy. Rather, we identity a number of mistakes in the history of scholarship that have contributed to the erroneous creation of a fictitious historical figure, Moses of Alexandria or Moses the Alchemist. Second, we consider the etiological function of prefacing the Chemistry of Moses with scriptural material within the context of authorial attribution in Parisinus Graecus 2327. Moses joins Isis, Cleopatra, and Hermes as figures associated with alchemy practice. But rather than situate Moses as the author of these formulas, the Chemistry of Moses embeds alchemy as a part of Moses’ divine experience at Sinai.


Talismanic Significance of the Qur'an in the Mansions of Ottoman Cairo
Program Unit: Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts
Juan E. Campo, University of California Santa Barbara

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.


Coins and Biblical Texts: Words and Image Woven in the Fabric of Meaning
Program Unit: Numismatic Evidence and Biblical Interpretation
Rosemary Canavan, Catholic Theological College, University of Divinity

Coins, biblical texts and a plethora of artefacts contribute to the way people in anytime and place in history make sense of their world, communicate their culture, belonging and power, and create a fabric of meaning. When engaging in interpretation of the bible, especially NT, I argue that it is imperative that coins, statuary, monuments, inscriptions and any number of objects of material culture need to be interpreted and considered to inform the context and meaning of the biblical text. This paper is focused particularly on the intertextuality of coins and biblical texts and does not ask ‘can coins be used.’ Rather, it makes a case for their inclusion in rigorous exegesis as part of the imagery and text which interact in a particular place and time with a specific group or groups of people. Coins of themselves incorporate both word and image and do so on two surfaces linking and juxtaposing meaning. Coins have a system of iconography and language and are embedded in the culture, politics, religion and economy of the time. The biblical text, heard or read, is word which brings imagery to mind in metaphor and through ekphrasis. These words and images belong to the narrative and are connected like viewpoints, some in harmony and others conflicting. So the process of interpretation which includes coins, and other material culture can be considered intertextual, in its broadest sense, but also essential to the bringing all the threads of meaning of the context in which they exist. Methodological challenges arise but exclusion leaves vital threads of the fabric missing or broken in the investigation.


Translation Techniques in the Vetus Latina of the Book of Esther
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Dionisio Candido, Universität Salzburg

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.


Translation Techniques in the Ancient Versions of the Book of Esther
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Dionisio Candido, Universität Salzburg

In the context of text and literary critical research of the Bible, the uniqueness of the book of Esther has been acknowledged. Whereas a synoptic presentation with the most common ancient versions in Hebrew, Greek and Latin (the Masoretic Text, the Old Greek, the so called Alpha Text, the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate) is useful, it is necessary to add to this synopsis the retelling of the book of Esther as presented by Flavius Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities (Book 11). The present paper will present and discuss those textual variants that are not only important for a text historical perspective, but that also underline the different translation techniques, as used in the Vetus Latina and in the Jewish Antiquities. The analysis will then be used to further clarify such key terms as used in biblical research, such as “translation,” “version,” “recension” or “rewriting.” Finally, it will be argued that a closer attention to these readings allows for making explicit the choices of some modern translations of the book of Esther.


Trump as King Cyrus: Biblical Hermeneutics in the Trump Era
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Rebekah Carere, University of Kent at Canterbury

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?


Did Jesus Tell Multivalent Parables, and So What?
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Greg Carey, Lancaster Theological Seminary

During the first half of the twentieth century scholars as diverse as Ernst Lohmeyer and C. H. Dodd began to characterize Jesus’ parables as a unique literary innovation that lies the core of his message, a trope that has persisted into the present century. Magnifying Dodd’s work, literary interpreters like Robert Funk, Dan O. Via, and John Dominic Crossan have emphasized the poetic, even multivalent, nature of Jesus’ parables, to the degree that the parables stood at the center of Jesus Seminar reconstructions. Recently these characterizations have suffered from two substantive critiques: first, that appeals to Jesus’ literary uniqueness participate in anti-Semitic and racist aesthetics, albeit unintentionally; and second, that Jesus may not have spoken in parables at all (John P. Meier). Using contemporary methodologies and acknowledging the dangers attending its logic, this paper maintains that it is historically likely that Jesus did employ multivalent parables, albeit not necessarily parables as presented by the New Testament Gospels. The paper draws upon two case studies, the parable of the Laborers (Matt 20:1-16) and that of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8), to make this case.


Abandoned by All? How Gethsemane Illuminates the Presence of the Father in the Passion Narrative
Program Unit: Mark Passion Narrative
Holly J. Carey, Point University

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.


Attending Bodies: "Learning to Be Affected" by Spirits in Biblical Literature
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Reed Carlson, United Lutheran Seminary

Contemporary scholarly discussions of spirit phenomena in biblical literature are often framed by a recurring conceptual dispute that seeks to identity whether a given spirit text portrays either an ecstatic experience or a metaphysical belief. The impasse can be traced back as far as Gunkel’s Die Wirkungen des Heiligen Geistes but persists into more recent work by scholars like John R. Levison and Martti Nissinnen. This paper transcends the limiting structure of this debate by arguing that much of the spirit language found in the Hebrew Bible and in Second Temple Jewish literature can be read as a means of constructing particular notions of the moral self and of a porous body. I do this by utilizing conceptual frameworks developed in cultural anthropology and in ethnographic research on contemporary possession-practicing communities around the world. For this paper, I present a case study of spirit practices in Cuban Espiritismo. Based on her work with professional mediums (“espiritistas”), anthropologist Diana Espírito Santo suggests that spirit mediumship is learned not through formal training but through the everyday “education of attention” to the interplay between imagination and sensation in one’s body. Consulting with the spirits of the dead is thus not “spirit possession” in the stereotypical, medieval exorcist mode but instead ‘acquiring a particular kind of body’ and ‘learning to be affected’ by spirits both within and without (Latour). After presenting the case study and summarizing the theoretical structures that undergird the work, this essay moves into presenting select examples from biblical and Second Temple Jewish literature for comparison. I start with texts that amplify a few uncanny resonances (e.g. Exod 31:1–6, Ps 51) then present others with surprising harmonies (e.g., Jub 12:22–27, 1QS 3:6b–12, 4QBarkhi Nafshi). These unlikely but compelling comparisons demonstrate how possession and other spirit phenomena in biblical literature are often presented as modes of being, rather than as prescribed events or beliefs. Like the espiritistas in Cuba, spirit phenomena in biblical literature are portrayed as habitual cultivation of certain kind of body, one that is more porous and attentive to the everyday ways in which various spirits flow through the world.


Mark as Tragicomedy? Considering the Role and Function of Humor in Mark 4:35–6:6a
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Jon Carman, Baylor University

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.


"I Was Asleep, I Was a Kind of Sleep": The Song of Songs' Trans Shulamit
Program Unit: LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics
Kerry Carnahan, University of Connecticut

Of the Song of Songs, Marvin Pope declares "no composition of comparable size in world literature has provoked and inspired such a volume and variety of comment and interpretation." Yet Anglophone scholarship on this poem can only be as thorough as translations are rigorous and interpretations are capacious. Currently there is no English edition of the Song that 1. translates its references to human sexual anatomy and activity with the frankness present in the Biblical Hebrew and 2. does not unnecessarily default to cisnormative, heteronormative, and other restrictive interpretive frames, overdetermining our encounter with the Song. Thus, queer and transgender religious studies on the Song continue to be limited. In order to improve this situation, I am preparing a translation of the Song with commentary, utilizing tools from various disciplines to prepare a text that embraces a range of erotics. Departing from standard editions, this project 1. forwards Pope's scholarship on Biblical Hebrew lexicography to scrupulously translate the poem's sexual and anatomical references with scholarly rigor; 2. preserves the possibilities offered by Biblical Hebrew linguistic gender neutrality, identifying where queer and trans subjectivities might maneuver; and 3. enlivens scholarship and breathes life into the translation by situating it in conversation with contemporary writers, thinkers, and artists, and 4. enriches it with ideas and tools drawn from discourses including queer theory, trans feminism, Black feminist thought, and ecological thinking. This paper provides a brief overview of the status quo in Song studies and this project's methodologies. It zeroes in on the potential for trans, trans,* and gender nonconforming approaches to the poem, attending to the medieval allegorical reading practices as (im)possible antecedents. Then it turns to contemporary trans poet and scholar Joy Ladin, engaging her book on reading the Torah from a transgender perspective, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah. The second half of this paper explores Ladin's own adaptation of Song of Songs 5:2-8 into her transition ritual poems. Finally, I present my own translation of Song 5:2-8, informed by Ladin's adapation, and my commentary on this passage, which centers Ladin's lyric as the voice of the proverbial "Shulamit." In the Song of Songs, lovers do not merely join bodies but merge erotically with all that exists, including gazelles, the wind, and henna blossoms. A primary objective of this project is to affirm the participation of LGBTIQ people in this cosmic erotic merge, as well as to offer our own vital and distinct intelligence on the art of commingling.


Attending Sacred Places: Continuities and Discontinuities from “Paganism” to “Christianity” in Late Antique Michaelic Sanctuaries
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Laura Carnevale, University Aldo Moro of Bari, Italy

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).


Experiencing Changes and Changing Experiences: Pauline Transformation and Altered Sensory Capacities
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Frederick David Carr, Roberts Wesleyan College

In her book, Transformative Experiences, L.A. Paul argues that certain decisions involve options that, if chosen, would radically transform a person’s preferences and values. In such situations, due to unavoidable epistemic limitations, the person cannot rationally anticipate what the future self will be like on the other side of the change. Put simply, one must undergo the transformative experiences in order to know what it is like to be a person with the new values and preferences that the changes produce. She discusses, for example, the experience of gaining new sensory capacities through technological means, and she gives special attention to the experiences of those who gain new hearing capacities by receiving a cochlear implant. The choice, she argues, not only generates a sense of sound for the recipient, but it also changes her ways of perceiving and interpreting the world, her preferences, and her values. Moreover, this decision can also alter relationships by creating new bonds with those in hearing communities but alienating one from people in deaf communities. In sum, such a change produces a new experience of selfhood. In Philippians 3:1–11, the apostle Paul describes the results of a transformative experience with similar features as those that L.A. Paul analyzes. In this context, Paul has undergone a change that has produced new values and preferences that differ radically from what his prior self could have predicted apart from the experience itself. What he formerly “regarded” (ἡγέομαι) as gains (cf. 1:21), he now regards as loss. From his new vantage point, he actually refers to circumcision as “mutilation” (κατατομή in 3:2a) and to his previous “gains” not as less valuable, but as “waste” (σκύβαλον). Moreover, Paul’s relationships have transformed completely, transitioning him from a persecutor of the church (v. 6) to an apostle. How should we understand the nature of Paul’s transformation in terms of how it has altered his experience of selfhood? In this paper I will put research on the phenomenology of transformations often experienced by people who receive cochlear implants into conversation with Paul’s descriptions in Philippians. I will argue that insights from the nature of the complex transformations that people often undergo by receiving cochlear implants can shed light onto the experiential and subjective dimensions of the transformations that Paul describes in Philippians 3.


Dinah as the Wayward Woman and George Eliot’s Challenge in Adam Bede (1859)
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Jo Carruthers, Lancaster University

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.


Good Women and Bad Women: Systematic Misogyny and the Marriage of Michal and David
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
M. L. Case, Drury University

When reading the two scenes recounting the marriage between Michal, the daughter of Saul, and David, the eventual king of Israel, one is struck not only by their rocky relationship, but also by the discrepancy between Michal’s treatment, compared to other individuals, by the men in her life. For instance, while both Michal and Jonathan save David from their father’s wrath early in his career, only Michal receives immediate censure for her betrayal (1 Sam 19:17). Saul does not criticize Jonathan until after his second rescue of David (1 Sam 20:30–31), and despite this, Jonathan remains a close companion of Saul until the end of their lives (1 Sam 31:2). Likewise, though male figures like Nathan (2 Sam 12) and Joab (2 Sam 14)—and women speaking for men, like the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14)—criticize the actions of David the king, only Michal suffers punishment for her rebuke (2 Sam 6). In this paper, I consider these scenes with Michal and David and examine how her differential treatment fits into a larger system of misogyny in the Davidic court, which extends throughout the Hebrew Bible. I examine the misogyny of the Davidic court through the lens of philosopher Kate Manne’s recent study Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, which illustrates how the individual deeds or words perceived as misogynistic fit into a well-ordered system. In this view, the actions David and Saul take against Michal are not aberrations, but are logical responses to her failure to support the men and their causes. Within a patriarchal society, misogyny is the policing arm which differentiates between good women and bad women, or those who conform to the gendered norms and expectations of the patriarchy and those who do not. When a woman, like Michal, fails to uphold her role supporting the elite men in her life, the men must swiftly respond not only to ameliorate her threatening position, but also to warn for other women, both inside and outside the text, against similar behavior. In short, examining the marriage between David and Michal through the lens of a system of misogyny helps to place their individual actions into a cohesive whole in which the potential of female power is tolerated when it supports the patriarchy, yet policed when it challenges this fundamental social order.


Divine Ambiguity: The Grammar of Christology in 2 Peter 1:3–4
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Benjamin E. Castaneda, University of St Andrews

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.


Bargaining Hosea's Children
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Jeremiah Cataldo, Grand Valley State University

In the Bible, children are typically little more than transitional moments: explanation for patriarchal lineage and succession, bargaining chips, objects of divine punishment of parents, and metaphors of humility or incompetence. In the book of Hosea, for instance, the prophet's children symbolize judgment or indictment, infidelity and corruption of the social order, but also also the possibility of the future life of the author's imagined community. They reside at the intersection of both: products of infidelity and, as living beings, the possibility of life (they are children). They serve as a reminder of what can happen, or what will happen, in the pursuit of political relationships with foreign powers. Those ideas and strategies are valid literary tools, but they are also dangerous. They reinforce the idea that children are objects, incomplete identities and bodies dependent upon the name and success of their patriarch/father. This study uses theories from Narrative Identity studies (e.g., E. Ochs; E. Capp; P. Hammock, and G. Rosenwald) on the cultural politics of narrating identity in response to external, threatening stimuli to show that the Bible's use of children, with a primary focus upon Hosea, finds meaning primarily within the social and political value system of the patriarch/father. That is why the tendency in dominant biblical interpretations is to read stories involving children not for the sake of those children but for the sake of the patriarch, the patriarchal family, or kingdom. Yet by understanding how the biblical authors use children as "transitional moments" in narrating identity, including the politics of it, we have the ability to modify our reading strategies for the sake our children today. What that might look like will be explored in this presentation.


New Hexaplaric Readings of Proverbs
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Reinhart Ceulemans, KU Leuven

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.


A Stone Unturned: Political Authority in Martin Luther’s 1530 Preface to the Book of Daniel
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Michael J. Chan, Luther Seminary

Martin Luther is (in)famous for his theological reflections on civil authority (Oberkeit). Research on his political thought travels well-worn paths, making reference to important works such as Luther’s “Temporal Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed,” his letter to Melanchthon on July 13, 1521, and various exegetical and homiletical writings (Genesis, Psalm 82, Psalm 101, the Song of Songs, Matthew 5-7, 1 Peter, etc). Surprisingly little attention has been paid to Luther’s 1530 Preface to the Book of Daniel, despite his explicit comments on the book’s import to political rulers and their subjects. In studying both the court tales (Daniel 1-6) and the apocalypses (Daniel 7-12), Luther finds an abundance of threats, comfort and instruction for earthly rulers. This paper will explore the following questions: What kind of political insights does Luther glean from Daniel? How do these insights compare to his other works on earthly governance? To what degree is Luther’s reading of Daniel unique in its 16th century context? Are Luther’s interpretations of Daniel in any way dependent upon other biblical interpreters?


Josephus’ Speech before the Walls of Jerusalem (War 5.362–419)
Program Unit: Josephus
Honora Chapman, California State University - Fresno

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


Who Prays the Psalms? Bonhoeffer’s Christological Concentration and Psalm 69
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Stephen B. Chapman, Duke University

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s typological handling of the Psalter revived a classic Christian mode of biblical interpretation and sought to reframe modernist approaches operating solely within a history-of-religions construct. Grounding his treatment in the New Testament’s use of the Old, he claimed not only that David was a “prototype of Jesus Christ” but that in David’s Psalms “the promised Christ himself already speaks,” citing Hebrews 2:12 and 10:5. Yet even as a theological judgment, Bonhoeffer’s Christological concentration is problematic. Drawing upon recent scholarship on the Psalms, the New Testament, and Christian homiletics, I argue for a more differentiated theological approach to questions about how the Psalter speaks and the reception of the Psalms within Christian tradition. Psalm 69 provides an illustrative example.


Cooking with the Right Gadgets: Examining Ezekiel’s Metaphor of the Boiling Pot (Ezekiel 24:1–14) through Poetry, the Holiness Code, and Textual Criticism
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Kevin Chau, University of the Free State

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.


A Cultic Understanding of Genesis 4:7
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Guang Chen, Trinity International University

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


The Political Role of Queen Mothers and the Expansion of the Kingdom of Judah: An New Perspective on the ‘am ha’ares in the Book of Kings
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Guangchun Chen, Zhejiang University

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.


Trajectories in Aseneth Studies
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Randall Chesnutt, Pepperdine University

This presentation engages Patricia Ahearne-Kroll,Aseneth of Egypt: The Composition of a Jewish Narrative (SBL,2020)


The Greatest Showman: Jesus and the Two Blind Men in Mark 8:22–26 and 10:46–52
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Seonghyun Choi, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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.


“God Is Teaching You (wa-yuʿallimukumu llāhu)” (Q 2:282): On Teachers and Their Roles in the Qurʾān and the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Johanne Louise Christiansen, University of Southern Denmark

The Qur’an is a didactic and educational text, utilizing a number of literary and rhetorical strategies to convey (and train its adherents in) its religious message and system (Christiansen 2019). Among these are explicit qur’anic articulations of the teacher and his roles. For example, the beginning of Q al-Baqarah 2:26 states: “God is not ashamed to coin a simile [from] a gnat or what is above it (inna llaha la yastahyi an yadriba mathalan ma ba‘udatan fa-ma fawqaha).” In this paper, I will argue that the qur’anic God is often depicted as an optimistic teacher, exhibiting confidence in his educational project, e.g., through the continual use of a metaphorical pedagogy. However, this is not the only type of teacher to occur in the qur’anic text. Consider the frequent evocation of the particle la‘alla, “perhaps”, almost always accompanied by “verbs having to do with intelligence, recognition, understanding, thankfulness and reverence” (Cragg 1973, 147). For instance, in the occurrence of such phrases as “maybe you will reflect (la‘allakum tatafakkarun)” or “maybe they will think (la‘allahum yatadhakkarun)”, the qur’anic teacher seems to be more polemical or even frustrated with his pupils. These two antithetical types of teachers appear in the Hebrew Bible as well. Examples of the optimistic teacher include the paraenetic Deut. 4, where Moses instructs the Israelites in the name of YHWH regarding obedience to the law, teaching how such knowledge should be passed on through generations (see e.g., Weinfeld 1991, 193-230). The frustrated teacher can be found in Jer 35:14, in which Jeremiah addresses the people of Judah and Jerusalem: “But although I have spoken to you again and again, you did not obey Me” (see e.g., Lundbom 2004). Together with the qur’anic la‘alla phrases, this passage exemplifies a divine inclination towards displeasure at human disregard, at times even growing tired of the human tendency to continue in their stubborn ways, refusing education, or simply forgetting the instruction already given. My paper will explore the different teachers and their overall didactic and rhetorical purposes in the Qur’an and the Hebrew Bible.


Receiving the Word in Image: Federico Zuccaro’s The Annunciation Broadcast By Prophets (1565) and the Reception History of the Bible in the Counter-Reformation
Program Unit:
Chloe Church, University of Exeter

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.


When Law Becomes Ritual: The Defilement of the Land in Numbers 35
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Greg Church, Johns Hopkins University

Ritualized killing is commonly attested in human societies throughout history in forms such as sacrifice or warfare. But the agents of such ritualized killings tend to be aware that they are taking life in a meaningful and intentional manner. Numbers 35:9-34, however, puts a twist on the idea of ritualized killing. In this text, violent crimes committed in the ordinary course of life (murder and manslaughter) have become ritualized after the fact. These killers do not take human life in a ritualized manner, yet the blood shed by both murderer and manslayer defiles the land of Israel (Num 35:33). The legislator of Numbers 35 has taken a classic legal problem (illicit killing) and intertwined it with ritual concerns (purity and defilement). In this text, death bridges the domains of law and ritual. The ritualization of death in Numbers 35:9-34 draws our attention to the social function of this set of laws. Ritualizing death and its impact through the defilement of the land takes a private dispute between families and globalizes it, making the solution to this legal problem a corporate concern for Israel as a whole. The body politic must remedy the consequences of the destruction of the individual body. In the case of murder, the legislator prescribes simple lex talionis retribution in the form of blood vengeance. The murderer’s blood serves as both legal penalty and ritual detergent. But, the situation proves much more complex for the manslayer. Because his life is spared (owing to the unintentional nature of his killing), his own blood cannot justly resolve the legal/ritual dilemma of his offense. The manslayer is punished with (and protected by) the requirement that he wait in a city of refuge until the death of Israel’s high priest. The timing of his release from this city is directly linked to the ritually effective legal event of high priestly death. The death of this ritual representative likewise accomplishes lex talionis justice in a surprising, but elegant, manner that addresses the legal and ritual problems thrust upon society by the manslayer’s mistake.


Can Anything Good Come Out of Works of the Law?
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Charles Cisco, University of Edinburgh

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


Resolving Ancient and Modern Judicial Ambiguities in Old Greek Susanna
Program Unit: Book of Daniel
Paul Cizek, Marquette University

It is generally agreed that the Old Greek version of Susanna focuses upon the elders’ judicial iniquities and likely reflects an internal Jewish dispute (as opposed to the latter Theodotion version’s focus on Susanna as a model of Jewish piety). There is no satisfactory account, however, regarding what judicial and legal issues drive the Old Greek narrative. Brüll (1877) argued on the basis of later Tannaitic texts (m. Sanh. 5:1–3; 6:1; m. Mak. 1:6; m. Avot 1:9; Sipre Deut 190) that the Old Greek version reflected a pro-Pharisaic legal polemic against the Sadducees regarding the need for judicial examination and the proper punishment of false witnesses. While Brüll’s thesis has persuaded some (e.g., Finkelstein, 1940; Clanton, 2006), others have rejected it, acknowledging something of a polemic against Jewish religious leaders (some or all), but arguing against any particular legal polemic (e.g., Moore, 1977; Lacocque, 1990; Collins, 1993; Bellis, 2007). While I, too, reject Brüll’s thesis, it is my contention that the alternative thesis has overlooked a particular judicial and legal issue which drives the Old Greek narrative. Specifically, I argue that the author of Old Greek Susanna alluded to the Deuteronomic Law of Testimony (Deut 19:15–21) not only in Sus 60, which paraphrases Deut 19:19a, but throughout the narrative beginning at Sus 34. By means of this sustained allusion, the author depicted the elders and the Jewish assembly as subscribing to an interpretation of the Law of Testimony that would permit bypassing thorough judicial examination for supposedly reliable witnesses. That this precise interpretation of the Deuteronomic law undergirds the Old Greek polemic is bolstered by the fact that this interpretation of the law is not only theoretically possible (cf. Patrick, 1985), but is assumed in a nearly contemporaneous text, the Damascus Document 9:16b–10:3 (cf. Naeh and Shemesh, 2013). The sustained allusion to the Deuteronomic law, moreover, clarifies a number of features in the Old Greek narrative (e.g., vv. 35, 52b–53; 56b–57) which scholars regularly claim are problematic. While my study does not attempt to specify against whom the polemic in Old Greek Susanna was directed, it does demonstrate what particular judicial and legal issue drives the polemic.


Finding Deuteronomy’s Law of Vows in the Mouth of Zerubbabel
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Paul Cizek, Marquette University

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.


New Words in Classical Hebrew
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
David J.A. Clines, University of Sheffield

It is a noticeable feature of The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised (Volumes 1-3 now published, 2018–2020), as of the original edition, DCH (1993–2011), that articles for many ‘new words’ appear. It is perhaps time for a systematic presentation of the data and a discussion of their significance. ‘New words’ are defined as those words, including names, that are not found in BDB (1906). By March 2020, 6,463 such words had been identified for DCHR, 731 more than 18 months previously. That figure should be compared with the total number of words in BDB, estimated at 8,600; the new words thus add some 75% of words (lemmas) to the Classical Hebrew vocabulary. These new words are of three types: (1) 1,624 words attested in the non-biblical texts (e.g. Dead Sea Scrolls), (2) 721 verbal nouns (like bôrē’ creator), which earlier dictionaries usually dealt with in articles on the relevant verbs, but are in DCHR given an entry of their own, and (3) 4,080 words proposed by scholars over the last 100 years, sometimes on the basis of cognate Semitic languages, but more often derived from Hebrew roots already known. This third category includes many homonyms of previously recognized Hebrew words, in which cases no emendation of the Hebrew text is called for; but in many other cases some emendation of the present text is required. Not all the proposals for new words are equally strong, and the paper will conclude with the problematics of presenting such material in the context of a lexicon.


Synonym Hunting in Classical Hebrew: The How, the Why, and the Wherefore
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
David J.A. Clines, University of Sheffield

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.


Pandemic Planting and Cultic Cultivation
Program Unit: Meals in the HB/OT and Its World
Margaret Cohen, W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

Seed merchants report major increases of sales during the COVID pandemic. I wish to draw some comparisons between our modern crisis and home vegetable gardening, and ancient food (in)security and biblical cultic plant offerings and regulations. By examining these relationships, what might we understand about justice and injustice in the biblical agrarian world and in our day?


A Domestic Abuse Lawsuit in Gen 16:5–6
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Noam Cohen, New York University

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.


Textual Criticism and Orally Transmitted Texts
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Signe Cohen, University of Missouri

A great deal of the text-critical work on ancient sacred texts has been based on the assumptions that texts are written and that an original text, now perhaps lost, must have been composed at one particular point in time. This paper argues that in the critical study of orally composed and transmitted ancient texts, such as those of Hinduism, a reconstruction of a hypothetical Urtext is meaningless. I propose that one can nevertheless study the different historical layers of an orally transmitted text using metrical, linguistic, stylistic, and conceptual criteria.


The Varieties of DSS Hebrew as Reflected in Syntax, and the Sociolinguistic Situation Underlying Qumran Hebrew Variety
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Maria Maddalena Colasuonno, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

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.


Staff of Kothar, Aegis of Hephaistos: “Al-Kawthar” in Qur’an 108 as Late Antique Hybridity
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Juan Cole, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

This paper argues that the term “al-kawthar” in Qur’an 108 is has its origins in the West Semitic figure Kothar-wa-Khasis, the craftsman deity and helpmeet of Baal in the Ugaritic epic cycles. Following the proposals of W. F. Albright and John Pairman Brown, it is argued that the name had become proverbial, coming to mean something like “divine help” or “succor.” Philo of Byblos in the first century of the common era said that Hellenistic Levantines identified Kothar with Hephaistos. The name appears on a third-century Syrian tombstone found near Hama, which spoke of βασσου Χαuθαρ (Chauthar the son of Bassos). The melding of Kothar and Hephaistos in Near Eastern culture is also considered for what it might tell us about the connotation of Kothar. It is pointed out that one of the last pagan Neoplatonists, Damaskios of Damascus (d. c. 550 CE) said that in Levantine thought Oulomos or eternity gives rise to Kothar (“Chousoros”) the Opener, the “intelligible power.” Rudi Paret argued that f-t-h in the Qur’an, literally meaning “opening,” actually should be translated “success.” Hence, the “Opener” would be one who brings success. Ahmad al-Jallad has demonstrated that parts of the Baal epic appear in Old Arabic Safaitic inscriptions, and that Baal was the fourth-most mentioned deity in those rock inscriptions, making it plausible that Kothar was well known to Arabophone peoples. Finally, a resemblance will be demonstrated between a hadith cited by one of the earliest Muslim exegetes, Muqatil b. Sulayman, which depicts al-kawthar as a river in paradise, and elements of the Baal cycle, which speak of Kothar constructing a palace window for Baal through which a stream of rain water can fall from heaven to the earth. It is shown that in contrast the tradition attributed to Ibn `Abbas, which defines al-kawthar as al-khayr or “abundant good” does not make sense of the surah. Moreover, the only Semitic cognate for the Arabic k-th-r is the Ugaratic, where it means not “good” or “abundance” but rather “skilled.” This is the reason for which it was applied to the craftsman deity.


Dialogue with Intersectionality
Program Unit: Korean Biblical Colloquium
Monica Coleman, University of Delaware

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.


Just a Flesh Wound? Reassessing Paul’s Supposed Indifference toward Circumcision and Foreskin in 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 5:6, and 6:15
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Ryan D. Collman, University of Edinburgh

Three times in his epistles (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15), Paul appears to state that circumcision and foreskin are nothing, and then compares them to something else. In 1 Corinthians 7:19, Paul negates circumcision and foreskin and puts them in contrast to keeping the commandments of God. In Galatians 5:6, Paul states that circumcision and foreskin do not have power, but pistis that is made effective through love does. Lastly, in Galatians 6:15, Paul states that neither circumcision nor foreskin, but new creation—full stop. These three verses have led the majority of interpreters to conclude that Paul believes that circumcision and foreskin have become irrelevant or adiaphora, and thus he collapses the distinction between Jews and gentiles. This paper argues that by conflating these three verses and removing them from their epistolary contexts, the bulk of interpreters have fundamentally misunderstood what Paul is communicating. This paper argue that these “neither…nor…” statements should be read in light of what Heinz Kruse calls “the idiom of dialectical negation.” Here, circumcision and foreskin are negated on rhetorical grounds, not because they are truly nothing or indifferent things for Paul, but to draw the reader’s attention to the concept with which they are being compared. In this revisionist reading, it becomes clear that circumcision and foreskin—and what they represent—still occupy a valuable space in Paul’s Weltanschauung.


Reclaiming Harald Weinrich’s Text-Linguistics: The Syntax of Genesis 24 as Test Case
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Vasile Condrea, Dublin City University

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.


Before Griesbach: Reimagining the History of the Synoptic Problem
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Jeremiah Coogan, University of Oxford

The Synoptic Problem remains a central debate in New Testament studies. Histories of scholarship typically identify the modern formulation of the Synoptic Problem with the work of Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812) and his construction of a parallel-column Greek synopsis of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, first published in 1774. Nonetheless, the use of columnar synopses to compare Gospel passages, identify similarity, and engage difference is not an exclusively modern phenomenon. Nor is an evidence-based approach to source-critical relationships between Matthew, Mark, and Luke an Enlightenment innovation. In this paper, I offer a revisionist account of the Synoptic Problem based on examination of medieval manuscripts and early modern printed editions, both Gospel texts and instrumenta studiorum. I argue that conventional histories of the Synoptic Problem ignore significant continuities between Enlightenment Gospels scholarship and earlier developments in the Middle Ages and early modern period. While conventional histories of the Synoptic Problem privilege a narrative of novelty, implying that certain modes of approaching Gospel literature are distinctively “modern” and “critical,” this account does not do justice to the history of Gospel scholarship.


Exclusive Laws with Symmetrical Punishments: Is the Bětūlāh of Deuteronomy 22 a Kind of Bat Sōreret?
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Sarah Cook, University of Georgia

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.


Metaphor: When Tenor Impedes on Vehicle
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Stephen Cook, Virginia Theological Seminary

Metaphor: When Tenor Impedes on Vehicle


Blessing the Fig Tree: Redeeming Nonconforming Bodies in Matthew 21:18–22:14
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Rebecca Copeland, Boston University School of Theology

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.


‘Modernist’ and ‘Puritan’ Salafi Tafsīr: ʿAbduh, Qāsimī and Riḍā in Comparison
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Pieter Coppens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Following the publication of Lauzière’s seminal work on the conceptual history of Salafism, a recaptivating discussion is taking place on the meaning of that term, and the division between a ‘modernist’ and ‘puritan’ variant (Lauzière, 2010, 2016; Griffel, 2015; Weismann, 2017; Wagemakers, 2019). Lauzière claims a distinguishable ‘Salafi’ movement only took shape from the 1920’s onwards. Later ‘modernist’ and ‘puritan’ strands appropriating the label should be understood in isolation from each other, and from the earlier movement around Afghānī and ʿAbduh, he holds. A comparison between the sources and methods applied in Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s (d. 1905) Juzʾ ʿamma and Rashīd Riḍā’s (d. 1935) Surah Yūsuf with the same passages in Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī’s (d. 1914) Maḥāsin al-taʾwīl, brings more nuance to this discussion (ʿAbduh, 1911; Bīṭār and Riḍā, 1939; Qāsimī, 2003). This material shows that a movement towards a distinguishable ‘puritan Salafi’ method took place early 20th century already in reformist circles in the Levant, following a fundamentally different method in Qur’an hermeneutics and appropriating different earlier sources than its Egyptian counterpart. This approach would ultimately have more influence on the nascent ‘modernist’ trend than vice versa. Although ʿAbduh and Qāsimī were active interlocutors and shared many common links within the reformist movement, they differed significantly in their approaches to tafsīr. While ʿAbduh aimed at simplifying the meanings of the Qur’an for school teachers for deeper contemplation on its values and societal reform, Qāsimī adopted a strict ‘Salafi’ methodology, aimed at purification of the tradition from incorrect explanations, largely based on newly discovered writings of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn Kathīr. This had consequences for their later reception. While ʿAbduh’s Juzʾ ʿamma had a short-lived reception in ‘modernist’ circles and his lessons only survived through Riḍā’s more popular and relatively more ‘purist’ Tafsīr al-manār, Qāsimī’s tafsīr had a longer afterlife in ‘purist’ Salafi circles due to his focus on Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim, and his ‘confirming’ (ithbāt) of the attributes of God. The later turn of Riḍā in a more purist direction and his projection of this purism on ʿAbduh, as witnessed in the posthumous completion and publication of Surah Yūsuf by Muhammad Bahjat al-Bīṭār (d. 1976), his Damascene interlocutor and student of Qāsimī, should rather be sought in his contacts with Syrian and Iraqi reformists, among which most prominently al-Qāsimī, than in an accommodation to Wahhabis of the Arabian Peninsula as often claimed.


Pap. Amh 63 vi as a Missing Link in the Transmission of Royal Traditions
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Collin Cornell, Sewanee: The University of the South

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.


The Contribution of Psalm 45 within Its Canonical Contexts
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Collin Cornell, Sewanee: The University of the South

Because of its distinctive features, critical scholarship has dedicated substantial attention to the historical origins of Psalm 45: alone among the royal psalms (2, 18, 20, 21, 72, 89, 101, 110, 132, 144), Psalm 45 is, as its superscription says, a “song of loves,” and it counts numerous other unusual lemmata and constructions. So, too, because of its christological appropriation in the Letter to the Hebrews (1:8–9), Psalm 45’s history of reception is also well-canvassed. What Psalm 45 has not yet received is robust interpretation within its canonical contexts. Gerald Wilson’s path-breaking work identified the contribution of three royal psalms “at the seams” of the first three Books (2, 72, 89), and subsequent research on the shape and shaping of the Psalter (McCann, Creach, deClaissé-Walford) has demonstrated literary through-lines and coherencies within Book II, as well as the first Korahite collection within it (Psalms 42–49). This paper builds on these insights to posit the centrality of Psalm 45 to the Korahite collection and to embolden its “interactions” with royal psalms preceding and following. With these canonical relationships in hand, and also with reference to some historic interpreters, the paper revisits several cruxes within the Psalm: the controverted translation of elohim in v. 6 [7] is brought alongside the theme of divine kingship (cf. Psalms 44:4; 47:2, 6; 48:2); the identity and function of the “daughters of kings” and the “queen” (Psalm 45:9) is illuminated through comparison with the celebrated city of God (46:4-5, 48:1-3, 8, 12); the rhetorical force of the commandment to “forget your people and your father’s house” (45:10 [11]) is synchronized with other counsels from this collection.


For How Long Was Paul among the Pharisees
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Michael Cover, Marquette University

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 Ethics of Peace in the Community of the Peacemaker
Program Unit: Bible and Ethics
Eric Covington, Howard Payne University

The Epistle to the Ephesians provides an interesting glimpse into the ethics of peacemaking within one particular early Christian context. Ephesians 4:3 encourages the community who receives the letter to maintain unity and peace; however, in so doing, Ephesians uses a construction that occurs nowhere else in biblical tradition. It maintains that the community is to maintain unity (henotēs - a term that is only used in Ephesians) in the “bond of peace” (syndesmos tēs eirēnēs). Ephesians’ description of peace and unity with a term associated with restrictive binding is a somewhat jarring and potentially ironic description of the ethics of peacemaking that raises significant questions. In what ways might the community conceive of peacemaking as an act of binding together and how might they be expected to maintain it? Beginning with this distinctive phrase and highlighting ways in which Ephesians’ terms and concepts compare with other biblical traditions (including Colossians and Isaiah, this paper examines Ephesians’ exhortations for maintaining peace within a diverse community. It argues that Ephesians describes peace as a singularity comprised of diversity that must be actively maintained and which is an essential component of the community’s way of life. The ethics of peacemaking for Ephesians is a refusal to be separated or unbound from the other. The paper further argues that Ephesians’ strong ethics of peace are understood to be a possible reality in the present life of the community because of the ways in which God the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit have already produced the unity and peace that the Ephesians community is called to maintain.


The Translator’s Commitment to Preserving Elements of the Linguistic Makeup of the Source Text in Old Greek Job
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Claude E. Cox, McMaster Divinity College

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.


Chronicles and Sacred Space: An Account of Solomon’s Temple Sans Windows
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Lacy K. Crocker Papadakis, University of Miami and Baylor University

The construction of the temple, according to 1 Kings 6–8, represents the climactic moment that commemorates YHWH’s salvation of Israel out of Egypt and the creation of Israel as a nation. Chronicles, on the other hand, presents the construction of the temple in connection to Mount Moriah and David and, in doing so, illustrates continuity with sacred spaces linked to Abraham and David. This connection to sacred spaces serves to legitimize the temple’s location in Jerusalem (2 Chr 3:1) in a way the historical focus of the Kings account does not. In terms of specific architectural features, the Masoretic Text (1 Kgs 6:4) and the Old Greek (3 Kgdms 6:9) include a description of windows in Solomon’s temple, but the parallel temple construction account in Chronicles does not mention these temple windows (see 2 Chr 3:1–17). Josephus, like Chronicles, also lacks the construction of the windows (see Ant. 8.63–75). Klein (2012) suggests the architectural details, such as the windows, seemed irrelevant in comparison to the more modest temple known to the author of Chronicles. Meiser (2013), however, posits that Josephus and the author of Chronicles omit the window features because of the difficult vocabulary and to avoid making an inaccurate statement. In this paper, I explore textual and thematic reasons behind the absence of the temple windows in Chronicles. Additionally, I synthesize how the description of the temple construction sans windows in Chronicles relates to concepts of sacred space. The geographical emphasis provides an interpretive key for the absence of windows in the temple construction account in Chronicles.


When Storytelling Becomes Canonical: Changing Fortunes of the Novella in Hellenistic and Roman Judea and Egypt
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Joseph Cross, University of Chicago

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.


Finding God in Nineveh: A Case Study in Judean and Egyptian Prophetic Imagination
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Joseph Cross, University of Chicago

A rather enigmatic statement found in the Demotic prophetic text of the Lamb of Bocchoris, that “the shrines of the Egyptians will be recognized at Nineveh,” raises the issue of parallels with Judean prophetic literature concerning this city, specifically Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jonah. Each portrays Nineveh as a privileged site for the manifestation of divine glory, representing the triumph of the native culture over the Assyrian Other. First, the paper observes how Nineveh is described and tries to ascertain the kind of knowledge about the city presumed of the reader: how were they able both to receive the prophetic message and to respond to the act of storytelling? Next, given the demonstrable appeal of historical fiction involving Nineveh and the Assyrians, it will reconstruct readerly approaches to the city as a subject of prophecy, knowing that the reader simultaneously enjoyed depictions of it in the context of storytelling. Important evidence in this regard will be interpretive texts based on prophecies, such as 4QpNah and the Demotic Chronicle. Finally, taking a close look at two examples where prophecy is embedded in a narrative context—Jonah and the Lamb of Bocchoris—it will speculate in what way prophetic narratives were intended to be read in dialogue with standard, non-framed prophetic texts.


Josephus and Nonviolent Resistance: The Immediate Jewish Matrix of Jesus of Nazareth
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
John Dominic Crossan, DePaul University

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.


“As Musical Signs, They Have No Interest or Importance at All”: William Wickes and the Accentuation of the Psalms
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Daniel J. Crowther, Oxford University

The approach of William Wickes to the cantillation marks of the Hebrew Bible contains a number of paradoxes. First, Wickes affirms the identity of these signs as “essentially musical signs.” Second, since the music of the Psalms is now lost, he judges their current musical significance to be zero. Third, he appeals to their musical identity to explain each and every deviance from the syntactic rules by which he seeks to understand and explain them. Despite the paradoxes inherent in this approach, it has dominated scholarship ever since and was adopted by Price in his influential studies (1990, 2010). Since Wickes there have been a number of attempts to recover the lost music of the Psalter based either upon the norms and experience of synagogue cantillation or various creative re-readings of the cantillation marks. Parallel to this work, research into the te‘amim of the Twenty-One has suggested that a number of their syntactical anomalies can be explained by the dynamics of super-segmental phonology. The combination of these research projects seems to suggest that the te‘amim are ecphonetic marks that invite – but do not direct – musical performance. In this light, the Tiberian te‘amim can be used as invaluable guides to the way in which the Tiberian Masoretes understood their vocalisation of the consonantal text.


The Dilemma of the Psalms and the Qur'an
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Daniel J. Crowther, Oxford University

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.


The Mythomoteur and the Construction of Diaspora Identity: The Case of Judeans in Egypt in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries BCE
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Marshall Cunningham, University of Chicago

While we lack a full account of the founding of the Judean garrison at Elephantine, the community’s famous request to officials in the Levant for a letter of recommendation concerning the reconstruction of their temple (TAD A4.7–8) contains an apocopated Judeo-Egyptian founding myth, a mythomoteur. A brief reference to the temple’s pre-Persian founding provides insight into how the community understood its own settlement on the island and the role that its “history” played in construction of Judeanness for the authors of the letter and their contemporaries. In order to get a better sense of the salient elements of Judean identity emphasized or actualized in the letter’s tantalizingly brief reference, this paper puts it into conversation with other narratives that record the arrival of Judeans in Egypt during the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, including Jer 40–44, the Hellenistic Letter of Aristeas, and a pericope from col. xviii of Papyrus Amherst 63. Finally, I will return to Yedaniah’s claim to pre-Persian roots in the RLR with insights from the other narratives to make some claims about contours of Judeanness that the short mythomoteur constructs and reinforces. Although there is no definitive set of criteria, no particular clustering of traits that is inherent to an ethnic group, scholars frequently highlight the important role of the mythomoteur in the construction and maintenance of group identity. Theorists of nationalism and ethnicity have stressed the importance of the mythomoteur as a constitutive element of pre- and proto-national groups, and foundational works in the study of diaspora have similarly focused on the role of myth in maintaining links between the the ancestral center and the dispersed periphery. Even theorists who eschew the geographic “rootedness” of diaspora identity in favor of more dynamic hybrid constructions still recognize the value of the shared stories that support and reinforce the boundaries of the group. As narrativized ideology, myths evince the values of the group who shares them and support its institutions (social, religious, political, etc.). As a sub-genre of myth, the mythomoteur reinforces group boundaries by “stressing individuals’ solidarity against an alien force” (Armstrong, 1982), narratively establishing the community’s “us” by outlining that salient values that define it over against a perceived “them,” while rooting those values in a purportedly shared past. The historical reality of that past—whether set in the mythic past or just a few years prior—and the actual or perceivable difference with the “other” are far less important than the ability of their narrativization to evoke and establish bonds between would-be co-ethnics, co-religionists, or co-nationals.


Nebuchadnezzar's Rage and Achilles' Wrath: Decentering the "Other" in Hellenistic Education
Program Unit: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Joe Morgan Currie, Harvard University

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.


A Loose Bow Is a Deceptive Bow: Metaphor and Translations of rĕmiyyāh
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Elizabeth Currier, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The case of rĕmiyyāh is an interesting one. I do two things with it in this paper. I first trace its use in the Hebrew Bible, suggesting a trajectory of semantic change that relies on metaphor. Second, I show how English translations vary in whether they attune to the source or target frames of this metaphor when they represent rĕmiyyāh in translation. The word rĕmiyyāh occurs fifteen times in the Hebrew Bible. HALOT offers two sets of glosses for it: “slack/loose” and “treacherous/deceptive” (II:1243-1244). In two of its occurrences, it describes a “loose bow” (qešet rĕmiyyāh in Hos 7:16; Ps 78:57). Twice it describes a “loose tongue” (lĕšōn rĕmiyyāh in Mic 6:12; Ps 120:2, 3). And ten times it is not used as an attributive adjective. In five of these instances, it represents something like the meaning of “deceitful” (Ps 32:2; 52:2; 101:7; Job 13:7; 27:4), and in the other five, it means something like “slacker” or “lazy person” (Jer 48:10; Pr 10:4; 12:24, 27; 19:15). This data is suggestive that the use of rĕmiyyāh evolved from concrete to more abstract uses by virtue of DECEPTION IS SLACKNESS metaphorical mappings. The occurrences of rĕmiyyāh as an attributive adjective are indicative of a trajectory of development: a loose bow is an unreliable bow, and therefore, a deceptive bow. The ability of the tongue to curve and arc like a bowstring may have influenced the initial mapping of looseness and unreliability onto deceptive tendencies in the three instances of lĕšōn rĕmiyyāh (“loose tongue”) in the Hebrew Bible. The slackness or looseness (and therefore unreliability) of the qešet rĕmiyyāh is implicitly mapped onto the deceptiveness of the lĕšōn rĕmiyyāh. The ten instances in which rĕmiyyāh occurs on its own divide equally: one set profiles source frames and the other target frames of the DECEPTION IS SLACKNESS metaphor. These are my judgments. However, English translations vary in how they represent rĕmiyyāh. After surveying the use of rĕmiyyāh in its Hebrew settings, I show how English versions decide between its source and target frame uses in translation.


Speech Performance in Proverbs: Imagining Speakers Imagining Readers and Readers Imagining Speakers
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Elizabeth Currier, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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.


'Anat and Judges 5 in Cognitive Linguistic Analysis: Deborah and Jael as a “Complex Heroic Blend” of the Ugaritic Warrior Goddess 'Anat
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Jenelle R. D'Alessandro, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)

This paper will address a number of hazy boundary lines between the warrior goddess motif in Ugaritic poetry and the heroines in the ancient Song of Deborah. The "line" itself is an extended metaphor for ANE inquiry--both poetic inquiry and cultural--and this paper will explore the cognitive and interpretive result when blurred lines are "blended." Specifically, the cognitive-linguistic theory of Conceptual Blending will be applied to both 'Anat and Deborah/Jael, to consider viewing the triad as a conceptual whole in the memory of the Song of Deborah's original author(s) and redactors. The central hypothesis of this inquiry is that the nearness of the Ugaritic Ba'al Cycle both geographically and its nearness in time to the (likely) dating of the Song of Deborah welcomes a space where cultural myth could be blended. Specifically, this paper will argue that the strength of the mythology of 'Anat, the wild and violent Ugaritic warrior and hunter goddess, had a measure of cultural impact on the psyche of some Israelite tribes--enough to help inform the development of the mythic text of the Song of Deborah in Judges 5.


Memory in the Desert: Anamnesis as Active Presence
Program Unit: Lived Religiousness in Antiquity
Graden Wayne Dahlberg, Oblate School of Theology

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.


Shanati: A Project to Reconstruct the First Millennium BCE Ancient Babylonian Chronology to the Day
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
David Danzig, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

The Babylonian Calendar was the main calendar of the Ancient World in the 1st millennium BCE. Initially spread by the wide conquests of the Assyrians, it was subsequently employed by the Babylonian, Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian Empires for their imperial timekeeping. The ancient Judeans adopted the use of the Babylonian Calendar in the Neo-Babylonian or Achaemenid Periods. As Judaism developed, the Babylonian Calendar became incorporated therein as the Jewish religious calendar, in which place it still serves to this day. Due to its luni-solar nature, the Babylonian Calendar requires constant management to maintain the alignment of the months with their customary seasons and to determine the beginning of each new month. Although the calendar Jews use today has long been fixed, in that all of the calendrical decisions are pre-determined, the ancient Babylonian calendar was continually regulated. This makes reconstructing the sequence of the actual lengths of months and years difficult. Although commendable for its ingenuity in its day, the reconstruction of the Babylonian chronology by Parker & Dubberstein (1942, 1956, 1971) is lacking in several regards. They provide cuneiform textual evidence for most intercalary months, but little for month length, a crucial part of a complete daily reconstruction. Instead they rely on an astronomical model of first lunar visibility. First implemented by Schoch (1928), their model has more recent competitors, and is unverified against ancient evidence. In addition, significant work on chronological cruxes at regnal transitions has been accomplished in the last 50 years. Finally, Parker & Dubberstein did little to investigate the ancient methods of making calendrical decisions. Shanati is working to overhaul the daily ancient Babylonian chronology by addressing all of these issues. The basis of Shanati will be the collection and integration of all available textual evidence (mainly in cuneiform economic and scholarly texts), from among the 80,000+ potentially relevant texts. During interludes in which there is less textual evidence, a newly calibrated astronomical model for first lunar visibility will be relied upon. Therefore, Shanati’s chronology will give the best possible daily timeline and conversion to proleptic Julian dates. In addition to a traditional print publication format, Shanati’s results will also be made freely public through its website, shanati.org. Digital tools will be developed to allow access to Shanati’s data and online integrations with other websites, for both scholarly and lay audiences. Further, Shanati will continue to accept donations of textual data after the project is completed, and will contain automation for updating Shanati’s database and outputs with any new data. This will enable Shanati’s chronology to continue to be refined well into the future, with the long-term goal of reaching maximal coverage of all ancient calendrical decisions. Alexander Jones, Director of New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, is Shanati’s Principal Investigator, and David Danzig, doctoral candidate at ISAW, is the project’s Creator and Lead Researcher. We wish to express our gratitude to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its award of a Digital Humanities Advancement Grant to fund Shanati.


Evagrius of Pontus' Greek Letters, in Syriac
Program Unit: Syriac Studies
Robin Darling Young, Catholic University of America

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.


Theological Alterations in the Text of Samuel and the Making of a Critical Edition
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Guy Darshan, Tel Aviv University

While according to its classical definition, textual criticism is “the science of discovering error in texts and the art of removing it” (Housman), variations in biblical texts did not come about only due to error. Consciously or unconsciously, in the process of transmitting biblical texts, scribes also rewrote, revised and changed the text from which they copied, for a variety of theological, ideological, and literary reasons. The HBCE edition may follow the classical definition of textual criticism in aiming to approximate the latest common ancestor of all the extant manuscripts – that is, the “earliest inferable text.” However, this edition may also serve as a better tool (in comparison with earlier diplomatic editions) for studying the different phases of textual transmission. By incorporating an eclectic text, extensive text-critical commentary, and in some cases a two-column format, this project makes possible a better representation of the textual evidence, in order to extract from it all possible data concerning the history of the texts and the worldviews of their scribes. In this paper, I will discuss these issues by analyzing several neglected theological alterations in the text of Samuel. After formulating guidelines concerning their representation in a text-critical edition, I will discuss the importance of these theological alterations for the understanding of the development of ancient Israelite religion.


Reading the Apocalypse with Christopher Nolan
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Jamie Davies, Trinity College, Bristol

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.


Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman and Ancient Jewish Worlds
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
James R. Davila, University of St. Andrews

This paper will review Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World, by Radcliffe G. Edmonds. I will read the book alongside the evidence for ancient Jewish magic, with a focus on the Talmudic-era Hebrew tractate Sefer HaRazim, the Book of the Mysteries. Like Greco-Roman magic, ancient Jewish magic made use of cursing and binding spells, erotic spells, healing and protective spells, divination, and astrology. But Jewish magic developed these practices under the creative influence of biblical tradition. Both Greco-Roman and Jewish magic present us with a complicated relationship between prayer and magic. The relationship of Jewish magic to alchemy and theurgy is more complicated still and requires discussion.


The Synoptic Hub: A Database for Synoptic Research
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Phillip A. Davis, Jr., University of Bonn

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.


Expressing Doubt to Instill Confidence and Joy: Paul’s Rhetorical Strategy in Phil 1:19–26
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Kathy Barrett Dawson, East Carolina University

Many scholars have argued that Paul in Phil 1:19-26 is either contemplating suicide, comparing his suffering to the righteous suffering of Job, hoping that the prayers of the Philippians will result in his deliverance from imprisonment and impending execution, presenting his eschatology via an existential soliloquy, expressing an honorable wish for death, or planning his escape from prison. Bloomquist, Witherington, Croy, Jaquette, and Vollenweider, among others, have interpreted Paul’s statements as a rhetorical argument intended to encourage the Philippian Christians to live their lives in a manner that would continue to aid the spread of gospel. Even though Paul refers to some who oppose the Philippians (1:28), the rhetorical argument is not usually interpreted as deliberative rhetoric intended to persuade the Philippians to remain strong in the face of opposition. Therefore, the letter is not usually understood as a plea for the Philippians to imitate Paul because they are being persecuted. In fact, Morna Hooker, while acknowledging the reference to pagan opposition in 1:28, downplays the importance of the reference by frequently referring to “phantom opponents” in her discussions of letter. I propose that Paul’s discussion of “choosing life or death” is an example of dubitatio, a rhetorical device that expresses doubt on the part of the speaker or writer in order to make an emotional appeal to the audience to behave in a particular way. By expressing doubt, Paul hopes to instill confidence in the audience so that they will stay strong in the face of opposition. When read in light of the rest of the letter, Phil 1:19-26 should be understood as Paul’s rhetorical deliberation employed in order to strengthen the Philippian Christians as they face persecution from social and political sources within their own community as well as the possibility of future opposition from Jewish sources. Obviously, my reading depends on viewing Philippians as a unified and coherent correspondence. I will argue that failing to translate Τὸ λοιπόν in 3:1 adverbially has unnecessarily contributed to the false impression that canonical Philippians is composed of two or three separate letters. When read as a unified correspondence, the numerous references to opposition and suffering throughout the letter, the discussion of Epaphroditus’ near death for the “work of Christ” (Phil 2:25-30), Paul’s reference to his own previous persecution of the Christians, and his references to resurrection and citizenship in Heaven all constitute an emotional appeal, utilizing rhetorical pathos, to encourage the Philippians to rejoice in the midst of opposition.


Was the Biblical Flood Story Dependent on the Gilgamesh Epic or the Atrahasis Epic?
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
John Day, University of Oxford

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.


Material Reconstruction, New Readings, and Discussion of 4Q415 (4QInstructiona)
Program Unit: Qumran
Hila Dayfani, Tel-Aviv University

4Q415 is one of the copies of Instruction from Qumran. This fragmentary scroll comprises 38 fragments (32 are designated in DJD 34, while 6 more fragments carry only an IAA record number), and is characterized by vast deterioration of the fragments. Surprisingly, although Instruction received much scholarly attention, there was no significant progress in the material reconstruction of 4Q415 in the last decades. This paper proposes a new material reconstruction of 4Q415. This reconstruction comprises approximately a quarter of the preserved fragments of the scroll: the largest fragments, and several other fragments (frags. 1,2,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,13,21). The reconstruction is based on the method developed by Hartmut Stegemann and which has been elaborated by later studies, and is done by using digital methods (GIMP, Adobe InDesign). The paper will detail the assumptions on which the reconstruction is based, its principles and the calculation of margin of error. It will be accompanied with demonstration of the digital methods. Moreover, the paper will present new readings of the fragments under discussion, and new readings resulting from new joins in the material reconstruction.


The Transmission of the Samaritan Pentateuch Group: A New Perspective
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Hila Dayfani, Tel-Aviv University

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 Resilience of the Captive Girl Child in 2 Kings 5
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Paba Nidhani De Andrado, Curry College

2 Kings 5 contains a brief reference to an unnamed Israelite girl, a war captive in the household of leprosy-afflicted Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army. She instigates her master’s healing by recommending that he seek out the prophet (Elisha): “If only my master would approach the prophet of Samaria. He would cure him of his skin-disease” (2 Kings 5:3). Although the girl utters only a single statement, her words have been subject to divergent critical interpretations.Some scholars valorize her utterance as evidence of her faith, compassion and courage. A contrasting view maintains that as a trauma victim whose sufferings have been glossed over, the girl’s words express her adaptation to an abusive environment and reveal the coercive control of her oppressors whom she aims to please. This paper posits an alternative interpretation, by drawing upon research on the concept of resilience with regard to war-affected children. While acknowledging the girl’s trauma, this paper argues that her words reflect a resilience-building process to secure a better future for herself. The Israelite child implicitly challenges Naaman’s assumptions of superiority by affirming her identity, her values and religious belief. Her utterance leads to a significant result for the warrior who is not only physically healed but spiritually changed. The eventual fate of the girl remains unknown. However, the transformation of Naaman indicates a successful outcome to the girl’s resilient trajectory, leaving open the prospect of an improved life for her within a household which has re-centered its priorities and values.


Copenhagen Alliance: Scholars, Geeks, and Communication
Program Unit: Nida Institute
Reinier de Blois, Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship

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.


A Day in the Life of a Lexicographer: Semantic Analysis from a Cognitive Linguistic Perspective
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Reinier de Blois, American Bible Society

This paper, which is part of a session on practical lexicography, shows the different steps in the process of semantic analysis, followed by the contributors to the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew project. This ongoing project, which is about 75% done, aims at the creation of a dictionary of Biblical Hebrew that is based on principles derived from Cognitive Semantics. The aim of this dictionary is to use internal linguistic data to reconstruct the cognitive framework in the mind of the original speakers of the language and present each entry as an integrated part of this framework. This is quite a challenge in the case of an ancient language with a limited data corpus, but the data provide a number of handles that make this possible to a certain extent. This presentation will start with a brief overview of the theoretical underpinnings of the project, followed by a more detailed demonstration of each step in the process of semantic analysis and end with a detailed presentation of the resulting entries.


Rereading Proverbial Ethics: Narrative as a New Hermeneutical Model
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Hans Decker, University of Oxford

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.


“Evil Trogionos” (y. Sukkah 5:1/55b) and the Roman Economy of Emotions
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Erez DeGolan, Columbia University in the City of New York

My paper is about a rabbinic narrative that thematizes a clash between Jewish and Roman emotions, joy and grief in particular (y. Sukkah 5:1/55b). The story depicts an encounter between “Evil Trogionos,” presumably Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 CE), and Jews in Alexandria, an encounter that ends violently, with the blood of Jewish men and women flowing “through the sea all the way to Cyprus” (והלך הדם בים עד קיפריס). The pretense for this gruesome attack, according to the Yerushalmi, is a conflict between the collective emotions of the Jews and the emotions expected by the imperial family: “A son was born to him [to Trajan] on the ninth day of ʾAb, and they [the Jews] were afflicting themselves [by fasting]. His daughter died at Hanukkah, and they lit up candles. Then his wife sent word to him saying, ‘before you go to subdue the barbarians, come and subdue the Jews who have revolted against you.’” Previous scholarship tended to highlight the historical invalidity of this element of the narrative. Specifically, the joy/grief mismatch was described as “picturesque” (E. Smallwood 1976), “legendary” (Pucci 1981), “evidently… not a historical description” (Hacham 2002), and “imaginary” (Hadas-Lebel 2005). The quick dismissal of the Yerushalmi’s presentation of emotions as catalysts of political upheaval is predicated, however, on a conception of emotions in psychological terms, as a subjective and private phenomenon, and therefore, as ectopic to questions of politics and power. Rereading the Yerushalmi Sukkah narrative, I argue, in contrast, that by turning to an alternative theoretical framework—affect theory—emotions become a productive focusing lens for studying aspects of the social history of the rabbis of Palestine. In particular, by placing the Yerushalmi narrative in dialogue with other relevant texts (e.g., Philo’s In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium), I claim that the Trogionos story provides a perspective into the rabbis' engagement with what I call the imperial economy of emotions, a social institution entailing collective performance of loyalty to the empire, in which the binary opposition grief/joy was a potent mediator of power relations. I will conclude my paper by suggesting that the “lived experience” (Lapin 2012, 88) of the rabbis, which is crucial to our understanding of processes of rabbinic Romanization, cannot be properly investigated without situating the rabbis within the context of the imperial economy of emotions.


One Thing Leads to Another: A Progression of Three Types of Digital Humanities Projects in Ethiopian Studies
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Steve Delamarter, George Fox University

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.


Tools for Masoretic Study of the Sub Loco Notes in BHS
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
David DeLauro, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Gérard Weil had planned to publish a supplementary volume to the BHS in which he describes and ostensibly resolves problematic masorah parve notes he had marked as _sub loco_. This volume was never published and his research on these notes has been lost. In response, various scholars have taken up the task of completing this work describing the nature of these notes. For this presentation, I examine the previous work--covering the Torah and Former Prophets--as well as present my own research into the _sub loco_ notes found within the Latter Prophets and the Writings. The presentation is didactic in nature and will present the methods and the various sources used to resolve these masoretic notes. Delving into original manuscripts like the Aleppo Codex, the Cairo Codex, and the Leningrad Codex; I show how to weave together these older original sources with more contemporary--and sometimes digital--research. Despite the seemingly very specific topic of research, the presentation offers generalized methods that offer a practical foundation for anyone interested in learning how to teach not only _sub loco_ notes but masoretic notes in general or incorporate supplemental methods to examining biblical texts.


Time and Gender in Early Christianity: The Acts of Thomas as a Case Study
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Maria Dell'Isola, University of Southern Denmark

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.


Prophecy Old and New in Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem: Isaiah’s Christ, the Authority of the Paraclete, and Marcion’s New Testament
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
J. Columcille Dever, University of Notre Dame

At the beginning of Adversus Marcionem (=Marc., ca. 207-8), Tertullian offers an account of the genesis of Marcion’s theological dualism (see Marc. 1.2). Marcion, he writes, understood Christ’s words in the Gospel of Luke (see Lk. 6:43-45) regarding the fruit produced by the good tree and the bad to refer to the works of two gods. Tertullian claims that Marcion ultimately arrived at this reading after encountering in Isaiah the LORD’s declaration: “I create evil” (Is. 45:7). Thus, Tertullian initially figures the dispute between Marcion and himself as a matter of understanding Scriptural prophecy. He argues that God’s self-revelation in Isaiah is in fundamental continuity with God’s self-revelation in Jesus, whom Tertullian identifies as “Isaiah’s Christ” (see Marc. 3.12.1; 3.14.7). Thus, I will first offer an account of Tertullian’s appeal to Isaiah across Marc., paying particular attention to the rhetorical and theological context of the allusion in Marc. and in the canonical form of Isaiah. Although the majority of quotations and literary allusions to Isaiah appear in Marc. 3-4, on Christ and on Marcion’s Gospel, respectively, several references earlier in the work reveal Tertullian to be a subtle interpreter of the Prophet. For example, in the Marc. 1, Tertullian appeals to Isaiah 40:25 (“To whom will you liken me?”). In the context of Marc. 1, he argues that human and divine things cannot be compared; that God’s supremacy is absolute (Marc. 1.4.2-3). Attending to rest of Is. 40, however, reveals Tertullian’s insight into this passage to be based upon Isaiah’s own account of how God’s creative activity discloses his incomparability. Thus, the allusion to Isaiah responds to Marcion’s theological dualism on two fronts: first, regarding the issue of comparison, that prophetic accounts of God that trade on metaphors from human agency do not apply to God univocally, and second, that there is an ultimately theological ground for refusing straightforward comparison, namely, God’s role as Creator. I then address Tertullian’s allusions to the New Prophecy in Marc. By in large, these passages refer to disciplinary matters, such as Christian marriage (see Marc. 1.29.4), and speculative matters, such as eschatology (see Marc. 3.24.4). Occasionally, however, they describe the phenomenon of prophecy in the Christian communion as a particular grace of the Paraclete (see Marc. 1.29.5; cf. 4.23.4). Here, Tertullian advances arguments against Marcion’s theological dualism as disruptive of a fundamental continuity of God’s self-revelation across the two-testament Bible and in Christian common life, which everywhere affirms the identity of the Creator and the Father of Jesus. After contextualizing these references to the New Prophecy and describing the relationship between the “authority of the Paraclete” and the traditional rule of faith, I will conclude with an account of Tertullian’s engagement with prophecy in general, demonstrating that his approach to the self-revelation of God through the Prophet Isaiah is in fundamental continuity with his understanding of prophetic witness in the life of the Church, namely as a means of assuring believers of God’s on-going involvement in the created world.


Rahbaniyya and the Roots of Qur'anic Prophetology
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Eric DeVilliers, University of Notre Dame

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.


Digital Paleography of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition Techniques in Analyzing the Data
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Maruf A. Dhali, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

To understand the historical context of an ancient manuscript, scholars rely on the prior knowledge of the writer and date of that manuscript. In this paper, we present our work on writer identification and dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient manuscripts with immense historical, religious, and linguistic significance, which was discovered in the mid-20th century near the Dead Sea. Most of the manuscripts of this collection have become digitally available only recently and techniques from the pattern recognition field can be applied to revise existing hypotheses on the writers and dates of these scrolls. This paper exhibits results from our ongoing work which aims to introduce digital paleography to the field and generate fresh empirical data by means of state-of-the-art pattern recognition techniques and artificial intelligence. Challenges in analyzing the images of the Dead Sea Scrolls are highlighted through the development of a semantic segmentation process to differentiate ink pixels from background pixels. We present a new binarization technique to extract characters from the DSS images using artificial neural networks. We also present a pilot experiment identifying the writers using several dedicated features. Additionally, a self-organizing time map from the character-shapes is presented as a codebook. Support vector regression is used to estimate a date based on the feature vector of a manuscript. The date estimation from grapheme-based techniques outperforms other feature extraction techniques in identifying the chronological style development of the handwriting. Finally, we discuss the results and present our future plan with the potential of integrating pattern recognition techniques in analyzing the Dead Sea Scrolls.


The Intersection of the Story of Ruth with Local Drama (Including Elements of Xhosa/Cape Colored Culture), as a Means to Promote Healing from “Township Trauma”
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
June Dickie, University of KwaZulu-Natal

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.


Water Rites as Structuring Elements in Ancient Meals: An Examintaion of the Footwashing in John 12 and 13
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Henrike Dilling, University of Rostock

Based on the exegetical observations in John 12 and 13, this contribution will examine the function of water rites in ancient meals. John describes acts of footwashing during a meal, which is regarded as inappropriate act in both scenes. Usually footwashing was placed in the beginning of the meal. This assumption is common sense. (DeMaris, Neyrey, Mathew) To analyze this exegetical problem, the contribution will take a close look at the synergy between ancient meals and water rites. (Al-Suadi, Smith) For this purpose, the time of the ablutions will first be examined on the basis of Klinghardt and Taussig. The course of an ancient meal will also be examined. Being based on Heilmann, Ascough and Becker the contribution will examine the actions with which the deipnon begins and ends and how exactly the transition from deipnon to symposion is structured. Although the beginning and transition are described in so many different ways, it becomes clear that ablutions were an essential element in ancient meals. To analyze the function of the water rites, the effects of the ablutions on the individual and the meal group will be examined on the basis of Mary Douglas theories on the body, purity and dirt. In addition to the current discourses of meal research, Plutarch's descriptions of the meal and Athenaios deipnosophistae will be particularly used. Descriptions of ablutions of these ancient authors will be an important reference point to demonstrate the relevance and variety of water rites performed within a meal. In the end, the results of the synergy of meals and water rites will be related to John 12 and 13. Finally, the contribution consists of two aims. On the one hand, the water rites within the meal are to be ascribed greater importance than has been the case in currently meal research. On the other hand, a new view of John 12 and 13 is to be created by these observations.


Paul and Epistolary Ethics
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Laura Dingeldein, University of Illinois at Chicago

Paul and Epistolary Ethics


The Five Heartbeats: A Visual Reading of Psalm 137
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Samaria Divine, University of Georgia

The Five Heartbeats is a popular movie within the African American community that portrays the events of a fictional music group in the 1960’s. At an important juncture of the group’s career, an interaction with law enforcement brilliantly juxtaposes the elation of gaining widespread success with the reality of being black in America during this tumultuous decade. During this scene, the police officer mockingly requests a song from the music group while his colleagues stand by chuckling. In this paper, I will discuss how Psalm 137 and this scene from The Five Heartbeats are similarly situated and suggest that the two should be in dialogue because each one offers what the other lacks. While the movie scene visually depicts the emotional aspects of Psalm 137—the humiliation, fear, and disappointment—more accurately than a simple reading of the text could, the scene leaves much unsaid. Psalm 137 supplies the imprecatory verbiage that might have been expressed, and rightfully belongs, within this type of interaction. I will also address the notion of the oppressed fulfilling the role of entertainer to the tormentor during their time of oppression. Since this is an issue that is not only prevalent in the text of Psalm 137 and The Five Heartbeats but also in contemporary times, the interaction between the text and film exposes current social dynamics and inspires social change.


The Witness of the Stone That Heard: An Ecological Reading of Joshua 24
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Sébastien Doane, Université Laval

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.


Representation and Ritual on the Roman Frontier: Votives to the Matronae Aufaniae
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Zachary Domach, Columbia University in the City of New York

More than 1000 epigraphic and iconographical devices honoring a triad of Celtic mother goddesses known as the matronae have survived to the present day. Invoked under a variety of names, the matronae were venerated from the first to fifth centuries of the Common Era. Stone dedications have been found in northern Italy, northern Spain, Germania, Gaul, Britannia, and Africa. Despite the cult’s widespread presence, it receives no mention in the surviving literary record. The wealth of material evidence, however, allows us to identify some of the cultic practices related to the veneration of the matronae. In this paper I employ the community of practice model to analyze the ways of doing things intrinsic to the matronae cult. Focusing on one particular variation of the goddesses endemic to the Rhineland—the Matronae Aufaniae—I argue that the cult followed traditional Roman customs while framing those customs after local culture and language. The basic outline of matronae artwork is held in common across various votive stones. There always three seated goddesses clothed as Ubian women holding a variety of gifts. Carved scenes testify that ritual, the primary feature of Roman religion, was integral to the cult of the matronae. Donors gave the votive altars in the context of the Roman-style ceremony of the votum. Matronae votive altars show several parts of this ritual: the deities, and inscription of the fulfillment of the vow, the ritual concluding the vow, and the temple in which the deities are housed. An altar to the Matronae Aufaniae given by Caius Candidinius Verus (c.220-230) exemplifies how a private, provincial votary complied with Roman public cult. Its top register has the matronae flanked by two Victories stepping lightly on globes. The ruins of the aediculum’s walls show decorative vines and fruits. In the bottom register the donor stands to the right of the small altar and is depicted velato capite and clothed in a toga. Three ritual specialists stand to the left. The leftmost figure holds a jug for libations and a long-handled patera, a specialized Roman bowl for pouring libations. The central figure plays the tibia. The figure at the altar holds an opened box of incense. One side panel depicts a pig being brought for slaughter, suggesting the central panel is the ritual’s praefatio—the preliminary offerings of wine and incense. The other side panel shows the cooking pot being prepared for the pig. In short, the ceremonies to the matronae followed ritual practice common throughout the Roman world, complete with libations, music, incense, and animal sacrifice. Indeed, the very practice of dedicating a stone is Roman and accordingly the inscriptions also conform to Roman epigraphical custom. And yet, the matronae themselves are realized as Ubian women with Germanic or Celtic epithets that evoke local tribes and landscapes. In this way the matronae embodied the continually negotiated identity of provincial people under the Roman Empire just as the cult itself wrapped Roman ritual within Germanic garments.


The Origin of the Hebrew Nitpaal: A Sociolinguistic Proposal
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Brian Donnelly-Lewis, University of California-Los Angeles

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.


Could Paul Refer to Himself in the Plural?
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
J. Andrew Doole, University of Innsbruck

It is often claimed that Paul wrote in the first person plural about himself. The terminology used for this varies greatly, but the idea persists. Exegetes usually concentrate on whether a certain formulation makes sense when applied to Paul alone. Ancient examples of the plural of self-reference are then given – if at all – in parentheses or in footnotes. Yet surely a first step would be not to ask whether Paul did refer to himself in the plural but whether he could do so. In other words, was this an accepted form of self-reference in antiquity and if so, how and when did it work? Examples from Homer, Euripides, Epicurus, Plutarch, Josephus, royal inscriptions and documentary papyri all suggest that the plural of self-reference was possible only rarely and in certain circumstances. It is therefore highly unlikely that Paul could refer to himself in the plural.


Re-imagining Genesis 3:16 in a Post-MeToo World
Program Unit: Genesis
Abi Doukhan, Queens College (CUNY)

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.


Iblīs on Trial: Guilty until Proven Innocent?
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Rachel Claire Dryden, Cambridge/Oxford

The figure of Iblis appears 11 times in the Qur’an, mainly in the context of the seven retellings of the angelic prostration to Adam (Q al-Baqarah 2:33–34; Q al-A‘raf 7:11–18; Q al-Hijr 15:28–35; Q al-Isra’ 17:61; Q al-Kahf 18:50; Q Sad 38:71–78, and Q Taha 20:116), and Iblis’ refusal to comply with the command (to the angels) to bow before the God’s khalifah on earth: Adam. For his arrogance and pride, Iblis is cast out of heaven, after which he resurfaces as al-Shaytan. The core of this story appears extensively in pre-/extra-qur’anic texts, most notably in the Syriac Cave of Treasures, and in Armenian and Georgian literature on Adam. While the bestowal of a new name post-fall occurs in many of these traditions, the name Iblis is otherwise only attested in post-qur’anic Muslim exegesis and Christian works, namely the Kitab al-Majall, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Qalementos traditions. On the basis of the extant material, Iblis is thus a truly qur’anic character. And yet, he has been overshadowed by al-Shaytan, both in terms of the amount of material the Qur’an devotes to each figure, and the limited extent to which the former has been the focus of research. As the personification of evil, and the being usually responsible for Adam and his wife’s expulsion from the Garden, it is clear why, from the Qur’an’s point of view, al-Shaytan deserves to be vilified. Iblis is clearly guilty of disobeying a divine command, and yet, given the Qur’an’s emphasis on the oneness of God, his refusal to prostrate before Adam could be construed as a display of fidelity to the principle of tawhid. While the angelic prostration and Iblis’ subsequent expulsion in the Qur’an have been studied in relation to pre-/extra-qur’anic versions of this narrative, this paper will seek to situate these events within the broader context of the Qur’an’s pronouncements on tawhid, shirk, and the mushrikun. In doing so, it will aim to determine whether Iblis’ punishment and condemnation was justified or not, and consequently, whether he should be declared guilty or innocent.


More Thoughts on Tafsīr and Its Genre(s): Considerations from al-Ḥākim al-Jishumī’s Tahdhīb fī al-tafsīr
Program Unit: Qur’anic Exegesis: Unpublished and Recently Published tafsir Studies (IQSA)
Conor Dube, Harvard University

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


Paul, Moses, and the Glory of God in 2 Corinthians 3
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
Paul B. Duff, The George Washington University

This paper examines the allusions to Moses scattered throughout 2 Corinthians 3. Why did Paul appeal to the lawgiver in this particular argument? It is sometimes claimed that Paul employed the figure of Moses as part of a polemic against his rivals, the ὑπερλίαν ἀπὀστολοι, Jewish missionaries mentioned later in the canonical letter (2 Cor 11:5 and 12:11). I will argue instead that the allusions to Moses in 2 Corinthians 3 have nothing to do with interlopers but rather function as part of Paul’s apologia. His legitimacy as an apostle had been questioned by some in Corinth and, in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul employs the figure of Moses in an attempt to dispel suspicions about his qualification (ἱκανότης) for his role as envoy (διάκονος) of the deity.


Christian Messiah, Jewish Text? Translation, Transmission, and the Great-Horned “Word” of Enoch
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Elena Dugan, Princeton University

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?


Nothingness and Teleology in Isaiah 40–66
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
James Duguid, The Catholic University of America

“Nothingness” is a major theme of Isaiah 40-66. It is described using two Hebrew substantives meaning “nothing,” ᐣayin and ᐣepes, which are elaborated primarily through a number of metaphors equating them with wilderness, emptiness, falsehood, death, darkness, and dry vegetation. Teleology is a key aspect of this complex metaphorical construction of nothingness: a life characterized by “nothingness” does not profit (Isaiah 44:9), so “nothingness” serves as in important foil to life as it is meant to be. This equation of “nothingness” with “unprofitability” is especially reinforced through the plant, wind, and wilderness (tōhû) aspects of this metaphorical complex. In this paper, I will apply Cognitive Metaphor Theory to explore the structure, implications, and coherence of these metaphors, and discuss how this helps us understand the role God plays in human flourishing. The theme of “nothingness” functions in a complex way in this corpus: sometimes all humans are “like nothing” compared to God (Isaiah 40:17), sometimes nothingness characterizes idols and their worshippers in particular (Isaiah 41:11, 24), and sometimes nothingness even characterizes God’s faithful servant (Isaiah 49:4). Consistently though, it is only through God that humans can be rescued from nothingness to a life of flourishing.


Pitchy-Patchy and John Bull: Patchwork Aesthetics, Performance, and Texts in the Anglophone Caribbean
Program Unit: Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures
Carol Duncan, Wilfrid Laurier University

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.


Meanings of Dīn inside the Qur’ān
Program Unit: Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus (IQSA)
Ivan Dyulgerov, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia

This study deals with the content of the Arabic text of the Qur’ān. The opinion (even recognized as a presupposition) that the Qur’ān shows certain internal coherence based on its semantic organization and therefore lends itself to both semantic reconstruction and analysis, is not taken for granted. It rests on three conspicuous Qur’anic features: 1. Numerous Qur’anic passages apparently correspond to each other; 2. The Qur’ān frequently validates itself by recalling biblical and/or Bible – related monotheistic and Semitic narratives; 3. The majority of its vocabulary, not necessarily the most significant part of it, is genuinely derivable from pre-Qur’anic literary texts in Arabic. In contemporary scholarship, there are two well-known views on the semantic of the word dīn within the Qur’ān. According to the first and perhaps the most spread of them, the Qur’anic dīn signifies either “judgment” or “religion”, while the latter one seems to be of a Persian borrowing, which means that there could be no relation between these two meanings. The second view suggests, however, that the Qur’anic understanding of “religion” is to be interpreted within the Arabic linguistic confines. As an attempt at offering a contribution to this very field, the present study will especially rely on inquires that tried to contemplate this issue in regard to the relation between God and man (Gardet, Izutsu), or that found out – after scrutinizing the intratextual contexts in which dīn appears – that the essence of its meaning seems to have “remained constant” (Yvonne Haddad). By using and analyzing mostly intra-Qur’anic evidences, I will argue that dīn occurs in three major interrelated meanings every one of which includes the semantic element of “judgment”. The first of these meanings is clearly discernible in the context of the afterworld where every human being will be inevitably subjected to God’s judgment. So, dīn stands, first of all, for the judgment itself. Though, in the context of this world, it serves as an expression of the deeds that determine the individual judgment of everyone hereafter, who had been having the will and freedom to take his own decisions during life. It implies thus a personal record of deeds. Whereas the third meaning pertains to the divine law according to which God’s judgment takes place. This meaning is most plainly observable in the context of the universe (Q 3: 83; 16: 52). Although the application of this semantic interpretation of the term dīn demands serious efforts, especially concerning the distinction between the second and the third of the afore-mentioned meanings, it is worth pointing out that it finds support, sometimes even considerable one, within the diverse Islamic exegetical tradition. More importantly that it could contribute to the understanding of the Qur’anic concept of religion, of jihad, and of interconfessional relations.


“Beat Your Head with Heartfelt Pounding before the Cross”: Prayer and Cross Veneration in Late Ancient Monasticism
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Daniel Eastman, Yale University

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.


What’s in a Name? Biblical Performance Criticism’s Questionable Genealogy
Program Unit: Performance Criticism of the Bible and Other Ancient Texts
Zechariah Eberhart, Loyola University of Chicago

For the past fifteen years, biblical performance criticism has attempted not only to establish itself as a legitimate method of interpretation, but also to distinguish itself as an academic discipline. Given its pioneers, biblical performance criticism has been framed as a natural progression from narrative and/or literary criticism; as a new way of wrestling with “how” a text means. While understanding performance as a natural progression (or regression) from narrative seems clear—and can be observed in other disciplines, such as Shakespearean studies-- the co-dependence implied by this genealogy has hindered performance criticisms’ ability to distinguish itself both in terms of theory and method. In his 2017 volume Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose, Alessandro Vatri helpfully delineates between two types or uses of texts in classical Athens: scripts and scriptures. A script is something composed for, and subsequently actualized in, oral performance; a scripture is a text, that despite its original or intended function, is actualized in individual readings. The distinction between scripts and scriptures then is not related to the “performability” of the written text (which, arguably, is a property inherent in all texts) but rather on the type of reception (or use) of which the text is the object. Vatri’s categories of script and scripture distinguish between two completely different types of uses, and as such, result in two completely different areas of study. While the text (materially) might be the same, the naming of it changes everything. In its early stages, performance criticism was dependent upon narrative criticism. When narrative criticism could not answer the question of “how”, performance was invited to help solve the riddle. Performance was the Robin to Narrative’s Batman. This symbiotic relationship, however, stunted the growth of performance. It was a misused tool, given responsibilities it was not equipped to handle, as it was trying to analyze scriptures. Rather than allowing performance to craft its own questions, to study its own object (scripts), it was often tied to its contribution over/against narrative criticism. While narrative criticism examines biblical texts as “scripture” (a text actualized in individual reading) and rightfully so, what makes performance criticism distinct is its consideration of them as “scripts” (a text actualized in oral performance). If biblical performance criticism is to distinguish itself as an independent discipline, it must better define its object of study. Both a greater theoretical consideration of performance as well as the construction of a methodological framework are necessary for this to take place. While a full development lies outside the purview of this paper (and perhaps a lifetime), my proposal is that Vatri’s categories might be a fruitful place to start. By appealing to the insights of Vatri’s work, as well as the conversations taking place in Classics and Shakespearean scholarship, this study argues that performance criticism must find new bedfellows, ones that share the same object of study. In doing so, these strange bedfellows may prove to be more familial than the genealogy which has been imposed onto biblical performance criticism.


The Functions of Psalms 8, 104, and 148 in Their Contexts: A Contribution on the Role of Creation-Theology in the Book of Psalms
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Joachim Eck, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

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.


Tradition and Innovation in Josephus’ Antiquities
Program Unit: Josephus
David R. Edwards, Florida State University

This study will indicate the ways in which Josephus has utilized the scriptural stories of Joseph and Esther as archetypes for creative adaptation in composing his account of Agrippa I in Book 18 of Antiquities. Through the innovative re-use of traditional tropes from these narratives he adeptly created a new and imaginative account. While some resonances with the Joseph and Esther stories have been noted in Daniel R. Schwartz’s monograph on the Judean king, these were considered only in passing, and only as factors bearing on the reliability of Josephus’ account for reconstructing the historical Agrippa I. This study, by contrast, approaches Josephus’ adaptation of the Joseph and Esther stories in his account of Agrippa I in terms of literary analysis. My conclusions indicate that Josephus is creative and artistic in composing the narrative of Agrippa I, with his re-use of tropes going beyond the mere copying of the Joseph and Esther stories. Through the exploitation of literary devices such as irony and subversion he exhibits the authorial qualities which have so frequently been denied to him and other ancient writers who extensively re-used pre-existing sources in a mode of composition not inappropriately described as compilation. Furthermore, in modeling the account of Agrippa I on the stories of Joseph and Esther he deftly draws together and reinforces themes woven throughout the Antiquities, such as the ebbing vicissitudes of fortune in accordance with divine pronoia in response to piety and impiety. Additionally, while it is not the focus of this study, the literary analysis presented herein will also, no doubt, be of interest to those scholars with historical interests in Agrippa I and appertaining events.


Writing a Textual Commentary on 2 Thessalonians
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Grant Edwards, Memphis, TN

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


“God Did Not Make Death”: A Patristic Reception of Wisdom 1:13 and 2:23
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Robert Edwards, University of Notre Dame

Although it is well known that certain verses of the Wisdom of Solomon are important in patristic literature—such as Wisdom 2:24 (“By the devil’s envy death entered into the world”)—the whole book has a large footprint in early Christianity. It was employed, for example, in service of trinitarian theology, natural theology, and a wide range of moral teachings. The verses which are the focus of this paper (Wisdom 1:13 and 2:23) are important texts for early Christian teaching on the nature of humanity. These verses, and those surrounding them, speak of humanity as inherent immortal, according to God’s created order: “God did not make death… for he created all things so that they might exist… and there is no destructive poison in them…. For righteousness is immortal” (1:13-15); “God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity” (2:23). Although the verse that follows, Wisdom 2:24, sometimes leads patristic authors to discuss the devil’s role in the death of human beings, more often the discussion revolves around what kind of thing the human being is, such that it could by providence be created immortal and yet give up its immortality. The relationship between moral responsibility (and free will) and mortality is especially important. Although “death entered the world through the devil’s envy,” we find early Christian writers reflecting on how humankind brought about its own mortality in consequence of God’s gift of free choice. These writers also take the opportunity to discuss the nature of death, and the various kinds of death that are spoken of in scripture: is one kind of death natural while another is from humanity’s rebellious choice? This paper charts these discussions, beginning with Origen in the third century, and includes the receptions of such figures as Methodius of Olympus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Ambrose of Milan. It examines how these figures reasoned, with Wisdom 1–2 and other scriptures, about divine and human responsibility over life and death. This discussion will also serve to demonstrate the sort of authority that the Wisdom of Solomon held in the Greek and Latin patristic traditions.


"And Rested the Seventh Day": Sabbath’s Rest in Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian Exegesis and Polemics
Program Unit: Syriac Studies
Shlomi Efrati, University of Haifa

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.


Pindar's Asklepios and the Limits of the Possible
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Hanne Eisenfeld, Boston College

Asklepios is the mythical subject of Pindar’s third Pythian ode, a victory song dedicated, exceptionally, to the theme of illness. The myth recounts Asklepios’ birth, his status as preeminent human doctor, and his downfall when he transgresses the limits of human medicine. In this paper I analyze two passages of the ode, first the description of Asklepios’ triumphant medical career (47-53) and, second, the gory description of his transgression and punishment (54-58). These two passages have often been taken together as a moralizing lesson about the limits of human achievement, embodied by Asklepios’ medical achievements and medical overreach as a human doctor. I argue that such readings overlook Asklepios’ complex and changing identity in the early fifth century and that, if we take account of this complexity, we can recognize Pythian 3 as a valuable source for thinking about the relationships between human medical practice and divine healing in the early fifth century. I first establish the layered Asklepian identities available to Pindar and his audiences at this period. By the end of the fifth century Asklepios would preside over the preeminent healing cult in the ancient word and the early stages of this process can be seen in the first building program at Epidauros which is broadly contemporary with Pythian 3. I demonstrate that Asklepios’ status as ascendant cultic healer coexists with his identity as failed human doctor and argue that, rather than suppressing or disregarding Asklepios’ status as superhuman healer, Pindar plays on the tensions between these identities and the types of healing associated with each. These tensions emerge when Pindar’s praise of Asklepios’ healing is read against the depiction of his punishment. The healing aristeia, I argue, simultaneously alludes both to work which could be undertaken by human doctors and to the miraculous cures sought at Asklepios’ sanctuaries, establishing a partial congruity between the help available from medical professionals and divine healers. Asklepios’ transgression and punishment, in contrast, challenge this congruity by depicting the extreme situation of the hopeless case: the human Asklepios is violently smote with a lightning bolt for attempting to achieve precisely the sort of impossible cure that was the cultic Asklepios’ stock in trade. By reading these two passages against each other, I demonstrate that Pindar leverages the tension between the limits of human medical skill and the miraculous interventions of divine healing into a broader poetic investigation of the limits of the possible and the boundaries of human aspiration. By reading Pindar’s Asklepian myth within the contexts of contemporary cultic practice, we can observe a negotiation of boundaries between human medical practice and divine healing and the ways in which these boundary negotiations are reflected and coopted by contemporary poetic discourses.


The Zaqqum Tree and Biblical Asherah Grove
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Emran El-Badawi, University of Houston

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.


Metatextual Rivalries: Scripture, Midrash, Kabbalah
Program Unit: Midrash
Gilad Elbom, Oregon State University

This paper examines self-referential hermeneutic platforms that construct two primary types of division between rival textual traditions: the first, shared by rabbinic literature and the Gospels, acknowledges the value of scripture while expressing a clear preference for midrashic expansions; the second, typical of the Lurianic corpus, treats the Mishnah, the Talmud, and other components of midrashic literature as insufficient units in a textual system of limited importance while championing the Kabbalah as a superior framework. In his introduction to the Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, Meir Ish-Shalom (1870: Chapter 6) calls attention to the purely oral origins of rabbinic interpretation and the strong resistance among the Pharisees to the very idea of written exegesis. The intensity of the Pharisaic objection to a written record of the oral tradition is especially evident when Rabbi Yohanan (b.Temurah 14b) is quoted as saying that any transcription of extra-Mosaic laws would be as abominable as burning the Torah (כותבי הלכות כשורף התורה). According to Ish-Shalom, the replacement of the term scribes (סופרים) — those who study from a book — with the term oral learners (in Hebrew: שונים; in Aramaic: תנאים) signifies the victory of the Pharisees over the Sadducees. The original meaning of the term Mishnah, therefore, is anything that has been designated in the beit midrash as a topic for oral study. Naturally, this distinction is also noticeable in the Gospels. As an itinerant rabbi with his own beit midrash — a traveling house of study — Jesus is often presented as a devout practitioner of oral hermeneutics: a classically trained tannaitic scholar who clashes with the textually oriented Sadducees and their professional scribes. Midrashic literature further explores the tension between scripture (מקרא) and the oral tradition (משנה), attacking the Sadducees for their unimaginative approach to the Hebrew Bible while promoting the Pharisaic idea of more expansive, more dynamic, more flexible hermeneutic practices. Kabbalistic literature argues for a radical revision of these rival traditions. The oral law, according to Tikkunei Zohar, is a dry, uninspired, limited textual framework that keeps readers in the dark, while the Kabbalah is the inner soul of the Torah: a higher, more perfect, truly divine source of understanding. Based on this dichotomy, Hayyim Vital (1542–1620), in his introduction to Tree of Life (עץ חיים), offers a controversial midrash on Genesis 3. The sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden, according to Vital, is twofold: he ate from the infamous tree of knowledge — the knowledge of good and bad — named so because it stands for the inconclusive debates regarding permissions and prohibitions typical of the Mishnah and the Talmud; and worse, he did not eat from the tree of life, which represents the Kabbalah. Appropriating, augmenting, and recontextualizing midrashic elements from both rabbinic literature and the New Testament, the kabbalistic worldview advocates a new hierarchy of texts that challenges previous meaning-making models and proposes new perspectives on different types of readers and the literary worlds in which they engage.


Bridging the Residential and Online (New Testament) Classroom
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Nicholas A. Elder, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

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.


Boundaries: Ethics in the Use of Ancient Coinage for Ancient and Biblical Studies
Program Unit: Numismatic Evidence and Biblical Interpretation
Nathan T. Elkins, Baylor University

Within the last fifteen years, ancient coins have become increasingly central to the debate regarding the trade in looted antiquities and the ethics of studying and publishing material without a collecting history or a documented archaeological context. In the United States, this development has been driven by organized lobbying efforts on behalf of dealers in ancient coinage and some high-profile seizures and arrests. While various ethical issues are frequently an immediate concern for archaeologists, it is important also that historians, philologists, and biblical scholars are sensitive to ethical issues as well in their deployment and publication of ancient coins, even as some make an argument that ancient coins are ‘exceptional objects’ that ought to be exempted from such concerns. I explore the scale of the trade in looted ancient coins, with some special attention to the Levant, various policies related to the publication of undocumented artifacts, and the unwitting role scholars often play in promoting a trade that erodes source material for the study of the ancient Mediterranean world.


Rhetorical Recycling of Metaphors in Job
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Bryan Elliff, University of California-Los Angeles

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.


A Wandering Aramean and the Wandering Maasai: An Intercultural and Ecotheological Analysis of Deut 26:1–15
Program Unit: Contextual Biblical Interpretation
Beth Elness-Hanson, Johannelund School of Theology

The Maasai people group of Tanzania and Kenya have a three-legged wooden stool that also is a symbol of their traditional worldview; blessings in life connect to harmonious relationships with 1) Engai, their monotheistic creator, with 2) other people, and with 3) the environment. Focusing on the latter, this study engages an intercultural analysis of Deut 26:1–15, a text focused on land. The Maasai comparisons with the ancient Israel are many beyond semi-nomadic pastoralism. However, with an emphasis on the life-sustaining land, this discussion contributes to a biblical theology of land that is in dialogue with a contemporary Maasai context. This analysis integrates an ecotheological approach in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, interviews with Christian Maasai theologians, and Sara de Wit’s eco-anthropological work among the Maasai, relating to adaptations because of climate change. This examination encourages a responsible stewardship of creation in the midst of environmental challenges.


Women’s Ways of Blessing YHWH: An Intercultural Analysis of Poetic Blessings in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Beth Elness-Hanson, Johannelund School of Theology

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.


Roasting Rome: Humor as Jewish Imperial Resistance in the Book of Revelation
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Sarah Emanuel, Loyola Marymount University

Empire-critical and postcolonial readings of Revelation are now commonplace, but scholars have yet to put these views in conversation with Jewishness, including Jewish cultural survival strategies. This paper argues that Revelation is a Jewish text that uses humor as a mode of opposition and repair in the face of empire. I will support this argument in three key moves. First, with a historical-critical lens, I will demonstrate how Revelation’s repeated appeal to Jewish ethnic practices in its focus on Jesus as the Christ bespeaks a Jewish Christ-following author addressing an implied audience of Jewish Christ-followers. Then, by implementing postcolonial and humor theories, I will show how John, the text’s implied author, implements elements of humor as a Jewish cultural survival strategy. By characterizing his enemy—the non-Jewish, non-Christ-following Rome responsible for the subalternity of his Jewish counterparts as a “Great Whore” who has had too much to drink—John lampoons or “roasts” the empire, leaving implied audiences to reign supreme. My third point, however, is that in satirizing Rome, so much so that we see the construction of new subaltern bodies through the text’s satiric reimagining, John mirrors the enemy, which counters his ostensible authorial intentions and carries the risk of turning the joke both on him and his apocalypse. This project expands the conversation on Revelation’s Jewishness by grounding it in critical theory and in Jewish cultural responses to imperial imposed persecution and Jewish Othering


Lessons on Practical Lexicography in the Baker Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Milton Eng, William Paterson University

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.


None Like Moses: Patterns of Patristic and Midrashic Exegesis in Exodus 2
Program Unit: Midrash
Michael Ennis, Harvard University

It is no surprise that the figure of Moses, rescuer of his people and lawgiver par excellence, looms large in those religious traditions centered on the Biblical text. For Jews and Christians alike, however, certain elements of Moses’ Biblical biography presented problems for the more developed pieties of later tradition. The early career of Moses was filled with events which seemed improper to the halakhically conscious rabbi and pious Christians. The solution, here as so often in the reception of the Hebrew Bible, was exegesis. My paper begins with a close reading of a number of aggadic midrashim relating to the early life of Moses in Exodus 2. I examine a collection of narrative expansions introduced by the rabbis, and illustrate (1) that they seem to be originating from a certain anxiety about aspects of Moses early life that might seem inappropriate for the great lawgiver; and (2) that their strategies for addressing these challenges in the Biblical story tend toward two broad categories of interpretation. The first of these, which I call the “exceptional” reading, construes Moses as a uniquely appointed or chosen figure, endowed with certain miraculous powers and accompanied with particular divine favor. In these reading, the humble origins or other infelicitous moments in the Moses story are deproblematized precisely because Moses is extra-ordinary, outside the bounds of convention. The second model of interpretation, which I call the “exemplary” reading, instead illustrates that despite appearances of inappropriate or even illegal behavior on Moses’ part in Exodus 2, properly understood he is an excellent – indeed, exemplary – model of the halakhically observant Jew. I conclude this part of the paper by noting that although these tendencies do mark distinct categories of reading, there are some underlying harmonies and, in fact, in many midrashim they operate in tandem. In the second part of the paper, I briefly introduce some parallels from Christian scriptural interpretation of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. I do not aim to show direct dependence between the two traditions – in fact, the operative methodology of each tradition’s reading of Moses is radically distinct. Instead, I show that although the primary means of interpreting the Moses story for these authors is allegory rather than narrative expansions, the content and character of their allegories can be shown to tend in the same two directions – the one holding up Moses as somehow an exceptional or special figure, the other positing him as an example for the life of Christian faith. The paper thus ends on this comparative note, in which I observe the ways that similar modes of reading and interpretation can be adapted by differing religious communities for radically different theological purposes.


Rage for Justice as Prayer
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Erbele-Kuester, Dorothea, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

“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.


Paul and the Critique of Writing in 2 Cor. 3–4
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Philip Erwin, Occidental College

This paper proposes an interpretation of 2 Cor 3-4 as a critique of writing that expresses the limits of Paul’s own letter(s). That is, the Paul imposes on the Mosaic law qua writing applies in equal, if not greater measure, to his own letters. Further, by reading 2 Cor. 3-4 in light of the cache of curse tablets found in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth, this paper provides a local social contextualization of Paul’s critique of writing, especially as it pertains to life and death—“the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” Setting this passage alongside the continuous, frequent Corinthian practice of etching curses for the demise of others underscores writing’s terminal effects. Accordingly, the critique of writing in 2 Cor. 3-4, it is argued, addresses social and philosophical concerns regarding the role of writing in interpersonal as well as human/divine relations rather than serving as a pretext or basis for the subordination of the Mosaic law. In this regard, “the letter kills” represents the insufficiency of writing, not the law per se, to sustain human life, social relations, and intercourse with God. The static, inert nature of writing, and its use as a substitute for its author and live discourse poses a problem both for Paul’s relationship(s) with his Corinthian addressees and for the reduction of divine commands to written words. This paper concludes that Paul attempts to resolve the problems posed by writing vis-a-vis human and divine relations through a critique of writing.


The Rhetoric of John 3: Antithetical Argumentation from Jesus and John
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Douglas Estes, South University, Columbia

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.


The Shifting Ḥanpe in Syriac Christian Thought
Program Unit: Syriac Studies
Laura Locke Estes, Saint Louis University

How did late ancient Christians understand and categorize non-Christian identities? More specifically, how did Syriac-speaking Christians use the term ḥanpe to designate identity, and did the parameters of this identity shift over time? Traditionally, scholars had assumed that within the late Roman Empire existed two discrete groups—Christians and pagans—each with their own distinctive practices, beliefs, and characteristics. More recently, however, scholars of Latin-speaking Christianity have complicated the claim that pagans and Christians existed as self-evident groups. Rather, scholars note that the term paganus—which in its pre-Christian context referred to a non-military civilian or someone who lived in the countryside—appeared quite suddenly in fourth-century Latin Christian literature as a blanket term for a non-Christian (eg: Jürgasch, Salzman). Earlier Latin writers had written of ethnici, gentes, or nations, terms that correspond to the biblical “gentiles,” a group defined in relationship to Jewish rather than Christian identity. Similarly, approximately the same date, Greek authors overwhelmingly began to prefer the term ἕλληες/Hellenes over other biblical terms like ἔθνοι to designate a distinct, non-Christian, “pagan” identity. Taken together, the Greek and Latin sources suggest that during the late fourth century, Christians living within the increasingly christianized Roman Empire invented a unified group of “pagans” against which Christian identity was defined. This invention peaked in response to the Emperor Julian’s rejection of Christianity and restoration of various temple cults, cults that were then identified as “pagan” by Christian authors. “Pagans,” it seems, were not self-evident, but a group constructed for discursive effect by polemical Christians. But, do Syriac sources demonstrate the same evolution in categories? The most thorough survey of the term ḥanpe (commonly translated “pagan”) is by de Blois, who attempted to account for the Qur’an’s positive use of the Arabic cognate ḥanif by postulating that Syriac Christians used the term ḥanpe as roughly equivalent to the neutral “gentile” rather than the negative “pagan.” De Blois’ analysis, however, is almost completely restricted to the Peshitta and other translations completed after the fourth century. This paper casts a wider net to survey the use of the term ḥanpe and its derivatives in late antique Syriac literature. It begins with some of the oldest extant Christian Syriac literature—Bardaisan, the Old Syriac Gospels, the Acts of Thomas, Aphrahat, and the Book of Steps—and notes the conspicuous absence or rarity of the term ḥanpe in these texts. Ephrem, a fourth century author living within the Roman Empire, seems the first to make abundant use of the term ḥanpe (especially in his hymns against the aforementioned Julian) to refer to a unified, non-Christian identity equivalent to the Latin paganus or Greek Hellene. Later authors adopt this use, regularly referring to and polemicizing against the ḥanpe as a distinct, non-Christian group. I therefore suggest that Syriac Christian authors, much like their western counterparts, began to develop the concept of a discrete “pagan” identity in the fourth century, a development reflected in the shifting use of the term ḥanpe late ancient Syriac texts.


Reading Paul through the Catholic Epistles: The Widespread Use of Augustine’s On Faith and Works by Early Modern Catholic Scholars
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Erik Estrada, Texas Christian University

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.


Redefining Racism as an Anti-Pneumatic Activity: Rereading the Spirit in the Gospel of John
Program Unit: Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation
Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Fuller Theological Seminary

On June 18, 2019, the U.S. Justice Department’s attorney Sarah Fabian argued before a Ninth Circuit panel that children of immigrants who were seeking asylum did not need to have toothbrushes and soap while in custody. The judges were shocked by this argument and could not believe the case being presented. Yet it was reported that many of these children had spent their time in custody in dirty diapers, drinking toilet water, and separated from their mothers. Women and children are forced to sleep on the floor in ice–cold immigration detention centers, which are, in Spanish, called “hieleras” (freezers). The conditions and treatment of Latinx immigrants have left U.N. officials deeply shocked, even considering it a violation of international law, calling it ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.’ But if cruelty seems to be the point, why so? Is it to deter others from migrating to the United States? As if this treatment of immigrants was not atrocious enough, on August 4, 2019, the Latinx community faced another attack. A white supremacist entered a shopping center in El Paso, Texas to kill Brown lives. Choosing Texas was not a coincidence. The white supremacist aimed to target the Latinx people because they are, as he describes in his online manifesto, an ‘invasion,’ ‘race mixing,’ and adding cultural diversity. The death of these Brown lives joins the continual and long American history of violence that the Black community has experienced at the hands of white supremacy. Dealing with racism and hatred of foreigners is not something that is solely restricted to the pre–civil war and Jim Crow era. Stereotypes, racial slurs, threats of deportation, and caricatures of the ‘other’ can be traced back to ancient Greek society. We must therefore ask, what does the Holy Spirit have to say about this racial hostility against Brown lives? Does the Spirit grieve, suffer, and provide us with some hope and direction to the problem of racism against the Latinx community? Although it is common to draw upon Lukan pneumatology for discussions on the Spirit, this presentation will press us to focus upon selected texts from the Gospel of John. In particular, we will focus on a rereading of John 3:1-10 and John 14:16-18 in light of the racial perceptions of the Latinx community which includes immigrants and Dreamers, also known as the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This critical rereading of the Johannine texts will dialogically explore the Latinx experience of racism in light of Greco-Roman ethnocentric perspectives and attitudes of foreigners. This presentation will contend racism and hostility against the foreigner are at its core anti-pneumatic.


Pistis in Philo, Paul, and Josephus
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Jennifer Eyl, Tufts University

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.


The Data of a Lexicon as a Doorway to Discovery: Unique Features of KPG and Their Application to Future Research
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Terry C. Falla, Pilgrim Theological College,University of Divinity

Among the unique features of KPG (Falla and Turner’s lexical work, A Key to the Peshitta Gospels) are the provision in each lexical entry of Syriac words similar in meaning to the headword and an exhaustive analysis of the Greek underlying the Syriac. The first of these features cites all Peshitta New Testament words similar in meaning to the entry’s Syriac headword. The second feature consists of an indented section designed to give the Greek term corresponding to every occurrence in the Peshitta Gospels of the Syriac term in question and to take into account the existence of variant Greek readings, with which the Peshitta is often in accord. A third unique feature of each entry is the provision of the part of speech, or parts of speech, of the lexical item. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is determined, not as in conventional lexicons, by the paradigmatic form of the Syriac headword, but by the actual syntactic function(s) of that word in the Peshitta text. This paper demonstrates how these three features, often in combination with each other, may be employed for Peshitta and wider biblical and linguistic research. The paper illustrates the kind of research these features facilitate. Discoveries they have already made possible and which they continue to confirm include (a) the Peshitta as the product of multiple translators, and not, as proposed by F.C. Burkitt more than a century ago, a translation of one person whom he identified as Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa; (b) the poetic dimension of the Peshitta New Testament designed as an oral performance for its Middle Eastern audience; (c) the recovery of previously unrecorded meanings and uses of Classical Syriac words; (d) syntactic insights and the manner in which, for instance, the Peshitta translators were as proficient in the finest nuances of Greek syntax as they were in their own language; (e) parts of speech, unacknowledged by other major Syriac lexicons, that identify basic semantic and syntactic functions; (f) syntactic patterns in the target text that match syntactic patterns in the source text and illuminate the relationship between the two.


Woman on the Edge: The Widow of Zarephath and Maternal Resistance at Dura Europos
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Sarah E.G. Fein, Brandeis University

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.


Transmitting Exodus and Deuteronomy in Tefillin and Mezuzot from Qumran
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Ariel Feldman, Brite Divinity School

This paper explores the ways in which Exodus and Deuteronomy are transmitted in tefillin and mezuzot from Qumran. It pays particular attention to 4Q150 (4QMez B), 8Q3 (8QPhyl), and 8Q4 (8QMez). The paper then attempts to place these tefillin and mezuzot within the broader corpus of the so-called “excerpted” scriptural texts from Qumran.


Putting the King and His Women Back into the Beginning of the Song of Songs: Rescuing the Royals from Enallage and Epithets
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Gavin Fernandes, University of Nottingham

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.


Critical Views of Wisdom in Samuel's Revolt Narratives
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
David Firth, Trinity College Bristol

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


Trapped: Beauty and Sexual Violence in Susanna and the Elders
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Katharine Fitzgerald, McMaster University

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).


Daniel: A Continuous Traumatic Stress Disorder Monograph
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
LeAnn Snow Flesher, Graduate Theological Union/ABSW

The biblical book of Daniel continues the story begun by Freud in Moses and Monotheism. If, according to Freud, the history of the Jews is only available to them through the recounting of the experience(s) of trauma, then the biblical book of Daniel certainly continues that tale. In fact, Daniel could be described as a diaspora history told through the lens of traumas suffered at the hands of sovereign Gentile Kings. For years scholars have puzzled over the structure of the book of Daniel. The unexpected shifts between Hebrew and Aramaic that must in some way show evidence of some type of redaction yet retain a continuity of imagery and message between languages. The cycles of repetition that describe over and over again the atrocities of second century BCE under the leadership of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. The prayer of chapter 9, written in different tone, and seemingly inserted from another source. The building to the word of resurrection to everlasting life or everlasting shame/contempt in chapter 12. The concluding deterministic statement of dates or longevity for the crisis, to be ultimately revised. The book is filled with a complex set of images and ideas that show a dramatic shift in content and intent from the prophetic books. So how is one to read this literature? When read through the lens of Continuous Traumatic Stress Disorder (CTSD) the variances described above mirror many features of dissociative disorders from settings where possession is part of cultural beliefs. In such settings, fragmented identities of a person who has CTDS may take the form of spirits, deities, demons, or animals.


The Damascene Catenae: 0150, 2110, and 1506 as a New Textual Family of Paul’s Letters
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
David A Flood, II, University of Edinburgh

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 Qur'anic Treatise
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Surah Studies (IQSA)
Adam Flowers, University of Chicago

Of the seven long suras (al-sab‘ al-tiwal) that open the Qur’an, Sura 6, al-An‘am is one of only two that are traditionally considered to have been revealed in the Meccan period. While increased verse length and prosaic structure are often associated with the Medinan period of revelation, thematic considerations are at the core of its Meccan designation. Despite this chronological differentiation between Sura 6 and the majority of the seven long suras, how might we classify their literary relationship, and can this literary relationship shed light on their chronologies? Through a comparative, genre-critical literary analysis, this presentation will explore the literary qualities of Sura 6 vis-à-vis the six other suras among the al-sab‘ al-tiwal. It will begin with a structural analysis of Sura 6 and argue that it is an example of the complex Qur’anic genre of the treatise. It will proceed to compare these results with structural analyses of the rest of the seven long suras and demonstrate that the genre of the treatise exists within both the Meccan and Medinan periods. To conclude, the ramifications of the same literary genre appearing in distinct historical periods for the chronology of the Qur’an will be discussed.


Trueing BH Spelling’s Bloated Horseshoe
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Dean Forbes, University of the Free State

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.


Woman of the House: Women as Liminal Figures within the Life of David
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Cara M. Forney, Baylor University

The David-story is complex, even from a solely narratival perspective. Embedded within this tangled tale are stories of women, placed at key moments in the phases of David’s life. Each major movement in the history of David’s rise is marked by the inclusion of a woman-related story. These woman stories often provide insight into not only the development of David’s character, but also the evaluation of the monarchy and its relationship to the people. As the stories of Michal and Abigail most vividly demonstrate, women provide direction and deliverance for David in liminal spaces and times, when he is outside of formal positions of power. Women are uniquely able to function within these instances of liminality because ancient women were seen as liminal beings simply in their normal state of existence. Women are well-versed at negotiating ambiguity, at utilizing informal, creative modes of power. Women in the ancient world were thought of as walking the threshold between life and death. David’s own liminal state allows for the unique nature of these encounters; women are able to function in special or unexpected ways for the Hebrew Bible—they speak and act with authority outside of the formal power structures and “ordinary” women function in prophetic manners. As David navigates encounters thresholds in his life, he is perilously caught between his former status(es) and the one(s) yet to come. Later scenes in David’s life help to demonstrate the uniqueness of these earlier encounters. When David is fully integrated into his new identity and into the formal power structure, his interactions with women change greatly. In this study I first explore the notion of liminal characters within stories of rites of passage, focusing on David as a liminal character in 1 Samuel, and then Bynum and Ackerman’s research on women as particularly liminal figures in ancient conceptions. Next, I discuss interactions between “Liminal David” with Michal and then Abigail, two women who exert their informal power in unique ways in order to move David through his periods of liminality. Finally, I present the stories of what happens when David, the supposed “hero,” obtains the formal power he has long sought. We see this most vividly in the reemergence of Michal, now a voiceless commodity, and the introduction of Bathsheba, who has seemingly no agency at all. In Bathsheba’s return to the narrative in 1 Kings, however, we see a formerly oppressed woman wield the informal power available to intercede for her liminal son. As she acts, David transitions once again to a liminal space. Liminal David escapes death via Michal’s vigilance and creative wit. He avoids causing unjust death due to Abigail’s wisdom and prophet-like insight. But the more power David gains, the more he exploits these same liminal figures who provided protection during his most vulnerable stages of life. As he forgets the ambiguity of the liminal phase, he clings to his hyper-masculinity, endangering the very people who guided him through the threshold of a perilous rite of passage.


Toward a Poetics of the Righteous and the Wicked in the Psalms
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Kevin Foth, McMaster Divinity College

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


Reframing the Book of Revelation as a Jewish Apocalypse
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
David Frankfurter, Boston University

Not only is the Book of Revelation framed with ritual purity concerns that pointedly reject Pauline practices (2:9, 14, 20-21; 3:9), it also continually defines insider-status in expressly Jewish terms (7:4-8: 15:8; 11:19; 14:3-5; 17:4; 21: 27). And yet the book is clearly concerned with working out the heavenly status of a Christ-being (1:13-18; 5:6; 19:11; 22:9) associated with Jesus (1:5-6). Shouldn’t we consider it, then, to have ipso facto crossed over to “Christian” status? This paper will argue that it is more historically and contextually accurate to interpret this concern with heavenly beings as an apocalyptic Jewish effort than to retroject an anachronistic Christian identity to John’s first-century milieu and to the Apocalypse itself.


The Apotropaic Power of the Date-Palm Image
Program Unit: Nature Imagery and Conceptions of Nature in the Bible
Norma Franklin, University of Haifa

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.


Myth, History, and Canon: Canon Creation in Ancient and Contemporary Texts and Contexts
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Nathan Fredrickson, University of California-Santa Barbara

The invention of Christianity may be fruitfully compared to contemporary “invented religions” (Cusack, 2010), such as Jediism, and their broader milieus and narrative expressions. I use examples drawn from biblical studies and the controversy over the demotion of most Star Wars texts from canonical to mythic status to reflect on how “myth” and “history” may and have transformed into each other as part of canon creation processes. After the Star Wars universe was acquired from Lucasfilm by Disney, the vast storyworld whose continuity was monitored and maintained in the database known as the “Holocron” and expressed in numerous novels, comics, and other narrative expressions was declared noncanonical. First called the “Expanded Universe” and then “Star Wars Legends,” what had been authoritative, “historical” narratives became something much more comparable to authorized fan fiction. When one reflects on the anachronistic way the concept of “canon” and “scripture” is projected onto the past as part of what might rightly be called the “intersubjective sedimentation” process whereby a worldview naturalizes or “objectivates” itself (Berger and Luckmann, 1991, p. 85 ff.; cf. Schmid, 1981, p. 68), one immediately confronts the fiction-history distinction, with myth as an intermediate grade. Power is factor in this process, but it is also a genre-theoretic issue. In fiction, a “canonical” text bears a relation to the storyworld universe comparable to the relation that obtains between a “historical” text and reality; in contrast, “fan fiction” often displays extravagant adaptability, reflecting fidelity to other concerns than storyworld continuity and, instead, responding to specific authorial concerns with rhetorical re-compositions that generate alternate-universe branching. Myth and history both participate in the intersubjective sedimentation process whereby their narratives constitute public memory, so the vexed question of “canon,” which attempts to distinguish between the two, helps illuminate genre and power issues. Regarding the canonical Gospel of John, C.S. Lewis drew on his genre experience to argue that the gospel possessed the undeniable flavor of history, in contrast to myth and romance (cf. Lewis, 1967, pp. 154–55); if it was not history, he claims, “[S]ome unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, [must have] suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative.” Lewis’s disdained possibility – that John anticipates the realist, historical novel – raises a variety of interesting questions relative to attempts to distinguish between myth and history and the process of canonization. The Christian Gospels are not in fact unique among ancient texts in possessing the qualities Lewis observes (see, e.g., Thomas, 2007), inviting productive comparisons between ancient and contemporary texts and contexts. Saler (2012) argues that part of how certain contemporary novelists were able to develop imaginary worlds so compelling that communities formed to enable their members to continue inhabiting them was by combining fantastical content with features of realism—e.g., paratexts like maps, glossaries, genealogies; similarly, Davidsen (2014, 2017) has proposed other “veracity mechanisms” Tolkien used in his narratives to produce this effect (compare the literatures on the gospels’ historical “kernels,” use of genealogies, and so on).


Her Body Still Speaks: Speech Act Theory and the Sin of Gibeah
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Alexiana Fry, Stellenbosch University

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.


The Rhetorical Significance of Imperiled Children in 1 and 2 Kings
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Tyler S. Fulcher, Duke University

This paper performs a literary reading of 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 4, focusing especially on the rhetorical function of the death and resurrection of the passages’ two young boys. Presupposing the sociological importance of imperiled children in antiquity (namely, that premodern societies intuitively understood the threat posed by a child’s death to the family’s posterity and economic viability), the argument imagines a variety of ways that this premodern intuition might illumine the rhetorical function of children in the biblical text. Lexical, thematic, and structural clues in both passages suggest that the rhetorical force of the children’s deaths and resurrections far outpaces the literary space afforded to them. Further, these exegetical observations indicate a typological relationship between the resurrected boys and other imperiled children in 1 and 2 Kings. Consequently, this paper suggests that imperiled children serve as a literary bridge between the Elijah/Elisha narrative and the surrounding monarchical material. Understood in this larger literary context, the twin scenes of death and resurrection communicate a hope-filled alternative for the future of the Davidic monarchy amid a book that primarily recounts the demise of Israel and Judah.


Cohesion as a Criterion for the Pragmatics of Biblical Hebrew Word Order: A New Proposal
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
David J. Fuller, McMaster Divinity College

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


Finding a (Persian) Home for Habakkuk: Context and Criteria for Situating Prophecy
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
David J. Fuller, McMaster Divinity College

A general consensus exists that the “dialogue” of Hab 1:2-17 describes events that took place during the reign of Jehoiakim (609-598 BCE), as indeed the description of societal unrest in 1:2-4, 12-13 is an apt fit for the rampant taxation (2 Kgs 23:35) and persecution of prophets (Jer 26:20-23; 36:20-26) that occurred under his rule. However, certain anomalies emerge when this model is placed under close inspection. As an example, the tone of Habakkuk is radically different than that of his apparent contemporary, Jeremiah: Habakkuk never speaks of repentance, the exile itself, or explicitly states that the Babylonians are invading Judah to carry out YHWH’s judgment, as his focus shifts to international turmoil after the opening laments of 1:2-4, 12-13. One previously unexplored possibility for situating the book—a route that bypasses some of the challenges of the various redactional models—is comparison with the content and overall function of prophecy in Chronicles and the Deuteronomistic History. When the accounts of the warnings of exile and its eventual fulfillment in 2 Kgs and Chronicles are compared, intriguing differences emerge: a number of the DH’s warnings of the impending exile are not reproduced in Chronicles, and the actual account of the exile itself is greatly shortened. A helpful theoretical apparatus for making sense of this contrast, and utilizing its results for the composition of Habakkuk, is the distinction between the concepts of “Context of Situation” and “Context of Culture” in Systemic Functional Linguistics. A “Context of Situation” refers to the reality described in the surface grammar of the text itself, whereas the “Context of Culture” refers to the higher-level semiotic system necessary to make meaning of the text. When Habakkuk is compared with the contrasting purposes and portrayals of prophecy in DH and Chronicles, it becomes apparent that Habakkuk’s overall presentation is a much better “fit” for the latter, and thus the “gaps” visible when Habakkuk is read alongside other prophets who warned of the exile are a result of a compositional process that has intentionally crafted its material for a post-exilic audience.


Coding and Speech, Writing and Desire: Reading 2 Enoch with Deleuze and Guattari
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
David J. Fuller, McMaster Divinity College

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.


The Forgers of the Bible Slander in Early Modern Scholarship
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Russell E. Fuller, University of San Diego

The accusation the Jews intentionally changed the text of their Scriptures originates in antiquity but continues in Christian Scholarship in the early modern period. In this presentation, I will survey select examples of scholarship beginning with the reformation period through the enlightenment. This period marks the flowering of critical biblical scholarship and includes the production of important and influential works of textual scholarship in the study of the Hebrew Bible and its reception. Nevertheless, contrary to common perception the scholarship of this period is permeated by sectarian biases such as the slander of the forgers of the Bible.


Constructing a House Church to Hear Romans
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Timothy A. Gabrielson, Sterling College

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.


Tailoring Scripture: Clues about Barnabas’s Canon from Its Citation Formulae
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Timothy A. Gabrielson, Sterling College

The Epistle of Barnabas is a parade example of a fluid, expansive canon in early Christianity. Many quotations are straightforward; they come directly from the Septuagint, especially Psalms, Isaiah, and the Pentateuch. Numerous times, however, the author departs from this sourcebook. In some cases, Barnabas references writings that were later deemed by most Christians to be non-canonical (Barn. 12:1: 4 Ezra 3:33; 5:5?; Barn. 16:5: 1 Enoch 89?). In other cases, the source is irrecoverable (10:5). Several times, an earlier Christian tradition seems to be referenced (7:11; Holmes, Apostolic Fathers [2007], 405: “cf. Acts 14:22”). In all these instances, the writings he has in front of him apparently are, in his estimation, scriptural. This point is well documented. Perhaps because much work has gone into discovering the extent of the canon in Barnabas, less attention has been paid to its citation formulae, and what they indicate about the status of the canon in early Christianity. The citations attribute the passages alternately to a heavenly author, a human author (or a character within the book: Jacob in 13:4–5), and “scripture” personified. Several inferences can be gathered from this fact. First, these writings are at once human and divine; for example, both David (10:10) and God (2:10) speak through the Psalter. This is in keeping with previous Christian authors, such as Paul (God: Rom 9:15; Moses: Rom 10:19). Second, the divine voice is not always “God,” but regularly, Christ (e.g., 7:4), even on one occasion “the spirit of the Lord” (9:2; “Spirit” in a paraphrase in 12:2). There is an incipient trinitarian pattern of scriptural inspiration that is relatively new, with only Hebrews (10:5, 9), 1 Clement (22:1), and 2 Clement (3:5), among earlier Christian literature, attributing Septuagintal quotations to Jesus. Third, that “scripture” is not merely the medium, but additionally the agent (4:7, passim), of revelation implies that it becomes a “self-interpreting authority” (quoting Cover, “Paulus als Yischmaelit?” [2016]: 621, investigating Paul and R. Ishmael). This is a great rhetorical ploy for Barnabas, who attempts to wrest the scriptures of Israel from Jewish competition, whether real (Simon, Versus Israel) or symbolic (Taylor, Anti-Judaism). Finally, moving beyond the identified author of scripture to other aspects of the citation formulae, we sense Barnabas’s self-understanding as exegete. Sometimes the wording of the original does not lend itself sufficiently to the topic at hand, and he indulges in elaborate formulae to encourage, even force, a particular reading for his audience. Not only are his quotations often loose or spliced together, he will frequently paraphrase or interpret the quotations after the fact in his own phrasing but using nearly identical formulae (as at 11:8). It is as if his interpretation is becoming canonical alongside the passage itself. In these varied ways, Barnabas employs his citation formulae to tailor prior scriptures to his current purpose. The canon thus becomes a complex communicative act melding heaven and earth, past and present, writer and interpreter.


The Source of Jesus’ Miracles in the Qur’an: Oral or Literary Traditions?
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Abdulla Galadari, Khalifa University of Science & Technology

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.


The Man in the Empty Town: Comparison between the Qur’an and Biblical/Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Abdulla Galadari, Khalifa University of Science & Technology

Qur’an 2:259 appears to be the most illustrative passage in the Qur’an of physical resurrection. It speaks of a man in an empty town questioning how God can bring it back to life. The man dies for 100 years only to later be resurrected and is shown how his food did not rot and his donkey, with its bones being clothed with flesh similar to Ezekiel 37. From a close reading of Qur’an 2:259, there are various intertextualities between it and the story of Abimelech of 4 Baruch, who sleeps for sixty-six years, or Ḥoni the Circle-Drawer of the Talmud, who sleeps for seventy years. In the Talmud, Ḥoni the Circle-Drawer sees his own grandchild, sees that his donkey had generations of children, sees the seeds flowering and his own teachings surviving. According to Genesis 30:1, a person without children is likened to a person who is dead. As such, the context of Ḥoni’s narrative is that he saw the dead not truly dead, as they had children and children’s children. In 4 Baruch, death is understood as a metaphor for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Israelites scattered and subdued by other nations due to God’s wrath against their iniquity. The resurrection is understood as the Israelites returning back to Jerusalem, rebuilding the Temple, and bringing it back to its former glory and beyond, because of a group of Israelites who were diligent in repentance and worked hard for prosperity. Qur’an 2:260 parallels the story of Abraham in Genesis 15 and its interpretation in Genesis Rabbah, where God promises Abraham that he will have children, but Abraham demands for a sign. While Abraham in the Genesis narrative requires a sign to prove he will have children, the Qur’anic narrative shows that Abraham wanted a sign to prove resurrection. Genesis 30:1 describes a person without children as dead, which is further emphasized in the Talmud. It is perhaps from this context that the Qur’an understands Abraham’s request, not as proof of a literal resurrection from the grave, but that he is like one who is dead having no children. Nonetheless, rabbinic literature pertaining to Abraham’s ritual in Genesis 15, especially concerning the birds, relates it with division of the Israelite nation and the exile, bringing it in consonance with the context of Q. 2:259. Since the Qur'anic passage seems to narrate parallel stories from extra-Biblical literature and deuterocanonical texts, these Qur’anic passages appear to be an allusion to some form of return from exile, especially when taken into context with Q. 2:260, in which Abraham’s ritual may be contextualized with Genesis 15 and its rabbinic interpretation in regards to the exile.


The Understanding of Egypt as a Place of Refuge in the Pentateuch
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Garrett Galvin, Franciscan School of Theology

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.


The Power of Curses in the Pentateuch and Protection against Evil Forces
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Garrett Galvin, Franciscan School of Theology

This paper will demonstrate the power of curses in the Pentateuch, especially Deuteronomy. They operate here in primarily the communal sphere, but we also see the individual ramifications of some curses. The covenant in Deuteronomy is between God and the people of Israel. They promise adherence to the worship of God and ethical living as articulated earlier in the book of Deuteronomy where we find the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5. Deuteronomy 27:11-26 articulates 12 violations of the covenant that are cursed. These curses cover many of the ten commandments. They deter anti-social behavior. Curses are focused on the anxiety around the land and fertility. Communally, they threaten separation, alienation, and lack of relationship with God for Israel if it does not adhere to the ethical and cultic strictures of the covenant, especially the Ten Commandments. There do not seem to be curses against curses. The power of curses is ultimately overcome by the even more powerful blessings. Material culture shows us the popularity of the Priestly Blessing to protect and guard individuals from curses. Archaeologists discovered two silver amulets in a tomb repository just outside of Jerusalem at Ketef Hinnom. Both amulets have requests for Yahweh to guard and protect. They are also inscribed with versions of the Priestly Blessing (Num 6:24-26) along with other requests to Yahweh for protection against evil. The repeated references to evil in the inscriptions suggest that they function to protect the individual who wore them against evil. The presence of many Judean Pillar Figurines around ancient Jerusalem and even the Transjordan also infer protection against evil forces. As we saw above, fertility was the subject of many curses, so many imagine these figurines were used to ward off evil. The concentration around Jerusalem gives us a sense of popular religiosity not represented by the elite scribal traditions that composed what has become the Bible.


A Clever Burn: How Jotham's Fable (Judges 9:8–15) Functions as an Imprecatory Wisdom Saying
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Andrew Garbarino, Princeton Theological Seminary

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.


Open Door to Close Argumentation: The Jesus Factor
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Zev Garber, Los Angeles Valley College

Messianic and Rabbanite Jews are united by God, Torah, Israel (People and Land). They differ in biblical exegesis, understanding and application of halakha, fulfillment of prophecy, role of Messiah, messianic age, resurrection of the dead, and life immortal. Christology and/or Jesuolatry testify to conflicting not converging forms of Judaism. The time is long overdue for Jewish scholarship to penetrate responsibly into Christian scriptures in order to discover and appraise the historical Jesus which can help to illuminate and correct the misgivings and misdirection about the Jews found in Christendom. Reciprocally, attributed Jesus admonitions (“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they teach you’ [Matt 23:2a] and “salvation is from the Jews” [John 4:22b] mandate Messianic Jews to engage Rabbinic Halakha on matters of Heaven and Earth. Bridging Messianic-Rabbanite dialogue is an exciting and exacting learning experience for the enrichment and betterment of two adverse and distinct philosophies committed to Jewish continuity and survival. Take Logos and the Shema`, and Tsitsit and Tefilin for example.


Methodology to Study the Language of Colour in the Bible (Hebrew, Greek, and Latin)
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Lourdes García Ureña, Universidad San Pablo – CEU

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.


Assessing the Latin Polycarp
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Grant W Gasse, University of Notre Dame

The epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians is among the most poorly attested texts included in the so-called “apostolic fathers” canon. The fourteen extant Greek manuscripts of Polycarp’s epistle all stem from a single, defective source text, which famously preserves the first nine chapters of the letter before transitioning without signal into a similarly cleaved copy of the epistle of Barnabas. Among this manuscript family, Vaticanus 859 (V) is regarded as standing closest to the archetype. Accordingly, scholars must assess the relative merits of V against the epistle’s other attestations, in particular, a family of Latin translations (L), which are preserved in their integrity, several Syriac and Armenian fragments, and the witness of Eusebius. Editors have generally opted to reproduce the Greek text of V, filled in where needed by L and the Eusebian citations. This practice has persisted despite the fact that there exists no comprehensive and methodologically precise consideration of the character of Polycarp’s Latin translation. This paper, therefore, assesses the relative merits of the Latin recension, arguing that there is no adequate justification for the prioritization of V over L. In due course, I argue that scholarly judgements concerning the character of the Latin translation have implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) assumed that the epistle’s Greek recension is a more reliable documentary tradition than its Latin counterpart. If, as some have argued, the Eusebian quotations of Polycarp represent a more original tradition than either V or L, they provide the earliest available witness to the original text of the letter. Careful analysis of L in comparison with Eusebius demonstrates that L represents an attempt at very literal translation, although scholars have often taken L’s deviations from V as evidence of the translation’s poor quality. In addition, it can be shown that the chief difficulties posed against the integrity of Polycarp’s epistle have stemmed from the prioritization of the Greek tradition represented by V. That is to say, the supposed infelicities of the epistle are themselves occasioned by the editorial decision to prioritize V and supplement it with Latin translation. These points of evidence together suggest that scholarship must attend more carefully to the Latin recension as a complete, discrete witness to the epistle before attempting to use this recension as supplement to V. In so arguing, this paper questions whether the canonization of the apostolic fathers, generally construed as a corpus of Greek texts, has influenced the decisions of Polycarp’s textual critics. Without questioning the ultimate priority of some original Greek epistle of Polycarp, quoted in Eusebius, I argue that scholars have placed excessive emphasis on the existence of Greek recensions and, thereby, placed undue weight on the witness of V.


Counterfactual Intertextuality in the Qurʾān and the Exegetical Tradition of Syriac Christianity
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Zishan Ghaffar, University of Paderborn

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.


"Anger Exhausted" for the Sake of YHWH’s Name in Ezekiel 20: Did YHWH Really Relent from Wrath Poured Out on Israel?
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Benjamin D. Giffone, LCC International University

In this paper, I propose an alternate reading of the account of YHWH’s relationship with Israel found in Ezekiel 20:5–29. It is typically argued that the three instances in which YHWH proposes or purposes to “pour out his wrath” (and sometimes to “exhaust his anger”) on Israel, and then “acts on account of his name”—are examples of YHWH changing his mind and deciding not to pour out his wrath—in Egypt (20:8), in the wilderness (20:13), and again in the wilderness (20:21). I argue instead that in at least two of these instances (and possibly three), YHWH “acting on account of his name” actually involves pouring out wrath and exhausting anger on some Israelites. This is based on three sorts of evidence: 1) the plainest reading of the syntax in these two (even three) instances in Ezek 20; 2) intertextual comparisons with the Pentateuchal narrative accounts of the same events; and 3) comparisons to the concluding promise in the chapter that Israel would return from exile by passing under the rod of YHWH’s judgment (20:33–38). I maintain that the traditional reading of “purposing judgment, but relenting” is partly correct, but misses the important point that YHWH’s mercy upon Israel is sometimes made manifest through judgment—not simply judgment upon Egypt, her gods, or Israel’s other enemies, but judgment on rebels within Israel itself. YHWH’s mercy and his wrath are both consistent with “acting on account of his name.” This relentless pursuit of his own glory is consistent with the message of the book of Ezekiel (epitomized in the refrain, “…that you/they may know that I am YHWH”), and also with the pattern of restoration/return/rebirth for God’s people that can come across as coercive. This reading of Ezek 20 thus has implications for biblical theology, e.g., the relation of individual and corporate election.


Jesus Laments: The Significance of the Allusion to Pss 42–43 in Mark 14:34
Program Unit: Mark Passion Narrative
Jen Gilbertson, Eston College

“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.


The Many Facets of the Enemies in Ps 94
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Catholic Private University of Linz

When Psalm 94 starts with an emphatic plea to the God of vengeance, it gives rise to the expectation of terrifying enemies. Once they come into view, they are described as proud, wicked and evil doers, they are acting harmful, they crush and oppress, they band together against the righteous and they reverse order and law; they even kill and commit murder. At first (v 4-7) these evil doers are described in general as a threat to God’s people; that the lyrical speaker him/herself itself is threatened by these enemies becomes obvious in v 16-19. Now we hear that the lyrical speaker is suffering from the severe threat of these people, who nearly silenced him/her. The psalm, however, does not stop at the description of the enemies’ desire to kill, but it also describes their arrogance: they exult, they pour out words of arrogance and they boast of their deeds. These people thus are not only posing a threat to their victims, they also are dangerous in that their behavior could encourage imitation. Thus, the psalm tries to deconstruct their superiority by exposing their example as foolish and obstinate. In this way, the enemies are not only described as a threat, but their image also provides a starting point for a common reflection on the supposed behavior of the faithful towards successful but godless and ruthless people. They are presented as the “other”, from whom the addressees of the psalm are encouraged to distance themselves. This double focus, on the behavior of the wicked and the response of the righteous, has inspired interpreters and artists alike to reflect on these questions in their reading of Psalm 94. In my paper, I will present and discuss selected examples from the varied interpretations and artistic receptions over the centuries. To name just a few examples: The church fathers emphasized, that the obvious success and the boasting of the wicked poses a problem for the righteous. So Augustine points out, the enemies are a means of divine education. Other interpretations parallel the enemies explicitly with specific enemies from their own time. Especially during the time of the Reformation, theological commentaries and psalm-songs identify the enemies with the opponents of the Reformation. Yet other interpretations are more concerned about the arrogance of the adversaries and their impertinence with which they attack God's property, namely God's people and thus identify these “others” with idolaters, atheists and agnostics. In the arts, medieval psalter illuminations also create vivid images of the enemies or the pious. In literature, for example, John Milton’s sonnet “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont” starts with “Avenge, O Lord”, an allusion to Psalm 94; and the title of a play by Sholem Ash “Got fun nekome” (God of Vengeance) quotes the psalm’s first words, thus suggesting to perceive the depicted enemies in the light of the psalm. All these interpretations bear eloquent witness to the different facets of “othering” the images of the enemies in Psalm 94 inspired


The Quest of the King in the Wisdom of Solomon
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Mark Giszczak, Augustine Institute

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.


Ethics of Reading an Unethical Text Ethically: A Fresh Reading of ḥerem (Canaanite Destruction) in Deuteronomy and Joshua
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Mark R. Glanville, Regent College

This paper explores the ethics of biblical hermeneutics through a fresh examination of the ḥerem (Canaanite destruction) texts in Deuteronomy and Joshua. In their final form, these texts are engaged in Israelite collective identity construction. While on the surface level, these texts appear as genocidal and utterly exclusive, this paper will examine how the ḥerem texts in these books reshape Israelite identity around obedience to torah, communicating that Yahweh has given the land to the people grouping that embodies the Deuteronomic vision. Various redactions of the ḥerem texts function differently. Pre-exilic texts seem to function to subvert the hegemonic reign of the Neo-Assyrian empire. Some exilic ḥerem texts have an inclusivist dimension to them, interrelating with Deuteronomy’s ethic of incorporating the stranger. Some ḥerem texts that are later again have an exclusivist dimension. In light of this ambivalence, this paper will explore the ethical dimensions of biblical hermeneutics: what weight should an interpreter give to various redactions or to the final form? Is there scope to prefer an “ethical” reading? What does it mean to “read the bible for good”?


Goodness, Gracious, Great Swords of Fire! The Judeo-Hellenic Context of Military Scenes in Joseph and Aseneth
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
R. Gillian Glass, University of British Columbia

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.


Performing as a Pentecostal: An Approach to Biblical Performance Criticism in Light of Pentecostal Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Performance Criticism of the Bible and Other Ancient Texts
Stetson Glass, Bangor University

Pentecostal hermeneutics has been developed within recent years, thanks to the contributions of scholars like Rickie Moore, John McKay, John Christopher Thomas, Ken Archer, and others. Each insight offered has assisted in expanding the working definition of what Pentecostal hermeneutics is, and how it operates in the world of interpretative processes within academia. Moore first introduced the interplay of the written word and the charisma word, and their relationship with each other within the hermeneutical process in a manner that was distinctly, Pentecostal. McKay offered human performance as a way of explaining the reader’s/hearer’s role within this process, while Thomas coined the term for the well-known triad of Pentecostal hermeneutics—Spirit, scripture, and community. Other scholars thereafter constructed exegeses through expounding upon this work and framing scripture this way, through experience that many in this field deem, Pentecostal in nature. As Pentecostals forged this journey of interpretation and divine revelation, there were other scholars outside of the tradition who were moving into performance theory from drama criticism, and then into performance criticism, also known as biblical performance criticism. Richard Schechner proposed that all human interaction and communication can be typified within performance theory in that there is an effort behind the author/speaker/performer and their motives, and an effect that relies upon the situation, contexts, and experience of the reader/hearer/audience. David Rhoads carried this methodology into biblical texts, followed by others such as Peter Perry and Holly Hearon. The effort and the effect are further analyzed in biblical contexts for those who participated in its performance in the ancient world, as well as for those who approach the texts today. Themes of Spirit, scripture, and community drive performance criticism, though scholars in both fields may be unaware of the other for the most part. Pentecostals have performed texts throughout their traditions. Performance of the themes, values, and revelation of the scriptures and of the Spirit, take place in the testimonies of the community, their witness to the world, and in their actions to imitate the ideals set forth by the written word and the charisma word. It is the goal of this paper to survey the commonalities of these two hermeneutical processes and propose a working methodology of performance criticism for Pentecostals, in light of Pentecostal hermeneutics.


Online Database of Scriptural Models for the Holocaust
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Gregory Y. Glazov, Seton Hall University

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.


Mark’s Demonic Christology: Proclamations of Jesus’s Identity by Unclean Spirits as “Speech-in-Character”
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Daniel B. Glover, Baylor University

In recent years, studies on Markan christology have become almost too numerous to count. Only rarely have such studies failed to take into account the “witness” to Jesus’s identity of the demonic and diabolical characters. However, it is often merely taken for granted in these studies that the demon’s claims about Jesus’s identity are correct, in agreement with Mark's Christological perspective, or at least spoken truthfully. The purpose of this article is to question this unargued assumption. I do not, at the outset, deny that every christological claim on the part of the demonic characters is false. I do, however, wish to view their speech as it would have been seen by their first hearers, namely in the ancient Greco-Roman tradition of rhetorical composition. As numerous scholars have shown by this point, the Greek rhetorical tradition is highly significant for the study of the New Testament, and it is becoming increasingly clearer that to read the New Testament correctly, we must be aware of the rhetorical exercises that the writers have employed, particularly those found in the rhetorical handbooks, the progymnasmata. To that end, the rhetorical exercise of prosopopoeia, sometimes called “speech-in-character,” prominently emerges as germane to any discussion of the christology of the demons or unclean spirits in Mark’s Gospel. Mark’s characterization of the unclean spirits (and their speech) is crucial to understanding properly the christological value of their statements about Jesus. This essay, therefore, evaluates their christological claims by giving attention to Mark’s application of prosopopoeia to demons in his narrative. In doing so, I argue that the demons do not always exhibit proper understanding of Jesus’s identity. This article proceeds, first, by placing Mark into his rhetorical context by defining the use of prosopopoeia according to the Greek rhetorical handbooks, the progymnasmata. Second, I identify Mark’s characterization of demonic and diabolical characters as well as the social expectations that Mark has assumed and, thereby, left unstated so as to determine how we should understand their speech. Third, I apply this characterization to their speech to evaluate the speech according to the principles laid out in the progymnasmata. Finally, I evaluate the christological statements of the demons against the narrative christology that Mark develops to locate the points of conflict.


Peering in Maps for Ports and Piers and Roads: The Textual Transmission of Targum Proverbs
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Binyamin Y. Goldstein, Yeshiva University

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.


Towards a Cautious Model for Comparing Tannaitic Midrashim and the Gospels
Program Unit: Midrash
Matthew Goldstone, Academy for Jewish Religion

In this paper I posit a critical and cautious model for examining possible parallels between Tannaitic Midrashim and the Gospels. Studying these two corpora together enhances our understanding of both collections, as well as the shared Second Temple interpretative traditions that both inherited. While many contemporary scholars have shied away from such textual comparisons – whether in response to Samuel Sandmel’s concern of “Parallelmania” or in favor of pursuing a focus on social and cultural history – I suggest that bringing early Midrashim into dialogue with texts preserved in the New Testament still has much to contribute to our knowledge of both particular passages in these works and the obscure collection of common traditions from which this material drew. My approach begins with two basic assumptions. First, as a number of scholars such as Jacob Nahum Epstein, Gunter Stemberger, and Yonatan Sagiv have argued, sections of the Tannaitic Midrashim – particularly the anonymous “simple commentary” portions – may be of much earlier provenance than the redacted works in which they are contained. Second, traditions preserved in the Tannaitic Midrashim and the Gospels are linked through their use of shared Second Temple period interpretative traditions, rather than direct textual interaction. Based upon these assumptions, I proceed to describe how identifying linguistic, thematic, and structural similarities – particularly when connected to the same biblical verse or set of verses – reveal the presence of possible shared underlying inherited interpretations. I illustrate my methodology through two examples. The first compares the interpretation of Exod. 21:14 (about intentional murder) in Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael to the first Matthean Antithesis (5:21-26). Both passages incorporate the elements of murder, an underlying emotional drive, interrupting a sacrificial offering, and the term Sanhedrin. These commonalities open up the possibility that both sources drew from a common interpretation of Exodus 21:14. Such a link helps to explain why the Sermon on the Mount employs the ostensibly arbitrary scenario of leaving a gift at the altar to reconcile with a friend in the context of prohibiting murder and anger. My second example compares the interpretation of Lev. 19:17-18 in Sifra to Luke 6:27-38. I highlight shared terminology (“hate,” “curse,” “strike,” and “lend”) as well as the common transition from addressing an offending individual to lending and borrowing. I posit that these parallels suggest that there was a prior Second Temple period interpretation of Lev. 19:17-18 from which both of these sources drew. While Luke inverts certain components of the inherited tradition, Sifra preserves a more authentic version – which helps to explain the unusual anxiety evinced by the attributed tannaitic response to this anonymous tradition in Sifra. The paper concludes by summarizing the core steps in my proposed methodology and outlining directions for future research.


Two Approaches to One Theme: Moses in Philo and Josephus
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
A. Judith Göppinger, Universität Bern

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?


Text-Correcting Qere, Scribal Errors, and Textual Variants in Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Nehemia Gordon, Makor Hebrew Foundation

This paper will present a non-standard usage of the qere notation to fix scribal errors that were intended to be corrected the next time the manuscript was copied. The standard qere (“it is read”) notation in medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts consists of a marginal note providing instructions on how to read (or interpret) a word in the body of the text, known as the ketiv (“it is written”). Most instances of the qere replace the reading of the ketiv with a textual variant, correction, or euphemism although some provide instructions how to interpret the ketiv without changing pronunciation (e.g. לא קרי). Nevertheless, as Michael V. Fox explains, “The qerayin were not corrections or words to be incorporated in the body of the text by the next copyist, as is the case with interlinear and marginal variants in the Qumran scrolls …” In contrast, text-correcting qere actually intends for the ketiv to be replaced in the body of the text the next time the manuscript would be copied. This is obvious in examples where erroneous instances of the Tetragrammaton (יהוה) were marked with the marginal note Adonai qere (“it is read Adonai”). The Tetragrammaton has been read out loud as Adonai since Talmudic times (b. Pesaḥ 50a; Qidd. 71a). Hence, this note is not really about pronunciation and must mean something like: “it should be read as if it were written Adonai.” The note deals with how the reader was meant to visually assess the Tetragrammaton and how the next copyist was meant to reproduce the body of the text, not about how one was meant to read it aloud, since in any event that would be Adonai. Other examples of text-correcting qere can be identified when the ketiv is illegible due to successive stages of unsuccessful correction or when it is marked with a strikethrough. In some instances, text-correcting qere supplements the ketiv, rather than replaces it. A related method involves noting an alternative reading in the margin using the ketiv notation, such as Adonai ketiv. A note such as this may mean “it should be written as Adonai the next time the text is copied” or alternatively, “I found it written as Adonai in another manuscript.” The former would be an actual correction while the latter would merely record a textual variant.


Paul as Prophetic Intercultural/Intracultural Peacemaker in Galatians
Program Unit: Bible and Ethics
Michael J. Gorman, St. Mary's Seminary & University

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.


The Neglected Numbers of the Narrative of Judges 17–18
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
CJ Gossage, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

This article explores the numbers present within Judges 17-18. While the book of Judges has birthed a plethora literary studies, especially the prologue (chs. 17-21), minimal attention has been devoted to the 200 silver shekels, the Levite’s salary of 10 shekels, five Danite spies, and 600 Danite men and the narratival purpose of each. The present study argues for the literary significance of each of these numbers and their contextual analogs in Joshua 2-7 and its portrayal of Israel’s gradual moral corruption indicative of the book of Judges.


A Whole New Playing Field: Cross-Textual Searching with the Targums WordMap
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Leeor Gottlieb, Bar-Ilan University

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.


Method in the Approach to Documentary Sources: Observations and Examples
Program Unit: Documentary Texts and Literary Interpretation
Lester L. Grabbe, University of Hull

Documentary sources are extremely important for historians because they are usually primary sources, i.e., writings which discuss or relate to their own time period and context. Also, the writer often has no ulterior aim to influence the current historical situation, which means that the information contained in the document represents the knowledge or belief of the writer. This will illustrate how such sources can be evaluated and used with examples taken from the so-called “documents” in Ezra 3-7, the Roman decrees in Josephus, Antiquities14, the letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians, the Gadatas Persian inscription, and the Tel Dan “King David” inscription.


The Effect of Obstetric Violence on Children in the Biblical World
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Naomi Graetz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

“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”?


Joseph as an Exemplar of Sibling Rivalry
Program Unit: Genesis
Naomi Graetz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

There is a long history of sibling rivalry in the Tanakh. The theme dominates Genesis and is evident in Numbers 12 and 1 and 2 Samuel. It is reflected in the rivalry between Judah and the northern tribes of Israel. The function of sibling rivalry might be to toughen up the rivals, or it might represent reality. Often the younger bests and usurps the older and the survivors go on to be the chosen and/or to rule. Although primogeniture is the law (Deut 21:15-17), biblical reality subverts the law and two important kings, David and Solomon are the youngest members of their family. The term sibling rivalry was introduced by David Levy in 1941. He claimed that the older sibling’s response to the new baby was typically aggressive and that the phenomenon was a “common feature of family life.” Because siblings are thrown together during childhood and have to share their parents it is likely that there will be friction. Daily arguments can accumulate and lead to hostile and corrosive relationships. Parents can be at fault, if they indulge in favoritism. Sibling rivalry can continue into adulthood, and a parent’s death may not necessarily bring siblings closer. Because Joseph suffered horrendous abuse from his older brothers, his brothers have good reason to fear him after Jacob’s death. I argue that despite the consensus that Joseph forgave his brothers (Gen 50: 15-21), a close reading of the text supports the idea that Joseph has not forgiven them. I base this counter reading on two phrases: “Am I instead of God?” And “He comforted them and spoke to their hearts” (Gen 50:19b and 21b).


Us and the Tethered of Genesis
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Brandon R. Grafius, Ecumenical Theological Seminary

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.


Qatal: The Perfect Perfective
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Kevin Grasso, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This study focuses on the meaning of the Qatal form and shows that a single meaning can be given to it that accounts for all of its uses. The Qatal form has long been analyzed as either a perfect/anterior (Hatav 1997; Joosten 2012) or as a perfective (Cohen 1924; Waltke and O’Connor 1990; Cook 2012). However, clear examples of both perfective and perfect uses can be found (including all five varieties of the perfect as given in (Kiparsky 2000)), suggesting that we shouldn’t choose between the two meanings. I show that this is indeed a false dichotomy by presenting a semantics (derived from (Condoravdi and Deo 2014)) that covers both perfect and perfective uses of the verbal form, formalized as follows: λPλi∃e[i⊆j ∧ Inst(P,j)]. This says that the instantiation of the property named by the verb must be instantiated within the time interval j, and this time interval j has another smaller interval i included in it, which is the Reference/Topic Time. Perfect meanings arise when the property is instantiated in j but not in i, and perfective meanings arise when the property is instantiated only in i. Thus, both perfect and perfective uses are accounted for. This meaning assigned to the form is the most plausible diachronically (Grasso Forthcoming), and it is typologically similar to various other forms such as the German Perfekt, the French Passé Composé, and the Middle Indo-Aryan Perfect (Condoravdi and Deo 2014). The interpretation of any given use of Qatal can be derived from a combination of its own semantic contribution, the lexical semantics of the verb, the aktionsart of the VP, and the context. Once all these features are taken into account, we can predict the specific interpretation of the form in any given context. I conclude with some general thoughts on the importance of distinguishing use from meaning when doing semantics.


The Deference of Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12 and the Case for a Hezekian Edition of a Monarchic History
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Jonathan S. Greer, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary

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.


translationCore: Create and Use Scripture Annotations
Program Unit: Nida Institute
Jesse Griffin, unfoldingWord

The desire for the Bible translations in more languages has also been increasing. At the same time, the ability of Western linguists to deliver those Bible translations has been diminishing. A particularly acute problem that has been widely recognized is the shortage of Bible translation consultants who can check those translations for accuracy. On top of this, religious networks in many parts of the world are increasingly uncomfortable with Westerners coming and doing things for them. unfoldingWord is working toward a possible solution to these problems through the creation of the translationCore Bible translation toolset (tC and tC Create). Through tC we seek to put into the hands of speakers of the target language much of the knowledge that a consultant brings to a checking session in a format that is easily accessible. translationCore gives the user access to the original language texts as well as various Gateway Language translations to compare with the target translation. tC Create enables Gateway Language teams to translate and adapt text annotation notes to help translation teams check their work topically. This presentation will focus on making Biblical annotations in tC Create and then subsequently using those for checking translations in translationCore.


Alchemy in Edmonds's Drawing Down the Moon
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Shannon Grimes, Meredith College

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.


Troubling Mark 5:1–20 with a Mad Studies Lens: Subjects, Caregivers, and the Insights of Rejected Epistemologies
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Jim Grimshaw, Carroll University

Reading with the hermeneutical lens of Mad Studies and cultural theory, the two presenters are a Theologian and New Testament Scholar who question the archetypal healing narrative in Mark 5:1-20 by asking two related questions: “Whose voice is missing in this conversation about ‘healing’ and what damage is done when these voices are left out”? To answer these, a person living with mental illness, identifying as “mad,” and a caregiver for loved ones with mental illness, address these questions from their subjective experiences and social locations as well as from the wisdom arising from several focus groups of caregivers interviewed. From these epistemological positions, important overlapping questions arise which point to the conclusion that “healing,” whatever that may look like, can be both oppressive and often impossible when subjects and caregivers are not seen and heard as central, valued voices in the medicalized conversation of “treating” mental illness. To support this, we will briefly discuss the medical and social constructionist models of cognitive difference and then situate Mad Studies within disability theory/biblical interpretation. We will suggest that reclamation of the word “mad” is in keeping with other liberative existential projects such as Crip theory and Queer theory in which a pejorative label returns to create a space of interpretive and activist resistance to rhetorical and practical strategies of “normality.”(Gilles, The Rise of Mad Studies) We then turn to the questions real people living with and loving those with mental illness bring to this text, From caregivers we hear voices asking: (1) Why is he alone to begin with and where are the caregivers? (2) How was he restrained and what was the role of the caregivers? (“shackles and chains” in Mark; today it may be sat upon, tied up, over medicated, locked behind doors at a mental facility, or isolated in a classroom?) (3) When is naming a person with mental illness liberating (e.g., “Legion”) and when is it oppressive (e.g., “demoniac”)? (4) What happens after he is “sent home” and what if he relapses? A person living with mental illness asks: (1)Why did Jesus refuse to take the man with him after he was healed? (2) What does being “exorcised” of demons (made sane) actually afford the man who no longer has a home to go to? (3) Are we only acceptable to others when we pass as “sane.”? And, (4) In this story as in the medical model of mental illness is “sanity” simply the mark of the status of the Great Physician and less about the well-being of the man “healed”? Because of the authority of both the healing narratives and the medical model of cognitive difference in interpreting the lives of people with disabilities, the voices of those directly impacted by “treatment” must be heard and authorized for healing to truly take place. NOTE: Emily Askew is the co-presenter as an AAR member (along with Jim Grimshaw). We see this as a possible fit for the third, open session.


Eternal Generation of the Son in Heb 1:5
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Sigurd Grindheim, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

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.


Barbaric Empire: Reading Revelation 13 at the Great Altar of Pergamon
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Jonathan Groce, Emory University

Scholarly interpretation of Revelation 13 nearly unanimously assumes the passage to be an anti-Roman polemic. Yet despite the clear presence of the passage’s engagement with its Greco-Roman context, the polemical force of the passage—particularly its usage of monstrous, hybrid creatures—is seen as a product of the text’s Jewish context, drawing on key intertexts like Daniel 7. In this paper, I want to show what happens when the passage is read alongside the Great Altar of Pergamon, a Greek structure appropriated for Roman political and religious purposes in the first century CE. Both sets of images—the ekphrastic imagery in Revelation 13 and the friezes that adorn the Great Altar—pursue common goals in similar ways. Both use monstrous hybrids to mark out opponents as “Other.” They both rely on a spatial logic that sees high places as divine and orderly and low places as vulnerable to chaos. And both draw on similar older, cosmogonic combat myths. While I do not think that one can definitively prove a genealogical relationship between the Great Altar and the imagery in Revelation 13, I argue that the similarities in each set of images can tell us something about how Revelation’s anti-Roman polemic would have impacted the text’s first readers. The Gigantomachy frieze adorning the outer walls of the Great Altar uses images of monsters to portray the supposed threat of non-Greek (and later on, non-Roman) barbarians. But images of beasts in Revelation 13 portray the Roman empire itself as such a threat. In doing so, the anti-Roman polemic of Revelation 13 makes a similar-but-opposite claim. Like the Gigantomachy, it suggests that there is a beastly threat that must be stopped. But instead of being stopped with the order imposed by the empire, the beastly threat is the empire itself. Revelation’s first readers, then, would have taken Revelation 13 as reversing the logic of the Great Altar. Correlating the imagery of Revelation 13 and the Great Altar in this way has several implications. First, Revelation’s anti-Roman polemic may have more in common with its Roman text than some studies have implied. Second, this reading shows Revelation 13 to be a text that uses empire-serving visual logics against empire. And while this reading contributes to how we see Revelation 13 as a text of resistance, it also shows, third, that Revelation’s mode of polemic marks opponents as “Other” in the same way as the visual media its imagery rivals.


Intertextual Interplay in Matt 21:1–5: The Ironic Narrative Implications of a Proposed Allusion and Double Allusion to 2 Sam 16:1–2
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Marc Groenbech-Dam, University of Aberdeen

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).


Social Justice versus Cult Criticism in Isaiah (1:10–20) and Amos (5:21–24)? A Trauma Perspective
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Alphonso Groenewald, University of Pretoria

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


Pistis Sophia and Demons of the Afterlife
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Emmanouela Grypeou, Stockholm University

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.


The Missing Image: Imagining the Divine in the Book of Revelation, Other Jewish Visionary Texts, and Their Material Environments
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Andrew R. Guffey, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

Othmar Keel and the so-called Freiburg School of Iconographic Exegesis established resemblance between the visual imagery of prophetic throne-vision texts and the material culture they addressed. But such throne visions became unmoored from reference to material reality even as the textual tradition continued to grow in the “mystical” traditions of early Judaism (e.g. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, the Hodayot, and the Hekhalot literature). This paper traces one theme through this tradition: the depiction of divinity in such texts, vis-a-vis their material-cultural contexts, and the limits of depicting divinity. The results yield two competing interests among this imaginative tradition: the compulsion to depict the Godhead and the avoidance of actual depiction. In spite of a rich engagement with the divine worlds imaged in material culture, a depiction of the deity at the pinnacle of the pyramid of divinity is frequently allusive or absent: the missing image of the apocalyptic imagination.


Paul, the Pastorals, and Encratite Origins
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Andrew R. Guffey, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

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.


A Jewish War Scroll: Exploring Revelation as Performance
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Rebekah Haigh, Princeton University

When a Christian audience or universal preoccupations are no longer retrojected onto Revelation, what emerges is a highly dramatic composition concerned with reifying Jewish identity though intertwined themes of worship and eschatological violence. Although comparisons have been made to Hekhalot literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls may offer a more fruitful and contemporaneous lens for understanding Revelation’s experiential dimensions as they relate to the Temple. The intersections of liturgicality, performance, and communal identity in Qumran texts sharpen our appreciation of Revelation. As this paper suggests, John’s Apocalypse draws on visual, aural, and imaginative cues familiar to its listeners to encode communal performance.


GTM and SLA: Two Valuable Resources for Effective BH Introductory Programs
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Rahel Halabe, Unaffiliated

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.


Groaning upon Earth: From Eden to Rome
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Crystal L. Hall, United Lutheran Seminary

Historically interpreters have read the co-groaning and co-birthing Creation in Romans 8 against the backdrop of The Fall, especially God’s curse to multiply the pain of the woman in childbirth (Gen 3:16) and the curse on the man’s relationship with Earth in working with her for food (Gen 3:17-19). This paper expands this reading of Romans 8 to Genesis 4 through an exploration of the intimately interconnected relationships among God, Earth and humanity. This paper will engage these relationships first through literary analysis. Somewhere east of Eden, the first act explicitly associated with sin is Cain’s murder of his weaker, younger brother. As a consequence, God curses Cain from the face of Earth, who has opened her mouth to receive Abel’s blood, itself crying out from her (Gen 4:10-11). Cain, who inherited the vocation of “earth worker” from his father (Gen 4:2, LXX) is cursed by God to alienation from Earth. This curse is an intensification of his father’s, which had resulted in a fractured, complicated relationship with Earth. In response to this alienation—which ultimately results first in city- (Gen 4:17), and then empire-building (Gen 11:1-9)—Cain says he will be “groaning” upon Earth (Gen 4:14, LXX). Creation certainly co-groans alongside the Jesus community as both long for liberation (Rom 8:21-23). Not as a consequence of her own sin, but humanity’s, Creation too experiences intense alienation as a result of Cain’s sin. Her groaning breeds from the long tradition of describing the apocalyptic through images of a woman in labor. But perhaps the voices of Creation and the Jesus community are not the only ones crying out. Moving from literary to socio-historical analysis, this paper will engage the political, economic and ecological implications of Paul’s letter to the Romans read in the socio-historical context of the ecological devastation Rome organized across its empire in the first-century CE. It will develop biblical and theological resources rooted in Romans toward engaging the current ecological crisis.


Demons and Discipleship: The Application of the Progymnasmata in Mark 5:1–20
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Josiah D. Hall, Baylor University

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.


Danielic Traditions Enlightened by the Margins: The Example of Words of Michael (4Q529; 4Q571; 6Q13)
Program Unit: Book of Daniel
David Hamidovic, Université de Lausanne

For a long time, scholars have highlighted the cross-fertilization of traditions contained in the canonical book of Daniel, in the book of Jubilees, and in the books gathered in 1 Enoch. More recently, Aramaic writings discovered in the Qumran manuscripts shed new light on the nature of this cross-fertilization of traditions beyond possible textual links (Boccaccini) or the observation of fluid traditions (Stuckenbruck). Among these, Words of Michael (4Q529; 4Q571; 6Q13), which resembles a Vision-Revelation on the course of some events in History, provides a better understanding of the modalities of the revelational process at work in the book of Daniel.


The Role of Touch in Comprehending Love: Jesus’ Footwashing in John 13
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Jeannine Hanger, University of Aberdeen

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?


Kashering Jesus: Christological Conundrums
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Kenneth Hanson, University of Central Florida

In the ongoing debate over whether Messianic Jews should be accepted by the larger Jewish community or engaged on any level, even academically, it is pertinent to ask the extent to which the movement they embrace is in fact distinct from the theological traditions of classical Christianity, from which it emerged. While recent scholarship emanating from messianic Jewish circles is by anyone’s estimation impressive, it makes no serious attempt to challenge the premises of classical Christology. Rather than wrestling with the question of whether there was room in ancient Judaism for equating the Messiah with a divine being, its main concern is to demonstrate that Christian theology is not inconsistent with Jewish thought and practice. Rather than questioning whether the New Testament authors were in fact making a claim for the divinity of Jesus, it takes trinitarian concepts as a given. Would not a more textually responsible and perhaps more “authentic” form of messianic Judaism consider parting company with the doctrine of incarnation, as in fact a small minority of Messianic Jews have done? If Messianic Jews seek to represent themselves, not as Jewish Christians but as Jewish messianists, should they not at least consider a reevaluation of Christology itself? Moreover, why must the New Testament be considered the equivalent of Torah min hashamayim? What if Messianic Judaism were to come to grips with serious textual criticism of the New Testament? What if Jesus’ messianism were conceived in truly Jewish terms? What if Jesus’ own words were embraced, in which he directed worship not to himself but toward the divine Father? Why indeed should Messianic Jews feel compelled to engage in the kashering of Christology? The historical Jesus, by contrast, has no need of kashering; he was already quite kosher.


The Threat of Male Rape in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
James E. Harding, University of Otago

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.


Reading Job between Lamentations and Deutero-Isaiah
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
James E. Harding, University of Otago

It is increasingly recognised that the book of Job is replete with echoes of, and even allusions to, other works in the Tanakh (e.g. Pyeon 2003; Dell and Kynes 2013). The clearest example is Psalm 8 (e.g. Frevel 2004; Kynes 2012), allusions to which play a fundamental role in the development of the Joban poet’s theological argument, but it has long been recognised that the book of Job seems to reflect some sort of engagement with various other works that would, in due course, be anthologised in the Tanakh. The resonances between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, in particular, have long been noted, and while the direction of dependence has been a matter for debate, for a variety of reasons it seems more likely that Job is dependent on Deutero-Isaiah than the other way round (Kynes 2013). There are also affinities between Job and Lamentations, but it has proved somewhat more difficult to establish a direct relationship of dependence between these two works, despite the fact that there is clear evidence from the rabbinic literature that readers already in antiquity were well aware of the similarities between them (Aitken 2013). This paper will argue, first of all, that the principal reason that scholars have not been able to identify a direct relationship between Job and Lamentations beyond reasonable doubt is because they have not taken enough account of the fact that Deutero-Isaiah is, to a large extent, a direct response to the voice of Zion in Lamentations (on which see e.g. Gottwald 1954; Newsom 1992; Tull Willey 1997; Sommer 1998; Abma 1999; Harding 2006). Once full account is taken of this dimension of Deutero-Isaiah, it becomes possible to read Job as a highly sophisticated critique of Deutero-Isaiah’s response to Lamentations. It is relatively straightforward to develop an argument along these lines on the basis of a synchronic understanding of intertextuality, but this paper will aim to show that such an argument can be defended on diachronic grounds also. The main, but by no means the only, evidence for this is to be found in the distinctive use each of these three works makes of the root נחם. The failure of Job’s “comforters,” and the highly ambiguous claim of Job that he has been “comforted”— if that is indeed what Job 42:6a means—are best understood as part of a complex argument in Job that aims to dismantle Deutero-Isaiah’s claim that Zion’s desperate need for comfort is going to be met by YHWH (e.g. Isa 40:1).


A Spirited Iconomachy: The Martyrdom of Mark and the Death of Serapis in Alexandria
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Nathan J. Hardy, University of Chicago

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.


“I Wrote to You out of Much Affliction and Anguish of Heart”: Paul’s Emotions in 2 Cor
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Angela Kim Harkins, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry

This paper examines how the study of emotions in Second Temple Jewish prayers might have implications for our understanding of the New Testament. In the Second Temple period emotions of grief and mourning were ritually enacted and strategically used in prayers to various ends—not all emotions were expressions of interior anguish. Our study will discuss the various emotions in 2 Corinthians, with a special focus on Paul’s references to grief. As Laura Nasrallah has shown, Corinth was an ancient city that, in many ways, was emblematic of grief (2012). We propose that Paul’s references to grief are not simply eruptions of his interior anguish; they may also be understood to capitalize on these powerful ways that grief was understood and experienced by the Corinthians and also within Second Temple Jewish prayers. Paul refers to his grief strategically to communicate his personal presence and to optimize the effect of his words on the Corinthian readers and hearers.


Justice, Deliverance, and Life: Justification in Galatians and Its LXX Background in Light of Contemporary Metaphor Theory
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Johnathan Harris, Wheaton College

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


Becoming Eternal: Sectarian Identity as a Means of Access to the Divine
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Rebecca Harris, Messiah College

For members of the Qumran movement, initiation into the group transforms the member’s lived experience, granting him unmediated access to otherworldly realities in the present with the expectation that he will one day permanently join the ranks of heavenly beings. Rituals of initiation provide entry into the community, which the sectarians perceive as a liminal time-space with its own set of relations to the eternal realm. Although full incorporation into the eternal realm remains a future expectation, aspects of this reality become part of the sectarian’s present experience through participation in the religious rituals and liturgical practices of the sect. 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 following questions: 1) “What role do initiation and group membership play in the sectarian’s epistemological understanding of the present as a type of liminal time-space?” and 2) “How does the group’s self-identification, along with its epistemology of the present, shape its members’ expectations for the future?” 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 this earthly-human organization, referred to in the Qumran sectarian literature as an eternal planting, is foundational to a second layer of initiation – the sectarian’s full incorporation into the eternal realm at the end of the age. Here I bring up a less frequently discussed aspect of sectarian thought: the individual. In the rule texts and the Hodayot, the image of the sect as an eternal entity is held in tension with the notion that the individual is responsible for his own fate and is judged independently. The present then, for the sectarian, was a treacherous time in which one’s personal fate hung in the balance. 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.


Living in the Liminal: Accessing the Divine in Qumran Religious Practice
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Rebecca Harris, Messiah College

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.


Prompting Cognitive Growth in Undergraduate Students for Discussing the Bible
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Stan Harstine, Friends University

One challenge facing undergraduate instructors reveals itself when students operate from a “socialized” level of cognitive development which assumes that others visualize the same concept about any unexplored topic in the way they themselves do. One key semester objective in a course on understanding and interpreting the Bible challenges students to move toward the “self-authored” stage where students begin recognizing that another person’s gender, background, and experiences create an entirely distinct view of an object, particularly the biblical text. As a primer to highlight the importance of growth into this next stage of adult cognitive development, I introduce a brief lesson on the first day of class appropriately named “The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.” This exercise incorporates visualization, memory recall, expression of opinion, decision making, and physical movement which combine to help the student clearly perceive that others do not envision the same PB&J sandwich as they themselves. This exercise also encourages the students to voice their opinions in class in order to help others gain better understanding. Following this short classroom encounter, I can refer to this metaphor throughout the semester, as well as in subsequent courses, to remind them that “the other” does not envision any one biblical passage in the way they assume “the other” might.


The Complexity of Aseneth’s Transformation
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Kirsten Marie Hartvigsen, University of Oslo

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.


Q 18:39b, the Ḥawqala, and Zech. 4:6b
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Elon Harvey, The University of Chicago

One of the most famous Islamic formulae is la hawla wa-la quwwata illa bi-Llah (“There is neither might, nor power, except in God”), also known as the hawqalah. This formula is first attested in hadith reports, papyri, coins, and inscriptions that may be dated to the early second AH/seventh CE century. A formula resembling the hawqalah, but without the words la hawla, appears in Q al-Kahf 18:39b. The two formulae are clearly related, but exactly how is unclear. While Q 18:39b is presented as a formula meant to ward off the Evil Eye in times of success, the hawqalah is often uttered in times of distress to affirm one’s belief in God. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that a revealed qur’anic phrase like Q 18:39b should be augmented by the non-qur’anic addition la hawla. This addition is even more surprising considering hawl (might, power) is usually understood as a synonym of quwwa, and consequently does not affect the general meaning of the hawqalah. Why then was this addition made? And how may we account for the functional difference between Q 18:39b and the hawqalah? In this paper, I will explore the possibility that this addition is influenced by Zech. 4:6b, lo be-hayil we-lo be-ko’ah ki im be-ruhi (“Neither through might, nor through power, but only through My spirit”). Already in 1965, Benedikt Hartmann had suggested that the hawqalah might be related to this biblical verse. However, he failed to note how they each relate to Q 18:39b. By examining the use of the word hawl and its Semitic cognates, and by analyzing certain hadith reports related to the hawqalah, I hope to show that there is striking evidence that suggests that both Q 18:39b and the hawqalah are quite likely linked to that biblical verse and to some of its late antique interpretations.


On Stumbling Blocks and Blind Pups: Blindness as Metaphor and Symbol in Hebrew and Akkadian Literature
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Eric J. Harvey, Brandeis University

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.


Theological Exegesis and Exegetical Theology: Reading al-Māturīdī's Taʾwīlāt al-qurʾān with His Kitāb al-tawḥīd
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Ramon Harvey, Ebrahim College

Despite a recent surge of interest in Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) as the eponym of a major Sunnī theological school, his expansive commentary on the Qur’an remains understudied. One of the outstanding features of Taʾwīlāt al-qurʾān is its use of theological argument in the elaboration of Qur’anic verses. Yet, to fully appreciate this aspect of al-Māturīdī’s exegesis, it is necessary to relate it to his more developed theological positions within his surviving kalām work, Kitāb al-tawḥīd. At this point two questions emerge about the relationship between his extant texts: what is the function of theology in the exegetical formation of Taʾwīlāt al-qurʾān? And what is the function of Qur’anic exegesis in the theological formation of Kitāb al-tawḥīd? In this paper, I will suggest al-Māturīdī’s two texts show that his hermeneutic methodology proceeds both from kalām to tafsīr and vice versa. To illustrate this, I will present three case studies: God’s timelessness in explanation of Q. 41:10: ‘He measured out [the earth’s] varied provisions in four days’; His dissimilarity from created things in Q. 42:11: ‘There is nothing like Him’; and His creative action in Q. 2:117 (and other verses): ‘He says only “Be”, and it is’. From these, respectively, it will be possible to propose a three-fold typology for al-Māturīdī’s theological-cum-hermeneutic method: (1) verses that provoke theological solutions to resolve specific exegetical problems; (2) verses that lead from exegesis to the formulation of general theological principles; and (3) verses that are amenable to theological exegesis and, as such, can provide exegetical evidence for theological doctrines. The picture that will emerge is that al-Māturīdī is a theologian-exegete in the truest sense, insofar as there is a reciprocal and interdependent relationship between these two facets of his intellectual life. Rational elaboration of scripture becomes an important part of the project of kalām just as theological arguments are brought to solve exegetical quandaries. Contextualizing his work within the early fourth/tenth century, the paper will also raise the question of whether the apparent distinctiveness of al-Māturīdī’s interdisciplinary approach to kalām and tafsīr partly reflects the fact that, in his case, these two genres of text are extant. I will therefore suggest that attention should also be paid to whether similar methods could have been practised by notable contemporaries such Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī (d. 319/931) and Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935).


Emotional Merit and the Aqedah in Genesis Rabbah
Program Unit: Midrash
Matthew Hass, Harvard University

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.


Slave of God, Slave of Christ, Slave of All: Reading Matthew’s Servile Metaphors in Their Matthean Context
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Jonathan J. Hatter, Loyola University of Chicago

Exegesis of Matthew’s slave metaphors often suffers from issues of translation and interpretation. Translating “slave” language using the euphemistic term “servant” alters the thrust of these metaphors by obscuring the involuntary and cruel nature of servile existence. When the metaphorical actors are identified as slaves, outdated models for interpreting ancient slavery as benign and even beneficial for those slaves involved diminishes the radical nature of Matthew’s call to be “slave of God,” “slave of Christ,” or “slave of all.” This paper applies social-science and narrative critical methodologies to the text of Matthew’s gospel in an attempt to understand Matthew’s slave metaphors in their proper social and literary context. First, it briefly looks at the servile characters of the gospel (in both the broader narrative and in the parables) and demonstrates how Matthew portrays slavery as complete domination (often in violent and/or coercive terms) and total dishonor, in keeping with the modern sociological model put forth by Orlando Patterson (who defines slavery as “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons”). Next it employs Matthew’s own portrayal of slavery, conforming as it does to Patterson’s model, as the appropriate hermeneutical lens through which his servile metaphors should be understood. Being a slave of God (6:24) is not simply a matter of preference but is a call to complete submission (subjugation) to the exclusion of any other claim. Being a slave of Christ (10:24-25) is not an honorific position but rather is a position in which one can expect to be mistreated (just as Christ, the Lord/Master was mistreated; just as slaves can often expect to be mistreated). It is not an image of upward social mobility but rather expressed an expectation of abuse. Finally, being slaves to one another (20:24-28) is not a model for leadership or an innovative path to the top but is instead a call to radical humility, exemplified by Jesus’ sacrificial death (without his subsequent exaltation in view). Ultimately, these metaphors are not primarily concerned with the rendering of any specific service (to God or others) nor do they promote “slave” as an honorific title. Rather slavery in Matthew serves as a metaphor for total obedience to God, suffering dishonor as Christ did, and the radical pursuit of humility in the Christian community.


When Women Go Hunting: A Reading of Aqhat's Encounter with the Goddess Anat
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Alison K. Hawanchak, Asbury Theological Seminary

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 Latin Eremitic Life of Mary Magdalene: Further Witnesses and a New Version
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Brandon Hawk, Rhode Island College

For all of the popularity of Mary Magdalene, early versions of the Latin Eremitic Life of Mary Magdalene have been paid little attention. This paper surveys the complex array of manuscripts and texts and presents a new version of the Latin Eremitic Life found in several medieval manuscripts that have been previously overlooked.


Khirbet ʿAuja el-Foqa: An Iron Age Fortified City in the Jericho Valley
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Ralph K. Hawkins, Averett University

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.


The Angel of YHWH Wielding a Sword: The Iconographical Background of 1 Chronicles 21
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Kaz Hayashi, Baylor University

While some scholars identify the increased references of theמלאך (יהוה) “angel (of YHWH)” in 1 Chr 21 compared to the parallel account in 2 Sam 24 as a dinstinct feature that reflects the tendenz of the Chornicler(s) (Roddy Baum), others attribute little to no significance to the angel motif within the chapter (Peggy Day). In contrast to the latter position, I argue that angels play an integral role within 1 Chr 21 in two ways: First, the angel wielding a sword functions apotropaically as a threatening force to ward off and correct David’s sin. Second, the angel appearing at the altar symbolizes divine peace and order. I support my thesis first by conducting a rhetorical analysis to demonstrate that the angels play an indispensable role in developing and resolving the chapter’s plot. I then evaluate the two different motifs of an angel wielding a sword and an angel appearing at an altar site in light of comparative ancient Near Eastern iconographical materials. The prior motif of a winged genie wielding a sword frequently appear battling various creatures (i.e., eagle, cherub, and other composite creatures) from cylinder seals during the Neo-Babylonian period and continuing into the Persian period (e.g., PFS 30, 1566, 1632, 2084). On one cylinder seal, the accompanying inscription reads “Marduk, protect (my) soul, give me life,” hence both the art and inscription communicate the apotropaic function of the sword wielding winged genie. The latter motif of a winged at an altar appears on multiple Achaemenid seals (e.g., PFS 11, PFUTS 152). On these seals, a winged being appears above a scene where supplicants (royal figures) come before an altar (PFS 11). In other instances, a winged sun disk appears above an altar, which is approached by devotees. Compared with other instances of the winged being above various objects (e.g., king and sacred tree), the winged being in these instances communicates divine protection and order. These iconographical insights elucidate the two frequently overlooked details within the biblical text. First, the motif of an angel yielding a sword, which is normally attributed with protective properties of warding off evil, works against David’s “evil” for conducting a census. Second, just as in Achaemenid iconography when a winged being appears at an altar site, the angel at David’s altar results in the neutralization of judgment, and the attainment of blessing and order (1 Chr 21: 25–27).


Identifying Dead Sea Scribes: A Digital Palaeographic Approach
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Gemma Hayes, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

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.


They Just Keep Telling the Story: A Rhetorical Solution to a Text-Critical Problem in Psalm 69
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Rebecca W. Poe Hays, Baylor University

The cries of the psalmist of Ps 69 run the gamut of human emotion, encompassing everything from glorious thanksgiving to bitter imprecation. The final word in Ps 69:27 [Eng. 69:26] presents a text-critical problem for interpreters. The Masoretic Text reads יספרו, “[the enemies] recount, they tell about.” In contrast, the Old Greek and Syriac Peshitta translations of this verse suggest a Hebrew Vorlage that read יספיו, “they add, do more.” Biblical scholars and English translations are consequently divided on how to render this verse. For example, the NRSV and Zenger follow the Old Greek reading: “those whom you have wounded, they attack still more”; the NASB and Groenewald read with the Masoretic Text: “they tell of the pain of those whom You have wounded.” Within the rhetorical context of Ps 69, this verse provides justification for the harsh imprecations the psalmist calls down upon the enemies (vv. 23–29 [Eng. 22–28]) by helping to specify just what the enemies are guilty of doing to the psalmist. In the larger context of the psalm, speech is weaponized and the imagery reflects a kind of “piling on.” In light of this context and the Hebrew tendency toward polysemy, I argue that the best solution to the text-critical problem is not an “either/or” but rather a “both/and” in which one recognizes the presence of a wordplay.


Is God Trustworthy? God’s Self-Oath and the Logic of Divine Simplicity in Hebrews 6:13–20
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Joshua Heavin, Trinity College - Bristol

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.


Digital Critical Edition of the Expositiones in Psalmos of Pseudo-Athanasius of Alexandria
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Uta Heil, Universität Wien

The paper presents a new research project, funded by the FWF in Austria: The Greek Expositiones in Psalmos (ExpPs) from the beginning of the fifth century AD offer interpretations of Psalm texts in the tradition of Alexandrian theology. The commentary itself has not been preserved in a direct transmission, but must instead be reconstructed with the aid of the Psalm catenae, where sequences of excerpts from diverse patristic authors and their works are presented suitable to biblical verses. The latest edition of the ExpPs was realized by the Maurist Montfaucon (1698, reprint in PG 27,60–546) who united authentic and inauthentic material which makes this edition unusable nowadays. Therefore, this highly needed critical edition fills a huge gap among the Psalm commentaries of Late Antiquity and contributes also to the transmission of Hexaplaric variants of the Psalm texts. The project will establish a new digital critical edition of the ExpPs on Ps 1-50. It unites philological, codicological and exegetical methods with new approaches in digital humanities: These possibilities will offer the chance to present the different stages of transmission of the ExpPs (manuscript-level, catena-type-level if attestable, ExpPs-level, where possible, including also similia e.g. of Eusebius of Caesarea). The aim is to use these digital features to explore and visualize the very complicated catena material and also allow to include these texts in a new digital archive of texts from Antiquity.


The Roaming Eyes of Yahweh in Zech 4:10b and the Context of Persian Religions
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Kristin Helms, Roberts Wesleyan College

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.


Josephus’ Roman Alexander? A Comparison of the Origins of Hellenistic and Roman Rule of the Jews in Antiquitates Judaicae
Program Unit: Josephus
Jordan Henderson, Florida State University

This paper will examine Josephus’ depiction of Pompey’s siege of Jerusalem in the Antiquities, in comparison with his depictions of Hellenistic rule in the same work, as well as his earlier depiction of Pompey’s siege in the Jewish War. The conquests of Jerusalem by both Pompey in 63 BCE and Titus in 70 CE bear a marked resemblance to the actions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the second century BCE. This presented Josephus with quite a conundrum in his massive historical project of the Antiquities: If he merely sticks to his primary source for the period of Seleucid rule (1 Maccabees), he risks having his readers seeing parallels between the actions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Pompey, and Titus. However, to depart too radically from this narrative, perhaps downplaying the severity of Antiochus’ cruelty to the Jews, could place Josephus at odds with national heroes of Israel’s past (the Maccabees), as well as possibly highlighting his own abandonment of the Jewish rebellion in favor of imperial Rome. I will argue that Josephus avoided either of these options by inserting his narrative of Alexander the Great visiting Jerusalem in the Antiquities, portraying him as an ideal foreign ruler of Judea. Alexander’s actions in this famous passage are antithetical to those of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and present another Hellenistic ruler with which to compare the actions of Pompey the Great. Rather than the proud and arrogant Alexander of 1 Maccabees and the book of Daniel, Josephus’ Alexander humbles himself before the God of the Jews and permits them to continue to observe their ancestral customs. This allows Josephus in his own unique way to draw on the tradition of Pompey as a “Roman Alexander.” We are left with two origin stories of Hellenistic and Roman rule: Alexander the Great is presented as a model of the just foreign ruler, whose example of just rule was followed by some (e.g. Antiochus III), but neglected by many of his successors, chief among them Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Pompey, whose conquest might appear on the surface as resembling that of Antiochus, emerges a reluctant conqueror resembling Alexander’s humble stance before the God of the Jews and just rule in allowing the Jews to observe their ancestral customs and cultic activities. Pompey’s conquest in the Antiquities thus marks the beginning of Roman rule of Judea as the rightful successor to Alexander’s legacy, allowing Josephus to similarly frame Titus’ siege as being in accord with this legacy.


Elijah’s Ever Falling Mantle: The Reuse of Elijah Imagery for John, Jesus, and the Disciples in Luke-Acts
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Bruce Henning, Emmaus Bible College

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.


"Nika!" Inscribing the Charismatic Crowd in Late Antiquity
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Andrew Henry, Boston University

The acclamation “νίκα!” was a ubiquitous slogan in Greco-Roman public life. Crowds apparently shouted the Latinized version "nica" at gladiatorial combats as early as the 1st century CE. By the 5th and 6th centuries, crowds shouted it at chariot races in Constantinople as attested by an inscription on a monument for the famed late antique charioteer Porphyrius that preserves the variation “Be victorious, Porphyrius!” All major cities in the late Roman Empire had theaters and hippodromes, and this acclamation must have featured prominently in these gatherings, especially as a partisan chant for the circus factions the Blues and the Greens. The acclamation “νικᾷ ἡ τύχη” with the faction name in the genitive form (Πρασίνων or Βενέτων) appears everywhere from public mosaics to crude graffiti on pithoi handles. The acclamation also appears as a common formula on countless amulets and apotropaic inscriptions. A monumental marble block from Xanthos, Syria depicts Serapis and Isis-Tyche along with the inscription “Νικα ὁ Σεραπις τον φθονον!” Christianized versions appear as graffiti, amulets, and monumental inscriptions as well, such as an inscription painted on an arch inside a late antique house in the Syrian town Serdjilla which reads “Emmanuel, XMG, Christ is victorious!” Why inscribe a collective “shout?” Why were certain acclamations thought to remain efficacious when inscribed on an object and not only when they were performed orally by an assembly? How does an inscribed acclamation relate to its materiality? This paper will argue that objects inscribed with acclamations recall the memory of public performances of acclamations and were inscribed in order to radiate the power of those performances in material form. The aim of the project is to examine the intersection between performance and materiality. In late Roman public life, acclamations were performed to accomplish something. They were the collective ritual par excellence enabling crowds to achieve all manner of goals ranging from deposing an emperor to electing a new bishop. I will argue that objects such as magic gems, amulets, and door lintels inscribed with acclamations reflect this instrumentality of acclamatory performances as well as the embodied experience of acclamations as efficacious speech acts that organized and directed the energies of a crowd. This research draws on recent work in performance theory and object agency. A shouted acclamation is fleeting. Shouting nika in a stadium sustains a crowd’s energy for a short period of time, but eventually, the echoes cease and the crowd disperses. But inscribing an acclamation on a gem, amulet, or door lintel makes the speech act permanent. In the same way that speech acts are utterances that bring about a result by their vocalization, a performance in writing is a “writing action” that functions as both a statement and an action. Inscribing “νίκα” on a magic gem amounts to a “performance in writing” that produce effects and continues to exert the charisma of the crowd through the object.


Deporting God(s) and Demonstrating Power: The Ark Narrative(s) 1 Sam 4–6*/ 2 Sam 6* as an Answer to the Assyrian Practice of Godnapping
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Benedikt Hensel, Universität Zürich

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.


The Administration of Samaria in the Persian Period and the Ethnic Identity of Its Population: A Perspective from the Material Evidence
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Benedikt Hensel, Universität Zürich

From the extant sources, it is obvious that shortly after its conquest the former kingdom of Israel was incorporated into the Assyrian imperial administration as a province, with the city of Samaria as its capital. Unfortunately, we have practically no documentation available on the administration of this province in the Assyrian and Babylonian period. The picture changes dramatically under Persian rule. Beginning with the late sixth century, the number of sources that relate to the province of Samaria, now called by its Aramaic name Shamrayn medinta, expands exponentially. The paper will focus on the administration of the Samarian province, its role within Persian Provincial system and its political and economic relationship with its neighboring regions, especially with Yehud. The paper will explore this question by going through the material evidence (e.g., the Elephantine documents, the Wadi Daliyeh bullae and papyri found by Bedouin in 1962; the Persian periods Samarian coinage, and other material). One important aspect to be treated in this paper is that of Samaria’s population and its self-identification– especially as certain biblical traditions claim that Persian period’s Samaria was home to an exceptionally „multi-ethnical“ and „multi-religious“ population.


Left-Handed? Not! Ehud's Saving Right Arm
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
John W Herbst, Virginia Peninsula Baptist Association

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.


“In the Lord” Is Not “in Christ”: The Distinctive Syntactical and Conceptual Functions of a Linguistic Doppelgänger
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
J. Thomas Hewitt, University of Aberdeen

Paul’s uses of the analogous phrases ἐν χριστῷ and ἐν κυρίῳ have received recent attention, particularly by scholars interested in Paul’s participatory thought. Several such investigations detect no real difference between the expressions (Konstan and Ramelli 2007; Campbell 2012), but these treatments are characterized by two errors: 1) fixation on the connotation of the preposition ἐν to the neglect of its objects χριστός and κύριος; 2) and disregard for the idioms’ distinct syntactical functions. As a result, the phrases ἐν χριστῷ and ἐν κυρίῳ have come to be regarded inaccurately as uniformly participatory expressions and are treated uncritically as ciphers for the modern construct of participatory soteriology or “union with Christ.” In this paper, I correct this misapprehension by assessing the distinctive syntactical and conceptual functions of ἐν κυρίῳ vis-à-vis a description, informed by Paul’s messianology, of the functions of ἐν χριστῷ. I demonstrate that the syntactical functions of ἐν κυρίῳ are markedly less varied than those of ἐν χριστῷ and that the so-called participatory use of ἐν κυρίῳ is – quite unlike that of ἐν χριστῷ – never with reference to solidarity with the messiah in his suffering, death, resurrection, or (perhaps most surprisingly) authority. Further, I argue that these differences are best explained not in terms of an alleged “Pauline dialectic” between “indicative” and “imperative” (Neugebauer 1961; Bouttier 1962; cf. Kramer 1966), but rather with reference to distinctions between Paul’s conceptions of messiahship and lordship.


Linguistic Interference in Septuagint Genesis
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Robert J. V. Hiebert, Trinity Western University

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.


"So That We Can Survive and Not Starve to Death": Insights into Environmental Migration from Genesis 37–50
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Theodore Hiebert, McCormick Theological Seminary

As part of a larger project on migration in the Book of Genesis, in this paper I wish to begin a reexamination of the narrative of Israel’s ancestors’ migration to Egypt that concludes the book. This is the most extensive migration story in Genesis, and it is a story of environmental migration, a story in which land and home are threatened by changes to the local environment. And it is a story told from the perspective of the environmental migrants themselves. At a time when environmental migration is a swiftly growing reality, we must become reacquainted with the experiences of environmental migrants as they are presented in biblical religious history in order to discover what we might learn from them and how they shape our attitudes toward immigration today. In the narrative of environmental migration in Genesis 37-50, Israel’s ancestors leave their home in the Mediterranean highlands in a period of widespread drought and resettle in the Nile delta within the Egyptian Empire. To reexamine the dynamics of environmental migration in this story, we will focus in particular on these aspects: 1) the causes—climatic, agricultural, economic, political, international—of this migration; 2) the nature of the migration itself, the trip to the host country; 3) the environmental, economic, and political context in the host country, the Egyptian Empire, its relations to the country of origin of the environmental migrants, and its attitude toward and treatment of environmental migrants; 4) the negotiation of this new space by the environmental migrants themselves: its value to them, their vulnerability within it, and its effect on their ethnic identity; and 5) the values embedded in the narrative toward the environmental migrants themselves and toward their host country and its policies toward them. To investigate these aspects of environmental migration in this narrative, we will draw on ancient data from climate studies, geography, archaeology, and comparative literature to fully understand the Iron Age context of the narrative. Together with these ancient sources, we will incorporate data from contemporary studies of environmental migration and from transnational migration theory that focuses on the interaction between country of origin and country of settlement. Our overall aims are to rediscover the stories of environmental migration in our biblical heritage and to understand how these stories and the attitudes embedded in them might shape our values and our attitudes toward environmental migrants today.


The Two-Fold Turning of Fathers and Children in Malachi 3:24 (4:6): A Grammatical Analysis
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
B.J. Hilbelink, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

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.


Numbering Acts: The Euthalian Chapters and the capitulatio Vaticana and Their Bearing on the Transmission History of the Acts of the Apostles
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Charles E. Hill, Reformed Theological Seminary

Antiquity has handed down at least four separate schemes of numbered capitulation for the Acts of the Apostles, apportioning its text into 36, 40, 53, or 69 chapters. The margins of Vaticanus hold a primitive, 36-chapter capitulation, alongside of which a ninth-century hand has added a set of 69 chapters. This same 69-chapter set is also found, in part, in the margins of Sinaiticus. Best-represented by far in the manuscript tradition, however, is the 40-chapter system associated with the Euthalian Apparatus, which appears in at least 76 medieval manuscripts and is republished in each new edition of the Nestle-Aland text. At least five of these manuscripts, including Coislin 25 (GA 307), attribute the chapters to Pamphilus, or to Pamphilus and Eusebius. Zuntz, among others, credits the attribution to Pamphilus, which, if true, would place the origins of the 40-chapter system some time before 309, when the scholar died, well prior to the usual dates given for Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Yet this early set of numbered divisions, I shall argue, was not the first. Nested within the Euthalian Apparatus of certain manuscripts, including Cod. Reg. Alex. (GA 181, 10th c.), is also a list of 36, numbered, section incipits. The textual placements of these numbers match, with only minor deviations, the placements of the primitive numbers in Vaticanus, part of the configuration dubbed by Tregelles, the capitulatio Vaticana (capVat). The capVat for Acts, then, may boast at least some attestation external to Codex Vaticanus. This capitulation occupied the pages of a copy of Acts apparently once held in the Caesarean Library, and it probably formed the basis for the 40-chapter capitulation attributed to Pamphilus. My paper will introduce the two early capitulations for Acts, the ‘Pamphilian’ and the capVat, explain their distinctive conceptualizations and aims, and explore the implications they might have for the textual history of the book of Acts.


Intersectionality, Science, and Religion
Program Unit: Korean Biblical Colloquium
Patricia Hill Collins, University of Maryland

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.


Teaching Online during COVID 19: Aligning Learning Outcomes, Assignments, Teaching, and Assessments
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
John Hilton III, Brigham Young University

Although there are many novel approaches to assessment, students will underperform and be frustrated if learning outcomes, classroom teaching and assessments are not aligned. Today, more than ever, students expect to be given clear direction in terms of what they are expected to know and receive assessments aligned with this direction. In addition, clear rubrics should be a part of this alignment. In this presentation I provide two specific examples, both of which could work in both online and face-to-face environments, of how faculty can better align their instruction with assessments. One of these examples focuses on multiple-choice questions, and the other uses short essay responses. In both cases I discuss how to streamline grading assessments in such a way to promote mastery learning.


Spiritual Outcomes and Online General Education Religion Courses
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
John Hilton III, Brigham Young University

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.


The Certain and Simple Sense in the Aggadic Interpretation of the Bible
Program Unit: Midrash
Marc Hirshman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Studies of the terminology employed for literal interpretations such as "vaddai" and "kishmuo" abound. This paper will add the perspective of the Sages views of their own and the Bibles usage of language. I will then offer a theory of the development of aggadic interpretation in the tannaitic period and its later efflorescence.


Governing Authorities as Neighbors: Rhetoric of Affirming Christ-Followers as Grace-Giving Community in Romans 13
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
Sin Pan Ho, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong

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.


Slaves and Masters, Diversity and Unity: Locating the Benefactor of 1 Timothy 6:1–2a
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Gary G. Hoag, Northern Seminary

Bible translators and New Testament scholars vacillate in their attempts to locate the benefactor in view in 1 Timothy 6:1-2a. Some point to the “slaves as benefactors” while others suggest the language implies a “masters as benefactors” reading. If we pick up ten different version of the text, we find ten very different renderings of 1 Timothy 6:2a. Is one correct? Could they both be accurate? Is there a third view that might help us celebrate the diversity of views and bring a sense of unity to a confusing text? And how might we find it? To help us locate a reading that celebrates the diversity of interpretive views and yet brings unity to this text, we will look at the benefactor model in inscriptions along with literary evidence has surfaced that has been largely overlooked in New Testament scholarship, Ephesiaca by Xenophon of Ephesus. When we examine 1 Timothy 6:1-2a alongside this evidence, an interpretive reading of the text emerges that actually celebrates the variety of views. In this paper, I will present socio-rhetorical research in three sections: I will (1) sketch the “slaves as benefactors” and “masters as benefactors” and renderings of 1 Timothy 6:1-2a, (2) share how Ephesiaca by Xenophon of Ephesus and inscription evidence contribute fresh insight to the scholarly conversation, and (3) offer a fresh reading that celebrates the diversity of these interpretive views and yet brings them together in unity. Gary G. Hoag, Ph.D. (New Testament), Trinity College Bristol, UK (2014), is a member of SBL. He lives in Littleton, CO, and serves as a visiting professor or guest lecturer at seven schools: Asian Theological Seminary (Quezon City, Philippines), Denver Seminary (Littleton, CO), Northern Seminary (Lombard, IL), Sioux Falls Seminary (Sioux Falls, SD), Taylor Seminary (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), Torch Trinity Graduate University (Seoul, South Korea), and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL). He is author of Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy (BBRS 11).


A Ban in the Qur’ān: Was ḥērem Part of God’s sunna?
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Thomas Hoffmann, University of Copenhagen

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.


From Zaphon to Zion: Psalm 20 and the Judahite Transformation of Israelite Traditions
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Tim Hogue, Loyola Marymount University

The Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel in the late 8th century led to an influx of Israelite refugees into the kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem in particular. Scholars have long suspected that this refugee crisis precipitated the incorporation of Israelite traditions into Judah’s literary corpora. However, some scholars reasonably doubt that this could have been the case, arguing that the refugees were hardly positioned to influence the Judahite literati. Recent analyses of Papyrus Amherst 63, XII, 11-19 point to an alternative possibility. It has been argued that this text indicates a Hebrew Vorlage of not only the Aramaic poem in the papyrus but also of the Masoretic version of Psalm 20 as well. As such, a close reading of the psalm with special attention to innerbiblical exegetical notations in comparison to Papyrus Amherst 63 may provide the first empirical evidence for the adoption of Israelite literature in Judah and more importantly for the nature of that adoption. This paper argues that Israelite literature was not preserved but rather actively transformed by the Judahite literati in order to promote ideological assimilation among the Israelite refugees. That is, Judahite scribes were adapting Israelite literature into propaganda for the Judahite monarchy, and the Israelites themselves probably wielded little power in this process.


Chastity and Asexuality: Asexual Resonances around the Acts of Thecla
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Jimmy Hoke, Luther College

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.


Swearing by or in God’s Temple: Implications of God’s Own Oaths
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Shalom E. Holtz, Yeshiva University

Amos 4:2 describes God as swearing (š-b-(, N-stem) bәqodšô and Psalm 89:36 quotes God’s own oath, “I have sworn bәqodšî.” In both verses, the verb for swearing, predicated of God, occurs in combination with the noun qôdeš preceded by the preposition bә and followed by the relevant possessive suffix. Most commentators have interpreted these verses along the lines of the NJPS rendering of Amos 4:2, which has God swearing “by His holiness.” While this reading makes sense of the verses themselves, it ignores both broader Hebrew usage and divine oaths mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. In terms of usage, outside of adjectival constructions (such as har qodšî, Isaiah 56:7), when forms of the noun qôdeš occur with possessive suffixes referring to God, the noun refers to God’s abode, not to God’s characteristic holiness. In terms of God’s oaths elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, when God swears, the object by which God does so is not a characteristic of God. These considerations lead to two other possible readings of God’s oaths in Amos 4:2 and Psalm 89:36: God swears in God’s abode or God swears by God’s abode. Both possibilities must account for the evidence available in Psalms 60:8//108:8, in which the word bәqodšô follows the otherwise unmarked verb of speech, dibber. They must also consider relevant parallels to oath procedures and formulations from within the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere. On the assumption that God's oaths have some analogue in the human sphere, these verses impact an account of biblical oath procedures. The first possibility assigns significance to the location in which the oath is sworn. The second possibility recovers a heretofore undetected biblical example of swearing by a deity’s sacred space, a practice attested in an Aramaic legal document from Elephantine and in later Jewish and Christian sources.


Scribing an Iconic Text: An Experiential, Performative Approach to Writing Mezuzot
Program Unit: Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts
Jonathan Homrighausen, Duke University

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.


Exile and Diaspora in Philo in the Light of the Hellenistic Philosophical Discourses on Exile
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Sung Soo Hong, The University of Texas at Austin

Philo’s take on the Jewish Diaspora has often been discussed in regard to his view of Jerusalem as “mother-city” and Alexandria as his “fatherland.” Other questions scholars have discussed include whether Philo hoped for the political restoration of Israel and whether Philo viewed the Diaspora positively or negatively. Having these questions in mind, this paper expounds the philosophical side of Philo’s view of the Jewish Diaspora. I analyze how Philo relates the term φυγή to the Jewish Diaspora, and how he relates the “exilic” situation to moral progress. The first section of this paper discusses Hellenistic philosophical discourses on exile (φυγή, fuga, exilium), examining Diogenes, Teles the Cynic teacher, Musonius Rufus, and Seneca. As John Fitzgerald pointed out in his study of the peristasis catalogues, hardships such as exile, poverty, and sickness constitute a test of human character: a successful proficiens takes them as training opportunities (Diogenes reportedly said that exile made him a philosopher); hardships may demonstrate the moral maturity of the sage including his self-sufficiency, freedom, and frankness (παρρησία). Ideas typically found in philosophical discussions of exile include the idea of the sage as a physician of the soul, the sage’s exercise of frankness, the sage’s critique of popular opinions, the critique of the rich, and the sage’s happiness in the middle of “misfortunes” (philosophers hold that exile, like other hardships, is not an evil; the real problem is our failure to control our passions). As for literary techniques, ample use of personal examples and hypothetical dialogues are observable. The second section of this paper surveys the occurrences of the term φυγή and its cognates in Philo. I discern three usages and contexts: first, φυγή as a penalty for grave crimes within Philo’s legal discussions; second, φυγή as a political banishment, in the context of discussing how philosophers are hardly affected by “misfortunes” like exile (Philo’s “That Every Good Man Is Free” has nearly all those ideas and literary features in philosophical writings on exile); third, with regard to the idea of moral progress, φυγή refers to either a positive departure (e.g. Abraham) or flight (e.g. Jacob) from evil toward virtue, or a negative flight (e.g. Hagar) or banishment (e.g. Cain). In the light of our findings in the preceding sections, the third section analyzes select passages in Philo’s “On Rewards and Punishments,” especially the one in which both φυγή and διασπορά occur (Praem. 115-17). I suggest that the expression, “spiritual dispersion” (διασπορᾶς ψυχικῆς), means both the historical reality and the spiritual state with more emphasis on the latter. In my view, in employing expressions relating to captivity and slavery, Philo projects the non-sage state of the Diasporic Jews (“enslaved” to their passions) to the “historical” dimension, rather than deducing an allegorical lesson from an accurate historical fact, because, obviously, not all Jews were slaves in the legal sense. To my knowledge, this paper is the first systematic analysis of the occurrences of the term φυγή in Philo in the light of Hellenistic moral philosophies on exile.


What Did the Prophet Joshua Prophesy? The Surprising Solution of the Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
Jesse Hoover, Baylor University

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.


Customary Law and Authoritarian Law: Some Considerations of Semantic Differences and Legal Concepts in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Matthias Hopf, Universität Zürich

In the past, scholars have made many attempts at distinguishing the Hebrew expressions mišpāṭ on the one hand and ḥôq / ḥuqqāh on the other. In recent times, however, differences between these lexemes have mostly been flatly denied or at least declared negligible. This paper will argue differently as it seeks to establish a basic semantic differentiation between mišpāṭ as customary law and ḥôq / ḥuqqāh as authoritarian law. To this end, this paper will draw upon insights from the anthropology of law, namely from the work of Leopold Pospíšil. This Yale scholar understands law mainly as a concrete process of decision-making (ius) as opposed to the written laws or rules prescribed in some other form (leges). Furthermore, he proposes that the “field of legal decisions” is closely linked to its neighbouring spheres: the “field of political decisions”, on the one hand, and the “field of customs”, on the other. Based on these assumptions, it can be made plausible that, originally, the roots špṭ and ḥqq seem to refer to forms of decision-making that belong to different spheres. For the former this is rather obvious: It is a common view that mišpāṭ needs to be understood as “customary law” and that špṭ has to do with decision making in the “field of legal decisions”. This paper will reinforce this notion with etymological reasoning and textual evidence. Yet, the same aspects also show that the root exhibits an affinity to the “field of political decisions”. However, this paper argues that the words ḥôq / ḥuqqāh belong to a much larger degree to the political sphere. In fact, in addition to its etymology, the use of ḥqq-derivatives in several Hebrew Bible passages indicates that this root primarily refers to political decision-making. Accordingly, the original meaning of ḥôq / ḥuqqāh was probably quite close to what Pospíšil calls “authoritarian law,” i.e. political decisions that have “migrated” from the “field of political decisions” to the “field of law”. Although this differentiation between customary law (mišpāṭ) and authoritarian law (ḥôq / ḥuqqāh) might not hold true for every single use of these words, especially if we look at later texts, the textual evidence suggests that it is correct in principle and tendentially. We should, thus, treat expressions like ḥuqqîm ûmišpāṭîm not as combinations of mere synonyms, but rather as meaningfully synthetic phrases with two discrete legal expressions.


Nifalization in Ancient Hebrew: A Perspective from the Samaritan Tradition
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Aaron D. Hornkohl, University of Cambridge

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.


“Under Punishment until the Day of Judgment”: Moral Entanglement as Punishment in Second Peter 2:9
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
William Horst, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)

Second Peter contrasts God’s preservation of the faithful with the inevitable judgment that will be visited on the unrighteous: “The Lord knows how to deliver godly people from trial, and to keep unrighteous people under punishment until the day of judgment” (οἶδεν κύριος εὐσεβεῖς ἐκ πειρασμοῦ ῥύεσθαι, ἀδίκους δὲ εἰς ἡμέραν κρίσεως κολαζομένους τηρεῖν, 2:9). Scholarship on this passage is divided over whether κολαζομένους refers to an interim punishment that takes place until the day of judgment (e.g., Bigg, 1902; Wohlenberg, 1915; Lenski, 1945; Kelly, 1969; Moo, 1996; Harrington, 2003), or to the ultimate punishment that will begin on the day of judgment (e.g., Reymond, 1980; Bauckham, 1983; Vögtle, 1994; Lunn, 1998; Mazzeo, 2002; Schreiner, 2003; Frey, 2015, 2018). Whereas scholars who posit that the participle denotes a punishment that takes place until the day of judgment usually understand the author to intend a post-mortal imprisonment in Tartarus (cf. 2:4), I will argue that the punishment of the unrighteous prior to the day of judgment is better understood as slavery to sin (cf. esp. 2:19). I will make this case on the basis of two key exegetical points. First, the author of 2 Peter contrasts the false teachers with the biblical figure of Balaam (2:15–16) in order to make the point that whereas Balaam was corrected by divine intervention through his donkey and his misguided behavior was thereby restrained, the teachers will have no such correction, and thus their wrongdoing will end in their eschatological ruin (I will analyze this passage vis-à-vis Jewish traditions about the interpretation of Balaam; cf. Vermes, 1961; Baskin, 1983; Greene, 1992; Kooten and Ruiten, 2008; Robker, 2019). Second, 2 Peter portrays immoral behavior as a trap into which the false teachers have fallen, and into which the audience of the text must be sure to avoid falling (esp. 2:14, 18–22; 3:17). This portrayal of unrighteous behavior as a trap is consistent with the notion that the teachers are currently in a state of punishment in which they will be held until the day of judgment (2:9). They are not merely sinful; they are mastered by sin (2:19–22), and this ensures that their ultimate ruin is inevitable. My proposed interpretation of the “punishment” of the false teachers helps to address one of the points that commentators often raise in objection to interpretations of κολαζομένους as a present punishment, namely that 2 Peter emphasizes imminent eschatological destruction (see esp. 2:1; 3:4–8), and so it would be strange for the author to focus on an interim post-mortal punishment in Tartarus (esp. Frey, 2018). If κολαζομένους is understood in reference to the present moral slavery of the false teachers, the point is that such a punishment ensures the teachers’ eschatological condemnation, since they will continue to be trapped in immoral behavior until the day of judgment.


Mulla Sadra’s Hermeneutics and Exegesis of the Light-Verse (Q 24:35): A Comparative Analysis
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Seyed Hossein Hosseini Nassab, Emory University

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.


How Do I Look? Engaging Visual Representations of Jesus to Introduce the Gospel of Matthew
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Melanie A. Howard, Fresno Pacific University

This “10-Minute Teaching Tip” explores the use of visual representations of Jesus to engage students on the first day of class in a course on Jesus and the Gospel of Matthew entitled “Jesus & the Christian Community.” This course is required of all first-year students and includes students from highly religious to highly secular backgrounds at a Hispanic Serving Institution. Through the display and critique of images ranging from Warner Sallman’s "Head of Christ" to contemporary social media memes, this activity immediately engages students in many of the course’s key learning strategies: critical thinking, group discussion, and close “reading” of sources. As students critically examine several images together, this activity requires them to interrogate their own assumptions about Jesus and consider how their own social location might contribute to those assumptions. Likewise, the activity serves as a day-one introduction to key themes that emerge throughout the rest of the course: the effect of social location and race on understanding Jesus, the interrogation of biblical texts to discern narrative gaps, and the importance of historical context for understanding the Gospel of Matthew. This 10-Minute Teaching Tip presentation will engage participants in the activity itself, address the ways in which the activity leads to the fulfillment of student learning objectives, and reflect on the potential for transfer to other courses and related disciplines.


Paul the Middle Platonist? Exegetical Traditions on Timaeus 28c and the Characterization of Paul in Acts 17:22–31
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Jeffrey Hubbard, Yale Divinity School

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.


Enslaved and Enthroned: Revelation’s Metaphorical Representation of the Faithful in Light of Ancient Enslavement Practices
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Lynn R. Huber, Elon University

Addressed to communities living within the urban centers of first-century Asia Minor, the Book of Revelation calls members of its audience to adopt an identity shaped in relation to God and the Lamb, the book’s depiction of the risen Christ. John, the self-named author, presents a number of metaphors through which audience members can envision this identity. Among these are images of the faithful individual as victorious athlete, virginal male, and enslaved person. This paper examines John’s use of enslavement, including the topics of branding and the slave as commodity, as a metaphor for being an ideal follower of God and the Lamb. In addition, the paper interrogates the contrast drawn between the faithful individual as enslaved and as enthroned alongside of Christ at the end of time. This juxtaposition highlights that metaphorical constructions are not literal equivalencies. As literary theorist Paul Ricoeur observes, the equation in a metaphorical claim, i.e. a faithful person is a slave, contains both the idea of “is not” and “is like” (Rule of Metaphor, 1975). In light of this, Revelation complicates the possibility that those among Revelation’s audiences who were actually enslaved could have understood themselves among the faithful. By characterizing faithfulness through the metaphor of enslavement, in other words, John risks excluding those for whom enslavement was a matter of fact.


The First Isaiah: A Literary Polymath between Assyria and Egypt?
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
John Huddlestun, College of Charleston

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.


Bonhoeffer's Approach of the Psalms as Incentive for Reading the Bible Theologically
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Arnold Huijgen, Theological University of Apeldoorn

"Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible" was Bonhoeffer's last publication before the Nazi regime prohibited him to speak in public and to publish. In this book, Bonhoeffer offers a hermeneutic of the Psalms that is applicable today, in the face of lack of inspiration in the churches, bigotry and violence. Bonhoeffer combines a Christocentric approach with an emphasis on ecclesiology, because Christ can never be without his church. With Christ at the center, Bonhoeffer can overcome the widely spread prejudice that the Psalms belonged to the Law, not the Gospel. In this paper, I read Bonhoeffer's book on the Psalms in combination with his meditation of Psalm 119, and his overall approach of the Psalms. I explore how meditative reading of the Bible can be politically relevant, and how reading the Bible against the background of contemporary challenges can lead to genuine Christian experience by retrieving elements from the theologies of Luther and his mystic forebears (notably, Meister Eckhart). An approach based on 'life philosophy' (Wilhelm Dilthey, Gerard Visser) opens up vistas for theological readings of the Bible, in which the person herself is interpreted by the Word of God.


Rhythms of Healing: Rising Up from Trauma through Word, Table, and Cleansing
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Douglas A. Hume, Pfeiffer University

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.


Matriarchs, Mothers, and Mediation in Matthew
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Edith Humphrey, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Unlike Luke-Acts, which has a large portion dedicated directly to the Church, Matthew’s ecclesiology remains implicit. However, the prominence of the Sermon on the Mount, provocative parabolic questions about the identity of God’s people, and descriptions of the community around Jesus—both apostles and attendant women—have suggested to many inquirers that the nature of the Church is an important theme in this gospel. In this paper, we will consider a major characteristic of ecclesiology—mutual mediation—as it is displayed by women, both named and unnamed, in the gospel. In particular, we will look to the matriarch Rahab, Peter’s mother-in-law, the Canaanite mother, the women patrons of Jesus, and the female apostles-to-the-apostles, as providing a pattern of mediation traced (perhaps intentionally) by the evangelist.


Time Mapping in Nursing Metaphors
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Laura J Hunt, Ashland Theological Seminary

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.


Analysis of the Lucianic Reviser’s Editorial Techniques in 2 Samuel
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Paavo Huotari, Helsingin Yliopisto - Helsingfors Universitet

The Lucianic reviser made the revision of the Septuagint in Syrian Antioch at the turn of the 4th century CE. The previous research has suggested that this Christian revision (or recension) of the Septuagint was designed for public reading (S. Brock). Nevertheless, the base text of the Lucianic revision is old (cf. Antiochian text; so-called Lucianic text etc), and attests or is close to the Old Greek. The L-text is preserved in five Greek witnesses 19 108 82 93 127 (= L) in the Book of Samuel. Because other Greek witnesses, such as the B-text and the Majority text have gone through the Hebraizing revision particularly in 2 Sam 10:6 and forward (sporadically in 1 Sam 1:1 - 2 Sam 10:5 as well; See A. Aejmelaeus), the Lucianic text is occasionally the sole witness of the Old Greek. Nevertheless, the L-text bears the traces of the Lucianic revision. The Lucianic revision is occasionally more extent in the Lucianic text than the kaige revision in other Greek witnesses. In this paper, I provide examples about distinctive characteristics of the Lucianic revision, i.e., the editorial techniques of the Lucianic reviser(s). Furthermore, I discuss how to identify Lucianic readings from its base text. My conclusion of these characteristics is based on systematic research of all the Lucianic readings in 2 Sam 1:1-10:5. Some of these characteristics were already identified by S. Brock in 1 Samuel, e.g. Hexaplaric and linguistic changes. I also present other less discussed characteristics, such as literary changes of the reviser. Knowledge of Lucianic characteristics (literary, linguistic and Hexaplaric changes) is highly important when reconstructing the Old Greek. The Old Greek often differs from the Masoretic text, and therefore opens a keyhole to an earlier Hebrew text. Furthermore, the Lucianic characteristics reveal what early Christians of Antioch thought of their sacred writings, and to which purpose the revision was originally designed.


Judge, King, or Priest? Rethinking the Argument for Kingship in Judges 17–21
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Brandon M. Hurlbert, Durham University

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.


Judge, King, or Priest? Rethinking the Argument for Kingship in Judges 17–21
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Brandon M. Hurlbert, Durham University

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


Har Karkom, Mount Sinai, and the Exodus
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Deborah Hurn, Avondale University College

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.


The Qur'anic Decalogue in Light of Early-Jewish and Patristic Literature
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Saqib Hussain, Oxford University

Both Medieval Muslim exegetes and modern Western scholars have identified Q al-Isrā’ 17:22–39 as the Qur’an’s reformulation of the Mosaic Decalogue. However, only four of the Pentateuchal Ten Commandments are recognizable in the Q 17 passage. This raises the question of why we should be so certain that this is indeed a restatement of the Decalogue in the first place, and, if it is, how we are to account for the departures from the Mosaic antecedent. A further point of inquiry is why the qur’anic passage concludes by labelling this supposed Decalogue reformulation as hikmah, or “wisdom” (v. 39, “That is from what your Lord has revealed to you of wisdom”). Scholarly examinations of the qur’anic Decalogue have consistently taken the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions as their point of departure, and wholly neglected to take into consideration the rich development of the Decalogue in the Hebrew Bible itself, and beyond that in early Jewish literature, the New Testament, and rabbinic and patristic writings. By taking a more panoramic view of the history of the Decalogue’s development and interpretation, we can begin to address the abovementioned questions by seeing how the Q 17 passage stands squarely in the tradition of both early-Jewish and Christian re-presentations of the Decalogue. For example, as in the Qur’an, the re-presentation of the Decalogue in the Dramatists’ Gnomologium (a series of Jewish forgeries of lines attributed to Greek dramatists) ignores the ritualistic commandments altogether, with the focus instead on the ethical commandments of the second half of the Decalogue. Further, again in common with the Qur’an, there is a complete absence of any Sinaitic context, the commandments are presented as a summa of good character (rather than a covenant between Israel and Yahweh), and some additional ethical commandments are appended to the Pentateuchal Decalogue. On the Christian side, the Decalogue was of particular importance to the Church fathers, as it answered the question of what should be retained from the Old Testament laws. Several church fathers, including Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Ephrem, identified the Decalogue with natural law, and posited that therefore it was all that was necessary to adhere to from Old Testament legislation. As there was a significant overlap between “wisdom” and “natural law” discourse in late antiquity, and indeed sometimes the two terms were almost interchangeable, we can begin to understand what the Qur’an means when it calls its iteration of the Decalogue “wisdom.


The Narrative of Πίστις: A Narratological Approach to Πίστις in 1 Peter
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
J. Benjamin Hussung, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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.


The Role of Theological Education in Evangelical Bible Reading and Interpretation
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Anna Hutchinson, University of Birmingham

This paper compares the Bible reading and interpretation of evangelicals with evangelicals who have undertaken theological education. Specifically, it reflects upon the role of the doctrine of Scripture in evangelical interpretation and the extent to which theological education effects an understanding of the nature of the Bible and thus results in different approaches to reading and interpretation. Building on recent ethnographic research shedding light on the bible reading practices of ordinary Christians, this paper outlines the methodology and theory behind an investigation of the relationship between evangelical interpretation and the doctrine of Scripture and the role of education in this dynamic. A traditional evangelical approach advocates that biblical designations such as authoritative, inspired, sufficient, infallible and God’s Word (to name a few) set the framework and boundaries for responsible biblical interpretation. The extent to which this model actually occurs in evangelical Bible reading and whether theological education makes a difference is explored through ethnographic research utilising focus group Bible study. This paper presents this focus group research, comparing and contrasting approaches towards three biblical texts: Genesis 7, Psalm 44 and Ephesians 5:21-6:9. This paper then presents an overview of the findings from this focus group research, highlighting common reading practices and habits as well as distinct variances according to level of theological education. In particular, the way in which participants differently construe the doctrine of Scripture and how this influences their interpretation is reflected upon. These insights lead to some suggestions about how an evangelical doctrine of Scripture works in practice and what influence theological education offers to an understanding of the Bible and the way in which it is read. The benefits and drawbacks of theological education can therefore be assessed with regards to responsible hermeneutic activity and understanding of the biblical designations authoritative, inspired, infallible, sufficient. etc in practice.


A Blameworthy Burial: A Methodology and Case Study for Inner-Biblical Allusion in 2 Chr 16:14
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
D. Allen Hutchison, Stellenbosch University

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.


Jesus' Use of Hosea 6:6 in Matthew 9 and 12
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Jin K. Hwang, Georgia Central University

Mark presents the five accounts of the controversy between Jesus and other Jewish religious leaders in a cluster form and perhaps in a chiastic pattern, as Joanna Dewey has identified (Mark 2:1-3:6). Luke also presents these five accounts, basically in the same order and fashion (Luke 5:17-6:11). However, Matthew makes a separation between the first three and the rest two (Matt 9:1-17; 12:1-14). Additionally, Matthew only highlights Jesus' use of Hosea 6:6 in his accounts of Jesus' controversy with the Pharisees (Matt 9:13; 12:7) while both Mark and Luke make no mention of it in their parallel accounts (Mark 2:17/Luke 5:31-32; Mark 2:26/Luke 6:4; cf. Mark 12:33). Noteworthy are the two recent studies highlighting the identity-forming aspects of Hosea 6:6 in the Gospel of Matthew in particular. Eric Ottenheijm has pointed out that the citation of Hosea 6:6 in Matthew 9:13 serves to present Jesus as "the divine doctor" and justify his strategy to "stir the capacity to repentance by his sheer presence." F. P. Viljoen has suggested that Hosea 6:6 in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7 serves to present Jesus as an example of "enacting mercy towards the marginalized and people in need" and thereby to construct "the communal identity" of the Matthean community. The present paper will explore further the possibility that Hosea 6:6 may also have contributed to the characterization and defense of the modus operandi of the Kingdom mission that not just Jesus performed but his disciples would also need to continue to do. We will also examine how Jesus' use of Hosea 6:6 in Matthew 9 and 12 may advance our understanding of the relationship between the Synoptic Gospels.


Knowing Me, Knowing Thou: From Joharis Window Game to Biblical Characterization
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Ma. Maricel S. Ibita, Ateneo de Manila University

“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.


Filming Biblical Interpretations from the Ground: Exploring Matthew’s Anti-empire Message in Metro Manila’s Context
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, De la Salle University Manila, Philippines

This paper argues that the documentary film “Huwag Kang Papatay” (Thou Shall Not Kill, 2017) advances a contextual way of understanding the reception history of the Gospel of Matthew particularly its anti-empire sentiments. Set in the midst of the so-called War on Drugs in the Philippines, particularly in Metro Manila, the film records portions of interpretations of Matthew 2, 6 and 27. These will be examined from the perspective of a combined narrative-critical (Powell, 2009) and performance criticisms (Rhoads, 2010), empire studies (Warren, 1995; Carter, 2001), ritual studies (Warren, 1995; Werline, 2014) and political biblical criticism (Segovia, 2015). The paper will engage the film’s recording of (1) the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:9-13) in the context of praying for an extra-judicial killing victim as well as (2) the street theater, rap and passion song performances showing the massacre of the innocents (Matthew 2) and Jesus’ passion and crucifixion (Matthew 27). The paper concludes with the challenge of how biblical interpretations from the ground recorded in the film can evoke the discussion of Matthew’s anti-empire message in its originating context and its recontextualization today. It also poses the question on how critical biblical scholarship in this predominantly Catholic and Christian nation can help in engaging in political dialogue and searching for adequate responses to the continuing human rights violations and developmental issues surrounding the so-called War on Drugs.


Embodied Trauma, Embodied Gospel: Matthew in Film, Theater, and Songs
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, De la Salle University Manila, Philippines

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.


Destruction-Restoration Dichotomy in Isaiah 34–35: An Ecological Reappraisal
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Dominic S. Irudayaraj, Pontificio Istituto Biblico

With powerful portrayals such as scrolled up skies (Isa 34:4) and a blood-sated slaughter (v. 6), Isaiah 34 adumbrates an expansive onslaught, only to quickly narrow down the target to Edom. Destruction and desolation—of which the threat to the land is an unmistakable part (cf. vv. 6–7, 9)—fill this prophetic portrayal. The immediately ensuing chapter (Isaiah 35), however, arrives with an arresting contrast: spectacular transformation of both the land and the people (35:1, 4–6), resulting in a joyful march of the redeemed towards Zion (v. 10). Building on scholarly reiterations that these diptych chapters at the near center of the book is a succinct thematic juxtaposition of retrospective and prospective overviews of the Isaian corpus, the present paper turns to some of the salient sensibilities of ecological hermeneutics towards a close re-reading of these chapters, with a view to underscore how a reader’s attention to the marginal/ized voices here might profitably point to an ecologically sensitive appropriation of the poetic finesse, the rhetorical import and the attendant theological vision of Isaiah 34–35.


Performance, Memory, and Mark: Rethinking the Approach to Intertextuality Studies
Program Unit: Performance Criticism of the Bible and Other Ancient Texts
Kelly R. Iverson, Baylor University

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.


From “Furrow” to “Windfall”: Biblical Allusions in Seamus Heaney’s "Kite” Poems
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Alison Jack, University of Edinburgh

It is estimated that sales of Seamus Heaney’s poetry books account for over two thirds of all poetry sold in the UK each year. Awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1995, Heaney’s poem “Clearances” was chosen as Ireland’s best-loved poem from the last 100 years in a poll conducted in 2015, eighteen months after his death. A translation of his final text to his wife, “Noli timere”, appeared as graffiti on buildings in Dublin: “Don’t be afraid”. Heaney’s work and his persona are securely positioned with the popular culture of the UK, Ireland and beyond, in parallel with the high critical regard in which he is held. This paper considers the significance of biblical allusions in two of his most popular poems, one from the middle period of his writing career and one from near its end: “A Kite for Michael and Christopher” (1984) and “A Kite for Aibhin” (2010). It will be argued that creation images in the earlier poem shade into images of the Holy Spirit in the later. The dialogue between the two reflects Heaney’s ongoing and deepening fascination with the nature of inspiration in a secular world.


Imagining the Earth: The Psalms, Animism, and Ideology
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Elaine James, Princeton Theological Seminary

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.


“After Abimelech” (אחרי אבימלך): A Reflex of the Buried Abimelech Tradition in Judges 10:1
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Ki-Eun Jang, New York University

Recent studies of the Abimelech account in Judges 9 have recognized distinct portrayals of Abimelech and elucidated the polemical elements against the northern kingdom lying behind the later layer of the complex (e.g., de Castelbajac 2001; Irwin 2012; Finkelstein 2016; Milstein 2016). The discussion advanced so far, however, has not adequately considered the enigmatic view of Abimelech in Judg 10:1, which assumes that Tola’s role as Israel’s savior is what he has received from his predecessor Abimelech. By demonstrating that the phrase “after Abimelech” is part of the original composition of Tola’s succession formula in Judg 10:1, this paper propose a literary process by which the figure of Abimelech was reconfigured as an ancient warrior figure like Joshua who conquered the enemy city Shechem in the material identified by previous scholars as an old layer in the latter part of chapter 9 (vv. 26-49). The paper is composed of three parts. First, I will explicate the rationale behind the reading of “after Abimelech” as a savior figure like Tola based on the parallel formulas and their ideational frameworks in the book of Judges and in the book of Kings. With this, I pose a question of what compositional project the writer of Judg 10:1 was creating in response to chapter 9. Second, building on an analysis of the narrative construction in the old Abimelech account (9:26-49), I will present a case that the Israelite writer of Judg 10:1 attempted to re-read the old portion of the Abimelech story as part of a saving stream continued from Gideon (Judg 7:1-22) on the one hand and as a reflex of the conquest narrative that creates a positive tradition of Abimelech’s victory over Shechem in the guise of Joshua on the other. I show that this battle narrative finds hitherto unrecognized literary affinities with the story of Joshua’s conquest story of Ai (Josh 8:1-26), which became a necessary framework to explain the kind of reasoning behind interpreting the old Abimelech story in a later Israelite context. And third, a final remark will be made on the interpretive effort to recast the old Abimelech story as belonging to the conquest mold and its effect in creating a literary seam that combines a pre-dtr, Israelite collection of savior accounts, which includes Gideon and Abimelech, with the minor judges.


Erotic Love Magic and the Problem of Female Agency
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Naomi Janowitz, University of California-Davis

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.


The Curious Case of the Contrafacted King: The Death of Josiah in 2 Chronicles 35
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Eric X. Jarrard, Wellesley College

In his work on Chronicles (“Die Suche nach Identität in der nachexilischen Theologiegeschichte“), Reinhard Kratz offered the compelling suggestion that reception history within the canon and “cultural memory” are nearly interchangeable concepts. Kratz submitted that the very act of the Chronicler’s reception of older traditions is in itself memory work. This paper builds on the work of Kratz by proffering a specific example of such activity in the Chronicler’s reception of the exodus tradition. In this paper, I argue that the Chronicler’s deliberate inversion of the exodus motif within its (re)telling of Josiah’s reign (2 Chronicles 34–35) functions as a form of “social remembering,” as Ian Wilson calls it. By scrutinizing the enmeshing of the exodus and legal traditions in the related accounts of Josiah’s legal reforms (2 Chronicles 34) and his death (2 Chronicles 35), we can readily see how the Chronicler recasts events not previously understood as cyclical in order to perpetuate a model of time witnessed elsewhere in the biblical corpus. In so doing, this paper establishes Josiah’s death in 2 Chronicles as an inversion of the exodus, a significant departure from 2 Kings 22–23. I ultimately propose that the reception of older traditions—in this case the exodus tradition and 2 Kings 23—in 2 Chronicles 34–35 is a form of memory work intended to (re)construct identity in the post-exilic period.


Not So Good News for the Gay Jesus in The First Temptation of Christ
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Jeff Jay, Wabash College

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.)


Creative Development: Blended Discourse in Colossians
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Roy R. Jeal, Booth University College

Creativity initiates the development of ideas. Conversely, the development of ideas arouses creativity. Creativity and the development of ideas blend together and emerge in discourse, in language that conveys the emerging information. Colossians displays such emerging discourse in the ways it brings together precreation, apocalyptic, and wisdom modes of speaking to move its audiences toward a grand vision extending from the precreational, eternal realm of God and his son, through the apocalyptic work of God in Christ, to life raised with Christ that seeks the things of the above realm. Audience members are presented with an ideology of their new reality where Christ is all and in all and believers have been transferred out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of God’s son. This essay examines how Colossians blends new rhetorical discourses that create new and powerful understandings for wise living.


Can ἀλλά and γάρ Really Mark an Inference? A Defense of the “Core Constraint” Approach to Conjunction Lexicography
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Aaron Michael Jensen, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary

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.


Fronted Adjuncts and What They Teach Us about Information Structure
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Aaron Michael Jensen, South African Theological Seminary

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


Simon the Tanner, Empires, and Assemblages: A New Materialist Asian American Reading of Acts 9:43
Program Unit: Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation
Dong Hyeon Jeong, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

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.


"Baptism for the Dead" (1 Cor 15:29): Ritual Blending and Innovation in Roman Corinth
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Donghyun Jeong, Emory University

In the midst of his discourse on resurrection, Paul raises a rhetorical question with an enigmatic phrase οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν ("those who are baptized for the dead," 1 Cor 15:29). Theological difficulties arising from the notion of proxy/vicarious baptism have led several interpreters to take either option: (1) some criticize this Corinthian practice as "aberrant" and "magical." In this line of interpretation, 1 Cor 15:29 cannot be Paul's full endorsement of the practice. Or, (2) some others perform exegetical acrobatics to divert the meaning of the phrase οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν from the implication of vicarious baptism. Thus, this verse is viewed as anything but reference to vicarious baptism. Both options have their own reasons, but what seems to me more fruitful and productive is to explore ritual contexts of Roman Corinth and to reconstruct the cognitive framework of ordinary Corinthians, so that we can better understand how the particular ritual practice mentioned in 1 Cor 15:29—if it indeed refers to "baptism for the dead"—was able to emerge, to be experienced, and to make sense for the Corinthian Christ-believers. This paper takes its cue from, and develops, previous interpretations with similar approaches—that of R. DeMaris (1995) and L. Nasrallah (2012). I will explore two types of ritual practices in Roman Corinth: first, initiation rituals into the mystery cults; and second, funerary rituals and other rituals that engage with the dead. As I examine each piece of textual and material evidence—myths, historiography, archaeological findings, etc.—I will ask (1) what methodological issues arise, (2) to what extent baptism was understood by ordinary Corinthians as analogous to a particular ritual at hand, and (3) to what extent each ritual in question can shed light on Paul’s reasoning behind the verse, i.e., how it was possible for Paul to connect Corinthians' "baptism for the dead" to their implicit belief in resurrection. Finally, I will demonstrate the ways these rituals, along with their underlying myths and cultic dynamics, were conceptually blended, resulting in such an innovative ritual as one that is reflected in 1 Cor 15:29.


A Tale of Two Cities: The Politics of Acts Reconsidered
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Mark Jeong, Duke University

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.


A Psalmic-Theological Homiletic to Korean Immigrant Congregations
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Rebecca S. Jeong, Portland Seminary, George Fox University

This paper intends to offer a strategic proposal for a new homiletic theory, namely “a psalmic-theological homiletic” for first-generation Korean immigrant congregations who have experienced the pain of displacement (c.f., marginality and translocality), who have relatively low socio-economic status, and who struggle with their purpose in life as immigrants in the United States. This proposed homiletic is deeply rooted in the theology of the Psalms and its rhetorical movement. This re-envisioned mode of eschatological and prophetic preaching in times of difficulty seeks to recover ancient Israel’s psalmic, rhetorical tradition aimed toward faith. Korean immigrant preaching must intentionally reinforce immigrants’ faith through the reaffirmation of Jesus Christ as the foundation of Christians’ true hope, liberating immigrants from a prosperity-oriented hope based on their shamanistic heritage. Korean immigrant preaching must also reclaim God’s sovereignty by envisioning God’s new future in the midst of Korean immigrants’ current marginalized situation. Therefore, the proposed homiletic’s theological-rhetorical strategy attempts to both transform hearers’ habitus of living in faith and enhance their hope-filled life through communal anticipation of God’s future coming to those on the margins. In other words, this proposed homiletic intends to facilitate Korean immigrant congregations’ reorientation to God and their communal involvement (as a new habitus) in God’s eschatological kingdom vision, emerging from the margins—precisely the opposite of worldly exclusion and bigotry against marginalized others. Specifically, this proposed homiletic critically adopts key features from psalms of lament and their typical, fourfold theological-rhetorical movement (i.e., lament, retelling a story, confessional doxology, and obedient vow) as now core elements of a revised Korean-immigrant preaching practice. This homiletic involves critical and theological readings of Walter Brueggemann’s Cadences of Home: Preaching Among Exiles (1997) and Claus Westermann’s Praise and Lament in the Psalms (1987) in light of the Korean immigrants’ specific view and their contextual situation. Through critical readings on both biblical scholars’ works, my psalmic-theological homiletic consists of (a) lament for the immigrant’s suffering (in unjust situations); (b) re-telling the story or remembrance of God’s redemptive activity in the past; (c) confessional doxology as a celebration of God’s impending reign in hopeful expectation; and (d) obedient vow as a form of faithful practice. First, the rhetoric of lament as God’s voice for marginalized immigrants is a tool of theological critique of the people’s worldly suffering, and representatively embraces voices of the voiceless and marginalized peoples as the voice of God’s own grief. Second, recounting God’s earlier deeds allows the hearers to cling to God’s reality in desperate times because remembering the historical story not only evokes a cognitive memory, but brings the people into God’s presence. Third, the rhetoric of confessional doxology seeks to declare a living, confessional faith in the mode of praise due to God’s unfailing love on the edges. Finally, the rhetorical step of obedient vow intentionally intensifies Christian immigrants’ spiritual commitment to the word of God in terms of the church’s embodiment of the proclaimed gospel.


Asian American Studies and the Development of Asian American Theology
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Russell Jeung, San Francisco State University

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


De-/Reterritorialization in Ezekiel: Eschatology, Prophecy, and the "Schizophrenic Physician"
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
D. Brendan Johnson, Duke Divinity School

The wild and bewildering visions of the book of Ezekiel have been difficult to interpret and have even earned him the diagnosis of schizophrenia. In Deleuze and Guattari’s thought, and specifically that of _A Thousand Plateaus_, schizophrenia is not clinical, but is in fact productive as the mode of life itself. This paper argues that Ezekiel’s first and third major visions, found in chapter 1 and chapters 40-48, can be read as traditioned deterritorialization and reterritorializations of priestly imagery in light of the destruction of the temple and exile to Babylon during Ezekiel’s life. The cosmic significance of these visions reimagines an intermingled eschatological divine and human life in a garden-city of _shalom_. I conclude with an exploration of these questions in light of Deleuze’s paralleling of the artist and physicians who are both expert diagnosticians or semioticians. A prophet is also a text-creator and reads the signs of history and future. Thus, Ezekiel can be read as a ‘schizophrenic physician’ who may open a window onto questions of religious medical ethics in a disintegrating moment where traditional meanings and even identities proliferate and lose coherence.


The Artistic Character of the Spirit in the Beatus Tradition
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
David Ray Johnson, Fuller Theological Seminary

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.


Divine Law or the Law of the King? The Emergence of the Mesopotamian Collection Genre
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Dylan R. Johnson, University of Zürich

A common notion espoused in overviews of Near Eastern law is that the biblical law collections differ from those of Mesopotamian and Hatti in the depiction of their lawgivers – Yahweh in the biblical case and the king in Mesopotamia/Hatti. Although a central theme of the Pentateuch, few recent studies have explored the intellectual history of divine lawgiving in the ancient Near East. The traditional view held that Yahweh’s identification as Israel’s lawgiver represented the theologization of a familiar Near Eastern literary genre. Yet, even a cursory glance at the cuneiform evidence reveals that the neat separation of divinely promulgated biblical law and royally enacted Mesopotamian law is overly simplistic. The narrative frames of Mesopotamian law codes emphasize the role of the king in the act of lawgiving, though they simultaneously present the laws as divine decisions. Part of this ambiguity is the result of the redeployment of received traditions in new literary frameworks. The current study attempts to situate the Mesopotamian law collections in their historical context, particularly, the emergence of the genre at the end of the third millennium BCE. The site of Lagaš offers a unique opportunity to explore this issue, as the texts preserved from this this site and its hinterland offer the most continuous register of inscriptions during the third millennium. The ensis and lugals of Lagaš are the first rulers to claim legal responsibility over the marginal of society. Rulers like Uruinimgina and Gudea claim to have undertaken reforms to protect the orphan and the widow, but they acknowledge – in both their votive inscriptions and their hymns – that they are merely instruments of the gods. This literary legal tradition would have been available to the first kings of the Ur III Dynasty – Ur-Namma and his son Šulgi – who saw the utility of lawgiving as a symbol and an instrument of political authority. Emulating the motifs found in the literary tradition of Lagaš, Ur III scribes elevated their patrons, eventually deifying them. It is in this historical context that the first law collection emerges, which offered an ambiguous vision of law as “the word of the gods,” while simultaneously the decisions of temporal kings.


The Form of History: Myth and the Gospels in Early Christianity
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Samuel Johnson, University of Notre Dame

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.”


Kingship and Covenant: Reconsidering the Oath of David and Jonathan
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Sophia R C Johnson, University of Cambridge

Frank Moore Cross’ model of covenant as an early legal means of extending fictive kinship has dominated Anglo-American biblical scholarship for the last 30 years. His central case study is the covenant between David and Jonathan and the associated oath sworn by Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20, one of the most well-cited biblical examples of secular covenant. There is a tension in the narrative between the politically charged context of the early Israelite succession and the personal relationship between these two young men, which provides a unique example of legal construction at the intersection of different social spheres. As Cross recognizes, it is the perfect setting in which to understand the interaction between politics and kinship. However, in trying to distill a simple covenant concept, Cross collapses distinctions of genre and context, reducing the significance of secular covenant as a form of political bond to simply merging kinship groups. This paper analyzes the oath in 1 Samuel 20:12-17, contextualizing it with other material throughout 1&2 Samuel and comparing it to ancient Near Eastern treaty formulations to show its political significance in Israelite history. The “love” of Jonathan for David, which is a central kinship term for Cross, finds comparison with other affectionate language between political treaty partners, particularly in the Hittite Bronze Tablet treaty between Tudḫaliya IV and Kurunta. The setting itself is rife with questions of fealty as Jonathan is forced to choose between David and his father Saul. As opposed to Cross’ notion of imposing kinship obligations, the oath addresses questions of succession and dynasty, anticipating the political turmoil of David’s ascension to the throne. The term חסד is used throughout the narrative in reference to the covenant with a specific legal nuance which reinforces the desire for political unity rather than personal affection. While there is much concerning their descendants, the oath stipulations cement the political rather than familial relation between David and Jonathan’s progeny. Deuteronomistic language and concern with Davidic succession shared between the oath and the divine promise in 2 Sam 7 point to a common vision of a united kingship. Far from the reiteration of a simple kinship bond, Jonathan’s oath of loyalty to their covenant becomes a keystone in the Deuteronomistic ideal of an eternal Davidic dynasty.


“My God and the God of This House”: Christian Household Cult before Constantine
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Caroline Johnson Hodge, College of the Holy Cross

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.


"This Is a Love Story": Reimaging John 20:17 through Fleabag (S2)
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Siobhán Jolley, University of Manchester

This paper will propose a reimaging of the gendered mythologization of Mary Magdalene and her relationship to Jesus as extrapolated from John 20:17, through the lens of Fleabag (S2). It will make the case for Series 2’s portrayal of Fleabag and the Priest as a vehicle for re-remembering. In particular, it will complicate the gendered way in which John 20:17 has been understood in terms of the Magdalene’s character, arguing that both the Magdalene and Fleabag embody the “transgressive” epithet that Waller-Bridge considers so appealing. Ultimately it will argue for a rereading of John 20:17 that challenges the sexualization of intimacy and our definition of a love story. The way in which biblical themes are embedded in western culture more broadly affords popular culture a particular utility in assessing their complex imagery and how ideals about gender and femininity are communicated. Moreover, the dialectical nature of popular culture as both descriptive and prescriptive offers a unique means of engaging with these established ideals. In Fleabag, the complex presentation of the title character draws upon and subverts the way in which Mary Magdalene is conventionally characterized, and thus challenges the subsequent types in which other complex women are cast. This paper will utilize a new methodological approach, liberative reception criticism, which combines traditional reception methodology with hermeneutical criticism adopted from theologies of liberation. In this case adopting a feminist point of departure, text and reception are engaged in a hermeneutic circle of rereading and reimaging. Firstly, the paper will identify latent biblical imagery in the development of the characters of Fleabag and the Priest, illustrating how gendered tropes in the portrayal of the Biblical Magdalene are reclaimed and reimaged. This in turn provides a lens for revisiting biblical source material from John (and its scholarly exegesis from Augustine to Charleston), considering the relationship between text and popular reception. Using this as a tool for critiquing the cultural inheritance that leads to the construction of gender norms associated with female sexuality, it will argue for a rereading of John 20:17 that rightly complicates our understanding of female sexuality in relation to the figure of the Magdalene and the nature of intimacy in our conception of a love story.


Divine Immanence? The Meaning and Translation of פקד in Psalm 8:5
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Ethan C. Jones, Scarborough College

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).


Writing a Textual Commentary for the Tyndale House Edition
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Dirk Jongkind, Tyndale House (Cambridge)

This presentation discusses the work at Tyndale House on a textual commentary to complement their recent edition of the Greek New Testament.


A Conflation of Divine and Royal Imagery? The Case of the Winged Disk Imagery in Achaemenid Persia
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Louis C. Jonker, Universiteit van Stellenbosch - University of Stellenbosch

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.


Ethiopic Obadiah: Methodology and Analysis
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Garry Jost, Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament

Members of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) project have been at work writing up the results of our research of the Old Testament books Deuteronomy, Ruth, Amos, and Obadiah. My writing project has two parts: a description of the methodology that we have developed to assist our analysis, and my analysis of the Old Testament book of Obadiah, for which I am the principle investigator. This presentation will discuss the THEOT methodology, which consists of manual and computer processes. These two categories of processes complement each other. First, the computer makes it possible to automate processes that could probably be carried out by hand, but does it on a scale that is impractical to do by hand. Second, some processes must be done by hand, either because the nature of the process is such that it may never be possible for a computer, or because those processes that can be done by computer have not yet been prioritized in our research program. I will also present my analysis of the Ethiopic text of Obadiah, which was assisted by the manual and computer processes mentioned above. They helped me to identify closely related manuscripts, and related groups of manuscripts, and to characterize precisely the textual variants that differentiate specific manuscripts from other specific manuscripts. The analysis of shared variants forms the basis for our reconstruction of the textual history of Ethiopic Obadiah. The presentation will end with a brief discussion on future directions for my research.


Welcoming and Rejecting Children in Biblical and Cuneiform Literature
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Daniel Justel, Universidad Eclesiástica San Dámaso

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.


Aramaic Kissing
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Itai Kagan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

How does one kiss in Aramaic? This paper shows a distinction between Hebrew and Aramaic in the use of the G-stem versus the D-stem with the root נשׁק. In Biblical Hebrew, the G-stem נָשָׁק in unmarked, while the D-stem נִשֵּׁק is the marked form denoting plurality of objects. Yet in Aramaic the D-stem נַשֵּׁק is the unmarked form, used also for most single-objects. Aramaic rarely uses the G-stem נְשַׁק, with slightly different distribution in the dialects. This stem is reserved for “gentle” kisses, such as a son kissing his father. The differences between the languages’ choice of stem in the same semantic context is clear when comparing the Hebrew Bible with its Aramaic renderings. After establishing the stem usages in the two languages (based primarily on Syriac and Targumic Aramaic on the one hand and Biblical Hebrew on the other), this paper attempts to explain the exception to the rule in the Bible: in Genesis 29:13 Laban kisses Jacob in the D-stem (וַיְנַשֶּׁק לוֹ), although there is only one object. I claim that this usage is not linguistic but literary: the subject of the verb is Laban the Aramean, and thus could be an intended Aramaism used to give an Aramaic “flavor” to the character, following similar suggestions for other Aramaisms in the stories of Laban (especially the works of J.C. Greenfield, G. Rendsburg, B. Bompiani and C.J. Power).


The Angel of God and the Griffin: Divine Intervention in War
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Dan'el Kahn, University of Haifa

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.


Reading Instruction as a Sectarian Composition
Program Unit: Qumran
John Kampen, Methodist Theological School in Ohio

The designation of whether Instruction is a sectarian or non-sectarian text has remained a debated question. While the majority of scholars early in its study considered it non-sectarian with the exception of Dimant, Kister, and Jefferies, recent research has continued to keep the question open with Goff in his recent commentary considering it sectarian, but a different sect from the Yaḥad, and White Crawford listing it among the sectarian texts. Contrary to the author’s previous position this paper argues for Instruction as a sectarian composition but then develops a deeper portrait of it as such. Utilizing the tools of sociological analysis, particularly as they have been developed for Qumran studies by Jokiranta, this paper provides an analysis of the categories of tension it displays on a continuum of sectarianism. Instruction is then compared with two other wisdom texts, Mysteries, a text that appears to have a more enhanced dualism than is evident in Instruction, and 4Q525, a work that refers to Torah and is clearly eschatological but less explicitly dualistic. The attempt is provide a better foundation for the evaluation of the social context of wisdom texts within the diverse collection of literature in the Qumran corpus.


Bat Asher and the Revelation of Special Knowledge
Program Unit: Midrash
Jonathan Kaplan, The University of Texas at Austin

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.


What Is So Complex about Conversion?
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Universitetet i Oslo

This presentation introduces a book project on religious conversion. Our project addresses the complexity of conversion, and uses a range of cases, primary sources, and theories, to do so. It also initiates a dialogue between ancient sources and current concepts or practices. The project pursues interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross-historical perspectives on conversion. Early Christian and Jewish texts play a central role in this volume, but the volume also discusses how sacred texts and their reception influence the way we think, more broadly, about conversation as religious change. The book seeks to problematize a notion that still plays an important in contemporary religious discourse, by considering two dimensions in particular: First, the intersectional dimension of conversion, namely the fact that religious change does not function in the same way for different persons and groups, depending on ethnicity, social status, gender, and age. Second, the diversity and flexibility of conversion, which our authors have highlighted in their analysis. There is no essence to conversion, so to speak. Using various sources and critical methods, we attempt to deconstruct various aspect of ancient and more recent religious changes, but also to think about possible ways in which change can still be associated with intersectional religious dimensions.


Dibekulu Zewde's Amharic Book on the Ethiopian Biblical Canon
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Daniel Assefa, Tibeb Research Center

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 Upper Galilee during the Persian Period
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Hayah Katz, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee

This lecture aims to examine the administrative status of the Upper Galilee during the Persian period. Unlike other regions of the Land of Israel, where extensive data is available on this period, the Upper Galilee remains to a large extent Terra Incognita throughout the eras ranging from Iron Age II to the Hellenistic period. Thus, the assumption of continuity in the Upper Galilee during these periods is based primarily on a comparison with other regions, rather than on data originating in the region itself. As part of the lecture, I will present the data arising from excavations and surveys conducted in the Upper Galilee, and examine the continuity and change processes in the Upper Galilee from the time of Tiglath-Pileser III to the Persian period. An analysis of the finds indicates that during the Persian period the Upper Galilee was part of the Phoenician system, probably under the domination of Tyre. When examined using a longue durée approach, this phenomenon may enable us to answer the question when does the Upper Galilee become a Phoenician sphere of influence – is it only during the Persian period or perhaps earlier?


The Septuagint and the Hexapla of 2 Samuel
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Tuukka Kauhanen, University of Helsinki

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.


Review of Mark by Rafael Rodriguez
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Craig Keener, Asbury Theological Seminary

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


Spoken and Unspoken: Racial Categories in Scholarly Constructs of the Ethiopian Eunuch and Cornelius
Program Unit: Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation
Shawn Kelley, Daemen College

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.


Interpreting Sodom in Cairo: Reading Genesis 18–19 and Its Qur'anic Parallels
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Elisabeth Kennedy, American University in Cairo

Stories about Abraham in the Qur'an and Hebrew Bible converge at the midpoint of the narrative progression (a sequence constructed, in the case of the Qur’an, from an aggregate of discrete references distributed through a number of surahs). While Qur'anic accounts of Abraham's earlier and later life differ markedly from the biblical accounts, there is strong parity between two stories positioned centrally in both narrative arcs: the angelic visitation to Abraham and his wife preceding the destruction of Sodom, and the sacrifice of the son. The second of these two story pairings has been extensively investigated in scholarly literature. This paper examines the first, less-studied story pair through close comparative analysis of the Hebrew and Arabic texts. Careful attention to word usage and literary structuring devices illuminates striking theological commonalities and differences between the two texts and their messages about righteousness, judgment, the vocation of God's messengers, and the identity of God’s people. Two methodologies interweave in this study. First, the primary texts are examined in their original languages with attention to resonance between Hebrew-Arabic cognates and to literary devices characteristic of Semitic constructions. Second, reader-response contributions are gleaned from intensive readings of the texts in the context of college classrooms in Cairo, Egypt. Responders to the texts were Arabic-speaking university students from both Muslim and Christian backgrounds, in dialogue with one another and with a facilitator specialized in Hebrew Bible. The story structure in both the biblical and Qur’anic versions leads the reader through a sequence of the angelic visitation to Abraham and his wife, the interaction with Lot and the destruction of Sodom, and then a closing narrative summation. The texts picture a final figure remaining—the last one standing: Abraham in the Hebrew Bible, and the Prophet Muhammad in the Qur’an. This conclusion prompts an examination of the preceding narratives through the lens of prophetic vocation and virtue. While hospitality to strangers and faith in the face of adversity emerge as central virtues, a key ambivalence surfaces regarding the value, and even the possibility of, mediation on behalf of others. Who are God’s people, and how do they relate to those around them, as well as to God’s emissaries? Themes of belonging and exclusion echo between both texts, with related reflections on the testing of family bonds in light of an invitation to righteousness. Sexuality in the Sodom narratives is addressed in light of these investigations about constructing communal identities. Egyptian young adults today come to these texts with questions about social identity and the role of religious texts in drawing boundaries of hospitality or marginalization. Can the prophets of old speak to a new generation of Arab youth? In today’s Egypt, who will be the last one standing?


The Interpretation of Dagesh on the Basis of Medieval Karaite Sources: Two Cases Studies
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge

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.


Innovative Vocalic Distinctions in Verbal Form in the Samaritan Reading Tradition
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge

In this paper I shall examine a selection of cases in the Samaritan reading tradition in which innovative morpho-logical distinctions have been made in verbal forms to express TAM disintctions or distinctions in grammatical category. I shall focus on (i) the distinction between pre-fix-conjugation past forms corresponding to Tiberian wayyiqṭol and non-past prefix conjugation yiqṭol forms; and (ii) the distinction between participles that have a verbal function and those that have a nominal function (typically expressing permanent properties). In both of these cases the formal differentiation of the two func-tions of the forms is made by innovative distinctions in the vocalic patterns of the forms, e.g. (i) wtå̄låd past = וַתֵּלֶד , vs. tēlåd non-past = תֵּלֵד); (ii) qāʾəm verbal = קָם, vs. qam non-past = קָם). The paper will examine the background of these innovative developments an their motivation. Possible parallels will be drawn to develop-ments in the proto-Tiberian reading tradition of the Sec-ond Temple period. Parallels will also be drawn to simi-lar developments in spoken Neo-Semitic languages, demonstrating that the phenomenon is characteristic of living languages and should not be regarded as an artifi-cial phenomenon of a sacred reading tradition.


Funding Widows in 1 Timothy 5: The Economy of Asia Minor and the Limits of Benefaction
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Lyn M. Kidson, Alphacrucis College

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.


Reason as Fidelity: A Synchronic Study of the Qur’ān’s Understanding of ʿAql
Program Unit: Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur’anic Corpus (IQSA)
Jake Kildoo, University of Notre Dame

The present study aims to reconsider the meaning of the Qur’ān’s numerous appeals to ʿaql, which feature in its ubiquitous paraenetic passages. While English translations commonly render this term “to reason” or “to understand,” there are a couple of curious features of the Qur’ānic use of “ʿaql” that lead us to view this largely intellectualistic translation as somewhat misleading. For instance, when the text makes arguments appealing to ʿaql, it does not do so by advancing philosophical or theological “proofs.” Rather, the Qur’ān makes a number of inductive arguments, urging the reader to imagine a divine will underlying certain aspects of the created world, such as the natural world’s various regularities or its numerous benefits to humankind. In this sense, the text seems to appeal as much to the audience’s imagination as it does to their reason—it does not set out to prove, but rather to induce a new way of seeing. At the same time, the text presents a curious variety of terms as though they were synonymous with “ʿaql.” For example, in many of its appeals to āyāt (“signs”), the Qur’ān presents these signs as meaningful not only to those who “reason,” but equally to those who “believe” (Q 29:44), “remember” (Q 16:13), or “ are godfearing” (Q 10:6). Of course, in common English parlance, we are not accustomed to understanding “reason” as being synonymous with “belief,” much less “remembrance” or “godfearingness.” Thus, we are led to ask—how can the text employ these terms as though they have the same meaning? What, after all, is this human faculty of ʿaql? In view of these peculiarities, my essay undertakes a synchronic analysis of “ʿaql” in the Qur’ānic discourse, seeking to locate this concept in both its semantic and its rhetorical contexts. Following a methodology inspired by scholars such as Toshihiko Izutsu, Fazlur Rahman, and, more recently, Rosalind Ward Gwynne, we identify two major theological concepts around which the Qur’ānic notion of ʿaql is structured: 1) the Qur’ān’s discourse on āyāt, which provides the semantic context and 2) the primordial covenant between God and humankind (Q 7:172), which gives the broader rhetorical context. Viewed in light of these two Qur’ānic concepts, ʿaql seems to refer not to some intellectual capacity by which one reasons from premises to conclusions, but rather to a certain disposition—one that is rooted in faithful remembrance of humankind’s primordial commitment to God.


The Necessity of Nike, the Victory Goddess
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Ahreum Kim, University of Cambridge

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.


Once Hidden, but Now Revealed: The Language of “Mystery” in Pauline Letters
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Hwankyu Kim, Rice University

In recent years, Pauline scholars have disputed the proper background for Paul’s use of “mystery” language, the contest often splitting into the cultural spheres of Judaism and Hellenism. A comparison with Jewish tradition has helpfully illuminated Paul’s use of “mystery”. However, this focus on cultural background has often neglected the significant socio-rhetorical role which the terminology’s esoteric nature plays in the dynamics of community formation and boundary management. By situating the language of “mystery” into this socio-rhetorical dimension, the reader can understand how Paul utilized the esoteric nature of the “mystery” to both define a given esoteric group against the majority culture and to structure its internal power hierarchy and networks. In response to the community’s polemics, Paul urged the members to move beyond the human or worldly issues which divided them. Instead, they were to be united in their comprehension of the divine mystery which he had disclosed to them. By laying out two contrasting types of humankind— “fleshly” and “spiritual,” Paul lays before the intended community a right path and a wrong path. To ensure the community chooses the right path, Paul sets forth criteria so they can recognize and imitate “spiritual” people in Christ. In particular, these “spiritual” people in Christ behave as ideal humans who devote themselves to faithful conduct and the acquisition of wisdom through the divine mystery.


Re-reading of Daniel as the Scribal “Double Telling” of Trauma
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Hyun Woo Kim, Emory University

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.


Adamic Renewal of the Cosmos: The Conception of New Creation in Early Jewish Writings
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Hyung-tae Kim, Durham University

Although the actual occurrences of the phrase ‘new creation’ are rare in the Old Testament pseudepigrapha (1 En. 72:1; Jub. 1:29; 4:26; 2 Bar. 44:12), the conception of new creation is very important since it is a crucial concept to express the eschatological hope of Second Temple period which characterizes the Jewish apocalyptic literature. Many scholars have well recognized that this theme has a connection with the theme of a ‘new heaven and new earth’ in Isaiah 65–66. Most of them, however, have often failed to realize that on a deeper level, the theme of new creation is rooted in the Adamic narrative in Gen 1–3. Particularly, Pauline scholars (Ulrich Mell, Moyer Hubbard, Ryan Jackson), who study Paul’s concept of new creation (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17), have traced its origin from Isa 65–66, Ezek 36–37, and Jer 31, not from Gen 1–3. In the present study, I will demonstrate that the conception of new creation in Early Jewish writings is inseparable from the Adamic narrative in Gen 1–3 and refers to the eschatological renewal of the whole cosmos within an Urzeit-Endzeit framework. For instance, typical examples of the theme of new creation such as ‘fertility in the land,’ ‘human longevity,’ ‘the absence of sorrow and untimely death,’ and ‘the absence of pain in childbearing’ indicate the reversal of God judgement of the primeval pair and the earth in Gen 3:16-19 (1 En. 10:16-11:2; 2 Bar. 29:1-30:1; 73:1–74:4). In Jubilees, a moral and spiritual transformation of humanity by the creation of a holy spirit in human beings is reminiscent of God’s creation of Adam in Gen 2:7 (Jub. 1:23). Moreover, in 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, death and physical suffering in this world are a result of Adam’s sin (2 Bar. 17:3; 54:15; 56:6; 4 Ezra 3:20-22). Similarly, Qumran literature often describes the theme of new creation as the recovery of Adam’s glory in both anthropological and cosmological senses (1QHa 4: 13-15; 1QS 4:18-25; 4Q504 frag. 8, 4-7). Also, other themes of new creation in Qumran literature, such as “Eden imagery of trees and rivers” (1QHa 14:14-17), ‘overcoming of death and human longevity’ (IQS 4:6-8; CD 3:20; 4Q171 3:1-2), and ‘fertility in the land’ (1QS 4:7; 4Q171 2:9-12), are closely related to the Adamic narrative in Gen 1–3. In light of the findings of this study, I will argue that (1) Paul’s concept of new creation is deeply rooted in the Adamic narrative in Gen 1–3 rather than the prophetic texts; (2) the conception of new creation in early Jewish writings has an emphasis on the meaning of ‘discontinuity,’ which indicates God’s sudden intervention, rather than that of ‘continuity’ with God’s covenant in the prophets; (3) the conception of new creation in early Jewish writings has both anthropological and cosmological meanings within the Adamic narrative framework.


Give Me a Drink of Water: Eco-feminist Reading of John 4
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Jung Ae Kim, Drew University

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.


Missio Dei Not Missio Patri: An Examination of the Patriarchal Origins of Missional Theology and Suggestions for Trinitarian Missional Hermeneutics
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Kirsteen Kim, Fuller Theological Seminary

The question “How can the work of feminist scholars in missional theology and hermeneutics shape the future trajectories of missional theology and hermeneutics?” admits that hitherto the work of feminist scholars has been marginal to missional theology and hermeneutics. The same could be said of theology of mission in general. There are no current academic monographs published in the West in English which have theology and mission (or missional) in the title that are authored by women. This paper seeks to explain and address this problem in three stages: First, it contends that missional theology and hermeneutics were in origin patriarchal. These approaches arose from the post-War discussions at the enlarged meeting of the International Missionary Council at Willingen in 1952. The classic expressions of missio Dei as salvation history and the theology of the apostolate which it birthed were deeply patriarchal as well as paternalistic. They describe a missio Patri rather than the trinitarian approach that is often touted. This particular missional hermeneutic has been given a new lease of life in contemporary evangelical theology of mission. The Willingen approach of missio Dei was mediated to wider theological circles by Lesslie Newbigin and by David Bosch, neither of whom engaged feminist, womanist, or other women’s theologies. Their work was developed more recently as missional theology without critical examination of its colonial and patriarchal genesis. Second, the paper argues that, although they developed trinitarian dimensions of missio Dei, Newbigin, Bosch, and other doyens of contemporary mission or missional theology could not engage contemporary feminist theology. This is because they resisted, on biblical and theological grounds, the more radical missio Dei theology that had emerged at Willingen, which stressed God’s wider work in creation and history beyond the church and salvation history, whereas it was this latter approach that was developed into the political and liberation theologies which were used to address gender injustice (e.g. Radford Ruether). Moreover, the trinitarian approaches of Newbigin and Bosch were insufficiently developed to be able to include the more orthodox trinitarian mission theologies of feminist theologians such as Elizabeth Johnson and Celia Deane-Drummond. Third, the paper draws on research for Beneath Missio Dei (IVP Academic, Missiological Engagements Series, forthcoming) to make theological and hermeneutical suggestions for trinitarian missional theology from a feminist and woman’s perspective while striving to remain biblical and within theological orthodoxy.


“The Grief in Accordance to God" (2 Cor 7:10): Reading Paul’s Understandings on Emotion in the Light of Stoic “εὐπάθειαι”
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Kyung Min Kim, Yale Divinity School

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.


Free Forms of Address and the Cases of Expressive Shift in Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Young Bok Kim, University of Chicago

This paper aims to provide a sociolinguistic analysis of the system of free forms of address in biblical Hebrew (BH) prose. In addition, it identifies the cases of what Brown and Gilman term “expressive shift,” that is, strategic violation of address rules to communicate the speaker’s transient attitudes. Free forms of address are often considered “extragrammatical,” as they play little or no role in the basic grammatical structures of sentences. However, they function as important conveyors of socio-cultural meanings, encoding much information about the speaker’s view of him/herself, the addressee, and the relationship between them in a speech context. As widely recognized in sociolinguistic research on address terms in modern languages, address exchange does not take place randomly, but it is rule-governed behavior exhibiting a regular and orderly pattern. While the rules governing address usage may change over time and vary in different situations, languages, and cultures, sociolinguists have found that the speaker’s choice of address forms is almost always influenced by two factors: the relationship between the speaker and the addressee and the context of the speech. A competent speaker evaluates his/her relationship with the addressee in a given situation, takes into account rules of address usage in his/her speech community, and chooses the most appropriate form – whether right or deliberately wrong – from the repertoire of available address forms. In this study, 145 free forms of address used between human interlocutors are collected from the prose section of the Hebrew Bible and analyzed within a theoretical framework of two classic studies on address forms: Brown and Gilman’s (1960) work on the pronominal T/V distinction in European languages and Brown and Ford’s (1961) analysis of the nominal address system in American English. Address forms in BH can be classified into seven semantic types among which personal name (PN), title (T for both honorific and occupational title), and kinship term (KT) are the most frequent. The findings of this study indicate that the speaker’s choices between PN and T are governed primarily by two social considerations, power and solidarity, supporting Brown and Ford’s “linguistic universal” of the linkage in personal address of intimacy and condescension on the one hand, and distance and deference on the other. Thus, while BH has no T/V distinction in the second person pronominal system, the distinction is achieved in nominal forms of address. Now that the general rules of address usage operating in BH have been established, a few examples of expressive shift can be identified, including “Abner” (1 Sam 26:14), “Micaiah” (1 Kgs 22:15), “Uzziah” (2 Chr 26:18), and “Seer” (Amos 7:12). I argue that the first three are the examples of the so-called “T of anger or contempt,” all of which occur in the context of speakers who are rebuking/questioning the addressee. The last one, however, can be viewed as an example of the “ironic or mocking V.” These rule-breaking cases produce powerful discourse-pragmatic effects, which would not only be of social and emotive significance but also of exegetical importance.


When Time Seems a Matter: Dry Bones, Children of the Dry Bones, and a Levinas Reader
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Soo J. Kim Sweeney, Central Baptist Seminary

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.


Teaching Canonization: A Musical Analogy
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Ian Kinman, Fordham University

Teaching the process of how the Bible evolved into today’s canonized collection of books is an essential task for those teaching in the fields of Old and New Testament studies. The details of that process, however, can be dry and dull for even the most dedicated students. In order to make this material more understandable and even entertaining, I have developed a classroom exercise that helps engage students with the material, and helps them understand the messy historical processes behind canonization. After discussing the definition of what a canon is and can be in general, I begin by having the students propose a canon for twenty-first century popular music. Presenting myself as clueless about the topic helps. The students propose a series of ten songs that they feel should be included in the “canon” for whatever reason they see fit. Then I have them get together in small groups, or ‘churches’. Each church then needs to come up with a list of five songs from that list of ten, that they will propose as the canon. Importantly, they also have to articulate the specific reasons why those songs need to be included (importance of the artist, the relevance of the lyrics, broad representation of musical styles, etc.) The groups present to the entire class, and we tally up the winners and losers. The results are almost always the same—a few winners that every church agrees on, a small set of ‘outliers’, and several that are almost universally dropped. I then use the results to illustrate a lecture on the history behind the canonization of these texts, including the issues that drove the decisions.


Judaism and the Divine Jesus
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Mark S Kinzer, Messianic Jewish Theological Institute

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 Burden of the Sages: Tracing the Semantic Typography of משׂא with Proverbs 30:1 as a Test Case
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Alexander T. Kirk, University of Durham

Lexica are like fences that divide words into neatly cordoned off pastures so that we can manage them easily. But all too often these fences create conceptual barriers, leaving words whose territory once encompassed a broad landscape artificially divided into tracts too small to yield an interpretive harvest. This, I argue, is what has happened to the noun מַשָּׂא. Its different senses have been fenced off from one another in large part due to lexicographic methods that surveyed the land based on etymological assumptions and modern conceptions about genre. This essay is a philological thought experiment—what happens if we tear down the lexical fences that criss-cross משׂא and re-survey the terrain? What could tracing the contours of משׂא over hill and dale teach us about how the ancients thought about the texts they were composing? Proverbs 30 offers us a vista and a starting point for this survey because it is a boundary-crossing text. Taking a hint from Proverbs 30, I will re-survey the משׂא texts by considering some that have not historically been given a privileged place in constructing its definition, namely, narrative, wisdom, and non-canonical texts. I’ll tour the marginalized משׂא texts in 2 Kings 9, Ben Sira, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, before stopping to consider משׂא in the Balaam text from Deir ‘Alla. In light of this survey, I’ll circle back to the idea of Proverbs 30 as a boundary-crossing text before attempting to draw a map of משׂא with greater sensitivity to its typography within ancient sources. Ultimately, I’ll propose that when משׂא is used to designate a type of discourse this is best understood as a figurative extension of the concrete meaning of burden. In the Hebrew Bible this term is most often applied to prophecies, especially “weighty” messages revealed in visions. I hope especially to make it clear that the way the ancients employ this term is dynamic and versatile, cutting across modern genre divisions so that we should be reticent both about using our definitions of משׂא to categorize texts and our selective reading of texts to fence in משׂא.


Deeds, Reward, and Divine Mercy: Jewish Views and Pauline Passages
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
Menahem Kister, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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.


Threatening Potential and Unforeseen Calm: Extending the Ark's Narrative in Samuel
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Kacie Klamm, University of Notre Dame

Twentieth-century scholarship contested the textual location of Samuel’s Ark Narrative (AN), suggesting its conclusion is found either in 1 Sam 7:1 or 2 Samuel 6. More recent scholarship has shifted focus away from defining the limits and origins of the AN in favor of literary analysis and theological interpretation. Even so, both scholarly trajectories center their interpretation of the AN on the ark’s activity within the early chapters of Samuel, and sometimes 2 Samuel 6. Yet, the ark appears, rhetorically or physically, three more times in the Book of Samuel. David invokes the ark in expressing his desire to build God a house (2 Sam 7:2). Uriah refuses the comfort of his wife and home while the ark is out at war (2:11). Finally, David sends the ark back to Jerusalem when it is brought along in his flight from Absalom, refusing to use it either as weapon or good luck charm (2 Sam 15:25-26). In this paper I attend to these final mentions of the ark, and argue that they constitute a continuation of the ark’s narrative, artfully woven into the Book of Samuel. Although the final three mentions of the ark are brief, the reader of Samuel is already well-acquainted with the ark, such that the presence of the ark summons the dangerous instability and impressive power that the ark wrought in in the earlier narrative. The later scenes mentioning the ark are thereby furnished with potential threat and threatening potential. The ark, however, never explodes as it did previously, nor does it “act” at all. This surprising placidity, particularly in 2 Samuel 15, offers a more fitting conclusion than either 1 Sam 7:1 or 2 Samuel 6. As it is inextricably intertwined with the story of David, the ark’s narrative considered across the whole of the Book of Samuel displays and commends both proper posture towards and proper use (or non-use) of the ark, and implicitly the God the ark represents.


An Elusive Identity: The Historical Paul and the Pharisaic Saul
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Jonathan Klawans, Boston University

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.


"For I Will Cleanse Their Blood (ונקיתי דמם) That I Have Not Cleansed": A Rhetorical Study of the Depiction of the People, the Land, and the Nations in the Book of Joel
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Terence J. Kleven, Central College

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on the Book of the Twelve Prophets in Biblical Scholarship.


Targum Onqelos on Tyrannical Warriors in Genesis 6
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Terence J. Kleven, Central College and Max Planck Institute

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.


Ben Sira and the Psalms
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Gary P. Klump, Marquette University

This paper will explore the way(s) that Ben Sira has been influenced by the Psalms. Recently, much work has been done on the oral background and context of biblical texts. Correlatively, a number of scholars have also noted and studied the inexact (by modern standards) nature of quotation/allusion/reference of the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament. Because of the relatively similar contexts of Jesus ben Sira and the New Testament authors, especially as it relates to the existence and availability of the Tenach, many of the insights proffered by New Testament scholars of intertextuality apply equally to the study of intertextuality in the book of Ben Sira. Specifically, it must be recognized that a model of intertextuality built on the faulty and anachronistic assumption of a static, authoritative text are no longer tenable. Instead, this paper will propose a methodology based on structural linguist M. A. K. Halliday’s work with “registers,” culturally constructed thought webs. These registers have indexical features and share a mutually constructive relationship with context. This paper will then attempt to reconstruct, to the degree possible, the “register(s)” associated with words and phrases related to creation. Specifically, the Psalms will be used to construct (part of) the register(s) for words and phrases related to creation. The Psalms will be used as a textual instantiation of cultural associations, in addition to a communicator of those same associations. In so doing, this method will move beyond simple “reference” or “allusion,” beyond just semiotics, or the way in which words point to things, but to ways in which words carry with them a whole host of associations, values, and contexts. Next this paper will explore how reading with a Psalm-informed register produces a richer reading of Ben Sira, specifically 42:15-43:33. Creation by word, the actions of the heavenly luminaries, meteorological phenomena, and monsters all have a shared mythological background in the divine warrior motif. This paper will conclude that Ben Sira is demythologizing creation, much the same was as “P” purportedly did in Genesis 1. The most likely target of Ben Sira’s polemic is not Babylon, however, but Apocalypticism.


Subverting Literary Models to Incorporate Gentiles: “Radical Rhetoric” in Joseph and Aseneth and the Book of Acts
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Michael Kochenash, Hunan University

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.


Exploring Ideology in Acts 12: Interlocking Oppressions and Rhoda’s Cassandra Curse
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Michael Kochenash, Hunan University

This paper explores potential ideological readings of the narrative featuring Rhoda in Acts 12:12–17. By focusing on the compounding oppressions experienced by someone with Rhoda’s gender and class—and perhaps her ethnicity, if it can be inferred—in the ancient Mediterranean world, interpreters can better appreciate how ancient readers might have evaluated the verisimilitude of the disbelief displayed by Mary and others toward Rhoda. This class- and gender-based approach is supplemented by reading this episode as imitating the mythical Greek figure of Cassandra, especially as depicted in Homer’s Iliad and Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, and as reflected in other imitations of Cassandra in Greek and Latin literature. Finally, this paper also examines issues resulting from this mimetic comparison, from the predicted destruction of Jerusalem in Luke and Acts to the narrative’s appeal to slave women’s experience of oppression in the creation of a culturally meaningful episode.


The Wife and Mother: Mercy for The Womb in the Divine Marriage Metaphor
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Laurel Koepf Taylor, Eden Theological Seminary

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.


Justin Martyr and the Fourfold Gospel Canon
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Michael J. Kok, Vose Seminary

This paper will challenge the thesis that the "fourfold Gospel" (τετράμορφον εὐαγγέλιον), along with the conventional titles in the surviving manuscripts of the canonical Gospels, developed in the period before Justin Martyr. Although Justin was aware that some of his contemporaries were labelling the biographies of Jesus as ευαγγέλια (1 Apol. 66.3; Dial. 10.2; 100.1), he preferred the designation "memoirs of the apostles" and does not explicitly name the evangelists. While some scholars read Dial. 103.8 as identifying at least four memoirs, two from the apostles (i.e. Matthew and John) and two from the apostles' followers (i.e. Mark and Luke), the passage may only imply that all of the Gospels were produced by the apostles and their scribal assistants. Justin may have taken his cue from Papias (cf. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.39.15-16), for Papias reasoned that an amanuensis named Mark transcribed the preaching of Peter (cf. the memoirs of Peter in Dial. 106.3) and that qualified translators produced the Greek edition of Matthew's Gospel. Perhaps Justin surmised that Luke recorded the Apostle Paul's traditions about Jesus when composing his "account" (διήγησις), but this is uncertain since the earliest evidence for the tradition of Lukan authorship of the third canonical Gospel is found in the heresiological treatise of Irenaeus of Lyon (Haer. 3.1.1; 11.7; 12.12), the Muratorian Canon (2-8), and Bodmer Papyrus XIV. There is some limited evidence that Justin was familiar with the contents of John's Gospel, but the debate over whether he included this book in the "memoirs of the apostles" mainly revolves around Dial. 105.1. I will argue that the memoirs that were read liturgically during Christian worship services (1 Apol. 67.3) were restricted to the Synoptic Gospels, whereas the Fourth Gospel was treated as equivalent to other valuable historical records about the life of Jesus such as the Gospel of Peter (cf. 1 Apol. 35.4). It may be anachronistic to read back the later dividing line between "canonical" and "apocryphal" Gospels to Justin's discussion of the "memoirs of the apostles" or to the reception of Gospel literature in the first half of the second century CE more generally.


Qohelet and the Moana (Deep Sea): Futility in Diaspora?
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Brian Kolia, University of Divinity

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.


The Animal Pedagogue: Wisdom, Anthropology, and Posthumanism
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Jennifer L. Koosed, Albright College

Whereas the role of animal symbols in Wisdom Literature has long been studied from traditional historical and literary perspectives, besides some forays into ecological hermeneutics, few have addressed the role of these images through an animal studies frame. In Proverbs especially, various animals become pedagogues that instruct human beings in proper behavior and ethics. These texts challenge anthropocentrism by placing various animals (even insects) at the center of the moral universe, with humans among the few creatures in need of special instruction. While de-centering the human animal, these texts also, somewhat paradoxically, construct an anthropology that places people outside of the created order—or at least, people constitute an unruly element in what is otherwise an orderly creation, an unruly element that must be disciplined by other animals. This paper will also take a metacritical approach, focusing specifically on Gerhard von Rad’s landmark analysis of Wisdom Literature.


Transfiguring Secrets in Spiritual Care and Practice
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Michael S. Koppel, Wesley Theological Seminary

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.


Are John's “Not Jews” Non-Pauline Judaizing Gentile Christos-Followers? (2:9; 3:9): An Apokalypsis of John’s Non-supersessionist Agenda
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Ralph J. Korner, Taylor College and Seminary

At first, and maybe even at second, glance John appears to affirm a supersessionist, or at the very least an anti-Judaistic agenda, through his pejorative comments “those who say they are Jews and are not…[but] are a synagōgē tou satana” (2:9; 3:9). The interpretive road for understanding what John meant by the terms Ioudaioi and synagōgē tou satana has been well traveled. There are at least five options for John’s intended referent for the term Ioudaioi (“Jews”): (1) non-Jesus following ethnic Jews (contra-Jewish; supersessionist; A. Y. Collins), (2) non-Jesus following ethnic Jews (intra-Jewish; non-supersessionist; Hirschberg); (3) non-Jesus following Judean Jews (intra-Jewish; non-supersessionist; Kraabel); (4) judaizing non-Pauline Jewish Christos-followers (intra-Christos-followers; non-supersessionist; L. Thompson), and (5) non-judaizing Pauline gentile Christos-followers (intra-Christos-followers; non-supersessionist; Pagels). I will explore a sixth option: judaizing non-Pauline gentile Christos-followers who were full Jewish proselytes of God-fearers before becoming Christos-followers. Such a scenario is akin to Matthew Thiessen’s argument for the potential referent behind Paul’s “so-called Jew” statement (Rom 2:17). These “not Jews” in Roman Asia, like the sectarian Torah observant Nazorean Christos-followers in Palestine, self-identity collectively as a synagōgē. Hirschberg’s observation that there was a strongly represented population of God-fearers in Asia Minor undergirds the socio-historical plausibility of this sixth option. In light of the foregoing, I will suggest that John’s term “synagogue of Satan” is not meant to create a bifurcation between “Christianity” and “Judaism” (i.e., between Christos-following and non-Jesus-following Jews). Rather, one could view his term “synagogue of Satan” as having primary reference to the fact that judaizing (righteous) gentile Christos-followers would not have been granted the group identity “ekklēsia” either by Paul or John. Instead, consonant with Paul’s attribution of satanic functions to James’s judaizing Jewish Christos-followers in Galatia (Gal 1:10; cf. 2 Cor 12:13), John also identifies the Roman Asia (righteous) gentile Christos-follower synagōgē as being in collusion with Satan, or at the very least with a satanically inspired accusational agenda (e.g., LXX Zechariah’s satanas). Thus, John’s pejorative attack on the “not Jews” in Smyrna and Philadelphia is neither supersessionist nor anti-Judaistic, but rather is a protectionist maneuver against fellow Christos-followers over the very essence of the Gospel of the Lamb that was slain.


An Indecent Proposal or a Ritualized Quest for Survival? The Threshing Floor Episode in Ruth 3 Reconsidered
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Ekaterina Kozlova, London School of Theology

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.


Senator Marcellus as an Early Christian Role Model: The Destruction and Restoration of a "Statue of Caesar" in Acta Petri 11
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Thomas Kraus, Universität Zürich

In Acta Petri 11 Peter exorcises a most wicked demon from a youth in the house of Senator Marcellus, which destroys a statue of Caesar thereafter. The narration of the incident (a) adds to the picture painted in the Acta Petri of Marcellus, first a convicted Christian, then a follower of Simon Magus, and finally a repentant but now steadfast Christian who receives power via Peter to work miracles himself; and (b) it unveils en passant a rather interesting attitude towards ‚statues‘ (and, thus, idolatry) that is different from the stereotypical one in the most of the other Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. In this paper both aspects will be depicted in detail so that the uniqueness of this specific passage within its narrative context is going to be demonstrated as such.


Institutional and Experiential Differences in Old Greek and Theodotionic Susanna
Program Unit: Book of Daniel
Andrew R. Krause, ACTS Seminaries of Trinity Western University

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 Constellation of Agents: An Often Overlooked Aspect in the Comparison of Deuteronomy and Ancient Near Eastern Treaties
Program Unit: Book of Deuteronomy
Joachim J. Krause, University of Tübingen

Ever since the pioneering studies of George Mendenhall, Klaus Baltzer, Dennis McCarthy and Moshe Weinfeld, the structural analogies of Deuteronomy with Ancient Near Eastern treaties are a key issue in the scholarly study of the book. More recently, the hypothesis that Deut 13* and 28* could even represent a Hebrew rendering of the Neo-Assyrian Succession Treaties of Esarhaddon has prompted a yet intensified investigation of the matter. Yielding nuanced models to account for the traditio-historical pluriformity of features in Deuteronomy vis-à-vis the various strands of tradition found in late Hittite and Neo-Assyrian as well as Aramaic comparative evidence, this latter discussion arguably has once again broadened the horizon. In any case, it only emphasizes that reading Deuteronomy against the background of the Ancient Near Eastern treaty tradition more broadly is an indispensable perspective when it comes to the literary genesis of Deuteronomy as we have it. What is more, it also opens a window on its interpretation. At the same time, however, it can also lead to certain misconceptions. For as evidently major parts of Deuteronomy are modeled on a treaty, Deuteronomy is no treaty. The comparative perspective thus commends to heed both commonalities and differences. In this paper, the focus will be on one such difference, namely the constellation of agents. It is typical for Ancient Near Eastern treaties that the contracting parties agree to delegate the task of safeguarding the treaty to a third party constituted by deities. It is these gods who figure as “witnesses” of the curses the contracting parties call upon themselves for the case that they would act contrary to the treaty, the term “witness” denoting also, according to the semantics of Ancient Near Eastern treaty discourse, “agent of the sanctions.” Hence, the agreed upon sanctions are conceived of as coming into effect without further involvement of the contracting parties. In fact, this particular feature is the operating principle which makes an Ancient Near Eastern treaty work. In Deuteronomy, however, it does not apply. While intriguingly enough there are certain entities, in the close context of the curse sections, which are called “witnesses,” none of them really can figure as a witness in the sense described above, for none of them is a deity; neither is there made an attempt to charge these “witnesses” with putting into effect the curse sanctions. Often overlooked, this aspect has significant ramifications for the understanding of the curses in Deuteronomy and the treaty style structure in general.


Women Suffering in Ancient Everyday Life
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Christina M. Kreinecker, KU Leuven

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.]


Hebrew Verse Structure, Revised
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Rachel Krohn, Trinity College Queensland

Michael O’Connor’s 1980 [1997] opus, Hebrew Verse Structure, is a tour de force that sets out a compelling analysis of the principles constraining the formation of Biblical Hebrew verse. Its brilliance notwithstanding, O’Connor’s work has been poorly understood, due in part to technical nature of his analysis; this is increasingly compounded by O’Connor’s terminology, which was drawn from 1970s generative transformational linguistic theory. In this paper, we will both redefine and refine O’Connor’s framework. Specifically, we will clarify O’Connor’s category of “constituent” and replace his “unit” with the concept of prosodic word. Finally, we affirm O’Connor’s assessment of Lowthian parallelism as a “horror” that wreaks havoc on lexical semantics and “is beyond the comprehension of any sensitive student of language,” but we replace O’Connor’s interlineal tropes with an analysis grounded in the appositive style of poetry. Using Habakkuk 3, which O’Connor analyzed in his work, and adding Psalm 51, which he did not, we offer an analysis that revises and completes O’Connor’s original project of offering an accurate descriptive analysis of the convention of Biblical Hebrew poetic grammar.


"Joseph and Aseneth" as a Jewish Narrative among the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Robert Kugler, Lewis & Clark College

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.


Problems of “Wisdom-Law Confluence” in Deuteronomy
Program Unit: Book of Deuteronomy
JiSeong James Kwon, Université de Lausanne

Resemblances between Deuteronomy and Wisdom literature have mainly been interpreted by the literary influence of Deuteronomy on Proverbs in the first half of the 20th century (e.g., Roberts, Fichtner), but after the pioneering study of Moshe Weinfeld (1972) scholars have agreed on that Deuteronomy either depends on or was influenced by Proverbs and other wisdom texts (Blenkinsopp [1995], Fox [2009], Otto [2012]) and that substantial texts of Deuteronomy indicate the confluence of wisdom elements and Law. However, still, it is problematic to tell whether there was the wisdom influence in Deuteronomy, and whether “the wise” or “a group of scribes” at loyal courts (Weinfeld) were final editor(s) of Deuteronomy (e.g., van der Toorn). In particular, interpreters suppose that Deu 4:6 is an example of showing in the Hebrew Bible the earliest paradigm about the confluence of Wisdom and Torah whose later examples in Hellenistic Judaism are Sir 24:23 and Bar 4:1. However, the confluence of Wisdom and Torah in Deuteronomy or the dependence of Proverbs on Deuteronomy have several critical points. And the new understanding of the biblical wisdom texts compared to Egyptian wisdom texts brought us to a new place of defining “wisdom” and “wisdom tradition” (e.g., Start Weeks) and of assuming the confusing theory of the confluence of the two different traditions, Wisdom and Torah. Although the book of Deuteronomy is mixed editions of legal tradition, Torah, history, and wisdom, it is unnecessary to believe that there was a redactional layer of Wisdom or the historical setting of “wisdom-scribe”. In this paper, I will examine specific texts of Deuteronomy (Deut 1:13, 15; 4:6, 19:14, 30:11-20) where it is supposed to be the confluence of wisdom in the post-Deuteronomic stage and will argue that the emergence of the wisdom discourse in Deuteronomy was no more than an indication of the shared literary knowledge in the Persian and Hellenistic period.


Remember and Forget: Cognitive Hermeneutics in Chronicles
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Antje Labahn, Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal/Bethel

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.


Samson among the Deuteronomists?
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Mark Lackowski, University of Notre Dame

Martin Noth was unable to confidently situate Samson within his Deuteronomistic History (DH) because he was not among the judges listed in Samuel’s farewell address to Israel (1 Sam 12:11) and because Noth thought that the Samson stories did not show any signs of having been worked on by the Deuteronomist—a judgment shared by subsequent scholars working within a Deuteronomistic framework. Moreover, Noth could not adequately explain Samson’s partial deliverance of Israel from the Philistines (Judg 13:5), which was only fully accomplished under the leadership of Samuel (1 Sam 7:7–15). For these reasons, Noth ultimately argued that Judg 13:1 originally introduced the stories of Samuel (1 Sam 1:1ff) and not Samson (Judg 13:2–16:31). Yet this conclusion is problematic, given the many explicit and implicit connections between the Samson stories and the larger DH, including Deuteronomistic content, language, and style, as well as larger motifs shared between Samson and the people of Israel. This paper argues, then, that the Samson stories were composed gradually by scribes in concert with the broader textual developments of the book of Judges and the DH. In this way, Samson embodies both the deliverance (Heilsgeschichte) and downfall (Unheilsgeschichte) of Israel in his promising rise and tragic fall. The focus of the paper will be on the first significant paratextual addition to the Samson stories (Judg 16) read in light of the destruction and exile of Judah by the Babylonians (2 Kings 25). It will be shown how the Deuteronomistic scribes transformed Samson from a mighty warrior, who fights for Israel (Judg 14–15), into the tragic final judge, whose capture and exile (Judg 16:21) foreshadows the fate of Israel’s final king, Zedekiah (2 Kgs 25:7). In so doing, this paper will argue for a much more significant role of the Samson stories within the textual development of the DH and its perennial concerns with the collapse of Israel’s political and religious institutions.


Women and “the Faith” in 1 Timothy 5: A Battle for Faith and Faithfulness
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Mona Tokarek LaFosse, Martin Luther University College, Wilfrid Laurier University

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.


Jonah 1-2: Salvation from the Moana – Preserving Identity fights Ecological Issues in Samoa
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Ben Laie, Kanana Fou Theological Seminary, American Samoa

Elmer Marten’s triad-structure of the Old Testament (God, Land and Israel) is clearly reflected in Jonah 1-2. Like Jonah 1, Jonah 2 also shows an interconnection between the sami (Moana), lagi (sky) and laueleele (land). It is Jonah’s prayer from the sami calling the lagi for salvation because of his failures to complete his task set for the laueleele of Nineveh. Jonah’s refusal caused violent waves on the sami that led him to Sheol (underworld, death). The interconnection highlights the fact that the subject-matters of climate change are not natural phenomenon but represent repercussions of human behaviors. God’s interventions (hurling wind on sea, being swallowed up by fish, etc.) do not signal divine responsibilities for climate change (e.g. Jonah 1:12) but underscore human responsibility. Instead, they showcase how God was willing and able to give an opportunity for the resurrection of Jonah from Sheol, redirecting him towards the laueleele of Nineveh. Humans have responsibilities in God’s creation which must not be neglected, lest humanity will face negative impacts. The interconnections between the sami, lagi and laueleele are in conversation with each other. However, disagreement between them (climate change issues) occurs depending on the type of human behaviors. In essence, humans are the principal agents in the prevention (and causation) of climate change issues.


Reception, Rediscovery, and Reimagination: Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis and Luke 16:19–31
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
Gregory E. Lamb, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

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 Reception History of Phil 3:2–3a in Dialogue with Mark D. Nanos
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Gregory E. Lamb, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

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


Biblical Narrative and the Limits of Exemplarity
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
David Lambert, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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.


Philippians and the Fragrant Offering of the Gentiles
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
Jane Lancaster Patterson, Seminary of the Southwest

Recent Pauline scholarship has brought into sharper focus the everyday realities of the community at Philippi, at least tentatively locating the recipients of Paul’s letter as people experiencing long-term economic hardship, possibly combined with some form of religious or social opposition. At the same time, new interpretations of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles in relation to his ongoing Jewish identity and commitments have caused their own shifts in understanding and interpretation. And growing awareness of the significance of orality and the multiplicity of scriptural traditions has complicated the practice of listening for scriptural references in Paul’s letters to Gentile churches. This paper examines Paul’s use of cultic metaphors, resonant with both scripture and practice, as part of a rhetorical strategy to stabilize and empower the vulnerable Philippian assembly in the present and to inspire endurance toward an imagined future. Both explicit cultic metaphors (Phil 1:10-11; 2:14-18; 4:15-20) and implied cultic metaphors (1:1, 20-26, 29; 2:6-11) stand at the nexus of scripture and practice, economics and power dynamics, mind and body, earth and heaven. Paul uses them to redefine the Philippians’ view of their place in society as Gentiles in relationship with the God of Israel; to ground their relationships in both tangible and spiritual generosity; and to establish a sensible framework of meaning on an otherwise incomprehensible landscape of struggle and suffering.


A Lost Cause? Unpacking the Bible’s Lost Property Laws
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Yael Landman, University of Pennsylvania; Gorgias Press

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.


The Forgers of the Bible Slander in Modern Scholarship
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Armin Lange, Universität Wien

Despite claims to objective critical scholarship, in modern times, the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible was and is not free of ideological biases. One of the more infamous examples is the forgers of the Bible slander, i.e. that Jews would have faked the text of their Bible to suppress the truth about Jesus’ messiahship. Not only in the nineteenth century but even in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries biblical scholarship is not free of this polemic. In this presentation I will discuss select examples to point to the open and/or secondary antisemitism connected with this accusation in the research on the textual and canonical histories of the Hebrew Bible as well as the reception of this research in conservative Christian literature.


Who Says That God Loves the World? A Historical Argument to Identify the Ambiguous Speakers in John 3
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Stuart B Langley, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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.


Victim-Blaming Daughter Zion? Translating “Sin” in Lamentations 1:13–20
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Susannah M. Larry, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Within Lamentations 1-2, Daughter Zion, a personification of Jerusalem who represents both the city and its people, demands justice both for herself and for her children. While the figure of Daughter Zion draws upon the trope of the marriage metaphor apparent elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, her role in Lamentations is unique because, as Carleen Mandolfo has noted in Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets, she retains her subjectivity as a speaker. Given the aims of feminist criticism to analyze the presences and absences of women in biblical texts, as well as to identify the patriarchal structures in which biblical texts emerge, Lamentations’ Daughter Zion has been a figure of great interest. However, Daughter Zion does not fit neatly into a feminist paradigm. Though she mounts a courageous protest before God concerning the rape and child bereavement she experiences at YHWH’s behest, her speech also includes what has frequently been identified as a “confession” in 1:13-20. In these moments, Daughter Zion appears to take part in the phenomenon of victim-blaming (which often translates into self-blame for survivors of sexual violence). Daughter Zion’s apparent self-blame has created conundrums for feminist critics of the Hebrew Bible. From this perspective, an authentic “confession” would indicate the tragic reality that Daughter Zion is participating in her own disempowerment. Mandolfo and Nancy C. Lee are among those who have interpreted Daughter Zion’s “confession” as an ironic or sardonic statement. Contributing to the conversation, trauma-informed critics such as James W.S. Yansen have interpreted the “confession” as a byproduct of her abuse. Other scholars, such as John F. Hobbins, have argued that denying Daughter Zion’s “confession” amounts to stripping her of her voice—a decidedly un-feminist move. This paper takes up the issue of Daughter Zion’s statements about her “sin” once again to analyze it from a feminist perspective. Ultimately, it concludes that what Daughter Zion does is far bolder than merely denying her sin or explaining it as a product of her traumatization: Daughter Zion places her confession of sin and her protest of divine injustice side by side. Her “sin” (even if it can be understood as such, which may be called into question, given women’s limited agency in the biblical world) can in no way explain or justify her experience of sexual assault. The poetic lines of her speech cut through the Deuteronomic theodicy by disconnecting sin and suffering from one another. Whether or not Daughter Zion sinned is, for the purposes of understanding and responding to her suffering, irrelevant. This reading thus pushes back against the victim-blaming of rape culture even more than declaring Daughter Zion’s “innocence.”


“Who Has Borne Me These?” Surrogacy as Attempted Comfort in Deutero-Isaiah
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Susannah M. Larry, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

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.


Jesus and Asklepios: Cognitive Perspectives on the Miraculous
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Jennifer Larson, Kent State University Main Campus

From the perspective of cognitive science of religion, miracles are events which violate our natural intuitions (Pyysiäinen 2004); that is, they are counter-intuitive events. The use of this terminology is preferable to discussions of the “supernatural,” because perception of natural law changes according to our culture and scientific knowledge. Where instant communication across long distances would once have been considered supernatural, it is now shown to be consistent with radio waves. Instead, the baseline for identifying the miraculous should be the evolved, natural intuitions which develop in early childhood and are shared by people in all cultures. Though resistant to change, these intuitions can be overcome by habituation in specific contexts: thus people can become accustomed to talking over long distances using special tools, but those less accustomed to the technology may still think it is necessary to speak loudly, and nobody expects the feat to work without the tool. Additionally, we may acquire intuitions through deeply ingrained learning. Violations of these intuitions create a milder surprise than violations of natural intuition. Thus, where blindness is caused by the absence of eyeballs, restoration of the eyes strongly violates our natural intuitions. A simple cure of blindness, on the other hand, merely violates our learned intuition that blindness is irreversible. In this paper, I apply this analysis to the miracles performed by Asklepios in the Epidaurian iamata, and compare the results with the miracles of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. In both corpora, healing miracles cluster around illnesses which violate learned intuitions of irreversibility (such as blindness, deafness, lameness and baldness), while reversible conditions such as fever or vomiting are present but de-emphasized. Cures violating learned intuitions of irreversibility appear to be cognitively optimal for transmission. In both corpora, Asklepios and Jesus perform miracles involving violations of natural intuition, but the application of counterintuitive motifs differs in each corpus. The Asklepian iamata involve a large number of reversible conditions to which mildly counterintuitive story elements have been added in order to make them more memorable, while the Markan corpus includes a large number of non-healing miracles which starkly violate natural intuition, such as walking on water, plus a case of resurrection. The differences can be attributed in part to different contexts of composition, but taken as collections of miracle tales, the two corpora suggest a kind of miracle arms race, in which more highly counterintuitive miracles are attributed to Jesus in order to demonstrate that his powers are superior to those of existing miracle-working deities. The special case of exorcism in the Markan corpus calls for additional discussion. Pyysiäinen, Ilka. 2002. Mind and miracles. Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 37.3.729-40. Versnel, Henk S. 2011. Coping with the gods: Wayward readings in Greek theology. Leiden and Boston: Brill, Chapter 5.


Wisdom through Symbolic Objects: The Second Temple Intellectual Context of Symbolic Bodies in and beyond Proverbs 1–9
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Phillip M. Lasater, Universität Zürich

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.


“For the Love of the Son:” Death and Exemplarity in Jacob of Serug’s "Memra on the Maccabean Martyrs"
Program Unit: Syriac Studies
Ethan Laster, Saint Louis University

This paper examines the role of death and exemplarity in Jacob of Serug’s "Mēmrā on the Maccabean Martyrs." A heretofore untranslated text, the mēmrā is a poetic discourse on the deaths of Eleazar, Shmuni, and her seven sons at the hands of Antiochus IV Epiphanes as told in 4 Maccabees. Drawing on classicist Matthew B. Roller’s model of exemplarity, I argue that the mēmrā represents an attempt by Jacob to demonstrate the mimetic “fit” of the nine Jewish heroes as specifically Christian martyrs. Following a brief overview of the mēmrā, part I introduces Roller’s model of exemplarity in which a) an exemplar performs a virtuous action, b) witnesses evaluate the “fit” of the exemplar’s virtuous action with those of antecedent exemplary categories, c) the deed is commemorated by the production of a “monument” (texts, statues, physical marks, etc.), and d) the deed becomes norm-setting and communally prescriptive. Part II applies Roller’s model to Jacob’s text, examining in particular the ways that Jacob positions himself as an evaluative witness to the actions of Eleazar, Shmuni, and her sons, and establishes criteria by which the nine martyrs can be thought to have died “Christian” deaths. Although historically prior to Christ, Jacob portrays his subjects as dying “for the love of the Son.” Finally, part III situates Jacob’s rhetorical strategy in the wider context of debates surrounding the Maccabean cult. The suitability of Christian veneration of the Maccabean martyrs was highly contested in late antiquity, a reality that Jacob eludes to at length. As such, the paper considers how Jacob’s mēmrā responds to potential critiques of his argument by means of appeal to mimetic logic.


On the First Day….. The Professor Created Confusion
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Jonathan D. Lawrence, Canisius College

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.


Victorian Viragoes: The Tale of the Levite’s Woman (Judges 19) in Josephine Butler’s Contentions with Late Victorian Sexual Mores
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Bernon Lee, Bethel University (Minnesota)

Steeped in the Darwinian imagination, the exponents of fin-de-siècle literary artistry painted the New Woman of the era a lascivious man-eating beast. She was a purveyor of gender confusion whose ball-crushing initiative would check Western European ascent to civilization’s apogee. Unfettered by tradition, her flighty intemperate spirit, its vaunted sexuality blind to the fine(r) things of a ‘higher’ cultural order, would return humankind to the primordial muck of hoary antiquity. In this paper I read Josephine Butler’s readings of the Levite and his woman (Judges 19) through four publications as part of a broader challenge to the literary sensibilities of the time. Butler’s voluminous writings from the latter half of the nineteenth century, in essays and speeches, brought a Christian acumen to bear upon a sustained critique of the androcentric and misogynistic suasion at the heart of a cultural consensus on women’s character and women’s sexuality, especially (though not exclusively) as it pertained to the regulation of prostitution. Her contention through an astute consideration of the Judges story is that a pervasive masculine animus (not feminine!) of lust and rapine is the root of a crippling decline that is moral and religious, not devolutionary in the senses espoused by Darwin and his acolytes. Yet, Butler’s favor for the tropes of the time—a sex-specific salaciousness and victimhood, mangled bodies, diseased members, and national degeneration—is resonant of verbiage in the service of a broader consternation respecting the revisionary social-sexual movements afoot. Butler’s co-option of the cultural cadences in currency, I contend, is not only a calculated rhetorical twist on the norm, but also a symptom of a shared ethos—that European dominance and splendor (specifically, Anglo-imperialism) is the high-water mark of human achievement, a bastion of moral rectitude. In this respect, I propose, Butler’s critique of fin-de-siècle literary and scientific discourse is ambivalent. The cleavage in her disposition on the British (and European) masterly optic and its attendant constructs of gender and race is evident in her turns of phrase.


From a Free Person to a Slave of Christ: 1 Cor 7:21–23 in Light of Self-Sale Enslavement in the Roman Empire
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Gilha Lee, Emory University

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.


The Self-Attesting Christ of Scripture (Luke 24:27, 44): The Unbreakable Continuity for Preaching the NT Use of the OT in the Present-Day Context
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Kyoohan Lee, Calvary Presbyterian Church in Mesa, Arizona

Preaching The NT use of the OT is a valuable aspect of homiletical practice, since doing so challenges present-day preachers to faithfully unfold the meaning and significance of the NT writers’ quotations, allusions, and echoes of the Old, not only in their canonical context, but also in the NT writers’ immediate context. However, many pastors and preachers consider preaching the NT use of the OT too complex and impractical for pulpit ministry, and this for two reasons. First, it is a relatively new topic in Christian homiletics. Second, existing theories of biblical interpretation and methods for the NT use of the OT do not offer clear practical guidelines for the ministry of proclamation. This paper thus aims at showing homileticians and preachers how to bridge the gap between biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) and proclamation (homiletics) when preaching the NT use of the OT. In general hermeneutical concerns about biblical intertextuality, the argument centers on identifying the hermeneutical bridge that embraces the significance of the self-attesting Christ of Scripture in the NT use of the OT. In Luke 24, Jesus consciously attests “all things,” which includes all patterns of fulfillment, as belonging to Him as the center of all the Scriptures. The self-attesting Christ of Scripture, as the one hermeneutical bridge, provides multiple ways of continuity between the OT and the NT. Particularly, on the continuity between the OT and the NT from the viewpoint of Christ and the NT writers’ use of the OT (How did Christ and the NT writers utilize the OT?), this study tries to show, nevertheless, it is very certain that the New Testament writers did interpret the Old Testament in line with the original intention of the Old Testament authors. Concerning the continuity between two worlds in terms of the NT use of the OT (Can contemporary interpreters recapitulate the NT writers’ approach?), this paper defends that reproduction is possible to some degree, since, in the problem of preaching the NT use of the OT, the contemporary recapitulation of the NT writers’ use of the OT eventually leads to unfolding the self-attesting Christ of Scripture, which affirms that the NT writers faithfully follow Jesus’s hermeneutic. Hence, the hermeneutical model for preaching the NT use of the OT needs to reflect that (1) the NT writers were faithfully following Jesus’s approach, because Jesus’s legacy was clearly recapitulated in the NT writers’ interpretation of the OT in the New; (2) the NT writers’ presuppositions and interpretive methods were in general Christocentric, specifically in terms of recognizing covenantal continuity on the redemptive historical horizon in an eschatological sense; and (3) the NT writers’ interpretive approach has been bequeathed to the post-apostolic Christian church for the interpreting and preaching of Christ from all the Scriptures. The NT writers’ interpretive approach can be repeated in the contemporary setting by unfolding the self-attesting Christ of Scripture.


Behind Peter’s Pentecost Sermon (Acts 2:14–36): The Effectiveness Principles Argued in Light of the Hearers’ Responses (Acts 2:37, 40)
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Kyoohan Lee, Calvary Presbyterian Church in Mesa, Arizona

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 Oldest Extant Versions of Ethiopic Deuteronomy
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Ralph Lee, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Faculty of

The THEOT study on Ethiopic Deuteronomy has produced a profile of the textual history of the book, but it has proven difficult to discern the earliest extant material. A possibly fragment of only a few verses has, however, pointed to other manuscripts that represent what must be among the oldest versions of the text because of their close relationship to this fragment. This paper will present the results of a study into these manuscripts, with some reflections on the methodology used to achieve these results.


The Specter of Hysteria in Soranus of Ephesus: Womb "Feeling with" Body
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Joseph Lee, Yale University

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.


The Plagues of Exodus in Musical Retellings
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Helen Leneman, No institution

Generations of readers (especially Jewish ones) have been taught to view the Egyptians depicted in the Exodus story—or at least, the Pharaoh—as evil. Musical retellings (and their librettos) make us aware that these were real people who suffered. The biblical writer, of course, did not want us to feel sympathy for the enemy. But as modern readers, we can embrace the shades of grey in a story that has always been read in black and white, with further colors and emotion added by the music. All operas and oratorios that depict the plague of darkness stress the horror felt by the Egyptians in vivid musical ways. Though the narrator relates the ‘loud cry in Egypt’ at the death of the firstborn (Ex. 12.30), the last plague, our sympathies still tend to be with the Israelites rather than with the Egyptians. In musical settings, however, there is often a stronger emphasis on the universal suffering endured under a tyrant. Rossini’s operas based on the Exodus narrative depict the plague of darkness in compelling music. The music in these and other settings vividly evokes the desperation of the Egyptians, eliciting sympathy in the listener. Empathy for the Egyptians is not part of our learned cultural response to this story, but this more nuanced interpretation found in musical retellings perhaps echoes the Passover Seder custom of removing drops of wine from our glasses in memory of the suffering caused by the plagues. In the biblical narrative, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart; in musical settings, the drama is played out on a human level. Musical excerpts will be played.


The Cultural Evolution of Early Christianity via Prestige-Biased Transmission of Cooperative Norms
Program Unit: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World
Hillary Lenfesty, Arizona State University

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.


Ares among the Tyrannicides: Visual Relationships at the Altar of Ares beyond the Odeon
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Hannah Lents, University of Texas at Austin

Temples, altars, statues, and monuments crowded the Athenian agora of the second century CE, creating a cacophony of competing ideologies. The Temple of Ares and the Odeon of Agrippa are frequently juxtaposed as epitomizing the dominating relationship of Roman hegemony over an Athens clinging to its Classical past. Scholars studying Romanization cite the axial relationship between the southwest corner of the Altar of Ares with the center of the back stage door of the odeon as evidence for a Roman planned building program. While the visual relationship between these monuments was striking, consideration of the Altar of Ares as a point of ritual focus is absent from these conversations. During sacrificial events, viewers' eyes turned to the altar. The odeon rear, in conjunction with the terrace wall of the Temple of Ares, created a semi-enclosed space centered at the altar. This paper expands the scholarly gaze at the Temple of Ares by examining the many visual relationships operative in sacrificial events at the altar that the odeon-terrace enclosure encouraged. I use GIS software to analyse the field of view experienced by people watching sacrifice on the Altar of Ares. Drawing from archaeological excavation reports and Pausanias, I repopulate the space around the altar with statues of gods, tyrant killers, and philosophers. I then consider how the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios and the Hephaisteion, at the very edge of worshipers’ views, contributed to constructing meaning during sacrifice. My interpretation of this meaning is informed by understanding Ares as having a particular Athenian valence— the god of law and order. The statues seen in conjunction with sacrifice to the god who founded the city’s homicide court, I argue, informed the sacrifice as honoring Athenian autonomy under Roman hegemony. I take seriously the often recited statement that religion and politics were inseparable in antiquity. Sacrifice at the Altar of Ares, located in the center of the agora, the famed heart of Athenian democracy, could not be anything other than political. Yet, it was no less sacred. The Altar of Ares surrounded by images of the city’s great defenders of freedom focalized sacrifice as an act of autonomy. Agrippa’s Odeon, however, still cast a long shadow that enveloped the temple, altar, and statues. The sanctuary represents Athenians reconciling their position in the Roman empire, using similar strategies as those described by S. R. F. Price for cities in Asia Minor instituting imperial cults. Thus, I challenge narratives of Romanization using Susan Alcock’s methodologies for interpreting monumental landscapes. Whereas Alcock and others have used plan views to interpret meanings latent in monument assemblages, the use of GIS modeling allows for the consideration of vertical space and perspective in analysis of ritual meaning making.


Befriending Nicodemus
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
David Leonhardt, Duke University

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.


Muddy Paper in Plastic Bags: Practicing Textual Criticism
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Brian LePort, TMI Episcopal

While textual criticism is something that cannot be taught through games alone, games can help students develop a better, basic understanding of what goes into the discipline. This presentation will share the details to an in-class activity that can be done simply and affordably while incorporating kinesthetic learning. Students are taught the basics regarding how a standard version of the Hebrew or Greek Bible is created by scholars, including stages such as archaeological findings, papyrology and the reconstruction of those findings, and the behind the scenes debates that go into determining which textual traditions represent the ‘earlier’ versions. This lecture-based teaching is accompanied by an activity where copies of a passage from the Christian Testament are printed, torn up, rubbed in mud, and inserted in baggies that are then hidden on campus (to simulate the role of archaeologist) and reconstructed back in the classroom (to simulate the role of papyrologists). The final stage consists of students comparing and contrasting their reconstructed texts and then working together to create a standard text of their own.


Ghost Archival Patterns: The Generational Problem with Yahwistic Names
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Yuval Levavi, Universität Wien

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.


The Letter of Aristeas and the "Diaspora" Vocabulary of the LXX
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Max Leventhal, University of Cambridge

The Letter of Aristeas narrates the events surrounding the translation of the Torah into Greek at the behest of Ptolemy. It is a central text for understanding the nature of the LXX. Traditionally the veracity of the text has been called into question. Following the work of Benjamin Wright, however, it has become more appropriate to approach the Letter as a response to the LXX by its earliest readers. In this paper, I show that in responding to the LXX, the Letter engages with its vocabulary in a more sophisticated way than has been appreciated. First, I discuss an un-observed allusion to the LXX in the Letter. On the arrival of the Torah in Alexandria, all those gathered praise of Ptolemy ‘in one voice’ (ὑπὸ μίαν φωνήν, 178). This unanimity of voice occurs only twice in the LXX Pentateuch. Perhaps most notable is the giving of the Law in Exodus, where Moses comes down from Sinai and presents God’s words and statutes to the people and ‘in one voice’ (φωνῇ μιᾷ, LXX Ex 24:3) they agree to observe it. As Noah Hacham argued, the Letter frames the translation narrative as a rehearsal of events from Exodus. The arrival of the scrolls in Alexandria is a ‘new giving of the Law’. The second, more surprising occurrence, comes in the earlier account of Babel. Before Babel, ‘the whole earth was one lip, and there was one voice for all’ (ἦν πᾶσα ἡ γῆ χεῖλος ἕν, καὶ φωνὴ μία πᾶσιν, LXX Gen 11:1). This adds a concerning element to the impending translation of the Torah It becomes not simply a giving of the Law but a re-enactment of the original division of mankind on the level of language. The author has lifted a key phrase from the LXX in order to reflect on the ambiguous nature of its very production. Second, I look at the two ailments that afflicted earlier Greek translators of the Torah. Again, what has not been observed is that the combination of mania (Theopompus, 314) and blindness (Theodectes, 316) that God visits upon them is consonant with a pair of infirmities that arose from not keeping the commandments, according to the curse tradition in Deuteronomy (LXX 28:28-9). The opening of the passage is notable for its focus on the Jews’ subjugation of their enemies, that paradoxically involves them being ‘in dispersion in all kingdoms of the earth’ (ἐν διασπορᾷ ἐν πάσαις ταῖς βασιλείαις τῆς γῆς, LXX Deut 28:25). This is the first occurrence of the noun διασπορά in the Pentateuch. These are not just random punishments, but afflictions connected to the diasporic non-observance of the commandments. This reading strategy reaps rewards in the case of the Letter’s Babel allusion, too, since in the Noah and Babel passage we find the first clustering of the cognate verb, διασπείρω (LXX Gen 9:19, 10:18, 11:4, 8-9). In fashioning his story about the birth of the LXX, the author pays close attention to its wording, and the diaspora vocabulary already embedded there.


The Administration of Idumea in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Yigal Levin, Bar-Ilan University

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.


Paul's Prayers among the Arvals in Rome
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Robert Lewis, Manhattan College

Prayers among the Arval Brethren in the age of Augustus had to be meticulously rehearsed and performed. Mistakes in pronunciation, timing, or forgetting a line were considered catastrophes. Sometimes whole sacrificial rites had to be restaged for the next day because a prayer had been hopelessly botched. The apostle Paul uses the terms and concepts of prayer in three specific places in his letter to the Romans. 1:8-15, 12:12, and 15:30-31 are places where Paul’s prayers are indicated but no specific formula can be adduced. Romans 8:20 has a cryptic reference to the Spirit that “prays” on behalf of those among Paul’s audience. Romans 15:13, however, provides a prayer that looks more formulaic in the intent, content, and performance. This paper seeks to put Paul and the Arval brothers in conversation about prayer. Paul’s letter to the Romans will be compared and contrasted with the prayers of the Arval Brothers, along with epigraphic and literary evidence in 1st century Rome. The intention in prayer seems to be the same: divine action. There are differences in theology, preparation, and practice that any of Paul’s first century readers would have appreciated. Importantly, Paul emphasizes the quality of hope in his prayers. The term “hope,” with a concomitant relationship to optimism, does not regularly feature in Roman prayer, yet it is featured prominently in Paul’s. I suggest that the differences and similarities in the emotions of prayer will point to important points of convergence between Paul and his Roman audience.


God Said It Where? Tracing a Mystery Citation in Hebrews 13
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Julie M. Leyva, Duke University

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.


You Turned My Mourning Upside Down: Emotion, Metaphor, and Spatiality in Psalm 30
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Richard Liantonio, University of Manchester

Space is one of the most immediate and salient domains of embodied experience. Research has shown the human conceptual system emerges in early childhood from regular and predictable spatial experiences that form conceptual primitives. Schematic notions of verticality develop in the first year of life based on the recurrent experience of gravity, which gives our bodies a vertical alignment. The vertical positioning of our bodies divides experience along a horizontal axis, with some entities being up, and some being down. This basic spatial orientation is used in many languages to metaphorically conceptualise abstract notions, with GOOD being identified with UP and BAD with DOWN. This can be witnessed in the metaphors MORE IS UP/LESS IS DOWN; HEALTHY IS UP/SICK IS DOWN, CONSCIOUS IS UP/UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN; CONTROL IS UP/LACK OF CONTROL IS DOWN; VIRTUE IS UP/LACK OF VIRTUE IS DOWN; RATIONAL IS UP/NONRATIONAL IS DOWN; HAPPINESS IS BEING UP/SADNESS IS BEING DOWN. Spatiality is a significant thread that works its way through Psalm 30. This paper will use Conceptual Metaphor Theory to examine the interface of spatiality and verticality with emotion in the Psalm. First, we will explore the significance of the metaphors HAPPINESS IS BEING UP and SADNESS IS BEING DOWN within the conceptual systems of Hebrew, Akkadian, and Northwest Semitic. Specific reference will be made to the two significant sub-metaphors HAPPINESS/SADNESS IS BEING GEOGRAPHICALLY UP/DOWN and HAPPINESS/SADNESS IS BEING POSTURALLY UP/DOWN. Then, by discussing locations such as the pit, Sheol, the ground, and the mountain; along with postures of sleeping, standing, sitting, and dancing, we will trace the interplay of verticality and emotion in Psalm 30 and establish it as a major unifying feature within the poem.


A Sprout or a Sprig? Davidic Descendants in Jeremiah and Ezekiel
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Rosanne Liebermann, Washington University in St. Louis

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 Word Inchoate: John Donne’s Sermon on Job 19:25–26
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Rosanne Liebermann, Washington University in St. Louis

The translation of Job 19:25-26 is riddled with difficulties. Not only does the Hebrew text defy the laws of grammar and include ambiguous terminology; it differs greatly from the Old Greek and Vulgate. These difficulties are evident in the discrepancies between early English translations of the verses. For example, the Bishops Bible, Geneva Bible, and King James Version supply the word “worms” as the missing subject that destroys Job’s flesh. Meanwhile, the Coverdale and Douay-Rheims Bibles as well as the Order for Burial in the Book of Common Prayer (1559 edition) interpret the same word (niqqěpû in Hebrew) as Job’s claim that he will be “clothed again” with his skin when he sees God. What Job meant by “seeing God” with or without his bodily flesh is far from clear. The Early Modern Anglican priest John Donne used the translational difficulties of Job 19:25-26 to illustrate his theology concerning the authority of scripture. He tactically misquoted the passage in a significant sermon as a means of interpreting the difficult scriptural words for his audience. He believed that despite its corruption and ambiguities, the Hebrew text was authoritative on the subject of resurrection. According to (his) Christian belief, this resurrection depended on Christ’s incarnation: the Word made Flesh in a way that was perfect and without potential for textual corruption. In keeping with other contemporary interpretations of Job 19:25-26, Donne assumed a continuity of belief in an eschatological bodily resurrection from the Old Testament onwards. This understanding erased certain complexities that accompany any exegesis of Job 19:25-26 even whilst acknowledging others. It also erased the context in which this passage was most likely written. There is no evidence of a Jewish belief in resurrection until the Hellenistic period and even then, it was an issue of fierce debate. Donne’s sermon on Job 19:25-26 was preached at Lincoln’s Inn in 1620 and as such addressed people who had influence in defining orthodox Anglican belief. His interpretation of Job 19:25-26 as definitively attesting to bodily resurrection despite the complexities of its words and context were in line with the prevailing interpretation of Christ as the fulfilment of Hebrew scriptures. Examining the ways in which Donne used Job 19:25-26 for his theological purposes reveals one part of a pattern in which early modern Christian thinkers used a purported continuity with Judaism to legitimize their views.


"A Scourge in the Hand of God": Apocalypse, Plague, and the Other
Program Unit: Minoritized Criticism and Biblical Interpretation
Yii-Jan Lin, Yale Divinity School

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.


The Wisdom of Solomon: A Christian Text?
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
David Lincicum, University of Notre Dame

The Wisdom of Solomon: A Christian Text?


Shame Embodied and Performed: Reassessing Shame Lexica in Light of Collective Masculinity in the Deuteronomistic History
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Anthony Lipscomb, Brandeis University

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.


Doing Violent Things with Words: The Root hrp as Metaphorical Stigma
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Anthony Lipscomb, Brandeis University

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.


Conceptual Metaphors of Shame Nouns in Petitionary Psalms
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Anthony Lipscomb, Brandeis University

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.


Theorizing Alternative "Gnostic" Christianities
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
M. David Litwa, ACU Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry

The discourse of Christian origins presupposed by ancient and modern understandings of “ecclesiastical history” still affects how scholars categorize alternative ("gnostic") Christian movements of the second century CE. It is sometimes thought that heresiologists like Irenaeus presented gnostic and Valentinian movements as explicitly Christian heresies. In fact Irenaeus, among others, did everything he could to present so-called Valentinians and gnostics as genealogically dependent on what he thought of as Jewish heresy (Samaritanism), as well as from ancient polytheistic religions. The inclination to categorize “gnostic” movements as born in “renegade Judaism,” “Samaritanism,” or Egyptian religiosity became mainstream scholarly discourse in the 20th century and continues to be represented in the field. This problem of categorization (the propensity to perceive of “gnostics” as anything but Christian) is compounded by the continued tendency to prioritize heresiological texts and categories over the “native” categories preserved in alternative Christian texts, whether excerpted in Greek or preserved in Coptic. Among introductions to alternative Christianities (Valentinian, Sethian, Ophite, Marcionite etc.), Irenaeus and other heresiologists are still often the first port of a call, allowing them to lay down the framework of perception. This procedure is methodologically suspect. Instead, heresiological texts and categories need *always* to be judged by the criteria and categories of the “native informants,” the many alternative Christian groups who worshiped Christ in their own distinctive ways.


How the Gospels Became History: Reflections on a Recent Monograph
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
M. David Litwa, Australian Catholic University

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.


Parousia in Pauline Epistolography
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Nina E Livesey, University of Oklahoma

The notion of parousia (personal presence) occurs with regularity in Pauline scholarship. The broad consensual view that with his letters Paul makes his genuine, albeit virtual, presence known is rooted in this concept. Ancient epistolary theorists define a letter as one half of a dialogue (Demetrius, Eloc. 223), akin to speaking to an absent friend as though present (Cicero, Ad Fam. 2.4.1; Seneca, Ep. 75), and like speech in written form (Cicero, Ad Att. 8.14.1; 9.10.1; 12.53; Seneca Ep. 75.1), and thus seemingly affirm the establishment of genuine presence as one of the primary functions of ancient epistles. Yet rather than basing their understanding of parousia on ancient rhetorical theory that undergirds ancient epistolary theory, Pauline interpreters instead turned for their interpretation of parousia to more recent scholarship based in early twentieth-century form criticism. In doing so, they make Pauline epistles incommensurate with those of other ancient contemporaneous epistolographers. For, Form Critics’ interest was in literary forms, believing, as they did, that forms could provide knowledge of the social-historical setting in which they originated. As influenced by form criticism, parousia became an indication of unfiltered/“real” presence as well as a guarantee of genuineness of expression. Such an understanding of parousia, however, departs from ancient rhetorical theorists who, rather than recognizing an inherent correlation between literary forms and a social-settings, acknowledge instead the centrality of authorial agency and creativity in compositions. Their understanding challenges the notion that parousia could be a guarantee of “real” presence or a reflection of genuineness of expression. I wish to trace the roots of the Pauline understanding of parousia, indicate its incompatibility with ancient theory and practice, and provide a brief comparative analysis of Cicero and Paul’s compositional techniques shorn of Pauline-conditioned parousia.


A Roman Exemplarity Discourse Meets Moses’ Prayer: References to Past Events in A.J. 4.40–50
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Atar Livneh, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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).


The Martyrdom of Luke the Evangelist: An Original Coptic Apocryphon?
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Jacob A. Lollar, Abilene Christian University

Apocryphal narratives about the Apostles exist in abundance in multiple languages. Many of these stories originated in Greek and were subsequently translated into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, and Ge’ez. It is, in fact, somewhat rare to find apocryphal texts that do not exist in some form in Greek, even if Greek was not the original language of composition. One of these rare exceptions is an account of the martyrdom of St. Luke, the apostle and traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel and Acts. This exceptional apocryphon has no extant Greek or Latin version, which suggests that it originated in one of the other many languages spoken by Christians in late antiquity. This paper offers an analysis of this neglected narrative about an important figure in the traditions of Christianity. I argue several points regarding the origins and transmission of the Martyrdom of Luke the Evangelist. First, although it is not extant in Greek or Latin, the Martyrdom of Luke does survive in Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, and Ge’ez, most notably in the many surviving versions of the Ethiopic Gadla ḥawāryāt (“Contendings of the Apostles”). I argue that the language of composition was Coptic, based on several factors, including the explanation of the dates of Luke’s martyrdom. Second, based on some of the odd geographic references, I suggest that the narrative comes from the Byzantine period at the earliest reflecting a contemporary understanding of Constantinople as the “New Rome” in which Nero, the quintessential antagonist, resides as emperor of the Romans. Finally, this narrative participates in a literary trope of dismemberment and miraculous restoration found in several other apocryphal narratives about apostles. I conclude that the Martyrdom of Luke must have been a widely disseminated narrative that gained popularity in the Eastern and African churches of late antiquity and the Middle Ages.


The 4Q83 Psalter and the Missing Half of the 11Q5 Psalter
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Drew Longacre, Qumran Institute, University of Groningen

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.


A Boat-Eating Lion? An Afterlife Motif Found in a Tartessic Ivory and Its Phoenician Comparanda
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Carolina Lopez-Ruiz, Ohio State University

Recent excavations of a monumental Tartessic building at Casas del Turuñuelo in Badajoz (Spain) have unearthed four ivory plaques which decorated a wooden box, placed at a central and ritually-charged room of the building. Two of the four plaques represent ships, while the other two represent a procession of fish and the orientalizing motif of a lion attacking a stag. But my paper will zoom in on a particularly fascinating detail of the "ship scenes": while a procession of the ships occupies the first plaque, another plaque contains the motif of a gigantic lion attacking devouring a stag and sinking the prow of a ship. I will offer a symbolic interpretation of this motif using Phoenician comparanda, such as wall paintings from chamber tombs in Tunisia (or unknown date) and especially the still puzzling relief and inscription in the “stela of Antipatros” in Athens (fourth century BC), where a lion and a boat hover over the body of a deceased man self-identified as a Phoenician. I will argue that both representations, that of Athens and of el Turuñuelo ivory, are unique testimonies of the Phoenician belief in the afterlife journey and its perils and of the role of Astarte’s protection in this crossing. In turn, the context in which both appear illustrate the spread and lasting influence of Phoenician iconography and ideas in the Mediterranean through their diaspora and their interaction with local cultures, from the Aegean to Iberia.


Early Christian Ritual Habits Strengthening the Eschatological Hope
Program Unit: Ritual in the Biblical World
Igor Lorencin, Theologische Hochschule Friedensau - Germany

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.


Pax Assyriaca or Pax Zion? Micah’s Logic of Peace and Militarism
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Nathan Lovell, George Whitefield College

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on the Book of the Twelve Prophets in Biblical Scholarship.


William Blake and Ezekiel’s Wife in the Refrigerator
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Katherine Low, Mary Baldwin University

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.


Sitting on the Mount of Olives: Coptic Apocryphal Dialogues from the Wisdom of Jesus Christ to the Mysteries of John
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Hugo Lundhaug, Universitetet i Oslo

There was a long tradition in Coptic literature of disseminating religious knowledge by means of apocryphal dialogues. In texts from the fourth-/fifth-century Nag Hammadi Codices to the tenth- and eleventh-century Esna/Edfu manuscripts and beyond we find dialogues set in the biblical storyworld between human character, most commonly one or more of the apostles, and a supernatural one, most commonly Christ or an angel. This paper looks at the topics that are treated in these dialogues and the ways in which they are employed in apocryphal texts throughout the period of Coptic literary production, highlighting remarkable continuities as well as significant changes reflecting the shifting contexts of Egyptian Christianity over the centuries.


Review of Matthew by Matthew J. Marohl
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Petri Luomanen, University of Helsinki

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


Cultural-Evolutionary Analysis of the Reception of the Gospels of Luke and John
Program Unit: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World
Petri Luomanen, University of Helsinki

The paper applies a cultural-evolutionary model in the analysis of the reception and relative popularity of the Gospels of Luke and John in the first centuries CE. The spreading and reception of early Christian gospels provides an interesting case for cultural evolutionary analysis and testing of analytical models, since gospels were frequently copied, widely distributed, and it is known that some of them were more popular than others, and some did not survive at all. The analytical model of the paper lists key characteristics that are required of a gospel in order to become widespread in an emerging religious movement that seeks to form its distinctive social identity: 1) formal cognitive characteristics such as attractiveness, memorability, relevance; 2) network discourse and community control; 3) identity discourse, and 4) ritual discourse. The model predicts the likelihood of survival and popularity of the gospels by analyzing how well these characteristics are represented in them. The model has been previously used to explain why the Gospel of Matthew became most widespread of the canonical gospels, why the Q-gospel was lost, and why the Gospel of Mark survived although it, like Q, had become largely swallowed by Matthew and Luke (for instance, P. Luomanen, “Morality and the Evolution of Christianity.” Pages 115-139 in Luomanen, Pessi, and Pyysiäinen, eds., Christianity and the Roots of Morality: Philosophical, Early Christian, and Empirical Perspectives. Philosophical Studies in Science and Religion 8. Leiden: Brill, 2017). This paper first analyzes the evidence concerning the use and popularity of the canonical gospels: the number of surviving manuscripts and the number of references in the writings of the Church Fathers. In the second part, the Gospels of Luke and John are analyzed by applying the model summarized above.


From Cogitation to Revelation: Variegated Means of Wisdom Acquisition in Later Israelite Wisdom Texts
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Sun Myung Lyu, Baekseok University

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.


A Revisit to the Pilegesh’s Father in the Context of Judges 19 and in the Comparison with Abraham in Genesis 18
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Eunyeong Grace Ma, Graduate Theological Union

The pilegesh’s father has been viewed as a minor character and a model of hospitality in Judges 19. Conflicting observation based on the father’s indifference towards his daughter and his excessive hospitality towards his son-in-law has unsuccessfully challenged this traditional view. In this paper, I verify the validity of this challenging view and identify the importance of it in the succeeding narrative in Judges 19. Addressing some linguistic markers, I especially focus on the father’s repetitive and poetic words surrounding the phrase, “refresh your heart.” Furthermore, I compare the hospitality of the pilegesh’s father with the one of Abraham in Genesis 18, in which the phrase “refresh your heart” appears firstly and exclusively outside of Judges 19 and after which the narrative of sodomite theme follows, and argue that the hospitality of the pilegesh’s father is rather perverted and contrary to Abraham’s hospitality. Finally, I conclude that the pilegesh’s father is a major character who plays a key role in shifting his son-in-law’s concern from his pilegesh wife to himself and “did what was right in his own eyes,” in accordance with the theme of the epilogue of the Book of Judges.


A Monstrous Showdown: God versus Pharaoh in Ezekiel 32
Program Unit: Metaphor Theory and the Hebrew Bible
Heather Macumber, Providence University College

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 Problem of the Poor: A Case for Divine Oversight of Injustice in Job 24
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
S.A. Magallanes-Tsang, Centro Latino at Fuller Seminary

Job 24 presents an extensive description of God’s failure to heed the cries of the poor. This observation is placed within the mouth of Job in response to Eliphaz’s overt accusations against Job (Jb 22:5-11). Because this chapter does not provide a direct argument against Eliphaz’s indictment, one is tempted to view it as a reinforcement of how Eliphaz expresses the plight of the poor. Although Job 24 does further the idea that the character Job knows the extent to which the poor are exploited, upon deeper examination, the chapter itself is undermining retribution theology. In this presentation, I will compare the language that Job uses about God’s failure to see or hear him in Job 3-23 with how God is described with relation to the poor in Job 24. In doing so, I will show how Job 24 uses the plight of the poor analogously to show the character Job’s solidarity with the poor in his experience of the Divine oversight of injustice. To conclude, I will propose that this solidarity not only undermines retribution theology but also creates an ethical imperative by which Job must enact justice for the poor on God’s behalf because of the divine oversight of injustice.


Materialist Religion, Bodies, Banquets, and Matter in Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Harry Maier, Vancouver School of Theology

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.


A New Look at Nebuchadnezzar's "Madness": Political Knowledge, Ecology, and Survival in Daniel 3:31–4:34
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Chelsea D. Mak, Emory University

The book of Daniel teems with non-human life. Rich in both symbolic animal imagery and non-human characters, the diasporic literature captures the imaginations of young and old with such tales as Daniel and his friends’ vegetarian diet, angelic assistance in escaping the fiery furnace, and survival in the lion’s den—not to mention the grand and horrific apocalyptic visions of Dan 7–12. Of these fantastic tales, Dan 3:31–4:34 and its narration of a king transformed into an animal is perhaps the strangest and most enigmatic. Beginning with the figuration of Nebuchadnezzar as cosmic tree at the center of the known world, the chapter progresses to subtly challenge the self-imaging of empire as source of life and flourishing for all—in the end, Nebuchadnezzar must realize the falsity of this claim by identifying with the victims, both human and animal, of his imperial rule. In the subversive world of the text then, the cosmic tree of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, representing a presence that unites all life together with the cosmos for mutual well-being, is revealed, not as the product of imperial dominion, but as a vision of ecological flourishing in the realm of divine sovereignty. Indeed, this version of reality emerges as the distinctly political knowledge of the subjugated and colonized Jewish diasporic communities. In the divine economy of Dan 3:31–4:34, it is the enduring kingdom of God in which the birds of the air, the animals of the field, and all flesh—human and other-than-human—are revealed as an interconnected whole, mutually dependent on one another for survival. Thus, despite the imperial self-figuration as the decisive keeper of ecological life, the community under occupation sees clearly the deficiencies of this claim for the land and its inhabitants. True knowledge of reality, including injustices done to subjugated human and non-human life, are only visible to those deprived of political power. Daniel 3:31–4:34, in its subversion of political edifices, thus proves fruitful ground for revisioning contemporary issues of sovereignty, occupation, and land-use under contemporary edifices that also frequently figure themselves as ecological keepers. Indeed, in Dan 3:31–4:34, where Nebuchadnezzar’s self-imagining suggests that empire is a source of life for all, the counternarrative of the diasporic community, together with the captured and controlled non-human community, see empire as it really is—a project of domination threatening life and preventing flourishing. Dan 3:31–4:34 thus demonstrates that, both in the past and today, it is not the knowledge of power, but the knowledge of circumscribed political agency that must be heard. To do other than to listen and reflect with such communities—human and other-than-human—is to re-inscribe imperialist claims to power and actualize the logic of domination in our own time.


Hierarchy and Impurity from 4QTohorot A to Mishnah Kelim 1
Program Unit: Qumran
Hillel Mali, New York University

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.


On the Meaning of hē‘îd in the Hebrew Bible: Between Summoning Witnesses and Imposing Oaths
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Orit Malka, Tel Aviv University

Current scholarship views the verb hē‘îd in biblical Hebrew as bearing various meanings. At times it indicates the summoning of witnesses in a legal context; However, most of its occurrences seem to have nothing to do with legal settings and are hard to understand within the semantic field of ēd, “witness”. These were interpreted according to the context, as bearing the meaning of: “to warn”, “to assure”, “to command”. The paper argues that this fragmentary attitude is incorrect, as it overlooks a substantive legal subtext underpinning all uses of the verb in the Hebrew Bible: the role of witnesses in the establishment of an oath that generates binding obligations. Oaths are based on the summoning of divine witnesses as guarantors of the sworn undertakings. The paper will show that due to the vital role witnesses play in establishing oaths, convocation of witnesses became associated with the imposition of oaths. Consequently, the phrase hē‘îd ‘be developed a secondary meaning of imposing an oath, even when used without reference to actual witnesses of any sort. Understanding the phrase hē‘îd ‘be as implying the imposition of an oath will reconcile the various meanings attributed to this verb, and unveil the internal juridical links between them.


St. Thomas the Apostle in Armenian Church Tradition
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Mari Mamyan, Universität Regensburg

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.


The Plants of the Field: Differentiations, Unruly Vines, and Spatial Practices in Early Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
John Mandsager, University of South Carolina - Columbia

Taking Leviticus’s terse commandment forbidding mixtures as a starting point—“you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed” (19:19)—the early rabbis prescribe intricate spatial practices, which, in theory, should show unambiguously that the Jewish farmer is not transgressing the prohibition on planting “mixed-kinds” (kilayim). In the idealized layout of a normative Jewish farm, the early rabbis advocate geometric planting, are particularly concerned with how the plants appear as they grow, attempt to classify and differentiate related species, and draw our attention to the potential for unruliness as the plants grow. Thus, the rabbis classify some species as similar to each other, or as appearing to be similar to each other: this classification renders some species permitted to being in the same field, according to the rabbis, while others, such as the apple and the crabapple, “even though they are similar, still create a forbidden mixture” (Mishnah Kilayim 1:4). Other plants grow in chaotic ways, such as vegetables on the vine, like the cucumber, the gourd, and the “Egyptian bean,” which can render them “mixed” as they grow, potentially entwined with each other (Mishnah Kilayim 3:4). My interest in these prescriptions is two-fold. On one hand, these rabbinic differentiations of species and spaces is part of a larger rabbinic project of demonstrating normative Jewish life, writ on the landscape, a landscape created and transformed by Jewish practice. These spaces, even as they are found in the ideal and the literary, are indicative of that de Certeau calls “practiced place” (see also Lefebvre and Knott). On the other hand, while my larger project demonstrates the importance of visual signification, of signs that demonstrate the normative practices of the rabbinic Jews to the world, in this paper I focus on the interplay between the plants themselves, the potential for the growth of a vegetable to act in ways that change and create the spaces of the farm: the vine as agent in the midst of a thoroughly human and particularly rabbinic world. This attention to the plants, their appearances, and their growth, both restrained by the trellis and “free” to travel beyond the one-square-handbreadth plot of soil where the seed was placed, is an example of how “material entities and forces exert power on humans in ways that make a priori separations between humans and nonhumans difficult to maintain” (Hazard, “Two Ways of Thinking About New Materialism,” 629). Differentiations between spaces, between species, between humans, between the human and the nonhuman are all vigorously delineated in Mishnah and Tosefta Kilayim, yet, the rabbis are quite aware of how permeable those differentiations can be. By investigating early rabbinic discussions on “mixed-kinds”, I explore the interplay between space and practice, and between the farmer and the vegetable.


Caring for the Sufferers among Us: Job 3 through the Lens of Classical Rhetoric and Modern Psychological Trauma Studies
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Abbie F. Mantor, Asbury Theological Seminary

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


The Critical Edition of the PS. Oecumenian Catena on Romans: First Considerations
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Jacopo Marcon, University of Birmingham

The paper will present a reconstruction of the textual tradition of the Ps. Oecumenian Catena on Romans, with a particular focus on the manuscripts of the so-called “Abridged Version”. Out of the 83 manuscripts of the Ps. Oecumenian tradition, seven witnesses have been selected for the forthcoming critical edition of the text. These are representative of the four different groups of manuscripts, which have been identified on the basis of the scholia. In the first part of my presentation, I will consider the manuscripts of the so-called Normal Type, with the original set of numbered comments and the additions of the so-called Corpus Extravagantium, i.e. anonymous comments or comments with the name of the Greek Church Fathers in front (Vatican City, BAV, Pal. Gr. 10 (GA 1997) and Milan, VBA, A 62 Inf. (GA 1980)). Furthermore, I will introduce the branch of the manuscripts of the Expanded Version, with the additional extracts from the Byzantine cardinal Photius (Scholia Photiana), alongside the set of numbered comments and Extravagantes (Venice, BNM, Gr. Z 33 (GA 1923), Paris, BNF, Coisl. Gr. 27 (GA 1905) and Paris, BNF, Gr. 219 (GA 91)). Particular consideration will be devoted to the Paris manuscripts: the former has the Photiana added in the outer margin of the page by a later hand, around the set of the numbered scholia and the Extravagantes, the latter is the manuscript used for the editio princeps of Donatus Veronensis in 1532 (re-edited by Morellus, translated by Hentenius and reproduced by Migne for the PG). In the second part of my presentation I will consider the case of eight manuscripts with an abbreviated version of the Catena on Romans (Paris, BNF, Coisl. Gr. 224 (GA 250), Oxford, BodL, Barocci 3 (GA 314), Vienna, ÖNB, Theol. Gr. 302 (GA 424), Athens, NLG, 207 (GA 1360), Athos, Αγιου Παυλου, 2 (GA 1862), Jerusalem, GOP, Taphu 38 (GA 1888), London, BL, Add. 7142 (GA 1956) and Modena, BE, a.V.6.3 (Puntoni 196) (GA 2125). Based on a preliminary study of the scholia in Romans 7:8, significant differences between the texts of the “Abridged” and the “Normal and Expanded” forms can be detected, i.e. the merging of separate scholia into one single comment, anomalies in the order of the exegetical material, general textual omissions and additions. Is it still correct to consider this category of manuscripts as representative of the Oecumenian tradition? Or is this a new, independent and previously unknown branch? And how should it be placed in the stemma codicum of the Ps. Oecumenian Catena on Romans? The paper will offer the first draft of the stemma codicum of textual tradition of the three stages (Normal-Expanded-Abridged version), aiming to retrace the Urkatena of the whole tradition. Further desiderata will include: a) a consideration of the nature of Extravagantes and Photiana: are the extracts from the Greek Church Fathers and Photius quoted verbatim or adapted to fit the context of the chain? b) a reflection on the theological implication of the text.


PAGIC: A Memory Device to Introduce Students to Masoretic Notes
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
David Marcus, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

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 Two Mothers of Moses: The Maternal Motif in Frances E.W. Harper's Poem, "Moses"
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Amy Marga, Luther Seminary St Paul

This paper explores the maternal characters in Frances E.W.Harper's epic poem, "Moses" (1869). Harper, daughter of free-born Black parents in Maryland, was one of the most well-known African-American writers of her generation, and she frequently spoke out against the evils that chattel slavery laid upon the African race. She often invoked God in her poems, she wrote about Christianity, and she utilized biblical stories and images in her writing. Her epic poem, "Moses" stands out as a piece in which she dives deeply into the biblical story of Moses. This paper will focus on how she portrays the Pharaoh's daughter, who loves Moses and raises him as his mother, and his biological mother whom Moses credits for nurturing a love for his people, the oppressed Jewish nation. Harper's portrayal of these maternal characters points to the deep sensitivity that she had towards enslaved mothers in her day and their desperation regarding the fate of their children. It also reveals Harper's own middle-class views of motherhood that reflected the trends of 19th-century "sentimental" mothering in which the greatest gift mothers could give their children was a strong sense of morality. Harper's "Moses" poem shows how she used the bible to communicate her commitment to the freedom of enslaved Africans, with an eye towards the way the bible portrays children and their mothers.


The Early Textual Transmission of the Quran
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Marijn van Putten, Leiden University

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.


Deuteronomy as Historizised and Prophetic Law
Program Unit: Book of Deuteronomy
Dominik Markl, Pontifical Biblical Institute

Deuteronomy is specifically interested in the place and the king to be chosen by Yhwh when Israel lives in the land. Neither of these motifs is found in the preceding books of the Pentateuch, and both play out significantly in deuteronomistic historiography. The law of the king (Deut 17:14–20) is closely related to the beginning of the monarchy (1 Sam 8), while the chosen place of Deuteronomy’s centralization formula (Deut 12:5 etc.) is narratively enacted in the dedication of the temple (1 Kgs 8). The choice of the place and of the king are put in parallel by the same relative clause, “that Yhwh, your God, will choose”, which occurs exclusively in Deuteronomy’s centralization formula and in Deut 17:15. The phrase is constructed in terms of the future and thus is open to or even ‘expects’ a narrative fulfilment. This paper will explore the ways in which MT Deuteronomy’s expectation of the divine choices exemplify how the ‘laws’ of Deuteronomy are presented as ‘historizised and prophetic law’, and how the Samaritan Pentateuch diverges from this conception.


The Comparison with the Blowing Hind in Psalm 42:1 and Its Meaning for the Description of the Næַpæš
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Anja Marschall, Universität Leipzig

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.


John’s Apocalypse: “Jewish” or “Judean”?
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
John Marshall, University of Toronto

While the insight that John’s Apocalypse is Jewish rather than Christian (or Jewish-Christian for that matter) has gained some traction in contemporary scholarship, recent arguments about the most apt description of worshippers of the God of Israel may profitably be explored in relation to John’s Apocalypse: what are the scholarly costs and benefits of implicitly embracing a “religion” model and discussing the Apocalypse as “Jewish” and how do those costs and benefits compare to implicitly embracing an “ethnic practice” model and discussing the Apocalypse as “Judean.”


Multiple Hands in the Masoretic Annotations of the Leningrad Codex B19A
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Elvira Martín-Contreras, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

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.


The Invention of the Christ Rhetorolect: A Case Study from 1 Corinthians 15:1–34
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
M Alroy Mascrenghe, University of Cape Town

Vernon Robbins introduced the concept of ‘rhetorolects’ in SRI as an alternative to the classical Greek rhetoric. This paper proposes a new kind of rhetoric, something that I call Christ rhetorolect, which can be used as a tool for understanding Paul’s writings. The search for a new kind of rhetoric is not new. Many scholars have observed that Paul’s use of rhetoric in the New Testament significantly deviates from classical rhetoric in antiquity. George Kennedy, observing that early Christian rhetoric is ‘reasoned’ or ‘proclaimed’, and that an appeal to reason is made in terms of the use of enthymemes, came up ‘Radical’ and ‘Worldly’ rhetoric. Thomas Olbricht observing that the Christian assembly did not exist during the time of Aristotle, maintains that the rhetoric of early Christians was ‘Church’ rhetoric by analogy, for example, to judicial rhetoric which was the rhetoric of the law court. Hans Dieter Betz, citing 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, makes a distinction between two rhetorical styles that Paul employs: the ‘rhetoric of persuasion’ and the ‘rhetoric of demonstration of spirit and power’. Vernon Robbins proposes six rhetorolects (rhetorical dialects) to replace Aristotle’s three rhetorical genres, namely, wisdom, prophetic, apocalyptic, precreation, miracle, and priestly discourse. Developing further on Robbins’ thesis that the first-century Christians blended worldly and radical rhetoric to create these six forms of ‘radicalized worldly’ rhetoric, this paper presents another form of rhetorolect, Christ rhetorolect. This essay seeks to explore one possible implication of Robbin’s thesis. I endeavor to demonstrate that Christ rhetorolect is actually a blend of other rhetorolects. However, it has it’s own unique ‘themes’, ‘topics’, ‘reasonings’, and ‘argumentations’ and can be described in terms of ‘rhetology and rhetography’, as well as ‘metaphoric and metonymic mappings’. I will do an analysis of 1 Corinthians 15:1-34, interpreting it as an example of Paul’s Christ rhetorolect. In this text Paul tries to persuade the Corinthians that the resurrection of the dead is indeed a reality. Paul shows the consequences of not believing in the resurrection of Christ, although, it appears that it was the general resurrection of the dead which the Corinthians refused to believe. This is crucial because Paul, a trained Pharisee, well versed with the Hebrew Scriptures, does not use any arguments from the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint, as Jesus did when countering the Sadducees. As I will demonstrate, Paul uses logos and enthymemes even in the rhetoric that is addressed to the church. However, the logos is one of a different type – a logos that is directly based on Paul’s Christocentric theology. It only makes sense for those who comprehend and believe in Paul’s complex Christology. His rhetoric is Christ centered. I will also demonstrate that if we do not understand the Christ centeredness of Paul’s rhetoric, some of his arguments will naturally fail. Comparing the features of rhetorolect with Paul’s rhetoric, this paper identifies the features of his Christ rhetorolect.


Romans 8:18–30: Creation between Paul and Caesar; Hope against Hope
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Robert J Mason Jr, California State University - Northridge

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.


Ananus’ Speech (War 4.162–192)
Program Unit: Josephus
Steve Mason, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

This presentation examines Ananus’ pivotal speech in War 4.162-192.


How Conservative Is the “Extreme Conservative”? The Language of Zechariah from a Syntactic Viewpoint
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Emmanuel Mastey, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

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.


The Raging Prophet: Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a Pathway Forward through Pain
Program Unit: Writing/Reading Jeremiah
Jennifer M. Matheny, Nazarene Theological Seminary

The Raging Prophet: Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a pathway forward through pain Jennifer M Matheny, PhD Assistant Professor of Old Testament Nazarene Theological Seminary Amy Hale, PhD Attending Psychologist Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School The prophet Jeremiah expresses a range of emotions liberally throughout the Jeremiah text. Emotions are a necessary aspect of the human experience and a critical reflection of an individuals’ core values. Thinking alongside the therapeutic model of Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), founded by Steven C. Hayes with contributions from Kelly Wilson and Kirk Strosahl, the emotion of rage in the life of Jeremiah will be analysed as an expression of the deep care and values of the prophet. The ACT model focuses on accepting emotions and harnessing them in the service of behavioral change as a normal part of the human experience. Jeremiah confesses that his rage (חמת) is too much to contain and the LORD instructs Jeremiah to express himself (Jeremiah 6:11). Alternatively, expressing anger is not always constructive. Destructive rage is unreflective and reactionary. In this manner, rage can become a vehicle that does not reflect the true values of the one expressing strong emotions. By expressing rather than repressing his rage, Jeremiah was able to process his pain, cultivating psychological flexibility and continued to move forward through the continual resistance around him. Divine anger will also be explored in this paper, thinking alongside the ACT model, revealing possible relational values expressed through anger towards Israel, eventually culminating in a redemptive exile.


Weeping (בכים) in Judges
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Jennifer M. Matheny, Nazarene Theological Seminary

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.


What Does Cairo Have to Do with Qumran? Studying the Textual History of the Hebrew Bible Minor Prophets through the Dead Sea Scrolls and Cairo Genizah
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Joshua M. Matson, Florida State University

Recent scholarship on the traditionally designated Biblical Scrolls has made clear that assumptions have been made in the naming and reconstructing of these manuscripts toward presuppositions of the later canon of the Hebrew Bible. While many of these studies have illuminated dynamic and vital textual traditions in flux during the late Second Temple period for works like Jeremiah and the Psalms, little attention has been paid to the potential for similar fluidity in the Hebrew Bible Minor Prophets. With some exceptions, the copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible Minor Prophets found at Qumran (4Q76-82, 5Q4), Muraba’at (Mur88), and Nahal Hever (8Hev1), continue to be utilized as evidence to the existence of manuscripts containing all twelve of the Minor Prophets in the late centuries BCE and first century CE. The original editors primarily arranged fragments, reconstructed columns, and named these manuscripts with parallels to the Hebrew Bible texts of the Minor Prophets to such an end. Subsequent studies-e.g., Brooke, Guillaume, von Weissenberg, and Pajunen, have made some important corrections, but have left considerable room for further identification and placement of fragments as well as opportunities to explore diverging sequences of the Minor Prophet books they preserve. This paper will attempt to provide an updated reconstructions of manuscripts of the Twelve Prophets from Qumran and the Cairo Genizah, making new proposals for fragment identification and placement, with an emphasis on how a reconstructed manuscript can aid in an improved method of naming the manuscripts of the Minor Prophets free from the anachronistically imposed nomenclature of “The Book of the Twelve” and give new perspectives on the textual status of the Twelve Prophets in antiquity and the middle ages. A fresh examination of the material evidence and an analysis of the latest high-resolution images, combined with advances in digital technologies, provide more accurate textual and material reconstructions of these manuscripts to reveal more as to the nature of these texts individually and collectively in the late Second Temple period and beyond.


Martha and Mary in the Context of Luke’s Unfolding Travel Narrative
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
Mark Matson, Milligan College

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.


Hypertextuality: A Theory for Pentateuchal Criticism
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Kevin J. Mattison, High Point University

The theory of hypertextuality, proposed by the structuralist literary critic Gérard Genette, offers sophisticated ways to categorize literary interactions among texts and to make more explicit our assumptions about how interpretive texts functioned. This paper applies Genette’s theory to the book of Deuteronomy to demonstrate the theory’s usefulness for overcoming some of the problems facing biblical scholars, especially in pentateuchal criticism, and outlines how the theory might be applied more broadly. The theory of hypertextuality can be applied to the Pentateuch (and other ancient texts) in three useful ways: (1) To provide terminology that describes a text’s ancient compositional situation without imposing anachronistic notions of authority and canon. Deuteronomy has been categorized as “inner-biblical exegesis,” and other ancient texts such as the Temple Scroll are labeled as “Rewritten Scripture,” but both would fit Genette’s category of hypertext, and this category would capture the significant continuity evident among such texts regardless of their later canonical or non-canonical status. (2) To distinguish clearly between two types of sources: the many texts and traditions that pentateuchal authors seem to have known and used on occasion, and those with which they engaged seriously in ways that substantially shaped their text. Genette solves the problem of the practically infinite regress of textual influence by focusing on texts that are visibly, massively, and explicitly hypertextual. This distinction is important for judging Deuteronomy as a hypertext: its use of many prior texts, including Israelite legal and narrative texts and Mesopotamian treaties and law codes, seems to be local and optional, and Genette cordons off such use as merely intertextual. In their use of previous versions of Deuteronomy and of the Covenant Collection and associated narratives in Exodus and Numbers, however, Deuteronomy’s authors exhibit visible, massive, explicit hypertextuality. (3) To distinguish, among the many possible reconstructable units that underlie the Pentateuch, those that have not merely coherence but also meaning that can be reasonably imputed to authors. In response to the problem that any text can be read as autonomous and sufficient, Genette notes simply that “sufficient does not mean exhaustive.” Biblical scholarship has a long history of proposing the independent existence of textual units now found within larger texts on the grounds that such units are in a sense sufficient and coherent on their own. The distinction between the relatively low bar of coherence and the higher bar of meaning is relevant for questions about relationships among Deuteronomic, Priestly, and other pentateuchal texts, the status of law codes vis-à-vis their narrative frames, and more generally the composition and redaction history of the text. The terminology and categories of Genette’s theory of hypertextuality can help us put aside anachronistic questions of authority and canon and avoid settling for readings that are merely coherent. We can study (what are now) biblical texts like Deuteronomy and non-biblical texts such as the Temple Scroll on equal terms, better able to focus on how interpretive texts functioned, how they fulfilled their functions, and how we can tell.


Interference, Style, and the Language of LXX Deuteronomy
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Jean Maurais, McGill University

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.


The Masoretic Pataḥ Furtivum and the Transliteration of ‘Ayin Consonant in the Second Column of Origen’s Hexapla
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Isabella Maurizio, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna

The guttural consonants, the laryngeals א ה and the pharyngeals ע ח, have a particular condition in Origen’s second column of Hexapla, where Hebrew Old Testament is transliterated in Greek: for the most part they are not transcribed at all, and only the vowel part of the same -phonetic- syllable in the Hebrew word, is written in the column. Nevertheless, in some cases pharyngeal ‘ayin consonant displays a different behaviour: when it is followed by yôd, ḥîreq yôd grapheme in Masoretic text, it is always transliterated with Greek diphthong ει, instead of the simple vowel ι; in other cases, at the end of a word, the pharyngeal ‘ayin consonant shows a Greek transliteration with ε-vowel. This essay studies the reason why in these specific cases it was transcribed by a vocal value, and which is the link between the transliteration of this consonant and the proper Masoretic sign pataḥ furtivum. In fact, pataḥ furtivum is only an indication not to forget the guttural sound, and it is relevant that the gutturals preceded by it in the Masoretic punctuation are never transliterated in the Hexapla. Examining the words where ‘ayin is transcribed as ε at the end of the word, and comparing them to the words where, in the same final position, it is absent from the second column, it is immediately evident that ע is realized as ε when it follows a short vowel. The same is omitted in two cases: when the syllable before guttural has a long a-vowel, corresponding to Masoretic qāmeṣ, and when ע is preceded by a long vowel different from /a/, that is exactly when in the Masoretic text a pataḥ furtivum occurs. The link between the two phenomena can be clear: a-sound is favourite by guttural consonants since it is a low vowel, and it shares with them the same place of articulation. Thus, when ‘ayin is preceded by this, it is assimilated: because of this ‘ayin consonant does not appear in the second column. On the other hand, when ‘ayin is preceded by a general long vowel, it is phonetically absorbed by it; for this reason it is absent from the column, and for the same reason Masoretic pataḥ furtivum has the aim to restore it in pronunciation. The same pataḥ was not employed by Masoretes when qameṣ preceded gutturals: helpful a-sound is already present just before them. From this examination, it is possible to infer that in III C. E. final ‘ayin maintained a certain phonetic strength, as it is possibile to show from the correspondence ׅעִי/ει and ע/ε at the end of the word. But, when it was preceded by a long vowel, the last correspondence is not valid at all: in this specific case, it was assimilated in pronunciation. For a sound that was different from a-timbre, the Masoretic pataḥ furtivum had the goal to restore it in pronunciation; for gutturals preceded by /ā/-vowel, the Masoretic sign is not necessary: the auxiliary sound is already present in vocalization.


“Strike Two: The Altering of Coinage in Antiquity and Implications for New Testament Study”
Program Unit: Numismatic Evidence and Biblical Interpretation
David May, Central Baptist Theological Seminary - Kansas City

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.


Wisdom and Law in the Book of Wisdom
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Luca Mazzinghi, Pontificia Università Gregoriana

The book of Wisdom partakes in a dialogue between Torah and Hellenistic culture that begins in alexandrinian Judaism with the Letter of Aristeas and achieves its summit in Philo’s works. For its author, the Mosaic Law is to be seen not as a series of norms and precepts to be observed with a retributive mindset, according to views reflected in Deuteronomistic texts and also found in some texts from the Wisdom tradition (from Proverbs to Sirach). Rather, texts like Wis 9:13 maintain that it is wisdom that grants knowledge of “God’s will,” manifested in the Law. No one can grasp it without the gift of the wisdom and the spirit (paralleled e.g. in Wis 9:17b). Wisdom’s conception thus emerges of a “will of God” that is to be interiorly assimilated, according to what is announced in some prophetic texts (particularly Ezek 36:26-27; see also Ps 51:1-2 and Joel 3:1). The Book of Wisdom does not at all identify wisdom and Law. Rather, it seems to affirm that the Law is not properly understood without the gift of wisdom and the spirit. With respect to the idea of “Law,” understood by the author as the Torah of Moses, Wis 18:4 seems to connect it to the Stoic idea of “law of nature.” The author, however, does not seem to affirm it as an appeal to a law that every human being has to obey in the name of a right and universal divine reason, incarnated in the Mosaic Law (as it emerges clearly in Philo’s thought). Moreover, before even the law there comes wisdom, which is a symbol of God’s presence in the world and in the human being, a figure of mediation. Therefore, for the sage, wisdom and not the Law is at work in the world before the Sinaitic revelation (emblematic in that regard is the whole of Wis 10). The paradox that characterizes Philo’s position is thus avoided: Mosaic Law is not identified in the Book of Wisdom with the law of nature and a mutual relationship between the two realities is radically excluded. It is precisely the dimension of mediation, typical of sapiential theology, that allows Wisdom to accept the Stoic idea of law of nature, within however, a completely Israelite perspective: Mosaic Law, revelation of God to humanity. Finally, the theme of “remembrance of the Law” (see Wis 16:6,11) becomes in the Book of Wisdom the memory of divine actions of Exodus in favor of Israel. Such actions are narrated and restated to the Jewish community of Alexandria through the filter of a midrashic reading, characterized by an effort of actualization of the biblical texts within the context of the Hellenistic world where the community lives. Thus, the events of Exodus narrated in the Torah become the model of God’s actions that remain contemporary, enlightening the community’s present. The Law, understood as revelation of God’s actions, is therefore an ever-contemporary reality for Wisdom’s author.


The Promised Land of Genesis 15: Historical Geography and the Critical Spatial Approach
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Aubrey Taylor McClain, Greenville University

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.


The open-cbgm Library: Design and Demonstration
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Joey McCollum, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

The open-cbgm library is an open-source software implementation of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) designed with customizability and performance on large-scale collations in mind. The library is free to use or modify and has been tested on real data from the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) of the New Testament. This presentation first offers a summary treatment of the library's features and optimizations. Special attention is given to the topic of specifying and modifying local stemmata in the input files. Changes made from existing CBGM implementations and their justifications are also discussed. Finally, the usage and speed of the library's modules are demonstrated in a walkthrough of constructing and revising the local stemmata of variants and the global stemma of witnesses for 3 John. In this practical demonstration, the library not only handles the unprecedented task of constructing a complete global stemma for a New Testament book, but does so in a matter of seconds.


An Analysis of the Text of Acts in Paris Syriac 30
Program Unit: Syriac Studies
Daniel L. McConaughy, California State University - Northridge

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.


Will Womankind Now Be Hunting? Constructions of Gender in the Aqhat Epic
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Eric McDonnell Jr., Emory University

While the study of gender in ancient texts is fraught with difficulty, the Ugaritic Aqhat Epic naturally lends itself to be analyzed through such a lens. Indeed, one is able to examine the use and subversion of gendered expectations in the text without leaving the story-world as presented in the narrative, thus lessening the risk of importing anachronistic gender constructions into the text. The epic features the fourfold repetition of a list of filial duties prescribed for the ideal son. The righteous patriarch Danel prays for and receives male progeny, and as this episode plays out the expectations of the ideal son are recited through the mouths of both human and divine characters. Many previous interpretations have seen this description of the ideal son to be secondary to the overall structure of the narrative, perhaps a pre-existing wisdom text only later inserted into the narration. In contrast, I argue this passage possesses crucial significance to the interpretation of the Aqhat Epic, clearly outlining the specifically gendered expectations for the ideal son. Over the course of the epic, though, these gendered ideals are not performed by Aqhat, the longed-for son, but instead are surprisingly fulfilled by two prominent female characters: the goddess Anat and Aqhat's sister, Pughat, whose name literally means "girl." This paper gives an analysis of the description of the ideal son, outlining the eight duties prescribed therein. Then, it turns to the two following episodes in which these duties are performed not by Aqhat, but by Anat or Pughat. The first instance is the famed episode regarding Anat’s envy of Aqhat’s bow, their escalating exchange, and Anat’s aggressive retaliation. The second is the description of Pughat’s actions in response to Aqhat’s murder in contrast to the actions taken by Danel, her father. The essay shows these observations regarding the use and subversion of gender ideals as constructed within the text itself to be crucial to an analysis of the Aqhat narrative, even despite the broken nature of the tablets. Finally, the paper concludes by noting the need for a renewed examination of the role myth and epic-verse played in Ugaritic society.


An Accusation of Divine Abandonment: Making Sense of the Citation of Ps 44:23 in Romans 8.
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Zane McGee, Emory University

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.


The Riddle of Monotheism and Mythologies in Job: On Hebrew Mythological Traditions in Job as Monotheistic Reflection
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Israel McGrew, Marquette University

In this paper, I briefly develop the various and disparate cosmologies of the characters in the book of Job to draw attention to the contribution of those differing cosmologies to the failure of the human dialogue and to the rhetorical effect of the divine address. I argue that these perspectives represent various Hebrew mythological traditions, which the poet brings into conversation to address the more consciously monotheistic zeitgeist of his post-exilic context. Thus I argue that the poet uses his mastery of the traditions to construct a riddle leading his readers through a purgation of narrow inadequacies in those mythological perspectives. He thus leads his readers to a higher wisdom, adapting those mythological traditions to the context of monotheism and unjust suffering. I treat the perspectives in sequence beginning with the least favored perspective and ending with the most authoritative: Job’s friends to Job to the whirlwind address to the narrator’s prologue. Job’s friends portray highly mythological traditions in Eliphaz’s portrayal of the “Sons of Resheph” (5:7) and Bildad’s description of the host of “Terrors,” including the Bekôr Māwet, who bring the wicked to the “King of Terrors.” Job’s friends also studiously avoid and even polemicize against the storm-god motif. These mythological structures support their doctrine of retribution in a monotheistic register, as they exclude the inadequate theological metaphor of the storm-god motif and they rigidify the subordination of demonic beings. Job also refers to mythological Terrors, but these feature not as the machinations of natural law or retribution, but as auxiliaries in Job’s portrayal of God as the storm-god who has assumed the traditional roles and character of chaos. Thus, all human disputants share a commitment to monotheism, but reconcile that commitment to different Hebrew mythological traditions to radically different effect: the friends tame chaos to defend the justice of the Deity, while Job attributes chaos to the caprice of the Deity. The address from the whirlwind includes both a wisdom reflection on the visible world and its structures as well as a mythological discourse on the mythical beings, Behemoth and Leviathan. This third perspective portrays the traditional elements of chaos as parts of creation, existing at the creator’s pleasure and wisdom, with the Sea remaining in its created place (38:8) and the Leviathan explicitly said to be created (41:25). Thus, the destructive forces humanity subjectively experiences as chaos in suffering are part of creation; theoretically they have a creative role and are not objectively chaos in the traditional, theological sense, but are ordered according to monotheism. The speech suggests but does not describe such a role, which appears to be the burden of the prologue. The satan, as the rival to the creator who instigates and effects chaos, provides the mythological structure giving a speculative role to “chaos.” The forces of chaos, or rather human suffering, have their created purpose in proving the nature of humanity’s piety toward God and in provoking humanity to fulfill its own telos.


Looms on Location: Textile Production in the Shephelah and the Identity of Biblical Beth-ashbea (1 Chr 4:21)
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Chris McKinny, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi

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.


Revisioning the "Mission" of Missional Hermeneutics as Solidarity: Womanist, Mujerista, and Feminist Contributions to a Postcolonialist Missiology
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Greg McKinzie, Lipscomb University

In recent years, the meetings of the Forum on Missional Hermeneutics at the annual conference of the Society of Biblical Literature have been marked by debate about the viability of mission as a critical hermeneutical category, particularly in view of the colonialist freight that the term inevitably carries. Is it wise or appropriate to continue using the “m-word” as we seek to engage in contextual, inclusive, interdisciplinary, and critical interpretation of the biblical text in relation to God’s purposes and work in the world? The question is urgent, particularly in consideration of conversation partners who are deeply disturbed—or perhaps personally affected—by the violence, coercion, and subjugation that has pervaded the history of missions. Yet, it seems that both Western missional theology and the strongest critics of historical Christian missions are prone to ignore profoundly relevant questions, like Who are “missionaries” today? What do they actually do? and How do missiologists conceive of participation in God’s mission? Answers to such questions indicate that the meaning of mission is under constant deconstruction and renegotiation, not least by the former “objects” of colonialist mission who now participate distinctively in God’s work in the world. Accordingly, I argue against essentializing Christian mission in terms of its colonialist sins, proposing instead that missional hermeneutics should, in the words of Letty Russell, “make use of feminist postcolonial perspectives in order to develop an alternative interpretation of mission.” To that end, the notion of solidarity in womanist, mujerista, and feminist theologies of liberation opens substantial possibilities. This essay explores these possibilities in three sections. First, I establish the need for postcolonialist missiology to challenge and enrich missional theology and, by extension, missional hermeneutics. Second, I develop the significance of solidarity through the work of M. Shawn Copeland, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, and Tammarie Day in order to demonstrate that the concept possesses sufficient theological, purposive, and praxeological valence to substantiate a postcolonialist revisioning of Christian mission. Third, I conclude by briefly suggesting some hermeneutical implications of revisioning mission as solidarity.


Defining Collective Nouns: How Cognitive Linguistics Helps Biblical Hebrew Grammarians
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Dougald McLaurin III, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

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.


Reading Metahistory as Mythification in Jewish and Christian Historiographic Texts
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Chance Peterson McMahon, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Silvia Rivera Cusiqanqui argues that various uses of the Chuqil Qamir Wirnita myth at different historical moments formulates what she calls “spiral time,” and thus functions as a meta-historiographic principle. Metahistory, as Hayden White most famously articulated, is how a collection of historical events are given meaning through historiography’s use of narrative genres, tropes, and themes. I argue for a parallel relationship between metahistory and myth based on McCutcheon’s observation that myth is a strategy that presents contested values, institutions, and practices as natural or universal. I aim to do so in three ways. First, I turn to apocalyptic texts like Daniel and 1 Enoch, where there is a relationship between “mythic” narration and historical periodization. Daniel 7’s appropriates the metahistoriography found Daniel 2, the succession of imperial powers, and casts it in the form of chaoskampf. In 1 Enoch, it is the fallen Watchers motif that later authors render into historiographic speculation in the “Animal Apocalypse” (1 En 85-90) and the “Apocalypse of Weeks” (1 En 93:1-10; 91:11-17). Second, the motif of God as patron of foreign empires occurs in Jewish Hellenistic historiographic works, whether positive (Letter of Aristeas, Josephus) or negative (3 and 4 Maccabees). Because this narrative motif occurs across historiographic texts, it suggests too that meta-historiographic principles circulate beyond specific works and employ God’s dominion over foreign empires to legitimate Jewish customs. The last section focuses on how the Pseudo-Clementine Literature interacts with both Acts of the Apostles and Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. My interest is in how all three works share interest in the apostolic past and naturalize contested values or practices by situating them in the apostolic period. While the Pseudo-Clementines construct a counter-history to both Acts of the Apostles and Ecclesiastical History to legitimate “Jewish-Christianity.” Although the aims of this paper are schematic, they do so to show the porous of historiography and myth because like myth, historiography is often ideology in narrative form, to expand upon Bruce Lincoln. Thus, I aim to gesture towards Robert Young’s observation that even in modernity, historiography has functioned to render certain values as universal (in this case, Eurocentrism).


ὁ παραδιδούς με: Messianic Exegesis of Psalm 41 in Mark's Gospel
Program Unit: Mark Passion Narrative
Jocelyn McWhirter, Albion College

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).


A Text-Critical Proposal for Deuteronomy 32:43
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Jonathan Aurelius Mellison, University of Texas at Austin

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls (Q) were discovered at Qumram, Deuteronomy 32:43 has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Scholars had previously assumed that the Greek translation (G) was expansionistic. However, 4QDeutq clearly preserves a textual witness that agrees with the Greek translation, against the Masoretic Text (MT). It was on this basis that W. F. Albright suggested that G preserves an older reading of Deut 32:43, and MT and Q are contractions. In this paper, I aim to advance Albright’s Hebrew reconstruction on the basis of G, but I modify his restoration at two significant points, in order to offer a reading that is more nuanced and considerate of the framework and context of the entire poem (vv. 1-43). Namely, Albright reconstructs Greek ενισχυσατωσαν as Hebrew חזק (to be strong). I problematize Albright’s argument, but with the bulk of the paper I argue that the Greek translator mistakenly interpreted כבד in the G-stem (to be heavy, weighty) and thus chose ενισχυσατωσαν (to be severe, strong); I suggest that כבד in the D-stem (to honor, glorify) was the intended meaning, but the Greek translator overlooked this nuance. I support this line of thinking by examining the patterns of usage of both words in other biblical texts, by looking at similar texts in cognate languages (Ugaritic and Akkadian), by exploring other instances where the Greek translator(s) do not seem to understand (fully) the finer aspects of Hebrew morphology and syntax, and by looking at several Latin variants that support my proposed כבד in the D-stem.


The Invented Eyewitness of the Gospel and Epistles of John: A Literary History
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Hugo Mendez, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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.


Fire and Water: Luke's Use of Judgment and Repentance Texts in the Book of Ezekiel
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Reed Metcalf, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)

Luke’s Gospel appears to echo or allude to the Book of Ezekiel’s dominant theme of judgment against Judah/Jerusalem. The allusions appear as both phraseological connections (e.g., Luke 9:51, 53 and Ezek 4:7; 6:2; 13:17; 14:8; 15:7; 21:2) and shared motifs (e.g., fiery judgment [Ezek 20:46–48 ET and Luke 12:49; 23:27–31]), calling for a methodology that incorporates the intertextual approaches of both Richard Hays (in works such as Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul or Reading Backwards) and Robert Brawley (in Text to Text Pours Forth Speech: Voices of Scripture in Luke-Acts). Surprisingly, Luke also uses language unique to Ezekiel when construing the themes of repentance and restoration, themes that appear rarely in Ezekiel (e.g., Luke 19:8 and Ezek 33:14–16). Of particular interest is John’s “baptism of repentance” (Luke 3:1–18), a cleansing metaphor that seems mostly closely paralleled in the LXX in Ezek 36:25–28. In this text in Ezekiel, YHWH cleanses the people during an eschatological renewal of Israel. Similarly, John’s baptism functions as a preparation for an eschatological event in Luke 3:1–18. This connection between the Baptist and the Ezekiel texts deserves special attention, as they differ substantially from other texts in the LXX that concern washing (cf., Lev 14–15, where the cleansing focuses on ritual purity, not initiation into an eschatological reality), especially washing tied to repentance (cf., Isa 1:16–17, where the agency of the cleansing lies with the repentant, not an external party). Following the intertextual work of David Pao (Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus), who argues that allusions and echoes can help frame entire narratives, these connections between Ezekiel’s judgment and repentance texts and Luke will be explored for their implications in understanding Jesus’s ministry as well as his repeated and eventually fatal confrontations with political and social leadership in the Third Gospel.


The 40-Year-Old Rhizome: A Limiting and Liberating Legacy
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Sam Mickey, University of San Francisco

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.


Herod as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar: A ‘Political’ Reading of the Prophets in Matthew’s Infancy Narrative
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
J. Richard Middleton, Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College

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


Praying for the Body: Origen and Augustine on Corporeality and Daily Bread
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Corine Milad, University of Toronto

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.


Paul as Priest and Augur in Romans
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Timothy Milinovich, Dominican University

There have been various comments regarding Paul’s introduction to the Roman community in casting himself as a Christ-commissioned apostle, a prophet in the mold of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and proffering a message consistent with the traditions of ancient Judaism. A main goal of this approach is to ingratiate himself to the Jewish demographic of the audience. But another question can be asked: How would the Gentile demographic receive the introduction in 1:1-17 and, on the other end of the letter, 15:1-33? This paper will argue that Paul presents himself to the community as akin to a priest or augur of Roman religio. Like Roman priests and augurs, Paul has received a divine commission to serve his God by communicating with others the divine favor that has been bestowed on them and unites them. Paul is capable of reading textual and natural phenomena for divine auspices, the means by which Roman patrons revealed their sentiments to the Roman people. And Paul is also traveling to carry the divine message according to God’s will. All of these aspects, which Paul explicates in his resume to the community, reflect the profile of a Roman priest or augur. Utilizing a broad comparanda of primary sources and research from Classical studies, this paper will consider how Paul presents himself as a leader in the mold of religious religion and why this would benefit his message and acceptance with the Roman community to whom he is now attempting to establish a relationship.


Orality and Performance in Biblical and Israelite Law
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Robert D. Miller II, Catholic University of America

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.


Syntactic Features of Left Dislocation in Late Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé, University of the Free State

Left dislocation constructions involve a constituent that precedes the matrix sentence and is resumed within the sentence by a coreferential resumptive element. Cross-linguistically, left dislocation constructions exhibit considerable syntactic variation, which can be described on the basis of (1) the grammatical features of the resumptive element, (2) the relationship of the left dislocated constituent to the resumptive element, especially with respect to case agreement, and (3) the relationship of the left dislocation construction to the broader syntactic context. In this paper we describe the syntactic features of left dislocation constructions in the biblical books traditionally identified as late.


Did Theophilus of Antioch Compose a Gospel Harmony? Reconsidering Testimonia from Jerome and the Book of Saint James
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Ian N Mills, Duke University

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.


The Preaching of Philip (CANT 252): Prospect and Retrospect
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Ivan Miroshnikov, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study

In this paper, I would like to present some of the observations I made when preparing an edition of the Sahidic and Fayyumic fragments of the Preaching of Philip (CANT 252). I am going to discuss the five extant witnesses to the Coptic text of this apocryphon, paying special attention to the variation between Phrygia and Africa as Philip’s missionary lot referenced in the extant titles of the Preaching of Philip. I will also offer a critical survey of various hypotheses pertaining to the Preaching of Philip posited in the history of scholarship. In my opinion, there is no need to presuppose a lost Greek original of this text (pace James), nor is there any intimate connection between the Preaching of Philip and the Letter of Peter to Philip (pace Bethge). I am also skeptical as to whether the Preaching of Philip is literarily dependent on the fourth-century Acts of Philip (pace Bovon and Matthews). Rather, in addition to the Bible, the text that the author of the Preaching of Philip seems to have drawn on (and so also many other authors of the Coptic apostolic “preachings” and “martyrdoms”) is the apostolic lists in their Byzantine text-form.


Proper Names in the Georgian Versions of the Book of Esther
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Natia Mirotadze, Universität Salzburg

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.


Epigraphy and Historiography: Lessons from Abercius
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
Margaret M. Mitchell, University of Chicago

This presentation will offer some methodological reflections from my research (2008, 2011) into the so-called “earliest Christian inscription,” the funerary monument of Abercius of Hieropolis in central Phrygia, from ca. 180. That unusual case study, of an “inscription” which plays a dramatic role in a later ancient narrative text, the vita Abercii, aswell as in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Catholic-Protestant disputes, allows us to think about the complexly embedded histories of other inscriptions for which we do not have such a direct and well documented record. Particular attention will be paid to the intersections of historical information and contextualization, history of reception, the hermeneutics of composite semiological objects (textual, material, geographical, etc), and the role of disciplined imagination, in the hopes that these may be useful for the work of the section on the use of epigraphic sources in the reconstruction of North African Christianity.


Redefining Rationality: Nuṣrat Amīn’s Exegesis of Īmān
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Zahra Moeini Meybodi, University of Chicago

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.


Family, Scribal Training, and Apocalypticism in Second Temple Wisdom Instructions
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Andrew Montanaro, Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College

This paper explores the use of the family metaphor in relation to the scribal Sitz im Leben of various Second Temple instructional wisdom texts. The goal of this investigation is to demonstrate that correlations exist between three important aspects of a scribe’s context: (1) the appropriation of the family metaphor, which is a literary device common to wisdom texts at large, (2) the proximity to the scribal setting, wherein students are training to become scribes/sages by a scribe/sage, and (3) whether or not the text arises from a context of persecution, in which texts apocalyptic elements are commonly found. These factors contribute to the complex context from which these instructions arose and inform the types of concerns their authors manifest for their students. The texts included in this study are: Wisdom of Solomon, 4QInstruction, 4QBeatitudes, Ben Sira, and Pseudo-Phocylides, with reference to other texts such as 4Q185 and Tobit.


“Consistently Byzantine?” The Romans Text of Saba 20 and the Textual Transformation of Chrysostom’s Exegetical Legacy
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Peter Montoro, University of Birmingham

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.


(Digital) Paleography of Persian Period Sources: Debunking “Established Views,” Proposing a New Way Forward
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
James D. Moore, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Humboldt University of Berlin

It seems a holy grail of research on ancient manuscripts is to use digital aids to move from an intuitive approach to paleography that relatively dates sources to an “empirical” approach that turns paleographic observations into valid historical criteria. Countless conferences, publications, and millions of dollars in research have been devoted to the topic, particularly regarding Northwest Semitic, and especially Hebrew sources. Despite this, one of the largest, and most methodologically sound collections of manuscripts have been ignored, the Persian period Elephantine Aramaic papyri. This paper will discuss the history of paleographic dating of Persian period Aramaic documents and its flaws. It will then present an example of the use of digital aids to organize data from what could become a foundational control dataset in the study of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Northwest paleography.


Ten Years of the New Mandaic Lexicon Project
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Matthew Morgenstern, Tel Aviv University

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.


Mandaic Texts in the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Matthew Morgenstern, Tel Aviv University

During the course of our work over the past decade on the preparation of a new dictionary of Mandaic, we have prepared digital editions of the entire corpus of Mandaean literature, which are in the process of being made public through the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon. This lecture will present the criteria involved in the preparation of these editions, and demonstrate how they may be of benefit to scholars of Mandaean literature, of the Mandaic language, and of Aramaic in general.


The Younger Versions (Peshitta, Targum, and Vulgate) in the Critical Apparatus of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta in 1 and 2 Samuel
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Craig E. Morrison, Pontificio Istituto Biblico

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.


Performing Piety: “Dress Codes” and the Construction of Gender in 1 Timothy
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Kelsi Morrison-Atkins, Harvard University

In 1 Timothy 2: 9-10, women are called to dress themselves “modestly and decently and in suitable clothing” and this injunction is grounded in the assumption that such bodily practices are “proper for women who profess reverence for God (theosebeia).” Women’s piety thus emerges as performed and policed, constantly subject to public scrutiny. This paper will address the connection between clothing and “God-fearing” in 1 Timothy and will argue that the letter constructs a gendered vision of piety for upper-class women in the ekklesia by rewriting well-worn cultural tropes of women’s dress in a theological key. In so doing, I will argue that this construction of matronly reverence for God erases those wo/men who are unable or unwilling to comport their bodies in sanctioned ways—excluding slaves, foreigners, and other marginalized wo/men from the realm of performed piety. While feminists have long considered debates about the veil embedded within 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 as a primary site for analyzing the theological valence of garments, this paper engages this work to consider further how struggles over gender, power, and authority might be staged around dressing and adorning the body in ways that are less recognizably religious or theological. This paper thus seeks to make a methodological intervention that foregrounds how regulations regarding dress function at the intersection of politics, ethics, and theology. In so doing, I develop a feminist approach to clothing rhetoric which does not parse practices of dress into discrete categories of “religious” (e.g., veiling) and “everyday” (e.g., jewelry, braided hair) but analyzes how these ideologies move between and among multiple facets of experience. Understood in this way, 1 Timothy’s clothing regulations complicate notions of dress as a straightforward expression of agency or identity, and discourses of dressing and adorning emerge as a productive site for assessing how cultural ideologies take on theological significance with and through embodied practices.


Mourning for Tammuz in Ezekiel 8:14: An Allusion to Royal Funerals in the First Temple
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Bill Morrow, Queen's University

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.


Mother of Mothers: Exploring Eve's Maternity in Pre-twentieth Century Women's Writings
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Holly Morse, University of Manchester

Eve is everywoman. With this status, she has had a powerful impact on women’s identity, and indeed the very notion of Woman in the Western world. For the most part, scholarship on the reception of the Garden story has focused on the ways in which men have used the Bible’s first woman to delineate and define women as Other. Yet, throughout the ages, multiple women have appropriated Eve in a bid to redefine themselves and their womanhood. In particular, the role Eve has to play as mother can be discerned, though in a fragmented and disparate trajectory, in the literary work of a number of women writers throughout the ages, which this paper offers as a ‘counter-tradition’ to more dominant strands of interpretation of Genesis 1-3 that focused on the sin of the first woman. The exploration of this ‘counter-history’ provided in this paper is not intended as a comprehensive or linear account of all women writers’ reactions to Eve, nor is the intention to reduce all work of female writers on the first woman to the theme of maternity. Rather, material has been selected that illustrates the ways in which women have imaginatively and creatively used Eve to ‘think with’ in relation to their own connections to maternity, as well as the ways in which their understanding of motherhood has shaped their image of Eve. As Tina Beattie has said, ‘Eve has the capacity to represent everywoman, not as the sinister figure of the sexual (m)other who bears the burden of all men’s unexamined fears of the mother, sex and death, but as a woman who symbolises the struggling reality of women’s lives in the existential journey between paradise lost and paradise regained’ (T. Beattie 2002: 101). This statement, made as a call to contemporary theologians, summarises neatly precisely the kind of interpretative position taken by numerous women writers, from Hildegard von Bingen to Christina Rossetti. The examination of women’s literary representations of Eve offered in this paper is intended to illustrate that the figure of the first woman has been used in precisely such a way for centuries by women negotiating their own understanding of what it means to be a woman in relation to the Bible, their faith, their society, and motherhood. By briefly considering the literary work of medieval (Hildegard of Bingen), early modern (Anne Bradstreet and Lucy Hutchinson) and modern (Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti) women’s writings on Eve, we will consider the ways in which rewriting her story has allowed women to rewrite their own lives. The paper argues that women’s own self-defined images of mothering are critical to disrupting often restrictive male-produced constructions of maternity, and will demonstrate that Eve can be an important site for these negotiations.


The Art of Mothering: Eve's Maternity in Medieval Visual Culture
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Holly Morse, University of Manchester

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.


Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach in Luther’s Interpretation of the Imago Dei
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Adam T. Morton, University of Nottingham

This paper would examine the continued positive use and influence of Sirach and The Wisdom of Solomon on Martin Luther’s late career interpretation of the image of God. Luther’s relationship to Old Testament deuterocanonical works is frequently considered in negative terms, in light of his relocation of these books from the Old Testament proper. However, he demonstrated easy familiarity with both Wisdom and Sirach, citing them frequently throughout his career. Further, he translated and prefaced them, those translations appearing in the same 1534 Bible that designated them as apocrypha. Neither book is criticized except as not equal to the Scriptures; rather, they are lauded, commended to readers, and held to be useful in their teachings. The period after Luther’s translation was complete shows particular influence - Sirach and Wisdom both make a significant number of appearances in the Genesis lectures which occupied the last decade of his academic career. While the general importance of Sirach and Wisdom for Luther is not difficult to establish, their particular influences on his theology are a more subtle affair. I will argue that Luther’s understanding of the human image of God, as expressed in the early chapters of his Genesis lectures, and in his 1536 Disputatio de homine, shows signs of shaping from Sirach 17:1-13 and Wisdom 2:23-3:9 and 7:25-28. These books are not directly cited in the relevant passages from Luther, and to that extent this reconstruction is speculative. However, when Luther’s approach to the image of God is compared with the received medieval tradition and with the cited passages of the Old and New Testaments, certain distinctive features stand out as closely corresponding with the texts Luther designated as apocrypha. Having rejected the Augustinian teaching that linked the imago dei to the capacities of the soul as vestigia trinitatis, and which predominated in Latin Christianity through the Middle Ages, Luther embraced a markedly more physical interpretation of Genesis 1:26-27. The image of God is expressed in human dominion, which is a kind of priestly rulership over the animals in which Adam’s bodily gifts take center stage. This physical emphasis as a reading of Genesis 1 and 2 is rare in both scripture and tradition. It is reasonable to conclude that Sirach stands as the likely source of Luther’s interpretation. Further, the Disputatio de homine associates the image of God with divine wisdom in the human, and especially with a teleology of immortality. These emphases are equally present in the (roughly contemporaneous with the disputation) sections of the Genesis lectures. Here, too, Luther’s emphases are unusual, but explicable as a reading together of Wisdom 2:23, which presents the human as created for incorruption, in the image of divine eternity, and Wisdom 7:26, which presents personified wisdom as the image of God in which the righteous share.


בארבעה לחדש: The Syntax of Expressing the Day of the Month in Late Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Adina Moshavi, Bar-Ilan University

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.


Crossing the Jordan River: North vs. South
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
David Moster, The Institute of Biblical Culture

During the biblical period it was much easier to cross the Jordan River to the north of the Jabbok (Zarqa) tributary than to the south. In the north the river was less wide and less deep, and the valley was easier to cross. Ethnographic data suggest that the north had forty-one fords and the south had five. This discrepancy might explain why the northern tribe of Manasseh is the only tribe in the Bible said to have lived on both banks of the river. Although the Jordan was a significant boundary in the south, it was more of a non-boundary in the north, where Manasseh was situated.


“Until the Number of the Martyrs Is Fulfilled” (Rev 6:11): A Sample of Lexicographic Gaffe?
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Laurentiu Florentin Mot, Adventus University

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.


How the Hospital Became Holy
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Michael Motia, University of Massachusetts Boston

A Greek inscription from sixth-century Jerusalem reads, “the holy hospital of the patriarch.” How did the hospital come to be holy? Holiness is in part a theological matter, but it is not here theology directly in conversation with philosophers like Plotinus or Iamblichus. Instead, the emergence of the holiness of late ancient hospital shows how theology happens in the production of space. The “production of space”—sometimes physical, sense-shaping spaces, sometimes maps, sometimes crafting images by which we come to understand ourselves—organizes, distributes, and directs people’s daily lives and also their ultimate concerns. The hospital emerged with a society rethinking holiness, most notably with shifting norms around money (Peter Brown, et al.) and around health and illness (Andrew Crislip, Kristi Upson-Saia, et al.). Hospitals became part of the late ancient landscape, and as they did, they condensed cosmic, economic, and theological forces into buildings and bodies. They told a story about salvation and sacredness. They trained both a self-reflective understanding and what Lauren Berlant calls “intuition,” those visceral, pre-reflective responses that let Christians “sense” God in the space. They became what Mark Jordan has called a “scene of instruction,” or a theater where a curated set of images and metaphors for this new, Christian world emerged. Theology, I suggest, happens in this staging. My paper looks at three discussions of “hospitals” (xenodocheion or nosokomeion). First, Gregory of Nazianzus discusses Basil’s greatest achievements as the creation of “a new city,” a hospital. He asks his audience to contemplate (theoria) it in order to understand Basil’s holiness. When Basil built his hospital (or perhaps leprosarium), it was, in Peregrine Horden’s words, “a topographical challenge.” By the sixth century, a spatial revolution had taken place. Not only were there many more hospitals; they signified holiness differently as well. My readings of Procopius and John of Ephesus demonstrate how the hospital resonated with two other popular forms of holiness. Frist, hospitals in Procopius’s On Buildings read much like descriptions of relics. The dizzying impressiveness of the church was a kind of jeweled box housing the holy relics of the poor and sick in the hospital. Second, John of Ephesus’s hospital became synonymous with a holy woman. Euphemia saw “God … overcome in the market, swarming with lice and fainting with hunger,” and she responds by turning her home into a hospice. That house eventually becomes a hospital, an institution that, in John’s description, placed the memory of the saint in the landscape of the city. In each of these texts, readers are meant to see Christ in the building, and they are to learn their place within the cosmic order by finding their place in the functioning of the hospital. Sick or healthy, poor or rich, bishop or laity, life or death, human or divine, the hospital was the stage on which life found meaning. Spaces like the hospital housed desires with coded narratives that subtly organized, directed, and distributed a set of relationships between heaven and earth. They performed a lived theology.


Expecting Israel, Hearing Babylon: Performance and Structural Logic in Jer 50:11–46
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Tyler J. Mowry, Baylor University

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).


Mary Did You Run? Reassessing the Cause and Nature of Mary's Travel in Luke 1:39
Program Unit: Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman Travel in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Byzantine Periods (300 BCE–600 CE)
Daniel P. Mueller, Marquette University

In Luke 1:39, Mary's travel to the house of her kinswoman Elizabeth is qualified with the phrase meta spoudēs, often translated as "with haste." This translation emphasizes the speed of travel or the nature of this travel as a response to the divine revelation of Elizabeth's pregnancy. However, this phrase has other possible meanings which have rarely been examined. Blaise Hospodar argues that the phrase reflects Mary's contemplative state of mind during her journey. Both the prevailing hypothesis and Hospodar's alternative focus on Gabriel's revelation to Mary as the cause of the travel. In contrast to both Hospodar's hypothesis and the scholarly consensus, I argue that the cause of Mary’s travel should be placed more directly on a perceived obligation of Mary to be present when Elizabeth gives birth. In this paper I reassess Mary's “hasty” travel through four pieces of evidence. First, the Lukan narrative presents a narrative shift at the beginning of Luke 1:39, separating Mary's travel from the immediacy of Gabriel's message to her. Second, the Peshitta of this text translates the phrase meta spoudēs in a manner that does not focus on speed but rather an unspecified obligation, which should be identified as Mary's familial obligation to Elizabeth. Third, birth practices in the Roman empire often included the presence of female relatives attending to the one giving birth. Fourth, honorary epigraphic evidence expands the availability of the term spoudē to take on the meaning of discharging an obligation. Therefore, in this paper I argue that Mary's travel in Luke 1:39 is caused by a familial obligation to her kinswoman Elizabeth. The term often translated as "with haste" does not emphasis speed, duration, or any quality of the travel. Rather, Mary's travel is only demarcated by destination and an oblique reference to its cause. Mary’s travel, then, can be categorized as family-based. This reading of Mary’s travel also eliminates the need for speculation on how hastily a young, unwed pregnant Jewish woman may be able to journey from Galilee to the hill country of Judea.


Frightening Continuities: Reading Stories on Sexual Violence in the Book of Samuel Today
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Ilse Muellner, Universität Kassel

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.


Judeao-Israelite Bone Seals: Egyptian Iconography or Vernacular Pictorial Tradition?
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Stefan Muenger, Universität Bern - Université de Berne

The paper deals with Iron Age II stamp-seals that are uniquely found in Cis-Jordan. The seals, more precisely scaraboids, are typically made of bone. Their schematic engraving style is typical and easily recognizable. – Once more, it was the Fribourg School, who was the first to point out the peculiarities of this distinct, locally made stamp-seal class. While Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger view these seals as a Judahite product originating in the aftermath of Shoshenq’s raids to the region in the late 10th c. BCE (and echoing typical Egyptian royal imagery), Baruch Brandl locates their original production center(s) in the kingdom of Israel some time before the Assyrian conquest, closely connected to the Samarian ivory carving industries. – The paper will present the current stage of research and highlight an alternative approach to the iconography of the stamp-seal amulets in question, focusing on the vernacular pictorial tradition(s) of the region.


Tried in the Fire: Cyprian’s Use of Sirach
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Edwina Murphy, Morling College

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.


Examples of Faith and Virtue: Cyprian’s Use of the Book of Daniel
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
Edwina Murphy, Morling College

Cyprian’s Book of Daniel is the Daniel of the LXX, including the parts also known as the Prayer of Azariah, Bel and the Dragon, and the Book of Susanna. His unquestioning use of them as Scripture is congruent with his treatment of other so-called deuterocanonical books, reflecting the practice of mid-third century Carthage. Cyprian uses Daniel across all areas of his pastoral concern: divine truth, the order and unity of the church, discipline and repentance, and wealth and welfare. Although the reading strategy of prophetic fulfilment is used to convey aspects of divine truth, Cyprian largely depends on models in his appropriation of the book. Most prominent of these are the three youths, as well as Daniel himself, their steadfast worship of God in the face of pressure to compromise making them obvious exemplars for the persecuted church. Their actions are repeatedly cited, both to exhort Cyprian’s congregation to faithful witness as well as to console those whose confession did not end in martyrdom. Cyprian also uses them as examples of proper confession of sin. Daniel himself is used to demonstrate the inability of martyrs to intercede for the sins of others as well as God’s ability to provide for those who rely on him. King Nebuchadnezzar is a negative example of the failure to give alms, while the virtuous Susanna is equated with the church, which must be wary of rogue presbyters trying to destroy it. As with all Cyprian’s exegesis, his use of Daniel is very much concerned with addressing the existential challenges facing his flock. In this case, he particularly uses models, an important element of Greco-Roman paideia, to achieve his aims.


Hearing the Ascent: Exploring Voicing and Movement in the Psalms of the Ascents
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Meghan D. Musy, Evangel University

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.


Deciphering What “We Know”: Rhetoric and Power in John 3
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Alicia Myers, Campbell University

The dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3:1-21 has been the subject of much debate, particularly in recent years: is Nicodemus confounded by Jesus’s double-meaning, or is he antagonizing Jesus, goading him into making ever-more outrageous claims? These questions have led to many re-evaluating Nicodemus’s characterization in John, largely focusing on the question of whether or not he is a valid “believer” in Jesus by the end of the Gospel. In recent years, the consensus has shifted largely in Nicodemus’s favor. This presentation, however, will take a slightly different track. Rather than examining Nicodemus’s “belief,” it will instead center on the rhetorical presentation of shifting power dynamics in John 3:1-21 and note an extended comparison between Nicodemus and John the Baptist in the opening chapters of the Gospel. Although I will make use of some ancient rhetorical categories, this presentation will also explore ethical elements of the communication in John 3, borrowing insights from New Rhetoric. In John 3, Nicodemus and Jesus challenge one another with claims of knowledge and ability. At the beginning of the dialogue, Nicodemus assumes a position of representative authority, offering a judgment concerning what “we know” (oidamen) about Jesus’s identity based on Jesus's ability (dunatai) (3:1-2; cf. 2:23-25). Jesus, however, disrupts Nicodemus’s standing by taking over his language and offering his own assessment of both Nicodemus and, implicitly, those he represents (3:3-21). In this way, John 3 undermines the authority of Nicodemus, the Pharisees, the Ioudaioi, and humanity in general in order to bolster that of Jesus and his primary witness up to this point, John the Baptist (1:6-9, 15-36; 3:22-36). Rather than encouraging claims of knowledge, the Fourth Gospel prizes a position of acknowledged ignorance when potential disciples approach Jesus.


Plumbing the World of the Quran, Reading the Cosmos as the Quran: Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī’s (d. 1385) Correspondence (taṭbīq) Theory and the Meaning of the Words of God (kalimāt Allāh)
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Arjun Nair, University of Southern California

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.


The Hybrid Identity of Moses, as a Hebrew-Egyptian ger: A Contextual Reading of Exod 2 through an Eye of the Korean-American ger
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Minoo Nam, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

It has long been recognized that Moses has a hybrid identity. He was born a Hebrew, but he was raised as an Egyptian and was given an Egyptian name. Aware of his own hybrid identity, Moses named his son Gershom, saying, “I have been an alien (ger) residing in a foreign land” (Exod 2:22). This self-identification of Moses explicitly reveals that he has a mere sense of belonging. By tracing ways in which Moses’ sense of belonging has been shifted, this study aims to 1) identify the hybrid identity of Moses in Exod 2, and 2) reread Exod 2 with the issue of identity crisis among Korean immigrants in the United States. Most, if not all, second generations of immigrants in the United States who were born ethnic aliens tend to have an identity crisis. Similarly, Moses explicitly goes through an identity crisis as a resident alien on foreign soil. He stands in the liminal space between Hebrews and Egyptians. Stuart Hall defines cultural identity as it is not an essence but a positioning. In Exod 2, Moses is almost exclusively described as a Hebrew. Meanwhile, he excluded himself from the Egyptian community by having solidarity with one of his Hebrew kinsfolks (v. 11b). Yet, Moses does neither belong to the Hebrew community. When it comes to Moses’ perspective on the people of Israel, Moses distances himself from the Israelite by calling them Hebrews as if he is not part of. Through this contextual reading of the text, this paper attempts to yield some hermeneutical insights. Firstly, this study pays particular attention to Moses’ social location and its liminality. Secondly, by comparing this ancient text/motif with a modern immigrant context, it is the following goal of this study to prove the feasibility of this contextual approach. Thirdly, this contextual interpretation will produce some theological/ethical/pastoral implication for its reading communities.


The Qumran Rule Texts and the Ontology of Literature in Early Judaism
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
James Nati, Santa Clara University/Graduate Theological Union

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.


Humming the Bridge: Improvisation, Performance, and the Comprehensive Study of the Midrashic Prooftext
Program Unit: Midrash
W. David Nelson, Independent Scholar

This paper will present an initial argument for the need for a comprehensive study of the phenomenology, method, and modes of the midrashic prooftext. It will utilize performative and improvisational theory both to undergird the imperative for such a study and to shed new light on the inherent, latent meaning of familiar prooftexts in well-known midrashic traditions of interpretation. The paper will reveal the potential such a study holds to recast and revision the hermeneutical role the midrashic prooftext fills simultaneously as both repository and transpositional vehicle of early rabbinic interpretive meaning.


Gender Role Conflicts, Violence, and Emotions in Ancient Symposia
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Nils Neumann, Leibniz Universität Hannover

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 Apostle Paul according to Three Anglican Poets
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Julie Newberry, Wheaton College (Illinois)

This paper examines three brief poetic receptions of the Apostle Paul: John Henry Newman’s “St. Paul” (1833), Christina Rossetti’s “On the Conversion of St. Paul” (1885/86), and Malcome Guite’s “St Paul” (2012). All three poets are or were (at the time of composition) Anglicans, and each poem draws heavily on New Testament traditions—particularly as found in the Pauline epistles and the Acts of the Apostles. However, the specific aspects of Paul’s character and mission that are highlighted vary from poem to poem, as does the poets’ handling of whether and in which respects their own readers ought to imitate the Apostle to the Gentiles. I will first offer a close reading of the scriptural allusions in each poem, arguing that intertextual echoes play a key role in facilitating concise but rich depictions of Paul in the space of a mere fourteen to twenty lines. Having noted the primary intertextual echoes that undergird each poem, I will then compare the three poems, noting differences in the scope and focus of each poem as well as in the degree of (implicit or explicit) invitation for the audience to emulate the Paul described by the poet. Guite’s wide-ranging poem touches on the whole course of Paul’s life, perhaps with a nod to more recent discussions in Pauline theology, while Rossetti focuses on Paul’s conversion and (especially) the model that his perseverance in painful ministry sets for subsequent believers. For his part, Newman imagines an encounter between the speaker and the Apostle, whose mode of ministry and temperament render him initially unrecognizable to the speaker who had hoped for an impressive experience. All three poets highlight key features of Paul’s ministry as described in the New Testament, drawing attention to its paradoxical character and using allusion to reinforce and deepen the portrait of Paul that each sketches.


They Disbelieved in Muhammad and in “What He Brought”: Probing the Roots of the Muslim Slander that the Jews Forged the Torah
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Gordon D. Nickel, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies

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.


An Introduction to the Beyond Canon Collaborative Research Group
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Tobias Nicklas, Universität Regensburg

Beyond Canon: Heterotopias of Religious Authority in Early Christianity is a Collaborative Research Group at the University of Regensburg. Tobias Nicklas, the Director General, will offer an introduction to the project, its scope, and its aims.


Paul’s Interpretation of the Psalms: Between the Pharisees and Philo
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Maren Niehoff, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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.


The Romans as Philo of Alexandria’s "Other": Negotiating Politics and Judeophobia
Program Unit: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Maren Niehoff, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Based on my Intellectual Biography of Philo, I will discuss the role of the implied reader in the EXPOSITION and ask to what extent we can detect an active engagement with a Roman Other.


Paul and the Concept of Covenant
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Markus Nikkanen, Theological School of Finland

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


Identity Construction in 1 Thessalonians
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
Nina Nikki, University of Helsinki

The paper will introduce my social identity commentary project on 1 and 2 Thessalonians by observing 1) how the content and boundaries of the ingroup identity are defined in 1 Thessalonians and 2) the ways in which a sense of positive distinctiveness is created for the ingroup in the same letter. The first part asks, in particular, how the identity constructed for the Thessalonian Christ-group is affected by the Gentile background of the converts and their lack of contact with so-called Judaizing Christians. The Thessalonians are not, for example, offered a possibility to identify with the honourable Israelite history. The second part looks at the variety of identity enhancing mechanisms applied in the text. The ingroup is, for example, praised in a very straight forward manner: the Thessalonians are called the “hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming” (2:19). The Thessalonians are also repeatedly reminded of their superior status with references to their already excellent knowledge of important things (1:5; 2:1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 11; 3:3-4; 4:1, 2, 6, 10-11; 5:1). The ingroup status is further strengthened by references to shared persecution and suffering, e.g. 1:6-7: “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” They are also set apart from everyone else is through the idea of divine election (1:4). Finally, the paper will take up examples of how the above aspects are either present or lacking in 2 Thessalonians, thus setting the stage for discussion between an authentic and pseudepigraphical letter.


The Rise of Rabbinic Judaism in Light of Cognitive and Cultural Evolution
Program Unit: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World
Ronit Nikolsky, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

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.


Studying Emotions in Midrash without Being Abusive
Program Unit: Midrash
Ronit Nikolsky, Groningen University

My presentation will tackle both methodological and theoretical issues when studying emotions in Midrash, a corpus that does not voluntarily suggest a stable concept of emotions. Theoretically, I rely on Lisa Feldman Barrett’s theory of constructed emotions, which in itself is based on the Predictive Brain theory. The balance between universal bodily phenomena and processes on the one hand, and cultural construction on the other, shifts heavily toward the latter. The consequence is that we cannot rely neither on our understanding of emotional words, i.e. the modern Hebrew ones, nor on descriptions of bodily phenomena such as crying, to interpret Midrashic narratives. In the methodological part of my paper, I will exemplify how, in spite of the fluidity of the concept, emotions can be discerned in midrashic narratives, in a manner which does not impose modern understanding. I will study three midrashic poetic strategies used on biblical stories in their midrashic form: the use of emotion-words, the retelling enactor motivation, and the author’s direction toward an attitude. My focus will be on narratives from the Tanhuma-Yelammedenu literature, in comparison with earlier midrashic corpora as well as the biblical stories.


Negotiating Deviating Bodies: Context, Function, and Norm of Dis/ability in Mark’s Healing Narratives
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Lena Nogossek-Raithel, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

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 Emergence of the Biblical Book of Job on the Backdrop of the So-Called Job Literature
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Urmas Nommik, University of Tartu

In January 2020, a five-year project on the emergence of the Hebrew book of Job on the backdrop of the so-called Job literature started at the University of Tartu, Estonia. The need for such a project came up after a long and intensive study of Job that combined textual, literary / redaction, form and tradition criticism. Firstly, the complex set of many texts in the book of Job with different theological foci and poetic profiles makes an impression not of a well-structured book but of a collection of literary pieces regarding existential and theological questions. Literary reflections emerged during a longer period and were legitimized through assigning them to the so-called Job literature. Secondly, the process of gathering and adding the "Job" reflections to the Hebrew book of Job seems not to have come to a definite end; there has not been any successful "final redaction" of the Hebrew book. The fact is, among others, reflected in the textual history of the book where the Masoretic version, the Old Greek translation and the Aramaic version represent differences in some key texts, such as Job’s short answers to God. Thirdly, the first finished version of Job seems to be the Old Greek translation with its own understanding of the book. The very same translation is a representative of rather rich written and oral tradition in Greek giving also birth to the Testament of Job. Fourthly, after accepting the complexity of the history of the Job literature in Hebrew and Greek, particularly its different outcomes in versions, one can pose a question towards the beginnings, i.e. the tradition historical complexity behind the Hebrew book of Job. Thereby, the scope should be widened by not only studying motifs known from the Hebrew biblical, West Semitic and Mesopotamian literature but also reflecting on literary genres and poetic forms. Altogether, there is a strong need for explaining the complex picture surrounding the Hebrew book of Job that cannot be understood without the wider concept of the "Job literature" involving certain questions and using a set of distinct forms.


A Syntax of Syriac Double Objects in the Bible in Contrast to Hebrew and Arabic
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Paul Noorlander, Leiden University

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.


Impersonal Verbal Constructions in Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Tania Notarius, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Altogether, the linguistic impersonality can be defined as a loss of the referential subject, realized through partial or complete withdrawal of the prototypical functional properties of a subject, as topicality, definiteness, and agentivity (Keenan; Malchukov and Siewierska). The plural is more at home in the domain of impersonality, being less concrete about the referentiality of a subject than the singular, which has more to do with individualization (Shibatani). According to Siewierska, impersonals in active voice are of two main types: the 3rd plur ‘they’-impersonals and the 3rd sing ‘man’-impersonals: the 3plur impersonals necessarily stipulates an unspecific indefinite animate subject, while the ‘man’-impersonals licensed an indefinite pronoun as a subject (cf. Spanish Aquí se vende pisos, French On a coupé la conversation); consequently, the 3plur impersonals function for the participants tracking in discourse, while ‘man’-impersonals do not feature this quality and are largely generic. In Biblical Hebrew the active impersonal constructions are mostly in plural כִּי מִן־הַבְּאֵ֣ר הַהִ֔וא יַשְׁק֖וּ הָעֲדָרִ֑ים, while the singular impersonal constructions are much rarer and imply indefinite but concrete Agent: עַל־כֵּ֞ן קָרָ֤א שְׁמָהּ֙ בָּבֶ֔ל. However, the 3sing impersonal is routinely compatible with the stative and passive forms, featuring the non-referential dummy-subject ‘it’: פֶּן יְבֻלַּ֣ע לַמֶּ֔לֶךְ


Historical Geographical Evidence for the Identification of Bethsaida-Julias
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
R. Steven Notley, Nyack College, NYC

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.


Quranic Imagery between the Literary and the Literal
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Avigail Noy, University of Texas Austin

Medieval Arabic literary criticism has long been recognized as a venue for Qur’anic interpretation alongside formal works of exegesis (tafsīr). The volume Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur’an, edited by Issa Boullata in 2000, alone contains two articles on literary interpretations of the Qur’an by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016), a poet and critic of Shīʿī background. In this paper I continue the work done by M. Ayoub and especially K. Abu Deeb by exploring how some of the Qur’an’s vivid images were analyzed by language scholars on one hand and literary critics and exegetes on the other. Centering on images that have a lexical basis in the vocabulary of Old Arabic (the language spoken at and before the time of the Prophet), at least as evinced by the dictionaries, I examine how the literal and the literary interact. Things become interesting when philologists such as al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144) are taken into account: being a collector of a dictionary himself (Asās al-balāgha), he offers diverging interpretations on given verses depending on whether the work is his dictionary or his exegesis (al-Kashshāf). This leads to the thorny question of the reliability of dictionaries for “literal” meanings of Qur’anic expressions, as the early lexicographers may have depended on Qur’anic idiom alone for the makeup of certain entries. Looking at a wide range of Arabic lexica and major works of exegesis and literary criticism, I take as a test-case Q 81:18, “By dawn, when it sighs” (or: “By dawn, when it breaks”) and further explore Q 59:9, “those who made their dwelling in the residence and in belief,” Q 2:16, “their trade reaps no profit,” Q 16:112, “God made it taste the garment of famine,” Q 2:20, “Lightning almost snatches away their sight,” Q 2:7, “God has sealed their hearts,” Q 2:25, “Gardens graced with flowing streams,” the famous case of Q 17:24, “wing of humility,” and more.


Onan, Sly Civility, and the Anonymous Collectivity
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Ludwig Beethoven J. Noya, Vanderbilt University

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.


The Talmud Bavli on the “Disagreement” in Q 4:157: Literary, Documentary, Historical, Cultural, and Religious Environment
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
W Richard Oakes Jr., Independent Scholar

The Q 4:153–162 paragraph enumerates about a dozen Jewish sins, among which is their saying that they had killed Jesus. It starts by saying that the Jews demanded that Muhammad bring a book down from heaven, just as they had demanded that Moses show them God’s face (Q 4:153). It then lists their sins of worshipping the Golden Calf (instead of worshipping God), breaking their pledge to God, rejecting God’s commands, and killing God’s prophets (Q 4:153–155). We then find the Jews bragging that they had closed their minds, slandering the Virgin Mary as a fornicator, and bragging that they had killed Jesus (Q 4:155–157). The focus of this paper is on the following pericopé about disagreement, doubt, lack of knowledge, and supposition. The final Jewish sins in this paragraph are that they excluded others from God’s path, practiced usury, and devoured people’s wealth. This paragraph concludes with a typical proclamation of rewards for believers and punishment for the unbelieving Jews. Given the literary context of this paragraph, it seems that its comments about disagreement, doubt, lack of knowledge, and supposition concerns what the Jews said about killing Jesus. Yet, the great Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī explains that these differences are about what the Melkites, Nestorians, and Jacobites believed about the nature of the person of Jesus (Al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, 3–339). His explanation seems entirely incongruous to the literary context of this paragraph. That raises the question of whether this pericopé coheres with its Jewish context. The fifth-century Talmud Bavli documents disagreements about Jesus’ crucifixion that raged among leading Babylonian rabbis in the period immediately before the Qur’an was written down. I propose to argue that this literary document that discusses disagreements between rabbis about Jesus crucifixion are a more historically, culturally, and religiously-accurate explanation of the disagreement in Q 4:157, than is the disagreement among Christians about the nature of the person of Jesus that al-Rāzī discusses. I also propose to argue that, in addition to the phrases that are typically translated in the register of “disagreement” or “uncertainty”, the phrases adjoining them should also be translated in the register of “uncertainty,” rather than in the register of “killing.”


What Did Abraham Sacrifice on Moriah?
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Michael Oblath, University of Alaska

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.


Performance as Doubling of Presence
Program Unit: Performance Criticism of the Bible and Other Ancient Texts
Bernhard Oestreich, Friedensau Adventist University

Richard Schechner speaks of the actor as a divided personality. One half is absorbed in the task of performing the role with its bodily movements, feelings, and utterances. The other half observes and controls the actions and emotions while fully aware of the audience. The result is a double presence, the presence of the character embodied by the performer and, at the same time, the presence of the performer with his or her individual body. The doubling of presence is a feature of performance in general. The divided self of the performer is observed by several performance theorists (Carlson, Fischer-Lichte) and has been taken as indicator of the human condition in general by the philosopher Helmuth Plessner. The paper explores implications of the doubling of presence for both, the performers and the audience, for example exaggerated bodily and verbal expressions, mimetic reactions to bodily movements generating meaning beyond the script, general intensification of the event and even emotional flow, delightful experience of the unity of body and mind. The results are finally applied to performance criticism of Biblical texts.


The Medium of Endor in Modern Hebrew Literature
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Rachel Ofer, Herzog College - Mikhlelet Herzog

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.


The Secret of the בי"ה שמ"ו Custom in Writing Torah Scrolls
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Yosef Ofer, Bar Ilan University

One of the unresolved riddles of the Masora is the beya shmo tradition of writing a Torah scroll. According to this tradition, six columns in the Torah scroll should begin with certain words whose initials are בי"ה שמ"ו. This sign is based on a biblical expression from Ps. 68:5; but half of its components are in dispute and it is unclear why they were assigned a special form of writing. Another practice of writing a Torah scroll is known as wawe ha’amudim (the Pillar Hooks): every column in the Torah scroll should open with the letter waw. What is the relationship between these two customs, בי"ה שמ"ו and ווי העמודים? Were these two separate practices that were unrelated? Does the בי"ה שמ"ו sign specify the exceptions to the ווי העמודים rule? If so, how could it include a column that opens with the letter waw? In my lecture, I will suggest a historical reconstruction of the development of these writing practices, which may provide a solution to the mentioned riddle.


Asian American Biblical Interpretation: Evangelical Engagement and Critique
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Janette Ok, Fuller Seminary

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


Daniel 11:1: A New Solution to an Old Problem
Program Unit: Book of Daniel
Daniel Olariu, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Daniel 11:1 is a long-recognized crux interpretum within the framework of the last vision of the book (chs. 10–12). Not only does the verse, in its received form, disrupt the narrative flow––its very function within the immediate and larger contexts is difficult to determine. In order to solve this conundrum, scholars have posited that the verse reflects interpolation, gloss, or an early doublet. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion by proposing a fresh solution, which emerges from a thorough analysis of the empirical evidence offered by 4QDan[c], as well as by primary translations (OG-Dan, Th-Dan, Vulgata, Peshitta). The analysis arrives at two important conclusions: (1) the current MT form of Dan 11:1 reflects secondary adjustments, and as a consequence, its putative original form would be reconstructed; (2) the new reading not only fits within the narrative flow, but also sheds light on another issue, namely, the historicity and identity of Darius the Mede.


Recensional Contextual Additions: Insights from Theodotion Daniel
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Daniel Olariu, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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.


Where Dead Kings Are Buried: Theological and Cultic Implications of Royal Burial in the Books of Kings and Ezekiel
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Christina Olson, Baylor University

As the archaeological contexts of the Levant and neighboring regions indicate, royal burial was an intentional act connecting the monarchial figure with the cult; the king was the link between the people and the deity. This close connection of the dead kings with the city and its deity, though not materially visible in Judah, is indicated the in the biblical text and concretized by the analogous evidence from throughout the ancient Near East. In the monarchic histories of Israel and Judah in 1 and 2 Kings, formulaic epithets drive the narrative forward by announcing the reigning king’s death, burial, and succession. The epithets consist, at the basic level, of three distinct phrases: X slept with his ancestors; and he was buried in the city of David (or Samaria); and Y, his son, reigned in his stead. In this paper, I focus specifically on the second phrase of the epithet, arguing that the burial notice does not simply indicate location but rather demonstrates the reality of a royal mortuary cult within ancient Israel. Further, the royal mortuary cult within ancient Israel adopted the family-unit cult system based upon inheritance and lineage by establishing a larger, national kinship shared by the community of Yahweh. In this royal mortuary cult system, the community memorialized the dead kings as important ancestors who maintained the community’s relationship with Yahweh. This mortuary practice and theology of the king’s connection to the deity in ancient Israel is further evidenced in a later denunciation of the practice by Ezekiel in the exilic period (43:7–9). Accordingly, the burial notice within the epithet formula is both a political and theological statement of monarchic power and influence that was recognized by the community from monarchic times into the exile.


Ad futuram memoriam: The Augustan Ludi Saeculares
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Eric Orlin, University of Puget Sound

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.


Reconciliation in "Light" of the New Creation: Confirming Isaianic Influence on Paul’s Use of καταλλαγή in 2 Corinthians 5:17–21
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
B. J. Oropeza, Azusa Pacific University

There are several ways to interpret Paul’s language of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. One option comes from the political sphere in which Paul assumes an enmity model compatible with diplomacy in ancient Hellenism. Another possibility is that Paul derives the concept straight from traditions that speak of reconciliation between humans and the divine, whether from Greco-Roman or Jewish Hellenistic sources. A third alternative is that Paul developed his perspective based on his Damascus experience. Another view is that Paul derived his notion from Deutero-Isaiah. With this last option, it has been pointed out that the actual terms for reconciliation used here, καταλλαγή and καταλλάσσω, do not appear in Deutero-Isaiah. I suggest instead a related but distinct alternative that confirms Isaianic influence on Paul. The origin of his terminology for reconciliation originates not from Deutero-Isaiah but from Isaiah 9:1­-7, a text he quotes in 2 Corinthians 4:6 regarding light shining out of darkness. Through conflation and contextual catch-words compatible with midrashic technique, I argue that Paul connects Isaiah 9 with Genesis and Deutero-Isaiah to arrive at his interpretation of reconciliation, which he understands as characterizing both the Messianic era of peace and the new creation.


Changing Dimensions of Prophetic Figures
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Jessi Orpana, University of Helsinki

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.


Practical Strategies to Enhance Higher-Order Insights
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Paul Overland, Ashland Theological Seminary

It is a given that we want our students to derive higher-order insights (not merely rudimentary verification of existing translations) as they read the Hebrew Bible. Specialists in modern language pedagogy indicate that higher-order insights result from achieving automaticity in that language. This paper will introduce four practical techniques to help students advance their level of automaticity. (“Automaticity” refers to immediate acquisition of meaning of foreign language texts or speech, without the need to decode words or phrases.)


Killing Goliath? Elhanan the Bethlehemite and the Text of 2 Samuel 21:19
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Kaspars Ozolins, Tyndale House (Cambridge)

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.


Βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ and ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ: Boundary Markers for the Corinthian Believers
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Alisha Paddock, University of Birmingham

In the creation of sacred space, group members need to be able to identify themselves as insiders so as to determine who can be admitted into the sacred space without potentially profaning it. For the first century Corinthian believers, Paul sets forth boundary markers to help define insiders vs outsiders. Two boundary markers that play an important role within First Corinthians are the βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ and the ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ. For a believing community that most likely met in a variety of mundane spaces for worship, boundaries enabled the group to create sacred space when they congregated ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ. In his 2003 book, Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom, Halvor Moxnes bemoaned the fact that Kingdom of God studies has not experienced a spatial turn: “a one-sided focus on time has marginalized the question of place” (p. 110). While he focused on Gospel studies, the spatializing of the Kingdom of God can also play an important role in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Three times Paul mentions the Kingdom of God in 1 Corinthians: 4:20, 6:9-10, 15:50. In 4:20, Paul makes clear the Kingdom is not an intellectual manifestation created by words, but a place of power in which believers currently dwell and experience. In 6:9, Paul asks if the Corinthians understand their identity has changed once they passed through the kingdom boundary. Having become insiders, wrongdoers (outsiders) have no power over them nor do they have a place in this sacred realm. Finally, in 15:22, Paul looks to the future, arguing that the Kingdom of God is not a place that can be inherited by flesh and blood. Instead, insiders need to undergo a transformation – passing through another boundary, if you will, in order to experience the eschatological Kingdom of God. Throughout First Corinthians, Paul understands the kingdom as a boundary separating believers from non-believers. The Kingdom of God is a place in which insiders dwell, both now and, hopefully, in the future. Another boundary Paul creates to separate outsiders from insiders is the ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ. First and Second Corinthians are the only Pauline epistles addressed to the ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ. From the beginning, Paul sets the tone in identifying his audience, conjuring up both Jewish and Greco-Roman images for his audience. His first century audience is like those who assembled before the Tabernacle as well as those who assembled for civic duty. Each group was well-defined and had certain rules to follow, enabling them to participate in the assembly. So too, the Corinthian believing community, even when not assembled, needed to act in a way becoming of those who live in the sacred realm of the Kingdom of God, who have undergone the initiation rites to become members of the ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ.


“The Innumerable Multitude”: Converted or Coerced?
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Elaine Pagels, Princeton University

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.


Searching for an Inclusive Approach to Biblical Laws Relating to Women: Using the Dead Sea Scrolls as a Comparative Tool
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Carmen Palmer, Martin Luther University College

In Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies: The Need for Inclusive Biblical Interpretation (OUP, 2009), Cheryl Anderson points to exclusions within biblical law, observed in laws that do not take into account the perspective of the other, whether those others are women, slaves, or foreigners. Anderson argues instead for an inclusive approach, one in which the voices of these marginalized individuals are part of the conversation. Regarding laws that pertain to women and yet nevertheless exclude women’s perspective in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law specifically, Anderson looks to examples in Exod 22:16–17, Deut 22:13–21, and Deut 22:28–29. Certain Dead Sea Scrolls rework and reinterpret these same passages: Temple Scroll 66:8–11 appears to conflate Exod 22:16–17 and Deut 22:28–29, both passages that describe the consequences for a man having sexual relations with a woman to whom he is not engaged to be married. Meanwhile, 4Q159 Ordinancesa Frags. 2–4, 8–9 reworks Deut 22:13–21, a passage that describes the consequences in a situation of a husband questioning the virginity of his new bride. While contemporary readers and interpreters should not expect these ancient interpreters to apply a liberationist approach in the same vein as that described and suggested for use by Anderson, nevertheless, comparing the Masoretic Text of the passages under scrutiny with these interpretations from within the Dead Sea Scrolls offers a vehicle by which to see the texts through different prisms and to ask new questions. These new viewpoints can serve as a preliminary step for contemporary readers in establishing an inclusive approach that brings the voices of the marginalized into the conversation and leads to what Anderson defines as a “just biblical ethic.” This paper looks at these and other biblical law reinterpretations, observing a range of scribal responses that enable contemporary readers to see the women within the passages exhibiting a range of perspective and agency, whether evident or absent.


Innerbiblical Exegesis of the Isaiah Tradition in the Hezekiah-Isaiah-Narratives
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Lida Panov, Universität Zürich

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.


By Jove! Religion, Memory, and Identity in the Northern Provinces
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Rhiannon Pare, Princeton University

Historically, scholarship of the provinces of the Roman empire has focused on Romanization. Recently, however, scholarship has begun to more deeply explore the complicated and nuanced relationships of Rome and its territories. This shift in perspective leads to new questions, above all whether Roman subjects are merely adopting, part and parcel, Roman culture, or are purposefully imbuing proscribed ideals with their own values, symbolism, and shared identity; in essence, a cultural memory. Religious practices and images can be a particularly effective tool for the examination and analysis of cultural memory and identity-fashioning. This paper will examine the Jupiter columns of the northern provinces. An enigma of the region in the second and third centuries CE, these columns are exceptional in their unique visual treatment of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. While little is known about the religious praxis that surrounds these columns, they are a stunning example of the way in which Roman religion is adopted and modified to suit the particular peoples of a region. In these columns, we can explore the merging of disparate cultures and religions in a visually meaningful way- one that recognizes the conquerors while preserving the heritage of the conquered. Through the seemingly purposeful and concerted efforts of Germanic peoples to merge the conquering Roman deities and ideals with their own discrete motifs, religion, and symbolism into a unique amalgamation of culture, religion, and memory, these monuments provide insight into the interactions of these cultures and examples of the ways in which memory is made visibly manifest in the ancient world. This paper, then, will utilize these columns to explore the connection between religion, memory, and identity within the Roman world.


Parasite as Apocalypse
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Chan Sok Park, College of Wooster

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.


Travel as a Political Theoria: Paul’s Journey in Acts 13:1–14:28 as Example
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Jee Hei Park, General Theological Seminary

This paper reads Paul’s first missionary journey in Acts 13:1–14:28 through the lens of political theory on travel. The topic of travel began to appear in Western political theory in the fourth century BCE. Of particular interest to us is that many city-states in Attic Greece commissioned individuals to travel to other city-states and attend an event on the city-state’s behalf, typically civic or religious festivals; such a person was called a theoros (θεορός). In his History, Herodotus recounts the travels of Solon and his activities, or theoria, that involved departing from home, witnessing the event, returning home, and reporting on the event (The History, 1.29–30). These accounts laid the foundation for foreign relations between the states; it is no coincidence that philosophers of the fourth century, including Plato and Aristotle, understood the activities of the theoros as a part of political life (Andrea Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy, 4). Recently, Susan McWilliams has deployed images of travel and traveler in the context of political theorizing in an age of globalization. She notes that stories of travel create “in-betweenness”; travel attends to the diversity within seemingly homogeneous communities; and travelers obscure the boundary between the self and other (McWilliams, Traveling Back, 7). In this paper, I draw upon the notion of theoria and theoros to examine the travel narrative in Acts 13:1–14:28 as a political discourse. Paul, as theoros, departs from Antioch, visits different cities with the good news, and reports on his interactions and achievements when he returns to Antioch. This itinerary illustrates how Christ followers engender cross-racial, -social, and -cultural relations through sharing the good news. I show that Paul and Barnabas’s encounters with new people on the journey call attention to the diversity of those who heard the good news. Luke does not simply categorize as Jews or gentiles the people with whom Paul and Barnabas made contact on their way. Instead, Luke presents characters such as a Jewish false prophet, a Roman proconsul, the officials of the synagogue, and the crowds speaking in Lycaonian. Thus, travel in this passage becomes a rhetoric through which the gospel not only encounters different ethnicities, classes, religions, and languages, but one that also transgresses boundaries between and within them. Also, I shed light on how the narratives of Paul’s interactions and relations with the “others” portray him as an apostle. This itinerary includes two speeches: one in 13:16b–41 given to those in the synagogue and the other in 14:15–17 to those who call Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes. Through the faculties of speech, Luke demonstrates that Paul and Barnabas’s evangelical work and apostolic identity hinge on the reciprocity of the communication between these two and the “others."


The Rhetoric of Intertextuality in the Trimorphic Protennoia and the Book of Revelation
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Rachel Yejee Park, Yale Divinity School

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.


The Bible as My Witness: Digital Bibles, Visual Anonymity, and Performative Iconicity
Program Unit: Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts
Dorina Miller Parmenter, Spalding University

Digital Bibles, recently available in a variety of formats on electronic devices such as phones, tablets, and e-readers, have prompted discussions among Christians about their Bible-reading preferences and analyses by scholars about the outcomes of different kinds of biblical reading practices. Rather than focusing on the semantic dimension of users’ encounters with biblical texts in various media, this paper will consider how digital Bibles relate to Christians’ concerns about biblical visibility, or the act of being seen reading a recognizable Bible. In some cases, digital Bibles are lauded as exceeding the benefits of the printing press to spread God’s word throughout the world, for they can operate subversively and inconspicuously in circumstances where being seen with a print Bible is hazardous or undesirable. But in other contexts, Christians are encouraged to abandon their invisible digital Bibles and enact visible performances with their iconic print Bibles as an essential aspect of witnessing.


Apparel Oft Proclaims the (Jerusale)man: The Priority of Dress and Formation of the Subject in Isaiah 61:10–62:5
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Shannon Parrott, University of Oxford

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.


(Almost) with You in Spirit: Hierarchical Ordering and the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Shaily Shashikant Patel, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

F. C. Baur famous described the canonical Acts as a “consensus document.” That is to say, he believed that the author framed his text as a rapprochement between Petrine and Pauline factions of Christianity in hopes of putting forth the notion of a unified movement. Scholars like Baur and other have also noted the role of the Holy Spirit within the text’s broader project of Petrine-Pauline reconciliation. For example, the fact that both Peter and Paul are able to lay hands and confer the Spirit suggest that both are legitimate agents of the ascended Christ who are deputized to spread the gospel in his name. The presence of the Spirit is an “othering” mechanism in a sense – it delineates outsiders from insiders. That said, one of the most striking facets of the Holy Spirit in Luke and Acts is the fact that it is not distributed equally amongst community members (i.e., insiders). Not all of the Christian missionaries depicted in the text can confer the Spirit – Philip, for one, is unable to confer the Spirit upon the Samaritans despite his stunning conversion of Simon Magus. But it is not the case that only the Twelve can confer the Holy Spirit either, since Ananias very clearly does so in Acts 9:17. This paper examines the unequal distribution of the Holy Spirit in Acts, ultimately suggesting that the Spirit is implicated in insider-insider differentiation as much as it is insider-outsider differentiation. By establishing a hierarchy within a community of charismatic leaders, Luke is able to leverage the Spirit to elevate Paul to the level of Peter, yes, but also to distance figures like Philip. This hierarchical ordering serves as a proto-bureaucracy, a means to establish authority and enforce community rules among new believers.


Cracking Open the “Black Box”: How to Download and Edit Your Own CBGM (and Why This Might Be Fun)
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Gregory S. Paulson, Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung

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.


Building Babylonian Context for Biblical Interpretation: Approaching Cuneiform Documentary Sources for the Study of Exilic and Post-exilic Periods
Program Unit: Documentary Texts and Literary Interpretation
Laurie E. Pearce, University of California-Berkeley

Biblical scholarship focused on the exilic and post-exilic period has flourished over the past 3-4 decades. For the study of this period, there has been, until recently, limited support from the cuneiform documentary record: notably the Weidner ration lists, Babylonian Chronicle of Nbk’s early years, and a small inventory of Yahwistic names in the Murašû texts. Recent publications of cuneiform texts composed at the site and in the vicinity of the earliest settlement of Judean exiles in Babylonia expand the relevant textual corpus and provide information from which scholars may gain new insights on the Judean experience. Apart from the greatly enlarged onomasticon, the mundane archival content --- promissory notes, agricultural leases, and mercantile loans ---seems to have little to contribute directly to the study of the exilic and post-exilic periods. However, current scholarly approaches to the study of cuneiform archival texts administrative texts written in southern Mesopotamia during the “long sixth century”, which integrate methods at home in social science with traditional philology and history, contextualize the activities of individuals and groups within larger social and economic settings. The application of these approaches holds promise for study of the exilic and and post-exilic period, yet scholars whose intellectual home is in biblical studies may be less familiar with these texts and methods. This presentation aims to remedy this by acquainting the scholarly community with the relevant sources and approaches via an introduction to: 1. the number, chronological scope, and content of cuneiform documentary sources in the Neo-Babylonian (including Persian) period 2. traditional philological approaches and “museum archaeology” that support cuneiform archival research 3. existing and forthcoming digital projects, tools, and heuristics as resources for the publication and computational study of cuneiform archival texts


Jewish Orphica: Reframing the Textual History of Jewish Pseudo-Orpheus
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Andrea Antenan Peecher, Princeton University

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.


The Prophet and the Blind Man: Surat-al-Abasa and a Gospel Story
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
David Penchansky, University of Saint Thomas (Saint Paul, MN)

In Q al-‘Abasa 80, the Prophet Muhammad turned away from a blind man and pursued another who was rich. Comparisons to the story in the Gospels where a blind man seeks the attention of Jesus are inescapable. The manifold similarities between the two stories suggest a relationship in which the role of the Prophet Muhammad in the Surah corresponds to the words of the crowds in the Gospel story. Both sought to silence and make invisible a marginalized figure. I consider how this rather unflattering story about the Prophet functioned for its early audiences, particularly if one assumes the Muslim community knew the Gospel story.


Is No One Immortal? Traditional Greek Epitaphs and Their Adaptations in Early Christianity
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Michael Peppard, Fordham University

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.


Qoheleth’s Concept of Meaning: A Philosophical Account
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Jesse Peterson, Durham University

The words of Qoheleth have long been associated with the question of life’s meaning. Typically, scholars have highlighted and debated Qoheleth’s use of the negative term hebel as articulating the loss of such meaning. But this method often leaves ambiguous the precise sense or content of the “meaning” in question. My paper takes a new approach in two ways. First, by “reverse-engineering” Qoheleth’s grievances I will attempt to reconstruct Qoheleth’s positive view regarding what would constitute meaning in life, if such a thing were possible. But secondly, I move beyond the linguistic realm into the conceptual realm. Philosophy can aid our analysis of concepts, thus I will employ contemporary philosophical “meaning of life” discourse to bring greater clarity to Qoheleth’s implicit view concerning life’s meaningfulness. In particular, three important theories about meaning in life discussed in the philosophical literature will be related to Qoheleth—subjectivism, consequentialism, and intersubjectivism. While Qoheleth exhibits possible resonances with all three perspectives, I will argue that intersubjectivism best captures Qoheleth’s ideas about what would constitute meaning in human life. Meaning, for the sage, is located neither in one’s own psychological satisfaction nor in the world-bettering consequences of one’s actions, but in the acknowledgment and honor one’s achievements receive from one’s peers, particularly when considered across a posthumous time frame. To be sure, Qoheleth does in fact deny the possibility of such secured social approbation in humans’ experience, but my argument is that it is this particular understanding of meaning—not another—which Qoheleth consistently assumes and finally rejects, and our awareness of this brings further clarity and nuance to our understanding of the sage’s worldview.


Angels in the Temple: 2 Maccabees 3, James, and John in the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Jeffrey Pettis, Fordham University

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?


Shorthand Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Kim Phillips, University of Cambridge

This paper offers an initial overview of the various shorthand and abbreviated Bible manuscripts in the Cairo Genizah, using the relevant materials from the Taylor-Schechter Collection as a sample. Approximately 100 individual fragments resolve into 40 distinct manuscripts, each recording the biblical text in some form of shorthand. These manuscripts can be clustered and categorised according to the different method of shorthand employed. After the initial description and classification of the available material, suggestions can be made as to the possible uses of the different manuscript types.


A South African Tafsir of Praxis: Gender Based Violence in Claremont Main Road Mosque’s Sermons (2013–2020)
Program Unit: The Societal Qur'an (IQSA)
Margherita Picchi, Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII

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.


The Qur’an and Empire: Languages, Social Spaces, and Modes of Translation
Program Unit: The Societal Qur'an (IQSA)
Johanna Pink, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

This paper aims to take a global perspective on the emergence of Qur’an translations in the early 20th century, a time that was characterized by the dominance of colonial empires in the Islamicate world as well as the demise of the last Muslim empire. In this context, a new type of approaching the Qur’an emerged, a genre that was clearly, albeit maybe not always consciously, modelled after that of Bible translations. Some Qur’an translations were expressions of a new sense of local Muslim identity, connected to the emergence of nationalist ideas. Others were the result of a global quest for educating Muslims in their faith and for performing daʿwa among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Such translations, produced by Muslim intellectuals and scholars, were printed across the world. Muhammad Ali’s English Qur’an translation, first published in 1917, is but one prominent example which is all the more important because it was retranslated into many languages very soon. The fact that it originated within the Ahmadiyya movement, which itself emerged in the context of the British empire, has often obscured its importance. The same period that saw the rise of this new mode of Qur’an translation also saw a remarkable amount of opposition to it. Muslim scholars such as Rashīd Riḍā in Egypt and Sayyid Uthman in the Dutch East Indies heavily criticized Qur’an translations for reasons related to the status of Arabic as a language, the status of scholars as a social group and the status of Islam as a religion in the slowly forming nation states. However, alongside the triumph of the nation state as the only remaining model of political organization, by the late 1930s, opposition to translating the Qur’an had all but broken down and been reduced to the level of semantics. This paper will trace the global trajectories of the new genre of Qur’an translation in the first four decades of the 20th century, discussing the role of actors on various spatial levels: locally, within colonies or newly-founded nation states, within regional and transregional networks as well as in the global arena. I hope to shed light on how new methods of communication, travel and publication as well as the political developments of the time affected Muslim engagement with the Qur’an. Fundamental transformations of religious literature and religious learning resulted in a completely changed mode of interaction with the sacred scripture and gave unprecedented power to its translators, replacing the locally-rooted authority of traditional ulama. The Muslim world expanded to include the centres of European empires and their languages contributed to shaping Muslim discourses on the Qur’an.


Chronicles and the Ruins of Memory
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Dan Pioske, Georgia Southern University

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.


Editing the Lost: The Transition between 2 Kgs 10 and 2 Kgs 11 in LXX and HBCE Editions
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Andres Piquer Otero, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

This paper approaches the methodological and procedural issues of reconstructing sections of text which are not present in the textus receptus / copy-text of the Greek and Hebrew traditions of 2 Kings. Referring to versions, definitions of typology, and retro-translation of Greek evidence into Hebrew will be commented upon as they are applied to a complex case study: the regnal formula in the transition between chapters 10 and 11 of 2 Kings / 4 Kingdoms. The evidence provided by the Old Latin and the Antiochene Greek tradition leads to the particularities and challenges of editing a text in eclectic editions (Greek and Hebrew) that cater to appreciating the plurality of the textual forms as well as their diachronic relationships.


Navigating the Ambiguities: A Missional Reading of the Women in Luke’s Gospel
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Amanda Jo Pittman, Abilene Christian University

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.


Tawḥīd as Social Justice: The Anthropocentric Hermeneutics of the Syrian Theologian Ǧawdat Saʿīd (b. 1931)
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Paola Pizzi, Sapienza Università di Roma

Ǧawdat Saʿīd (b. 1931) is a Sunni Syrian preacher and theologian who, since the mid-1960s, has been at the forefront of the theorization of nonviolence in Islam through innovative Qurʾānic hermeneutics he developed from a substantial anthropocentric and social perspective. His first book, Maḏhab ibn Ādam al-awwal: muškilat al-ʿunf fī al-‘amal al-islāmī (“The Way of Adam’s First Son: The Problem of Violence in Islamic Action”, 1966), was a pioneering attempt to shed light on this issue at that time and to promote the rejection of violence in Islamic action and in social and political reform. However, Saʿīd’s contribution is much broader and involves a rethinking and renewal of the main methodological and epistemological assumptions underlying the interpretation of the revealed datum as a whole, and not only with regard to ǧihād. This paper aims to investigate Saʿīd’s interpretation of another pivotal doctrinal notion, namely tawḥīd, in order to show how his epistemology, based on the recognition of history – the signs of God in the world and in the souls (Qur. 41:53) – as the source of the Holy Book, brings to a de-dogmatization of this concept with the aim of translating it in social terms. According to this method, tawḥīd is the accomplishment of supreme justice, where nobody is above the law, while its doctrinal counterpart, širk, is interpreted accordingly as inequality between human beings, with the Veto right being currently its clearest example. Even the exegesis of Qurʾānic stories, particularly the one of Moses and Pharaoh, is consequently adapted to this social approach. What is remarkable in Saʿīd’s method is thus a decisive shift from the metaphysical and theological significance of doctrinal concepts derived from the Qurʾān to an anthropocentric interpretation, in accordance with Saʿīd’s understanding of God’s eschatological project, i.e. the advent of an era of social justice and global peace. A similar shift can be observed in his idea of sacred history, which crosses the boundaries of Revelation to become a paradigm for mankind to understand the present and, at the same time, to make sense of the meaning(s) of the Qurʾān itself. Hence, Saʿīd’s hermeneutics appears to be based on the principle of a dialectic relationship between the Qurʾān and human reality; history – considered as the source of Revelation – is hence elevated to the status of episteme par excellence.


"The Trial of Death Touched the Righteous Too" (Wis 18:20): A Comparison of Wisdom 10–19 with Romans
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Catherine Playoust, University of Divinity

Invited paper; abstract coming soon.


Transformation of Wisdom in the Testament of Job
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Anu Põldsam, Tartu Ülikool

The biblical book of Job contains many ambiguities that leave plenty of room for ambivalent interpretations especially evident in the reception history of Job in the Jewish literary tradition. Despite its limited place in the liturgy, the book was widely rendered in pre-rabbinic Jewish literature (Pseudepigrapha, Targumim) as well as in rabbinic tradition (Midrashim, Talmudic and gaonic literature, Jewish Bible commentaries), in the medieval and modern Jewish philosophy and mysticism. All these genres display a lack of consensus on Job. The long reception history of the book of Job helps to exemplify how intertextuality functions and how old material is reset into new context, how characters transform from one text to the other and within one and the same text. The aim of current paper is twofold. First, to show the transformation of Job’s wisdom as presented in the Testament of Job being one of the most distinct and interesting examples of the reception of the book of Job. This is done by focusing on two major transformations – change of heart and change of mind – that turn the passively suffering, unknowing and rebellious biblical Job an athlete actively and knowingly enduring his faith and glorifying God without any doubt in T.Job. Secondly, to see how the figure of transformed Job could transform the understanding of its reception history. As it seems that T.Job sets the perfect example not just for how and why to survive hardships but how true patience is possible only through recognition and acceptance of the temporary nature of all material things – and this centuries before Maimonides came to the same conclusion.


Review of John by Warren Carter
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Christopher A. Porter, Trinity College - Parkville

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


Cyrus the Great as the God of Israel in Isaiah 45: The Intertextual Christology of Philippians 2:5–11
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Nathan Porter, Duke University

Most readers of Philippians 2.5-11 have noticed one scriptural allusion or another in the passage. The humble obedience of Christ has been seen as a reversal of the proud self-exaltation of Adam (N. T. Wright, Morna Hooker, James D. G. Dunn), and it has also sometimes been suggested that the servant of Isaiah 40-55 (particularly 53) is in view (e.g. Richard Bauckham, contra Morna Hooker). These suggestions remain controversial, but there is widespread support for a Christologically loaded allusion to Isaiah 45.23 in Philippians 2.10-11. Isaiah 45 is usually seen as setting out grand monotheistic claims over against Gentile polytheism, making it Christologically remarkable that Paul (or whoever composed the hymn) would choose such a passage to characterize Jesus. I argue here that while Isaiah 45 does indeed make such claims, LXX Isaiah contains a few very peculiar textual anomalies that would have stood out to Paul (as they did to numerous other early Christian readers of the New Testament) that render the passage’s application to Christ shockingly unproblematic. More specifically, there is a surprisingly plausible reading of LXX Isaiah 45 that would suggest that Cyrus the Great – the chapter’s central figure – is not merely a human savior, but a divine one. Indeed, as I will argue, a very straightforward reading of the passage would suggest that Cyrus is in fact identical with the God of Israel himself. For instance, 45.14-15 seems to have the nations worshipping Cyrus and saying, “There is no God besides you, for you are God…. the God of Israel, the Savior.” If one accepts such a reading, then it could seem exegetically reasonable to apply v. 23 to Cyrus as well, so that Isaiah would be suggesting that Cyrus is himself the God of Israel. If that is the case, then a Christological interpretation of the Isaianic portrayal of Cyrus, such as Paul seems to hold elsewhere (as has been persuasively argued by J. Ross Wagner and J. Edward Walters), seems to justify the application of Isaiah 45.23 to Jesus as well. It seems likely that Paul (or the whoever wrote the hymn) would have made good use of just such a textual oddity. In other words, the appearance of Isaiah 45 in Philippians was probably not simply an audacious Christological assertion (though it was certainly that as well), but was also almost certainly an exegetical conclusion – either Paul’s or that of the hymn’s true author. In line with growing scholarly support for a more charitable understanding of early Christian hermeneutics and intertextuality, then, I suggest that the use of Isaiah 45 in the Christ hymn reflects the identification of unexpected but still textually grounded theological potential in the scriptures of Israel.


Temporality, Wonder, and Belonging: The Geometric Mosaics at the Church at Qausīyeh, Antioch
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Sarah F. Porter, Harvard University

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.


If These Walls Could Talk: Epigraphy as Performative Practice at a Christian Cave in Late Antique Bethany
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Scott Possiel, Boston University

From the late fourth to the early sixth century of the Common Era, visitors to a cave beneath the ancient settlement of Bethany in Judaea covered its walls with graffiti of all shapes and sizes. Today, more than seventy inscriptions remain at this site now known as the Cave of the Sisters of Charity or the Bethany cave. Written in Greek, this abundance of writing records individual names, invocations of divinities, and supplications for blessings. For the past seven decades, scholars have fixated on the text of these inscriptions as a sign of Christian “veneration” or “devotion.” This traditional approach has led to frustration, as the graffiti themselves do not identify the reason for the cave’s religious significance. To date, scholarship on the Bethany cave continues to revolve around this unsolved mystery. This paper proposes an alternative “reading” of the challenging epigraphy at the Bethany cave and at religious sites in the Roman world more generally. Rather than focusing on inscriptions as inert expressions of internal piety, this paper argues that epigraphic evidence may be understood performatively, that is, as independently operating on behalf of its authors and actively affecting those who encountered it. Approaching inscriptions in this fashion, this paper employs methods from contemporary studies which treat epigraphy at religious sites as more than mere sources for texts. Karen Stern (2018), for instance, has used the placement and careful execution of graffiti in Jewish catacombs to characterize this writing as gifts of comfort and protection for the dead. Similarly, Ann Marie Yasin (2015) has described acts of inscription at late antique Christian sites as “gestures of devotion” that manifest individual presence. These scholars and others interpret epigraphic evidence within its material and spatial context, paying attention to the ways that physical form, setting, and visibility can inflect the meaning of inscribed writing. Following the example of such scholarship, this paper considers the epigraphy at the Bethany cave as a performative practice in two ways. First, borrowing from the terminology of J.L. Austen (1975), this paper explores the ways that the cave’s inscriptions could “brings things into existence.” By virtue of their placement within an enclosed subterranean space and their physical etching into the cave’s plaster walls, graffiti were expected to materialize presence, realize prayers, and produce divine aid. These effects would continue so long as the original inscription remained intact. Second, this paper engages with these inscriptions as performances received by an audience. Despite their diverse appearance and seemingly random arrangement, the graffiti at the Bethany cave exhibit identifiable visual strategies for attracting the eyes of others. Even long after their composition, such inscriptions would invite visitors to remember earlier authors and compel many of them to leave behind their own writing. Pursuing these objectives, this paper will not only enrich the current understanding of the graffiti at the Bethany cave, but also demonstrate the potential of performance as a means of understanding epigraphic evidence at other religious sites throughout the Roman world.


Mining Memory, Forging Future: Performativity of Metal in the Book of Daniel
Program Unit: Book of Daniel
Emily Pothast, Graduate Theological Union

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.


Punching through the Line: Reading the Book of Esther with Hannah Gadsby’s “Nanette”
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Stephanie Day Powell, Manhattan College

Increasingly, scholars are arguing for trauma-informed methods to attend to the often-circumscribed nature of narrated grief in the Bible. To date, however, little work has addressed the transactive nature of biblical trauma, that is, how biblical expressions of trauma live on in subsequent retellings and continue to affectively shape us. We find one such example in relation to the tragicomic celebration, or “traumedy,” of Purim inaugurated in the book of Esther. The book of Esther has been assigned frequently to the genres of burlesque (e.g., Brenner 2001), comic (e.g., Jackson, 2012) and carnivalesque writing (e.g., Craig, 1995; LaCocque, 2007), while it has also been characterized as a response to trauma (e.g., Beal, 2002; Emmanuel, 2017). Such categorizations are not mutually exclusive, yet few scholars have investigated the long-term implications of the book of Esther’s use of the comedic to respond to communal suffering. The use of the “strange humor” of parody, festivity and laughter in the midst of the danger and violence recounted in Esther has typically been lauded as a subversive strategy of survival for the Jewish community. However, comic analyses have rarely included an adequate appraisal of the costs of sublimating the book’s traumatic core in this way. To trope the words of lesbian feminist comedian Hannah Gadsby, the book of Esther’s use of the carnivalesque “freezes an incredibly formative experience at its trauma point and seals it off into jokes.” Gadsby’s 2018 stand-up special, “Nanette,” abounds with humorous vignettes about hidden and mistaken identities, gender role-reversals, and misogynistic buffoonery congruent with the satirical social commentary of Esther. At the same time, “Nanette” probes the problematic relationship between comedy and trauma, bringing to light the insufficiency of comedy for communicating Gadsby’s experiences of homophobia and sexual assault. Much like the story of Esther, a Jew who must guard her identity in the Persian kingdom, Gadsby’s story of navigating the stringently heteronormative world of her youth in Tasmania can only find its fullest expression outside the confines of the traditional comedic genre. This paper undertakes an intertextual reading of the book of Esther alongside Gadsby’s “Nanette” in order to reevaluate previous comic and carnivalesque readings of the biblical narrative. Specifically, the corporate, universal and ambivalent aspects of carnivalesque humor, as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin, are reconsidered in view of Gadsby’s comedic insights and Esther’s reception history. The biblical narrative’s potential to perpetuate trauma by virtue of its comedic frame is also analyzed in light of certain medieval Purim celebrations where forms of ritualized aggression illustrated the dangers inherent in fusing anger to laughter. Finally, alternate ways of contextualizing the humor of the Esther narrative are considered with a discussion of Amos Gitaї’s 1986 Esther, a film illustrative of Gadsby’s desire to “punch through the line” and reshape comedy in life-sustaining ways.


Retelling Apocryphal Stories through Liturgical Texts
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Cosmin Pricop, University of Bucharest

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.


A Cartography of Kinship: Domestic Space, Tomb Cult, and the Re-mapping of Ephesus in the Acts of John
Program Unit:
Travis Proctor, Wittenberg University

According to the Acts of John (AJ), 1 the apostle John wasted no time in reshaping the city of Ephesus. Near the beginning of his mission in the city, after he had already converted some of Ephesus’ most prominent citizens, John approaches the Temple during a “feast of dedication” where participants are dressed in white. John arrives in black clothing, which provokes Temple worshipers to seize John in order to kill him (AJ 38). John evades this seizure, ascends to a high platform, and challenges the Ephesians to pray to their goddess Artemis to strike him dead; when they resist, he instead prays to the Christian God to “cause the demon that has deceived this vast multitude to flee” (40-41).2 John’s prayer results in the near-complete destruction of the magnificent Temple: “As John said all this the altar of Artemis suddenly shattered into fragments…A good half of the shrine collapsed, killing with one blow the priest, who was crushed in the crash by the main beam” (42). While some of the Ephesian crowd fled, many responded with proclamations of faith in the Christian God: “There is no God like John’s God, the one God who shows us mercy…Now we have accepted conversion, we who have witnessed your marvels” (42). With John’s encouragement, the crowd “got up off the ground and quickly pulled down what was left of the idolatrous shrine” (44). From that point on, the AJ claims, Ephesus no longer belonged to Artemis, but to John.


Why God's Justice Is Good News: God's Generosity, Impartiality, and Equity in Romans
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
James B. Prothro, Ave Maria University

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.


Colossians within Judaism? Christ and the Torah in Colossians and the Rabbis
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
James B. Prothro, Ave Maria University

Pauline scholarship has been refreshed by studies locating the historical Paul squarely within Judaism. These studies do not often pass into the disputed letters, but such an effort is important insofar as reevaluating Paul’s Judaism affects traditional accounts of the early Jesus movement’s development. This paper looks at Colossians, often viewed both as very proximate to the historical Paul and as containing an “outside” Judaism perspective, both owing to certain statements within it and the polemic of Colossians 2. I argue that the latter view is problematic. Colossians retains an ethnic and salvation-historical distinction between Jew and gentile, with Paul still particularly the “pagans’ apostle.” Particular statements sometimes read as abrogating Torah, read at face value within the argument, do not explicitly support such readings. Intriguingly, Colossians shows affinity not merely with structures and developments in comparable messianic-eschatological movements but even with the rabbis. As I show, the polemic in ch. 2, if directed against Jewish mysticism, takes the same stance toward Jewish mystics as did many rabbis, and the letter’s Christology—even where it appears to go beyond Paul—bears an incredibly similar framework to many rabbis’ understandings of the Torah as mediating divine presence, life in the next age, and as that through which and for which the world was created.


Jesus as Sacrifice, Sacrifice as Purifying Space for God, and the Gentile Body as Purified Space in Paul
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Jolyon Pruszinski, Princeton University

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.


Home and the Fourth Gospel: Hermeneutics of Domestic Space and the “Two-Level Drama”
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Jolyon Pruszinski, Princeton University

Language of home and dwelling appear prominently in the Fourth Gospel. From the logos “dwelling” with / in the believer (1:14), to the many rooms of the Father’s house (14:2), to the language of “remaining,” “abiding,” and mutual indwelling (Farewell Discourse) it is clear that the ideas of home and dwelling are important to the Johannine Community. For this reason alone, Gaston Bachelard’s hermeneutical theories of intimate space, as described in The Poetics of Space, merit consideration in the interpretive process. Further, in his treatment of the psychology of home, Bachelard insists that a hermeneutic localized “in the spaces of our intimacy” is transcendent of both biography and history. This paper contends that the prominent use of language related to home and dwelling in John provides a hermeneutical clue to interpret the longstanding history / theology issue in John (see Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, and Frey, Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel) when considered in light of Bachelard’s psychology of home. Martyn suggested the “two-level drama” as a possible explanatory model for some of the seemingly anachronistic data present in the Gospel of John. He wrote “The past- [that is,] specific events and teachings of the past- lived on with power and somehow mingled with events of the present.” The experiences of earlier communities that ultimately flowed into the Johannine community not only shaped it, but were viewed in continuity with it, and were conflated with the situation of the Johannine community at the time of the composition of the Gospel. This phenomenon has often been attributed, theologically, to the view of the active work of the Holy Spirit as a mode of continuity within the community of disciples, reaching back to the earliest disciples. Or, at its most banal, it has been attributed to the normal work of history, according to which the past is remembered inasmuch as it is relevant to the concerns of the present. However, neither of these ideas adequately explain the singularly powerful manifestation of this anachronistic conflationary phenomenon as it appears in the Gospel of John. Bachelard claims that any particular understanding of home is an amalgam of previous experiences of rest and belonging. In any new incarnation of home, he writes: “An entire past comes to dwell in [the] new house… [in a] synthesis.” Thus, Bachelard’s theory helps explain not only the presence of amalgamated “home” and “dwelling” data in the Gospel, but also the historically conflated perspective of the Gospel as a whole based in the experience of the Johannine Community. The body of the believer and the corporate Johannine Community are complicated, compensatory re-imaginings of the Temple and the synagogue community, particularly inasmuch as they operate as “homes” for the divinity and the faithful. Though not replicas, they replicate the functions of previous “homes” that have been lost. In this way, Bachelard’s description of the “psychological elasticity” of home provides a possible solution to the quizzical “somehow” of Martyn’s two-level drama.


A Battle between Good and Evil: Ethnographic Reflections on the Election from First Baptist Dallas
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Marie Purcell, Southern Methodist University

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.


“Make Love, Not War!” Interpreting the Imagery of Royal Violence, Intimacy, and Progeny in Psalm 45
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Richard Anthony Purcell, Florida Southern College

Psalm 45 is a peculiar psalm, even among the Royal Psalms. The psalm praises the mighty, even divine (v.7), king and celebrates the royal couple. Scholars have noted the lack of literary parallels to this psalm in the Hebrew Bible, choosing to draw upon ANE royal hymns and letters as a source of comparative data. The content of the psalm is generally described as a song for a royal wedding, with scholars often proposing that the song was used for royal weddings during the pre-exilic monarchy. Numerous scholars, though, have expressed concern at the seemingly discordant combination of violent royal ideology (vv. 1–10 and 17–18) with imagery of the king and queen intimately united (vv. 11–16). While some scholars stop at expressing confusion over the psalm’s constellation of imagery, others propose redaction critical solutions that place the final form of the psalm in the post-exilic period. ANE royal art, however, evinces the intertwining of such themes. In Egyptian, Neo-Assyrian, and Syro-Palestinian royal art, the royal couple appear on display in scenes indicating their affection amidst scenes of royal violence and victory. Re-reading the psalm within the context of ANE royal imagery, I will propose that confusion over the psalm’s constellation of imagery stems from modern aesthetic expectations and will reassess the limited proposals proffered by past scholarship concerning the psalm’s genre and function. Rather than simply presenting a snapshot of a pre-exilic royal wedding or a mosaic of a Messianic union, Psalm 45 displays a constellation of imagery analogous to ANE royal icons that construct royal identity.


A "Cordial Preference" for the Holy Scriptures: Zilpha Elaw's Memoir as Biblical Interpretation
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Jan Jaynes Quesada, Texas Christian University

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.


Al-Māturidī’s Typology of Waḥī: Towards a Nuanced Understanding of a Central Islamic Term
Program Unit: Qur’anic Exegesis: Unpublished and Recently Published tafsir Studies (IQSA)
Zarif Rahman, University of Virginia

This paper uses al-Māturidī’s (d.944) Taʾwīlāt al-Qur’ān to analyze the meaning of the term, waḥī, often understood to mean the revelation of God’s speech in the form of the Qurʾān. There is seemingly no clear-cut definition as to what constitutes waḥī. Is the term synonymous with the Qurʾān? Or does it have a broader meaning that extends beyond the Qurʾān? To date, most attempts to define waḥī by the likes of Toshihiko Izutsu and Daniel A. Madigan have been based on analyzing the usage of the term in the context of pre-Islamic poetry and the Qurʾān, but with little to no attempt to trace its conceptual development over the course of Islamic intellectual history. To fill this gap, I document the conceptual nuances of the term as they came to be developed in the context of al-Māturidī’s Qurʾānic commentary. I have decided to ground my analysis of waḥī in the literature of tafsīr given the eclectic nature of the genre. Qurʾānic commentators typically bring together the various Islamic sciences to comment on Qurʾānic verses, allowing us to see the function of a given term or concept in the immediate context of a verse as well as in the broader currents of Islamic thought. It is particularly advantageous to use al-Māturidī’s Taʾwīlāt al-Qur’ān to shed light on elusive terms like waḥī since the work is theologically more inclusive when compared to the more standard commentaries such as that of al-Māturidī’s contemporary, al-Ṭabarī (2016, 180-182). Indeed, unlike al-Ṭabarī, al-Māturidī reports a greater variety of early interpretations on a given verse before expressing his own opinions. Most importantly, he reports and expands on an extensive typology of waḥī in the midst of his glosses on the verses related to the term. A close examination of his typology of waḥī allows us to make an inference on the evolving connotations of the term in the Islamic milieu: waḥī comes to denote, it seems, certain indirect forms of communication that have distinctive theological implications, ranging from the paradoxical immanence and transcendence of the Islamic God to the infallibility of the Prophets.


Ancient Near Eastern Gods and Their Animal Totems
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Ilona Rashkow, Stony Brook University

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.


Monsters in the Ancient Near East: A Bridge between the Terrestrial and the Divine
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Ilona Rashkow, Stony Brook University

From earliest times, animals were represented in the art of the ancient Near East. Sculptures from the Uruk period show that artists were carefully attuned to the anatomy of domesticated and wild animals. During the late fourth to early third millennium BCE in Elam (southwestern Iran), craftspeople created remarkable depictions of animals behaving like humans – a theme that may have related to early myths or fables, now lost. Much of it was intended to communicate specific religious or political messages to audiences who were more accustomed to visual literacy than textual literacy, even when the objects were inscribed. Imaginary or fantastic creatures combining naturally occurring anatomical parts in an unnatural manner making them appear monstrous or demonic are found frequently in Ancient Near Eastern art. Even the simple addition of wings to an animal such as a lion was understood to transform it into a fantastic creature. Each of these various beasts embodied supernatural power – in some this power was harmful, in others it was protective. While the specific identity of most of these creatures is not known, their function is often suggested by their appearance or by the context in which they are portrayed. Some took on protective powers against the very evil that they or other creatures represented; others were innately positive and helpful spirits. Today these creatures are often referred to as monsters or demons, although these modern terms do not fully and accurately describe how the people of the ancient Near East would have viewed them. This paper explores some of these Ancient Near East artifacts in light of the Hebrew Bible.


The Last Unpublished Dead Sea Scroll: A New Reconstruction of 4Q317
Program Unit: Qumran
Eshbal Ratzon, Ariel University Center of Samaria

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.


Virgins, Maidens, and Camels: Redaction XI of the Visio Sancti Pauli in Early English Preaching Materials
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Amity Reading, DePauw University

Scholars have long noted the influence of the Apocalypse of Paul (the Latin Visio S. Pauli) on the devotional materials of early medieval England and Ireland. Eleven major redactions of the Visio have been identified and many have been linked to the anonymous Old English homilies of the tenth-century Vercelli and Blickling collections as well as Irish visionary texts such as the Voyage of St. Brendan. However, scholars have not pursued the influence of the Visio through the Norman Conquest and into the preaching materials of later medieval England in an effort to trace the transmission of the apocryphon between the Old and Middle English periods. This paper follows one particular redaction of the Visio (Redaction XI) and its connection to early English preaching materials, beginning with the fourth piece in the early Middle English collection preserved in Lambeth Palace 487 (s. xii/xiii), entitled ‘In Diebus Dominicis.’ One of the most striking features of Lambeth 4 is its inclusion of the image of a chaste maiden being led about and mercilessly beaten by three devils. When Paul asks Michael why this may be, Michael replies that although the maiden was pure in life (clæne), she was also “prud… swiðe and mo / di, and liȝere and swikel, and wreðful and ontful” [very proud and moody, and a liar and deceitful, and wrathful and envious] (Lam4.17a.19–20). The material surrounding this image in Lambeth 4 is clearly taken from the Visio and most likely from Redaction XI, a version of the text that was arguably created for a female monastic audience and features a similar ‘proud virgin’ figure clothed in a nun’s habit. Lambeth’s more secular maiden, however, is unique in the surviving Visio texts. This paper traces the image of the chaste maiden, and the closely related image of the proud virgin, back through the sermons and homilies of late Anglo-Saxon England in an effort to unpack its relationship to earlier redactions of the Visio.


Cheer Their Trauma, Celebrate Their Deaths: Billy Graham's Receptions of Daniel, Revelation, and Their Impact on American Evangelical Rhetoric of Global Trauma
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Jonathan Redding, Nebraska Wesleyan University

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.


The Injustice of Noah’s Curse and the Presumption of Canaanite Guilt
Program Unit: Genesis
Justin Reed, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

The strange story of Noah’s drunkenness, nakedness, and curse of his grandson, Canaan, often strikes readers as patently unjust (Gen 9:18-29). Therefore, a great diversity of interpreters have endeavored to clarify the putatively veiled justice of this story. However, I argue that attempts to rationalize this text have actually caused interpreters to import an unwarranted presumption into their exegesis, which results in poor accounting for the narrative details in the extant form of the text. By focusing on intertextuality and irony, I show an alternative reading whereby this strange Israelite narrative engineered to denigrate their Canaanite rivals may, in fact, have been constructed with an explicitly unjust curse that fits coherently into the overall literary framework of the primeval history (Gen 1-11). In summary, I argue that the depiction of Noah’s curse as unjust is part of the narrative drama involved in presenting Noah as—like Adam—a failure relative to human and divine aspirations for his life.


Food Security and Egypt in the Pentateuch
Program Unit: Meals in the HB/OT and Its World
Stephen Reed, University of Jamestown

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


The Hermeneutics of Chutzpah: A Disquisition on the Value/s of “Critical Investigation of the Bible”
Program Unit:
Adele Reinhartz, Université d'Ottawa - University of Ottawa

The Hermeneutics of Chutzpah: A Disquisition on the Value/s of “Critical Investigation of the Bible”


From Ezekiel to Daniel: Reworking Hybrid Creatures in Visionary Literature
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Megan R. Remington, University of California-Los Angeles

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.


Israelian Hebrew, Inscriptions from the North of Israel, and Samaritan Hebrew: A Complex of Northern Dialects
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Gary A. Rendsburg, Rutgers University

This talk will survey the three sources at our disposal for the recovery of ancient Northern Hebrew: a) Israelian Hebrew, that is, the dialect present in those portions of the Bible with a northern provenance; b) inscriptions from the northern kingdom of Israel, including Kuntillet ‘Ajrud; and c) Samaritan Hebrew. The overall goal is to determine the common lexical and grammatical features of this complex of northern Hebrew dialects from the biblical period, with a special focus on Samaritan Hebrew, per the theme of this session.


Medieval Christians, Talmud, and the Falsification of Scripture
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Irven M. Resnick, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

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 the Road to Perfection: Divine and Human Agency, Moral Transformation, and the Epistle to the Hebrews
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Michael J. Rhodes, Union University

God’s transformation of believers constitutes a major theme in the epistle to the Hebrews. The author speaks of Christians being brought to glory (cf. 2:10), being made holy (cf. 10:14), having the Lord’s laws written on their hearts and minds (cf. 10:16), having their consciences sprinkled clean (cf. 10:22), being purified (cf. 10:22), and, perhaps most strikingly, moving on to “perfection” or “maturity” (cf. 5:14-6:1). Such transformation frees God’s people from acts that lead to death so that they might minister to the living God (9:14). Divine agency is thus emphasized in this process of human transformation, but, intriguingly, human acts of moral and spiritual formation also play an essential and constitutive role in the process. The perfection that the author ascribes to Christ-followers is both gift and human task: the author calls the audience to move on to perfection/maturity (Heb 5:14, 6:1); speaks of the “training” that leads to moral discernment (5:14) and the “discipline” that allows for sharing in God’s holiness and produces righteousness in those trained by it (12:10); and calls the audience to pursue the very holiness that we might otherwise have thought was simply a gift to be passively received (12:14). Hebrews insists, in other words, that humans participate in God’s transformation through exercising their renewed human agency in concrete acts of moral and spiritual formation. This paradox makes Hebrews an ideal text for a theological exploration of divine and human agency in the life of faith. Indeed, Aquinas himself turns to Hebrews 5:11-14 in a pivotal discussion of how the believer’s reception of the infused virtues—themselves gifts that God “works in us, without us” (ST I-II q. 55, a. 4)—nevertheless demand and include human agency in the process of those virtues taking root in the believer’s life (ST II-II q. 24, a. 4). Taking Aquinas’s interpretation of Hebrews 5:11-14 as a starting point, in this paper I explore the interaction of divine and human agency in the process of human transformation within the epistle. I will argue that Hebrews both commends specific character-forming practices and understands such practices as human acts of formation that flow out of and participate in the Triune God’s transforming work. I will pay particular attention to areas of continuity and discontinuity between Hebrews’ account of moral growth and discussions of habituation and the virtues within both the first century and in later Thomistic developments in virtue ethics. Having demonstrated that the exalted depiction of the Triune God’s transforming work paradoxically leads to a greater emphasis on human participation in that work, I will conclude by reflecting on how this exploration clarifies aspects of a theological account of the interplay of divine and human agency in the process of moral growth; furthers our understanding of the ethics of Hebrews as a whole; and has implications for contemporary theological ethics concerned with issues of character, virtue, and formation.


The Jubilee Case for Reparations: Interpreting Scripture’s Jubilary Theology in the Aftermath of the Black Manifesto
Program Unit: The Forum on Missional Hermeneutics
Michael J. Rhodes, Union University

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.


Hebrews as Participatory Exegesis of the Old Testament
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Ben Ribbens, Trinity Christian College

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


The Problem of Midian: The Call of Moses as the Original Beginning to the Exodus-Conquest Narrative
Program Unit: Pentateuch
John Will Rice, Emory University

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.


Under the Same Sun of Absence Trauma: Human Resilience in Ecclesiastes and A Raisin in the Sun
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Mariah Q. Richardson, Gardner-Webb University

In the face of unexpected turmoil, people’s livelihood, lifestyle, and communal unity are often uprooted and disheveled. During times of trauma, various literary works are constructed to ask and answer the question of how to deal with unfortunate circumstances. Expanding on Cathy Caruth’s revolutionary work on trauma literature, Dominick LaCapra constructs theories on two types of past trauma: loss and absence trauma. Absence trauma solidifies a comprehensive view of the prolonged, multi-generational imprint of trauma where a specific people group is removed from the original traumatic event (loss trauma), yet still experiences the lengthened effects of the event. Caruth calls for a new mode of reading and listening to trauma since it can bring healing and unity across cultural boundaries. Given contemporary advancements in interdisciplinary trauma theory, a new and revealing way to relate the canonical book of Ecclesiastes to the modern-day classic, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, is not only applicable but timely. Given its Hebrew grammar and syntax, the book of Ecclesiastes’ composer(s) were likely sage-like tradents in the 3rd century BCE identifying as the Teacher (Qoheleth). Their writings were hundreds of years removed from the original traumatic loss of the Babylonian Exile; however, the oppressive societal, political, and economic conditions of the Ptolemaic rule perpetuated the systemic trauma of the remaining Israelites. The community’s experience with trauma led the composers to discuss themes of absurdity (hebel), toil (‘amal), and how to remain resilient in community. Similarly, A Raisin in the Sun was written during a time of absence trauma, given the historical background of America in the 1950s and the original loss traumatic event of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the 1700s. Again, the societal, political, and economic establishment of American culture in the 1950s perpetuated mid-mourning for the African American community since the system demands they remain in absence trauma. Just like Ecclesiastes, Hansberry hones in on the absurdity, endless toil, and resilience found in times of turmoil. Unlike Qoheleth, Hansberry puts a character to each concept allowing the experience to come to life. Her work allows modern readers a view of absence trauma and the toll it takes on life. What brings Ecclesiastes and Raisin together is their uniquely shared historical experience and themes. LaCapra’s analysis of absence trauma fits the profile of both Ecclesiastes’ and A Raisin in the Sun’s historical settings and literary content opening up new conversations about the texts’ themes of absurdity, endless toil, and human resilience. Since Ecclesiastes and Raisin share multiple similarities, even though they are years separated, they are exemplary literary texts describing times of absence trauma and humanity’s ability to overcome oppression through community engagement. By analyzing these two literary works together and their shared themes, it becomes evident that human resilience proves true even under the sun of absence trauma.


The Synagogue of Satan, Then and Now
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Aaron Ricker, McGill University

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.


Civic Genii in the Cultic Life of Roman North Africa
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
David Riggs, Indiana Wesleyan University

In De Idololatria Tertullian warns his fellow Christians at Carthage that their acts of kindness are rendered idolatrous if they allow recipients to express gratitude by asking their personal patron deities or the genius of the colony to be propitious toward them. Two centuries later, Augustine chastises Christians for participating in sacrificial banquets honoring the genius of Carthage. In his rhetorical dialogue with these believers the latter defend themselves by characterizing the genius as a focus of municipal patriotism, as opposed to an actual deity. So, who or what exactly is the genius of Carthage? The fact that the epigraphic record suggests that worship of civic genii was a pervasive phenomenon throughout the provinces of Roman Africa bolsters the significance of this question. Drawing mostly on Roman literary allusions, a consensus has emerged that tends to align itself with Augustine’s chastised Christians. Claude Lepelley characterizes genii like that of Carthage as deified abstractions—as opposed to bona fide divine personalities—intended to give sacred expression to municipal pride and aspirations. Accordingly, Lepelley and others (e.g., Belfaida; Saint-Amans and Sebai) attribute the prominence of the genius in Roman African cities to the Romanisation of civic elites and treat the phenomenon essentially as a cultural import from Rome. Lepelley acknowledges the plethora of epigraphic testimony for civic genii in Roman Africa and the fact that this evidence does not align well with his interpretation; but he minimizes and dismisses such testimony as merely indigenous confusions in the face of a Roman religious concept. The intent of this paper is to take a more serious look at the numerous votive inscriptions that document veneration of civic genii in North Africa. By analyzing and contextualizing this evidence, we will conclude the following: 1) North African worshippers employed genius to convey the localized presence, special attentiveness, and divine patronage of their chief patron gods; 2) While the use of genius in local cults in Roman Africa draws on the vocabulary of Roman piety, its use seems to be in the service of traditional conceptions of deity that stretch back to the region’s Punic past (e.g., Daimon of Carthage; Genius Terrae Africae).


Scorched Birth Tactics: The Eighth-Century Prophets and Rhetoric of Violence against Children in War
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Jason Anthony Riley, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)

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.


Masculinity and Kingship: Complicating the Violence of the David and Goliath Narrative
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
Jonathon Riley, Catholic University of America

The David and Goliath narrative is easy to understand on a basic level. The young, relatively weak, shepherd defeats the giant Goliath in single combat through the power of Yahweh. The narrative seems, at first glance, to glorify the violence of single combat and to be an unmixed celebration of David’s defeat of his foe. Goliath’s status as the Philistine “Other” makes it easy for the audience to celebrate his fall. However, the version of this narrative found in the LXX subtly complicates the violence of the account through words and phrases that cause the reader to examine the text in light of other parts of the Jewish Scriptures. When the LXX version of the David and Goliath narrative is read alongside the Bathsheba narrative, David’s killing of Goliath becomes an allusion to future events in the life of the king, subtly speaking out against violence against the Other, rather than simply celebrating it. This interpretation of the text makes the death of Goliath a jubilant, yet unsettling event. The reader may simultaneously celebrate that the giant is dead and Israel is saved, yet be unsettled by the reminder of what the kingdom’s young savior is eventually going to become. Far from being the purely ebullient and triumphal narrative found in the MT, this reading of the LXX version of the account leaves the reader with mixed feelings; an ominous portent of the trajectory of kingship in Ancient Israel.


"Until the Cities be Wasted without Inhabitant": The Book of Mormon's Reception of Isaiah 6
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Jonathon Riley, Catholic University of America

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.


Penile Substitution: Gentile Circumcision “without Hands” in Colossians
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Andrew Remington Rillera, Duke University

Interpretations for “the circumcision of Christ” abound (Col 2:11). Almost every possible reading has been advocated, from it referring to baptism (Sumney, Lohse), to Christ’s death (Thompson, Dunn), to the circumcision of the heart that Christ performs (Bird). One reading, however, is usually not even considered, or if it is mentioned, it is quickly dismissed without much argument: the objective genitive reading. That is, “the circumcision of Christ” is referring to Jesus’s physical circumcision. Commenting on Jesus’s circumcision in Luke 2:21, Origen cross references to Col 2:11 to make this very claim that Christians have participated in Christ’s physical circumcision and thereby have no need to be circumcised. In this paper, I outline several reasons why Origen’s interpretation should at least be given more serious consideration by scholars. I will argue why, although “the circumcision of Christ” is linked with baptism in 2:12, it is reasonable (given other observations) that the author is using the participle phrase συνταφέντες αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ βαπτισμῷ instrumentally, articulating the means by which gentiles have access to Christ’s own circumcision. Moreover, scholars agree that the audience was engaging in some Jewish practices (2:16), but since circumcision is noticeably missing from 2:16 and 20 they likely were not being tempted toward circumcision. Further, they were participating in these Jewish practices in order to curb their fleshly indulgences (2:23). Importantly, Philo is the only witness in Early Judaism of the view that the physical act of circumcision actually has a moral-ethical effect on the person (Shaye Cohen, Peder Borgen). Specifically, he thinks circumcision guarantees the removal of all passions, the most prominent of which is sexual desire (Spec. 1.8–9; QG 3.46–48). The author seems to have been aware of this kind of teaching and was thus trying to preempt any temptation towards undergoing circumcision since this would be a reasonable next step for those who already think Jewish practices guard against the passions. The author is able to draw upon the participatory reality of union with Christ to say that the moral benefits of physical circumcision that those like Philo espoused are afforded to anyone sacramentally united with the salvific and physically circumcised body of Jesus. What it means for gentile circumcision to be “without hands” (2:11) is that baptism makes possible a “penile substitution.” Since Jesus was circumcised, gentiles do not have to be in order to remove the fleshly indulgences (2:11, 23). Finally, since some scholars now affirm the authenticity of Colossians (e.g., Thompson, Bird, Campbell) I gesture both towards how, if Colossians is authentic, this Origenian interpretation would explain why Paul was later accused of still preaching circumcision (Gal 5:11) and, if pseudepigraphic, how someone could later arrive at this view from Paul’s authentic corpus.


The Influence of the Psalms in the Mystical Poetry of Hadewijch of Brabant
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Erin Risch Zoutendam, Duke University

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.


Caution: Morphology at Work (Though Not as We'd Expect)
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Elizabeth Robar, Tyndale House

“Inasmuch as time reference is usually established at the outset of a text and tends to be a property of fairly large stretches of discourse, it need not in principle be reiterated in each successive sentence; yet the grammars of many languages require that tense information be encoded (redundantly) on every finite verb--a state of affairs that might be viewed as a singularly uneconomical use of grammatical resources.” So writes Suzanne Fleischman in Tense and Narrativity (Routledge: 1990, p. 2) on medieval French, as she prepares her argument that the drive within language for economy consequently leads to a “strong motivation for recycling tense morphology to do other types of (nontemporal) work in discourse” (p. 19). This paper investigates if a similar phenomenon might be operative in the book of Job: in the midst of discourse in which neither tense nor aspect is prominent, might the morphological distinctions available in the biblical Hebrew verbal system be used for non-tense and non-aspect purposes? And if so, what ramifications does that have for our understanding of the Hebrew verb: how do we relate what we think we intuitively grasp as the ‘basic’ meaning of a verb to the various uses we see in literature? Select passages of Job will be presented, with the verbs and their predications assessed according to multiple categories (e.g. tense, aspect, grounding). The interplay between these categories will then be analysed and evaluated.


Gnostic Descent in Milton’s Paradise Lost
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Paul Robertson, University of New Hampshire

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.


Applying Cosine Similarity to Paul’s Letters: Mathematically Modeling Formal and Stylistic Similarities
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Paul Robertson, University of New Hampshire

This paper applies cosine similarity to measure the similarity of Paul’s (seven undisputed) letters to one another. This measurement draws from a previous monograph (Brill NovTSup, 2016) that hand-coded and visually mapped two dozen formal and stylistic features of Paul’s letters in comparison with contemporary texts from Judaism, advanced rhetoric, and Greco-Roman philosophy. This paper uses these previously-identified features to explore which of Paul’s letters were closer in style and form to one another, and in which ways. This remains an open question in Pauline studies, especially given their wide variance in length, complexity, and content. While certain letters (1 & 2 Corinthians) will doubtless prove close to one another, the goal of this study is to both test and verify such predictions quantitatively as well as to investigate other overlaps that may not have been apparent, such as between Galatians and 1 Thessalonians. Cosine similarity is a similarity metric, which can help visually cluster and classify documents. To do so, it uses vector-based measurement, which places texts in two- or three-dimension space, depicted as different lines on the x-y-z axes. These vector measurements reflect ratios of certain features within a document, not their overall amount of appearances. Such an approach is a marked improvement on commonly used word- or clause-counting methods, which rely on a Euclidean distance approach. Cosine similarity is therefore particularly useful in textual data sets of varying length, much as we see in Paul’s letters between Philemon and Romans. Cosine similarity’s vector-based measure is also useful in visually modeling different texts side by side, allowing for clear demonstrations of relative proximity between texts in novel but easy-to-understand ways. Furthermore, cosine similarity mathematical measurement and visual modeling is nearly absent from biblical studies, and therefore presents an innovative method for digital approaches to biblical literature. My presentation will involve an introduction of cosine similarity for a non-specialist audience, a discussion of the features I used to code Paul’s letters, an application and demonstration of the efficacy of cosine similarity to Paul’s letters vis-à-vis one another, and a conclusion that teaches some basic approaches for other scholars to use cosine similarity in their own work.


Lifting Up Jonah 1:5a in Light of Ritual: An Offering of Reassessment
Program Unit: Ritual in the Biblical World
Warren C. Robertson, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity

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.


Helping Teams Use and Create High-Quality Biblical Resources in Paratext
Program Unit: Nida Institute
Jonathan Robie, SIL International

Paratext helps Bible translation teams work together effectively to produce high quality translations in much less time than previous tools and methods. It is used by over 7,000 people from every language and culture, from diverse formal educations, and from diverse translation efforts to commercial Bible publishers. The UBS and SIL International software, enables consistent and accurate translation, based on original texts and modeled on versions in major languages. Paratext is free. Unfortunately, most of the resources in Paratext are not freely licensed. We have agreements that allow us to make them available to members of translation teams, but there are not enough freely licensed resources available that are of equivalent quality. We have been locating freely licensed resources for all Paratext users and asking for freer licenses of existing resources. In addition, we have added native-XML functionality to allow a wide variety of resources to be displayed with Paratext or created in Paratext. In this presentation, we will give an overview of Paratext, show some freely licensed Greek and Hebrew lexicons from GitHub as displayed in Paratext, and demonstrate the XML authoring environment with a Hebrew dictionary. We hope this will provide an environment that is also useful for pastors, researchers, and people who are creating new resources for translators or Bible scholars.


The “Myth of Persecution” and the Portrayal of “Totalitarian Rome” in Popular Christian Media
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Laura Robinson, Duke University

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.


Solomon’s Wisdom in the Traditions
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Jonathan Robker, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Perhaps the single-most influential quality ascribed to Solomon, particularly from a reception-historical perspective, is his supposed wisdom. Solomon’s wisdom has become both idiomatic and axiomatic in regions where the Bible has influenced culture markedly. Nonetheless, this topic, firmly anchored in the text of 1 Kings/3 Reigns varies in the witnesses, both in the quantity and quality of references to Solomon’s wisdom and narrative reports about its origins. Of particular importance for this observation are variants between the Hebrew Masoretic tradition and the Greek tradition. In this paper, I will cover references Solomon’s wisdom in Kings from a text-critical perspective and reflect on implications that the variants in the tradition may have from literary-critical and redactional-historical perspectives.


Nicodemus's Genius: His Reasoned Refutation of Rebirth in John 3:4
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Wil Rogan, Carey Theological College

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).


Praise by Nonhuman Creatures in the Book of Psalms
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Suzanne Silk, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

The closing verse of the Psalter, according to the MT, is “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!” (Ps 150:6, NIV and JPS 1917) Since the majority of the psalms deal with human prayers of praise, thanksgiving, complaint, enthronement, or vengeance, one might be inclined to believe that these closing words refer to human breath alone; in essence, “let everyone that has breath praise the Lord.” But the Hebrew in this closing sentence is at best vague – הַ֭נְּשָׁמָה כֹּ֣ל – allowing for the possibility of anything, and everything, that has breath to be included in this command – humans and nonhumans alike. This possibility raises the larger question: does the Psalter as a whole – in its final redacted and compiled form – allow for the possibility of this interpretation? Is there evidence elsewhere in the Psalter of nonhuman creatures engaging in praise of YHWH? Though often overlooked by modern scholars, the presence of praise by nonhuman creatures is a theme that appears throughout the Book of Psalms and which the final compiler may even be drawing attention to with these final words of the Psalter. Although often eluded to in a verse or verset, we see this theme clearly expressed in seven psalms in particular: Psalm 19, 29, 96, 97, 98, 103, and most especially Psalm 148. Each of these psalms either describes the praise of nonhuman creatures or addresses these creatures directly, commanding them to praise God. These references to nonhuman praise either serve to encourage Israel to praise God or they serve to amplify the praise Israel is already giving to God. In order to demonstrate the existence of nonhuman praise in the Psalter and its effect on Israel’s praise, this paper will examine the seven clearest examples of anthropomorphic praise in the Psalter: Psalm 19:2-6 which involves the praise of the heavens and skies; Psalm 29:1-2, 9 and Psalm 103:20-22 which describe angelic praise; Psalm 96:11-13 and 98:7-9 which describe the heavens, earth, seas, fields, trees, and all creation rejoicing in God’s justice; Psalm 97:1, 4-7 which describes heaven and earth’s response to God’s appearance; and Psalm 148:1-14 which commands all of creation (in the heavens and on the earth) to praise God.


Rethinking the Concept of Mission in Early Christianity
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Sarah E. Rollens, Rhodes College

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.


Ambivalent Future: God, Sinthomosexuality, and Children in Genesis 11–22
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Gil Rosenberg, Landmark College

God promises Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation,” (Gen 12:2). This promise sets in motion a complex narrative of potential children, actual children, and future children. In the name of the promise, to be fulfilled in the future, plans are hatched, wombs are opened and closed, children are put in danger and then saved. Through it all, God is there, manipulating the creation, direction, exposure, and protection of life. These dynamics reflect the patterns identified by Lee Edelman in No Future, and elaborated in more recent work, whereby the (literary) figure of the queer “sinthomosexual” threatens the figure of the Child, which represents an impossible, totalizing future. But in these narratives of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham, God plays both sides. Not only does he promise and enable the future Child (embodied in Isaac and, to a lesser extent, in Ishmael), he also embodies sinthomsexuality by preventing pregnancies, refusing to allow Ishmael to inherit the covenant, and placing both Ishmael and Isaac in danger.


Miriam, Wisdom, and the Goddess in Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Michael Rosenberg, Hebrew College

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).


“A Courtyard of a Non-Jew … Is Like a Cattle-Pen”: The Human Other as Non-human Animal in Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Jordan D. Rosenblum, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Critical Animal Studies troubles the binaries between human and non-human animals, exploring how reconsideration of these strict binaries de-privileges humanness and how such a reorientation affects the ethics and representation of both human and non-human animals. Recently, scholars have begun to consider how insights from Critical Animal Studies might inform their reading of rabbinic literature. This paper contributes to this trend by focusing on how the ancient rabbis used human and non-human animals to interrogate and delineate the boundaries between certain legal categories. My aim is not to offer an exhaustive catalog, but rather to preliminarily investigate some of the fascinating ways that, for the rabbis, animals are good to think with. More specifically, I focus on a few (of the many) instances in which inquiry into non-human animals are used discursively to de-humanize certain human animals. From a modern perspective, these texts are often difficult to digest, as they depict non-Jews as less than human. Seeking neither to critique nor apologize for these texts, I simply state that this discomfort is intentional, as comparing the human Other to the non-human serves – by design – to erase the important cultural distinction between their humanity and their animality. While Critical Animal Studies may re-evaluate the crisp binary between human and non-human animals, the ancient rabbis clearly utilized this binary to remove certain people from the category of “Us” and place them firmly across the border, in the territory of “Them.”


Can One Be an “Open-Minded Fundamentalist?” Salafi Discourse on the Use of Jewish and Christian Scripture in Qur’an Commentary
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Samuel J. Ross, Texas Christian University

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.


Too Practical? Early Modern Septuagint Lexicography and Its Effects
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
William A. Ross, Reformed Theological Seminary

This paper will explore problematic issues related to the history of practical lexicography, meaning the methods used to complete the various tasks involved in compiling a bilingual reference work. A fundamental decision in this connection concerns how to present lexical meaning in word entries. At a basic level, lexicographers distinguish between two methods: glosses or definitions. Although scholars have long recognized problems inherent in the gloss method on a theoretical level, it is still common in contemporary resources – and for largely practical reasons. This paper focuses on the long history of the gloss method, exploring how it arose specifically out early modern biblical reference works related to the Septuagint. Of special interest are early printed editions of the biblical versions and concordances, which provided foundational datasets for later lexicons. It is true that the gloss method is a sensible approach that can provide a reliable (if rough) guide to lexical meaning. However, the practical benefits it offers have also produced lingering effects within Greek lexicography at large. This paper will thus demonstrate that the historical details of how the gloss method has been practiced have led to errors that are still passed along in even the latest major lexicons of ancient Greek.


COVID-19, 1 Corinthians 11:29–30, and Discerning the Ecological Body of Christ: A Public Health Reading
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Barbara Rossing, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

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.


Divine Presence and the Ark in Ezekiel and the Temple Scroll
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
David Rothstein, Ariel University

The nature of the divine presence in Ezekiel has received extensive treatment by students of the book. Similarly, the question of the ark’s presence (or lack thereof) in Ezekiel’s temple has been the focus of much debate, with most scholars favoring the view that no ark was envisioned for the future temple. Yet, while many theories have been proposed regarding the factors informing Ezekiel’s position regarding the ark, most are highly speculative in nature. In addressing this issue, the present paper demonstrates that, like the Temple Scroll, Ezekiel maintains that the divine presence will be located above the future temple, in plain sight of all; this would seem, prima facie, to render the need for the ark as the deity’s earthy throne superfluous. At the same time, however, the Temple Scroll itself, does, in fact, mandate the ark’s presence in the future temple. The implications of this state of affairs for notions of divine presence in Ezekiel, as well as the Temple Scroll, constitute the focus of the present paper.


The Jewish Jesus and Messianic Judaism
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
David Rudolph, The King's University

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.


The Worm That Will Not Die: Isaiah 66:24 in the Background of the Prison Industrial Complex
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Erin Runions, Pomona College

The book of Isaiah ends with unquenchable fire and the worm that will not die. The final verse of the prophetic corpus expresses the trauma of warfare, but turns it against those who are rebellious. As it is cited and re-cited, it continues to amplify violent trauma and turn it against others. It eventually becomes a cornerstone of theologies of hell. In its transit through ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts, it is associated with the idea of prison and captivity. It becomes a “spectacle of pain” (1 Enoch 21:10) that contrasts with “this blessed land” (1 Enoch 27:1-2). One could call it a response to a fundamental trauma that consigns distress to the depths and instead propagates rigid utopic fantasies, whether religious or political. In later 19th and 20th century U.S. theological debates about the existence and duration of hell, this verse becomes a point of contention. Perhaps not surprisingly, these arguments about hell also have an impact on practices of confinement—slavery and incarceration. I follow these readings of Isaiah 66:24 as they represent and manipulate colonial trauma in continued phantasmic buttressing of the imagined “good life.” Ultimately, I argue, this text’s afterlives build disavowed colonial trauma into a thick spiritual, psychic, and cultural weft that reinforces the politics of the prison industrial complex and creates widespread support for it.


Re-centering Patmos
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Yevgeniy Runkevich, University of California-Santa Barbara

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.”


Skin for Skin: The Bible and the Morant Bay War in the Age of Emancipation
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Stephen C. Russell, City University of New York

In October, 1865, Paul Bogle and other residents of St. Thomas-in-the-East in rural Jamaica defended their peer against the vagaries of an over-zealous local magistrate. Warrants were immediately issued for their arrest, leading rapidly to an insurrection outside the Morant Bay court house in which over a dozen individuals were killed. Swift and brutal government reprisals followed, with over 400 residents of the parish executed or killed, and over 1000 homes burned. Although much smaller than the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 or the Second Boer war of 1899–1902, the Morant Bay war has been increasingly recognized as a watershed moment in the history of Jamaica and the Transatlantic world. The pattern of the Royal Commission appointed to investigate the rebellion and its suppression, with its emphasis on reconstructing the sequence of events and the legal culpability of the individuals involved, has continued to shape historians’ treatments of the war. In this paper, I take a different approach by tracing the Bible’s role in the war. This paper forms part of a larger treatment of Bogle’s war. Here, I focus on how biblical liturgical texts provided one catalyst for the formation of black ethnicity among Jamaica’s formerly enslaved population. Although an 1842 letter reporting on the demographics of the Baptist mission at Shooter’s Hill labelled and numbered African members and inquirers as “Koramantees, Eboes, Papaws, Bondas, Mandinjoes, Warnee, Kongos, Guineas, Chambas, Nangos, Housa, or Moka,” Bogle set aside complicated and contested ancestral affiliations under the clarion call, “Skin for skin.” This rallying cry for black unity against the white, buckra plantocracy, was borrowed from the biblical book of Job but given a radically new meaning, whose interpretive history I trace. Following the killings outside the Morant Bay courthouse, Bogle, a Native Baptist deacon, is reputed to have offered a public prayer in his chapel at Stony Gut thanking God for making him successful in his work, a reference to Psalm 90:17. Indeed, Bogle had in his possession a copy of the Psalter when he died. Throughout the war, then, key linguistic expressions drawn from the text of the Bible were used to frame the war as divinely sanctioned. This paper examines the interpretive history of these key liturgical phrases and their use in the war of 1865.


Surat al-An’am as ‘mufassir’ and ‘mufassar’
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Surah Studies (IQSA)
Sohaib Saeed, Freiburg University

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.


Ellen White: Bible Theologian and Social Justice Activist
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Stefano Salemi, Oxford University

Ellen White, the most important and authoritative theologian of Adventism, was a woman among the most prolific authors of the late 1800s. She has been considered a divinely-inspired prophet and has surely been a significant figure for her influence on religion. Nevertheless, her theology and her biblical interpretation remain almost unknown outside Adventist circles. Some of the social issues of her time were the Civil War, woman’s right to vote, slavery, child labour, immigration, religious persecution, politics and prohibition, etc. It is not always easy to critically analyse the historical context of her writings. Nevertheless, her biblical hermeneutics is at the basis of her social justice activism, and Adventism looks to Ellen White for guidance on several social-related issues. The paper will explore White’s approach to Scripture and some of the numerous statements regarding social justice in its various forms.


The Quivis Construction in Biblical Hebrew: A History of a Syntactic Change
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Nili Samet, Bar-Ilan University

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.


New Light on Proto-Masoretic Torah Scroll
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Paul Sanders, Protestantse Theologische Universiteit Amsterdam

During the past years, two fragments of a Torah scroll caught much attention since they appeared to date from the so-called “silent era”, the centuries between the writing of the latest Dead Sea Scrolls and the production of the earliest Hebrew Bible codices. The scroll was produced in the 7th or 8th century CE. MS London, Jews’ College #31, contains Exodus 9:18–13:2. The other fragment, MS Durham, Duke University, Ashkar-Gilson #2, was disclosed more recently in studies by Edna Engel and Mordechai Mishor (2015) and myself (2014). It displays excerpts of Exodus 13:19–16:1, including a well-considered arrangement of the Song of the Sea. In the meantime, Mordechai Veintrob has identified thirteen additional fragments of the same scroll, which originate in the Cairo Genizah. They show sections from all the books of the Torah except Leviticus. This impressive discovery makes it possible to test my suggestion that there is an exceptional relationship between this Torah scroll and the more recent Aleppo Codex.


A Reconsideration of Semantic Labeling for Hebrew Verbs: Interaction between Grammatical Aspect and Lexical Aspect
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Jun Sato, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto

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.


Scriptural Interpretation in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Deborah Niederer Saxon, Butler University

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), canonized in 2012 and one of only four women to be designated a Doctor of the Church, is arguably the earliest known female composer in the West. Her output was prolific, comprising more than seventy pieces of music, and her subjects included female figures in scripture such as the Virgin Mary as well as figures like Divine Love (personified as feminine). Her music was used primarily within the confines of her own convent (sung by the nuns who performed the Divine Office eight times a day), but interestingly, her musical compositions have become quite popular in recent decades and have therefore spread far beyond their original, circumscribed context. This paper will present the findings of research about how Hildegard represented female figures from the Bible to present nuanced and sophisticated theological views. The presentation will also explore the ways in which themes in her music, writing, and illustrations are interwoven. Fascinating details (such as the fact that in her longest musical work, a morality play, the devil was given only a speaking part rather than any lines to sing) allow us to grasp the ways in which a strong woman managed to subvert at least partially the structures of a medieval society which tried to mold women into submissive roles.


Actualization of Intersectionality
Program Unit: Korean Biblical Colloquium
Najeeba Sayeed, Chicago Theological Seminary

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.


Reversing Eden: The Intertextual Inversion of Genesis 1–3 in John’s Passion
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Nicholas J. Schaser, Macalester College

Recent scholarship has highlighted echoes of the Eden narrative in John’s Passion (Litwa: 2010; Klink III: 2016; Crowe: 2017), but parallels are limited to shared garden imagery (Gen 2-3 // Jn 18:1; 19:41) and the declarations of “Behold, the man” (Gen 3:22 // Jn 19:5). Several other points of linguistic and thematic contact, which have gone unnoticed, show that John 19-20 reads as a complete reversal of Genesis 1-3 LXX. The Gospel writer’s intertextual work shows how Jesus’ death reverses Adam’s sin and precedes a new creation marked by Christ’s resurrection. John 19 begins with Jesus wearing “thorns” (19:2, 5)—the agricultural curse that causes Adam’s toil (Gen 3:18). After Pilate echoes God’s post-transgression statement (“Behold, the man”), he is told that Jesus should die because he “made himself the Son of God” (19:7). “When Pilate heard (akouo) this word, he was very afraid (phobeo)” (19:8), just as Adam was “afraid” when he “heard” God in Eden (3:10). Then, Pilate's question to Jesus, “Where are you from?” (19:9), echoes God asking Adam, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). At the cross, the soldiers’ removal of Jesus’ “undergarment” (chiton; 19:23) renders him naked, which recalls God clothing the naked couple with “garments” (chitonas; 3:21). After Jesus dies, blood and water—symbols of life (cf. Jn 4:14; 6:53-54)—flow from his “side” (pleura) in an echo of Eve (Zoe [“Life”]; Gen 3:20) coming from Adam’s side (2:21-22). Jesus’ body is entombed in a garden where no one had been “placed” (tithemi; 19:41), just as God had “placed” Adam in the Garden of Eden (2:8, 15). Finally, Mary Magdalene’s arrival at the tomb on the “first” (mia) of the week, while it is still “dark” (skotia), brings the reader back to the “first day” of creation when “darkness” preceded divine intervention (Jn 20:1 // Gen 1:2, 5). John employs intertextuality throughout the Passion narrative to underscore the theological import of Jesus’ death as an erasure of primordial transgression and an Edenic return to eternal life.


“Making My Prayer with Joy”: Prayer, Absence, and Emotion in the Letters of Paul
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Ryan Schellenberg, Methodist Theological School in Ohio

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.


A Re-examination of Verbal Agreement with Conjoined Subjects in Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Jesse Scheumann, Sattler College

Sentences that have conjoined subjects but a singular verb (e.g. Exod 10:3) occur quite frequently in Biblical Hebrew (BH). This phenomenon is called partial agreement, and within BH it is highly influenced—but not determined—by word order. In the corpus of Genesis–2 Kings, there is an 8:1 ratio of singular:plural verbs with conjoined subjects in VS clauses. However, in SV clauses, there is a 3:1 ratio of plural:singular verbs with conjoined subjects. Several studies have taken the optional singular verb agreement, particularly in VS clauses, to be an indicator of the discourse primacy of the first conjunct (Levi 1987, Revell 1993, de Regt 1996, Shepherd 2011), but this conclusion has been reached without addressing the full complexity of the syntactic data. Discourse analysis ought rather to be built on the firm foundation of syntactic theory. There have been a few generative analyses of partial agreement in BH (Naudé 1999, Doron 2000, Holmstedt 2009), but as Holmstedt (2009) admits, “This small data set presents numerous complexities and they warrant further study.” This paper seeks to finish laying the foundation of syntactic theory, in order to limit—but also strengthen—the application of discourse analysis to explain these agreement asymmetries. In this paper, I adopt the view that within a hierarchical coordination structure the conjuncts function as specifier and complement (Kayne 1994, Zoerner 1995, Johannessen 1998), and that the coordinator functions as a defective head (te Velde 2005, Zhang 2010). Recent surveys of partial agreement present a cross-linguistic inventory of attested and unattested patterns (Murphy and Puškar 2018, Nevins and Weisser 2019). I provide an account for the BH pattern by assuming that the coordination head is deficient in assigning number (Kiss 2012), and that the c-commanded specifier and head are equally accessible targets for agreement (Crone 2016). This theoretical approach provides a framework for agreement that is sensitive to movement and word order, conjunct binding and anaphora, and antecedent accessibility within the discourse.


No Future without Repentance: Pentateuchal Precedents for Reparative Justice
Program Unit: Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Matthew Schlimm, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

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.


The Allegorical Key: Revelation and Its Interpretation in Eastern Commentators
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
T.C. Schmidt, Fairfield University

Many in the ancient and medieval churches found the content of Revelation to be irrefutably nonsensical, impossible, and contradictory; thus Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of predecessors who convicted the book of being ‘without sense or argument.’ Revelation seems to have earned such judgment in part for its paradoxical descriptions of transparent gold (Rev 21:21), a slain lamb that also happens to be a lion (Rev 5:6), robes that are made white by being dipped in blood (Rev 7:14), and other implausible scenes like fire that is mixed with hail (Rev. 8:7), and a sword coming out of Jesus’s mouth (Rev. 1:16). When confronted with such interpretive challenges, Dionysius confessed that Revelation was ‘impossible to understand according to the literal sense’ In this paper I show that eastern Revelation commentators generally followed Dionysius’ early observation and hence interpreted the text of Revelation through various allegorical techniques designed to absolve the text of contradiction and imbue it with profound meaning . I first describe how certain commentators — such as Andrew of Caesarea, Nerses of Lambron, and Ibn Kātib Qayṣar — present their exegetical repertoire to their readers and then examine their techniques in praxis by focusing on two particularly vexing moments: the door in heaven (Rev 4:1) and the impossible army (Rev 9:13-21). I show how for many commentators the heavenly door proved to be an allegorical key able to unlock the remainder of the text and, also, how such a key allowed commentators to then comprehend the incredible army described in Revelation chapter nine.


The Joseph Narrative, Inheritance Disputes, and Property Law
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Jonathan Schmidt-Swartz, New York University

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.”


Like Parent, Like Offspring: Old Testament Use of Scripture and New Testament Use of Scripture
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Gary Schnittjer, Cairn University

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


The Death of Moses, and the Understanding of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10
Program Unit: Midrash
Jon Schofer, University of Texas at Austin

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.


Reading the Reference to Lot's Wife as an "Unknown Women's Monument": A Study of Yehuda Levy-Aldema's Artworks on Gen. 19:26
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Susanne Scholz, Southern Methodist University

The Israeli artist, Yehuda Levy-Aldema (1957-), made seven abstract sculptures on Gen. 19:26, the verse about Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt. Each artwork interprets one of the six words that appear in the Hebrew verse; the seventh piece deals with the first waw-conjunctive as a separately important moment of the transformation depicted in verse 26. As the artist grounds himself in a slow reading of the biblical text as well as in the related rabbinic literature and art history, each sculpture contains rich symbolic meaning closely tied to the biblical word under consideration. Since Levy-Aldema’s art is contemporary, his biblical sculptures are not representative art, as typically found in “biblical art.” They are abstract artworks that do not look like “Bible art.” Instead, they are three-dimensional sculptures of various shapes, colors, and human-made and found materials. Every element of each piece carries symbolic meaning, and no feature is arbitrary or accidental. As the paper explains the major elements of each of the seven sculptures, the significance of Levy-Aldema’s artworks will become clear. They turn this biblical verse into a literary monument to the “unknown woman” who has empathy for her family and, ultimately, for humankind. Thus, in the art of Levy-Aldema, verse 26 gets a mythic quality, memorializing the “unknown woman” who cares for all living beings. We are invited to remember her as such today.


Exploring Interpretations of Biblical Rape Texts with the Inter(con)text of the Public Discourse on the Coronavirus Pandemic
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
Susanne Scholz, Southern Methodist University

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.


Birth and Death in Shunem: Infertility and Child Mortality in 2 Kings 4
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
David A. Schones, Austin College

Biblical scholarship on prophetic violence against women and children in 1 and 2 Kings often centers on the conflict between Elijah and Jezebel or Elisha’s confrontation with the youths from Bethel. In comparison, the Shunammite woman’s conception in 2 Kings 4 seems rather benign. The story does not contain overt physical violence and the first half of the narrative provides a detailed account of the birth of a son. Yet, upon her child’s untimely death, the Shunammite woman expresses indignation at Elisha’s treatment towards her. As she proclaims, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, do not mislead me?” (2 Kgs. 4:28). Her statement underscore the social stigma and complexity surrounding infertility, reproduction, and child mortality in this story. This essay analyzes the stigmatization of infertility and the violence associated with child mortality in 2 Kings 4. It proceeds in two parts. The first part focuses on the conceptualization of the Shunammite woman’s infertility. It examines the social expectations regarding childlessness and shows how the normative role of motherhood results in Elisha’s declaration regarding her conception. The second part centers on child mortality and the Shunammite woman’s anger with Elisha. It explores how her indignation challenges the prophet’s role in this text. It also critiques the broader expectations around motherhood and prophecy in the books of 1 and 2 Kings. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the differences between voluntary and involuntary childlessness. It highlights how reproductive choice is at the center of the conflict between the Shunammite woman and the prophet Elisha.


Protecting Mary’s Virginity: An Overlooked “Western Non-interpolation” in Mark's Gospel?
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Elizabeth Schrader, Duke University

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.


On the Israelite and Judean Monarchies: Observing Comparative Historiographic Tendencies in the Book of Kings
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
David B. Schreiner, Wesley Biblical Seminary

In a forthcoming article (“ ’Now Rehoboam, Son of Solomon, Reigned in Judah’: Considering the Structural Divisions of Kings and the Significance of 1 Kgs 14:21,” AJIBS, forthcoming), I argue for a three-fold division regarding the structure of Kings, which stems from the dynamics of the regnal framework and ultimately highlights the era of the Divided Monarchy (A three-fold structural breakdown has also been argued for recently by Nathan Lovell [The Book of Kings and Exilic Identity: 1 and 2 Kings as a Work of Political Historiography [PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2019], albeit with different emphases). And given the general pattern of interchange after 1 Kgs 14:21, which alternates between Judean and Israelite reigns, one can generally understand Kings as a comparative history—defined as the study of different societies or social institutions linked by time and/or shared culture. Assuming this dynamic, this paper applies ideas of comparative historiography to an investigation of the Israelite and Judean monarchies. Specifically employing the ideas of Skocpol and Somers (“The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22.2 [1980]: 174–97), who argue that comparative historiography emphasizes certain tendencies (parallel comparative, contrastive, or macro-causal), I argue that Kings exhibits both contrastive and macro-causal tendencies when discussing the monarchal institution in relation to the prophetic institution, their capital cities, and covenantal realities. Contrastively, there is tendency to emphasize how the Davidic dynasty, Jerusalem, and a general acceptance of the prophetic voice distinguished the Judean monarchy over the Israelite one, even explaining its longevity. On the other hand, important passages push back against any hasty generalization that Judah’s dynasty with its capital, as well as its general willingness to accept the prophetic voice, will secure its perpetual endurance, all of which is indicative of a phenomenon inherent to macro-causal analyses. Such a historiographic convergence in Kings bears witness to the complexities of history and historical analysis, and the book ultimately answer’s its driving historical question—“How and why did God’s people end up in exile?”—in a complex fashion. Undoubtedly, the diachronic history of Kings explains the observed historiographic complexity, and so this essay concludes with commentary on how historiographic ideology informs any historical critical investigation of Kings.


Between Contrastive and Macro-causal Tendencies: Comparative Historiography in Kings
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
David B. Schreiner, Wesley Biblical Seminary

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


The Coptic Tradition in the ECM: Developments, Achievements, Prospect
Program Unit: Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior
Katharina Schröder, Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung

The Coptic tradition has been an important part of the versional contributions for the ECM. Besides the citations in the ECM, working with the Coptic tradition has also brought many achievements which will be presented as an overview in the first part of this paper. During the work, updates and additions to the list of Coptic New Testament manuscripts were made and new digital tools were created and developed. Moreover, editions of the Sahidic text of the Catholic Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse were published. After the Sahidic, Bohairic and Fayyumic traditions were entered into the apparatus of the ECM of Acts (published 2017), the Sahidic and Fayyumic transcriptions were added to the digital framework of the Münster NT.VMR so it is possible now to access the relevant Coptic witnesses directly through a link next to the Greek apparatus of a selected verse. The second and main part of the paper is focused on the work on the Gospel of Mark. Starting in 2017, 88 Sahidic and 7 Fayyumic manuscripts have now been transcribed. Regarding the Sahidic, numerous important witnesses, among them some fully preserved manuscripts – a rarity in Coptic manuscripts – were taken note of for the first time. Therefore, even though G.W. Horner’s edition of Bohairic Mark, which is now over a century old, is still useful for correlating Coptic variants to Greek, his Sahidic edition can now be vastly updated in the future. It is well known that two or three different Sahidic versions of Mark existed. Thanks to the work of Mme. Anne Boud’hors, much headway has been made in the research of the relationship between the Sahidic and Greek traditions. The entries of the Coptic Sahidic manuscripts into the Greek apparatus of the ECM enable us to search for further coherences in detail. This will be shown with some examples from the first chapters of the Gospel of Mark. The paper also presents some of the specific challenges that the assignment of Coptic to the Greek variants holds, and discusses some of the characteristics of this Gospel.


Maria Stewart, Buried Talents, and the Daughters of Africa
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Joy A. Schroeder, Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University

“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.


Mother of All Living
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Silvia Schroer, University of Bern

The iconographic connection between women or goddesses with plants and animals has been very firm in the Ancient Near East from earliest epochs on. Some years ago finds from Northern Galilee (Hagosherim) surprisingly proved that the pictorial connection between the female pubic triangle and wild goats beside a tree is even older we had known so far. The finds date to the late Neolithic or beginning Chalcolithic era, whereas until then the motive had been known from Early Bronze Age artefacts only. The association of the vulva, goats or ibexes, trees or branches focuses on the female power of creating, bringing forth living things like plants and animals, not only giving birth to human beings. This is precisely what the biblical wording “mother of all living” in Genesis 3,20 means. To be mother or father in antiquity always, also in metaphorical language, hints to procreation and origin. So Hawwah, Eva, is the source and provenance of all living. The title for the first woman on earth is a mythological title referring to the lifegiving power of the goddesses. The Chalcolithic finds furthermore point to a connection between the early concept of goddess and the dead or the cult of the dead. The earth goddess, bringing forth life of plants, animals and humans, does not only feed the living, but also the dead. The cycle of life comes to its end and back to its beginning when the deceased are put back to earth, who had brought them to life and nourished them. As it says in Job 1,21: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, naked I will get back there.” The link between goddesses and the dead could possibly offer an explanation why in the course of the developing YHWH-monotheism the world of the dead was factored out or explicitly excluded from the belief until even Hellenistic times.


Homework Activities for Bolstering Reading Comprehension
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Brian Schultz, Fresno Pacific University

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 Wood Offering and Festival in Jubilees and the Temple Scroll
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Avram Schwartz, University of Virginia

This paper examines closely two treatments of laws about wood in Second Temple literature, namely Jubilees 21 and the Temple Scroll, cols. 23-25. I take each of these legal discussions in turn and work to uncover what the individual compositions reveal about their conceptions of the wood laws through their literary structures and reworking of their sources. One line of traditions, framed as priestly teaching passed on from patriarch to patriarch, is found in the Aramaic Levi Document, the Testament of Levi, and Jubilees. These texts are concerned with the qualities of wood that make them appropriate for use in burning offerings. Jubilees is the most developed treatment, and I argue that it contains a distinctive vision of the cult as something that must be of high aesthetic quality, down to the aroma of the wood. In a separate line of tradition, following Nehemiah 10, 4QReworked Pentateuch and the Temple Scroll develop the idea of an offering of wood into a more standardized practice and finally, in the Temple Scroll, a new festival of wood. Reading the Temple Scroll as drawing closely on a related fragment from 4QReworked Pentateuch, 4Q365 frg. 23, I show that the former narrows the purpose of the offered wood to use on the altar, and draws a close parallel between wood and new oil and wine. In so doing, it forwards a conception of wood as produce of the land, requiring its own first-fruits festival in the new calendar. I conclude by considering what implication these interpretations have for how we read these Second Temple texts in light of their likely sources, in particular about how they treat apparently authoritative texts that are perhaps only later fixed and canonized.


Malachi in the Twelve and in the Latter Prophets
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Ethan Schwartz, Villanova University

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.


Uncovering Hidden Anger in Psalms 60–80: A New Method
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Katherine Schweers, The Catholic University of America

The paper sets out to create a methodology for identifying anger in a Biblical text when no specific anger terminology is used. To do this, contemporary psychology research is used to map out seven markers that can be evaluated in a text to identify anger even when it is not made explicit. These markers are: blocked goals, attribution of blame, approach motivation, vision of a way forward, entitlement, unmet expectations, and life stress. To illustrate this method a selection of psalms, Pss.60-80, are examined to identify where these markers are found. Within this selection, human anger at God was the primary object of study. A significant constellation of markers is found in seven of the psalms, all laments, and several of these psalms are examined in detail to illustrate the method.


2 Corinthians 3–4 and the Language of Creation: The Citation of Gen 1:3 in 2 Cor 4:6
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
James Scott, Trinity Western University

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.


Delineation of the Politics of Identity: The Textual Transmission of Isaiah’s Enthronement Scenes in the Parables of Enoch
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Joshua Scott, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

It has long been assumed that Isaiah influenced the development of 1 Enoch. Among others, George Nickelsburg has consistently drawn attention to the Parables of Enoch reshaping of the Servant figure from Isaiah: in both of these ancient texts, authors point to the Servant as the mediator of divine judgment and revelation. But is the relationship only ideological in nature? How is the field of Isaianic messianism adapted by the cultural context of 1 Enoch? This paper uses the motif of the Servant in Isaiah and 1 Enoch as a test case to strengthen not only the presumed intertextual relationship between the two texts, but to suggest a parallel approach to intertextuality through identity politics. Both Isaiah and 1 Enoch are composite texts with several parts that respond to and reshape their respective traditions in response to concepts of evil. For Isaiah, a heavenly court of law is assumed in the Day of the Lord in which those who have sinned will experience ‘pangs and agony’ (Isa 13:8-11). In Isaiah 52-53, the kings and the mighty are known to the Servant and the Servant’s sacrifice reverses their fate. (Isa 52:13-15). In the introductory oracle of 1 Enoch, the Great Holy One will descend from Sinai to execute judgment upon the Watchers and all the wicked (1 En. 1:8-9). On the Day of Judgment, ‘pain’ and ‘terror’ will come upon them when they see the Son of Man (1 En. 62:4-5). The Holy One of 1 Enoch will reveal sin to sinners in hopes of drawing them into repentance. However, the kings and the mighty do not know the Son of Man and their confession will not be accepted (1 En. 63). This circular inflection of judgment that develops in these two texts differ drastically: one that imagines future engagement with politics, one that identifies politics as a manifestation of evil; one towards the unification of the whole, one for the redemption of a subset. The followers of the respective Servants then assume a similar positionality in relation to God. Although the enthronement of the Servant is a prominent motif in both texts, the authors employ the motif for very different purposes. This suggests that between these two texts the Servant motif has not been seriously shaped by oral conventions per say, but rather literary and intertextual forces.


Failed Prayers of Lament in the Animal Apocalypse? Towards an Ideological Critique of the Efficacy of Second Temple Prophetic Literature
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Samantha J. Scott, Marquette University

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.


Thinking Poetically with the Second Temple Scribes
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
John Screnock, University of Oxford

Manuscript evidence and translations from the Second Temple period offer a window into the reading practices, linguistic habits, and thought processes of ancient scribes. These ancient scribes were inheritors of the biblical tradition, editors of the text, and among the earliest audience members of the text. This study suggests that text-critical material for Psalms can be leveraged to investigate views of poetics in Jewish antiquity. In the hundreds of variants attested for Psalms, a fair amount can be understood as engaging poetics. New readings might be caused by the scribe's approach to poetics—or by the approach of his reading community. And new readings might create new poetic possibilities in the resulting text. Though it is impossible to reconstruct the history of these variations with certainty, by attending to areas where there is textual noise we can investigate aspects of Hebrew poetry that were of concern to the scribes. In reading the Psalms with the scribes, we gain valuable perspectives on the mechanics of Hebrew poetry.


Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: A History and Synthesis of Latter-day Saint Approaches
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Joshua M. Sears, Brigham Young University

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.


The Woman Who Prevented a Massacre (1 Samuel 25): What Abigail Teaches Us about Nonviolent Peacemaking and about Using the Old Testament to Promote Peace
Program Unit: Bible and Ethics
Eric A. Seibert, Messiah University

While the Hebrew Bible is often noted for its violence and bloodshed, its more peaceful passages are often overlooked. Yet, there are many Old Testament passages that lend themselves quite well to those wishing to use Scripture to promote peace. This paper examines one of these, namely, the story of Abigail in 1 Samuel 25. This is done with an eye toward analyzing specific ways Abigail’s words and deeds effectively make peace and prevent countless deaths. Yet, while various features of the narrative clearly support viewing Abigail as a paragon of peacemaking, others complicate it. Therefore, consideration is also given to some of the challenges facing those who use this passage to promote the peaceful resolution of conflict. This paper will emphasize how Abigail exemplifies a kind of peacemaking that is active and engaged. Her behavior involves risk-taking, gift-giving, and gracious persuasive speech. Attention is given to the way Abigail’s efforts are thoroughly nonviolent and completely successful. She prevents enormous violence and bloodshed without harming others, and for this reason seems an ideal example of what it means to make peace. But there are some difficulties. As her own words suggest, Abigail clearly does not object to all forms of violence. In addition, she lives under the interpretive suspicion that her peacemaking is motivated by self-interest and perhaps even opportunism (an interpretive possibility suggested by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld in Just Wives?). In addition, Abigail also fails to model certain “best practices” for conflict mediation. Despite these apparent shortcomings, it will be argued that the story of Abigail can be used with great profit by those who desire to use this narrative—and others like it—in the interest of peace. To extend this argument and to draw a few connections, very brief attention will also be given to other passages in the Hebrew Bible which share certain similarities with the story of Abigail. Examples include the story of Jacob making peace with Esau (Genesis 31-33), the story of the conflict over the Transjordanian alter (Joshua 22), and the story of Elisha feeding and releasing—rather than killing—the Arameans (2 Kings 6). Old Testament stories like these can also be used to encourage the peaceful resolution of conflict. Finally, a few general guidelines will be offered for using Old Testament passages like these responsibly to promote nonviolent peacemaking.


Preventing Violence by Valorizing the Other: The Subversive Power of the Good Samaritan (and the Good Canaanite, the Good Moabite, the Good Gentile . . .)
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Eric Seibert, Messiah University

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.


Virgin Acts: Blinding, Castration, and the Violence of Male Chastity
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Jeannie Sellick, University of Virginia

As many scholars have noted, among the loosely associated 2nd century Apocryphal Acts of the apostles, the Acts of John is an outlier. Although none of the acts can be considered “pro-sex,” the Acts of John has a particularly fraught relationship to male sexuality — replete with necrophilia, penis severing, and even a divinely given illness to prevent marriage. Male sexuality in the Acts of John is uniquely violent, yet this violence often functions as the catalyst for conversion. In addition to, or maybe even because of this fraught relationship, John himself also stands out amongst his apostolic peers. It is well attested in the apocryphal Johannine literature that John is not merely the “beloved” disciple but also the virginal apostle. John converts married men with relative ease, is the only apostle not to be martyred, and he is the only explicitly virgin apostle. Not only is John a virgin, but Jesus has an active interest in maintaining John’s sexual state, even blinding his beloved apostle for two years when he tries to get married. For this paper, I explore the relationship between male chastity, virginity, and violence in the Acts of John. Following Virginia Burrus and Amy Hollywood’s description of queerness as a challenge to normative discourses of sexuality, I argue that John, is “queered” through his virginity and his presentation as a “bride of Christ.” As with other men in the Acts of John, the apostle’s ultimate submission to Christ is precipitated by an attempted sexual exploit (marriage) with an associated act of violence – Christ blinding him. Yet it is this violence that ultimately gives way to John’s unique and special relationship with Jesus. Like with the phenomenon of the later “female men of God,” John’s virginity breaks the gendered binary and places him in a liminal “third space” that allows him to challenge hegemonic masculinity. The queerness of chastity, both for John and the other men of the text, is positive. Chastity creates unique power, provides access to the divine, and, ultimately, it is presented as far more “normative” than the violence of sex. To put it plainly, the Acts of John attempts to reinscribe traditional sexual values by making chastity “normative” and all sex violent. Along with examining this phenomenon within the acts of John itself, I also consider how later church fathers treat John’s virginity and confirm the apostle’s special nature. Specifically, I explore how the 4th century presbyter, Jerome, appropriates John’s “virgin queerness” in his polemical treatise, Adversus Jovinianum. While Jerome is comfortable with depicting John’s virginity as non-normative yet special, he significantly mitigates the violence associated with John’s lifelong chastity. This paper sheds light not only on the specifics of the Johannine virgin tradition but also provides insight into the wider conversations surrounding male virginity in late antiquity.


Translator’s Additions in the Ethiopic Bible in 2 Sam 1–9
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Christian Seppänen, University of Helsinki

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.


The Poor and the Barren
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Hananel Shapira, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ever since Avi Hurvitz’s paper about Psalm 113 and its relation to the song of Hannah a scholarly consensus emerged regarding the two texts’ relative chronology, claiming that Psalm 113 is later to and based on the song of Hannah. This assertion culminated with Marc Brettler’s rigorous analysis of the Psalm, suggesting that the parallel elements, inspired by Hannah’s story, constitute an independent original prayer to be recited by a parturient, the women’s only voice in the entire Psalter. In my lecture I aim to question the consensus and Brettler’s suggestion. I will argue that linguistic considerations do not automatically lead to Hurvitz’s conclusion, and that literary historical criticism does not necessarily support the division of Psalm 113. On the contrary, the parallel elements in the song of Hannah do not merge perfectly in their textual surroundings. Based on some peculiarities in Psalm 113 (e.g.: the verb defining the transition in the barren’s fate, the unique combination of the poor and the barren, and the odd form of the noun usually translated as “barren”) I suggest a new interpretation of verse 9, using a different translation for the Hebrew noun ʿᵃqeret. I will try to demonstrate that my suggestion better fits the context in Psalm 113 and the social structure in its background. The unique meaning of the noun was later altered to the common meaning (as often occurs in citations and allusions) when the parallel elements were introduced into the song of Hannah. However, a reminiscent of this original meaning in Psalm 113 was maintained, implying that this shift was not due to misunderstanding, but rather a result of a deliberate Midrash-type exegesis.


“Will It Be Better for Onasimos to Marry the Woman?” Oracular Enquiries and Paul’s Advice in 1 Cor 7
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Matthew Sharp, University of Edinburgh

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.


Recent Aramaic Evidence That Fills a Chronological Gap in Divine Name Usage during Second Temple Period Judaism
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Frank Shaw, Cincinnati, OH

The Earliest Non-mystical Jewish Use of Ιαω (Peeters 2014) presented evidence for the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic Yaho as a living pronunciation for the earlier tetragrammaton among non-magical Jews in the late Second Temple Period. It focused on evidence from the Septuagint, Septuagint-based onomastica, classical authors, Jewish pseudepigrapha, and Greek inscriptions. While this material provides evidence for the later part of Second Temple Period Judaism, it leaves a temporal gap from the last correspondence of the Elephantine community to the Greek sources. In recent times two Aramaic sources that use יהו freely have been published and these help fill the chronological hiatus: an inscription from the Aramaic ostraca of Idumea and the now fully published P.Amh. 63. This data helps provide a more continuous picture regarding the use of this form of divine name throughout the Second Temple Period.


Ancient Magic, Theurgy, and Philosophy
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Greg Shaw, Stonehill College

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.


A (Dis)Unified Authorial Ideology of Psalm 68 in the Context of Post-exile
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
SuJung Shin, New Brunswick Theological Seminary

This paper explores how Psalm 68 can be reread in the context(s) of post-exilic life without the polemical vision of masculine, militant kingship. How might the post-exilic audience, especially living within the war-devastated “promised land,” who daily suffers insufficient water, food, clothing, and shelter, read the authorial voice of the Psalmist’s praise and thanksgiving? This paper asks how the audience may accept, reject, apply and/or reinterpret the unified and centralized authorial ideology(s) of the Psalmist especially in times of crisis and uncertainty. Given the Psalm’s depiction of war, the audience could easily find the tone and focus of the authorial voice(s) curious or even troubling. Particularly in this paper, I examine how the actions of women are described with language that mimics the voice(s) of the manful announcement, and how masculine military activities are elaborated. Amid voice(s) that speak of a warring God, the nation, and the people (i.e., men), there is a great “company of those [women] who bore the tidings” (v 11). While their men’s enemies flee, the women, accordingly, participate in sharing in the spoils (v 12), despite their supposedly passive role in the battle. Compared to “the women at home” (v 12), men will also enjoy achievement and triumph, despite their inertness (v 13), which casts a shadow over the women’s passivity and detachment from the “real” male-dominated world. In addition, some women are described as following the group of male singers and musicians in rejoicing and celebrating the victorious procession of God (v 25). Unlike the violent military scenes that eliminate women from playing a central role, young women may have been placed in the middle to hold a performance for the warrior(s) returning from a belligerent place. Are these women adapting to their men’s instructions for life to attain security, comfort, and success in a masculine “militaristic” world? Or are they used and victimized by the authoritative and androcentric perspectives? In (post)exile, facing the realities of no kings, the audience—both men and women—would not live the realities without the prosaic vision of the militant monarchy, which makes the language of the Psalmist not only open but also contestable. This paper aims to expose how the authorial voice of the Psalmist, in relation to the audience, makes room for various available ideological points of view, values, and accents.


A Response to the Proposed Textual Changes in the ECM of Mark
Program Unit: Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior
Elizabeth Shively, University of St. Andrews

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?


Consonantal Dotting in the Reading Traditions as Evidence of an Inherited Tradition
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism (IQSA)
Hythem Sidky, Independent Scholar

Traditional sources have long held that Qurans were initially devoid of consonantal dots and attribute their addition to a number of different prominent Basran philologists. However, even a cursory glance at the earliest Quranic manuscripts presents a very different portrait. Indeed, there is perhaps not a single surviving Ḥijāzī muṣḥaf except that some amount of consonantal dotting is present. Various surveys have attempted to make sense of the sparse dotting in both Quranic (George 2010; Déroche 2014) and non-Quranic material (Kaplony 2008; Witkam 2015). Most recently, Bursi (2018) presents a comprehensive examination of previous literature alongside a study of folios from the first/seventh century manuscript, BnF Arabe 328a. He notes that shared usage patterns between Quranic and non-Quranic material are indicative of a shared scribal culture and tradition, which also has implications on the intended audience. However, a conclusive answer to why specific letters and words are chosen over others remains elusive. The consequences of this sparse dotting are quite significant as far as the transmission of the Quranic text is concerned. Rippin (2001) has suggested that Quranic readings were derived from an analysis of the written text of the Quran, without any reference to a living oral tradition. Donner (2007) has also indicated that the reading traditions appear to be derived from the written text of the Quran. This, to some extent, is confirmed on the basis of a recent study by van Putten (2019) who shows that the Syrian reader Hishām follows Quranic orthography closely in the pronunciation of the name ibrāhīm/ibrāhām. Therefore, the sporadic use of consonantal dots in early Qurans raises the question: from where did the Quranic readers get them? In this paper, I demonstrate that a careful analysis of the consonantal dotting within the reading traditions provides evidence for an inherited oral tradition. An enumeration of all such variants between the ten canonical readings amounts to less than 300 disputed words across the entire Quranic corpus. Further numerical analysis reveals the presence of at least three distinct regional consonantal dotting traditions: Medinan, Kufan, and Basran/Meccan. Turning to early Quranic manuscripts, I show that they do not provide an explanation for the observed degree of agreement. Moreover, it is highly improbable that the Quranic readers arrived at their choices independently. On this basis, and the lifetimes of the Quranic readers, I argue that shared consonantal dottings across these separate readings represent an inherited tradition that must go back a generation prior and is possibly contemporaneous with the canonization of the Quranic text.


A Knot in the Rosary: Rilke's "Letters on Cézanne" as Liturgical Text
Program Unit: Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts
Dan Siedell, Drew University

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.


Herod's Succession Speech (War 1.457–466//Antiquities 16.132–134)
Program Unit: Josephus
Joseph Sievers, Pontificio Istituto Biblico

This presentation examines the rhetoric of Herod's succession speech, paralleled in War 1.457-466 and Antiquities 16.132-134.


Resinous Texts: Toward a Cognitive-Oriented Text-Critical Categorisation Model as Applied to the Judaean Desert Witnesses of the Book of Deuteronomy
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
David Joseph Sigrist, Stellenbosch University

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.


What Are You? Understanding the γένος of 1 Peter 2:9 as a Model for Carrying Out “Cognitive-Oriented” Exegesis
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
David J. Sigrist, Stellenbosch University

The field of Cognitive Linguistics emerged as a challenge to long held philosophical assumptions about the nature of language, and brought to the forefront the centrality of meaning when it comes to understanding language at all “levels.” Then with its insistence on using principled means that are empirically verified and psychologically plausible it has become a vast enterprise. Accordingly, in recent decades it has made inroads into Applied Linguistics and adjacent fields such as Hermeneutics, Translations Studies, and in recent years Biblical Studies more and more. However, with any novel approach comes new concerns and unique challenges, and incorporating insights from Cognitive Linguistics to the exegesis of ancient texts is no exception. This is especially true since Cognitive Linguistics as a field is not a unified, theory, but rather a varied set of approaches, theories, and models with shared concerns. While navigating such challenges of incorporating sometimes competing models to a text for whom there are no native speakers of the language and (in comparison to modern research projects) relatively little known about the author(s) and intended original recipients, the present work will focus on elucidating the meaning of γένος in 1 Peter 2:9. In doing so it will employ in particular Conceptual Blending Theory, Frame Semantics, and lexical radial mappings. The purpose is to demonstrate how a “cognitive-oriented” form of exegesis can build on and/or supplement traditional biblical exegesis.


Musical Prayers: The Use of Musical Instruments Associated with Apotropaic Prayers in 4QSongs of the Maskilb and 6QpapHymn
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Tupá Guerra, Museu do Tribunal de Contas da União

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 Persian “Royal Road” as “Social Network”: The Southern Levant
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Jason M. Silverman, University of Helsinki

Although the Persian road system has long been recognized as extensive, efficient, and effective (e.g. Graf 1993; 1994; Briant 2012), the domains of its relevance for the analysis of the Persian Empire have typically been restricted to military and administrative matters. Now that much more detailed information concerning the intricate systems involved in the institution are available (cf. Jacobs/Henkelman/Stolper 2017), it is clear that the institution also provided a social context for interaction among the subject populations of the empire. This paper will explore what this might mean in terms of Yahwists in the southern Levant (Yehud, Samerina, Idumea, and Ammon) within the broader satrapy of (Babylon and) Abar-Nahara / Aθurā. Although current data is not sufficient for a robust use of Social Network Analysis, its language and mode of thinking will provide a useful perspective for considering the road as a social space. Since Alexander largely appropriated Achaemenid structures, the continuation of this system as a social space past 331 should also be considered. This paper will 1) overview the archaeological data so far attested in the region; 2) summarize what is known about how the Royal Road functioned, 3) appeal to the basics of network theory as they apply to this system, and 4) analyze the social implications for Yahwists in the region during the empire.


Rewriting of the Jewish Origin Story: The Reconfiguration of Mt. Sinai Narrative in John and the Continuation of Ethnic Identity
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
H.B. Sim, The University of Edinburgh

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


Cataloguing Hypocoristica in Onomastic Reference Volumes: Challenges of Definition and Meaning
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Brandon Simonson, Boston University

Personal names are primary sources in their most essential form, each conveying a real-world perspective or theological belief of an individual or family. Most West Semitic personal names contain two elements, including a divine name as a subject and either a noun in the predicate position (a Nominal Sentence Name) or a verb (a Verbal Sentence Name). Each pair crafts a rudimentary sentence that conveys meaning. Hypocoristica are abbreviated forms of these two-part names, and they present unique challenges at the intersection of the fields of onomastics and lexicography. This paper explores the challenges in cataloguing and interpreting hypocoristic names from West Semitic texts, paying particular attention to those raised in an analysis of the semantic range of popular non-theophoric elements in personal names. Using data from my lexicon of Aramaic Names from Syro-Mesopotamian texts and inscriptions, I detail the challenges in identifying hypocoristica, rendering these names in an onomastic reference volume, and understanding the semantic utility of these names when hypocoristica have no meaning per se. Current onomastic and lexical resources gloss over the potential meaning of hypocoristica, though there are multiple approaches to defining and displaying hypocoristic names in these reference volumes. By reading hypocoristica alongside a vast catalogue of parallel Nominal Sentence Names and Verbal Sentence Names, this paper addresses the potential meaning inherent in the hypocoristicon and its utility in interpreting West Semitic and Biblical personal names. Additionally, this paper addresses the appearance of hypocoristic forms of theonyms, raising important questions of identity.


The Gods and (Dis)Honor: The Relationship between Divinely Caused Suffering and Honor in Metamorphoses, Callirhoe, and Mark
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
April Hoelke Simpson, Southern Methodist University

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.


The Re-appropriation of Levitical Singers in the Construction of Sages in the Second Temple Period
Program Unit: Book History and Biblical Literatures
David A. Skelton, Independent Scholar

In her recent work entitled Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran, Sidnie White Crawford reflects on the expansion of the role of the scribe during the Persian period both in function and office. Several Persian and early Hellenistic texts combine the scribal office with that of the priest or Levite and include teaching, prophecy, and dream interpretation alongside writing as typical scribal actions. Another figure she could have examined in this regard at Qumran is that of the maskil. I will suggest that the construction of the maskil draws directly upon the tradition of Levitical singers in Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. The Levites were teachers, judges, and singers in multiple Second Temple texts but it is their role as a singer that demonstrates their inspired status in continuity with both David and the prophets (e.g., 1 Chron 25:1-8; 2 Chron 29:25-30; 30:22). I will contend that the construction of the maskil as a sage in several places in the scrolls re-appropriates this Levitical tradition in its construction of the maskil as a teacher of wisdom. I then will utilize “David’s Compositions” in 11Q5 and the construction of the sage in Ben Sira to demonstrate that the re-appropriation of this Chronicler tradition involved in the literary construction of sages was a common rhetorical device utilized by disparate texts. Overall, this paper will suggest that traditions involving the Levitical singers in Chronicles served as a key component of the conceptualization of the scribe in the Second Temple period.


Rethinking the Arguments for Q and the Criteria for Identifying It
Program Unit: Q
David B. Sloan, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

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.


Blood on the Hilasterion: The Renewed Cult in Ezek 43:20 and Rom 3:25
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Paul T Sloan, Houston Baptist University

In Romans 3.25 Paul famously describes Jesus the Messiah as a “hilasterion in his blood.” Debate continues regarding both the translation of hilasterion, the significance of “blood,” and the overall interpretation of the passage. Frequently noted is that the combination of “blood” and “hilasterion” conjures the ritual performed on Yom Kippur, during which the high priest manipulates blood on the hilasterion in the Holy of Holies (Lev 16.14) in order to purify the sacred space for the maintenance of God’s presence in Israel’s midst. Less frequently noted is that this same combination of images – the manipulation of blood on the hilasterion – also conjures Ezek 43’s vision of the cleansing of the new temple, in which “blood” is sprinkled on the “hilasterion” of the rebuilt altar (LXX Ezek 43.20) in light of the returning “glory” (δόξα) of the Lord (Ezek 43.4). Moreover, the blood for the renewed altar is taken from an animal that is designated a “sin offering” (περὶ ἁμαρτίας; Ezek 43.19), the same designation given to Christ’s activity in Rom 8.3 (i.e. that he came “as a sin offering” (περὶ ἁμαρτίας)). In light of the lexical and thematic parity between these texts, this paper will argue that in view of the fundamental plight of humans according to Paul, i.e. sin leading to “impurity” (Rom 1.24) and resultant deprivation of the divine “glory” (δόξα) (Rom 3.23), the “solution” described in Rom 3.24–26 should be read in terms of Ezekiel’s vision of the returning “glory” to the newly cleansed-by-blood meeting place (hilasterion). In this framework, Rom 3.25 should be read as Paul’s declaration that Christ is the meeting place (hilasterion) restored after Israel’s endurance of the punitive curses, cleansed by his blood, functioning as the locus of the divine glory. The latter position is corroborated by additional details in Romans that indicate Paul is depicting Jesus as the renewed point of access to the divine glory (e.g. “access” in Rom 5.1–2, indwelling “glory” and “Spirit” in 6.4, 11; living as “sacrifices” in 12:1). This paper will proceed by arguing a) that the lexical parity between Rom 3.23–25 and Ezek 43 indicates the former should be read in the framework of the latter, and b) that numerous Second Temple texts included the restoration of the temple and/or return of God’s “glory” as a focal point in their description of the post-restoration reality (e.g. Jubilees 1; 2 Maccabees; various DSS; Baruch), indicating the plausibility of such a focus in Romans 3. The method for identifying intertexts will be noting a) the lexical parity between the texts in question, and b) noting the rarity of such lexical combinations, corroborating the proposed view, especially when viewed in light of contemporary Second Temple expectations.


From Nameless Victim to Eshet Chayil: Remembering Bath-Jephthah in Judges 11:34–40
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Margaret A. Smerko, Union Presbyterian Seminary

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.


Israel in the Wilderness and Appius Claudius in the Forum: The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in New Testament Texts
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Daniel L. Smith, Saint Louis University

The field of classics is currently experiencing a boom in studies of exemplarity, including the recent monographs of Roller (2018) and Langlands (2018). The latter focuses on the exemplary character of ancient Roman ethics, a line of investigation similar to that pursued by New Testament scholars such as Bennema (2017). Roller’s monograph, on the other hand, takes a broader view, exploring the interplay of the rhetorical, the moral, and the historiographical in ancient exemplary discourses. New Testament scholars have long recognized the exemplary character of figures like Jesus and Paul – note, e.g., Burridge (2007) and Castelli (1991), but these studies have not always had access to the most up-to-date classics scholarship, nor have they pondered the other exemplars mentioned in these texts. By studying the rhetorical use of the ancient Israelite wilderness generation as a model in 1 Cor 10:1–13 and Heb 3–4, I will demonstrate the value of approaching the New Testament writings through an exemplary lens. Roller’s model and theory will prove especially helpful, especially when coupled with the discrete functions of exemplarity proposed by Green (1978). The two texts under consideration highlight positive and negative aspects of ancient Israel. I will look at the parallel phenomenon of Appius Claudius Caecus, a controversial character who was used as a model by Roman rhetors. They sometimes highlighted his positive contributions to the city of Rome (e.g., the Via Appia), and at other times they fixated on his culling of the senate and other less popular moves. The case of Appius Claudius offers an example of how Roman rhetoric dealt with one of its own ambivalent exemplars, and the lessons can be transferred to New Testament texts with surprising ease. Exploring the rhetorical functions of exemplary discourse in 1 Corinthians and Hebrews both gives new insight into these ancient texts and offers more nuanced ways of understanding how the New Testament writings represent the relationship between the followers of Jesus and ancient Israel.


Queerer Meals: Agape, Potlucks, and Alternative Community
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Eric C. Smith, Iliff School of Theology

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.


Juxtaposing Johannine Signs: Interpreting Cana and Lazarus Together in Gold Glass
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Eric C. Smith, Iliff School of Theology

Among the gold glasses held by the Vatican Museum, one stands out for its juxtapositional strangeness. In many respects this piece is like most other gold glasses known from antiquity: it is a small circular disk of glass, with a decorative border inside the outer edge, which is itself jagged where the edges have been broken off. But where gold glasses typically feature a central image, this one’s center space is divided into upper and lower semicircles. In the upper register there is a scene of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and in the lower register a scene of the sign at Cana. Jesus is depicted nearly identically in both images, leaning forward on his right foot with right arm outstretched, holding a rod or wand, poised in the midst of performing the miraculous act—directed at Lazarus in one, and at seven (not six, as in the text of John 2:6) jars in the other. These two images, juxtaposed on the single gold glass, are in remarkable continuity with one another and with the respective iconographical traditions of Cana scenes and Lazarus scenes; they participate fully in the ways these stories are depicted elsewhere in gold glass while also mirroring each other to a remarkable degree. Both their juxtaposition in the same space and their visual similarity demands that they be understood and interpreted together. But interpreting them together satisfies some exegetical questions while raising others. Both of these Johannine stories borrow meaning in the juxtaposition; the stories interpret each other, with the jars becoming a type for the raising of Lazarus, and both becoming a type for Jesus’ own resurrection. As the first and last of Jesus’ seven (or eight, depending on which scholars one asks) signs in John, these two stories might bookend the “book of signs” postulated as a source for John’s gospel. The image’s seven jars are a curious departure from the text of John 2:6, which specifies only six jars (though this same departure is present in at least one other gold glass featuring Cana in the Vatican’s collection). Perhaps here the story of Lazarus is contributing to the meaning of the Cana story, adding to or perfecting the imperfect six jars with a seventh (Lazarus) that makes it complete. Or it might be that the combination of these two images stands in for the signs in John 2-11 as a collection, and the seven jars signify that number. The juxtaposition focuses interpretation of the two stories, but also resists any easy accounting for their meaning together. This paper will interrogate both the hermeneutical narrowing and the opening-out offered by this curious gold glass.


Is Zechariah among the Prophets? Zechariah 3:1–10 and the Enduring Role of Prophets in Post-Monarchic Yehud
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
H. Clay Smith, Baylor University

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.


Locating Luke: Ta Ethnē and the Authorship of Acts
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Joshua Paul Smith, University of Denver

Thirty years ago, Marilyn Salmon posed an intriguing question to scholars of Luke and Acts: If the term “gentile” (Gk. ta ethnē) is Jewish “insider” language used to refer to non-Jewish “outsiders,” and if non-Jews rarely ever employed this term in self-reference, what might lead the author of Luke-Acts to use ta ethnē so pervasively in his works if he was raised and educated in a community where the term was essentially meaningless? Recent studies on similar terminology in 1 Peter and the Epistle of Barnabas have further complicated old assumptions, especially with respect to the "parting of the ways" between early Judaism and Christianity. Building upon this research and drawing from sociological data on in-group/out-group designations in antiquity, as well as the cognitive linguistic theory underlying the use of culturally specific endonyms, autonyms, and exonyms, in this paper I will propose a tentative answer to Salmon's initial question, arguing that Luke’s use of “ta ethnē” as a descriptor for non-Jews suggests that he was very likely educated within a Jewish social context.


"Church Friends": The Precarious Interpretations and Perceptions of Evangelical Christians upon Trump Policy
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Joul Layne, University of Texas at Arlington

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 and Physical Violence as a Speech Act in Ezekiel 16
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Katherine Smith, Mary Andrews College

Accepted paper for the IBR Research Group on Biblical Violence.


The Rhetoric of Sexual Shaming in Ezekiel 16 and 23
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Katherine Smith, Mary Andrews College

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.


Womanist Sass and Talk Back: Intersectionality and Biblical Interpretation
Program Unit: Korean Biblical Colloquium
Mitzi Smith, Columbia Theological Seminary

Before our discussion, I discuss my scholarship, which is under consideration is a contextual resistance text for readers advancing social justice. I raise issues of social (injustice) that impact communities of color and the larger society as a biblical scholar engaging intersectionality.


Lord, Make Hate: The Greek Rhetorical Tradition and Prayers in the Greek Additions to Esther
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Tyler Smith, University of Salzburg

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).


Deception and an Aristotelian Rhetoric of Characterization in the Fourth Gospel
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Tyler Smith, University of Salzburg

In Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, the character of the young is described as trusting (εὔπιστοι), because young people have “not yet been much deceived (ἐξηπατῆσθαι)” (2.12.7). This stands in opposition to those who are older, who, “through having lived for many years and having been more often deceived (ἐξηπατῆσθαι) and having made more mistakes themselves, and since most things turn out badly, they assert nothing with certainty and all things with less assurance than is needed” (2.13.1). Much of the rest of what Aristotle writes about their character follows from their experience of deception. The young are changeable, impulsive, and trusting; they love too much and hate too much. Conversely, the old are doubtful, hesitating, and cynical; they are small-minded and unhealthily obsessed with a calculus of conservative personal advantage. Whereas the young are full of hope, their fearful, fretful elders live in memory of how things used to be. This paper explores some of the ways in which the followers of Jesus and their antagonists in the Fourth Gospel map onto Aristotle’s characterizations of young and old, respectively, with specific attention to the implications for the negotiation of virtue and vice in the Johannine ethical paradigm. Several considerations make the alignments of such a reading especially intriguing: the Johannine Jesus is identified with “the Truth” (14:6); the Johannine devil is introduced as “the father of lies” and his most important human representatives, the Johannine Jews, are attacked for being “of your father, the devil,” and seeking to carry out his desires (8:44); and the highest good in the Johannine economy of virtue is to trust or believe (πιστεῦσαι, cf. 3:16; 20:31 and passim).


Recensional Activity in Addition C of the Alpha Text of Esther?
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Tyler Smith, University of Salzburg

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.


The First Samaritan Convert as Woman and Slave: A Feminist Analysis of John 4:1–42
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Amy Smith Carman, Brite Divinity School (TCU)

For much of the last two millennia, the story of the woman of Samaria has centered on an ignorant, sexually deviant Samaritan woman who Jesus uses as a tool to reach the Samaritans. That she is female with a so-called promiscuous history lowers her status further, particularly for readers in patriarchal cultures, and her “sinful” past becomes the central focus of the passage. Jesus used her despite her sin. With the advent of feminist and postcolonial studies, many began to question why she is viewed this way and if it is a fair interpretation. This essay will examine the Samaritan woman from a feminist perspective. I argue that her gender is central to the story, perhaps as much or more so than her nationality. In addition to her gender, a feminist perspective must address her place in the kyriarchy. By decentering Jesus and the other male characters and focusing on the woman, I will conduct a character analysis of this woman who is so often ignored or brushed aside. Despite the male viewpoint, I contend that this story is riddled with cracks throughout its patriarchal framework. It is through these glimpses of an alternate reality that a feminist reading is crucially important. Recent work on slavery in the ancient world also calls many NT passages into question, but has not been applied to the passage of the Samaritan woman. I argue that it may also be of service here in this passage. Servant and slave wo/men had no rights, particularly when it came to sexuality. Her extremely low status in the kyriarchy warrants the question of how this woman ended up in this circumstance. She appears to be sexually available to someone in exchange for her survival. It is unclear whether this is a legal owner or a man taking advantage of her circumstances. However, recent studies on homeless or women threatened with homelessness show a high number of girls and women who are forced to engage in survival sex in exchange for shelter and other necessities. An additional study found that the line between survival sex and intimacy is blurred. These studies shed light on the complicated situation that an at-risk woman in the ancient world may have found herself with few resources but sex or a relationship at her disposal. Out of a necessity for surviving, this woman ended up in a sexually exploitive situation, whether that is of mistress or slave. Even if there are no “official” documents demarcating her as a slave, she would still be in every way a slave to this man. Since he does not offer her the security of marriage, he most likely viewed the situation in precisely this way.


From Family Hearth to God the Arsonist: The Politics of Fire in Amos
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Daniel Smith-Christopher, Loyola Marymount University

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.


"Leap, Ye, Lame for Joy": The Dynamics of Disability in Conversion
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Anna Rebecca Solevåg, VID Specialized University

The paper explores connections between conversion and disability. It shows how miraculous stories of healing have been used to encourage conversion into Christianity and also that healing from disability or illness has functioned as a metaphor for conversion in the history of Christianity. First, I analyze the conversion discourse of the early Methodist movement in the 18th century. Drawing on New Testament healing narratives, the founders of the movement, John and Charles Wesley, used healing as a metaphor for conversion in their writings. The Methodist movement also integrated physical healing into their holistic understanding of salvation, and established systems and institutions to care for people with disabilities and health issues. Second, I analyze the Gospel of Mark, which contains the earliest Christian healing stories. A closer look at these texts reveals a different understanding of conversion than what the early Methodists held. These two examples of the dynamics of disability in conversion challenges and complicates the term “conversion” as a category for religious change. The article also questions for whom such narratives of healing from disability would function as an impulse towards religious change: people with disabilities or people who considered themselves able-bodied?


“May These Gods Be Our Witnesses”: Justifying Violence in Neo-Assyrian Sources and the Book of Deuteronomy
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Anthony P. SooHoo, Pontificio Istituto Biblico

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.


Creoleness, Orality, and the Scriptures: A Holistic Interpretative Method
Program Unit: Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures
Althea Spencer Miller, Drew University

Creolite and orality are two terms that provide insight into colonial adaptive strategies and cultural formations that have endured to the present. Jean Bernabe et al. definition of creolite or creoleness may be paraphrased as an "interactional" synergistic "aggregative" phenomenon born of the colonial cultural encounters. In creoleness the Martinician cohort of Bernabe et al. essay toward an indigenous epistemology that this paper presents as foundational for a trans-scientific approach to biblical interpretation. Creoleness is both a linguistic development and a cultural beingness and is endemic to Caribbean ways. Thie paper emphasizes creoleness as a cultural ontology. Orality, arguably a cultural modality, under esteemed in general biblical studies, accompanies creoleness as another Caribbean phenomenon. It contributes communalism, experientialism, embodiment, and performance as elements of a holistic, processive, interpretative strategy. Together, creoleness and orality are aggregating and amalgamating descriptors and agents of an indigenous dynamic interpretative art form. This paper demonstrates the impact that combining these two phenomena has on interpretative strategies and methods. The paper would introduce holistic exegesis and offer a non-traditional reading of Matthew 17:1-8. Holistic exegesis relies on the notion of creoleness to validate its connatural connection to the Caribbean. Further, creoleness is offered as an alternative to scientific or positivistic biblical criticism to be considered as a useful advance on the categories of post-colonial biblical criticism for contextual biblical critics especially. Orality contributes the elements, already mentioned, so as to expand the notion of cognition to include relations, affect, body, experience, and kinesis in addition to reason. Together and separately these function as conveyances that initiate, enlarge, and galvanize, interpretative processes in a semiotic spiral, not of exegesis as traditionally understood, but as meaning making processes. The Transfiguration narrative in Mt. 17:1-8 is optimal for a comprehensive demonstration of holistic exegesis. It has features that lend themselves to certain traditional storytelling ways within Jamaican oral culture. With it the paper translates creoleness through orality into an examinable, interpretative process.


Ruth and the Interpretation of Biblical Law
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Kelsey Spinnato, Southern Methodist University

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 Character of Abram in the Book of Jubilees
Program Unit: Midrash
Kelsey Spinnato, Southern Methodist University

As a work of narrative Midrash, as defined by O. S. Wintermute, Jubilees comments upon the biblical narrative while also retelling the original stories, especially through expansion, creating a new continuous narrative that helps the reader understand the development of Abram’s righteousness toward God. Jubilees seeks to fill some of the gaps about why God chooses Abram and why Abram obeys God and to present Abram as a model convert. Abram is given a backstory, a childhood, and a family, and the ways these new stories play out in Jubilees create a fuller picture of Abram’s character. Through these additional stories and details, Abram is depicted as a good neighbor and a dutiful and loving son, but his duty to his idol-worshipping father does not override his duty to God. Thus, the greater emphasis is on Abram’s righteousness before God. In Genesis, Abram’s obedience to God’s call goes unexplained. Without any background information on Abram or his family, the reader does not know why God chooses Abram or why Abram responds the way he does. In contrast, in Jubilees, Abram’s character is set up in such a way that his obedience to God’s call on his life makes sense to the reader. For example, he acknowledges God’s existence and power before anyone else in his community, and he maintains that faith even though it is unpopular.


The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database: History and Future of an Ambitious Project
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Klaas Spronk, Protestantse Theologische Universiteit

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.


The Limitations of Reconstructed Texts
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Angela Standhartinger, Philipps-Universität Marburg

This review of and engagement with Patricia Ahearne-Kroll, A Jewish Narrative in Egypt: A Case for the Composition of “Joseph and Aseneth”(SBL, 2020) takes up especially limitations of reconstructed texts.


The Pastoral Epistles among Ancient Letter Collections
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Angela Standhartinger, Philipps-Universität Marburg

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.


Shouts of Joy Mixed with Weeping in a City with Walls: The Failed Restoration(s) of Ezra-Nehemiah
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Jason A. Staples, North Carolina State University

Most modern scholarship has treated Ezra-Nehemiah as though the book argues for a “realized” perspective in which Israel’s restoration from exile has already happened, with the events of the book marking the break between the exilic era and the post-exilic period. According to this scholarly narrative, Ezra-Nehemiah argues for the view of its protagonists, narrowing the scope of Israel to an intentional community of Judahite returnees, with that small group claiming the heritage of all Israel. In contrast, this paper argues that this scholarly approach ignores rhetorical signals throughout Ezra-Nehemiah that undermine the triumphalism and narrow sectarianism of its protagonists and repeatedly indicate that the restoration efforts of Zerubbabel/Yeshua, Ezra, and Nehemiah in fact failed to bring about the restoration of Israel hoped for by each of these figures. The second temple is a disappointment, Ezra’s reforms fail, and the very fact that Nehemiah has to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls shows that Israel’s restoration remains incomplete, since Zechariah 2:8–9 specifically declares that the restored Jerusalem will not need walls due to YHWH’s protection. Rather than arguing that the returned Judahites now comprise a restored Israel, the book instead narrates a “little reviving” and a series of failures by those who remain “slaves” (Ezra 9:8–9) under Assyrian (!) oppression (Ezra 6:22; Neh 9:32), rhetorically emphasizing the continued expectation for a future restoration of all Israel. Finally, the paper will show that this reading of Ezra-Nehemiah as not-restoration was the default in the Second Temple period, appearing in Daniel, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Josephus, and others.


Righteousness, the τέλος νόμου, and Israel’s Restoration: Reevaluating Romans 10:1–13 in an Early Jewish Context
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Jason A. Staples, North Carolina State University

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


Scripture, Equality, and Redistribution in 2 Corinthians 8:15
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
David Starling, Morling College,

This paper will explore the way in which Paul employs the quotation from Exodus 16:18 in 2 Corinthians 8:15. Its primary focus will be on the question of how a story about a divinely (and miraculously) orchestrated equality in Exodus 16 becomes for Paul a warrant for human redistributive activity—a conclusion that is not drawn from the story in any other extant Second Temple Jewish text. Several different scholarly proposals will be evaluated (including those of John Barclay and Larry Welborn) concerning the meaning of Paul’s understanding of “equality” in 8:13–14 and the hermeneutical rationale by which Paul finds support for his appeal to the Corinthians in the story of the manna in the wilderness.


The Hebrew Noun ’îš as a Marker of Consequential Participation
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
David E. S. Stein, Freelance Editorial Services

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.


Performing an Imagined Return in the Exagoge of Ezekiel
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Elizabeth Stell, Oxford University

In the Exagoge of Ezekiel we find an imagined, or reimagined, exodus from Egypt to the land of Israel. As the text tells this narrative in a diaspora context (probably Alexandria, as most scholars agree) it provides a provocative reflection on the possibility or impossibility of journey from diaspora communities towards the Land of Israel. In the form of a tragedy, the Exaogoge puts these themes into a performance, whether actualised or imagined. However, its focus on passover suggests a role in liturgy (here I am building on foundations laid in the work of Rachel Davies and Hindy Najman). Therefore, the text offers much under-explored scope for considering the text as reenacting an imagined journey or exodus from the diaspora community towards the Land of Israel. The journey in the text is incomplete, partly due to the apparent scope of the narrative, partly due to its current state, and partly because Moses, the text’s hero, will never reach the land. In this paper I will examine this incomplete journey in the text, focussing on two key scenes: the dream Moses has of Sinai and the final scene of the remaining fragments in which the scout sees a phoenix at Elim. While the dream does not represent a journey across land, it does point to a number of moments in a journey towards Israel. It brings Moses onto Sinai while also implying Moses’ view from Mount Pisgah or Nebo immediately preceding his death. The simultaneity which I want to attribute to dream at this point allows the disjuncture of being at different locations at once, thus offering a reflection upon diaspora imagination looking towards Israel, through a narrative of exodus. The extraordinary bird, or phoenix, provides an image of a strange creature leading a troop of birds forward, even as the Israelites reach a point of rest at Elim. Whether the bird represents Joshua or Moses or is less directly symbolic, it reflects on a continuing journey which goes beyond the scope of the tragedy’s narrative but it may be altered when Moses is no longer leading. In considering these scenes, I will be building on work on performance (Erika Fischer-Lichte), on function of dream in tragedy (e.g. in study on Shakespeare), and on the role of foresight in Greek tragedy – discussions which have not been integrated into existing examinations of the Exagoge. Framed thus, the play reflects on journey to the land and performs it in a passover setting, but it also enacts and displays the potential impossibility of a completed journey for Moses and perhaps for many in its diaspora audience.


How to Structure a Bios: Philo’s Life of Moses
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Gregory Sterling, Yale Divinity School

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.


New Data for Old Cultures: Considering Jews of Roman North Africa through Recent Epigraphic and Archaeological Findings
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
Karen Stern, Brooklyn College (CUNY)

This paper will present more recently discovered evidence from a synagogue in North Africa to consider its impact on current scholarship of ancient Jewish life. By drawing attention to selected inscriptions, mosaics, and objects from this and other archaeological sites, the paper will reveal diversities in regional Jewish practices, as well as variabilities in Jews' relationships to their African Christian neighbors.


Naturally Awed: The Emotion of Awe in the Sciences and Hebrew Scriptures
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Alexander Coe Stewart, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

(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.


Food and the Poetics of Community Lament
Program Unit: Meals in the HB/OT and Its World
Michelle Stinson, Simpson University

This presentation will explore the rhetorical use of food language in Israel's corporate expressions of lament, with particular attention given to the communal complaint psalms.


Of King and Coal, Hearing and Hardening: Ezekiel’s Intertextual Use of Isaiah in Conceptualizing Divine Presence and Prophetic Call
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Beth M. Stovell, Ambrose University College and Seminary

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


Religion as a Social Kind
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Stanley K. Stowers, Brown University

This paper summarizes the argument and conclusions of the recent book length manuscript Religion as a Social Kind, which proposes a critical realist definition and theory of religion suitable for use in the historiography of Christian antiquity.


Internal Inconsistencies in Leningrad Codex Masoretic Notes
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Malka Strasberg Edinger, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

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.


Bonhoeffer on Enemies and Imprecation: A Commentary
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Brent A. Strawn, Duke University

In this paper I present a contemporary commentary on Bonhoeffer’s treatment of the enemies and imprecatory psalms in The Prayerbook of the Bible (DBWE 5:141-81, esp. 174-76). The commentary will not only analyze the specific content of Bonhoeffer’s remarks but will do so especially in light of the 80 years of Psalms research that has taken place since Prayerbook was first published (1940). The non-personalistic nature of imprecation and the Christological interpretation of God’s wrath against the enemies will receive particular attention.


The Form and Ethics of the Fable in the Lukan Parables
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
Justin David Strong, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

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.


Textual Decisions in the ECM of Mark
Program Unit: Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior
Holger Strutwolf, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Next year the ECM of the Gospel of Mark will appear in print. The work on the text and apparatus of the edition is, however, already completed, so it is possible to present and discuss the new textual decisions even before the edition is published. In this paper, the external and internal evidence for textual decisions will be presented, with the main emphasis on the application of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. It will not only deal with those varied places where the editors have arrived at a new result after weighing all the evidence, but also with those where such a textual decision had to be left open.


Writing the Textual Commentary for the ECM of Mark
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Holger Strutwolf, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

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.


Whom Shall They Know? An Analysis of Divine Self-Expression in the Phrase Ani Yhwh
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Rachel Erin Stuart, Emory University

This paper explores the biblical writers’ perspective on divine selfhood through an initial in-depth analysis of the phrase ani (or anoki) yhwh. This simple phrase may be assumed to be at least somewhat central to conceptions of divine selfhood since it is likely to be placed only in portions of the text that are understood to be particularly essential to the identity of the deity there named. The opening portion of the paper surveys various approaches to analysis of the phrase ani yhwh, including Milgrom’s emphasis on Priestly and Holiness traditions, Zimmerli’s focus on revelation, and the meaning of the name itself. The core of the paper offers an analysis of the 211 times the phrase appears in the Hebrew Bible. This portion includes brief discussion of syntactical patterns and theological/descriptive themes, as well as a more thorough discussion of the noticeable shift in usage between Ezekiel and prior authors. Ezekiel’s emphasis on knowledge of God among the exilic community leads to a portrayal of a more vividly individual deity that emphasizes new actions, rather than descriptions of attributes or established past actions, and both reveals and addresses an anxiety about how the people would relate to God now that the usual modes of engagement (Temple, land, monarchy, etc.) were no longer available.


The Greek Words in Daniel 3: Code-Switching, Not Loanwords
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Benjamin Suchard, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

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.


Samaritan Hebrew and Comparative Semitics
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Benjamin Suchard, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Data from Samaritan Hebrew is seldom used in the reconstruction of Proto-Semitic. This talk explores whether this is justified and what comparison to its relatives can teach us about the nature of Samaritan Hebrew. On the one hand, some Samaritan Hebrew forms are nigh impossible to reconcile with those found in the Semitic family as a whole. This suggests that Samaritan Hebrew contains a high degree of artificiality, even randomness. Yet some features unequivocally reflect knowledge of an authentic form of Hebrew. As already recognized by Ze’ev Ben-Hayyim, this combination of artificiality and authenticity shows the disconnect between the First Temple–period language of the Pentateuch’s consonantal text and the Second Temple–period language underlying the Samaritan reading of the text. A strong tendency towards analogical levelling explains other peculiarities. Samaritan Hebrew forms can thus support established reconstructions, but they can rarely be taken as independent evidence. Comparing this situation to that of Jewish traditions such as Tiberian Hebrew highlights the latter's frequent retention of linguistic elements from the First Temple period.


Born of Fire, Perfected in War: The Sword and the Making of an Allegory in Ezekiel 21
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Kipp Swinney, Baylor University

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.


A Different Kind of Crusade: Jesus’s Commissioning of His Disciples in Luke 10:1–24 as Reworking the Rules for Warfare in Deuteronomy 20:10–14
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
Josef Sykora, Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College

Christian theologies of war (promoting either the just war theory or pacifism) arise out of (among other things) the New Testament contention that the battle that Christians wage is primarily directed against dark spiritual powers, not against human beings. This position, most comprehensively expressed in Eph 6:12, can be traced back to Jesus, who frequently released people from various demonic possessions (e.g., Matt 12:22–32) while simultaneously calling his followers not to retaliate against their enemies (e.g., Luke 6:27–31) but to love them (e.g., Matt 5:43–48). Nevertheless, given the abundance of Old Testament passages sanctioning war as one of the means by which Israel both protects and enlarges its territory, one may ask whether there is a single episode that would summarize both Jesus’s resistance to violence against humans and his emphasis on spiritual warfare. In this paper, I propose that Luke’s commission of seventy disciples in Luke 10:1–24 may be viewed as a reworking of Israel’s rules for warfare contained in Deut 20:10–14. Both passages speak about enlarging the kingdom: Israel in Deut 20 expands it through military campaign while Jesus does it through missionary effort. In both accounts, however, the approached town must first hear an offer of peace, which has the potential to divide the recipients into two groups. The welcoming towns open their gates, whereas the rejecting communities exhibit a hostile response. Yet as my comparison argues, the two biblical texts differ in the way those heralding Israel’s kingdom react to these towns. In Deut 20, the other nations have no chance to withstand Israel’s attack. The towns that surrender will be used by Israel for forced labor, and those attempting to defend themselves will be besieged, their males killed, and their women, children, and animals taken as spoils. The seventy ambassadors in Luke, however, are milder in their approach. Opening houses and towns to Jesus’s followers results in offering them food and drink, yet this is viewed as payment for their service: the disciples proclaim the message about the kingdom and heal the sick. Moreover, when the town rejects Jesus’s messengers, these should not retaliate but rather depart, merely announcing harsh but future judgment on this inhospitable dwelling. Nevertheless, even Luke’s story depicts a battle. A number of demons submit to Jesus’s disciples who are, in a way similar to Israel’s soldiers in Deut 20, assured to be victorious. In summary, my paper argues that when these two passages are read against each other, Jesus’s instruction to his disciples may be understood as envisioning a different kind of crusade, by which Jesus attempts to expand a different kind of kingdom than the one presented in Deuteronomy’s legislation. I close my detailed comparison by drawing implications of this intertextual parallel for a thicker and more qualified account of Christian theologies of war.


Epigraphic Evidence for Early North African Christianity
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
William Tabbernee, University of Oklahoma

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.


Agency and Assemblages: Assessing Bat-Yiphtach’s Bleeding Body
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Margaret Murray Talbot, Brite Divinity School (TCU)

Interpreters through the millenia have been troubled by the narrative in Judges 11:29–40, in which Yiphtach (Jephthah) makes a vow and sacrifices his daughter, Bat-Yiphtach. The narrative provides an ideal setting for questioning underlying presuppositions in the child–adult binary, as well as children’s agency in light of scripturally justified religious regulations. In my child-oriented reading, I keep the daughter’s menstrual bleeding in view as I address ambiguities and fill gaps in the narrative. Research on menarche and menstruation provides a crucial lens for interpreting Bat-Yiphtach’s weeping over her בתולים (bǝtûlīm); and with Bat-Yiphtach as post-menarchal transitioning child, her capacity for exercising agency bears additional study. What agency does she have, given her bleeding body? How does intertextuality, with child–adult relationality in view, affect what she says? How does menstrual bleeding affect her agency in the context of her storyworld and its interpretation? I argue that Bat-Yiphtach’s speech in the narrative distracts from and disguises the limitations on agency available to her as transitioning child. After offering a brief review of the focus on agency in childhood studies, I explain theoretical moves made by sociology of childhood scholars Nick Lee, David Oswell, and Michael Gallagher, whose research constructs agency relationally and contextually in open assemblages. This work corrects for an adult-centric framework for assessing agency based on individualistic and autonomous self-presence. Using this framework, I argue that, despite interpreters’ best efforts to see her agency, Bat-Yiphtach is at the mercy of her body (she bleeds), her father (she echoes and obeys), and socio-cultural and religious traditions for menstruating girls (she goes). This masterfully crafted narrative presents readers with an invitation and opportunity to examine the deleterious effects of religious norms, regulations, and traditions passed from one generation to another.


Forthcoming Openly Licensed Syntax Trees for the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Nida Institute
Randall Tan, Clear Bible, Inc.

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.


Reflections on the Syriac Psalter in Light of the Antioch Bible Project
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Richard A. Taylor, Dallas Theological Seminary

This paper offers observations on the Syriac text of the Psalter in Light of my preparation of an annotated English translation of the Peshitta Psalter (forthcoming in 2020) for the multi-volume Antioch Bible project published by Gorgias Press.


The Marginal Latin Readings of 2 Samuel
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Timo Tekoniemi, Helsingin Yliopisto - University of Helsinki

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.


The Term Cush and Its Appropriation in the Andemta Commentary Tradition
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Nebeyou Alemu Terefe, Wycliffe Ethiopia

Abstract This article will look at how the Hebrew term Cush (Greek: Aethiopia) appropriated in the andemta commentaries of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The study will also consult some other relevant Ge’ez/Ethiopic texts which informs the andemta tradition and assess the usage of the term.


Mary, Holy Woman of the Desert and the Virgin Mother
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Ulla Tervahauta, University of Helsinki

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.


Manuscripts of the Protevangelium of James
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Ulla Tervahauta, University of Helsinki

The Protevangelium of James is an exceptional extra-canonical text in light of its textual history: the high number of extant copies gives evidence of its wide circulation. How does the text of the Protevangelium evolve over time and what do the manuscripts and their features reveal of the uses of the Protevangelium in its history? This paper discusses the manuscript tradition of the Protevangelium from the material philology perspective, with focus on three particular manuscripts. New light is shed on the transmission, contexts of use, reception, and importance of the Protevangelium. More precise understanding is gained of the individual manuscripts that contain the Protevangelium and other works.


Field/Vineyard and Nachalah/Segulah Metaphors in Bible and Rabbinic Parables
Program Unit: Midrash
Lieve Teugels, Protestant Theological University Amsterdam

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.


The Problem of Coins as Evidence: Did Ancient People Notice Them?
Program Unit: Numismatic Evidence and Biblical Interpretation
Michael P. Theophilos, Australian Catholic University

A key question in employing coins as historical evidence is the extent to which the ancients noticed, examined or even understood the coinage which passed through their hands on a daily basis. Scholars often attribute great weight (or not) to an inscription or theme being present on coinage in a particular region or time period without substantive methodological basis for that assumption. This paper will explore the question of whether the inscriptions and iconography represented on coinage were examined or understood by the ancients, and then consider the implications of our findings for the broader contribution to the methodological employment of coinage for biblical interpretation.


The Contribution of Cicero’s Greek to New Testament Lexicography
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Michael P. Theophilos, Australian Catholic University

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.


Gang Rape, Murder, and Dismemberment in Judges 19–21 and Little Bee: How Biblical and Modern Authors Inflict Moral Injury
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Barbara Thiede, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Deploying a woman’s body as the site and the symbol of social and civil trauma is an iconic literary device for ancient and modern authors alike. Such narratives, however, conform male hegemony and rape culture rather than counteract it. The patriarchal foundations of such societies are not critiqued; rather, their excesses are exposed. Depicting brutal violence against women to symbolize the breakdown of civilization inflicts a moral injury: it treats rape culture as the product of social disintegration and excess rather than acknowledging its origins in the society that most women inhabit – past or present. Both the author of Judges 19-21 and John Cleave, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Little Bee, provide gruesome depictions of gang rape, murder, dismemberment and even cannibalism of young, sexually maturing girls. These depictions are central to their plot lines. Ruthless violence against women symbolizes how social and political decline leads to human depravity. Each narrative features two girls: one is forced to become a bystander as the other becomes a victim to sexual violence. The virginal daughter of Judges 19 is nearly thrown out to a gang of men, but it is the Levite’s concubine who is gang raped. Little Bee is trapped under an overturned boat, compelled to listen as her sister, Nkiruka, is gang raped. In each tale, the victims’ bodies are brutalized, broken, and dismembered. In both stories, women flee from violent men. After death, their bodies are hacked into pieces by the men who pursued them. In both, young women witness the devastation of their villages and the mass murder of the inhabitants. Central male characters are threatened but escape physically unharmed. Women must experience sexually graphic and brutal violence. Both authors had male subjects they could have employed. The manservant in Judges 19 is never offered as a substitute victim to the raging mob. Instead, the Levite’s Concubine, a na’arah (young girl), is sacrificed. In 2005 Cleave learned that an Angolan father facing deportation committed suicide to ensure that his minor son, who could not be deported unaccompanied, would remain in England. He described this event as the inspiration for his novel, but there is no allusion to this event in Little Bee. His novel centers on violence against a young girl. The author of Judges 19-21 purposefully depicted a demoralized, lawless, and broken society to justify a monarchy: “in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did as he pleased.” Cleave’s novel repeatedly invokes how “all the girls’ stories started out: “the-men-came-and-they…” He himself has stated that Little Bee was meant to describe “the horror of being alive in a world where atrocities happen.” Both narratives depict atrocities against women as the outgrowths of exceptional circumstances. As such, neither tale serves to address the social, economic, and political foundations of violence against women in the civilizations they describe. Instead, they serve as versions of a paradigmatic literary narrative which transcends time and geographic location, one which is itself a source of moral injury.


Repentance and the Monarchy: Divine Motive, Forgiveness, and the Mitigation of Punishment in Kings
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
J. Michael Thigpen, Phoenix Seminary

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


Contextualising the Shifting Identities of Abel Beth Maacah in Archaeology and Text
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Zachary Thomas, Macquarie University

Understanding the local identity of the biblical Abel Beth Maacah is a fascinating yet difficult subject, and one that has been prominent in the research interests of the ongoing Azusa Pacific-Hebrew University excavations at the site of Tell Abil el-Qameḥ, long identified with biblical Abel Beth Maacah, in the Hulah Valley of northern Israel. The Hebrew Bible mentions Maacah/Maachathites along with the neighbouring Geshur/Geshurites among the peoples not driven out by Israel in the pre-monarchic period (Josh 13:13). Subsequently, and with varying degrees of clarity, the Hebrew Bible indicates multiple shifts in its socio-political identity, associations, and domination, including to the Arameans (2 Sam 10:6), Israel (2 Sam 20:19), Aram-Damascus (1 Kgs 15:20) and Assyria (2 Kgs 15:29). Excavations at Tell Abil el-Qameḥ have revealed much about the site’s material culture during the corresponding periods, primarily the Iron Age I-IIA, including ceramic traditions and trade links with the nearby Phoenician coast. Spaces and finds lined to cultic practice have been found, though their interpretation is enigmatic. Associating this material culture with an ‘ethnic’ identification of the site’s inhabitants or changes in its socio-political affiliations reported in the biblical text has proven much more difficult, and no break or cultural distinction with the site’s Middle-Late Bronze occupation is yet apparent either. To a large extent, the Iron I-IIA material culture of Abel Beth Maacah is not distinct from other sites in its wider geographic context in the Upper Galilee/southern Lebanon region. Any characterization of the Iron Age material culture as ‘Aramean’ or ‘Israelite’ has proven elusive. In this paper, we seek to contextualise this problem within a greater understanding of how polities like Abel Beth Maacah transitioned between affiliations and/or dominations by different socio-political entities. We will do so by comparing the case of Abel Beth Maacah with similar cases in Syria, and by discussing how the household-based nature of socio-political relations in the ancient Near East allowed polities to shift between different loyalties without implying a shift in cultural affiliation. This will be used to reflect further on how and why an aspect like cult in Iron Age Abel Beth Maacah can indicate wider cultural links, but how the site’s material culture likely does not correlate simplistically with its political history.


The Recognition of Jesus in the Ending of the Synoptic Gospels
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Alexander P Thompson, Tennessee Wesleyan University

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.


Baby Yoda and the Cultivation of a Biblical Imagination
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Alexander P Thompson, Tennessee Wesleyan University

In 2019, Baby Yoda took the world by storm. Based on the appearance of a figure in the new Disney+ exclusive The Mandalorian, the cute alien became an overnight cultural icon. His appearance was especially popular in internet memes where he was quickly adapted with a seemingly endless amount of imitation, transformation, and circulation. Many of these memes required a rather broad cultural encyclopedia for their understanding. This is just one example of the growing popularity of memes in society today and the complex acts of interpretation involved to understand them. The term meme was originally coined by Richard Dawkins to describe the human use of small cultural units that are easily transmitted, imitated, and duplicated. However, the meme has since become a way to refer to “ a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, or stance which (b) were created with awareness of each other, and (c) were circulated, imitated, and transformed via the internet by many users (Limor Shifman, “Meme” in A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture, 201). Memes have become the stock and trade of internet trends, forming a complex language of cultural reference. For the average undergraduate student, this online community of memes is second-nature. Most students participate and understand the complex web of memes because of their role as “digital natives.” Memes have become a kind of second language that professors of biblical studies can engage. In my 10-minute teaching tip presentation, I will illustrate how I use memes like Baby Yoda on the first day of my biblical studies classes to prepare the class for the difficult work of interpretation. I have found memes to be an effective way to illustrate how the Bible often relies on a complex network of intertextuality for a robust understanding. In my presentation, I will show how I start my courses with a meme (like Baby Yoda) and have the students slowly unpack and explain to me what Baby Yoda means, where it comes from, and how it is being used. This raises many issues of interpretation and cultural knowledge which are roughly analogous to aspects of biblical interpretation. With the students engaged in reflection on the process of interpretation, I then provide a biblical example of how the images of the Bible often require a similar grasp of wider contexts (literary, historical, theological, etc.). For the sake of this presentation, I will use the image of the Dragon from Revelation 12. As an activity I perform on the first day of class, the analysis of memes and biblical images helps the students begin to understand the various hermeneutic complexities involved in biblical interpretation. It introduces them to the overlapping worlds of reader, text, and author. As a teaching tip, it helps faulty meet students where they are as digital natives. This activity invites students to cultivate a biblical imagination in a language they can understand.


What Kind of Data? History, Genealogy, Mythology
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Andrew Tobolowsky, College of William and Mary

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.


Songs of Heaven: Hildegard of Bingen’s Use of Biblical Allusions in Her Symphonia’s Marian Hymns
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Rachel Toombs, Baylor University

In the twelfth-century abbess’s Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations), Hildegard of Bingen sets to verse and song the heavenly realities. Biblical imagery and allusions run throughout her spiritual songs. Occupying a central place in her Symphonia are her hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Symphonia evidences Hildegard’s robust familiarity and use of Scripture to revere the Mother of God. In this paper, I explore a number of these biblical allusions to evidence Hildegard’s rich theological reading of Scripture that illuminates her Mariology and, in turn, the central place of Scripture in her Symphonia, as well the ongoing significance of Hildegard’s unique theological vision. Bridging the Symphonia’s Book One on God the Father and the Son and Book Three on the Holy Spirit, Book Two explores the heavenly realities of the Divine Mother and the Son. Hildegard’s hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary (16 in total) make Scriptural allusions that capture spiritual readings from the Garden to the Incarnation, which in turn draw out the central place of this holy woman. Specifically, Hildegard makes biblical allusions in her Marian songs that include Eve’s folly in Genesis, Aaron’s miraculously flowering staff in Numbers, David’s righteous branch in Jeremiah, the closed gates of Ezekiel’s Temple, and, of course, the miraculous virginal conception in the Gospel accounts. The Symphonia, written between Hildegard’s two great visionary writings, Scivias and The Book of Divine Works, offer us a glimpse into her monastic life through reading, even hearing, the songs that she wrote to shape the Divine Offices kept in her community. While songs to the Blessed Virgin are not unusual in this setting, Hildegard offered her community an opportunity to hear anew the Good News of the Gospel and the central mediatory place of Mary of Nazareth. By uniquely employing both the ancient form of unmetered sequences alongside the more recent use of harmony, Hildegard creates in her music, much like her theology, a disquieting familiar yet unsettling quality that infers even in its tone the mystery about which her music expounds. In music, Hildegard understood we get closest to the heavenly realm (and furthest from the demonic), singing with the angels akin to their song in Mary’s womb: “For your womb held joy / when all the celestial harmony resounded from you, / for, virgin, you bore the Son of God” (17, 5). Hildegard’s Marian hymns offer a profound and penetrating exploration into the mysterious and spiritual elements contained in the Holy Writ.


A Historical-Contextual Study of Dialectical Interrogation in John 6:5–14 and 8:46–59
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Thomas Tops, Protestantse Theologische Universiteit

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.


Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In the nineteenth century the philology of classical texts and New Testament literature guided the development of the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. That discipline, in its turn, was a source of inspiration for the development of the textual inquiry into other literatures. I don’t know whether the ideals and principles of textual criticism when applied to the different literatures differ, but they function in different ways in accord with the creation process and transmission of each literature. Hebrew Scripture developed in a very complex way and its textual evidence is equally complex and haphazard. This situation has repercussions on the views of scholars on the text-critical approach allowing for different possibilities. Some say that the reconstruction of the original stages of the text is impossible, others claim that we have to focus on a specific stage. Again others aim at the reconstruction of original stages in the plural. These difficulties are not unique to the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, which includes a good mix of literary criticism. All scholars agree that the text-critical analysis includes a preoccupation with the textual transmission of the biblical text which is complex, involving many types of evidence and several languages, but it is probably not more complex than the textual and literary criticism of some Mesopotamian compositions. In my paper I will try to define the specific problems of the textual criticism of Hebrew Scripture.


The Plainness of Isaiah Restored: Adam Clarke's Role in the Book of Mormon Quotations of Isaiah
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Colby Townsend, Indiana University Bloomington

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.


A History and Critique of Text-Critical Approaches in the Study of Buddhist Literature
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Nicholas Trautz, University of Virginia

The methods of textual criticism have been important to scholars of Buddhism since the mid-nineteenth century, and have contributed much to historical reconstructions of early Buddhist communities and canons. This paper will trace the history of the text-critical study of Buddhist literature, documenting the driving questions and scholarly aims of orientalists working with Buddhist sources between 1847 and 1975. The use of text-critical editing to address questions about the historicity of the Buddha, to document the development of Buddhist institutions, and to trace the linguistic history of Buddhist literature will be discussed. This paper will also address changing attitudes amongst scholars of Buddhism regarding text-critical practices. In particular, we will see how the values and goals of stemmatic analysis have been challenged by scholars who eschew the search for literary origins in favor of social-historical contextualizations of Buddhist tradition. To illustrate the value of text-critical analysis in the social-historical study of Buddhism, I will share my work with a nineteenth-century set of Tibetan ritual manuals claiming descent from a lost sixteenth-century parent corpus. In this, I aim to show how the documentation of textual variants reflects the efforts of specific communities to respond to extrinsic historical pressures.


Imperialism and the Israelite Kingship: The Narrator’s Critique of David’s Behavior as King in His International Wars
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Charlie Trimm, Talbot School of Theology (Biola University)

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


Cultures of Mobility and Lived Religion in the Ancient World
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Eric M. Trinka, James Madison University

Studies of lived religion/religiousness in the ancient world have become more numerous in recent years. Likewise, investigations of movement, mobility, and migration in the ancient world have increased in the last decade. Despite advances in these important research areas, few, if any, present works on religious experience in antiquity integrate mobility and migration studies. This has left noteworthy lacunae in researchers’ epistemologies of religion-as-lived that require redress. The key contribution of this paper is to provide a more solid theoretical grounding for discussing lived religious experience in contexts of mobility in the ancient world. I couch my investigation in the framework of the new mobilities paradigm, and ask, how do our frameworks for understanding lived religiosities change when we recognize that society is essentially mobile rather than sedentary? This study looks to modern analogues of mobility-informed religiosities among migrants to address the above question and brings that evidence to bear on the specific case studies of lived religiosity in the ancient Near East. In doing so, I consider the critical geographical work of scholars like Tim Cresswell, who asserts that mobility is a constituent element of spatial production. I will argue that we cannot fully understand patterns of religiosity in the ancient world without accounting for the “ideological codings of mobility” (Cresswell, 2006) that obtained. This means not only discerning how ancient practitioners moved throughout religious sites or incorporated movement into their practices, but also how broader cultures of mobility influenced the development and enactment of religion in everyday experience. Thus, my paper will address how overarching cultures of mobility in the Late Bronze and Iron Age ancient Near East influence the ways persons envisioned themselves as mobile agents in cosmic landscapes, how sacred landscapes were able to be created, transferred, or recreated in discrete locations, and how religious practitioners understood/portrayed their deities as mobile actors/agents in varying ways.


Women Slave Owners Doing Business with Female Goddesses: The Evidence of Manumission Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Macedonia
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Ekaterini Tsalampouni, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

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.


Approaching a Social Identity Commentary
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
J. Brian Tucker, Moody Theological Seminary–Michigan

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


The Character of the Translational Differences within Jer LXX That Reflect Known Revisional Tendencies
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Miika Tucker, University of Helsinki

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.


What Does It Profit? Qohelet and the Commodification of Nature
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Paavo Tucker, Lipscomb University

The study of Environmental communication is the analysis of the ways that humanity describes and articulates our relationship to the natural environment. This communication describes the human relationship to nature through symbols and metaphors to express its pragmatic and constitutive goals, as it conveys an instrumental purpose to inform and persuade, and invites particular perspectives and ways of relating to nature. In an age when environmental communication is labeled a “crisis discipline” due to the urgency of the human task to define how we relate to and engage with nature, it is important to reflect on how biblical models of nature impact and inform how we relate to nature. Environmental communication is a significant theme in the book of Ecclesiastes, as Qohelet begins his explication of “vanity” with the question, “what profit does man have from all of his labor under the sun?” (Eccl 1:2-3). This question of the search for “profit” drives Qohelet’s despair throughout the book. The juxtaposition of the thesis and opening question of 1:2-3 with a poem on cosmology in 1:4-7 defines Qohelet’s environmental communication through imposing the economical metaphor of the quest for “profit” onto nature. For Qohelet, because nature does not produce “profit” as defined by his anthropocentric expectations, he departs from the positive model of nature as an intrinsically valuable creation that is seen elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. This has devastating effects on how Qohelet relates to the world, to the creator God, and to his understanding of humanity’s place in the world. Understanding the impact of applying economical metaphors to creation in Qohelet will help us reflect on the significance of imposing economical metaphors to define human relationships to nature today.


Analyzing Scribal Habits through Bayesian Phylogenetic Analysis
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Robert Turnbull, Ridley College and Melbourne University

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.


Bishop or Beast? The Origin and Development of Caiaphas’ Side-Horned Mitre in the Oberammergau Passion Play
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Katie Turner, Independent Researcher

This paper will trace the development, use, and meaning of the side-horned mitre in Christian art and drama from the medieval period through its most famous incarnation: the costuming of Caiaphas in the Oberammergau Passionsspiel. On stage at Oberammergau, the ‘horned’ mitre has been received as representative of ‘devil horns’: an antisemitic symbol of the medieval belief that ‘the Jews’ are children of the devil. Outcry over the mitre eventually led the village, in 1990, to change the Jewish priests’ headgear, which was further reformed in the 2000s. But does this reception reflect the intent of those who developed and utilised the ‘horned’ mitre in art and costume? How might audience responses help us trace its changing symbolic resonance over time? What insight can the ‘horned’ mitre provide into theological thought processes, relations between Christians and Jews, and notions of historicity? How does the popularisation of the ‘horned’ mitre help us to understand how Christians conceptualised their origin narrative in the Bible and their relationship to Jews and Judaism? Combining previous research into the earliest origins of the horned mitre with archival research into the history of the development of costumes in the Oberammergau play, this paper will be the first in-depth exploration of the ‘horned’ mitre at Oberammergau. In the first section, it will trace the evolution of representations of Caiaphas in medieval art and drama, including the East Anglian N-Town Passion Play and the Swiss-German Lucerne Passionsspiel. In the second section, it will track the evolution of the ‘horned’ mitre in the Oberammergau costumery. The concluding part of the paper will draw attention to the shifting character of audience reception. While by 1984 (and through to today) many groups have read the ‘horned’ mitre as possessing a demonic quality, earlier visitors to the play responded to the costume in various ways – as an orientalist trope, or even as an expression of anticlericalism. Early critics of the play’s antisemitic connotations tended to avoid the question of costumery entirely. Due to its wide popularity, the Oberammergau Passionsspiel became a key influence on visual and dramatic representations of the Bible in the twentieth century, among both Protestants and Catholics. Tracing the history of the ‘horned’ mitre, and its reception as part of the Oberammergau play, offers a gateway into much bigger questions about the changing uses and reception of the Bible in the modern period.


Creating Law: The Intertextual Hermeneutics of the Samaritan Tenth Commandment
Program Unit: Book of Deuteronomy
Megan Turton, University of Sydney

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.


Funding Spiritual Offerings: Wealth and the Spread of Early Christianity
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Daniel Ullucci, Stonehill College

By the second century CE, many Christian writers had developed an ideological rejection of animal sacrifice and indeed all tangible offerings. This discourse claimed that real Christians made ‘spiritual,’ not physical, offerings. At the same time, however, there is ample evidence, both archaeological and textual, that many Christians continued to make agricultural offerings (grains, wine, oil, and animals) well into the fifth century and beyond. This paper seeks to analyze the competitive interaction between these very different forms of Christianity. To do this, it attempts to redescribe early Christian discourse on offerings, particularly the dominant ideology that ‘real’ Christians do not make physical offerings. Evidence from the fourth and fifth centuries shows a massive diverting of financial capital away from traditional religious sites into Christian hands. At the same time, some Christians developed a discourse which recast these financial offerings as gifts to the church, the poor, and ultimately to God. Within this discourse, a few drops of wine poured out at a saint’s shrine were reviled as ‘physical,’ whereas hundreds of pounds of gold and silver were ideologically laundered into ‘spiritual’ offerings. This paper argues that this particular Christian discourse, which condemned sacrifice and reimagined financial offerings, appealed to a set of Roman elites. The financial assets these elites controlled were fundamental to the ascendency of this particular form of Christianity. Thus, a package of practice and ideology surrounding offerings contributed to the success of what would ultimately become the dominant form of Christianity.


The Implications of a Prosodic Reading of the Masoretic Accents
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
David Van Acker, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

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.


Conversion in Mystery Religions? Theory Meets Mysteries and Conversion
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Gerhard van den Heever, University of South Africa

This paper aims to significantly redescribe and retheorize mystery religions, religion, and conversion. The concepts of conversion and mystery religions are problematized through redescriptive theorizing of religion. Particular attention is paid to past scholarship on mystery religions and how this constructed the terms in which conversion in mystery religions are conceived. Focusing on Apuleius/Lucius’s ‘conversion’ in The Golden Ass, and the cases of Late Roman aristocrats’ initiations into mysteries, this essay argues that ‘conversion’ is not an applicable term to use for entry into mystery cult group membership; and second, that perhaps it is best to abandon the term conversion, even for Christianity and Judaism. What is conventionally thought to be indicated by ‘conversion,’ are normal processes of social formation and identity maintenance.


At the Sacred Portal
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Gerhard van den Heever, University of South Africa

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.


Moving beyond the Text as Slogan: Reading Genesis 19 in the Context of LGBTI Lived Realities in African Faith Contexts
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Charlene van der Walt, University of KwaZulu-Natal

The Sodom and Gomorrah narrative as it is commonly referred to and that is found in Genesis 19 is often used in contemporary African faith communities to condemn LGBTI people as an abomination before God and to label same sex love as unnatural, un-Christian and un-African. The narrative is often drawn on in anecdotal fashion within ethical debates and discussion in African faith communities as a clear textual example of God’s negative judgement of LGBTI people and of those who navigate gender, desire and love outside of the hetero-patriarchal binary directive. By drawing on the insights of Queer Theology and in a quest to read the Bible with those most affected by systems of oppression the Ujamaa Centre for Biblical and Theological Community Development and Research at the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal has embarked on a process of re-reading Genesis 19 in African faith context. The paper describes the key learnings from the process of development of the Contextual Bible Study fundamentally designed to push beyond the anecdotal judgmental slogans of the interpretation of the text to a critical slow re-reading of the narrative. A fundamental hermeneutical key informing the re-reading process is gained from employing critical gender theory and insights developed in scholarship engaging GBV where rape is understood as power expressed in a sexual way. The Bible study forms part of faith recourses being developed by the Ujamaa Centre to capacitate Africa faith leaders and LGBTI activists in order to assist Africa faith communities to become spaces of radical hospitality and inclusion.


Speech in Josephus
Program Unit: Josephus
Jan Willem van Henten, Universiteit van Amsterdam

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 Impact of Experiential Learning on Student Engagement and Well-Being: Results of a Small-Scale Study
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
John Van Maaren, McMaster University

Since David Kolb’s foundational study in 1984, a remarkable literature has developed around the concept of experiential learning (Kolb and Kolb, 2009). Experiential learning provides a bridge between education and the ‘real world,’ connecting education with work and personal development. Most basically, experiential learning involves two components: experience and critical reflection on that experience (Dewey, 1933, 78). In post-secondary education, different forms of experiential learning include internships, field work, study abroad, service learning, and student teaching. Individual courses may also incorporate short-term experiential learning components, where they are associated with increased interest and motivation (Watts, García-Carbonell, Rising, 2011). Experiential learning is therefore a key resource for teaching biblical studies to Gen Z students who report shorter attention spans and encounter greater demands for their attention both inside and outside the classroom. This paper reports on a small-scale study at a research-intensive Canadian university of two experiential learning components integrated into a religious studies course on death and the afterlife in Judaism and Christianity. As part of the course, students (1) toured a local cemetery with a Christian pastor and (2) met with a rabbi to discuss rituals related to death and the afterlife as practiced in their synagogue community. Beforehand, students were instructed to reflect on how concepts present in the Biblical texts are manifested in these contemporary practices. Two weeks after the second experiential learning component, student perception data was collected though a questionnaire. Strikingly, all respondents found the experiential learning ‘very valuable’ and nearly half indicated it changed their perspective of religious studies. This paper analyzes main takeaways from the student feedback questionnaire including how best to relate course material to ‘real life’ in a specifically biblical or religious studies classroom, how to strategically combine course content dissemination and student activities to maximize student learning, and ways that experiential learning may address the increased levels of anxiety and isolation reported by Gen Z students.


Reading Paul within Judaism: Criteria, Methodology, and Moving beyond Binaries
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
John Van Maaren, Catholic University of America

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.


Artabanus and Antipas in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, Book 18
Program Unit: Josephus
Bas van Os, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Because of discrepancies between Josephus’ account and the Roman historians, the role he claims for Herod Antipas in Roman-Parthian relations is often ignored. This paper provides a re-reading of the Roman historians with an eye to the distorting effects of Roman propaganda and anti-Parthian bias, to allow us to construct a plausible theory that may explain the passages in Josephus about Artabanus and Antipas. 1. Correcting Roman Propaganda on the Conflict with Artabanus in 35-37 CE - The problems with reading Tacitus and the other Roman historians - Armenia was not a client state but a buffer state between Rome and Parthia - Artabanus’ family had a legitimate claim to the Armenian throne - Vitellius’ attempt to overthrow Artabanus failed spectacularly - Vitellius had to accept Artabanus’ son Orodes as king of Armenia 2. Reimagining the role of Herod Antipas in the 30s CE - The problem with reading Josephus, specifically wit book 18 of Jew. Antiq. - The geopolitical background of Antipas’ politics in the 30s CE - The involvement of Antipas to broker a peace agreement under Flaccus - The conflict between Antipas and Vitellius - The charge of conspiracy with Artabanus in light of the war against Aretas Annex: Antipas’ second marriage and the death of John the Baptist: some remarks on the discussion between Nikos Kokkinos and E.P. Sanders.


Gnostic Spirituality and the Reading of Paul
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Bas van Os, Erasmus University Rotterdam

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.


The ETCBC Syntactic Database of the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Wido van Peursen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

This presentation will explore the potential of a systematic syntactic analysis of the Hebrew Bible on the basis of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Amstelodamensis (BHSA), a richly annotated linguistic dataset of the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC). To meet the needs of a variety of user groups, the dataset is available as an online tool (through the SHEBANQ) website and in a Python package (through Text-Fabric). The ETCBC has a strong tradition of more than four decades in computational syntactic analysis of Biblical Hebrew. Its current research is focused on new challenges: how can the computer support research in the intersection of linguistic and literary studies, for example with participant tracking? And how can new techniques such as Machine Learning be applied to the Hebrew Bible? And how can we extend our work to other ancient Semitic corpora? These questions will be addressed in the presentation and illustrated with some of the ongoing research projects at the ETCBC.


The Ibn Mas`udoid Text Tradition in Early Quranic Manuscripts
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism (IQSA)
Marijn van Putten, Leiden University

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.


Designing the Golden Calf: A Reappraisal and Reinterpretation of Exodus 32:4a
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Elizabeth VanDyke, University of California-Los Angeles

The narrative surrounding the Golden Calf’s creation in Exod 32:4a has long frustrated translators and scholars. The first and most prominent difficulty with the text is the tool referenced—no one is quite certain what the ḥereṭ in this context designated. In the War Scroll from Qumran it is clearly a chisel, but interpreters remain baffled as to how this implement would have been used in creating a cult statue. Compounding this issue, the Masoretes marked their vocalization of the verb in Exod 32:4a as uncertain, meaning that the word in question has three possible roots (yṣr, ṣrr, or ṣwr) and a dozen potential glosses to choose from. Exasperatingly, the readings created by pairing these glosses with a “chisel” are nonsensical within this context. There is also a masculine singular direct object following the verb which complicates interpretation further. Whatever action Aaron was accomplishing with the ḥereṭ, grammatically he could not be applying it to the plural earrings in Exod 32:3. In light of all these difficulties, translations since the LXX have been awkward or unsustainable. This paper seeks to resolve these issues through comparative Semitic evidence and inscriptional material from the ancient Near East. By glossing the verb in Exod 32:4a as “to design” in line with cognates of yṣr in Akkadian and Aramaic, the difficulties of the passage are solved. Aaron was not designing the earrings, he was designing the Calf, which fits the masculine singular direct object in the verse. Furthermore, the idea that he would design the image of the gold statue before making it is not only logical, it harmonizes with evidence from Mesopotamian literature. The prestige of an item rested, in part, on the identity of its designer. Therefore, in Mesopotamian religious polemics, only the gods had the right to design and determine their cultic forms. Against this backdrop, Aaron’s act of designing the Golden Calf becomes powerfully ironic. Israel’s God alone had the right to decide how he would be imaged, and yet, Aaron sketched his form without divine approval or inspiration. This action also underscores the Calf’s illegitimacy. Because Aaron, rather than Yahweh, made its blueprint, the Calf represented a human invention rather than a divine image. In this way, the writers of Exodus were further delegitimizing the Golden Calf, not only as an idol, but as a false form. The final portion of the paper discusses the ḥereṭ used in designing the image. Theoretically a variety of tools could have been employed to design a cult statue. However, due to evidence from Isa 8:1—the only other place the tool ḥereṭ appears in the Hebrew Bible— it appears that the implement was most likely a type of inking tool, such as a rush pen or a reed brush. Additional evidence from ancient Egypt and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud reinforces this point. In conclusion, this presentation provides an interpretation of Exod 32:4a that is grammatically sustainable, historically plausible, and theologically suitable to its context.


The Reception of Chronicles by the Author of the First Gospel: The Kingdom of Heaven as the Restored Cultic Empire
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
R. Jarrett Van Tine, University of St. Andrews

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.


An Investigation into the New Testament Citations of the Gospel of Mark Found in the Works of the Early Church Fathers
Program Unit: Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior
David Vasquez, Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung

The use of church father citations has raised doubts with regards to their reliability as witnesses to the New Testament (N.T.) text. In this paper, I will first consider the complexities of using the church father’s citations and outline the criteria we use for the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) to mitigate these difficulties. Next, I will discuss the patristic evidence for the various endings of Mark and how we apply the criteria in the case of Mark 16. Mark, unlike the other Gospels of the N.T., has four different endings that are present in the manuscript tradition. These endings are: 1) Mk 16,1-8, which ends abruptly with the three women who visited the tomb of Jesus, who were scared and said nothing after finding an empty tomb; 2) Mk 16,1-20 with an extended verse 8 which says that the women reported to Peter; 3) the so called “traditional long ending” which constitutes Mk 16,1-20 without any extended verses; 4) Mk 16,1-20 with an extended verse 14, which according to C. Cranfield was a later addition to soften the rebuke of the apostles found at the beginning of verse 14 . Lastly, I will weigh the value of patristic evidence for the endings of Mark for textual criticism.


The Value of Motive in the Septuagint’s Laws on Theft and Murder
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Jelle Verburg, University of Oxford

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.


The Thousand-Year Kingdom (Rev 20–21) in the Textual Transmission: A Difficult Journey through Manuscripts and Church Fathers
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Martina Vercesi, University of St Andrews

The peculiar transmission history of the Book of Revelation is nowadays well-known; further, it is generally recognised that the paucity of direct witnesses that have survived, compared to the other New Testament writings, is due to the slow acceptance of this book in the Canon, above all in the eastern part of the Roman Empire; this is, in fact, the situation portraited by Eusebius of Caesarea (Aland, 1989). Within this scenario, I would like to focus the attention on a specific section of Revelation, that is the thousand-year reign, the coming of the New Jerusalem and the last judgment. Chapters 20 and 21, in fact, present a more complicated textual history which is probably reflective of the implications of these chapters for the theology of the early Christian communities. Regarding the Greek tradition, no papyri retain the text of these chapters, and the most ancient manuscript on our disposal is Codex Sinaiticus, which, as J. Hernández has pointed out, presents two principal complications: ‘1) block mixture 2) the quantity and diversity of its corrections’ (2006). On the other hand, the Latin tradition shows an early reception of this text; Victorinus of Petavium wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse, which, however, survives only in one manuscript (dated back to the XV century) and we possess a revision made by Jerome (398) who reworked the passages related to the millennial kingdom. The other relevant commentary came from the North African Tyconius, but it is lost, and it has been reconstructed through the later authors who quoted it. Among them, there is the one wrote by Primasius, yet in which, nevertheless, chapters 20 and 21 present a different text: the one of Augustine (De civitate dei). The Latin manuscripts tradition present a problem as well because the most ancient manuscript which retains the Latin text of Revelation (Fleury Palimpsest) stops at verse 16:5. Given these initial statements, this paper aims to trace the history of these chapters throughout their manuscript evidence, as well as church father’s reception; this could give us a chance also to reflect on the reasons for this peculiar situation. Further, in light of the meaningful work of Josef Schmid (1955) and the new acquisitions on Revelation, this study seeks to consider whether and how it is possible to have access to the most ancient text of these chapters.


Prototypes and Bible Reading: (Illustrated with) Good and Poor Examples
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Karolien Vermeulen, University of Antwerp

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.


Scripturalized Narrative in the Gospel of Mark and the Second Temple Period
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Nathanael Vette, University of Edinburgh

Studies have tended to focus on how Mark’s use of the Jewish scriptures contributes to our understanding of Second Temple and early Christian exegesis. The Jewish scriptures were also used as the means of composing new and independent literature during the period. One such phenomenon is scripturalized narrative where new episodes are composed out of scriptural material. I look at examples of scripturalized narrative in five works from the period (Pseudo-Philo; Genesis Apocryphon; 1 Maccabees; Judith; Testament of Abraham). I then turn to five episodes in the Gospel which show how Mark similarly uses scriptural material to compose new episodes (Jesus in the wilderness; the feeding of the two multitudes; the execution of John the Baptist; the crucifixion of Jesus). I conclude with some thoughts on the historical value of scripturalized narrative.


Mister Worldwide? Areal Prominence in the Prestige of Ephesian Religious Experts
Program Unit: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World
Jarkko Vikman, University of Helsinki

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.


Divine Marriage in the Pauline Epistles and the Rabbinic Interpretation of the Song of Songs
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
André Villeneuve, Azusa Pacific University

Christ as Bridegroom. Christ as new Adam. Christ as Paschal Lamb. The Church as Temple of the Holy Spirit. These typological motifs are well known to exegetes of the Pauline corpus. Yet they are often studied in isolation from one another, as if Paul were freely drawing from a pool of only marginally related ideas from the Hebrew Scriptures. Rabbinic interpretation of the Song of Songs demonstrates that the sages viewed these theological motifs as closely related and connected through nuptial symbolism. Ancient Jewish interpreters depicted God’s primordial covenant with Adam and Eve in the Garden in marital terms, and their sin and exile from Paradise as a type of divorce—or, at least, a painful break-up. The divine-human separation was temporarily healed during the Exodus, when God betrothed Israel at the Passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, and Mount Sinai. But it suffered a new crisis when Israel worshiped the golden calf—described by the rabbis as the bride committing adultery while still under the marital chuppah. This renewed infidelity called for a new divine initiative of love and more permanent indwelling of the Bridegroom with his bride: For the rabbis, the marriage covenant between God and Israel was actualized through liturgical worship in the sanctuary. The union both perpetuated the betrothal formed at Sinai and anticipated the consummation of their union in the future messianic age. This rabbinic view of Israel’s salvation history in terms of marital drama sheds light on the Pauline treatment of similar motifs applied to Christ. In 1-2 Corinthians, Paul’s Adam, Passover/Exodus, and especially Temple mystagogy is rich with nuptial allusions: Christ is the new Adam and the Church is his body and betrothed virgin, redeemed and consecrated to him by his paschal sacrifice—but not yet fully united with him in marriage. Believers are baptized into this Body by the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is understood as Temple worship and sacred service; the believer is a Temple consecrated to Christ and inhabited by the presence of the Holy Spirit. As living Temple—or nuptial chamber, using the imagery of the rabbis—the believer shares in intimate κοινωνία with Christ, especially through sharing at his table and partaking of his body and blood in a kind of “one flesh” union. Yet this intimate κοινωνία can be destroyed through illicit sexual union, tantamount to idolatry as was the golden calf. Baptism and the Eucharist, the sacramental means of communion with Christ, are depicted as fulfillment of the Sinai theophany and Exodus. The concrete expression of this communion is the call to the members of the community to love each other with a selfless ἀγάπη. All of it is directed towards a definitive eschatological fulfillment at the final resurrection of the dead. For now, the bride must be a faithful guardian of the divine presence dwelling in her “earthen vessel”: She must persevere in the relative absence of the Lord until the divine espousals that await her at the end of her earthly journey.


Covenant and Betrothal: Echoes of Sinai at the Wedding at Cana
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Andre Villeneuve, Azusa Pacific University

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


Representations of Birth and Its Attendants
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Leslie Virnelson, Princeton Theological Seminary

This presentation will consider how images of birth positions can be used, in tandem with references to birth in texts, to create a picture of a broad, shared practice of giving birth in a low seated or squatting position with a group of women around the mother and a midwife sitting or kneeling in front. Though these images and texts give a stereotypical portrayal of the process of giving birth, it is generally portrayed as a community project with other women, sometimes with assistance from deities. I will explore how various images and literary depictions of birth portray it as a community process, with women gathered around the mother and often offering physical support. The midwife is often depicted in art and literature with a privileged position within this group, with visual access to both the mother and baby and the ability to offer crucial information about the circumstances of birth. Some images for consideration will include a decorated “birth brick” from Abydos, ca. 1750 BCE, a funerary stele from Alexandria ca. 3rd or 4th c. BCE, and actual birth stools. Literary depictions for consideration will include a Hittite description of the tasks of a midwife (CTH 430), Babylonian texts about midwives as legal witnesses (PBS 5 100), and the biblical texts of Exodus 1, and Ruth 4.


Divine Will and Human Decision-Making: Divinatory Techniques in Ancient Egypt and Their Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Alexandra von Lieven, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

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.


Visual Representations of Early Marian Apocryphal Texts as Reception History
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Lily Vuong, Central Washington University

This paper will propose an alternative interpretation to the iconography found on the triumphal arch in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, which features details unique to apocryphal infancy narratives on the Virgin Mary. Additionally, this paper will examine the intersections between early Marian apocryphal literature and Marian influenced material culture, with consideration to the iconography’s purpose (i.e., dogmatic, didactic, devotional, etc.).


Philippians 2:9–16: Who Is the Lord of the Eschaton, Whose Name Is above Every Name?
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
Erik Waaler, NLA University College

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.


A Hidden Life: Nonviolent Civil Disobedience and Romans in Age of Totalitarianism
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Robby Waddell, Southeastern University

During the Second World War, Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector, deified the Third Reich by refusing to swear an oath to Adolf Hitler. Motivated by his faith and his personal convictions, Jägerstätter endured public ridicule, imprisonment, and eventually execution by the Germans. Jägerstätter was later declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church. While in prison, Franz corresponded with his wife Franziska; their letters have been collected and published in Erna Putz’s Franz Jägerstätter: Letters and Writings from Prison. The Jägerstätters’ letters along with the Franz’s biography In Solitary Witness by Gordon Zahn were the inspiration for A Hidden Life, a film written and directed by Terrance Malick. In his typical style, Malick tells this story though minimalist, albeit poignant, dialogue and with breathtaking cinematography, containing scenes of the Austrian high country and the Inn River. Another common feature of Malick’s films is his use of evocative voice-overs. While the scenes are changing, a voice of an unidentified mentor teaches Franz the lesson the blacksmith: The anvil never strikes back, though it outlasts the hammer; and it shapes the metal as much as the hammer. In another voice-over, this time with Franz’s voice, the audience learns that “it’s better to suffer injustice than to commit it.” Franz’s life stands in stark contrast to authoritarianism. In his review of the film, movie critic Peter DeBruge wrote in Variety: “Whether or not he is specifically referring to the present day, its demagogues, and the way certain evangelicals have once again sold out their core values for political advantage, ‘A Hidden Life’ feels stunningly relevant as it thrusts this problem into the light.” In this paper, I explore the themes of nonviolent civil disobedience as illustrated in Malick’s film and the reception of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (specifically Romans 13), which has a dark reception history that includes a justification of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. More recently, in the summer of 2018, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who was at that time the US Attorney General, cited Romans 13 as justification for the government of the United States separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. Sessions’ comments garnered harsh criticism in the press, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and many more.


The Three Little Pigs and the Synoptic Problem
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Robby Waddell, Southeastern University

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.


The Corinthian Ecclesiae among the Corinthian Temples: A Contextualization of Paul's Temple Language in 1 Corinthians
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Andrew S. Wade, University of Aberdeen

Several monographs on Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthian ecclesiae have mined the data uncovered by archaeologists and classicists for insight into the context in which Paul wrote his epistles. Unfortunately, this data has often been applied selectively and, at times, haphazardly. The results of this endeavor have been demonstrated clearly in the literature on Paul’s use of temple imagery in particular. For example, Philip Richardson focuses exclusively on the correspondence between Paul’s language of “temple” and various Hellenistic philosophers [1]. Similarly, Albert Hogeterp focuses his study of temple language in the Corinthian epistles on a comparison with the literature of Second Temple Judaism, particularly the Qumran texts [2]. While both of these approaches offer some insight into potential influences on Paul’s temple imagery, their lack of contextualization with regard to the pastoral realities of the Corinthian ecclesiae themselves inhibits their relevance. In other words, the issue with their contributions is not their specificity, but the lack of reference for their specificity to the pastoral context into which Paul was writing and within which the Corinthian Christ-followers existed. This gap in the literature invites a new examination of the temple language in the Corinthian correspondence in the context of the religious milieu(x) of first-century Roman Corinth. More specifically, it is my contention that one must understand what “temple” meant to the Corinthian ecclesiae (i.e., Paul’s audience) in order to understand the role that Paul’s temple metaphor could have played in that context. In this paper, I will first review the archaeological and (to a lesser extent) literary evidence for the temples of first-century Roman Corinth, noting in particular the complex negotiations of cultic practice and identity involved in the religious life of this particular Greek city-state turned Roman colony. From there, I will bring Paul’s own discussion of “temple” in 1 Corinthians into the conversation. I will argue that Paul’s temple metaphor elucidates the nature of his moral/ethical advice throughout the epistle when set against the context of a host of “competing” temples on offer in the city. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that, from a Greco-Roman religious perspective, these temples would have been seen not as “competing” but complementary spaces of divine-human encounter. This introduces the possibility of “syncretic” worship practices among the Corinthian ecclesiae. Indeed, the Corinthians were negotiating their identities in the city by (among other things) their attendance at various functions related to the city’s temple complexes. Paul’s argument against this kind of syncretism both acknowledges its existence and illuminates his understanding of who the Corinthian Christ-followers were as the temple of the Holy Spirit—i.e., the locus of God’s presence in Corinth. [1] Philip N. Richardson, Temple of the Living God : The Influence of Hellenistic Philosophy on Paul’s Figurative Temple Language Applied to the Corinthians, eBook. (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2018), https://search-ebscohost-com.fuller.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=2004512&site=ehost-live. [2] Albert L. A. Hogeterp, Paul and God’s Temple: A Historical Interpretation of Cultic Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence, Biblical Tools and Studies 2 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006).


The Roman Grain Supply and the Rise of Ceres in Africa Proconsularis and Numidia
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
David Wallace-Hare, San Diego State University

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.


Abusive Text or Abusive God: The Difference of Using the Rule of Faith as Lense or as Result
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Karl-Henrik Wallerstein, Abo Akademi

In Walter Brueggemann’s theological conception of God in the Old Testament, YHWH, he becomes involved in an important disagreement with Brevard Childs concerning the correct understanding of the Rule of Faith. Childs argues that the Rule of Faith as described by the Church Fathers is necessary for a correct description of the God that is revealed in the Old Testament. Brueggemann disagrees. It is interesting to analyze this disagreement. At first sight the Rule of Faith seems unimportant for Brueggemann. However, in his encounter with Childs’ approach, this rule becomes a hermeneutical cliff between them and the comparison between him and Childs concerning the Rule of Faith forges a deeper insight into Brueggemann’s concept of God. In short, this paper demonstrates that whereas Childs argues for a return to the Rule of Faith as a lens or as a basic structure in biblical interpretation, Brueggemann argues that this kind of hermeneutical pre-understanding precludes the text from conforming to a dogmatic concept of God. Instead, he argues that the result of the interpretation of the Scripture gives the Rule of Faith. My impression then is that understanding the Rule of Faith is of importance in order to evaluate Brueggemann’s incorporation of core and counter-testimonies that together form his concept of God with a tension. According to Brueggemann, a reading informed by the Rule of Faith forecloses or reduces the interpretation prior to any encounter with the text: Childs’ proposal seems difficult and problematic on many counts. Childs’ project strikes this writer as massively reductionist. To limit the reading of the Old Testament text to what is useful for Christian theology—That is, for witness to Jesus Christ—means that much in the text must be disregarded. According to Brueggemann, Childs’ understanding of the Rule of Faith is a hermeneutical impasse: “The odd outcome of such a statement is an unqualified embrace of the Tridentine inclination to subject the text and its possible interpretation to the control of church categories.” Childs, however, is critical of Brueggemann’s attempt at interpreting the Old Testament. He argues that Brueggemann has missed fulfilling the intention of serving the church with a confessing theology: The above juxtaposition describes a fundamental problem for the discipline of Old Testament theology. Should an Old Testament theology presuppose any dogmatic principles before the encounter with the text or should the text determine the result?


Rethinking the Stoicheia of Galatians 4
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Emma Wasserman, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Rethinking the stoicheia of Galatians 4


Codex Bezae as Repository
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Tommy Wasserman, Ansgar University College

Likely copied in the East at the very beginning of the fifth century, Codex Bezae (D/d 05) was regularly consulted by Greek-speaking Christians, as numerous fifth- sixth- and seventh-century annotations to its folia indicate. Secondary hands added section numerals drawn from the Eusebian system, a Sortes apparatus, lectionary notes, and titloi, as well as corrections and other marks. Indeed, this codex provides the earliest material evidence of the spread of the Constantinopolitan liturgical calendar outside of the capitol city. The manuscript also preserves a set of unnumbered titloi inserted at the upper margins of the Gospels of Matthew, John and Luke, supplying a system of headings that are akin to and yet different from the standard Old Greek Chapters (kephalaia). Traces of public reading may be textual as well as paratextual: incipits like, “it happened in those days” (Acts 2:1), for example, seem to have entered the text itself. As such, Codex Bezae preserves not only a fascinating text in both Latin and Greek, but also a record of the developing practices of late ancient Christians. Characteristically idiosyncratic — if viewed from the perspective of later evidence — these remarkable traces of secondary use transform this manuscript into a repository of evolving Christian textual technologies as well as a material record of what is, from a modern perspective, an unusual New Testament text. Seeming imperfections, however, conceal what are in fact systematic additions that converted what may have become an awkward and outdated codex into a useful, practical book. Together these interventions transformed Codex Bezae into a repository of divine communication more readily available for public reading (the Eusebian sections), more closely tied to a Christian calendar (the liturgical notes), newly suitable for direct oracular consultation (the Sortes), and filled with proofs of the miraculous content of the Gospels (the titloi).


Bottoms Up: Drinking God’s Cup of Wrath
Program Unit: Writing/Reading Jeremiah
Jaime L. Waters, DePaul University

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.


Women as Mourners and Prophetic Mediators
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Jaime L. Waters, DePaul University

In the ancient Near East, professional mourners were hired to publicly lament during funerals and times of destruction. Often, these mourners were women who expressed grief as catharsis for their communities. Jeremiah 9:17-22 provides insight into women as mourners and prophetic mediators during turmoil surrounding the Babylonian exile. Women convey sadness, teach others to lament, and provoke communal grief with their crying, wailing, and singing. In addition, women serve a prophetic performative function. They hear the word of Yahweh, and their mourning incites people to feel shame for their disobedience. This paper will use feminist and psychological criticisms to elucidate the multidimensional function of women as mediators of grief.


Priests, Contagion, and Quarantine: Leviticus 13–14 in the Cultural History of Diagnostic Authority
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
James W. Watts, Syracuse University

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.


Women and Empire: A Study of Matthew's Narrative
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Dorothy Jean Weaver, Eastern Mennonite Seminary

This essay will offer narrative portraits of the Matthean women who intersect with the powers of the Roman Empire in the contexts of Jesus' birth (Herod the king), John the Baptist's death (Herod the tetrarch), and Jesus' death (Pilate the governor). These portraits will bring my seminal study ("Power and Powerlessness," 1992) of the three Roman Imperial figures of Matthew's narrative into connection with a lengthy list and an intriguing assortment of Matthean women: Mary; the mothers of Bethlehem; Herodias; the daughter of Herodias; the woman who anoints Jesus' head; the servant girls in the courtyard of Caiaphas; Pilate's wife; Mary Magdalene,; Mary, the mother of James and Joseph; the mother of the sons of Zebedee. The essay will highlight the strikingly varied and often deeply ironic portraits that Matthew paints of these women as they engage with "Empire." The essay will conclude with summary reflections on the narrative rhetoric expressed through these Matthean portraits and on the evident theological message(s) that Matthew's narrative seeks to convey vis-a-vis "Women and Empire."


Jesus and Violence in Q: An Exegetical Response to Theses of a Violent Jesus from Eisler to Aslan
Program Unit: Q
Lukas Weissensteiner, Graz University

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.


How Are the Children? Daughter Zion and Her Children in Lamentations 1–2
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Kristin J. Wendland, Wartburg College

In his monograph Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book, Tod Linafelt argues that critical points in the rhetoric of Lamentations focus on the plight of Zion’s children. He observes that words of concern for Zion’s children in Lamentations 1:16 evoke an outburst from the lamenter, that descriptions of the children crying for food in Lamentations 2:12 lead to a near speechlessness on the part of the lamenter, and that the climactic address by Zion to YHWH in Lamentations 2:20-22 begins and ends with indignation and lament that children have been eaten by their mothers. Describing these catastrophic effects of siege on children at rhetorically poignant moments in the lament leads to empathy on the part of the reader. Building on Linafelt’s arguments, I contend that the image of the children functions not only as a rhetorical high point as the lamenter and Daughter Zion cry out to YHWH to end the siege against her but also as a parallel to the relationship between Zion and YHWH, effectively questioning YHWH about his parenthood. Daughter Zion is presented in a number of metaphorical roles in these chapters, including that of widow, mother, and daughter. While YHWH is not called father in these chapters, the continued use of the phrases Daughter Zion (בת ציון) and Virgin Daughter Zion (בתולת בת ציון; Lam 1:6, 15; 2:1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18) to describe the personified figure insist that the parent-child metaphor be operative (Translating the phrase בַּת־צִיּוֹן as an appositional genitive, that is as Daughter Zion. See Stinespring, 1965; Dearman, 2009). Within the broader socio-cultural context of 6th century BCE Judah, a father ought to protect his daughter, something that does not seem to occur in Lamentations 1-2. Thus, when descriptions appear of starving children in Lamentations 1:16 and of deceased children being eaten in Lamentations 2:20-22, these descriptions also recall Daughter Zion’s own relationship with YHWH. There is an attempt to move YHWH to action, not only out of sympathy for a bereaved mother and the plight of the children but also by reminding YHWH of the deity’s own parental role. The implicit question is, “What kind of parent are you, oh YHWH? How are your children?”


The Epigraphic Record and the Creation of St Peter's in the Vatican
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Richard Westall, Independent Scholar

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.


Mark as Cultic Narrative: Ritual in Mark 14:3–9 as Key to Mark's Genre
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Paul D. Wheatley, University of Notre Dame

In Mark 14:1–9 and its parallels, a woman anoints Jesus with μύρον, which Jesus states is done in anticipation of his death. In LXX and later sources, μύρον refers to a variety of anointing substances, often associated with ritual contexts. This paper considers the ritual and cultic connotations of the use of μύρον and νάρδος from Mark 14:1–11 in connection with the importance Jesus attaches to this woman's act in Mark 14:9 "Truly I tell you, wherever the good news [ἐυαγγέλιον] is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her." This import of this declaration is significant for understanding the genre of Mark. In Rudolf Bultmann's History of the Synoptic Tradition, he discusses the role the gospels played as cultic legends in their earliest composition and transmission. Bultmann's observations about the gospels' cultic associations, directed less towards the question of their genre and more to the question of their historiography, has largely gone unexplored in subsequent scholarship. This paper will compare the use of μύρον and νάρδος in the LXX, MT, early midrashim on Song of Songs, and early Christian baptismal rituals in support of the thesis that Mark 14:3–9 evokes themes present in the Baptism of Jesus in Mark 1:9–11 and woven throughout the narrative structure of Mark indicating that Mark is a Cultic Narrative that employs ritual narration as a primary mode of conveying meaning.


Representing Rhetorics of Characterization in John 3: Towards a Blending-Based Approach to the Encounter Between Nicodemus and Jesus
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Michael Whitenton, Baylor University

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.


The Apostle Paul and The Matrix
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Matthew G. Whitlock, Seattle University

This presentation focuses on a University Core class called "The Apostle Paul and The Matrix," taught both online and in live settings. It was developed with the help of Seattle University's Center for Digital Learning & Innovation (CDLI). CDLI also approved and accredited the course. With clips from the Matrix embedded throughout the course, students follow the journey of Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo alongside the journey of Paul and his communities. Embedded online on Canvas are Paul’s uncontested and contested letters, student Adobe Spark projects, PollEverywhere surveys, online philosophical discussion boards, audio clips (MLK: Paul’s Letter to American Christians), and song clips and lyrics (Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up”). The course was specifically designed for Generation Z and Seattle’s (so-called) “None-Zone” undergraduate students. Each module correlates the study of the Apostle Paul with the Matrix, ranging from Paul’s background, Evil (sarx and the Matrix), and Sheroes and heroes (Christology). For example, in the module on the background and composition of Paul’s letters, students view clips about the making of The Matrix, where they see the Wachowski siblings talk about the philosophy and background of their movie, including the intricate behind-the- scenes preparation. Seeing both the ancient and modern preparation involved in creating literature, students are then introduced to the writing process and the intricate behind-the-scenes preparation expected from them in composing essays and creating Adobe Spark presentations. The course also broadens discussions beyond traditional theology, introducing “gnostic” texts, and modern thinkers on gender and performativity (Judith Butler), simulacra and simulation (Jean Baudrillard and Gilles Deleuze), and mathematics and faith (Alain Badiou). In short, it brings in relevant, modern questions into dialogue with Paul’s world. It is created for an interdisciplinary, liberal arts setting. This presentation serves as trailer for the course. In this trailer, I will discuss how the course provides multiple formats (visual, audio, technological, textual) for students to understand ancient texts and their relation to our modern context, multiple ways for students to express what they learn (Adobe Spark, discussions, Zoom presentations, the writing process), and multiple avenues for engagement, including modern movies (The Matrix) and music (Rage Against the Machine).


Agony: Medicine and Religious Authority in Galen and the Gospels
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Bronwen L. Wickkiser, Wabash College

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.


Text, Theology, and Adaptation: The Influence of Creation ex nihlio and Functional Ontology on Retellings of Genesis 1:1–2 in Children's Bibles
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
R. K. Wilkowski, Regent College

Retellings of the biblical text in children’s Bibles raise particular reception historical questions due not only to the unique child-audience but also to the dual biblical and systematic theological influences informing the author’s adaptive choices. This paper examines the biblical and systematic theological influences underlying children’s Bible retellings of Genesis 1:1–2. The goal of this study is to uncover the practical relationship between these two disciplines as it is reflected in biblical adaptation. This paper does not intend of a qualitative statement regarding the potential benefits or pitfalls of such interpretive choices; rather, it offers a descriptive analysis of the biblical and systematic theological influences informing adaptations of Genesis 1:1–2 in children’s Bibles. This paper begins with a brief survey of the development of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo followed by an exegesis of Genesis 1:1–2 before considering how these two streams of influence come together in children’s Bibles. This paper argues that, when faced with the textual ambiguity surrounding God’s act of creation in Genesis 1:1–2, children’s Bible authors tend to revert to the systematic theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo rather than engaging with the complex linguistic and cultural horizons of the text.


Aesthetic Divine Encounter: Ben Sira’s Ekphrasis on Simon ben Onias in Light of Greco-Roman Epiphanic Strategies
Program Unit: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Logan Williams, Durham University

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.


Journeying in Philostratus’s The Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Luke’s Travel Narrative
Program Unit: Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman Travel in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Byzantine Periods (300 BCE–600 CE)
Robert Williams, B. H. Carroll Theological Institute

A generation ago David P. Moessner observed that “much work is still needed in comparing the role of journeying in the Gospels and Acts to the journey accounts, especially in the popular Greco-Roman biography,” noting as an example Philostratus’s The Life of Apollonius of Tyana vii.10-16 (JBL 102 [1983] 576n7). This paper addresses that need, comparing the role of journeying in Philostratus’s work to that in Luke’s Gospel. It proposes that Philostratus represented Apollonius as an itinerant Pythagorean philosopher (Christopher P. Jones, Philostratus: The Life of Apollonius, Books I-IV, 9, 11 [LCL 2005]) with illuminating similarities and contrasts to Jesus as an itinerant prophet in Luke’s Travel Narratives. First, the authors employ journeying similarly to show the repeated appeal of the figures to their hearers, besting all in debate in teaching about God. Then, the writers contrast in representations of their heroes’ fates. Philostratus’s “second Socrates,” speaking similar to those in Lives of the Sophistics (ibid., 9), wins over his audiences, teaching followers and counseling Roman authorities, even to the end with successful self-defense before Domitian. Luke’s prophet like Moses, analogous to Deuteronomic history (Odil Hannes Steck, Israel und das gewaltsame Geschick der Propheten [WMANT 23, 1967], 63-64; see David P. Moessner, Lord of the Banquet [Trinity, 1998]), on the other hand, encounters objectors constantly accompanying sympathetic hearers, and meets his demise, in the subsequent Passion Narrative, before Jewish and Roman authorities. Finally, both authors conclude with further similarity, reporting the figures’ immortality. Journeying in both compositions builds the narratives to dramatic climaxes for the figures, ensconcing them in a realm with God because of their faithfulness in the face of opposition in representing his designs for human life.


"The Gospel of Truth": Spiritual Enrichment in the Valentinian East
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Robert Williams, B. H. Carroll Theological Institute

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.


Isaiah and Jeremiah
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Hugh G. M. Williamson, University of Oxford

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


The Rhetorical Function of 2 Samuel 7:13a*
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Timothy M. Wilis, Pepperdine University

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.


Challenging the Obligation to Fast during Ramadan via Qur’anic Interpretation (1920–1960)
Program Unit: The Societal Qur'an (IQSA)
M. Brett Wilson, Central European University

Interpreting the description of fasting requirements in the Qur’an has been a subject of debate among scholars of the Qur’an for centuries. The cluster of verses regarding fasting in al-Baqara are complex as well as confusing and, therefore, have resulted in a number of different understandings even among the well-known commentators of the medieval period. Drawing on the complexity of the discussions among the early commentators, this paper proposes to investigate how modern commentaries, beginning in the nineteenth century and intensifying in the twentieth, reassessed the verses related to fasting, often reopening debates among early commentators that had not been discussed for centuries and took them in new directions, for a variety of reasons. These new chapters in the history of interpreting fasting verses is, of course, a subset of the new wave of commentaries that questioned or reassessed many issues in the Qur’anic text, from the status of gender to the theory of evolution. However, unlike many of the topics that emerged, these verses are integral for a basic ritual requirement and, as such, the stakes of interpretation were high. This paper will focus on how these debates transpired in Turkish commentaries of the twentieth century but will also consider the reevaluation of fasting verses in selected prominent commentaries globally in the period between 1920-1960. The paper is particularly interested in the ways in which the increasing publication of commentaries and translations led to public controversy and discussion, namely in questioning the transmitted wisdom about the Ramadan fast and offering alternative interpretations, including not fasting or fasting in a different way. Additionally, it will pose several questions about methodology of interpretation-for instance: how did “purely” linguistic interpretation (based on new readings) play a role as opposed to the use of precedent and tradition? How were older interpretations engaged, selectively ignored or dismissed? How and when is historical context invoked as a justification, particularly in the case of modernity as a novel historical era with new demands? Finally, how does the age of printing, publishing and mass-literacy involve broader swaths of society in the process of interpretation and what new dilemmas or challenges does it present?


Peacemaking in an Honour-Shame Culture—Joseph and His Brothers as a Case Study
Program Unit: Bible and Ethics
Lindsay Wilson, Ridley College Melbourne

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.


Scripturalization as Violence
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
Vincent Wimbush, Institute for Signifying Scriptures

This presentation identifies and opens a window onto what can be argued to be some of the most important dynamics and practices that account for the formation—in the broadest senses, ideological, psycho-socio-cultural, legal, economic, and political—that is the modern Atlantic world. Because it assumes such formation to be the ordo verborum, the complex and comprehensive system or regime of discourse and consciousness, this paper—as part of a larger project about religion as discourse and as such a type of “violence we do to things” (Foucault)— may help us focus more sharply, more self-critically, on what many of us moderns are as formation, how we came to be what we are, how and why we persist in being such, including our engagement in the ongoing practices of scriptural exegesis (understood broadly as cultural practices and specifically in terms of popular and professional interpretation—of the Bible among other texts), the consequences of such practices, and so forth. In sum, the project of which this paper is part, is critical and trans-disciplinary in orientation and focus and is concerned not about themes, topoi within texts but about how texts are deployed or are made to work. To facilitate the window-opening, this paper continues the theorizing work with which I (and ISS) have been associated for several years—work that first conceptualized and still turns around the phenomenon of “scripturalization” (see my White Men’s Magic: Scripturalization as Slavery, 2012) as a way to understand and explain scripturalization as discourse among the dynamics of modern formation. In order to explain scripturalization more fully this paper focuses (as a kind of case study of the theorizing) on the registration of the experiences and exploits, the images and sentiments of a mid- to late-eighteenth century ex-slave now known around the English-speaking world as Olaudah Equiano, who understood himself as an Eboe tribesman. As related in his now famous autobiography (The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, The African, 1794), the experiences and exploits, images and sentiments of the self-styled “stranger” are significant for providing a most valuable because rarely if ever registered perspective by a black-fleshed enslaved person about experiences that were part of the formation process, the complexities, the psycho-socio-patho-logics and dynamics that defined the early modern north Atlantic colonial, slave-holding world. Among such are the mimetics of violence as the wielding of discourse in the form of what I call scripturalization. Some of the practices and ramifications of such are to be explored.


The Papiamentu Study Bible: An Attempt at Popular Theological Formation through Creole Bible Translation
Program Unit: Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures
Marlon Winedt, United Bible Societies

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.


"Abba Give Me a Saying": Orality and Storytelling in Monastic Egypt
Program Unit: Performance Criticism of the Bible and Other Ancient Texts
Megan Wines, Loyola University of Chicago

The primary focus of performance critical biblical studies thus far has been largely upon canonical texts, particularly the Gospel of Mark (and the other gospels), Revelation, and the Pauline epistles (within NT studies). Yet, the texts that biblical scholars deal with are not strictly confined to the canonical texts, and the criticisms used for canonical texts (historical-critical, redaction, form, rhetorical etc.) are used to examine these non-canonical texts as well. In what I see as a further application of performance critical methodologies, this paper is an exploration of the applicability of these performance and orality-centered methods outside of the biblical canon, with a specific emphasis on the literature surrounding the Desert Fathers of Monastic Egypt. This paper will first establish the prevalence of orality within Egyptian monastic circles, and then, to put this performance critical theory to the test, I will perform one of the short narratives that is preserved in the Monastic literature. This project thus seeks to illustrate the usefulness of a performative re-examination of the monastic literature that highlights how even within monastic circles the written word was more for preservation than interaction and that there continued to be a privileging of the spoken or memorized word than with the material texts themselves.


(The) Speaking of the Altar: Animate Architecture in the Heavenly Temple in Rev 16:7
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Ross E. Winkle, Pacific Union College

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.


"Who Is David? Who Is the Son of Jesse?" Interfigurality in the Biographical Psalm Titles
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Andrew C. Witt, Tyndale University College and Seminary (Ontario)

The figure of David in the book of Psalms has been a concern since the book's editors and earliest interpreters, particularly in their use and understanding of superscriptions. For the first two millennia of the history of interpretation these titles were seen to have a direct role in the meaning of a psalm, which was sidelined in the modern period with its historical interests. Starting with Childs in the early 1970s, however, the figure of David as a literary persona has been reconsidered. For Childs, one of the hermeneutical keys is found in the biographical psalm headings, which provide interpretive direction rather than historical information. They connect the David of the Psalms to the David of the Samuel narratives, creating a composite portrait of David meant to fill lacunae of David's story and allow David to serve a typical role for readers. In this paper, I will be challenging this understanding of the intertextual move. Indeed, the literary theories of intertextuality and interfigurality suggest that the primary direction of meaning should come from Samuel to the Psalter, and not vice-versa. The biographical superscriptions act like intertextual fishing hooks, reeling in the Davidic stories for its own figurative purposes. These are not used to give depth to the portrait of David in Samuel, but as relief to better project the Psalter's own construction of the Davidic persona. Additional editorial features of the Psalter further sharpen the Davidic profile, allowing readers to better appreciate the voice of the literary persona when reading a psalm.


Dogged Faith: Matthew 15:21–28 in Literary Context
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Celia I. Wolff, Northwest Nazarene University

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.


Topic Activation in the Pentateuch: A Proposal for Evaluating the Role of Prepositions in Discourse Structure
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Travis Wright, University of Cambridge

The semantics of various Greek and Hebrew prepositions have been treated at length (e.g. Luraghi 2003, Bartone 2010, and Ross and Runge (forthcoming), Mena 2012 and Rodriguez 2017) and a steady stream of literature continues to be produced on information structure (e.g. Levinsohn 2000, Bailey 2009, Runge 2010, and Kirk 2012, Heimerdinger 1999, Floor 2004, and Lunn 2006). While important advances have been made, little has been done to examine the particular role of prepositions in structuring discourse in these languages or the impact that cross-language asymmetry plays on translation technique. Prepositional semantics can be extended in various metonymic and metaphorical directions to include abstract senses, such as reference. This referential sense is particularly productive in a language’s attention system, where it helps focus attention by activating and tracking topics in the current discourse space (Langacker 2008: 59). This paper will begin by providing an aerial overview of the results of previous scholarship on prepositional semantics, noting the need for future studies focused on the role of prepositions in discourse structure. It will then propose a Cognitive Semantic approach to prepositional semantics (e.g. Langacker 1991, 2013 and Talmy 2000), focusing especially on the role of prepositions in directing attention within discourse, noting that discourse structure is the result of cognitive features such as processing constraints, and that “the basic units of structure building are relationships” rather than nominal expressions (Langacker 2001: 171). The final part of this paper will demonstrate the value of this approach by examining the preposition περι in the Greek Pentateuch, where it is used most frequently to render על. Using the framework noted above, I will demonstrate that the use of περι for the preposition על is not the result of “semantic leveling” (Pietersma and Wright 2007: 1) but a careful and deliberate strategy of structuring attention in discourse by activating a cognitively-salient thing known to both the author and their audience in order to raise it as the topic of the current discourse space. The translators’ choice of περι for על was a structural choice prompted by the need to focus or redirect attention in order to update the current discourse space, a technique based on symmetryical strategies of structuring attention in both languages. Although different strategies existed in Greek for reference marking, περι was considered particularly appropriate for rendering the ‘focus-of-attention’ sense of על precisely because of this shared discourse-structuring function. The paper will conclude with implications for understanding the role and impact of cross-language symmetry in ancient translations like the Septuagint.


And the Two Shall Become One...Dragon? Behemoth and Leviathan in LXX-Job
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
James Wykes, Marquette University

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...


A Portable Cosmos: The Cosmological Symbolism of the Tent in Josephus’ Judaean Antiquities
Program Unit: Josephus
Joabson X. Pena, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

In Judaean Antiquities’ Book 3.122-187, Josephus goes into great detail describing the Tent, its furnishings, and the priests’ clothing. He also explains that the cult site, the prototype of the Jerusalem Temple, was regarded as a miniature picture of the cosmos. Josephus writes, for instance, that the types of material used to weave the Tent’s textile indicated the basic elements of nature from which God made the universe. The internal divisions of the Tent were connected with three cosmic regions. The lampstand and the twelve loaves of bread signified heavenly bodies, and the priests’ attire the nature of the universe. Josephus’ portrayal of the portable wilderness sanctuary in cosmic terms relates to his purpose of presenting the Judaean god as the only deity who has power over the whole universe, which is consequently revealed in the arrangement of his only dwelling-place on earth. And the conformity of the cult site with Judaean Law, which in its turn, codifies the universal law created by God. Moreover, Josephus demonstrates for his Roman audience not only the national importance of the cult site for the Judaeans, but also its universal character. This paper explores the reasons why the Tent is depicted as a symbol of the cosmos in Josephus’ Judaean Antiquities.


Paul’s Concept of the Messiah in the Letter to the Romans: An Intertextual Analysis
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Xiaxia Xue, China Graduate School of Theology

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.


Reading Methods of the Septuagint Translators
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Historical Books
Sarah Yardney, University of Chicago

Building on Cribiore’s studies of pedagogical texts from Hellenistic Egypt, this paper will argue that while the translator of Samuel may have produced word-by-word renderings, he could not have been reading word by word. Furthermore, it posits that if he was not reading word by word, his translation style must be considered intentional rather than the inevitable result of his linguistic shortcomings. This conclusion illuminates certain passages in Samuel and allows us to nuance the theory of segmentation in the Septuagint.


Intersectionality and Marginal Populations in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Korean Biblical Colloquium
Gale Yee, Episcopal Divinity School

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.


Johann Jakob Wettstein and Codex Vaticanus
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
An-Ting Yi, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

For New Testament textual scholarship, the first half of the eighteenth century was a period of collecting material and developing text-critical rules. It was also the time when the Textus Receptus became firmly established. Moreover, lack of an encompassing theory for explaining the great variety of data made most textual critics misjudge those witnesses we now appreciate, including Codex Vaticanus (B03). Two factors prevented scholars from judging it properly. On the one hand, limited access to the manuscript forced them to rely on secondary and sometimes imprecise sources of its variant readings. On the other hand, due to its similarities with the Greek text underlying the Vulgate, the manuscript was regarded as a ‘Latinised’ witness, that is, its text was seen as corrected according to the Latin. Originally proposed by Erasmus, this inaccurate theory became influential for centuries. Therefore B03 was treated as a corrupt manuscript, thus worthless for the reconstruction of the text. Johann Jakob Wettstein (1693–1754) and his involvement with the manuscript offers one of the best examples among the textual critics of this period. The present contribution focuses on two of Wettstein’s famous works, the anonymous 1730 Prolegomena and his NTG of 1751–1752. At the same time, based on the examination of Wettstein’s archive preserved in Amsterdam, some findings are also offered in order to shed light on how he reached his conclusions. Three aspects of his use of B03 can be distinguished: (1) the identification and the siglum ‘B’; (2) more relevant variant readings becoming available; and (3) the evaluation and the continuation of the Latinisation theory. First, as perhaps his most acknowledged contribution, Wettstein created a numbering system for all the Greek manuscripts known to him, and attributed the siglum B to the manuscript we now call Codex Vaticanus. Second, he compiled a significant number of variant readings from various sources, many of which were unknown to previous scholarship. By way of investigating his handwritten notes, many of his sources can be identified now. The investigation of the archive also shows the way in which he collected material. Third, Wettstein eventually embraced the Latinisation theory and thus disregarded the value of B03. In short, Wettstein on the one hand collects many previously unknown variant readings, but on the other hand, he still belongs to his time by following the dominance of Erasmus’ theory.


Distinction between the Mp and Mm: Function vs Placement
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Kristine Heewon Yi, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

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.


To the Seven Churches in Asia: An Asian (American) Apocalyptic Hermeneutic after Pentecost
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Amos Yong, Fuller Seminary

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


The Location of Kadesh and the Geography of the Pentateuch
Program Unit: Historical Geography of the Biblical World
Philip Yoo, University of Texas at Austin

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.”


“Make a Fence for the Torah”: Re-framing the Woman’s Words in Gen 3:3
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Dan York, University of Durham

The woman in Gen 3:3 has been accused of inappropriately altering God’s words, making God out to be stingy and overly strict, and altogether colouring God in a bad light, all before eating the forbidden fruit. However, this paper desires to challenge this conclusion by re-framing the woman’s words in Gen 3:3 according to the category of fence-making for the Torah. A well-known feature of Pirkei Avot is the phrase: “make a fence for the Torah” (m. Avot 1.1). When the woman’s reply is situated within the context of early Jewish and Christian interpretation, it is easier to see that she is doing nothing wrong at this point in her conversation with the serpent. Instead, one might see a fence in place around God’s words in a manner similar to Pirkei Avot. To create a context for this, I first examine three ancient perspectives found in the Book of Jubilees, Avot de-Rabbi Natan, and Ephrem the Syrian. All three offer a unique perspective on the Edenic story and help to re-frame the woman’s words in Gen 3:3. After this, I bring together Gen 3:3 with Ex 19:12 to suggest that the fence created by the woman can be seen as a positive move in the light of the Sinai narrative. When read in the light of Ex 19:12 and the early Jewish and Christian interpretations, Gen 3:3 colours the woman not as one who perverts God’s command but rather as one who passionately attempts to honour God.


Ethnic Ethics: Paul’s Eschatological Myth of Jewish Sin
Program Unit:
Stephen Young, Appalachian State University

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.


Jesus, Myth, and Other Jewish Mythmakers
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Stephen Young, Appalachian State University

The category of myth remains underutilized and misdirected in the study of Jesus of Nazareth. Discussion of the so-called ‘Mythicists’ or ‘Christ-myth theory’ largely monopolizes the terminology, framing it with questions about whether Jesus really existed. Such a situation obscures the opportunities available for using the study of Jesus to think about myth and the critical interrogation of myth to redescribe Jesus. This paper attends to literary portrayals of Jesus in the earliest narrative literature about him (e.g., the Gospel of Mark). It situates him as one among other independent Jewish experts who reused available mythological materials to competitively promote their programs of action. Like Theudas, John the Baptizer, Paul, and others, Jesus repeatedly adapts Jewish mythological resources to promote himself as someone who should be followed and to elaborate upon and naturalize his claims about the Jewish god and his eschatological plans. As with other independent experts who traffic in myth, Jesus’s mythmaking also coordinates with his revelatory claims, demonstrations of textual mastery, prophesying, dispensing of enigmatic or esoteric teachings, and works of power. To approach Jesus through the lens of myth is to de-center him. He emerges as one among other Jewish mythmakers who engaged in a recognizable repertoire of practices. This focus on the social workings of myth also sheds new light on how early narrative literature about Jesus represents his infamous conflicts with other Jewish figures. Instead of taking how these sources depict Jesus’s interactions with Jewish opponents at face value, we can redescribe his characterizations of them in terms of the competitive strategies a newly arrived independent expert in a field (Jesus) would be expected to mobilize against relatively more established independent experts (e.g., Pharisees) and also institutionally-authorized figures (e.g., priests and Sadducees).


The Brethren of Purity’s Use of the Qur’an in Their Treatise on Love
Program Unit: Qur’anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics (IQSA)
Syed A.H. Zaidi, Emory University

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).


Perception of the #MeToo Movement from a Peruvian Perspective
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Juan Marcelo Zanga Céspedes, Universidad Peruana Unión

Since creation, men and women share the same rights and duties because God himself gave humanity the possibility to share his image and likeness (Gen 1:26). From the biblical perspective there are differences between men and women, but these differences complement each other. The Bible shows that God, when creating Adam, gave him the task of naming the animals, but in doing this activity Adam himself realized that there was no suitable helper for him, then God provided the ideal helper (Gen 2 : 20-22) that is, someone similar to him but with complementary functions. Although the Bible shows women with the same privileges of stewardship as men (Gen 1: 28-30) The chauvinist society in Latin America has left traces of violence in men's behavior; the latest figures in Peru indicate that between the months of January and February 2020, 33 women lost their lives and 326, including girls and adults, have disappeared. This study presents the perception of men and women of different Christian denominations in the city of Lima about the mistreatment of women. The results indicate a direct and significant relationship between culture, Christian attitude and behavior towards women


A Homophile Centurion and the Legality of Love: Matt 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10 in Continental Europe, 1950–1990
Program Unit: LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics
Christopher B. Zeichmann, University of Toronto

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.


Who Is the Ideal Sage for Maimonides(?): Moses and Abraham in the Guide of the Perplexed
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Ying Zhang, East China Normal University

Moses is no doubt the most important prophet in the Jewish tradition. It is therefore no surprise that Maimonides distinguishes Moses from all other prophets by regarding his character, capacity and his way of receiving prophetic revelation as exceptional in the Guide (e.g. I 63; II 39, 45) as well as in Mishneh Torah (Yesodei Ha-Torah VII, 6). However, if we ask who is the Sage-Hero or the wise man par excellent in Maimonides’ Guide, the answer would not be as clear as day. In the first place, all three Parts of the Guide begin with the Abrahamic epigraph: In the name of the Lord, God of the world (Gen. 21.33), which is connected to Abraham’s knowledge of God that God is One (Guide II 13, III 29). Moreover, since in Maimonides’ view, the highest human perfection is intellectual perfection, and the supreme wisdom, that is, wisdom “in an unrestricted sense,” is the apprehension of God (Guide III 54), it would be difficult to say that Moses’ knowledge of God is superior than Abraham: after all, according to Maimonides, Moses requested to know God’s way, to achieve “the essence and true reality of God,” yet what he was given were inferior knowledge of God, that is, God’s action, or the thirteen moral attributes (characteristics) of God (Guide I 54). Even when Moses is address as “the Master of those who know,” his knowledge is associated with “God’s way,” namely, God’s action (Guide III 12). The proposed paper will examine Maimonides’ discussions of Moses and Abraham in the Guide, so as to see who is the paradigmatic Sage to Maimonides. Our attention will specifically be on their way of receiving and proclaiming prophecies, as well as on their knowledge of God.


The Changing Authority of Moses and Aaron in the Empirical Known Hebrew Versions of the Pentateuch
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Benjamin Ziemer, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

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 List of the Unique Words Beginning with ומ as Clue for a Stemma of the Okhla Manuscripts
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Benjamin Ziemer, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

The Halle manuscript of אכלה ואכלה has, against the younger Paris manuscript, several features in common with some fragmentary Okhla manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and from Firkovich’s collection: The existence of a second part, the order of the paragraphs, and the internal order of the lists. But the alphabetic list of words beginning with ומ and occuring exactly once in the Hebrew Bible – § 19 in the Halle manuscript and § 18 in the Paris manuscript of אכלה ואכלה – shows a unique case for the internal relationship of the Okhla »editions«. The first half of the list – containing the words beginning with ומא and so on till ומכ – obviously had been lost in the manuscript from which the Halle manuscript has been copied. So § 19 of the Halle manuscript begins in the middle of ומל with the lemma ומלים. But this deficiency is not unique to the Halle manuscript but is an important Leitfehler: Jacob Ben Hayim copied the amputated list for his Masorah Gedolah either from the Halle manuscript itself or from it’s Vorlage, and the Paris manuscript with its different ordering principle shows dependency on this loss of information as well. In my paper I will follow the fate of this Masoretic list throughout the margins of selected Bible manuscripts (BL Or 4445 and Harley 5710–5711) and the actual Okhla fragments and manuscripts now extant in Saint Petersburg (II Firk. 1552), Cambridge (T-S D1.28), Halle (Yb 4° 10), Oxford (Heb. b8/38 [fol. 53]) and Paris (Hébreu 148), and draw conclusions for a stemma of the Okhla manuscripts.


Blending the Seemingly Unblendable: Purity in the Book of Malachi
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Goran Zivkovic, McMaster Divinity College

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.


Exiles in the Homeland: Ritual Purification and (Re)construction of the Social Identity of Israel in Zechariah
Program Unit: Ritual in the Biblical World
Goran Zivkovic, McMaster Divinity College

The last decade has seen a considerable increase in the amount of research undertaken by scholars on the formation of the social identity of ancient Israel in the early Persian Period. The notion of “social identity” is a very complex concept which refers to a specific set of attributes shared by a group of people. Scholars usually refer to language, religion, nationality, and ethnicity as major components of Israel’s social identity. Although severely affected in the period of exile, these components were partially regained after the Israelites returned to Yehud. However, the process of the reconstruction of Israel’s identity was not finished. In the Book of Zechariah, ritual purification is mentioned as a significant, still missing, component of their social identity. It is precisely because of this important component, that other, for instance political and social aspects of their identity, were affected. Although scholars agree on the importance of religion in the formation of the social identity of Israel, much of biblical scholarship, however, has not focused on the significance of ritual purification in this process. Studies have most often emphasized perception of identity, which was narrowly equated with differentiation, without paying attention to prophetic perspective on the social identity of Israel. This neglect affirms the necessity of this research which will focus on that very question: what is the significance of ritual purification in Zechariah in the construction of Israel’s social identity? The main purpose of this research is to give an answer to this question.


Reciprocal Prayer in Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Shlomo Zuckier, McGill University

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.


The Rod of Paideia: Soul Training in Philo of Alexandria
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Jason M. Zurawski, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Whether its depiction on ancient vase paintings or descriptions in childhood recollections, the rhabdos or rod was intimately and unfortunately connected to education and the source, no doubt, of not a little trauma for even the most mature and far-removed alum. Most commonly associated with the cane a pedagogue or parent would use to beat the tardy or misbehaving student, the rod can be seen as a symbol of the use of corporal punishment in childhood education. Well aware of this association both from Jewish and Greek literary accounts and likely from his own experience as a student, Philo of Alexandria also makes the connection between paideia and the rod, though in a manner quite unexpected, allegorically reading the rod of Jacob and the rod of Moses as paideia, the weapon necessary for combating the passions, desires, and appetites within the soul. Instead of beating children, the rod of paideia would beat the passions into submission. The rod, then, for Philo, was symbolic not of physical chastisement but of the salvific and necessary power of education to fortify oneself against the onslaught of worldly desires. With the connect to the rod, Philo is not suggesting the necessity of divine disciplinary violence, as the author of the Wisdom of Solomon will do. The training of the soul via the rod does not require physical abuse, but rather the application of paideia and orthos logos to combat those things detrimental to the life of the soul and the individual. In linking paideia with the rod of Jacob and Moses, Philo internalizes the understanding of paideia as musar and reevaluates and restructures it in the development of, what was to him, a more acceptable image of paideia. At the same time, Philo might also be subtly undermining the connection between corporal punishment and the instruction of children inherent in contemporary childhood education, and, in so doing, participating in a philosophical debate current among several of Philo’s near contemporaries, such as Quintilian and Ps.-Plutarch. Through the recurrent imagery of the rod, Philo demonstrates forcefully the role paideia played in the training of the soul and the formation of the subject.

 
 


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