The Meaning and Telos of Israel’s Election: An Interfaith Response to N.T. Wright’s Reading of Paul

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (04) ◽  
pp. 421-446
Author(s):  
Joel Kaminsky ◽  
Mark Reasoner
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Pauline Theology ◽  
The Many

AbstractN. T. Wright offers a systematic and highly influential metanarrative to account for Paul’s theology of Israel. However, Wright overlooks or underemphasizes important dimensions of Paul’s thinking, leading to problematic distortions. Thus, Wright claims that God rejected the historic people of Israel due to their failure to missionize the gentile nations, an idea not easily found in the Hebrew Bible texts Paul utilizes or in Paul’s own statements concerning his fellow Jews. Wright relies heavily on the diatribe of Rom 2 to build a Pauline theology of Israel, but he downplays the many positive things Paul says elsewhere about Israel’s status. Particularly troubling is Wright’s use of Rom 5 to argue that Paul characterizes Torah as divinely intended to draw sin onto Israel, with the expected consequence that human sin would reach its zenith within Israel, a view that moves Wright toward the very supersessionism against which Paul cautioned his gentile followers. These exegetical decisions, which form a tightly structured messiah-oriented understanding of Israel’s election, ignore what the Hebrew Bible and Paul affirm: while God accomplishes certain larger aims through Israel, God’s election of Israel is ultimately grounded in God’s inalienable love for Israel and Israel’s ancestors.

Samson in Reception History

2020 ◽  
pp. 465-482
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
King David ◽  
The Many

As one of the most famous figures from the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible, rivaled perhaps only by King David, the reception histories of Samson and the women of Judges 13–16 are extensive. The major events in the narrative found in Judges 13–16 involve not only Samson but also the women of the story: an unnamed mother, an unnamed Philistine wife, an unnamed prostitute, and, perhaps most illustrious of all, the named Delilah. This essay briefly outlines some of the major questions and concerns voiced by the many later readers and interpreters of Samson, revealing how the story of Samson, both in and outside the biblical text, is also a story about the women who appear in this account.

Laws in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Greengus
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The People ◽  
Divine Origin ◽  
The Law ◽  
Criminal Behaviors ◽  
The Many

Biblical laws are found mainly in the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). The laws are linked to the figure of Moses, who is depicted as having received them directly from God in order to transmit them to the people of Israel during the years in the Wilderness after being released from slavery in Egypt. Biblical laws are thus presented as being of divine origin. Their authority was further bolstered by a tradition that they were included in covenants (i.e., formal agreements made between God and the people as recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy). Similar claims of divine origin were not made for other ancient Near Eastern laws; their authority flowed from kings, who issued the laws, although these kings might also be seen as having been placed on their thrones through the favor of the gods. The biblical law collections are unlike other ancient Near Eastern “codes” in that they include sacral laws (i.e., governing cult, worship, and ritual, as well as secular laws: namely, governing civil, and criminal behaviors). This mingling of sacral and secular categories is the likely reason both for the many terms used to denote the laws, as well as for the unexpected number of formulations in which they are presented. The formulations used in biblical law can be classified as “casuistic” or “non-casuistic.” They are not equally distributed in the books of the Pentateuch nor are they equally used with secular and sacral laws. While there are similarities in content between secular laws found in the Hebrew Bible and laws found in the ancient Near Eastern law “codes,” the latter do not exhibit a comparable variety in the numbers of law terms and formulations. The Hebrew Bible tended to “blur” the differences between the law terms and their formulations, ultimately to the point of subsuming them all under the law term torah (“teaching”) to describe the totality of the divinely given laws in the Pentateuch. Biblical studies in general and Pentateuchal studies in particular are challenged by the fact that manuscripts contemporary with the events described have not survived the ravages the time. Scholars must therefore rely on looking for “clues” within the texts themselves (e.g., the laws cited by the prophets, the reform of Josiah, the teaching of torah by Ezra, and evidence for customs and customary laws found in books of the Hebrew Bible outside of the Pentateuch).

Human Nature & Jewish Thought

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Jewish Philosophy ◽  
The Many

This book explores one of the great questions of our time: How can we preserve our sense of what it means to be a person while at the same time accepting what science tells us to be true—namely, that human nature is continuous with the rest of nature? What, in other words, does it mean to be a person in a world of things? This book shows how the Jewish tradition provides rich ways of understanding human nature and personhood that preserve human dignity and distinction in a world of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, biotechnology, and pervasive scientism. These ancient resources can speak to Jewish, non-Jewish, and secular readers alike. Science may tell us what we are, the book says, but it cannot tell us who we are, how we should live, or why we matter. Traditional Jewish thought, in open-minded dialogue with contemporary scientific perspectives, can help us answer these questions. The book shows how, using sources ranging across the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to more than a millennium of Jewish philosophy. Among the many subjects the book addresses are sexuality, birth and death, violence and evil, moral agency, and politics and economics. Throughout, the book demonstrates how Jewish tradition brings new perspectives to—and challenges many current assumptions about—these central aspects of human nature. A study of human nature in Jewish thought and an original contribution to Jewish philosophy, this is a book for anyone interested in what it means to be human in a scientific age.

Fathers and Sons

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-130
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The Many ◽  
Fathers And Sons ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Gideon Narrative

Chapter 5 examines the final scenes of the Gideon narrative, arguing that the earliest texts about the “mighty warrior” can be found here, though later rewriting and updating of the narrative resulted in cutting the successful war hero down to size. In particular, additions to an earlier Gideon narrative rewrite him as an idolater and failed father. The chapter highlights the many ways Gideon acts as the ideal hegemonic male of the Hebrew Bible, especially in Judg 8:4–21, while also focusing on how later readers—from antiquity to the present—have wrestled with questions of piety, fathers/sons, and violence in the construction of masculinity both in the text and as the text is later used.

Orthodox Variants from old Biblical Manuscripts

1931 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-296
Author(s):  
H. W. Sheppard
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
University Library ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Many ◽  
The University

In our days and in our country very little interest is taken in the contents of MSS. of the Hebrew Bible. This statement is supported by the facts of my own experience. For five years, 1917–22, I was working among Bible MSS. in the Library at Trinity College and in the University Library at Cambridge, and for the last seven years I have been working among similar treasures in the British Museum. The Register of MSS., given above in Section I, will shew that at present I have in use what is practically the whole collection of MSS. of ancient date belonging to the Museum which contain the Hebrew Psalms, as well as MS. 42, kindly lent me by the Council of Trinity College, Cambridge, and MS. 20, reproduced as regards Psalms in photograph. And throughout all these years it has always been matter of surprise when, at rare intervals, some other scholar has applied for permission to consult some one of the many MSS. in use by me. So it is that the corner of the field in which I find myself growing old is a very lonely corner; indeed, the whole field, as well as my corner in it, cries aloud for workers, and is unheeded. By the rulers of Biblical studies in our times the field of the Hebrew MSS. of the Bible has been treated as an expanse of desert, wholly unprofitable for working, and rightly condemned to be left severely unvisifeed. As regards my own corner of this field, under date 11th July, 1925, the whole bulk of my own work among the Bible MSS. and Editions, itself in manuscript, was accepted by the Trustees of the British Museum, under the title “Studies in Hebrew Bible”, and with the Press-mark for the whole, Oriental 9624. The number of volumes of notes and texts to be eventually included will be large, but the first seven volumes already catalogued and available for use by scholars are complete in themselves, in so far as they contain the whole of the Text of Psalms in Ginsburg's (1913) edition, with full tables, notes, and a complete Concordance of the accents of every word of Psalms in that edition.

Children in the Hebrew Bible and Childist Interpretation

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Faith Parker
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Many

This article traces the rise of research on children in the Hebrew Bible (HB). While early contributions to the field provided foundational insights, this area of scholarship has gained significant ground over the last ten years. This article begins by reviewing seminal points for studying children in the HB. I explain why this study is critical for our understanding of the Bible, and clarify how we discern who is a child in the text and the ancient world. Since the word ‘childist’ is still new to many in the academy, I discuss the origin of this term, define it, and urge its adoption. Most of the article assesses scholarship on children in the HB, with an emphasis on publications that have emerged recently as well as works forthcoming (at the time of publication). The conclusion sketches some of the many areas in this scholarly field that are ripe for further exploration.

Miriam ben Amram, or,

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingeborg Löwisch
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Gender Perspective ◽  
Chronicles 1 ◽  
The Core ◽  
Structural Functions ◽  
The Many

1 Chronicles 1–9 presents an archive of genealogies that performs memory and identities of Israel in a highly nuanced manner. Numerous references to women fulfil structural functions at the core of the genealogy performance, first and foremost in the genealogies of Judah. In contrast, the central genealogies of Levi only provide a single gendered fragment: they list Miriam as one of the ‘sons’ of Amram (5:29). Other Levite women, for example those listed in Exodus 6:16–25, are missing. Miriam herself is not formally linked to the many sisters that are mentioned in 1 Chronicles 1–9, nor are her capacities as musician, dancer, prophet, and leader brought into play. Embarking from this striking gap, the chapter addresses the question of how Bible texts that are predominantly male-centred can be read from a gender perspective, specifically in view of submitting them to a critical post-secular discourse on the Hebrew Bible and beyond.

The Nightmare and the Dream: Edward Bellamy and the Travails of Socialist Thought

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAMUEL HABER
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Edward Bellamy ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Utopian Socialism ◽  
The Many ◽  
Almost All

In the light of recent events, the once widely accepted Marxist distinction between “scientific” and “utopian” socialism is fading rapidly. For it has become increasingly difficult to believe that any form of socialism is inherent in the workings of history, as the Marxists had claimed for their “scientific” variety. Today Marxism, in its own terms, turns out to be “utopian.” One can now more readily recognize the kinship of the many different socialisms as well as the significance of their link to the social ideals of the past. What had previously been a somewhat antiquarian literature on “precursors,” “forerunners,” and “schismatics” of socialism suddenly appears as especially pertinent and perhaps even central. Today, without difficulty, one turns away from the various contradistinctions developed in this scholarship and toward the interconnections implicit in it.1Surveying this literature, we can recognize three preeminent social ideals that went into the making of the various socialisms – the call for social justice, the aspiration toward a society of brotherly love, and the belief that one could rid society of poverty. It was the eighth-century prophets of the Hebrew Bible who advanced the audacious demand for justice in society. They urged an end to oppression, cruelty, abuse, and more generally that people be given what was rightfully theirs. This demand recurs in almost all the socialist programs. In the Marxist scheme, it takes the form of the theory of surplus value which describes capitalist profit as a surplus product stolen (“entwandt”) from the worker who creates it.

“Deciphering the Shema: Staircase Parallelism and the Syntax of Deuteronomy 6:4”

2011 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 582-602
Author(s):  
Judah Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Sentence Construction ◽  
Widespread Acceptance ◽  
Basic Sentence ◽  
The Many

Abstract The unusual syntax of Deut 6:4 has long puzzled expositors of the Hebrew Bible. None of the many solutions posed by commentators has ever gained widespread acceptance. The continuing, increasingly strained, efforts to unravel the verse’s syntax testify to the desirability of a new approach. In this essay, I show that the key to understanding Deut 6:4 lies in the recognition that Moses’s exhortation is couched in the AB//AC structure known as “staircase parallelism”. This pattern yields a meaning of ABC—in this case, “YHWH our God is one!” I defend this proposal in three ways, establishing that Deuteronomy is a suitable context for staircase parallelism, that at least two solid biblical precedents share the same basic sentence construction, and that staircase parallelism is literarily apropos in Deut 6.

The Finger of the Scribe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Schniedewind
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Basic Principle ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Many

The Finger of the Scribe shows how ancient Israelite scribes learned to read and write. It demonstrates that early alphabetic curriculum developed at the end of the second millennium, while Egypt still ruled over Canaan and scribes used cuneiform as a lingua franca. This political and social context provides the background for the emergence of early alphabetic literacy in Israel. Using comparisons from Mesopotamia and Egypt, archaeological evidence, and fresh interpretations of old and new Hebrew inscriptions, this book pieces together the early Israelite scribal education. A basic principle in scribal literacy was the adaptation of their education for doing their day-to-day work as well as for the emergence of new literary genres. In this way, The Finger of the Scribe illustrates the many ways in which scribal education shaped the writing of the Hebrew Bible itself.

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