Hindy Najman. Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77. Leiden: Brill, 2003. xiv, 176 pp.

AJS Review ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-369
Author(s):  
Alex Jassen
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Rewritten Bible

In the present study, Hindy Najman addresses two fundamental aspects related to Second Temple Jewish literature: pseudepigrapha and the rewritten Bible. Pseudepigrapha as a literary genre signifies texts which claim as their author some privileged individual from the past. In reality, however, the attribution of authorship to some ancient figure masks the present-day composition of the text. The term rewritten Bible, in its broadest use, refers to the interpretive reworking of the scriptural text and story through such means as expansion, deletion, harmonization, and conflation. The final product retains the narrative sequence of the scriptural account though in a significantly modified form. Both of these literary techniques seemingly have at their base a manipulation and subversion of the integrity of the scriptural story and text. Pseudepigrapha asserts for a latter day author the authority and prestige of an ancient figure; rewritten Bible presents itself as a new and improved scripture.

scholarly journals The Phenomenon of Rewriting Scripture in Late Second Temple Judaism: Some Methodological Reflections on the So-Called “Rewritten Bible” Category

Verbum Vitae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 1311-1334
Author(s):  
Marcin Majewski
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Rewritten Bible

The term “Rewritten Bible” was introduced by Géza Vermes in 1961 to describe works from late Second Temple period that “retell” or “rewrite” Scriptures with characteristic changes. Since then, much has been written about this category of texts. Today some researchers are tired of discussing this concept, suggesting even a move away from the notion. Others, on the contrary, apply it to an increasing number of texts, including even works lying outside the specific context of late Second Temple Jewish literature. This article discusses the phenomenon of the “Rewritten Bible” (RewB) and takes up a polemic with certain approaches to the category, concerning terminology, scope, and character, as well as indication of the purposes of rewriting activity. The article shows that the category remains useful and important, within certain methodological clarifications.

Going Through Hell; ΤΑΡΤΑΡΟΣ in Greco-Roman Culture, Second Temple Judaism, and Philo of Alexandria

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-378
Author(s):  
Clint Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Greek Myths

This article questions the longstanding supposition that the eschatology of the Second Temple period was solely influenced by Persian or Iranian eschatology, arguing instead that the literature of this period reflects awareness of several key Greco-Roman mythological concepts. In particular, the concepts of Tartarus and the Greek myths of Titans and Giants underlie much of the treatment of eschatology in the Jewish literature of the period. A thorough treatment of Tartarus and related concepts in literary and non-literary sources from ancient Greek and Greco-Roman culture provides a backdrop for a discussion of these themes in the Second Temple period and especially in the writings of Philo of Alexandria.

Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 277-293
Author(s):  
Karina Martin Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Literary Environment ◽  
Book Of The Watchers

This essay showcases a sample of the diverse approaches to gender and sexuality that can be found in the literature of Second Temple Judaism. Within four of the major genres of Jewish literature during this period, it analyzes one example that makes particularly striking claims with respect to gender and sexuality: The Book of the Watchers, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, Jubilees, and Judith. Although all of the texts surveyed here come out of a culture with strong patriarchal tendencies, they do not all uphold patriarchal assumptions in equal measure or in the same ways. Taken together in their diversity, the texts demonstrate that the Jewish literary environment out of which the New Testament emerged was one in which sexuality was not a taboo subject but often provided an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the human person in relation to the divine.

Judaism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wheeler-Reed
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Sexual Ideology ◽  
The Dead

This chapter establishes that most of the sexual ethics of Second Temple Judaism are similar to the ideological sexual codes of the Roman Empire. It examines works as diverse as Tobit, the writings of Philo and Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contends that the dominant sexual ideology among Second Temple Jews is “Procreationism,” which maintains that sex is for reproduction and not for pleasure. Furthermore, it suggests that most of the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period upholds the same hegemonic ideology of the Augustan marriage legislation, except for the writings of the Essenes.

The Non-Masoretic Hebrew Vorlage of the Old Greek Ezekiel (LXX967/LXXB), Other Non-Masoretic and Proto-Masoretic Ezekiel Texts: Evidence from Quotations of and Allusions to Ezekiel in Second Temple Judaism

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-351
Author(s):  
Karin Finsterbusch
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
First Century ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Textual History ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
History Of ◽  
Old Greek ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract In Second Temple Jewish Literature, more than a hundred quotations of and allusions to Ezekiel are preserved. Although only a few of them are text-critically relevant, these cases may help to shed light on the complex textual history of the book. In this article, eleven cases of quotations and allusions are analyzed in detail: Six cases should be regarded as evidence for the existence of the non-masoretic Hebrew Vorlage of the Old Greek Ezekiel. In two of these cases, non-aligned textual elements appear as well. Taken together with two non-aligned cases in the Damascus Document, these quotations and allusions substantiate the assumption that even more non-masoretic Ezekiel texts were in use until the beginning of the first century BCE—alongside proto-masoretic Ezekiel texts, which are attested by three cases of quotations and allusions.

Some Observations of Philo's De Gigantibus and Evil Spirits in Second Temple Judaism

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archie Wright
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
First Century ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Eventual Return ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Evil Spirits ◽  
Similarities And Differences

AbstractThe following discussion delineates Philo's interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4 in his various treatises. The presentation provides a brief description of his understanding of the journey of the soul, which includes the origin of the soul, its place in the heavens, its time on earth, and its eventual return to the divine realm. Throughout the discussion, I will introduce various points of the interpretation of the Genesis passage found in the Watcher tradition of 1 Enoch and its adaptation in various documents in Second Temple Jewish literature. In doing so, I will highlight the similarities and differences between the interpretations which suggest Philo had knowledge of some form of the Watcher tradition and was perhaps attempting to write a corrective of its understanding of the problem of evil and the cause of human suffering in the first century C.E.

50 Years of Modelling Second Temple Judaism: Whence and Wither?

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 604-629
Author(s):  
Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Major Progress ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe first section describes the major progress in the study of Second Temple Judaism during the past fifty years, since A.S. van der Woude founded the Journal for the Study of Judaism. This part—the whence—comprises the main bulk of the argument. It also paves the way for the conclusion—the wither. There, I present some ideas potentially leading to new advances in the field. I call for an engagement with the social and natural sciences based on a gene-culture coevolutionary paradigm. In particular, adopting a biocultural evolutionary perspective makes it possible to situate the field and its empirical focus in a much larger context. Thereby, we shall be able to tackle some of the pivotal questions with which our scholarly predecessors wrestled. Finally, I discuss emotional studies that may help us to get a better grasp on a traditionally moot question in the texts we study.

The Temporal Turn in Ancient Judaism and Jewish Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-395
Author(s):  
Sarit Kattan Gribetz ◽  
Lynn Kaye
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Current Article ◽  
The Relationship

Despite the apparent finality of Heschel’s pronouncement, in 1951, that Judaism is a ‘religion of time’, the past two decades have seen renewed scholarly interest in the relationship between time, time-keeping, and forms of temporality in Jewish culture. This vibrant engagement with time and temporality in Jewish studies is not an isolated phenomenon. It participates in a broader interdisciplinary examination of time across the arts, humanities and sciences, both in the academy and beyond it. The current article outlines the innovative approaches of this ‘temporal turn’ within ancient Judaism and Jewish studies and reflects on why time has become such an important topic of research in recent years. We address a number of questions: What are the trends in recent work on time and temporality in the fields of ancient Judaism and Jewish studies? What new insights into the study of Judaism have emerged as a result of this focus on time? What reasons (academic, historiographical, technological and geopolitical) underpin this interest in time in such a wide variety of disciplines? And finally, what are some new avenues for exploration in this growing field at the intersection of time and Jewish studies? The article identifies trends and discusses key works in the broad field of Jewish studies, while providing more specific surveys of particular developments in the fields of Second Temple Judaism, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature, and some medieval Jewish sources.

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