Biblical Studies and Rhetorical Criticism: Bridging the Divide Between the Hebrew Bible and Communication

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Schlimm
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Rhetorical Criticism ◽  
Biblical Studies

Clio and Canons: in Search of a Cultural Poetics of the Hebrew Bible

1997 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 300-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Cultural Poetics ◽  
Leading Edges

AbstractThe enterprise of writing "histories" of "ancient Israel" in which biblical historiography is reproduced by old credulists or critiqued by new nihilists represents one of the leading edges of contemporary biblical studies in relation to the Hebrew Bible. This quest for a cultural poetics or cultural materialist accounts of the Bible is virtually equivalent to a New Historicism in the discipline. In this article analyses of three topics from current debates in biblical studies (historiography of "ancient Israel", the empty land topos, canons and context) are used to provide insights into how new historicist approaches to contextualizing literature may contribute to these current debates about the Bible.

Twenty-five Years of Marxist Biblical Criticism

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Boer
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Current Status ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
Fredric Jameson ◽  
Literary Methods ◽  
Mode Of Production

In the context of a renewed interest in Marxism outside biblical studies, this article surveys and critiques the background and current status of a similar renewal in biblical studies. It begins with a consideration of the background of current studies in liberation, materialist and political theologies, and moves on to note the division between literary and social scientific uses of Marxist theories. While those who used Marxist literary methods were initially inspired by Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson, more recent work has begun to make use of a whole tradition of Marxist literary criticism largely ignored in biblical studies. More consistent work, however, has taken place in the social sciences in both Hebrew Bible and New Testament studies. In Hebrew Bible studies, debates focus on the question of mode of production, especially the domestic or household mode of production, while in New Testament studies, the concerns have been with reconstructing the context of the Jesus movement and, more recently, the Pauline correspondence. I close with a number of questions concerning the division into different areas of what is really a holistic approach to texts and history.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Graybill
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
New Approach

The Hebrew Bible contains many accounts of rape and sexual violence. Feminist approaches to these stories remain dominated by Phyllis Trible’s 1984 book Texts of Terror. This chapter and book offer a new approach, drawing on feminist, queer, and affect theory and offering new readings of biblical rape stories, including Dinah (Gen 34), Tamar (2 Sam 13), Lot’s daughters (Gen 19), Bathsheba (2 Sam 11), Hagar (Gen 16 and 21), Daughter Zion (Lam 1 and 2), and the Levite’s concubine (Judg 19). In place of “texts of terror,” this chapter opens the possibility of reading after terror. The approach offered here also engages contemporary activism against sexual violence and rape culture, bringing them to bear on biblical studies.

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).

Intersections between Iconographic and Gendered Approaches to Biblical Interpretation

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-341
Author(s):  
Brian Charles DiPalma
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Visual Images

This paper explores the intersections between two approaches to biblical interpretation: iconographic and gendered approaches. Focusing on the ways that visual images from the ancient Near East have been incorporated in studying gender in the Hebrew Bible, I identify four intersections. These examples demonstrate that participating in an iconographic turn is an important way that gender studies in the Hebrew Bible can develop. I also seek to show that the interactions can be mutually fruitful. In other words, including gender as an area of inquiry is a way that the iconographic turn itself can develop in biblical studies.


Postcolonial Studies and the Hebrew Bible

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley L. Crowell
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Primary Focus

As the field of biblical studies continues to become more diverse, scholars incorporate theories and methods from other areas of research. One of these fields is postcolonial theory, which makes the role of empires and their effects on society and literature the primary focus of the interpretive effort. This essay explores how postcolonial theory is currently being integrated with the study of the Hebrew Bible. Biblical scholars incorporating postcolonial theory focus on three major areas: how colonial empires interpreted the Hebrew Bible and how indigenous populations reacted to the colonial interpretations, interpretations from previously colonized populations, and the role of empires and reactions to them in the composition of the texts of the Hebrew Bible.

A Critical Intellectual History of the Historical-Critical Paradigm in Biblical Studies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua A. Berman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Empirical Models ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Great Divide ◽  
History Of

This chapter seeks to understand the origins of the intellectual commitments that shape the discipline today, and its halting disposition toward empirical models of textual growth. It examines how theorists over three centuries have entertained the most fundamental questions concerning the goals and methods of historical-critical study of the Hebrew Bible. The axioms that governed nineteenth-century German scholarship were at a great divide from those that governed earlier historical-critical scholarship, such as that of Spinoza. From there, the chapter offers a brief summary of the claims of contemporary scholars who are looking toward empirical models to reconstruct the textual development of Hebrew scriptures. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how this vein of scholarship undermines an array of nineteenth-century intellectual assumptions, but would have been quite at home in the earlier periods of the discipline’s history, and calling for a return to Spinozan hermeneutics.

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