Iconography and the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan P. Bonfiglio
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Israelite Religion

With respect to the study of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the term iconography refers to the visual images produced in the ancient Near Eastern world. Various types of ancient Near East (ANE) images are attested in the archaeological record, including monumental reliefs, freestanding statues and figurines, picture-bearing coins and ivories, terracottas, amulets, and seals and their impressions. These artistic materials, which constitute an important component of ancient material culture more broadly, display a wide variety of subject matter, ranging from simple depictions of human figures, deities, divine symbols, animals, and vegetation to more complex visual portrayals of worship scenes, battles, and tribute processions. Despite the presence of legal texts in the Old Testament (OT) that ban the production of divine images, ancient Israel produced, imported, and circulated a wealth of images, mostly in the form of seals, scarabs, and amulets. The study of ANE iconography focuses primarily on the subject matter of images, as opposed to issues pertaining to materiality, technique, style, aesthetics, and provenance. Thus the goal of iconographic investigations is to describe the content of a given image and to interpret the message(s) and ideas it was intended to convey. This process often entails analyzing the development of certain motifs over time and how they were deployed in various historical, religious, and social contexts. In this sense, the study of ancient iconography approaches images not so much as decorative pieces that reflect the creative expressions of individual artists, though stylistic creativity of this sort is sometimes possible to discern. Rather, the study of ancient iconography approaches images as forms of communication that were intentionally commissioned, often by the king, to publicly disseminate specific messages, be they political or religious. At a more basic level, the study of ancient iconography can also enhance the reader’s understanding of what objects and places would have looked like in the ancient world. The relationship between ANE iconography and the OT is complex. With few exceptions (cf. Ezek 23:13), the image-text relation is not simply a matter of biblical authors describing a visual image that they had seen. Neither is it a matter of images being created to depict biblical stories or events. Rather, the connection between ANE iconography and the OT is best understood to operate at a conceptual level. Specifically, literary imagery in the OT often reflects motifs and themes that are also present in the iconographic repertoire of the ancient world. The use of ANE iconography in the study of the OT is most commonly referred to as iconographic exegesis. This method of analysis first surfaced in the early 1970s through the pioneering work of Othmar Keel, at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and has since been furthered through the work of loose network of scholars known as the “Fribourg School.” Much of this research has focused on aspects of the canon that are especially rich in literary imagery, such as the Psalms and the Prophets. ANE iconography has also proven to be a valuable primary source in the study of the history of Israelite religion. Of particular interest is the nature and development of ancient Israel’s ban on divine images and the resulting tradition of aniconism—the notion that Yahweh was not to be represented in visual or material form and/or that any divine image was an impermissible idol.

Reception History of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Markl
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Love Poetry ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Developments

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (HB/OT) is like a prism through which ancient Near Eastern traditions were transformed and transmitted to Jewish and Christian cultures. Through the Jewish diaspora and the Christian missions, it became a nomadic text that spread to all continents. It was received and transformed in diverse genres of literature, music, art, theatre, law, and politics. Interest in processes of reception has intensified since World War I, but reception history became a major field within biblical studies only at the turn of the millennium. Analyzing the history of reception of the HB/OT poses a variety of challenges: what hermeneutical expectations, attitudes, interests, and methods were applied to its texts? How were they involved in diverse fields of culture, and how did different modes of reception influence each other? What historical developments occasioned changes in interpretation? In analyzing textual reception, three basic aspects should be considered: the texts with their respective genres and themes, the hermeneutics applied to them, and the social contexts in which the reception takes place. Each of these aspects is characterized by great variation: biblical genres are as diverse as curse and love poetry, law and lament; hermeneutical approaches involve extremely different interests and results in, for example, allegorical, kabballistic and historical critical interpretation; social contexts of reception include family education, monastic lectio divina, public reading and preaching, and academic teaching. Investigating this history of reception means looking at cultural history through the lens of the HB/OT. Rather than defining itself as a field of research separate from interpretation, reception history should be seen as a constituent of the hermeneutical endeavor.

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).

Bedouin Culture in the Bible

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clinton Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Unleavened Bread ◽  
The Common ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Common Logic

Bedouin culture, the culture of desert-dwelling nomads, has existed for 4,500 years, including the era when the texts of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, were composed. It is thus a good context for understanding much of the Bible’s often ambivalent content regarding economics, material culture, social values, social organization, legal practices, religious behavior, and oral traditions. The abundant and varied Bedouin materials in this book constitute a cultural document that supplements materials learned from other cultures of the Ancient Near East about the Bible. The plenitude of Bedouin materials in the Hebrew Bible, the common logic between Bedouin and biblical experiences, and the ancient proximity of Bedouin to what the Bible cites as Israelite abodes, ensure that the origin of almost all the biblical references presented in this book stemmed from Bedouin rather than other ancient cultures. This book, in detailing the profusion of Bedouin culture in the Bible, goes far toward establishing that the ancient Israelites did have a nomadic background, as they are portrayed. Through the prism of Bedouin culture we also gain fresh insights into our customary perspectives on prominent aspects of Judaism and their biblical origins, such as the Israelite god Yahweh (enunciated in Judaism as “Adonai”), the attribute of this god as unseen, the original significance of circumcision, the eating of unleavened bread during Passover, the dwelling in thatched booths during the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Jewish prohibitions against eating pork and other forbidden foods.

Israelite Religion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Hess
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Gender Culture ◽  
Israelite Religion ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Critical Interpretation ◽  
The One

Emerging from the academic study of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures during the Enlightenment and Reformation, Israelite religion became a topic of study in terms of the presentation in the Bible of Israel’s worship of its God. Gradually this separated into a synthesis of biblical teachings on worship and its prescribed practices, on the one hand, and a study of the history of biblical Israel in terms of beliefs and practices toward one or more deities, on the other. The former branch evolved into biblical theology, while the latter developed into the topic of Israelite religion. Beginning in the nineteenth century, archaeological excavations and the interpretation of ancient Near Eastern texts preceding and contemporaneous with the period of the Bible broadened the picture. Comparing and contrasting archaeological and textual sources with the application of anthropological models derived from comparative religious studies led to modern syntheses of the subject. Initially these were heavily based upon the biblical text, often with the application of theories of literary and historical criticism. Since the 1980s, however, a focus on texts from the same time and region, as well as interpretation of artifacts with religious significance, has challenged older models of Israelite religion. Influences and the interactions of believers and their deities appear increasingly complex. No longer is there an understanding of a mere one or two religions in Israel (e.g., worshippers of Yahweh and worshippers of Baal). It now seems clear that various religious practices and texts attest to the presence of multiple religions followed by people in the region of ancient Israel, sometimes reflecting differences in gender, culture, ethnicity, and other factors. While a form of worship as described in biblical accounts may have been followed, there were other forms which, in various ways, syncretized Yahweh with other goddesses and gods. This has led scholars to question the factors that led to, and the time of emergence of, belief in a single deity in Israel, as well as to question the nature of that deity. Answers and models remain in a state of flux; evidence remains to be reviewed and interpretations demand critical interpretation.

Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Lemos
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Western World ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Right

How should the human body be treated? Should bodies be slaughtered, starved, tortured, sold, and shot in the streets? Whose bodies should be treated in these ways and whose protected from harm? Who has the right to seek redress in cases of abuse and who is seen as fit for dehumanization? This book addresses these very questions, examining materials from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, ancient Near Eastern literature, and contemporary American society. In the first book-length work on personhood in ancient Israel, the author reveals widespread intersections between violence and personhood in both this society and the wider region. Relations of domination and subordination were so important to the culture and social organization of ancient Israel that these relations too often determined the boundaries of personhood itself. Rather than being fixed, personhood was malleable—it could be and was violently erased in many social contexts. The book exposes a violence–personhood–masculinity nexus in which domination allowed those in control to animalize and brutalize the bodies of subordinates. Perhaps even more noteworthy, the author argues that in particular social contexts in the contemporary “Western” world, this same nexus operates, holding devastating consequences for particular social groups. If the violence of Abu Ghraib calls to mind that of Ashurbanipal, this is no accident but is instead because both arise from of a certain construction of personhood that could not exist without violence.

Methodology

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-72
Author(s):  
Theodore J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Art History ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Textual Studies ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Israelite Religion ◽  
Social Scientific

Articulating a thoughtful methodology is desideratum, for today’s analyses of Israelite religion (indeed, of the academic study of religion in general) are dramatically different than those of past generations. This chapter articulates the academic disciplines required for the task at hand: textual studies (including epigraphy, linguistics and comparative Semitics), archaeology, art history, the philosophy of religion, and various social-scientific approaches (e.g. socio-linguistics, gender, ethnicity, ritual performance, spatial theory). The categories of “religion” and “Israelite” are probed. Particular attention is then devoted to the nature of our source material including (a) textual sources (e.g. epigraphy, onomastica, the Hebrew Bible) and source-criticism of the Hebrew Bible; (b) the nature of the archaeological record, and (c) the use of comparative ancient Near Eastern materials.

The Watered (Edenic) Garden (Genesis 2–3) in the Song of Songs and Beyond

2020 ◽  
pp. 195-204
Author(s):  
Katharine J. Dell
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Limited Success

The Song of Songs has often been seen as a literary outlier within the canon and attempts to classify it alongside other literature have had limited success, more convincing parallels being found in ancient Near Eastern material than in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself. However, as Francis Landy puts it ‘no text is isolated, self-sufficient; none can be understood without reference to others’ (‘The Song of Songs in the Garden of Eden’, p. 516). I discuss the eligibility of the Song for a Solomonic wisdom corpus in Chapter 3. In this chapter I focus on a more thematic intertextual approach, starting with the Song of Songs but moving both within and outside the ‘Solomonic corpus’ in the imagery of garden and water. The garden, as typified in mythical terms by the garden of Eden (but not exclusively relating to this garden alone), is also called the ‘garden of the LORD’ in various texts. Then there is water that is so essential to the growth and maintenance of a garden and to all life. A thematic intertextuality seeks to find links primarily through themes, images, or metaphors used—in this case, gardens and water and echoes of an ideal Eden.

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Body Adornment

Dress, Adornment and the Body in the Hebrew Bible is the first monograph to treat dress and adornment in biblical literature in the English language. Beyond merely filling a gap in scholarship, the book moves beyond a description of these aspects of ancient life to encompass notions of interpersonal relationships and personhood that underpin practices of dress and adornment. I explore the ramifications of body adornment in the biblical world, informed by a methodologically plural approach incorporating material culture alongside philology, textual exegesis, comparative evidence, and sociological models. Drawing upon and synthesizing insights from material culture and texts from across the eastern Mediterranean, I reconstruct the social meanings attached to the dressed body in biblical texts. I show how body adornment can deepen our understanding of attitudes towards the self in the ancient world. In my reconstruction of ancient performances of the self, the body serves as the observed centre in which complex ideologies of identity, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social status are articulated. The adornment of the body is thus an effective means of non-verbal communication, but one which at the same time is controlled by and dictated through normative social values. Exploring dress, adornment, and the body can therefore open up hitherto unexplored perspectives on these social values in the ancient world, an essential missing piece in understanding the social and cultural world which shaped the Hebrew Bible.

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