Cairo geniza

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cairo Geniza ◽  
Second Temple Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The 19Th Century

The Cairo geniza was a storeroom for no longer usable holy books in the synagogue of Fustat, Old Cairo, where for centuries, old Jewish manuscripts, mostly in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo- Arabic, including also secular documents and communal records, were deposited. In the 19th century, European scholars became aware of this collection and manuscripts were removed to a variety of libraries in Europe and the United States. This material provides those studying the ancient world and ancient Jewish texts in particular with an amazing treasure of documents, throwing light on the history of the biblical text and its interpretation, the Hebrew language, Greek and Syriac versions of the Bible, Second Temple and Rabbinic literature, Jewish liturgy and the later history—political, economic, and religious—of the Jews in the Mediterranean basin. This material has totally reshaped our understanding of these fields. In the area of Bible, these texts illustrate the manner in which the vocalization and cantillation symbols were developed. Hebrew versions of some important Second Temple literature, later found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, had earlier been discovered in the geniza. Many previously unknown Midrashim and rabbinic exegetical materials have become known only from this collection. This material has provided an entirely new corpus of liturgical poetry.

The Hebrew Bible and/as Second Temple Literature: Methodological Reflections

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Teeter
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
History Of Exegesis ◽  
Second Temple Literature ◽  
Important Sense ◽  
History Of ◽  
Artificial Nature ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This essay offers methodological reflections on the relationship between studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls and studies of the Hebrew Bible. These reflections center around three main claims: (1) that the Hebrew Bible is Second Temple literature; (2) that the internal development of the Hebrew Bible is, in a specific and important sense, a history of exegesis; and (3) that Second Temple interpretation outside of the scriptural corpus is inseparable from the history of exegesis within it. These claims all point to the problematic and artificial nature of the boundaries between the two disciplines; and they illustrate how both fields require each other in order to understand their respective objects of inquiry in a rigorous and historically appropriate manner.

The Damascus Document

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Fraade
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Ancient Text ◽  
Cairo Geniza ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The Damascus Document is an ancient Hebrew text that is one of the longest, oldest, and most important of the ancient scrolls found near Khirbet (ruins of) Qumran, usually referred to collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls for the proximity of the Qumran settlement and eleven nearby caves to the Dead Sea. Its oldest parts originate in the mid- to late second century BCE. While the earliest discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls occurred in 1947, the Qumran Damascus Document fragments were discovered in 1952 (but not published in full until 1996), mainly in what is designated as Qumran Cave Four (some ten manuscripts altogether). However, it is unique in that two manuscripts (MS A and MS B) containing parts and variations of the same text were discovered much earlier, in 1896 (and published in 1910), among the discarded texts of the Cairo Geniza, the latter being written in the tenth-eleventh centuries CE. Together, the manuscripts of the Damascus Document, both ancient and medieval, are an invaluable source for understanding many aspects of ancient Jewish (and before that Israelite) history, theology, sectarian ideology, eschatology, liturgy, law, communal leadership, canon formation, and practice. Central to the structure of the overall text, is the intersection of law, both what we would call “biblical” (or biblically derived) and “communal,” and narrative/historical admonitions, perhaps modeled after a similar division the biblical book of Deuteronomy. A suitable characterization of the Damascus Document, to which we will repeatedly return, could be “bringing the Messiah through law.” Because of the longevity of its discovery, translation, publication, and debated interpretation, there is a long history of modern scholarship devoted to this ancient text.

Mexico-US Relations from Independence to the Present

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Keller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The 19Th Century

Relations between the United States and Mexico have rarely been easy. Ever since the United States invaded its southern neighbor and seized half of its national territory in the 19th century, the two countries have struggled to establish a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. Over the two centuries since Mexico’s independence, the governments and citizens of both countries have played central roles in shaping each other’s political, economic, social, and cultural development. Although this process has involved—even required—a great deal of cooperation, relations between the United States and Mexico have more often been characterized by antagonism, exploitation, and unilateralism. This long history of tensions has contributed to the three greatest challenges that these countries face together today: economic development, immigration, and drug-related violence.

Text-Critical Issues in Ezekiel

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Mackie
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Textual History ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scholarly Discussion ◽  
Old Greek

This chapter helps to orient the reader to the most important textual witnesses to the book of Ezekiel, and to the recent scholarly discussion about them; it then presents several representative text samples, to illustrate Ezekiel’s text history. Research on this book’s complicated textual history has developed significantly in the last half-century. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided invaluable new data for understanding the history of the biblical text in the period of the Jewish Second Temple. New paradigms have emerged for research into the Old Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures (a.k.a. “the Septuagint”). All of this has dramatically affected how scholars evaluate the text of Ezekiel.

scholarly journals Jubilee in the Bible

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-6
Author(s):  
James A. Sanders
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Near East ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The concept of the Jubilee, or the collective forgiveness of all debts and debtor/slaves, had its origins in the Ancient Near East where it was a secular practice of kings. It came into the Bible originally also as a secular practice of kings but then became the province of priests and a calendar observance to be celebrated every 50 years. It was finally understood in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament to rest in the hands of God alone, an eschatological concept of the forgiveness of all debts/sins and the redemption of all human sins, or debts to God, that became the very basis of the theological history of Luke/Acts.

Review of: Aramaic Studies. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Vol. 14. 264 p. ISSN: 1477-8351

2020 ◽  
pp. 239-256
Author(s):  
Николай Шаблевский
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Second Temple Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comprehensive Study

В предшествующем выпуске журнала «Библия и христианская древность» была опубликована рецензия на «Aramaic Studies» за 2015 г. Настоящий труд является своеобразным продолжением изучения журнала, посвящённого всестороннему исследованию арамейских языков. Как отмечает С. В. Лёзов, письменная традиция арамейских языков, в том числе и его современных бесписьменных идиом, носители которых постепенно по разным причинам переходят в вечность (а вместе с ними исчезают и диалекты арамейских языков), сопоставима по временным рамкам разве что с китайским и греческим. Несмотря на безусловную значимость арамейских языков, в том числе и для исторического языкознания, а также и для изучения Библии, литературы Второго Храма, таргумов, Талмуда и тому подобного, «история арамейского языка до сих пор остаётся неисследованной... “мы отвечаем за арамейский язык перед небытием”», поэтому отрадно видеть, что специальный журнал посвящён столь важной области семитских языков. The previous issue of The Bible and Christian Antiquity published a review of Aramaic Studies for 2015. The present work is a continuation of the journal's study of a comprehensive study of the Aramaic languages. As S. V. Lyozov points out, the written tradition of the Aramaic languages, including its modern unwritten idioms, whose speakers are gradually passing into eternity for various reasons (and with them the dialects of the Aramaic languages are disappearing), is comparable in time frame only to Chinese and Greek. Despite the undoubted importance of the Aramaic languages, including for historical linguistics, as well as for the study of the Bible, Second Temple literature, the Targums, the Talmud and the like, "the history of the Aramaic language is still unexplored... "we are responsible for the Aramaic language before nothingness", so it is encouraging to see a special journal devoted to such an important area of Semitic languages.

Second Temple Literature outside the Canon

Early Judaism ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 29-51
Author(s):  
Martha Himmelfarb
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Temple Literature ◽  
Biblical Allusions

Many of our sources pertaining to 2nd Temple Judaism, including the Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, and Philo, were preserved by Christians, leading Robert Kraft to warn against assuming that they were originally Jewish despite the presence of biblical allusions. Several of these works, such as those associated with Enoch, are pseudepigraphic and retell biblical stories. Others demonstrate the development of wisdom teachings and apocalyptic ideas, with accounts of heavenly ascents, divine revelations, and symbolic visions like those found in earlier texts from this genre.

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