To Die For

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shmuel Shepkaru
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Noble Death

This chapter examines the development of early Jewish martyrdom from the Bible to late antiquity. The chapter argues that martyrdom does not exist in the Hebrew Bible and that the stories of Eleazar and the mother with her seven sons from 2 Maccabees are not indicative of an existing Hellenistic tradition of martyrdom. The Jewish concept of martyrdom started to develop in Roman times, due to the influence of the popular Roman idea of noble death. The Jewish acceptance of the Roman idea created also moral and theological dilemmas. The idea of noble death needed to be reconciled with a Jewish tradition that emphasized the holiness of life. These martyrological premises and predicaments continued to be developed in rabbinic literature. The end result was the presentation of a rabbinic martyrological genre that set the Jewish lore and law of kiddush ha-Shem.

The Lex Dei and the Latin Bible

2007 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-441
Author(s):  
Robert Frakes
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Latin Work ◽  
Shed Light

Two striking developments in late antiquity are the growing influence of Christianity and the codification of Roman law. The first attempt to harmonize these two developments lies in the late antique Latin work known by scholars as the Lex Dei (“Law of God”) or Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (“Collation of the Laws of Moses and of the Romans”). The anonymous collator of this short legal compendium organized his work following a fairly regular plan, dividing it into sixteen topics (traditionally called titles). Each title begins with a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (in Latin), followed by quotations of passages from Roman jurists and, occasionally, from Roman law. His apparent motive was to demonstrate the similarity between Roman law and the law of God. Scholars have differed over where the collator obtained his Latin translations of passages from the Hebrew Bible. Did he make his own translation from the Greek Septuagint or directly from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves? Did he use the famous Latin translation of Jerome or an older, pre-Jerome, Latin translation of the Bible, known by scholars as the Vetus Latina or Old Latin Bible? Re-examination of the evolution of texts of the Latin Bible and close comparison of biblical passages from the Lex Dei with other surviving Latin versions will confirm that the collator used one of the several versions of the Old Latin Bible that were in circulation in late antiquity. Such a conclusion supports the argument that the religious identity of the collator was Christian (a subject of scholarly controversy for almost a century). Moreover, analysis of the collator's use of the Bible can also shed light on his methodology in compiling his collection.

scholarly journals Fra bibelske til rabbinske opfattelser af askese: Jødedommens verdensbekræftende praksis

2016 ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Marianne Schleicher
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Jewish Religion

The purpose of this article is to supplement scholarly positions that define asceticism either as a matter of world renouncement and elitist self-exclusion from the world or as always oriented toward transcendent goals or practices of improvement because these positions run the risk of overlooking moderate kinds of asceticism. Israelite, early Jewish, and early Rabbinic Jewish religion are replete with examples of moderate asceticism where both men and women are encouraged to engage in abstinence and self-training in order – not to improve, but – to preserve a religious tradition. With Steven D. Fraade’s definition of asceticism as a departing point, the article examines abstinence and self-training in the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish and early Rabbinic literature. The author discerns three types of moderate asceticism: that of the priest, the layperson, and the hero/-ine. These three types complement each other in a shared effort to preserve divine blessings in this world and thereby the preservation of Israelite-Jewish tradition.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The Relationship

This book is a study of the famous—or infamous—narrative of the Israelites’ worship of the Golden Calf, explored through historical and literary analysis of the various interpretations and expansions of the episode across more than a thousand years. The story of the Calf is familiar even to laypeople with very little scriptural literacy; many people know it from the version recounted in the Hebrew Bible (sometimes still termed the “Old Testament”), and perhaps from later Jewish and Christian versions as well. However, while those versions will be discussed at length here, this book focuses in particular on the version found in the Qur’an—which, I will argue, represents an integral part of the biblical tradition, broadly conceived. I will trace the development of understandings of the episode from ancient Israel through the consolidation of classical Judaism and Christianity up to the emergence of Islam, using it as a case study through which to re-evaluate the relationship between Bible and Qur’an. Interrogating both historical and contemporary scholarship on the Qur’an and its connections to the Bible and ancient Jewish and Christian traditions of interpretation provides us with a framework in which to investigate the relationships between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, particularly during the long transitional period now commonly termed Late Antiquity....

Midrash

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Bakhos
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Ethical Codes ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Precise Sense ◽  
Scriptural Exegesis ◽  
Cultural World

In modern parlance, midrash (Hebrew root drš, “to investigate, seek, search out, examine”) refers to any act of interpretation, but in its strictest and most precise sense it refers to ancient rabbinic biblical interpretation. Midrash is both the process and product of interpretation contained in vast compilations of midrashim (plural) as well as in other rabbinic works such as the Talmud. Compendia of midrashim not only preserve interpretations and teachings but also reveal a curiously postmodern, polysemic approach to scriptural exegesis. These compilations are often categorized according to three (problematic) descriptive binaries: halakhic or aggadic; tannaitic (70–200 ce) or amoraic (200–500 ce); and exegetical or homiletical. Through the midrashic process, the Jewish sages of antiquity made the Bible relevant to their contemporaries, taught moral lessons, told fanciful stories, and developed as well as maintained theological beliefs and ethical codes of behavior. The study of midrash provides a portal into the cultural world of the rabbis of late antiquity; it also serves to highlight their approach to and assumptions about scripture, and their guiding hermeneutical practices and principles. Midrashic interpretation employs a variety of exegetical techniques that are often tightly connected to the language of scripture. In addition to wordplay, the rabbis occasionally use gematria, whereby the arithmetical value of Hebrew letters is used to interpret a word or verse. Intertextuality and the atomicization of scriptural words, phrases, and verses are fundamental characteristics of the midrashic method. Although the term midrash applies specifically to rabbinic biblical interpretation, it is sometimes used more broadly as a synonym for aggadah, which includes rabbinic stories, maxims, and parables. Critical editions of midrashic compilations as well as digital advancements and translations give scholars in cognate fields the necessary tools to understand rabbinic literature and undertake comparative studies.

Are Enslaved Children Called to Come to Jesus? Freeborn and Enslaved Children in John Chrysostom’s On Vainglory

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 584-607
Author(s):  
John W. Martens
Keyword(s):  
Christian Education ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Right

Abstract John Chrysostom, circa 349–407 ce, wrote “On Vainglory, or The Right Way to Raise Children,” which purports to be about raising all Christian children. In fact, out of ninety chapters, only one deals with girls. Even more significant are the numerous overlooked children in the text, who are present but whose Christian education is never discussed because they are enslaved. This paper utilizes childist criticism to draw these enslaved children from hiddenness into plain sight. The paper is situated in the context of Jesus’ teaching about children because Chrysostom believes that the best way to raise children is by teaching them stories from the Bible, Hebrew Bible first, then New Testament, but instead of an openness to all children he discusses only freeborn, elite boys. Chrysostom’s treatise exposes the context of how few children in late antiquity could be shaped by biblical interpretation intended for all children. (147 words)

The Use of Numbers as an Editing Device in Rabbinic Literature

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-234
Author(s):  
Ariel Ram Pasternak ◽  
Shamir Yona
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
The Bible

In the first part of this paper (Review of Rabbinic Literature 19:2, pp. 202–244) we followed the use of numbers from the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literatures through the book of Ben-Sira and ultimately into Rabbinic literature. We showed that the Rabbis were familiar with the Biblical use of numbers as a rhetoric device and used numbers in similar ways. In this conclusion of our paper we will show how the Rabbis used numbers as an editing device in the Mishnah, Tosefta and Babylonian Talmud. This use of the rhetorical device in question is only rarely attested in the Hebrew Bible.

The Question of God’s Perfection

2021 ◽  
pp. 014610792110306
Author(s):  
Cornell Collin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
The State ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Present Essay

Is God perfect? The recent volume entitled The Question of God’s Perfection stages a conversation on that topic between mostly Jewish philosophers, theologians, and scholars of rabbinic literature. Although it is neither a work of biblical theology nor a contribution to the theological interpretation of scripture, The Question of God’s Perfection yields stimulating results for these other, intersecting projects. After briefly describing the volume’s central question and contents, the present essay situates the volume’s offerings within the state of the biblical-theological and theological-interpretive fields. In its next section, it considers—and compares— The Question of God’s Perfection with one twentieth-century theological antecedent, the Dutch theologian K.H. Miskotte. In closing, it poses questions for ongoing discussion. The Question of God’s Perfection: Jewish and Christian Essays on the God of the Bible and Talmud, edited by Yoram Hazony & Dru Johnson. Philosophy of Religion – World Religions 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019. ISBN 9789004387959

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.

Syriac

2021 ◽  
pp. 588-606
Author(s):  
Pablo Ubierna
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
John Chrysostom

During late antiquity, Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, belonging to the northwest group of Semitic languages, and originally the language of the Kingdom of Edessa and the Oshroene in Upper Mesopotamia, became the literary language of Aramaic-speaking Christians and developed under the mutual influences of both Greek and Iranian. This section surveys Syriac translations of Byzantine Greek texts, from the Bible and homiletics, to theological and ascetic literature, as well as historiographical, hagiographical, and other narrative texts. It thus highlights Greek authors with important corpora in Syriac (e.g. Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and the Areopagitic corpus), as well as authors and texts no longer extant in Greek (often because of their deviation from Constantinopolitan orthodoxy).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document