Melchizedek, King of Sodom

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert R. Cargill
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Strategic Changes

This book argues that the biblical figure Melchizedek mentioned in Gen. 14 as the king of Shalem originally appeared in the text as the king of Sodom. Textual evidence is presented to demonstrate that the word סדם‎ (Sodom) was changed to שׁלם‎ (Shalem) in order to avoid depicting the patriarch Abram as receiving a blessing and goods from the king of Sodom, whose city was soon thereafter destroyed for its sinfulness according to the biblical tradition. This change from Sodom to Shalem caused a disjointed narrative in Gen. 14:18–20, which many scholars have wrongly attributed to a later interpolation. This book also provides textual evidence of minor, strategic redactional changes to the Hebrew Bible and the Samaritan Pentateuch that demonstrate the evolving, polemical, sectarian discourse between Jews and Samaritans as they were competing for the superiority of their respective temples and holy mountains. These minor strategic changes to the HB were used as the ideological motivation in the Second Temple Jewish literary tradition for the relocation of Shalem away from the Samaritan religious center at Mt. Gerizim to the Levitical priestly center in Jerusalem. This book also examines how the possible reference to Melchizedek in Ps. 110 may have influenced later Judaism’s understanding of Melchizedek.

Sexual Defilement in Early Christian Texts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Family ◽  
Main Target ◽  
Christian Society

Chapter 7 demonstrates that sexual sin became the main target for purity discourse in early Christian texts, and attempts to explain why. Christian imagery of sexual defilement drew from a number of traditions—Greco-Roman sexual ethics, imagery of sexual sin from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple texts, and both Jewish and pagan purity laws, all seen through the lens of Paul’s imagery of sexuality and sexual sin. Two broad currents characterized Christian sexual ethics in the second century: one upheld marriage and the family as the basis for a holy Christian society and church, while the second rejected all sexuality, including in marriage. Writers of both currents made heavy use of defilement imagery. For the first, sexual sin was a dangerous defilement, contaminating the Christian community and severing it from God. For the second, more radical current, sexuality itself was the defilement; virginity or continence alone were pure.

Hannah at Pentecost

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-258
Author(s):  
Reed Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Samuel 1 ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Biblical Allusion ◽  
1 Samuel ◽  
Book Of Acts ◽  
Old Greek

This essay argues that Hannah’s story in 1 Samuel 1–2 is an example of a ‘spirit phenomenon’ in the Hebrew Bible. The story displays an uncanny sensitivity to Hannah’s psychological state, which is consistent with how spirit language is used as self-language in biblical literature. Hannah describes herself as a ‘woman of hard spirit’ (1 Sam. 1.15) and engages in a kind of trance, which is disruptive enough to draw the attention of Eli. Through inner-biblical allusion and intentional alterations in the Old Greek and Dead Sea Scroll versions of 1 Samuel, Hannah comes to be associated with other prophetic women in biblical literature. Several Second Temple Jewish interpreters read Hannah as a prophetess and as a practitioner of spirit ecstasy, culminating in Philo’s association of Hannah with Bacchic possession and in Hannah’s experience at Shiloh serving as a model for Pentecost in the book of Acts.

5. The canon, authoritative scriptures, and the scrolls

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy H. Lim
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Shed Light

The Dead Sea Scrolls have shed light on the canonization of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible in the Second Temple period. They provide us with exemplars of their biblical texts and how they used them in an authoritative manner. ‘The canon, authoritative scriptures, and the scrolls’ explains that the sectarian concept of authoritative scriptures seemed to reflect a dual pattern of authority by which the traditional biblical texts served as the source of the sectarian interpretation that in turn was defined by it. The authority was graded, beginning with the biblical books and extending to other books that were not eventually included in the canon.

The Son of Man and the Angel of the Lord: Daniel 7.13–14 and Israel's Angel Traditions

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-167
Author(s):  
Phillip Munoa
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
The One

Interpreters wrestle with Dan. 7.13–14 and its account of the ‘one like a human being’, traditionally known as ‘the Son of Man’. This figure is subject to two competing interpretations: symbol (suffering Jews) and individual (Michael). These positions draw upon Daniel 7's interpretation and Daniel's later chapters, but interpreters need to consider the Hebrew Bible's angel of the Lord tradition and more fully engage Dan. 7.13–14, the angelic interests of Daniel 2–6, the later Additions to Daniel, and Second Temple interpretations of Daniel 7. These materials are consistent with this angel's portrayal in the Hebrew Bible and indicate a growing interest in this angel's saving intervention on behalf of Israel. When Dan. 7.13–14 is read in light of this angelic tradition, a long-overlooked reading that argues for an angel of the Lord merits serious consideration.

scholarly journals Wisdom and Law in the Hebrew Bible and at Qumran

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-181
Author(s):  
Charlotte Hempel
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Spread Model ◽  
Community Rule ◽  
Relationship Of

This article begins by noting the paucity of engagement between scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls (dss) and a number of significant studies on the relationship of wisdom and law in the Hebrew Bible. A substantial case study on Proverbs 1-9 and the Community Rule from Qumran is put in conversation with the seminal work of, especially, Moshe Weinfeld on Deuteronomy and its refinement by subsequent research to trace a dynamic interaction between wisdom and law in the Second Temple period. The article ends with critical reflections on the wide-spread model of segmenting ancient Jewish literature and those responsible for it into neat categories such as wisdom and law. It is argued that such a model presupposes a degree of specialization that is not borne out by the range of literature that found its way into the Hebrew Bible or the caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran.

Observations on Inner-Scriptural Scribal Expansion in MT Ezekiel

2008 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake Stromberg
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractTextual evidence from the Second Temple Period attests a principle by which Hebrew manuscripts were edited in light of other scriptural texts (e.g. 1QIsaa). Such inner-scriptural editing was often undertaken along lines of connection perceived between the texts before the expansion took place, so that these perceived connections served as a guide for the scribe's own work. This study argues that the same textual procedure was at work in creating the longer text of MT Ezekiel, which is 4-5% longer than LXX Ezekiel. In light of the work of E. Ulrich, this study concludes with reflections on what MT Ezekiel contributes, as an empirical example, to the discussion about the relationship between text and canon.

Greek “Variant Literary Editions” to the Hebrew Bible?

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-190
Author(s):  
Hans Debel
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Full Publication ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Interpretational Tradition

AbstractThe full publication of the scrolls from the Judaean Desert has given impetus to reflections on the history and development of the biblical text during the period of Second Temple Judaism. This study critically reviews the major contributions to the debate and finally makes a plea to extent Ulrich’s hermeneutical model to some Septuagint texts that are usually not included among his “variant literary editions.” Its major arguments in this regard are that these texts witness to the same dynamic process of the organic development of Scripture, and that relegating them to the interpretational tradition merely because they are not written in Hebrew reveals an unwarranted bias towards the Masoretic Text.

Second Temple Judaism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Yoshiko Reed
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Dead

“Second Temple Judaism” is a common designation for the Jewish traditions that flourished between the return of exiles from Babylon and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple under Persian patronage from 538 to 515 bce, and the destruction of the Temple by Roman forces in 70 ce. In practice, research on the period often focuses on the 4th century bce and following, and stretches into the 2nd century ce. Sometimes referred to erroneously as “intertestamental,” Second Temple Judaism has attracted sustained attention since the late 19th century as a transitional age between the ancient Israelite religion reflected in the early strata of the Hebrew Bible and the emergence of Christianity and classical rabbinic Judaism in their characteristically postsacrificial forms in late Antiquity. In relation to the former, it has been called “postexilic,” “post-biblical,” or “late Judaism,” and, in relation to the latter, “prerabbinic” or “early Judaism.” Particularly since the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it has been studied increasingly for its own sake and on its own terms. By the 1970s, a nascent subfield was taking form, energized by a new emphasis on the diversity of the Judaism from within which Christianity arose. In the late 20th century, studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed new insights into the significance of this period for the development of Judaism as well. Long deemed critical for Jewish engagement with Greek language and literature and for the spread of Jewish communities throughout the Mediterranean world, the Second Temple period has also become a new locus for research on halacha, purity, and biblical interpretation. In addition, its study continues to create a space for discussion and collaboration among specialists in the Hebrew Bible, Classics, New Testament, Jewish studies, and rabbinics. This entry focuses on the literary evidence for Second Temple Judaism, selectively treating themes and issues that cross the large span of periods and places encompassed by this scholarly designation; for material and documentary evidence for Jews in the Second Temple period, the reader is referred to the Oxford Bibliographies articles on specific locales and time periods. Please see also Inscriptions, Papyri, Coins, and Seals in the Oxford Bibliographies article Hellenistic Judaism.

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