Method and Context in the Study of Bible and Qur’an

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-52
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Ancient Israel

This chapter introduces the story of the Golden Calf, comparing the biblical version found in the book of Exodus and the presentation of the episode in the Qur’an. It argues for the importance of conceiving of qur’anic and Islamic retellings of ancient Israelite narratives as part of a broader biblical tradition, of equal value and legitimacy to the canonical and paracanonical biblical literature of Jews and Christians. In support of this argument, it examines the contribution complex processes of acculturation and scripturalization made to the formation of the Qur’an in Late Antiquity; calls for the abandonment of a one-dimensional concept of “influence” of Jewish traditions on the Qur’an in favor of a conception of the Qur’an as actively engaging a variety of traditions in circulation in its environment; and suggests that this engagement was part of a larger discourse of contestation, polemic, and dispute between communities. In Late Antiquity, Jews, Christians, and Muslims were all committed to their particular visions of the legacy of ancient Israel and its significance for their community’s claims of divine favor. Scriptural rewriting and exegesis thus provided a major arena for demarcating boundaries and defining self and other through reinterpretation of episodes from Israel’s history.

The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship

This book explores the story of the Israelites’ worship of the Golden Calf in its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim contexts, from ancient Israel to the emergence of Islam. It focuses in particular on the Qur’an’s presentation of the narrative and its background in Jewish and Christian retellings of the episode from Late Antiquity. Across the centuries, the interpretation of the Calf episode underwent major changes reflecting the varying cultural, religious, and ideological contexts in which various communities used the story to legitimate their own tradition, challenge the claims of others, and delineate the boundaries between self and other. The book contributes to the ongoing re-evaluation of the relationship between Bible and Qur’an, arguing for the necessity of understanding the Qur’an and Islamic interpretations of the history and narratives of ancient Israel as part of the broader biblical tradition. The Calf narrative in the Qur’an, central to the qur’anic conception of the legacy of Israel and the status of the Jews of its own time, reflects a profound engagement with the biblical account in Exodus, as well as being informed by exegetical and parascriptural traditions in circulation in the Qur’an’s milieu in Late Antiquity. The book also addresses the issue of Western approaches to the Qur’an, arguing that the historical reliance of scholars and translators on classical Muslim exegesis of scripture has led to misleading conclusions about the meaning of qur’anic episodes.

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....

On Agricultural Imagery in Biblical Descriptions of Catastrophes

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-14
Author(s):  
Nili Samet
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Mass Killing ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Ancient Israel

This article examines the use of agricultural imagery in biblical literature to embody the destructive force of war and other mass catastrophes. Activities such as vintage, harvest, threshing, and wine-pressing serve as metaphors for the actions of slaughtering, demolition and mass killing. The paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern origins of the imagery under discussion, and presents the relevant examples from the Hebrew Bible, tracing the development of this absorbing metaphor, and analyzing the different meanings attached to it in different contexts. It shows that the use of destructive agricultural imagery first emerges in ancient Israel as an instance of popular phraseology. In turn, the imagery is employed as a common prophetic motif. The prophetic books examined demonstrate how each prophet appropriates earlier uses of the imagery in prophetic discourse and adapts the agricultural metaphors to suit specific rhetorical needs.

scholarly journals The Tyrian King in MT and LXX Ezekiel 28:12b–15

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Lydia Lee
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Israelite Religion ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Fluid Boundary

The biblical prophecy in Ezekiel 28:11–19 records a dirge against the king from Tyre. While the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) identifies the monarch as a cherub, the Greek Septuagint (LXX) distinguishes the royal from the cherub. Scholarly debates arise as to which edition represents the more original version of the prophecy. This article aims to contribute to the debates by adopting a text-critical approach to the two variant literary editions of the dirge, comparing and analyzing their differences, while incorporating insights gleaned from the extra-biblical literature originating from the ancient Near East, Second Temple Period, and Late Antiquity. The study reaches the conclusion that the current MT, with its presentation of a fluid boundary between the mortal and divine, likely builds on a more ancient interpretation of the Tyrian king. On the other hand, while the Hebrew Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 28:12b–15 resembles the Hebrew text of the MT, the Greek translator modifies the text via literary allusions and syntactical rearrangement, so that the final result represents a later reception that suppresses any hints at the divinity of the Tyrian ruler. The result will contribute to our understanding of the historical development of the ancient Israelite religion.

A Gold Ring in a Swine’s Snout (Prov 11:22)

2021 ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The Body ◽  
Dominant Model ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Votive Offerings

This chapter explores jewellery in the Hebrew Bible in light of the material evidence from the ancient Levant. I consider the function of jewellery in biblical texts, focused upon how these objects modify and ritualize the body. The ability of jewellery to index personhood is utilized in order to explore and unpack the use of jewellery in votive offerings. Moving beyond these insights, I then turn to the recovery of amulets inscribed with biblical passages—the earliest written evidence for biblical literature. As amulets, these objects served an apotropaic, ritual function. In biblical texts, we see this in action in the production of the golden calf, which is made from the jewellery of the Israelites. Such items therefore provide access to dimensions of personal religion and religious worship carried out outside of the official sphere. But by making sure that jewellery was utilized in the furnishing of the Temple, the biblical writers circumscribe this personal piety, making it compliant to the larger dominant model of the official Temple cult.

A Living Calf at Sinai?

2020 ◽  
pp. 318-379
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Western Scholarship ◽  
The Creation

This chapter re-evaluates major aspects of the Golden Calf story in the Qur’an, proposing a reading of the narrative that breaks with those of both traditional Muslim and Western scholarship and seeks to restore it to its proper historical, religious, and literary context in Late Antiquity. The qur’anic references to the image worshipped by the Israelites provided Muslim exegetes with a pretext for depicting the Calf as alive or at least possessing some semblance of life. However, the qur’anic Calf is better understood not as ? lowing image of a calf but rather an image of a lowing calf, a distinction of enormous significance for the exegesis of the story. In the absence of a conception of the Golden Calf as actually or seemingly animate, the Qur’an’s allusions to the creation of this entity must be reinterpreted as well. This chapter thus proposes alternative explanations of the major elements of the traditional portrayal of the narrative, especially the depiction of the “Samaritan” as an outside interloper who created and animated the Calf through supernatural means, with Moses subsequently imposing a sentence of exile on both him and his descendants, the Samaritan community, for all time. Instead, the major elements of the key passage in the Qur’an can be interpreted as allusions to various biblical subtexts; the qur’anic story originally posited, like its Jewish and Christian precursors, that it was Aaron—called by the unique epithet al-sāmirī here—who had made the Calf and led the Israelites into sin.

Levi's Elevation to the Priesthood in Second Temple Writings

1993 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kugel
Keyword(s):  
Special Functions ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Selection Of

In ancient Israel, the tribe of Levi was deemed to have a special connection with the service of God. Numerous biblical texts speak of the Levites asthepriestly tribe or attribute to them certain special functions connected with cultic worship. But why exactly had the Levites been selected for such honors, and how did their selection come about? Several biblical narratives appear to have been designed in order to answer this question. Thus, the selection of the Levites is at one point connected with their zealousness following the Golden Calf incident (Exod 32:25–29), while elsewhere God's choice of the Levites seems to follow as a natural consequence after the death of the Levite Aaron (see Deut 10:8) or, possibly, to be the result of Moses' words in his final blessing of this tribe before his death (Deut 33:8– 10).

Education in the Hebrew Bible

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Schniedewind ◽  
Elizabeth VanDyke
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Scribal Culture ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Sources

Education is a wide-ranging topic concerning the variety of ways in which people acquire knowledge, skills, and behaviors. As a key facet of culture, one might expect education and instruction to appear frequently within the Hebrew Bible, yet biblical literature actually provides little direct evidence as to how the ancient Israelites learned. This is true both for traditional vocations, such as the production of pottery or soldiering, and for more scholastic pursuits, such as reading or accounting. Biblical scholarship has particularly focused on scribal education, with less attention to the broader questions of enculturation. Several passages, particularly Isaiah 28, Proverbs 22–23, and Ben Sira 51, refer to education and have engendered numerous discussions. Increasingly, though, scholars have turned to extra-biblical sources in order to understand scribal culture. Studies on scribalism in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Ugarit feature prominently in many overviews of Hebrew learning. In some cases, scholars posit that these foreign scribal systems directly influenced Israelite scribes. The New Kingdom administration of Egypt left its vestiges on the Late Bronze Levant, and the empires of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia also had a lasting impact on scribal curriculum and tradition. These contextual studies can also be used for comparison, helping scholars model what a scribal community in Israel may have looked like. Epigraphic material from the Levant has supplemented this picture. Archaeologists have excavated a number of school texts and seals that attest to the exercises and extent of Israelite education. However, the interpretation of the biblical, comparative, and epigraphic material remains fiercely contested among scholars. Scribal education had an immediate impact on the composition of the biblical corpus, and inquiries into Hebrew education often become intertwined with theories regarding the history of biblical literature. Furthermore, discussions of scribal culture are often divorced from questions of how the society as a whole transmitted skills and knowledge. The ancient Israelite scribe is thus decontextualized from his original setting. In sum, many questions regarding education in ancient Israel remain unanswered, tantalizing, and crucial to the field as a whole.

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