New Perspectives on the Return from Exile and Persian-Period Yehud

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-169
Author(s):  
Mary Joan Winn Leith
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Persian Period ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
Early Form ◽  
International Context ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Canonical Status

Biblical scholars today recognize the long Persian period (550–332 bce) as the time when an early form of the biblical text approached canonical status. Yhwh religion—at least in its elite form—evolved from a tradition largely based on temple and kingship into one framed by control of a sacred text. While the title of this essay could imply that only Yehud (Judea) is of relevance to Yhwh religion and the historical books of the Bible, this period should be understood in international terms. New textual evidence for previously unknown Yahwist communities in Babylonia and Idumea are a case in point. Elites in Yhwh-worshiping communities situated across the Persian Empire from Egypt to Persia, and not just in Yehud or Shomron (Samaria), communicated with each other. The biblical books written or set in the Persian period developed within this international context, one that included debate over claims to be the true “Israel.”

Textualizing Divination: The Writing on the Wall in Daniel 5:25

2012 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Broida
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
First Time

Abstract The inscription in Dan 5:25 shares features with Mesopotamian divination as well as with later pesharim and rabbinic haggadic exegesis. In the inscription and its interpretation, the authors of Dan 5 applied mantic techniques to a sacred text—in this case, the writing on the wall “sent by God”—for the first time in the Bible. The story portrays not only Daniel, but Daniel’s God, as prevailing over competitors through the appropriation and mastery of Mesopotamian techniques of mantic writing. Dan 5 appears to bridge an important divide between pre-exilic and post-exilic modes of divination in the biblical text, enlarging the “genre” of biblical intermediary texts to include the interpretation of sacred writing.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk van Miert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
History Of

In the conclusion, the intrinsic deconstructive power of philology is contrasted with external pressures moving philology in different political and religious directions. The positions of the main protagonists differed widely, but they show that the less they were institutionalized, the more freedom they had to present unorthodox theories. As in the case of natural science, biblical philology was a handmaiden of theology, but it could also be used against certain theologies. In the end, the accumulation of evidence regarding the history of the Bible and the transmission of its texts, could not fail to impinge on the authority of Scripture. The problems in the transmission of the biblical text were widely discussed in the decade leading up to the publication of the Theological-political Treatise. Readers of Spinoza were already familiar with the type of reasoning which Spinoza employed in the central chapters of his notorious work.

Text-Critical Issues in Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Lisbeth S. Fried
Keyword(s):  
Persian Empire ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Archaeological Methods ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
The Law

Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras are the books of the Bible that describe the return to Judah under the Persians, so it is important to understand what in their portrayal is accurate, and what can be assigned to the imagination of the writers. Text-critical, historical-critical, and archaeological methods enable us to disentangle these elements. They confirm returns to Judah under Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes I, a temple rebuilt under Cyrus and Darius, and a rebuilt wall around Jerusalem under Artaxerxes. We may confirm as well that a man named Ezra was an official in the Persian Empire who served as the “eyes and ears of the King,” but that he did not bring either the Torah or Torah-law to Judah, and there was no law-reading ceremony. The law-reading ceremony, currently described in Nehemiah 8, was written in the Maccabean period, perhaps to emphasize to their Seleucid overlords that even the Persians had supported Judean traditions.

Reading from Worlds under the Text: Oceanic Women in the missio Dei

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-51
Author(s):  
Rosemary Dewerse ◽  
Cathy Hine
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Women

Abstract Missional hermeneutics is a relatively recent development in the field of biblical hermeneutics, emerging from several decades of scholarly engagement with the concept and frame of missio Dei. In a key recent publication in the field, Reading the Bible Missionally, edited by Michael Goheen, the voices of the Global South and of women – and certainly of women from Oceania – do not feature. In this article the authors, both Oceanic women, interrupt the discourse to read biblical text from their twice-under perspective. The Beatitudes provide the frame and the lens for a spiralling discussion of the missio Dei as, to borrow from Letty M. Russell, “calculated inefficiency.” Stories of faithful Oceanic women interweave with those of God and of biblical women, offering their complexities to challenge assumptions and simplicities.

The Binding of Isaac in J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen King

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Sebastian Selvén
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Stephen King ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Genesis 22 ◽  
Intertextual Dialogue

Abstract This article investigates biblical reception in the works of two popular modern fantasy authors. It stages an intertextual dialogue between Genesis 22:1-19, “the binding of Isaac”, and two episodes, in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. After presenting the dynamics of what happens to the biblical text in these two authors and the perspectives that come out, a hermeneutical reversal is then suggested, in which the modern stories are used to probe the biblical text. One can return to the Bible with questions culled from its later reception, in this case King and Tolkien. This article argues that the themes touched upon by the two authors are important and hermeneutically relevant ones, sometimes novel and sometimes contributions to exegetical debates that have been going on for centuries.

scholarly journals The Texts of St. Jerome, Sedulius Scottus and Beda Venerable in Plock and Mosan Biblical Manuscripts of the twelfth century. An attempt at comparison

1970 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
Leszae Misiarczyk
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Strong Argument ◽  
The Bible ◽  
River Region ◽  
Meuse River

This paper concerns the comparison of three twelfth-century biblical manuscripts from Plock, namely the so-called The Bible of Plock and The Evangeliary of Princess Anastasia with two Mosan biblical manuscripts: The Evangeliary of Averbode and the Biblia Universa transcribed in the same period. The first three texts: Beatissimo Papae Damaso (Novum opus), Prologus quatuor evangeliorum (Plures fuisse) and Iheronimus Damaso Pape (Sciendum etiam) – the last one is not included in the Bible of Plock - and Evangeliary of Princess Anastasia are of St. Jerome. In contrast, the introductions to the Synoptic Gospels: Argumentum secundum Matheum, Prologus in Marco and Prologus sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam are not the texts of St. Jerome, as is sometimes mistakenly repeated by different scholars, but were written by Sedulius Scottus, an Irish monk and a poet who lived and worked in a school in Leodium in the ninth century, whereas the introduction to the Gospel according to St. John: Prephatio in Evangelium secundum Iohannem was written by Bede the Venerable. While the texts of Jerome were quite commonly used in medieval biblical manuscripts, the fact that the introductions to the Synoptic Gospels are written by Sedulius Scottus and are present in both The Bible of Plock as well as partially in The Evangeliary of Princess Anastasia is a very strong argument for the Mosan origin of the twelfth century biblical manuscripts of Płock. The comparative analysis of the texts themselves clearly leads to several important conclusions. First, the Bible of Plock and Evangeliary of Princess Anastasia are closer to the version of the text preserved in the Biblia Universa, a codex written in the monastery of Sancti Trudonis, than to the Evangeliary of Averbode. It follows that the sources for the biblical manuscripts of Plock from the twelfth century should be searched at Mosan Benedictine monasteries, perhaps in the very monastery Sancti Trudonis near Liège. Second, the Gospel according to St. Mark generally follows the version of the text preserved in the Biblia Universa and the Bible of Plock but not all the time. It should therefore be hoped that the further comparative studies, especially of the version of the biblical text, will confirm this relationship and will help to determine whether the codex was written in the Meuse River region or is it a copy of the Bible of Plock made on the spot. Thirdly, and this is an extremely interesting proposal, the Evangeliary of Princess Anastasia, not counting minor changes made by a copyist like converting - tium to - cium, is very much dependent on the Bible of Plock. If, as it is confirmed by records of the miracles, the Bible was already in Plock in 1148 or before that date, it is very likely that the Evangeliary of Princess Anastasia, would be a copy of the text made on the spot in a local Plock scriptorium as a foundation of Boleslaw Kedzierzawy and a votive offering for the salvation of his deceased wife Anastasia. The codex would therefore arise after her death, dating back to the year 1158 in Plock in the time of Bishop Werner and would not have been brought by him following his trip to Aachen. These conclusions, for obvious reasons, are only preliminary, as comparison of the texts is not fully detailed and more comprehensive conclusions will be presented only after benchmarking a version of the biblical text of the four Gospels.  

scholarly journals The Impossible Spaces: A Commentary on Gen. 2:8–15

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 656
Author(s):  
Santiago García-Jalón
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Narrative Device ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Structural Differences

A close analysis of the text of Gen. 2:8–15, pertaining to the Garden of Eden, shows the structural differences between said text and others from ancient mythologies that mention or describe a paradise. Likewise, that analysis suggests that the data provided by the Bible to locate paradise are merely a narrative device meant to dissipate all doubts as to the existence of a garden where God put human beings. Similar to other spaces that appear in the Bible, the Garden of Eden is, in fact, an impossible place. Throughout the centuries, however, recurring proposals have been made to locate paradise. As time went by, those proposals were progressively modified by the intellectual ideas dominant in any given era, thus leading the representations of the location of Paradise to be further and further away from the information provided by the biblical text.

Merengkuh Bumi Merawat Semesta: Mengupayakan Hermeneutik Ekologis dalam Rangka Menanggapi Kerusakan Lingkungan Dewasa Ini

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Darius Ade Putra
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Ecological Damage ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Universe

Abstract Since the 1960s, started by Lynn White, Christianity has begun to get attacks because it is considered to have triggered ecological damage. Christianity through the teachings of the Bible is accused of legitimizing absolute anthropocentric ideas which then give rise to expansive actions to the environment and nature. In the midst of the massive damage to the environment and in order to fi nd a possible solution to this problem, it is felt necessary to resonance the new approach to the Scriptures that further explores the sound of the earth. One approach that can be developed is ecological hermeneutics. Based on several principles it is possible to see and understand the biblical text from the perspective of the earth. In addittion, this approach will be elaborated with local wisdom so that it can help the text contextualization process. In the end, a new paradigm is expected to encourage awareness of the importance to tend the universe.   Abstrak Sejak tahun 1960an, dimulai oleh Lynn White, Kekristenan mulai mendapat serangan karena dinilai telah menjadi pemicu kerusakan ekologi. Kekristenan melalui ajaran Alkitab dituduh melegitimasi gagasan-gagasan antroposentris absolut yang kemudian melahirkan tinndakan- tindakan ekspansif terhadap lingkungan dan alam. Di tengah masifnya kerusakan lingkungan dan dalam rangka mencari kemungkinan jalan keluar dari persoalan ini, dirasa perlu untuk menggemakan pendekatan baru pada Kitab Suci yang lebih mengeksplorasi suara bumi. Salah satu pendekatan yang bisa dikembangkan adalah hermeneutik ekologi. Berdasarkan beberapa prinsip-prinsipnya memungkinkan untuk melihat dan memahami teks Alkitab dari perspektif bumi. Selain itu, pendekatan ini akan dielaborasi dengan local widom agar membantu proses kontekstualisasi teks. Pada akhirnya diharapkan sebuah paradigma baru yang mendorong kesadaran akan pentingnya merawat alam semesta.

Moses’s Slow Speech: Hybrid Identity, Language Acquisition, and the Meaning of Exodus 4:10

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 635-657
Author(s):  
Kristine Henriksen Garroway
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Slow Speech

Abstract In changing our focus to examine the children and the childhoods of the characters in the Bible we can gain new insights into the biblical text. This essay applies childist interpretation to a question that has long puzzled scholars: What did Moses mean when he said: “I am heavy (כבד) of speech and heavy (כבד) of tongue” (Exod 4:10). Scholars have suggested it meant Moses had a speech impediment or that he lost his ability to speak Egyptian eloquently during his years in Midian. I suggest, however, that these previous answers have overlooked a crucial stage in Moses’ development: his childhood. Moses’ unique childhood and transition from Hebrew slave child to adopted Egyptian prince creates within him a hybrid identity. His hybrid identity, in turn, manifested itself in Hebrew language attrition, which causes him to protest that he is “heavy of speech and tongue.”

1. The Bible in the modern world: classic or sacred text?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
John Riches
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Education Culture

‘The Bible in the modern world: classic or sacred text?’ provides an overview of how the Bible continues to inform people’s lives in our modern world. Indeed, the Bible is still one of the most influential and widely read books in the world. The chapter introduces some of today’s Bible readers to demonstrate its extraordinary appeal, its ability to speak, negatively or positively, to people of different education, culture, and beliefs. The sheer diversity of the ways in which the Bible has been embodied in Jewish and Christian communities is both fascinating and disturbing. It has been used for purposes which for many are profoundly abhorrent, as well as in the cause of justice and liberation.

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