Samson in Reception History

2020 ◽  
pp. 465-482
Author(s):  
Kelly J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
King David ◽  
The Many

As one of the most famous figures from the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible, rivaled perhaps only by King David, the reception histories of Samson and the women of Judges 13–16 are extensive. The major events in the narrative found in Judges 13–16 involve not only Samson but also the women of the story: an unnamed mother, an unnamed Philistine wife, an unnamed prostitute, and, perhaps most illustrious of all, the named Delilah. This essay briefly outlines some of the major questions and concerns voiced by the many later readers and interpreters of Samson, revealing how the story of Samson, both in and outside the biblical text, is also a story about the women who appear in this account.

David

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor H. Matthews ◽  
Dan Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
King David ◽  
Ideal Image ◽  
United Monarchy ◽  
House Of David ◽  
Traditional Image ◽  
The Ideal

Few persons mentioned in the biblical text have had as much influence on later traditions as has David. This complex biblical character is portrayed against the backdrop of the establishment of a newly minted united monarchy over the Israelite tribes in the 10th century bce, but the ideal image created about him continued to serve as a model for later kings. The debate over the historicity of the narrative and of the person of King David had a revival in 1993 after the discovery of the “House of David” inscription at Tel Dan, the earliest reference to David outside the Hebrew Bible. Recent archaeological finds produced from Jerusalem and Khirbet Qeiyafa have further contributed to these debates. Much of what has been written about David reflects the struggles between minimalists and maximalists, historians and literary critics. Ultimately, whether David was a historical character or not is not as important as the influence his story and traditional image have had on literature, drama, poetry, and popular culture.

REREADING TEXTS OF MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE HEBREW BIBLE: THE SPIRITUALITY OF MUSIC AND DANCE IN ZIMBABWE

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-98
Author(s):  
Temba T. Rugwiji
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
World Music ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Church

The Hebrew Bible depicts that music and dance formed part of worship and reverence of Yahweh in which various musical instruments were played during ancient biblical times. In the modern post-biblical world, music and dance characterise every context of human existence either in moments of love, joy, celebration, victory, sorrow or reverence. In Zimbabwe, music — which is usually accompanied by dance — serves various purposes such as solidarity towards or remonstration against the land reform, despondency against corruption, celebration, giving hope to the sick, worship as in the church or appeasing the dead by those who are culturally-entrenched. Two fundamental questions need to be answered in this article: 1) What was the significance of music and dance in ancient Israel? 2) What is the significance of music and dance in Zimbabwe? In response to the above questions, this essay engages into dialogue the following three contestations. First, texts of music, musical instruments and dance in the Hebrew Bible are discussed in view of their spiritual significance in ancient Israel. Second, this study analyses music and dance from a faith perspective because it appears for the majority of Gospel musicians the biblical text plays a critical role in composing their songs. Third, this article examines music and dance in view of the spirituality which derives from various genres by Zimbabwean musicians in general. In its entirety, this article attempts to show that the Zimbabwean society draws some spirituality from music and dance when devastated by political, cultural or socio-economic crises.

Reception History and the Interpretation of Revelation

2020 ◽  
pp. 375-393
Author(s):  
Ian Boxall
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Music Drama ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts

The chapter describes the discipline of reception history as the study of the ongoing use, interpretation, and impact of a biblical text. If the history of interpretation has often focused on the ways biblical texts are understood in commentaries and theological writings, reception history also considers how a book was received in spirituality and worship, in music, drama, literature, visual art, and textual criticism. Criteria for selecting and organizing materials useful for reception history are discussed, and there is a review of recent attempts to provide broad overviews of Revelation’s reception history, along with specific examples of the value of the discipline for interpreting Revelation.

Joshua 1–12

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas B. Dozeman
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Religious Violence ◽  
Essential Work ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
Unique Interpretation ◽  
Religious Scholarship ◽  
Insightful Analysis

An acknowledged expert on the Hebrew Bible, Thomas Dozeman offers a fresh translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the book of Joshua and explores the nature, function, and causes of the religious violence depicted therein. By blending the distinct teachings of Deuteronomy and the Priestly literature, Dozeman provides a unique interpretation of holy war as a form of sacred genocide, arguing that, since peace in the promised land required the elimination of the populations of all existent royal cities, a general purging of the land accompanied the progress of the ark of the covenant. This essential work of religious scholarship demonstrates how the theme of total genocide is reinterpreted as partial conquest when redactors place Joshua, an independent book, between Deuteronomy and Judges. The author traces the evolution of this reinterpretation of the central themes of religious violence while providing a comparison of the two textual versions of Joshua and an insightful analysis of the book’s reception history.

The Meaning and Telos of Israel’s Election: An Interfaith Response to N.T. Wright’s Reading of Paul

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (04) ◽  
pp. 421-446
Author(s):  
Joel Kaminsky ◽  
Mark Reasoner
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Pauline Theology ◽  
The Many

AbstractN. T. Wright offers a systematic and highly influential metanarrative to account for Paul’s theology of Israel. However, Wright overlooks or underemphasizes important dimensions of Paul’s thinking, leading to problematic distortions. Thus, Wright claims that God rejected the historic people of Israel due to their failure to missionize the gentile nations, an idea not easily found in the Hebrew Bible texts Paul utilizes or in Paul’s own statements concerning his fellow Jews. Wright relies heavily on the diatribe of Rom 2 to build a Pauline theology of Israel, but he downplays the many positive things Paul says elsewhere about Israel’s status. Particularly troubling is Wright’s use of Rom 5 to argue that Paul characterizes Torah as divinely intended to draw sin onto Israel, with the expected consequence that human sin would reach its zenith within Israel, a view that moves Wright toward the very supersessionism against which Paul cautioned his gentile followers. These exegetical decisions, which form a tightly structured messiah-oriented understanding of Israel’s election, ignore what the Hebrew Bible and Paul affirm: while God accomplishes certain larger aims through Israel, God’s election of Israel is ultimately grounded in God’s inalienable love for Israel and Israel’s ancestors.

Laws in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Greengus
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The People ◽  
Divine Origin ◽  
The Law ◽  
Criminal Behaviors ◽  
The Many

Biblical laws are found mainly in the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). The laws are linked to the figure of Moses, who is depicted as having received them directly from God in order to transmit them to the people of Israel during the years in the Wilderness after being released from slavery in Egypt. Biblical laws are thus presented as being of divine origin. Their authority was further bolstered by a tradition that they were included in covenants (i.e., formal agreements made between God and the people as recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy). Similar claims of divine origin were not made for other ancient Near Eastern laws; their authority flowed from kings, who issued the laws, although these kings might also be seen as having been placed on their thrones through the favor of the gods. The biblical law collections are unlike other ancient Near Eastern “codes” in that they include sacral laws (i.e., governing cult, worship, and ritual, as well as secular laws: namely, governing civil, and criminal behaviors). This mingling of sacral and secular categories is the likely reason both for the many terms used to denote the laws, as well as for the unexpected number of formulations in which they are presented. The formulations used in biblical law can be classified as “casuistic” or “non-casuistic.” They are not equally distributed in the books of the Pentateuch nor are they equally used with secular and sacral laws. While there are similarities in content between secular laws found in the Hebrew Bible and laws found in the ancient Near Eastern law “codes,” the latter do not exhibit a comparable variety in the numbers of law terms and formulations. The Hebrew Bible tended to “blur” the differences between the law terms and their formulations, ultimately to the point of subsuming them all under the law term torah (“teaching”) to describe the totality of the divinely given laws in the Pentateuch. Biblical studies in general and Pentateuchal studies in particular are challenged by the fact that manuscripts contemporary with the events described have not survived the ravages the time. Scholars must therefore rely on looking for “clues” within the texts themselves (e.g., the laws cited by the prophets, the reform of Josiah, the teaching of torah by Ezra, and evidence for customs and customary laws found in books of the Hebrew Bible outside of the Pentateuch).

scholarly journals New Digital Tools for a New Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible

Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Yardney ◽  
Sandra R. Schloen ◽  
Miller Prosser
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Digital Analysis ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
Digital Edition ◽  
The University

Abstract This article describes the digital edition of the Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition (HBCE), which is being produced as part of a project called Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research (CEDAR) at the University of Chicago. We first discuss the goals of the HBCE and its requirements for a digital edition. We then turn to the CEDAR project and the advances it offers, both theoretical and technological. Finally, we present an illustration of how a reader might use the digital HBCE to interact with the biblical text in innovative ways.

Exploring Metaphors for the Reception History of the Lord’s Prayer

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
David Clark
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractIn his work Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Brennan Breed argues that texts are nomads which – existing without original form and without original context – have no homeland to claim as their own. Their entire history has been marked by unpredictable movement and variation. He therefore proposes that the study of reception history should primarily be an exploration of the potentiality of textual meanings. The suggestion that meaning progresses without relationship to hermeneutical antecedents, however, runs contrary to Gadamer’s assertion that the contemporary effect (Wirkung) of a text always exists in unity with its historical effects. Following Gadamer, the reception historian may still explore hermeneutical potentiality – but does so with a sense of historical consciousness. In this light, the nature of a biblical text may be more suitably characterized by the metaphor of an emigrant rather than that of a nomad. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of these divergent metaphors in our attempt to define both the nature of biblical texts and the task of the reception historian. Our test case will be the early interpretation history of the Lord’s Prayer. Given that the original form and context of this prayer are irretrievable, Breed’s theory is applicable in many respects. Yet it will also be seen that in the early reception history of the Lord’s Prayer there are also patterns of synchronic continuity. Amidst diverse agendas of theology and praxis, we find that interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer were consistently rooted in an inherited conceptualization of Jesus Christ – what we will call a canonical remembrance of his life and proclamation.

scholarly journals Die Bybel: Teks en ondermyning

2003 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Nel
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Religious Text ◽  
History Of

The Bible: Text and subversionThis article explores both the subversive dimension of the biblical text, in particular the Old Testament, as the ramifications thereof for the concept of a religious text. It argues that interpretation has been historically and fundamentally part and parcel of the genesis and reception history of the biblical text. The texts of Job and Jonah have been chosen for their explicit subversive strategies. The article shows that if the biblical text exploits strategies of subversion, it also contravenes the traditional opinion subscribing to a referential meaning of texts. A subversive text cannot simultaneously deny and confirm a constant (fixed) and an immutable reality. The article argues that biblical scholars should reconsider other perceptions of the religious text to avoid the destructive criticism of referential meaning in postmodern studies. One option to be considered is the view of a text as performative communication.

On “Exegetical Function” in Rewritten Scripture: Inner-Biblical Exegesis and the Abram/Ravens Narrative inJubilees

2013 ◽  
Vol 106 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Andrew Teeter
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Degree Of Freedom ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Narrative Voice ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Substantial Degree ◽  
Rewritten Bible

While no consensus obtains among specialists as to what the term “rewritten Bible” (or “rewritten Scripture”) properly denotes—or whether, indeed, it is proper to use at all—most agree that the texts thought to represent this category are basically exegetical in character. That is, they are supposed to have as their aim or goal the interpretation of texts that are now part of the Hebrew Bible. At the same time, it is universally recognized that the authors of so-called rewritten Bible compositions exercised a substantial degree of freedom in their retelling. They clearly had their own interests, motives, and aims, distinct from those of the biblical narrative. These interests (sometimes characterized as “ideological” in nature), in turn, determine the structure or literary shape of their work, including such basic elements as character, plot, scope, and narrative voice. Thus, while it is constitutive for the genre or category that such works mainly follow the sequence and wording of the biblical text, they are not—and cannot be—identical to the latter in compositional form. Every rewritten Bible composition is defined by its own retelling strategy or program.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document