Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. xvi-4
Author(s):  
Pamela Barmash
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Law And Literature ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ritual Law

The introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law advocates for the study of both the law of the Hebrew Bible in its historical and literary context as well as the history of its interpretation in emerging Jewish and Christian communities. It explains that biblical law encompasses both civil/criminal law and ritual law and justifies their inclusion in a single volume. The introduction offers a survey of the organization of the Oxford Handbook of Biblical, showing how the volume offers a reappraisal of comprehensive issues in the study of biblical law in the light of the re-evaluation of the social, religious, and political context and ideology of the legal texts of the Hebrew Bible and the employment of methodologies from the fields of law and literature, gender studies, anthropology, and political theory.

Yahweh and His Clio: Critical Theory and the Historical Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social World ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Discussion about the reconstruction of the history of ancient Israel seldom interacts with theoretical literature on the nature of history. Modern attempts to write Israel’s history, however, have been shaped by their theoretical underpinnings for the past two centuries. This essay explores the epistemological underpinnings of the historical criticism of the Hebrew Bible, outlines trends in historiographical theory, and assesses the impact newer theories of intellectual cultural history can have on studies of the history of the social world of ancient Israel.

The Pivotal Characterization: Ancient Law as Non-Statutory Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua A. Berman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Statutory Law ◽  
Ancient Law ◽  
History Of

Scholars of biblical law have long seen the inconsistencies among the law corpora of the Pentateuch as signs of schools and communities in conflict. This chapter offers an introductory foundation for the following five chapters on biblical and ancient Near Eastern law. It demonstrates that the dominant approach to the critical study of biblical law—that is, as statutory law—is based on anachronistic, nineteenth-century notions of how law works and how legal texts are formulated. The chapter traces the history of legal thought in that century, and how it shaped (a better term might be distorted) how we view the ancient legal texts of the Bible and the Near East, and recovers premodern understandings of how law works and how legal texts are to be read in accordance with common-law jurisprudence.

The Social History of Political Theory

1978 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal Wood
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Backgrounds of the Biblical Law against Usury

1964 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard J. Meislin ◽  
Morris L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Western World ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
The Social

The Hebrew Bible contains a thrice repeated prohibition against the taking of interest on loans. For many centuries, these injunctions exerted a profound influence on the life and thought of the Western World. However, they have never been significantly observed or consistently enforced in their original, categorical terms. From an absolute prohibition, which treated all interest (of any kind, in any amount) as usurious, we have developed, through economic revolutions and moral transvaluations, a quantitative morality which determines legality by the rate of taking, rather than by the fact of interest. Today, these laws lack force either as social legislation or as religious command. They are virtually ignored and forgotten by men of affairs of all stations, Jewish and Christians alike. Only the social and religious philosophers, historians and other scholars of the past are still excited by the moral implications of this prohibition.

The Enduring Value of the Old Testament—An Interesting Quest

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Ronald Clements
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Major Turning Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Academic Interests

AbstractThe period when the Society for Old Testament Study held its first meeting in 1917 marked a major turning point for the study of the Hebrew Bible. This rested on two factors: first, the preceding half-century had witnessed the slow, and often painful, acceptance in Christian and Jewish circles of a modern 'critical' explanation of the historical origin of its writings. Secondly, the context in which serious study of this literature was undertaken had increasingly moved out from a religious forum into that of a wider secular field of cultural and academic interests. The new methodology aimed to show that the Bible presented a worldview agreeable to modern scientific knowledge. In this setting, older, well-worn hermeneutical strategies were abandoned and replaced with new ones consonant with this aim. Prominent among these was a claim to present a historically verifiable demonstration that the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament possessed an enduring value based on its presentation of ideas of social justice, religious monotheism and universal morality. The claims to this uniqueness, however, rapidly lost credibility when fuller knowledge of the social world of antiquity became better known through archaeological and anthropological research. Such claims could be shown to depend largely on the Bible's own polemic. Nevertheless the idea of enduring value bears welcome comparison with comparable concerns to define what entitles any literary work to be regarded as a classic, and to deserve universal approval. Useful criteria can be set out but fail to command any wholly definitive acceptance. Rather, the best that can be achieved is to note those features and qualities which give to certain writings an intrinsic power to generate a continuity of interest and appeal. The history of the interpretation of the Old Testament shows that it performs well in such a context.

scholarly journals In Search of a New Zealand Populism: Heresthetics, Character and Populist Political Leadership

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ben Thomas McLachlan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

<p>Populism, an academically contested political theory, has been subject to few thorough studies in the New Zealand context. With a history of strong, successful leaders, and fervent political rebels, New Zealand provides a useful political context in which the theoretical platform for what constitutes populism can be explored. While the current pre-eminent model of New Zealand-centric populist leadership is Barry Gustafson’s six point framework, this thesis will posit that adopting a multi-methodological approach is able to explain the nuances of New Zealand populism more effectively. Traditional international approaches to populist theory, such as those of Panizza and Laclau, are introduced to provide context on the wider literature on populism. In a challenge to Gustafson’s model, which closely matches the definitions of Panizza and Laclau, the social choice theorems of Riker’s heresthetics are introduced to provide a counter-explanation for populist leadership. The study applies the theories of traditional populism and heresthetics to three case studies of New Zealand leaders; John A. Lee, Winston Peters, and Richard Seddon. Through application of Gustafson’s model to these leaders, we see that his criteria are only significantly met in the cases of Lee and Peters, while the criteria are only partially met in the case of Seddon. In regards to Seddon, Riker’s heresthetics and the theorems of Panizza and Laclau equally explain his populism. After classifying the populism of each case study, an attempt is made to explain why each selected leader was drawn to a particular style of populism, and it is posited that Renshon’s construct of relatedness, a dimension of his over-arching theory of character, can provide a qualitative answer to this question. These case studies demonstrate that populist leadership in New Zealand needs to be seen as a continuum, in which populist leaders vary in the degree to which they fit within particular theoretical classifications, and that a multi-methodological approach is necessary to explain the nuances of each case. The study posits that this approach will aid further study, particularly when analysing modern leaders that employ a milder variant of populism.</p>

scholarly journals In Search of a New Zealand Populism: Heresthetics, Character and Populist Political Leadership

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ben Thomas McLachlan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

<p>Populism, an academically contested political theory, has been subject to few thorough studies in the New Zealand context. With a history of strong, successful leaders, and fervent political rebels, New Zealand provides a useful political context in which the theoretical platform for what constitutes populism can be explored. While the current pre-eminent model of New Zealand-centric populist leadership is Barry Gustafson’s six point framework, this thesis will posit that adopting a multi-methodological approach is able to explain the nuances of New Zealand populism more effectively. Traditional international approaches to populist theory, such as those of Panizza and Laclau, are introduced to provide context on the wider literature on populism. In a challenge to Gustafson’s model, which closely matches the definitions of Panizza and Laclau, the social choice theorems of Riker’s heresthetics are introduced to provide a counter-explanation for populist leadership. The study applies the theories of traditional populism and heresthetics to three case studies of New Zealand leaders; John A. Lee, Winston Peters, and Richard Seddon. Through application of Gustafson’s model to these leaders, we see that his criteria are only significantly met in the cases of Lee and Peters, while the criteria are only partially met in the case of Seddon. In regards to Seddon, Riker’s heresthetics and the theorems of Panizza and Laclau equally explain his populism. After classifying the populism of each case study, an attempt is made to explain why each selected leader was drawn to a particular style of populism, and it is posited that Renshon’s construct of relatedness, a dimension of his over-arching theory of character, can provide a qualitative answer to this question. These case studies demonstrate that populist leadership in New Zealand needs to be seen as a continuum, in which populist leaders vary in the degree to which they fit within particular theoretical classifications, and that a multi-methodological approach is necessary to explain the nuances of each case. The study posits that this approach will aid further study, particularly when analysing modern leaders that employ a milder variant of populism.</p>

scholarly journals O DEUS MOISÉS E O PROFETA ARÃO (EX 4,10-17)

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
Rafael Da Silva França
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Geographic Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Proper Interpretation

Este artigo propõe explicar as designações dadas por Deus a Moisés e Arão em seus comissionamentos (Ex 4,10-17) dentro do contexto histórico do Antigo Oriente, principalmente do Egito. Para tal objetivo, abordamos  as tradições e o contexto literário, cultural, linguístico, religioso e geográfico concernentes ao texto em estudo. Portanto, o texto definido e delimitado é submetido a um crivo que leva em consideração o contexto da narrativa e do ambiente onde se situa tal narrativa, passando a ser analisado e comentado versículo por versículo. Com isso é possível verificar muitas compatibilidades entre aspectos sociais, religiosos e literários do texto bíblico e o ambiente onde ele foi gerado, mostrando a importância da história, dos estudos arqueológicos e das críticas, para uma interpretação teológica eficiente da história do êxodo dos hebreus e seus personagens.This article proposes to explain the designation given for God to Moses and Aaron in their commissions (Ex 4,10-17) in the social and literary context of the Ancient East, mainly of Egypt. For such objective, it will be carried the traditions and the literary, cultural, linguistic, religious and geographic context related to the text studied. Therefore, the text defined and delimited is submitted to a evaluation that takes in account the narrative’s background and the environment where is located such narrative, then, the passage is analyzed and commented verse by verse. Hence it is also possible to check much compatibilities among socials, religious and literary aspects of the biblical text and environment when it was generated, showing the importance of history, archaeological studies and criticism for a proper interpretation of the history of the exodus of the Hebrews and its characters. 

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth S. Anker ◽  
Bernadette Meyler
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Law And Literature ◽  
New Work ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Interdisciplinary Inquiry ◽  
The Many

While law and literature represents one of the most enduring sites of interdisciplinary inquiry, the field has recently expanded in a wide range of exciting new directions. Since its inception, law and literature has inspired taxonomies of the field, and the Introduction evaluates the limits and merits of those existing categorical schemes. It assesses frequent critiques of law and literature, while developing a framework for conceptualizing the many methodological and other innovations transforming the field. In particular, it emphasizes five new directions, considering the influence of history and political theory, efforts to globalize the field, the broadening of focus beyond legal texts along with changes in legal hermeneutics, attempts to transcend suspicion and critique, and new work on the imagination.

Aquila's Bible Translation in Late Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Perspectives

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny R. Labendz
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

In the early or mid-second century c.e., a Jewish proselyte named Aquila1 translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek.2 The translation survives today only in fragments, but both Jewish and Christian sources from Late Antiquity offer perspectives on and information about Aquila as well as citations of his translation. To fully understand the role his legacy played in Jewish and Christian communities requires careful analysis of each of the sources. I believe that prior scholarship, especially regarding ancient perspectives on Aquila and his translation, as well as the popularity of his translation in various communities, has drawn conclusions based on overall impressions of texts that may appear quite differently when examined closely and in context. My goal in the following pages is to develop a more nuanced understanding of the history of Aquila's Bible translation in Late Antiquity.

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