“Can You Hear Me Now?…Good!”: A Deaf Adder and the Inversion of Disability Imagery in Psalm 58:5–6

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Kevin Scott

Abstract This article explores the use of deaf imagery in Psalm 58 through a cultural model of disability and a historicist approach to highlight the unique rhetorical function of disability imagery within the psalm. In the Hebrew Bible, deafness is typically an affliction to be avoided, and deaf groups typically need Yahweh’s protection along with other disabled groups. In Psalm 58, however, an adder which represents wicked people who oppose the psalmist’s community voluntarily disables itself to better withstand the efforts of those who would try to neutralize its threat. For the adder, disability is a source of strength, not weakness. For the psalmist’s community, however, disability is still a problem which necessitates crying out to Yahweh for relief. The use of deaf imagery within this text highlights the contrast between Yahweh, who is righteous and fully-abled, and the wicked/their foreign deities, who judge unfairly and who are depicted as disabled.

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 284-295
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Yang ◽  
Jonathan Lam ◽  
Eduardo Vega ◽  
Monica Martinez ◽  
Luba Botcheva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Rattanasithy ◽  
W. Q. Elaine Perunovic ◽  
Michael Ross ◽  
Glen Gorman
Keyword(s):  

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-233
Author(s):  
Ana Fund Patron de Smith
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Anne Katrine De Hemmer Gudme

This article investigates the importance of smell in the sacrificial cults of the ancient Mediterranean, using the Yahweh temple on Mount Gerizim and the Hebrew Bible as a case-study. The material shows that smell was an important factor in delineating sacred space in the ancient world and that the sense of smell was a crucial part of the conceptualization of the meeting between the human and the divine.  In the Hebrew Bible, the temple cult is pervaded by smell. There is the sacred oil laced with spices and aromatics with which the sanctuary and the priests are anointed. There is the fragrant and luxurious incense, which is burnt every day in front of Yahweh and finally there are the sacrifices and offerings that are burnt on the altar as ‘gifts of fire’ and as ‘pleasing odors’ to Yahweh. The gifts that are given to Yahweh are explicitly described as pleasing to the deity’s sense of smell. On Mount Gerizim, which is close to present-day Nablus on the west bank, there once stood a temple dedicated to the god Yahweh, whom we also know from the Hebrew Bible. The temple was in use from the Persian to the Hellenistic period (ca. 450 – 110 BCE) and during this time thousands of animals (mostly goats, sheep, pigeons and cows) were slaughtered and burnt on the altar as gifts to Yahweh. The worshippers who came to the sanctuary – and we know some of them by name because they left inscriptions commemorating their visit to the temple – would have experienced an overwhelming combination of smells: the smell of spicy herbs baked by the sun that is carried by the wind, the smell of humans standing close together and the smell of animals, of dung and blood, and behind it all as a backdrop of scent the constant smell of the sacrificial smoke that rises to the sky.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Miller-Naudé ◽  
Jacobus A Naudé

The concern of the paper is to highlight how computational analysis of Biblical Hebrew grammar can now be done in very sophisticated ways and with insightful results for exegesis. Three databases, namely, the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC) Database, the Accordance Hebrew Syntactic Database, and the Andersen-Forbes Syntactic Database,are compared in terms of their relation to linguistic theory (or, theories), the nature and spectrum of retrieved data, and the representation of synchronic and diachronic linguistic variation. Interaction between different contexts, including the African context, are promoted namely between linguists working on Biblical Hebrew and exegetes working on the Hebrew Bible by illustrating how exegesis and language are intimately connected, as well as among geographical contexts by comparing a European database (ETCBC), a North American database (Accordance) and a Southern hemisphere database (Andersen-Forbes).


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-98
Author(s):  
Temba T. Rugwiji

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco W Gericke

In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholarship, one encounters a variety of reductive perspectives on what exactly Yahweh as religious object is assumed to be. In this article, a clarification of the research problem is followed by an introductory overview of what is currently available on this topic as is attested in the context of various interpretative methodologies and their associated meta-languages. It is argued that any attempt to describe the actual metaphysical nature and ontological status of the religious object in the jargon of a particular interpretative approach is forever prone to committing the fallacy of reductionism. Even so, given the irreducible methodological perspectivism supervening on heuristic specificity, reductive accounts as such are unavoidable. If this is correct, then it follows a fortiori that a unified theory (of everything Yahweh can be said to be) and an ideal meta-language (with which to perfectly reconstruct the religious object within second-order discourse) are a priori impossible.


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