scholarly journals The King and the Two Prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16–27): A Case for the Relevance of Narratorial Comment in Biblical Narratives

2020 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29
Author(s):  
Olumuyiwa Anthony Omodunbi
Keyword(s):  
Living Child ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
English Translations

The narrative of the King and the Two Prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16–27) presents the reader with a riddle to identify the true mother of the living child. While the king knows and sees the true mother, the reader is to discover the same through the literary indications within the narrative. However, some translations of the bible explicitly affirm that the first woman is the mother of the living child. Such identification is seen in the Septuagint (LXX) and some modern English translations (NRSV, NEB, RSV). This essay, however, takes a different stand from the popular opinion expressed in these translations. The essay argues that paying attention to narratorial comment and its implications for reading the entire narrative leads the reader to conclude that the second woman could have been the true mother of the living child.

Global Thefts of Biblical Narrative

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald West
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Family Resemblances ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
The Subject

This chapter takes its starting point from the African experience, across a range of African contexts, of Africa as both the subject and object of biblical narrative. When the Bible came to Africa, it came with well-established colonial metanarratives, constructed in part from biblical narratives. These colonial metanarratives were in turn partly reconstructed by the engagement with African others, from both a European and an African perspective along two diverging trajectories, with biblical narrative making a contribution to both. This chapter focuses on the capacity of biblical narrative, biblical story, to be both incorporated into “local” metanarratives and to shape these metanarratives. The contexts that are the focus of this chapter are largely “third world” contexts, across which there are significant family resemblances and important contextual differences.

The Idiom of Scripture, Leviticus 18:5, and Theology at a Time of Paradigm Shift

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Merwyn S. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
The Bible ◽  
English Translations ◽  
The One ◽  
Law And Gospel

Leviticus 18:5b ( the one doing them shall live in them) offers a prism through which to view the idiom of Scripture—the distinctive dynamics and theology of the Bible. The verse pinpoints the interplay between God's doing-and-living and ours. At issue is whether the commandments reflect a “command-and-do” structure of life with God, which maximizes a quid pro quo dynamic between God and us; or do the commandments delineate a “covenant place where” we abide with God and God with us, as a gift of shared doing pure and simple? The article traces Leviticus 18:5b through both Old and New Testaments, to show how pervasive it is. The main post-World War II English translations misstate the verse at every turn, in contrast to the 16th-century Church Reformation, which understood the verse and the issue under the topic of Law and Gospel.

Retrieving At-one-ment in the English Soteriological Tradition

2021 ◽  
pp. 002114002110391
Author(s):  
Joel R. Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
English Translations ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Early English

This article examines the use of the word atonement in biblical-theological discourse in the English language and early English translations of the Bible. It traces the word’s origin and development, and it uncovers its original signification and the meaning of the words from which it derives. It suggests that modern English-speaking theologians could benefit from a re-evaluation of this word given that it was first introduced in English translations of the Bible and subsequently used in Christian theological discourse for a specific purpose which is no longer operative. It suggests that a recovery of its original signification can be helpful to understanding how some medieval and early Renaissance English Christians interpreted that word, scriptural passages, and Christ’s salvific work.

The Southern Levant and the Ancient Near Eastern Canon

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Rachel Hallote
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

When the artistic canon of the Southern Levant coalesced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars thought of the region, then Ottoman Palestine, as the locus of the Bible. The small-scale nature of the archaeological finds as well as their relative dearth reinforced a reliance on biblical narratives as a framework for understanding the culture of the region. Moreover, early scholarship did not recognize the complex regionalism of the Southern Levant or the diversity of its populations. Consequently, the artistic canon that developed did not represent the historical and archaeological realities of the region. This chapter examines the history of how the artistic canon of the Southern Levant formed over the past century of scholarship, why various scholars of the early and middle twentieth century included particular items in the canon, and why these now entrenched representations may or may not be helpful to the discipline’s future.

The Two Kinds of Depression According to St. Paul

1967 ◽  
Vol 113 (500) ◽  
pp. 779-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Altschule
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Classification ◽  
English Translations ◽  
The One ◽  
Similar Classification

One current classification of depression divides the syndrome into psychotic and non-psychotic varieties. It is interesting that a similar classification developed over a thousand years ago out of some words of St. Paul. In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Ch. 7, v. 10, Paul wrote: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” The word sorrow used in English translations of the Bible stood for the tristitia of Latin versions (Greek λνπη); connoting sadness, sorrow, despondency, depression. Paul's distinction between the two kinds of tristitia, the one “from God” and the other “of the world”, led mediaeval theologians to enlarge on differences between the two kinds of depression.

Behind Auerbach's “Background”: Five Ways to Read What Biblical Narratives Don't Say

AJS Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
James Adam Redfield
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Contemporary Work

The Hebrew Bible's narrative style has impressed interpreters of many periods and perspectives with its powerful tension between fragmentary speech and meaningful silence, summed up in Erich Auerbach's famous thesis that the Akedah is “fraught with background.” But is it possible to give a coherent account of what the Bible does not say? This article offers a comparative critical analysis of attempts to do just that, starting with Auerbach's Mimesis (1946) and continuing through the contemporary work of James Kugel, Robert Alter, Meir Sternberg, Avivah Zornberg, and others. It claims that, rather than the text itself, the Bible's “background” serves as a metaphor by which the biblical critic navigates a complex relationship with her own normative construct of the reader's mind. This comparison concludes with practical considerations about its potential for research and teaching in biblical poetics, understood as rigorous intersubjective communication, rather than as either method or ideology.

The Orthodox Christians and the Bible

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Roeber
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Biblical Study ◽  
English Translations ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
History Of

Orthodox Christians (Eastern or Oriental) regard the Bible as an integral but not exclusive part of tradition. They have historically encountered the Bible primarily through their liturgical worship. No fixed “canon” describes the role of the Bible in Orthodoxy. The history of the Orthodox Bible in America moved in stages that reflected the mission to First Peoples, arrival of Middle Eastern and Eastern European immigrants, and the catastrophic impact of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia on Orthodox communities in America. Recovery from the fragmented, ethno-linguistic expressions of Orthodoxy occurred only after World War II. Orthodox biblical scholarship began in earnest in those years and today Orthodox biblical scholars participate in national and international biblical studies and incorporate scholarly approaches to biblical study with patristic commentary and perspectives. Parish-level studies and access to English translations have proliferated although New Testament studies continue to outpace attention given to the Hebrew Bible.

The End of Days

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Harper
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Black Religion ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
New Jerusalem ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Early Reconstruction ◽  
End Times ◽  
Made In

For 4 million slaves, emancipation was a liberation and resurrection story of biblical proportion, both the clearest example of God’s intervention in human history and a sign of the end of days. This book demonstrates how black southerners’ theology, in particular their understanding of the end times, influenced nearly every major economic and political decision they made in the aftermath of emancipation. From considering what demands to make in early Reconstruction to deciding whether or not to migrate west, African American Protestants consistently inserted themselves into biblical narratives as a way of seeing the importance of their own struggle in God’s greater plan for humanity. Phrases like “jubilee,” “Zion,” “valley of dry bones,” and the “New Jerusalem” in black-authored political documents invoked different stories from the Bible to argue for different political strategies. This study offers new ways of understanding the intersections between black political and religious thought of this era. Until now, scholarship on black religion has not highlighted how pervasive or contested these beliefs were. This narrative, however, tracks how these ideas governed particular political moments as African Americans sought to define and defend their freedom in the forty years following emancipation.

The Tsene-rene and Purim Plays

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Veidlinger
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Hebrew Scripture ◽  
Canonical Text ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Scholarly Attention

This article addresses some of the ways that Eastern European Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries accessed the Bible. It argues that reading the Hebrew Scripture itself was just one of many ways that common Jews became acquainted with biblical stories, and suggests that historians place greater scholarly attention on the extra-canonical sources Jews commonly used to access biblical narratives. Jewish audiences also heard biblical stories through interpretations, popular retellings, and dramatic performances. The article discusses the most popular Yiddish interpretive retelling, the sixteenth-century Tsene-rene, and demonstrates how some of its variances from the canonical text may have influenced Jewish notions of time and redemption. The article concludes with a discussion of some Purimshpils (plays performed during the holiday of Purim) and how they reinforced the ideas of the Tsene-rene.

scholarly journals The Ordinary Gloss on Jonah

PMLA ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 128 (2) ◽  
pp. 424-438
Author(s):  
Ryan McDermott
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Divine Comedy ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
John Wyclif

THE ORDINARY GLOSS WAS THE MOST WIDELY USED EDITION OF THE BIBLE IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES AND WELL INTO THE SIXTEENTH century. Medievalists know the commentary element as the Gloss to which theologians as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, John Wyclif, and Martin Luther habitually referred. As the foremost vehicle for medieval exegesis, the Gloss framed biblical narratives for a wide range of vernacular religious literature, from Dante's Divine Comedy to French drama to a Middle English retelling of the Jonah story, Patience.

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