Unified until Proven Disunified? Assumptions and Standards in Assessing the Literary Complexity of Ancient Biblical Texts

2014 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
pp. 677
Author(s):  
Carr
Keyword(s):  
2018 ◽  
pp. 373
Author(s):  
Saja AbdulAmeer ◽  
Riyadh Tariq Kadhim Al-Ameedi

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
Viorica Codita

"Continuities and Discontinuities in the Translations of Prepositional Phrases in Medieval Biblical Texts. In this work we present an analysis of prepositional phrases in two contemporary translations, Biblia prealfonsí and the biblical part of General Estoria 4, on the basis of the Book of Ecclesiasticus. The aim of this study is to describe the state of variation of prepositional phrases in 13th century, delineating the similarities and divergences of solutions, and also to try to elucidate how much interferes the original Latin text, Vulgata, in the use of the prepositional phrases.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willie Van Heerden

A central concern of ecological biblical hermeneutics is to overcome the anthropocentric bias we are likely to find both in interpretations of the biblical texts and in the biblical text itself. One of the consequences of anthropocentrism has been described as a sense of distance, separation, and otherness in the relationship between humans and other members of the Earth community. This article is an attempt to determine whether extant ecological interpretations of the Jonah narrative have successfully addressed this sense of estrangement. The article focuses on the work of Ernst M. Conradie (2005), Raymond F. Person (2008), Yael Shemesh (2010), Brent A. Strawn (2012), and Phyllis Trible (1994, 1996).


Author(s):  
Sebastian Grätz

At first glance, the Aramaic letters embedded in the biblical book of Ezra look like authentic documents issued in favour of the Judaeans by the Achaemenid chanceries. This chapter shows that the letters display formulaic and stylistic features differing from authentic imperial Persian royal correspondence, that the contents of these letters are influenced by other biblical texts, chiefly Deutero-Isaiah and the books of Chronicles, and that the image of the king in these letters comprises aspects of the euergetism characteristic of Hellenistic monarchs. Grätz therefore suggests that the letters in Ezra 4–7 are fictitious and serve certain literary and ideological purposes: they present the Persian period as a time of divinely monitored reconstruction after the exile, and they emphasize God’s lasting election of Judah and the Jerusalem temple. The deployment of letters for such purposes can be compared with similar practices in Hellenistic historiography.


Author(s):  
Jetze Touber

Chapter 1 homes in on Spinoza as a Bible critic. Based on existing historiography, it parses the main relevant historical contexts in which Spinoza came to articulate his analysis of the Bible: the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, freethinking philosophers, and the Reformed Church. It concludes with a detailed examination of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza’s major work of biblical criticism. Along the way I highlight themes for which Spinoza appealed to the biblical texts themselves: the textual unity of the Bible, and the biblical concepts of prophecy, divine election, and religious laws. The focus is on the biblical arguments for these propositions, and the philological choices that Spinoza made that enabled him to appeal to those specific biblical texts. This first chapter lays the foundation for the remainder of the book, which examines issues of biblical philology and interpretation discussed among the Dutch Reformed contemporaries of Spinoza.


Author(s):  
Lynda Coon

The final chapter of this volume explores the conversation on Jesus held between material and textual sources, where monumental works of sculpture extend salvific themes found in the lives of saints and the verses of poets. Merovingian meditations on Jesus are multivocal, reflecting the cross-cultural rhythms of a world open to and receptive of external influences, whether originating in classical or biblical texts or hailing from Mediterranean or Northern lands. In order to prove this hypothesis on the Merovingian body and the embodied savior, three works of sculpture produced during the early Middle Ages serve as sounding boards for Jesus’ earthly ministry as enacted by human players: the crucified savior featured on the seventh-century Moselkern Stele; the eighth-century Hypogée des Dunes’s sculpted relief of the two thieves crucified along with Jesus; and the so-called Niederdollendorf “Christ,” carved most likely in the seventh century. Saintly actors, such as Radegund of Poitiers (d. 587), animate three themes expressed in the sculpted sources respectively: (1) absence, (2) torture, and (3) light. The three subjects—light, torture, and absence—all point to strategies of integrating the realm of humanity within the celestial spheres, and each motif tracks different styles of meditating on Merovingian Jesus.


Author(s):  
David Janzen
Keyword(s):  

Expiation refers to a ritual attempt to deal with sin, and while in the Hebrew Bible it can include such things as prayer and acts of mourning, we most frequently find it manifested in sacrifice. Biblical texts rarely explain how sacrifice functions in relation to sin, but sacrifice is described at greatest length in the Priestly writing, particularly in Leviticus 1–7, which has been described as a manual of sacrifice. Even here, however, P does not provide a theory of sacrificial expiation—does not, that is, explain how or why sacrifice functions as the proper ritual response to sin. Jacob Milgrom’s re-creation of the worldview that stands behind P’s understanding of sacrifice claims that the Priestly tradents understood sin as creating a miasma of impurity that polluted the sancta, and saw the blood of the sin or purification offering as a ritual detergent that cleansed the sanctuary. If we read the Priestly narrative without trying to reconstruct this worldview, but look rather for the ways in which P portrays sacrifice and expiation, we see that sacrifice functions as a way for Israelites to publically acknowledge their sin and to signal that they have no intentions of violating God’s commandments again. Part of this ritual message involves honoring God as sovereign, thus also acknowledging God’s right to command and indicating the sacrificers’ awareness that they must act as loyal subjects to their divine sovereign.


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