scholarly journals The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible in Africa: Challenges and prospects for interpretation and translation

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aloo O. Mojola
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Local Languages

The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is much loved in Africa. It is however encountered almost exclusively in translation, either through translation into local indigenous languages or translation into foreign, non-local languages. The source language Hebrew text is inaccessible to the vast majority of readers, including Christian pastors or theological students who would naturally be expected to have access by virtue of their profession. Knowledge of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is thus mediated through existing translations and interpretations, and through the popular or scholarly writings of Old Testament or Hebrew Bible experts. In many parts of Africa the latter are in very short supply. This article is an attempt to engage and critically reflect further on some of the issues arising out of this situation with specific reference to the work of Knut Holter, as well as others. This situation and the challenges posed for a full and unencumbered encounter with the Hebrew scriptures and prospects for the future is explored.Intradisciplinary and/or�interdisciplinary�implications: It is expected that the translation of the Hebrew scriptures involves interaction with local cultures and belief systems opening space for new interpretations from the perspectives of local world views and practices. The challenges for local Christian theologies and Christian doctrine in general arising from this are unavoidable.

scholarly journals Sidang Ilahi Elohim Dalam Mazmur 82:1

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marthin Steven Lumingkewas ◽  
Firman Panjaitan
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Religious System ◽  
Dialectical Theology ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Divine Council ◽  
Religious Systems

In the Old Testament Yahweh is frequently called El. The question is raised whether Yahweh was a form of the god El from the beginning or whether they were separate deities who only became equated later. They whom uphold theory Yahweh and El were conceived as separate deities holds that Yahweh was a southern storm god from Seir and so on, which was brought by the Israelites and conflated with the Jerusalem patriarchal deity.On the other side there are scholars who hold and conceived Yahweh and El as one single deity. These scholars defend this position most commonly on the grounds that no distinction between the two can be clearly found in the Hebrew Bible. The methodology used in this paper is literary – historical and social interpretations, with the main method being the "diachronic and dialectical theology of Hegel". The simple Hegelian method is: A (thesis) versus B (anti-thesis) equals C (synthesis). The author analyzes (thesis) by collecting instruments related to ancient Semitic religions; it includes data on El and Yahweh assembly obtained from Hebrew text sources and extra-biblical manuscripts which are then processed in depth. The antithesis is to analyze El's assembly development in Israel – especially in Psalm 82. While the synthesis appears in the nuances of the El’s assembly believe in ancient Israel. The focus of this paper's research is to prove 2 things: first, is Psalm 82: 1, is an Israeli Psalm that uses the patterns and forms of the Canaanite Psalms; especially regarding religious systems that use the terminology of the divine council. Second, to prove that El and Yahweh in the context of this Psalm are two different gods, of which this view contradicts several ANET experts such as Michael S, Heisser who sets El and Yahweh in this text as identical gods. The results of this study attempt to prove that Israel and the Canaan contextually share the same religious system, and are seen to be separated in the Deuteronomist era with their Yahwistic reforms.

Why did Jerome Translate Tobit and Judith?

2015 ◽  
Vol 108 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmon L. Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Wisdom Of Solomon ◽  
Base Text ◽  
The Church

Jerome translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin over a decade and a half beginning in about 390c.e.With each translation he included a preface dedicating (in most cases) the translation to a friend or patron and defending his reliance on what he called thehebraica veritas (Hebrew truth)against his many detractors. This last feature of the prefaces proved necessary because by choosing the Hebrew text of the Old Testament as his base text, Jerome directly challenged the traditional position of the Septuagint within the church. The unpopularity of this move in some circles compelled Jerome repeatedly to justify his adherence to the Hebrew text. Similarly, in hisPreface to Samuel and Kings(the “Helmeted Preface” orPrologus galeatus) he famously advocated the Hebrew canon as the Christian Old Testament and relegated all other books to the apocrypha. As part of this latter category, Jerome named six books outside the Jewish canon that were finding acceptance as fully canonical in some quarters and would much later receive the label “deuterocanonical,” these books being Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. In multiple ways Jerome sought to restore the Christian Old Testament to what he considered the original Hebrew text and canon.

scholarly journals Portraits of ‘angels’: Some Ancient Near Eastern and Old Testament perspectives in relation to ATR belief system(s)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk J Human
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
And Function ◽  
African Traditional Religions ◽  
Supreme Being

For the modern mind the notion of heavenly beings or ‘angels’ is an enigmatic and fascinating phenomenon. In the Ancient Near Eastern world and in the Hebrew Bible the word for ‘angel’, namely mal’ āk, is widely attested and refers to both human and supernatural emissaries. The notion and function of angels as messenger-beings are evident. In the Israelite faith and their confession of a sole monotheistic God, Yahweh, several questions arise regarding these ‘angels’: who were these human and supernatural entities? In addition, the Hebrew Bible also recorded ‘other’ ‘angel’-like beings, such as Seraphim and Cherubim. Then there was the ‘angel’ of Yahweh! Who was this figure, and what role did he play in the portrayal of the theologies of the Hebrew Bible? Were there fallen angels? And what has the Hebrew Bible to say about Satan? Ultimately, perspectives on ‘angels’ in the Hebrew Bible are brought into relation with realities of the ‘seen’ and the ‘unseen’ in or from Africa in perspectives of the worldview of African Traditional Religions (ATR). Various categories and agents in African Traditional Religions and their belief systems are apparent. These include the Supreme Being (God), divinities, and spirits. The relationship between the Supreme Being and the other categories describe the character, nature and function of all these entities. Primary and minor divinities are distinguished. They are created, are derivations of God, receive functions to perform in the universe. Furthermore, they serve intermediatory functions between the Supreme Being (the ‘unseen’) and humankind (the ‘seen’). Spirits are similarly ‘created’ entities. In many African narratives they are portrayed in human form, activities and personalities (a change from the ‘unseen’ into the ‘seen’). Hereby the interaction between the ‘seen’ and the ‘unseen’ in African Traditional Religions remain real.

A History of Death in the Hebrew Bible

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Suriano
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Ancestor Veneration ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Individual Judgment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Archaeological Analysis

In the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, a good death meant burial inside the family tomb, where one would join one’s ancestors in death. This was the afterlife in biblical literature; it was a postmortem ideal that did not involve individual judgment or heaven and hell—instead it was collective. In Hebrew scriptures, a postmortem existence was rooted in mortuary practices and conceptualized through the embodiment of the dead. But this idea of the afterlife was not hopeless or fatalistic, consigned to the dreariness of the tomb. The dead were cherished and remembered, their bones were cared for, and their names lived on as ancestors. This book examines the concept of the afterlife in the Hebrew Bible by studying the treatment of the dead, as revealed both in biblical literature and in the material remains of the southern Levant. The Iron Age mortuary culture of Judah is the starting point for this study, and the practice of collective burial inside the Judahite rock-cut bench tomb is compared to biblical traditions of family tombs and of joining one’s ancestors in death. This archaeological analysis, which also incorporates funerary inscriptions, will shed important insight into biblical literature concerning such issues as the construction of the soul in death, the nature of corpse impurity, and the concept of Sheol. Death was a transition managed through ritual action. The connections that were forged through such actions, such as ancestor veneration, were socially meaningful for the living and ensured a measure of immortality for the dead.

Philosophical Reduction(ism) in Meta-Language Reconstructions of Yhwh as Religious Object

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco W Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Theory Of Everything ◽  
Interpretative Approach

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.

Sickness and Healing

2020 ◽  
pp. 310-325
Author(s):  
Deborah Rooke
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Ritual Action ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
At Home

Following some methodological remarks the chapter briefly reviews the vocabulary of sickness used in the biblical Hebrew text. It then examines instances of sickness and healing that are described in the Hebrew Bible, in order to establish how sickness is understood and how ritual might therefore relate to it. Aspects considered include the relationship between sickness and sin; whether and how YHWH is involved in causing sickness; epidemics versus individual cases of sickness; and instances of ritual action, broadly understood, that are used to address sickness-related issues. Such instances of ritual action include consulting a functionary such as a priest or prophet, and performing ritual laments and prayers either at home or at a shrine. Two instances of concerns relating to childbearing are also considered, both of which are pictured in the context of ritual action at a shrine.

The Reception of the Writings and Their Place in the Biblical Canon

2018 ◽  
pp. 396-413
Author(s):  
Lee Martin McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
First Century

This chapter explores the origin and order of the Writings along with their emergence from the larger corpus of prophets included in the Hebrew Bible. It focuses also on the somewhat mixed reception of some of those texts in Judaism and early Christianity as well as the tripartite structure of the Hebrew Bible compared with the quadripartite structure of the Christian Old Testament, as well as the question of whether the latter was a Christian innovation or derived from an element of Judaism in the first century ce before Christians separated from Judaism. The recent questions about the significance of the order of the Christian Old Testament canon will also be examined below.

Hearing the ‘Voice’ of the Niphal: A Response to Ellen van Wolde

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-308
Author(s):  
Ethan C. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
External Argument ◽  
Middle Voice ◽  
External Agent ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Previous Volume

This article responds to the innovative and stimulating research by Ellen van Wolde in a previous volume of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. She claims that the Niphal is middle voice and can be passive, ‘if (and only if) an external argument, coded as an external Agent, is present’. My research however, demonstrates that such a description of the passive is both inadequate in view of the world’s languages and incongruent with Niphal. In addition, my response lays bare how such a prescription of the middle voice to the Niphal in the Hebrew Bible is circulus probando and unconvincing.

Imagination: A Hermeneutical Tool for the Study of the Hebrew Bible

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-136
Author(s):  
Izaak de Hulster
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Moral Imagination ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Systematic Application ◽  
Ancient People ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Old Testament Studies

AbstractBiblical scholars use the word 'imagination' more and more often, but in different cases 'imagination' covers different concepts. In order to reach a more systematic application of 'imagination' in hermeneutics and Old Testament Studies in general, there is a need to explore the possible uses of 'imagination'. This article comprises: 1) a theoretical introduction extending what Barth and Steck wrote in their classical primer on exegetical methods; 2) a section on imagination and history; 3) a heuristic classifying survey of Brueggemann's use of the word 'imagination'; 4) a reflection on how imagination is restricted by parameters of time and place. The article distinguishes between imagination of ancient people and of people nowadays, but deals with the interplay of both as well. It further reflects on the informed, controlled use of imagination in hermeneutics. After a brief comment on "moral imagination," a survey and mapping of the uses of imagination in hermeneutics rounds off the article. This will make clear how the different notions referred to with the word 'imagination' are related and why it is important to consider them as interdependent concepts. Although the majority of the examples will be taken from the Hebrew Bible, the thoughts expressed here are applicable to the study of the New Testament as well and some more specific New Testament issues and related literature will be referred to.

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