scholarly journals Creation retold: Use of Scripture and tradition in Sirach 16:24�17:14

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hulisani Ramantswana
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Creation Story ◽  
Creation Process ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
Creation Stories ◽  
Interpretive Framework

This article examines the use of Scripture and tradition in Sirach 16:24�17:14, which is a retelling of the creation stories. Ben Sira as an interpreter of Scripture utilised interpretive traditions or exegetical motifs that were in circulation during his time to provide instruction for his generation. His indebtedness to Scripture is evident from the quotations from Scripture and his use of scriptural language. In his retelling of the creation stories, he made use of the exegetical motifs that were in circulation, adapting them within the wisdom interpretive framework. He also rejected the tendency to blame evil on external agencies such as fallen angels and downplayed the gap between the creation process and the giving of the law at Sinai.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article is an exegetical inquiry of the extra-biblical text of Ben Sira in dialogue with Scripture and with other exegetical traditions which were in circulation in the Second Temple period. The article highlights the indebtedness of Ben Sira to both Scripture and tradition, and also noting Ben Sira�s own creativity in the use of Scripture and tradition in his retelling of creation story

Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Religious Institution ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

For all Jews in this period, in both diaspora and homeland, the Jerusalem Temple was the central religious institution. The wide dispersal of Jews prevented many from regular participation in Temple worship, but no religious Jew seem to have ignored the significance of the sacrificial and other offerings in Jerusalem. The second pillar of common Judaism was the Torah. It was during these centuries that the biblical text took a form resembling that of the present day and acquired something close to its later authority. Most of the debate about the relation of Jews to the surrounding culture has concentrated on the Hellenization of Judaism. The motivation of Christian scholars for investigating the relationship of Judaism and Hellenism has naturally been very different and more concerned with the origins of ideas found in the early Church.

John the Baptist, Isaiah 40, and the Ingathering 
of the Exiles

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-188
Author(s):  
Tucker S. Ferda
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
Interpretive Framework

Many who argue that Jesus was a herald of Israel’s eschatological restoration have also suggested that he expected the ingathering of the exiles. Studies of John the Baptist have typically focused on his warnings of the coming judgment and his predictions of ‘the coming one’, thus leaving aside the possibility that John’s baptism and message also signaled the ingathering of the exiles. Further, scholars have largely ignored the import of Isa. 40 in the ministry of John, which was frequently read in the Second Temple period as a prophecy of the return of the exiles at the end of time. It is the contention of this article that Isa. 40 provides an interpretive framework for John’s activities, indicating that his baptism was not just a symbol of the coming judgment but also of Israel’s restoration.

Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 277-293
Author(s):  
Karina Martin Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Literary Environment ◽  
Book Of The Watchers

This essay showcases a sample of the diverse approaches to gender and sexuality that can be found in the literature of Second Temple Judaism. Within four of the major genres of Jewish literature during this period, it analyzes one example that makes particularly striking claims with respect to gender and sexuality: The Book of the Watchers, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, Jubilees, and Judith. Although all of the texts surveyed here come out of a culture with strong patriarchal tendencies, they do not all uphold patriarchal assumptions in equal measure or in the same ways. Taken together in their diversity, the texts demonstrate that the Jewish literary environment out of which the New Testament emerged was one in which sexuality was not a taboo subject but often provided an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the human person in relation to the divine.

The Law in the Late Second Temple Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 366-382
Author(s):  
John J. Collins
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Law

The Torah of Moses was recognized as the ancestral law of Judah from the time of Ezra. Its status was revoked briefly by Antiochus Epiphanes. In the Hasmonean era there was a turn to intensive halakhic discussion, attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was a factor in the rise of sectarianism. The papyri from the early second century ce take a flexible attitude to laws, drawing on Jewish or Roman law as seemed advantageous. The literature from the Hellenistic Diaspora treats the law broadly as a summary of Jewish tradition. Despite some claims that the law functioned as a civic law in the Diaspora, there are only a few instances in the papyri where Jews base appeals on Jewish law, and we do not know what the judges decided in those cases.

Sanitized Sacrifice in Aramaic Levi’s Law of the Priesthood

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-368
Author(s):  
Liane M. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Law ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The One ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Continuum

Abstract Most studies of the law of the priesthood in Aramaic Levi have focused on comparing its individual laws to those in the Torah/Pentateuch. This article argues that these types of comparisons are anachronistic and obscure the distinctive portrayal of sacrifice in Aramaic Levi. The law of the priesthood does not merely respond to, expand, or revise earlier ideas about sacrifice found in “biblical” texts. Rather, the practice and function of sacrifice in Aramaic Levi is constructed around the deity’s senses of sight and smell. Inasmuch as the law of the priesthood presents a fundamentally different idea of sacrifice than the one presented in Leviticus, it speaks to the continuum of distinct Jewish ideologies of sacrifice in the mid-Second Temple period.

Wisdom, Israel and Other Nations

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-26
Author(s):  
Marko Marttila ◽  
Mika S. Pajunen
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
One Step ◽  
Hereditary Nature ◽  
Lady Wisdom ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
The Way

Wisdom” is a central concept in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish literature. An analysis of a selection of texts from the Second Temple period reveals that the way wisdom and its possession were understood changed gradually in a more exclusive direction. Deuteronomy 4 speaks of Israel as a wise people, whose wisdom is based on the diligent observance of the Torah. Proverbs 8 introduces personified Lady Wisdom that is at first a rather universal figure, but in later sources becomes more firmly a property of Israel. Ben Sira (Sir. 24) stressed the primacy of Israel by combining wisdom with the Torah, but he still attempted to do justice to other nations’ contacts with wisdom as well. One step further was taken by Baruch, as only Israel is depicted as the recipient of wisdom (Bar. 3–4). This more particularistic understanding of wisdom was also employed by the sages who wrote the compositions 4Q185 and 4Q525. Both of them emphasize the hereditary nature of wisdom, and 4Q525 even explicitly denies foreigners’ share of wisdom. The author of Psalm 154 goes furthest along this line of development by claiming wisdom to be a sole possession of the righteous among the Israelites. The question about possessing wisdom has moved from the level of nations to a matter of debate between different groups within Judaism.

The Spirit in 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Esther

Pneuma ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 344-349
Author(s):  
Emma M. Austin ◽  
Jacqueline Grey
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Temple

Abstract This article explores the ruach in the postexilic books of 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Esther. First, it examines the six clear (and one ambiguous) references to the Holy Spirit in these texts. It notes the consistent use of earlier ruach traditions that have been adapted by the biblical writers in the Second Temple period to emphasize the continued presence of God’s Spirit with his covenant people. Second, it considers more ambiguous allusions to the Holy Spirit, including the involvement of the divine ruach in the creation and re-creation of the temple and orchestrating human events to accomplish God’s purposes. This study demonstrates that the retrieval of previous ruach traditions were not just adopted but adapted by the biblical writers in this new postexilic context.

scholarly journals ‘Die pen is magtiger as die swaard’: Oor skrifgeletterdheid, skrifgeleerdes en Israel se Tweede Tempeltydperk

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerda De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
General Part ◽  
The Law

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’: Literacy and scribes in Israel during the Second Temple period. This article is divided in two parts. Part one examines scribal education and scribes in the ancient Near East and Israel. Although no real evidence exists for scribal schools and education in Israel, it is argued that some form of institutionalised training must have taken place in order to produce literary texts of such a high quality as are found in the Hebrew Bible. Comparative material from Mesopotamia serves to trace the education of scribes in general. Part two focuses on the Second Temple period in ancient Israel. Ezra the scribe emerges as a typical scribe from that era. Post-exilic Israel was grappling with its identity, and sought guidance from ַ [as was written in the Torah]. However, it appears that there were different interpretations of the written Law during this period. Scribes of the Ezra circle advocated a radical policy of exclusivity on the basis of what was written in the Law; others who wrote the texts of Trito-Isaiah and Ruth pleaded for a more inclusive attitude towards foreigners. The conclusion is that the battle was fought not with the sword, but with the pen, therefore: ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’

scholarly journals The Book of Ruth in the time of the Judges and Ruth, the Moabitess

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerda De Villiers ◽  
Jurie Le Roux
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Mixed Marriages ◽  
The People ◽  
The Law ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Foreign Wives

This article addresses two issues in the Book of Ruth that have not yet received much scholarly attention: why is the narrative plotted in the time of the judges, whilst the time of narration dates to the postexilic period, and why is one of the protagonists Ruth, the Moabitess, whilst the law in Deuteronomy 23:3�4 (HB 4�5) clearly forbids the presence of Moabitess and Ammonites in the community of YHWH? A suggestion is made that a possible explanation to both these questions may be found in tensions regarding Israel�s identity in the Second Temple period. Two different yet not completely opposite viewpoints are illuminated: that of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah who envisioned an exclusive Israel that is construed along genealogical and religious lines, and that of the Book of Ruth where solidarity with the people of Israel and the worship of YHWH are embraced by foreigners. Both sides are concerned about the identity of Israel and loyalty to YHWH, yet they employ a different jargon in order to argue for the inclusion or exclusion of foreigners. Furthermore, Ezra and Nehemiah consider mixed marriages as a serious threat to Israel�s identity, and they justify the expulsion of foreign wives on the basis of the Book of Moses. According to the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses interpreted the Torah for the children of Israel at Mount Nebo in Moab: Moab thus functioned as an interpretive space for the Torah. The Book of Ruth proposes an alternative interpretation of the Torah, also from the plains of Moab and the exegesis comes in the person of Ruth, the Moabitess.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article challenges the point of view that the Book of Ruth is a charming narrative of loyalty and love. Research reveals that this Book is a polemic document and its main contribution is to the intradisciplinary field of biblical hermeneutics that requests a re-interpretation of texts for changing circumstances.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document