The Spirit in the Pentateuch

The noun rûaḥ, meaning breath, s/Spirit, or wind, occurs 378 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, with an additional eleven in the Aramaic portions of Daniel. Within the Pentateuch, rûaḥ occurs a total of thirty-eight times. The semantic breakdown of rûaḥ in these books is as follows: breath, five times (Gen 6:17; 7:15, 22; Exod 15:8, 10—although Yahweh’s “breath” here is the equivalent of the blowing “wind”); spirit, meaning either the human spirit or the divine Spirit but distinguished from mere breath, twenty-seven times. The principal texts that will concern us are Gen 1:2; 6:3; 41:38; Exod 28:3; 31:3; 35:31; Num 24:2; 27:18; and Deut 34:9.

Redemption, settlement and agriculture in the religious teachings of Hovevei Zion

Hovevei Zion is a collective name for several societies established in Eastern Europe in the 19th century, advocating immigration to the land of Israel, settlement of the land and agricultural work. This article examines the religious approach of several prominent thinkers from among Hovevei Zion and the First Aliya, who shared the perception of farming and settling the land as having religious and even messianic meaning. It was clear to them that the Torah is the foundation of the Jewish people’s existence, however, to this they added another value – work. These thinkers strived to change the identity of the exilic Jew, who was occupied only with spiritual religious life and to reinstate the identity of the biblical Jew, who combined a spiritual and a material religious life. The article examines the approach of Hovevei Zion in light of the general rabbinic approach to redemption, settlement and agriculture and the social changes in 19th century Europe.Contribution: This article contributes to the journal’s multidisciplinary theological perspective, particularly the notion ‘historical thought’, which covers the textual and oral history and hermeneutical studies, narratives and philosophies behind the Abrahamic religions as expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Rabbinic literature.

Sabbath-keeping in the Bible from the perspective of biblical spirituality

This article responds to the renewed interest in the spiritual practice of Sabbath-keeping by investigating its nature and meaning in the Judeo-Christian traditions. After briefly analysing the reasons for the contemporary neglect of Sabbath-keeping and indications of its renaissance, this article will analyse biblical pronouncements about the Sabbath, mainly from Hebrew Scriptures, but with brief attention to Christian Scriptures that provide various insights of decisive importance to understand and explain its prominent place for faith communities, but that are vitally important for reinvigorating Sabbath-keeping in a contemporary context. It analyses pronouncements in the Bible in Genesis 2:1–3 that highlights the Sabbath as joyful resting; the need for Sabbath-keeping as commandment in Exodus 20:9–11 and in Deuteronomy 5:12–15, and, finally Sabbath-keeping as trust in God as the provider in Exodus 16:1–30. Various spiritual insights and implications of these passages will be discussed. The article assumes historical critical insights as developed in biblical studies but develops a theological analysis that explains the spiritual dynamics in these texts. These spiritual insights explain the prominence of Sabbath-keeping in the Bible and its practice in the Judeo-Christian religious discourse.Contribution: This article contributes to scholarship on spiritual practices, by analysing the nature and meaning of Sabbath-keeping in Genesis 2:1–3, Exodus 20:9–11; Deuteronomy 5:12–15 and Exodus 16:1–30, stressing their spiritual dynamics in terms of joyful resting, as commandment, as trust in divine provision and as a reflection of their covenantal nature.

Revelation in the Jewish Tradition

This chapter opens with a note on the naive concept of revelation as it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures. An account of the accommodation of Jewish thought to Hellenistic models by Philo leads to a remark on Talmud and early Jewish mysticism. Medieval philosophers such as Saadia and Maimonides attempted not only to present Jewish belief and practice in rational form but to justify its claim to possession of the only authentic revelation; the kabbalistic or mystical reaction is described. The moral, historical, and scientific concerns brought into focus by Spinoza, who appealed to reason as the criterion of what constituted revelation, are then outlined; Jewish responses to issues he raised are discussed. The chapter shows how Jewish responses to the Enlightenment generated different interpretations of revelation, leading to the formation of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox denominations of Judaism. Moving rapidly through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we survey interpretations of revelation by Jewish thinkers including Hermann Cohen (‘progressive’ revelation), Martin Buber (revelation as ‘encounter’), J. D. Soloveitchik (halakha as a priori system), Abraham J. Heschel (between immanence and transcendence), Emil Fackenheim (Holocaust theology), and Tamar Ross (feminism, ‘cumulative’ revelation), concluding with a selection of contemporary thinkers who reinterpret the language of revelation in non-dogmatic terms.

Tradition critical study of 1 Chronicles 21

The purpose of this article was to highlight the importance of tradition criticism as a significant aspect of the exegetical study of any Old Testament text. Different traditions existed in ancient Israel, and the Chronicler emphasised or underemphasised some of these in 1 Chronicles 21. The above-mentioned practices highlight the theology and ideology that the Chronicler wanted to promote. The Chronicler emphasised certain traditions and underemphasised others in such a way that both the theology and ideology of the Jerusalem Temple stood out. The Jerusalem Temple represented the Chronicler’s theology and his image of God – which was that Yahweh is only to be worshipped in the Jerusalem Temple, that he has chosen the site as the place for worship and that he is dwelling there. The findings of this research caution against reading and understanding a text outside its unique historical context. This is because the Old Testament does not have a central theme or one theology.Contribution: This article contributes to the focus in HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies with regard to the notion ‘historical thought’, covering textual and hermeneutical studies as expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures. The hermeneutical method of tradition criticism is applied in this article, forming part of the scope of this journal to embrace critical textual readings.

Richard Pace and the Psalms

In the library of Winchester College is a multi-lingual psalter formerly owned by the diplomat and scholar, Richard Pace (c.1483–1536). Pace left extensive notes in this volume, the product of his study of the Hebrew Scriptures in comparison with the Vulgate and Greek Septuagint. They demonstrate his engagement with a variety of Jewish, patristic and humanist learning. A broader set of theological and devotional themes also emerge. For Pace, the Psalms were primarily a prophetic text, foretelling the coming of Christ and the Gospels, but they likewise reflected an interest in devotion, rhetoric and prayer typical of humanists of the period.

Biblical versus Greek Narratives for Suicide Prevention and Life Promotion: Releasing Hope from Pandora’s Urn

Although suicide has been unfortunately stigmatized unfairly through the ages, we should not make the mistake of going to the opposite extreme and valorizing it. We should not forget that the major role of health care professionals is to prevent suicide when possible and to invigorate the underlying life force in the person. Suicide is often the ultimate outcome of a tragic and pessimistic view of life. It was prevalent in ancient Greek writing. Indeed, over 16 suicides and self-mutilations can be found in the 26 surviving tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. In contrast, only six suicides can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and only one suicide in the Christian Scriptures. In addition, the Hebrew Scriptures present numerous suicide-prevention narratives that effectively provide a psychological instruction for people in despair which seems unavailable to figures in the writings of the great Greek tragedians. Unfortunately, some religious traditions tended to go to the opposite extreme in stigmatizing suicide rather than understanding it and trying to prevent it. This paper examines evidence regarding seven evidence-based risk factors for suicide: (1) Feeling depressed and isolated; (2) Feeling one’s life is without purpose; (3) Being a refugee from one’s homeland; (4) Feeling unable to express oneself with others; (5) Being adopted; (6) Feeling abandoned by one’s child leaving the family nest; and (7) Feeling doomed by a dysfunctional (indeed incestuous) family of origin We contrast biblical and Greek narratives regarding each of these factors, respectively: (1) Elijah against Ajax, (2) Job against Zeno, (3) David against Coriolanus, (4) Jonah against Narcissus, (5) Moses against Oedipus, (6) Rebecca against Phaedra, and finally, (7) Ruth against Antigone. These biblical figures thrive across risk factors while their Greek and Roman counterparts kill or mutilate themselves or provoke others to do the job. All these contrasts should demonstrate to psychotherapists, counselors, and clergy alike as to how Greek narratives lead to self-destructive behaviors while biblical narratives provide a hopeful positive psychology, and a constructive way out these dilemmas. My colleagues (Paul Cantz, Matthew Schwartz, and Moriah Markus-Kaplan) and I call for a biblical psychotherapy for positive psychology, suicide prevention, and indeed life promotion. Where hope is locked up in Pandora’s urn after she has released all the evils unto the world, the biblical God places hope into the sky as a bow after Noah and his family and all the creatures on the ark disembark to land after the receding of the flood.

Texts in Dialogue

The International Jewish Christian Bible Week, which is dedicated mainly to the study of the Hebrew Scriptures, includes two sessions called ‘Texts in Dialogue’, usually devoted to reflection by a Jew and a Christian on a New Testament text, or texts from both the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. In 2017, when the conference text was Proverbs, Mark Solomon and Veronika Bachmann chose, for the first time, to turn to a deuterocanonical book, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, both as an outgrowth of the Biblical Wisdom books, and a bridge between the testaments.

The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint

The Septuagint is the term commonly used to refer to the corpus of early Greek versions of Hebrew Scriptures. The collection is of immense importance in the history of both Judaism and Christianity. The renderings of individual books attest to the religious interests of the substantial Jewish population of Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and to the development of the Greek language in its Koine phase. The narrative ascribing the Septuagint’s origins to the work of seventy translators in Alexandria attained legendary status among both Jews and Christians. The Septuagint was the version of Scripture most familiar to the writers of the New Testament, and became the authoritative Old Testament of the Greek and Latin Churches. In the early centuries of Christianity it was itself translated into several other languages, and it has had a continuing influence on the style and content of biblical translations. In the Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint leading experts in the field write on the history and manuscript transmission of the version, and explain the study of translation technique and textual criticism. They provide surveys of previous and current research on individual books of the Septuagint corpus, on alternative Jewish Greek versions, the Christian ‘daughter’ translations, and reception in early Jewish and Christian writers. The handbook also includes several ‘conversations’ with related fields of interest such as New Testament studies, liturgy, and art history.

Scriptural Models of Dream Interpretation

This chapter traces the models of prophetic dream interpretation that were available to late antique Jewish, Byzantine Christian, and early Islamic writers from their own scriptural traditions. It offers a survey of those foundational scriptural traditions regarding the spiritual value and meaning of dreams and visions. First, it examines the Hebrew scriptures on prophetic dreams and their hierarchy of revelation. The ambiguity inherent in enigmatic dreams gave the chance of a starring role to two young men blessed with the divine gift of dream interpretation, Joseph and Daniel. Women had only a very limited place within the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Prophetic women were given a great chance to star in the New Testament writings, and especially in early apostolic tradition of Montanism. The chapter discusses how this third-century prophetic movement dealt with the question of extra-biblical prophecy through visions. The problem of discerning true from false prophets will be found to be a live issue for early Christian commentators such as Origen of Alexandria. Finally, the chapter contrasts the Judaeo-Christian scriptural tradition with the Qur’anic verses in which Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, described his various revelations.