Jews as Producers and Consumers of History in the Medieval Islamicate World

The Jews of the medieval Islamicate world were avid consumers and producers of history. In this article, I discuss the major modes of historical writing among the Jews of the period and introduce the question of how that historical writing was used by those Jews. In considering the Sitz im Leben of historical writing, I explore the role of internal communal apologetic, anti-sectarian polemic, inter-religious attack, political support and challenge, entertainment, the contextualizing of philosophy, consolation after adversity, and preparation for eschatological redemption. I pay particular attention to the rewriting of Others’ histories – Christian, Islamic, and Jewish sectarian – and the role these often-popular rewritten histories played in medieval Jewish society. This panoply of historical writing challenges an important scholarly view that Jewish consumption of history was minimal and served a limited range of “religious” needs within the medieval Jewish community.

Cristianismo versus cultos mistéricos: una lectura contextualizada del Bautismo en Rom 6

Se propone una revisión de las relaciones de las prácticas rituales por inmersión de agua entre el cristianismo y las religiones mistéricas contemporáneas. Para tal fin, se sintetiza el contexto en que estas prácticas se producen en el ambiente (Sitz im Leben) grecorromano helenístico, sin olvidar la influencia mucho más directa de las prácticas bautismales de los seguidores deJuan el bautista. A continuación, se introduce un sucinto Estado de la Cuestión de la historia de la interpretación de este fenómeno religioso, para calibrar qué argumentos se han esgrimido desde la escuela de historia de las religiones y de la propia exégesis y teología cristianas para explicar este fenómeno. Estudiando el caso del bautismo en Pablo y, concretamente, en el complejo pasaje de Rom 6, se trata de indagar hasta qué punto las prácticas bautismales del cristianismo de los orígenes son comparables a los misterios iniciáticos que implicaban un rito de características similares como una “muerte en Cristo que inaugura una nueva vida”, puesto que estas ideas están bien desarrolladas en ese y otros pasajes del corpus paulino. Con argumentos procedentes de la sociología de la religión y de la antropología sociocultural, se entiende que el fenómeno se puede explicar como un caso de transferencia ritual entre religiones mistéricas y prácticas bautismales cristianas que permite explicar el complicado pasaje de Rom 6, si bien este tipo de influjo intercultural no excluye la relación genética con el trasfondo de las prácticas bautismales que habían sido desarrolladas especialmente por los judíos de los círculos de Juan bautista.

On the Vorlage, Tendenz, and Scribal Negligence of AT Esth 1:10–15

In this article, a section of the Alpha-Text Esther story (1:10–15) is brought to the foreground to reveal the hitherto unrecognized hints that point to the Hebrew Vorlage, the literary Tendenz, and the scribal negligence unparalleled in either the Septuagint or the Masoretic text. All these literary phenomena suggest that the Alpha-Text and the Masoretic text versions reflect two variant archetypes of a Hebrew text, but this does not mean that both archetypes cannot overlap at places. When the archetypes do overlap, some of the unique readings in the Alpha-Text actually reflect later exegeses or misunderstandings that are dependent on the readings preserved in both the Masoretic text and the Septuagint. The later exegeses in particular help locate the Sitz im Leben of Alpha-Text Esth 1:10–15 in the Hasmonean period and thereafter when the Jewish-gentile relationship is strained.

The Socioeconomic World of Deuteronomy

The question of the social location(s) of the book of Deuteronomy remains critical to the academic discussion of the book. The thesis of this chapter is that the economic features embedded in the book have much to contribute to the discussion. Toward this end, this chapter surveys the archaeologically reconstructed economies of Israel in the Iron Age and the Persian period, identifying diagnostic features of each in rural and urban areas, and juxtaposes those features to the contents of Urdeuteronomium (defined as Deut 4:44–27:26). There is particular attention to issues involving currency. The objective is to further refine the Sitz im Leben from which the book emerges.

Gêneros do discurso e Sitz im Leben: a origem comum e a relação entre os conceitos teóricos

O presente ensaio propõe a existência de relações entre a teoria de Bakhtin sobre os gêneros do discurso e o conceito de Sitz im Leben, advindo da Exegese Bíblica germânica. A hipótese apresentada é a de que ambos têm em comum a influência da filosofia idealista alemã e, mais particularmente, do Romantismo. Dada a compreensão de que os conceitos advêm de uma mesma fonte filosófica, mas suas aplicações teóricas são realizadas a objetos diferentes, pode-se buscar o desenvolvimento de uma compreensão mais ampla dos gêneros do discurso, para que este também seja aplicado aos estudos bíblicos, associado ao Sitz im Leben.

Menafsir Ulang Makna בּ֣וֹרְאֶ֔יךָ dalam Pengkotbah 12:1

Biblical Hebrew actually composed with the consonant letter only. To get the original sound of Hebrew Bible, the Bible Editor use Nikud. This is cause one word with the same consonant in Hebrew can have many letters, sounds, and different meaning. This causes new problems in the translation and interpretation of the Bible, especially in finding the original meaning of the author of the Bible. Even so, the process of translating and interpreting the Bible can be approached in another way, namely by looking at the original context (sitz im leben) of the first reader or recipient of the original message (milieu). This phenomenon also occurs in Qohelet's writing which is the study of this paper. The word בּ֣וֹרְאֶ֔יךָ in the text of Ecclesiastes 12: 1 has the root בר which can have a variety of meanings when it is added to Nikud. While the time span from 3-2 BC century BC to the writing of Qohelet is quite far and errors in the gift of Nikud may lead to different interpretations. For this reason, a form criticism and cultural semiotics approach needs to be done to bridge this. This article is about Qohelet with the paradigm of human development that he aimed at young Jewish people at that time. Created with the approach of Cultural Semiotics and Form Criticism in the Old Testament with various book references as research aids. Bahasa Ibrani Alkitab umumnya terdiri dari huruf-huruf konsonan saja. Untuk memperoleh bunyi yang sesuai dengan aslinya, tulisan Bahasa Ibrani dibantu dengan Nikud. Hal ini menyebabkan satu kata dengan konsonan yang sama dalam Bahasa Ibrani dapat memiliki berbagai tulisan, bunyi dan menghasilkan berbagai arti yang berbeda. Hal ini menyebabkan persoalan baru dalam proses penterjemahan dan penafsiran Alkitab terutama untuk dapat menemukan makna asli dari si pengarang Alkitab. Pun demikian, proses penterjemahan dan penafsiran Alkitab ini dapat didekati dengan cara lain yaitu dengan melihat konteks asli (sitz im leben) dari pembaca pertama atau penerima pesan aslinya (milieu). Fenomena ini juga yang terjadi dalam tulisan Qohelet yang menjadi kajian dari tulisan ini. Kata בּ֣וֹרְאֶ֔יךָ dalam teks Pengkhotbah 12:1 memiliki kata dasar בר dapat menimbulkan beragam arti jika sudah ditambahi dengan Nikud. Sementara rentang waktu dari abad ke 3-2 SM masa penulisan Qohelet cukup jauh dan kesalahan dalam pemberian Nikud bisa saja menimbulkan penafsiran yang berbeda. Untuk itu, pendekatan Kritik Bentuk dan Semiotik budaya perlu dilakukan untuk menjembatani hal ini. Artikel ini adalah tentang Qohelet dengan paradigma pembangunan manusia yang ia tujukan kepada anak-anak muda Yahudi masa itu. Dibuat dengan pendekatan Semiotik Budaya dan Kritik Bentuk dalam Perjanjian Lama dengan berbagai referensi buku sebagai alat bantu penelitian.

Reflections on John the Baptist in History and Theology by Joel Marcus

In this article, I engage with Joel Marcus’s recent book on John the Baptist, focusing on the relationship between John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. While I appreciate many parts of his detailed study, I question the claim that John was a former member of the Essenes. Although there are intriguing similarities, the question is how far reaching conclusions we may draw concerning such a relationship. I problematize some aspects of the comparison between the sources. Like many scholars, Marcus refers in particular to 1QS and the site of Khirbet Qumran for reconstructing the Essenes and hence John’s background. In response, I highlight the uncertainty about the Sitz im leben of 1QS in relation to Khirbet Qumran and ask why this particular manuscript should be privileged over others. Not least when it comes to purity halakhah there are many other documents than 1QS from Qumran that are highly relevant to the issue. Finally, I critically evaluate Marcus’s view that John the Baptist had a favorable attitude towards Gentiles, which according Marcus differed from the views of the Essenes.

Democracy without democrats, identity-formation and religions: The challenge of cross-pollinating self-perception in the post-Arabic spring contexts

A decade has passed since the breaking out of the ‘Arabic Spring’ revolutionary phenomena all over the Arab World’s societies. Many challenging and radically intriguing developments and ramifications have eventuated out of that era and led the Arab World’s context into unchartered territories of existence and self-understanding. This essay pauses at one of the particular challenges that faces this Sitz im Leben, namely the question of identity-formation and self-perception processes. It argues that the Arab states do manifest in their political and statehood situations a political situation of democracy that is run by ‘non-democrats’. The essay then suggests that this democracy of non-democrats is the outcome of the prevalence of an identity-formation and self-perception rationales that are rooted in crudely religious Weltanschauung that, far from maintaining distinction and particularity individually and communally, turns alterity into a self-otherizing dogma expressive of contrariety and stark divisive and discriminative relatedness to the other. The essay, finally, suggests that liberating the identity-formation process from the dogmatic attempt at turning religion into ‘identity’ per se is the first required step towards a more cross-pollinating and symbiotic relationality between the different persons and groups who live in that context.

(Post-)Deuteronomistic Prohibition of Transvestitism (Deut 22:5)? The Question of Its Actual Meaning and Motivations

Deut 22:5 marks the single instance of a prohibition of transvestitism in the Bible, and in its whole cultural milieu. The context in which it is situated suggests that it may have been inserted there as an addition, after the Babylonian captivity. That helps to narrow down the range of speculations as to the original Sitz im Leben of the law, and enables us to read it most of all within the canonical framework of the entirety of the Pentateuch. Hence, the precept pertains mainly to the principle of division of the human nature into the two sexes (Gen 1–2), the principle of retaining the order of creation (by not mixing kinds; Lev 19:19; Deut 22:9–11), and of keeping the procreational power, referred to here predominantly to masculinity (Gen 5:1–3; cf. Gen 1:28; 9:1.7).

The Psalter

The LXX Psalms, dating from the second or the first century bce, is one of the most frequently discussed books in Septuagint studies. The chapter assesses major theories and recent developments in studies regarding the date and provenance of the translation, discusses its Sitz im Leben, gives an overview and emphasizes the importance of textual criticism of the Hebrew as well as the Greek text for scholarly work, presents translation models employed, with an emphasis on the Interlinear Paradigm, but also delves into specific details regarding the literal translation technique in the Psalms. The question whether and in what sense the translators’ theological background and milieu has influenced his translation is discussed. In the end the dependence of the Pentateuch on the Psalms and the extensive use of LXX Psalms in later Jewish and Christian literature is briefly presented.