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Meeting Abstracts

2005 Annual Meeting
SBL's 125th Anniversary

Philadelphia, PA

Meeting Begins11/19/2005
Meeting Ends11/22/2005

Call for Papers Opens: 12/10/2004
Call for Papers Closes: 3/6/2005

Requirements for Participation

  Meeting Abstracts


The Pastoral Epistles and the Acts of Paul: A Multiplex Approach to Authority in Paul's Legacy
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
James Aageson, Concordia College-Moorhead

According to Hultgren, theoretical approaches to the development of early Christianity fall into four general categories: truth preceded error, heresy preceded orthodoxy, fixed and flexible elements, and diverse trajectories. Whether we think in terms of a conflict between orthodoxy and heresy (Bauer), Gnosticism and institutional church development (Pagels), prophecy and authority (Nasrallah), or in terms of the development of different theological and ecclesiastical trajectories (Robinson and Koester), the question of authority is a constant feature. The argument in this paper is that the exercise and distribution of authority in early Pauline tradition ought not be understood simply in terms of a conflict model or in terms of the development of competing trajectories. Rather the relationship between the Pastoral Epistles and The Acts of Paul illustrates that a more complex approach to the question of authority in early Pauline tradition is necessary if we are to understand the full dimension of his legitimacy and the exercise of authority in his name.


Christianity’s First Nursery Tale? A Proposal for a New Interpretation of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Reidar Aasgaard, University of Oslo

The apocryphal infancy gospel of Thomas (IGT), which narrates the childhood story of Jesus from the age of five to twelve, is in many ways an enigmatic text. Originating probably in a Greek-speaking context in the second century CE, this gospel proved popular way up in the Middle Ages. Due to the very complicated text and tradition history of IGT, much effort has been put into analysing its manuscripts and various versions, mostly with the aim of tracing an original text. Far less energy, however, has been spent on the study of its contents. This is partly due to the problems with establishing a scholarly responsible text, but also to perceptions of the gospel as theologically aberrant and banal, not least because of its seemingly strange depiction of Jesus. A number of scholars have tried to account for the social and theological setting of the IGT, but usually without any extensive or systematic argumentation. They have situated the gospel within a variety of contexts, such as e.g. a heretic (Gnostic), an anti-Jewish (apologetic), a monastic (leisure/edification), or – less specifically – a “popular” setting. This paper will argue that IGT is likely to have been particularly popular within a socially non-elite context in Early Christianity. Rather than being of “heretic” origin, IGT reflects theological thinking among common people. On the basis of both external (historical, literary) and text-internal (thematic, implicit addressees) evidence, the paper will argue that one of the most important target groups of IGT may even have been children, and that the gospel served as a means of teaching them Christian faith and values. The paper will take its point of departure in the most important investigations of the gospel, particularly those of Hock (1995) and Chartrand-Burke (2001), but also of Gero (1971; 1988) and Voicu (1991; 1998).


True God and True Child? Christology in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
Reidar Aasgaard, University of Oslo

The apocryphal infancy gospel of Thomas (IGT), which narrates the childhood story of Jesus from the age of five to twelve, is in many ways an enigmatic text. Originating probably in a Greek-speaking context in the second century CE, this gospel proved popular way up in the Middle Ages. Due to the very complicated text and tradition history of the gospel, much effort has been put into analysing its manuscripts and various versions, mostly with the aim of tracing an original text. Far less energy, however, has been spent on the study of its contents. This is partly due to problems with establishing a scholarly responsible text, but also to views about the gospel as theologically aberrant and banal, not least because of its seemingly offensive depiction of Jesus. Scholars have had great problems in coming to terms both with the divine and with the human aspects of IGT’s christology: its Jesus has been variously held to reflect notions of a Gnostic redeemer, a docetic/anti-docetic Christ, a Hellenistic hero or divine man, a Jewish holy man, and an idealised child (a puer senex). Although there are valuable insights in some of these views, none of them can account sufficiently for IGT’s portrayal of Jesus. Instead, I shall on the basis of various materials argue that Jesus in IGT is depicted as a combination of a Johannine Christ and a fairly true-to-life late Antiquity child – i.e. as true God and true child. Although IGT’s Christology has some special features, this is due to the gospel’s background in a non-elite social and theological setting, not to “heretic” roots or the like. The paper will build on the most important investigations of the gospel, particularly those by Hock (1995) and Chartrand-Burke (2001), but also Gero (1971; 1988) and Voicu (1991; 1998).


"He Set Himself in the Order of Signs": Exegesis Signifying Theology
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
A.K.M. Adam, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary

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Prophets and Prophetic Roles: Perspectives on the Composition of Prophetic Narratives in the First Book of Samuel within the Deuteronomistic History
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Klaus-Peter Adam, University of Marburg

The Prophets of the Early israelite and judean monarchy play a variety of roles. The prophets are anointing the kings 1Sam 9,1-10,16 and 1Sam 16,1-13 and, also, they announce the rejection of the King (1Sam 15). Besides, in the epoch of the former kings some sort of an "ecstatic" prophecy (nb` hitpael) seems to be known (1Sam 10,5-6.10.13; 1Sam 18,10; 19,20-24). There is every reason to believe, that besides the deuteronomistic episodes and speeches in the first book of Samuel, the other narratives in the books of Samuel do transport certain ideas of the prophetic identity of certain times. Are we able to relate these narratives to other prophetic writings or to prophetic roles reported in other biblical or non-biblical prophetic contexts? In order to do so, a narratological investigation is necessary. Also, the narratives of the epoch of the early kings in the books of Samuel have to be compared to the narratives in the books of kings and their specific setting (e.g. the "classical" confrontation of king and prophet). This leads to questions of the redactional process in the books of Samuel within the Deuteronomistic History.


The Discovery of Anomalously High Silver Abundances
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
David Adan-Bayewitz, Bar-Ilan University

Unusually high and variable abundances of silver have been discovered in pottery samples of all vessel types and chemical compositions from four distinct archaeological contexts dating to late Second Temple period (late first century BCE – 70 CE) Jerusalem. This silver anomaly may be one manifestation of the wealth of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period. The evidence from Jerusalem and other urban and rural sites suggests that measurement of silver abundances in pottery can aid in evaluating the wealth of a settlement and the nature and function of archaeological remains.


"And Joseph Reigned in Egypt . . .": Implications of Jewish Identity in Joseph and Aseneth
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Patricia Ahearne-Kroll, North Carolina State University

In discussing Apollonius's "Argonautica," Susan A. Stephens suggests that "epic functions . . . to enhance the significance of the present by endowing it with an epic heroic past." It is through this epic lens that "the meaning of all subsequent events is elevated and against which all subsequent events may be read." [Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003) 172]. I propose that the narrative Joseph and Aseneth (hereafter, JA) had a similar function for Egyptian Jewish communities. By retrojecting Joseph into the historic lineage of the Pharaohs and establishing Aseneth's identity as an Egyptian Jew, JA 'enhanced the significance' of the contemporary life of this narrative's initial audiences. Yet JA also offers more than a 'heroic past' to the construction of Jewish identity in Egypt. Respectful relationships are forged between Hebrews and Egyptians, acceptable Jewish marriages are not limited by a person's family of origin, and practical strategies are proposed for confronting vengeful acts both within and from outside the social group. JA prescribes a boundary of Jewish identity that reflects what the anthropologist Fredrik Barth identifies as "a poly-ethnic environment." In particular, JA portrays a poly-ethnic environment that is situated best in Egypt during the Graeco-Roman period.


Zephaniah and Deuteronomy 32
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Ahuva Ho, Independent Scholar

Several serious textual difficulties occur in the book of Zephaniah that many scholars have unsatisfactorily attempted to solve. While writing a commentary to Zephaniah I noticed its affinity to Deuteronomy and especially to Deut 32. Closer examination has resulted in surprising solutions to these difficulties. Not only the content is parallel in imagery and expressions, but also the structure, grammar and syntax are similar. In an odd insertion into the body of Deut 32, its poet alludes to his identity – that of the prophet Zephaniah himself. This may not be so farfetched if we remember that Deuteronomy could be the book of the Torah found at the time of Josiah around 622 B.C.E. The message put in Moses’ mouth is presented by Zephaniah as partially fulfilled (apostasy, ungratefulness) and partially a potential of being fulfilled (return of promised borders, redemption from enemies, supreme judge and exclusive God). Both compositions are a propaganda means to encourage the King and the people to support Josiah’s reforms.


Local Heroes
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
George Aichele, Adrian College

This essay traces intertextual play between Bill Forsythe's 1983 movie "Local Hero" and various texts from the Bible, including Ecclesiastes 9:14-16, the book of Jonah, texts involving Judas, and the "son of man." What is a "local hero" and what is her relation to the the more universal, mythic (or monomythic) hero? The movie illuminates the biblical texts (and vice versa), and the theme of "local hero" brings together a cluster of texts (biblical and nonbiblical) that illuminate one another. Reference to the work of Barthes and Deleuze, among others.


The Apocalyptic Performance of Wisdom in 1 Enoch
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Ellen B. Aitken, McGill University

The discussions of the Wisdom and Apocalypticism Group over the past ten years have highlighted the problem of understanding texts and their production in relation to social practices. In particular, should we think about wisdom and apocalypticism as comprising differing sets of social practices with regard to the production and performance of “texts,” understood potentially to encompass the full range of oral and written utterances? The perspectives of performance theory provide a lens through which analyze indications of performances practices within narrative, poetry, and other forms of speech. This paper attends to the poetics of “secrets” in the Parables of Enoch and the Epistle of Enoch in order to examine the conceptualizations of “text,” performance, transmission, and reception. It attempts to understand the dynamics of speech acts such as oaths, blessings, and curses in these portions of 1 Enoch, as well as the valuation of spoken and written words. The paper thus inquires into the apocalyptic and sapiential poetics as embedded in the performances narrated here.


Remembering and Remembered Women in Greco-Roman Meals
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Ellen Aitken, McGill University

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Displaying Context in Biblical Lexicons
Program Unit:
James Aitken, University of Reading

Context has become a central aspect of linguistic theory, and not just the context of words within a sentence but the pragmatic force of words within their wider social setting. This is something that is particularly difficult to convey in lexicons, and the difficulties are acerbated in biblical lexicography by our own lack of knowledge of the ancient world. This paper will consider some of the methods that have already or could be employed in the display of context in biblical lexicons, and consider to what extent such information is even desirable.


“The Jews” in Pseudo-Gregory of Nyssa’s Testimonies against the Jews
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Martin C. Albl, Presentation College

Ps.-Gregory of Nyssa’s Testimonies against the Jews is a late fourth-century example of Christian scriptural testimonia collections. The Testimonies consists of Old Testament excerpts, arranged under topical headings, presented as proof–texts for various Christian beliefs. The proof-texts are aimed at persuading a hypothetical Jewish audience to accept Christian beliefs. The Testimonies thus stand within the Christian Adversus Judaeos literature, employing many of the same proof-texts and interpretations found in Jewish-Christian dialogues (e.g., Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho and the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila) and general testimonia literature (e.g., as employed by Tertullian and Cyprian). Ps.-Gregory’s first chapters are written against a “Sabellian” Christian position that, from the orthodox point of view, did not distinguish adequately between the Father and the Son. I compare Ps.-Gregory with other orthodox Christian authors who also apply the term “Jew” to their Christian opponents, and discuss the extent to which this term applies to a certain type of scriptural interpretation, or is merely employed as a stock term to label any non-orthodox interpretation of scripture. Ps.-Gregory shares standard patristic anti-Jewish arguments: the Jewish sacrificial system is obsolete, the Christian “nation” has replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people, and various texts apply to Jesus as the Messiah and not to other figures such as Jeremiah or David. Yet Ps.-Gregory lacks the unmitigated hostility of many patristic writers towards “the Jews.” For example, he understands circumcision as a means employed by God to keep the Jewish people “pure” from mixing with Gentiles until the Messiah was born, and holds that God instituted the system of sacrifice so that the tribe of Levi could be supported and not have to work outside of their priestly duties.


Bak's Jacob: Painting as Midrash
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Alicia Ostriker, Rutgers University

Bak's several paintings on the Jacob theme dwell on Jacob as dreamer, but with a broken ladder. His variations on the theme are midrashic in that they locate contemporary meaning in the ancient text. In addition, they gesture toward a future: is repair possible?


Understanding Amos 6:12 in Light of His Other Rhetorical Questions
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Spencer L. Allen, University of Pennsylvania

Amos 6:12 in the Masoretic Text (MT) is a double rhetorical question (RQ), followed by an accusation against the Israelites’ behavior: “Do horses run on the rock(s)? Or does one plow with oxen? Yet you changed justice into poison and the fruits of righteousness into wormwood (v. 12).” However, ancient translations and numerous scholarly textual emendation proposals reflect that the verse is unclear. Moreover, a full understanding of Amos’s specific use of the RQ suggests that the present MT is corrupt. Using a rhetorical device to catch the audience’s attention, Amos presents a more emphatic judgment than if he had merely issued a declarative statement. Since Amos and the audience know the answers about animal behavior, he traps the audience into a deeper understanding of what Amos suggests in his follow-up about their behavior. Amos uses the RQ 18 times for his persuasion, with approximately 14 of these presented in pairs. Amos manipulates a basic pattern for his paired RQs that provides a model for the corrupt 6:12 and its host of proposed solutions. While realizing that Amos does employ variety in his writing, the six paired RQs in the book (not yet including 6:12a) demonstrate a high degree of internal parallelism for the semantic meaning of words used and slightly less so for sentence structure, yet the parallel questions always require the same answer (contrast 6:12a in MT). Understanding Amos’ use of parallelism within paired RQs supplies a set of parallelism and topical guidelines for solutions to 6:12aB. Of the solutions to be examined, the guidelines suggest Alan Cooper’s emendation best fits Amos’s usage of double RQs: “Do horses run on crags? Or does the wild ox plow in the valley (JBL 107 (1988), 727)?”


Luke’s Sower: Reading the Parable Synoptically using Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Gary Lee Alley, Jr., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

When analyzing the Parable of the Sower in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we find different linguistic choices in each version. These choices reflect lexical and syntactic structures that can be evaluated as to the degree of naturalness within Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. One may identify lexemes and usage that are 'more Greek' compared with those that are either 'more Hebraic' or 'more Aramaic'. For example, vocabulary built up with prefixes is a Greek feature that does not mimic vocabulary structure in Semitic languages. Likewise, aspectual distinctions and subordinate participial structures in Greek are sometimes more cumbersome to express in Hebrew and Aramaic. Weighing and sifting through these linguistic data opens new avenues for dealing with the literary history of our texts. Specifically, Luke’s Sower differs significantly from Mark and Matthew. Investigating the three Sower accounts within the contextualized languages of the Second Temple Period encourages fresh observations for age-old questions in Synoptic Studies. How do the Semitisms and Grecisms interrelate in the three different accounts in comparison with synoptic theories? The linguistic patterns bring an added complexity to the predictions of standard synoptic theories. Further analysis may suggest that Luke's Sower comes from a source independent of Mark or Matthew.


Making Hebrew Class Come Alive: The Advantages of the Total Physical Response Method
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Sharon Alley, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

A workshop on teaching biblical languages points to an interest in getting better results and being more efficient than what is commonly attained with the current systems. The ultimate question is, "What works for learning a language?" One breakthrough has been made by Dr. Randall Buth. He has applied methods of language acquisition known to work in modern languages, to biblical languages, with exciting results. The Total Physical Response method (TPR) of teaching languages was developed by James Asher in the 60's and 70's with continuing worldwide acclaim, and verification of test studies. In TPR, students respond physically to spoken commands in the target language. This method mimics a child’s learning of his/her mother-tongue, bypassing the need for translation. Words learned through TPR are instantly comprehensible, and are retained in long-term memory. Grammar rules and structures are internalized, giving the student a sense of the language. When listening comprehension is solid, speech and reading follow naturally. Finally, grammar can be explained using words already known and understood. After eight years of teaching biblical Hebrew with TPR, I can highly recommend TPR as a near fail-free method. This presentation will briefly outline the theory of TPR and discuss how it is applied to biblical Hebrew, followed by a live demonstration of how it works in the classroom. As the method is teacher intensive, requiring his/her free manipulation of forms and events, some tips are helpful. One innovation is to have two "teachers" (e.g., a head teacher and a student aid) in order to optimize class time and enhance effectiveness. The live demo will include two teachers. TPR has a simple promise for teaching biblical Hebrew: students may obtain better results, more quickly, with less stress, and occasionally with fun and laughter.


The Meaning of War: Definitions for the Study of War in Ancient Israelite Literature
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Frank Ritchel Ames, Colorado Christian University

War is a social construct with popular, academic, and legal definitions. This paper surveys emic and etic definitions of war and evaluates their application in contemporary studies of ancient Israelite war and its representations in the Hebrew Bible.


Biblical Laws: Challenging the Principles of Old Testament Ethics
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Cheryl Anderson, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

In his book, From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (1987), James Sanders suggests that, although the Torah is comprised of both story and law, early Christians stressed primarily the story (narrative). In the contemporary era, biblical scholars who derive ethical principles from the Old Testament also tend to focus on the narrative portions of the Torah. This paper will explore the ways in which the ethical principles often identified become questionable when compared to specific biblical laws. After highlighting the challenges that biblical laws pose to the construction of ethical principles, the analysis will demonstrate why the parameters of ethical inquiry must include a consideration of the very process through which ethical principles themselves are obtained. Finally, alternative ethical principles, reflective of both law and narrative, will be proposed for a Christian context.


What Hath the Doctrine of Impassability to do with Divine Wrath?
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Gary Anderson, University of Notre Dame

This paper explores the connections between exegetical texts about divine wrath and the Christian doctrine of divne impassability.


From the Temptation to the Passion of Jesus—Film Clips and Interpretive Suggestions
Program Unit:
Paul Anderson, George Fox University

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The Johannine Ego Eimi Sayings in Cognitive-Critical Perspective
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Paul N. Anderson, George Fox University

While many scholars have sought to assess the distinctive character of the Johannine Ego Eimi sayings, fewer have investigated their origin, development, and rhetorical presentation. By means of using cognitive-critical analysis, these features will be explored in ways that account for their distinctively Johannine character and their purported origin in the teachings of Jesus. In so doing, the works of James Loder, James Fowler, and Mikhail Bakhtin will be employed in assessing the development of the Johannine I-Am sayings, from their epistemological origins to their rhetorical presentation and effect. In so doing, cognitive-critical biblical analysis advances historical-critical investigations of gospel traditions and reader-response analyses alike.


Biblical Hermeneutics and "Social Engagement" in the Work of Itumeleng Mosala
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Edward Antonio, Iliff School of Theology

This paper is an analysis of the problem of ‘social engagement’ in the practice of biblical and theological scholarship. In it I argue that the idea of ‘social engagement’ is not politically or ethically neutral so that the mere act of invoking it does not tell us anything about the ‘progressive’ or ‘regressive’ tendencies of a particular practice of scholarship. Since all forms of scholarship are necessarily socially engaged because all forms of scholarship are socially located, it is important to interrogated the normative character of any type of ‘social engagement’ in terms of its utopian presuppositions, its redemptive potential and transformative capabilities. I examine the work of Itumeleng Mosala in order to show how one variety of biblical/theological scholarship raises the problem of the relationship between theory and moral agency as hermeneutical categories that structure a particular mode of ‘social engagement.’ This mode of ‘social engagement’ is largely of an intellectualist sort because it bears no organic connection (other than positing one) to real concrete historical processes. Furthermore, Mosala’s work fails to raise the problem of how utopian claims for freedom and liberation can maintain at least some ethical independence from the totalizing constraints of social context. Thus it ends up advocating an entirely immanentistic ethic which reproduces the bourgeois assumptions which he seeks to dispose of in the first place. The paper suggests some ways of rethinking ‘social engagement’ through notions (borrowed from Michel de Certeau’s work) such as practice, strategy, structure and agency. These notions are already implicit in Mosala’s work and can thus be recouped to provide a basis for a more ethically and politically grounded notion of ‘social engagement’.


DIGital DIGging: Teaching Archaeology and the Bible in the Twenty-First Century
Program Unit: Poster Session
Deborah Appler, Moravian Theological Seminary

Courses on archaeology in the ancient Near East have only recently experienced the possibilities presented through the Internet and other technological developments. In the past, students received most of their information through archaeological text-books, slides, and, for the more fortunate, dig experience in Israel. In addition, previous pedagogy in the archaeology class focused mainly on traditional learners, ignoring those who might benefit from more experiential and “hands on” methods like games, case studies, reconstructions of method and techniques, to name a few. This poster presentation highlights the basket of teaching tools we have collected from years of presenting archaeology and biblical studies to multiple audiences, including university and seminary classrooms. Our project combines solid archaeological research with cutting edge technological and pedagogical tools that can easily be adapted by even the most technologically challenged instructor.


Jesus and His Bethsaida Disciples Remembered: A Study in Johannine Origins
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Mark Appold, Truman State University

Strikingly unique to the Fourth Gospel is the call narrative of 1:35-51 where connections are established between Bethsaida, an enigmatic fishing village, and early followers of Jesus described as having their home there. Also integral to this narrative is the singular portrayal of John the Baptist as the first true witness to Jesus who subsequently is confessed as Messiah by one of John's followers. The threefold purpose of this study is 1) to examine the yet unexplored relationships between the locale of Bethsaida and reminiscences of Jesus' Bethsaida disciples; 2) to rethink the implications of conflict and change in the special relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus and their respective followers; and 3) to explore the type of tradition in which the Johannine call narrative is embedded. Here the aim is to clarify the transition from a substratum of orality to the distinctive final version of the Johannine written text. Independently attested in Q, John, (Mark), Josephus, and Pliny the Elder, Bethsaida is a location pivotal to the ministry of the historical Jesus. Central to this study is the interface between archaeology and text and the new information yielded by fifteen years of excavation at Bethsaida, a site unique for its complete accessibility to first century level investigation. Material finds from the still nascent project will be used to shed light on those formative factors that shaped the community and may help to explain why Bethsaida is given such prominence in the way the ministry of Jesus is remembered. Traces of an early oral tradition may be found in the call narrative with its cluster of Aramaisms and Bethsaida reference where select disciples are remembered in ways unparalleled in other Biblical traditions.


The Spirit and Theological Interpretation
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Kenneth J. Archer, Church of God Theological Seminary

This paper will articulate the relationship of the Holy Spirit to theological interpretation. Specifically, it will discuss how the Holy Spirit contributes to theological interpretation by means of the Spirit’s entering into a relational dialogue with Scripture and the Christian community, thus contributing to theological meaning.


Thecla: A Christian Woman Dressed in Jewish Tales
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Randal A. Argall, Jamestown College

Recent books on Paul typically mention the two main protagonists in the Acts of Paul and Thecla in connection with developing notions of asceticism and celibacy—a trajectory that begins in earlier Greek and Jewish sources. Not as much discussed, however, is the role of Jewish literature on the portrayal of Thecla as a Christian heroine. Karasszon, in his article on “Heroism in the Acts of Paul and in the Bible,” makes some general observations, which he then relates most often to Samson, Elijah and Elisha. I propose to compare and contrast the scenes of Thecla’s ordeals with tales such as Joseph and Potipher’s wife (Gen 39), the three friends in the fiery furnace (Dan 3), Daniel in the lion’s den (Dan 6), The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews, and Susanna. Paul and Thecla are continually coming into conflict with figures holding political power, and Thecla, along with other women, shows strong leadership (Ann Graham Brock). This conflict also supplies the context for the tales mentioned above. To what extent do the settings, narrative plot lines, motifs and vocabulary found in these earlier stories influence the portrayal of Thecla? A close reading of the texts will reveal some striking correspondences, as well as significant variations and differences. The tales connected with Daniel seem especially relevant since the early Christian images we have of Thecla most often depict her in the fire or flanked by beasts (Cartlidge and Elliott). Finally, there has been a growing scholarly effort focused on the portrayal of biblical women in Second Temple literature (Bailey, Amaru, Schuller, Brown, and van der Horst). My investigation will attempt to relate my own literary conclusions to this larger body of ongoing work.


The 'Kaufman Effect' and Redactional Strategies in the Book of Genesis
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Bill T. Arnold, Asbury Theological Seminary

In recent years, a small group of scholars, led by Stephen A. Kaufman, has observed a text critical principle for targum research, which in effect argues that the end of any frequently copied text is subject to fewer scribal modifications than its beginning and that therefore, the later portions of such a text should preserve a better textual tradition. Since scribes, like readers, begin well at the beginning but do not always reach the end with the same intentionality, Kaufman suggested we might expect greater evidence of scribal tampering at the beginning of a lengthy text than at its end. Others have applied what has become known as the "Kaufman Effect" to linguistic and literary features of Targum Neofiti, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Fragment Targum Paris, and Fragment Targum Vatican. It now seems likely that the principles Kaufman called "intuitively obvious" should be accepted as a working hypothesis in the process of text transmission. The purpose of this study is to take the discussion in a different direction by exploring whether it is possible similar phenomena may be observed for the process of text composition and redaction as well, especially as these methods may be applied to the redaction of the Book of Genesis. Perhaps these text critical principles are useful to explain why earlier portions of a composite text such as Genesis are more likely to be redacted heavily whereas later portions of such a text will exhibit an entirely different redactional strategy. This paper will compare and contrast redactional strategies in the Flood Story (Gen 6:5-9:29) with those of the Joseph Narrative (Gen 37-50). In the process, the paper will explore whether the "Kaufman Effect" is a profitable way of investigating not only the copying and transmission of a text but also its composition and redaction.


The Downfall of Eutychus in Acts 20:7–12
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Andrew Arterbury, Baylor University

I will argue that Eutychus functioned as a negative example in the book of Acts for Luke’s earliest readers. To make my case, I will first establish that Luke draws attention to Eutychus’s sleep in this chiastic passage by placing two references to his sleep in the middle of the pericope (20:9). Second, I will demonstrate that “sleep” often functioned symbolically as a reference to distraction from important matters like the will of the gods in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean texts. Here, I will cite relevant examples from texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew Bible, Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, 1 Thessalonians, and the Acts of Paul. Moreover, I will show that sleep has a similar symbolic role within the Luke/Acts corpus (e.g., Lk 9:28-36, 22:39-46; Acts 20:28, 36). Finally, I will return to Acts 20:7-12 and argue that it would have been natural for Luke’s readers to interpret Eutychus’s sleep in a negative fashion given the role of sleep in the literature of antiquity. Hence, Eutychus serves as an example of what happens when young believers become inattentive to God and fall away from the worshipping community. As a result, Luke is imploring young believers to avoid the spiritual distraction of Eutychus and embrace the spiritual vigilance of Paul.


Eating with the Gods: Strengthening the Bonds of Community in Greco-Roman Associations
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Richard Ascough, Queen's Theological College

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God is With Us: A Biblical Theme, Its Contemporary Use, and a Hermeneutical Challenge
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
James P. Ashmore, Shaw University

The theme of God’s presence with God’s people is pervasive in the Bible. The paper briefly examines the way both the Old and New Testaments employ this theme. The idea that God is with God’s people has often been transformed in American experience into “God is on our side.” The paper identifies three emphases common to many African American interpreters that challenge this American self image. First, the emphasis on praxis calls on the interpreter to examine the practical effects of one’s interpretation. The effects of “God is on our side” has often been American imperialism. Second, the identification of many interpreters with the one identified as “other” calls on the interpreter to examine God’s relationship with and care for those we label as “other.” Third, a hermeneutic of suspicion calls into question any interpretation that reinforces existing power relationships and favors the interests of the powerful.


Josephus’s Portrayals of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes in Light of Qumran Texts and Pseudepigrapha
Program Unit: Josephus
Kenneth Atkinson, University of Northern Iowa

The accuracy of Josephus’s portrayals of the three major schools of Jewish thought, namely the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, continues to be the subject of scholarly debate. The central question for those wishing to use Josephus’s works to understand the history of the Second Temple Period is whether his descriptions of these three sectarian groups are reliable? A related questions, moreover, is whether Josephus accurately portrayed the relationships between these haireseis and the Hasmoneans? This presentation will use a variety of Qumran texts and pseudepigrapha, often ignored in Josephus studies, to suggest that Josephus correctly described political and religious alliances between the Pharisees, Sadducees, and members of the Hasmonean royal family. The Pseudepigrapha, particularly the Psalms of Solomon, and the Qumran corpus contain historical information that supports Josephus’s descriptions of the political and religious alliances between the Hasmoneans, especially from the reign of John Hyrcanus to Aristobulus II, with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Qumran materials, when compared with Josephus’s writings, not only suggest that the inhabitants of Khirbet Qumran were Essenes, but demonstrate that the members of this sectarian group had long-standing grievances with the Hasmoneans, Pharisees, and Sadducees, for their constantly changing alliances. While Josephus undoubtedly shaped his descriptions of the Essenes to make them palatable for a Roman audience of the first century C.E., his portrayals of this particular religious sect are nevertheless accurate. This paper will not only highlight the importance of non-biblical texts for Josephus studies, but it will also demonstrate that they even document historical events involving Hasmoneans and the major schools of Jewish thought that were omitted in Josephus’s extant books.


Theology of Hebrews
Program Unit: Hebrews
Harold Attridge, Yale University

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Hannah, the Mother of all Prophecy
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Graeme Auld, University of Edinburgh

The paper agrees with the view that the beginning of the books of Samuel tells the story of Hannah, and not simply of Samuel's mother. Several significant anticipations will be noted of features later in Samuel and Kings. Particular attention will be paid to Elkanah's wods in 1 Sam. 1:23, as differently reported in our two main texts of the book.


Perspectives on Wisdom and Apocalyptic from Outer Space
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
David Aune, University of Notre Dame

This paper seeks to assess the landscape of scholarship on wisdom and apocalypticism, in response to and on the basis of the publication of some of the work of this Group over the past ten years.


The Ideology of the Society of Biblical Literature: The SBL as an Agent of a Profession
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Hector Avalos, Iowa State University

The 125th Anniversary of the Society of Biblical Literature offers an opportune moment to apply ideological criticism to the organization itself. Drawing on the work of the literary theorist, John Guillory (Culture as Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993]), among others, this paper explores the idea that the SBL is an agent of a profession whose main goal is the maintenance and/or enhancement of the value of biblical texts in order to maintain and/or enhance its own existence as a profession. In particular, the paper will interrogate the following mechanisms used by the SBL to maintain the value of biblical texts, which otherwise possess no inherent value: 1) Aesthetics, by which is meant that the profession promotes the idea that biblical texts are valuable because they are literarily “beautiful,” especially in light of the devaluation of their historicity by modern science and critical history; 2) An intimate relation with publishers who market the idea that the study of the Bible is important and who help maintain academic status and hierarchies; 3) the composition of heroic narratives, otherwise called books and journal articles, that relate the triumphs of members of the SBL. "The review of research," which is a significant component of most scholarly writings, may be seen as the prologue to the triumph of “new” approaches and insights that will supersede what came before. The paper will conclude by discussing the problems of maintaining/enhancing the value of biblical texts in a global environment where many sacred texts are increasingly competing for relevance or superiority over other texts, sacred or secular.


The Imperial Crusade: A Wild Beast Loosed upon the World
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Alice Bach, Case Western Reserve University

The rhetoric of war in the hands of the current Administration has made us all Culpabush. Turning the Sermon on the Mount on its head, following the prophet Joel and ignoring the peaceable visions of Isaiah (2:4) and Micah (4:3) , our profiteers preach a winner take all high-octane manifest destiny as the divine mission given to the United States. A powerful charge indeed, one that conflates politics, profits, and propaganda, and calls the result God’s pruning hook. The tool of propaganda is simple to wield: first, lay out the bare bones of an incident or event, such as the connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin or the assurance of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. To this base, add a steady flow of repetition (called staying on message) and within a few media-soaked days, or weeks, the individual finds it difficult to stand back and form an independent judgment. This strategy is often referred to as unifying the country. The public biography of Bush gives extensive information about the faith-alcohol connection, touting the key to giving up alcohol as the new spirituality he had embraced. The perfect standard-bearer for pious politics, a sinner who was redeemed through Christ, Bush drank in the accolades from his supporters. Using the confessional mode became the center of his appeal to the Evangelical Right. From daily dipping in alcoholic spirits, Bush soaked himself in the revivalist spirit of his bottle-fed faith.


A Narrative Pattern Supporting Source Criticism?
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Joel S. Baden, Harvard University

Throughout biblical narrative, a common pattern emerges: commands given in the imperative are fulfilled through the use of the same verb in the same stem in the waw-consecutive as soon as the dialogue between the characters is completed (as in Genesis 12:1-4). When this pattern breaks down in one of two ways, there is consistent evidence for a source critical division. Either a) there is intervening text between the command and its fulfillment or b) the verb of fulfillment does not match that of command. Understanding of this pattern allows us to confirm previously suggested source critical divisions, as well as resolve some lingering source critical disputes.


Strategies for Moving Students from Faith-Based to Academic Biblical Studies
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Mary Bader, College of Wooster

This paper introduces two course-embedded assessment techniques (CAT's) related to students’ prior knowledge. It demonstrates how utilizing such surveys can assist liberal arts’ faculty in our endeavor to introduce and meet a number of goals in an introductory Biblical Studies course. *They aid the students’ early articulation of what they understand the Bible to be; *They prompt students to consider the origins of their opinions/ beliefs; *They allow students to imagine and to see the religious diversity in the classroom and beyond; and *They have proven to be effective means of introducing how a course in biblical studies in the context of a liberal arts college classroom is different from a Torah- or Bible-Study. Presentation Style: I will present this paper in the form of a lecture-discussion. I plan to use PowerPoint, as described below, to demonstrate how I have incorporated student responses to the Pre-Course Survey into the lesson plans for the second and third days of class. I will, of course, welcome all input and feedback from the participants.


From "Guerrilla Exegesis" to Open with Caution and Beyond: US Black Biblical Ideological Criticism
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Randall Bailey, Interdenominational Theological Center

This paper will contour the growth, development, and scope of ideological criticism among US Black biblical scholars over the past decade and look ahead at future directions. Part of the discussion will deal with the resistance to such interpretation by some Black biblical scholarship as well as the impact of "testamental affiliation" on such interpretation.


A Baker's Dozen of Tips and Resources for Teaching Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
David Baker, Ashland Theological Seminary

The final half hour of this session will be devoted to a general discussion of resources and strategies for teaching Biblical Hebrew.


Painting the Gospel: Henry Ossawa Tanner's "The Annunciation" and "Jesus and Nicodemus"
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Kelly J. Baker, Florida State University

“I paint things that I see and believe . . . I believe in my religion. I have chosen the character of my art because it conveys my message and tells what I want to tell my own generation and leave to the future,” stated Henry Ossawa Tanner, an artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tanner, who is most well known for "The Banjo Lesson" and "The Thankful Poor," primarily painted biblical narratives because these works portrayed the God of his beliefs. This artist chose biblical scenes that represented the interaction between divinity and humanity. Tanner displayed these scenes on canvas yet it was his own understanding of the word of God. This paper explores two of Tanner’s paintings located in museums in Philadelphia, "The Annunciation" and "Jesus and Nicodemus," the biblical narratives these works represent, his own commentary about his works, and the cultural frame of reference for each work. These paintings exemplify Tanner’s belief in the relationship between divine and human, and this artist hoped his paintings would be the venue for the viewers to partake in this relationship as well. Tanner represented the Bible in his art but in his own terms, and his painting of these New Testament narratives conveyed a Bible filled with domesticity, humanity, and an unwavering faith in God.


Alexander Cruden's Bible Concordance: Two and a Half Centuries of Verse Mining and Prooftexting
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Roger Baker, Brigham Young University

An index often undermines careful reading and with a Bible index/concordance, verse-mining replaces contextual, narrative, or pleasure reading. Prooftexting can impede liturgical, theological, and allegorical reading. Since Bible readers have easy access to concordances, there is in our Bible reading world verse-mining with a vengeance. The Bible proves so many things when a prooftext passage provides evidence. It only takes turning to one concordance page or web site to look up something as mundane as “begat” in the Bible and find 228 listings in 142 verses including three Apocryphal citations. There is a lot of begatting in the Good Book. The longest continuously published index in history is the Bible Concordance, completed by Alexander Cruden, 1738. His compilation of the 773,746 words of the Authorized Bible is still in print and directs considerable Bible reading. It is more than looking at “begats.” Readers easily find often-preconceived correct attitudes toward grace, faith, works, war, killing, or the poor. Since Cruden’s Concordance has influenced Bible readers for centuries, it is helpful to understand his Bible reading. Involuntarily incarcerated for madness on three occasions, he applied for knighthood and stood for parliamentary election; he was frequently in court with lawsuits against tormentors; he aspired to become “corrector of the people,” reproving those who swore or violated the Sabbath. But he is even more interesting as a Bible reader who has set a pattern and provided a tool for prooftext reading that has persisted for over two and a half centuries. This paper relies on Cruden’s pamphlets, papers, and court cases. Using these primary sources, including a first edition concordance, it examines the way he read his Bible and tries to account for the influence of his Bible concordance on modern readers.


Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24
Program Unit: Matthew
Victoria Balabanski, Flinders University of South Australia

This paper examines the nature of Matthew's concept of mission with particular reference to Matthew 24:1-31. It poses the question of whether there is a shift away from the dominant categories set out in Matthew 10 and Matthew 28:19-20 towards an emphasis on community endurance, and whether the mission of God is portrayed in these verses as being effected primarily through the Human One (Son of Man) and his angels. It examines the preponderance of divines passives in Matthew 24:1-31 as a possible indication of such a shift. It also raises the location of the Matthean community in relation to the eschatological program of Matthew 24, and asks whether the mission of the disciples in circumstances of suffering is understood to include administering the 'secrets of the reign of heaven' judiciously. The paper concludes with some hermeneutical reflections on whether and how we can find contemporary significance in this material.


The Pregnant Woman Whose Child a Monster Seeks to Devour (Revelation 12)
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
David L. Balch, Brite Divinity School

In the Apocalypse, chap. 12, John is subverting an Imperial visual representation. Yarbro Collins has shown that the myth in Rev 12 is closely connected with the related myths of Isis bearing Horus who is threatened by Seth and Leto giving birth to Apollo and Aphrodite threatened by Typhon. The paper argues that this myth was visualized in the Temple of Isis, in the market place, and in houses of Pompeii, but most important, in the so-called House of Livia on the Palatine in Rome: it was an imperial conflict myth. The paper draws close connections between the art of Rome/Pompeii and of the Asian Ephesus through the painters Apelles and Nikias, an Ephesian painter who painted the original of the Io/Isis in Livia's house. Cicero demonstrates the wide popularity of this visual Imperial conflict myth, which John is subverting in Rev 12.


Ritual Order and the Moral/Ethical Demands of Suffering
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Samuel Balentine, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

At the center of Torah, Leviticus envisions and prescribes a ritual order that not only reflects but also sustains the “very good” world of God’s creation. Israel’s priests, the architects of this literary vision, anticipate that human beings will disrupt this order by willful or unintentional sins, and they provide a complex of rituals -- primarily sacrifices and offerings -- by which humans can reconstitute their relationship with God and repair the damage they may have done to the world. The priests also recognize that a “very good” world may be compromised by things unrelated to human sin, such as uncleanness or ritual impurity; here, too, the cult they administer offers a range of ritual remedies that enable humans to purify and restore what they may have defiled. But, can this ritual order address satisfactorily the random fractures in life -- ethical, social, and religious -- that threaten to exceed what is promised by sacrifice, repentance, and ritual purification? This paper explores the acute challenge that innocent suffering presents to the priestly vision of the world that centers the Torah.


The Bamoth of the Deuteronomistic History
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
W. Boyd Barrick, Montana State University

It has long been one of the “established facts” of our guild that the bamoth (or “high places”) mentioned in the Hebrew Bible belonged to the spontaneous, “popular” sphere of religious life (“Ortsreligion”/“Lokalkultes” in the terminology used in Matthias Gleis’s 1997 monograph on Die Bamah). This “fact” rests upon three biblical texts: 1 Kgs. 3:2 (a statement that “the people” sacrificed at the bamoth until Solomon’s Temple was built), 1 Kgs. 14:22-24 (a statement that “Judah” built neo-Canaanite bamoth under Rehoboam), and 1 Sam. 9:1-10:13 (the account of the first meeting between Samuel and Saul at the bamah of an unnamed “city,” and the immediate consequences of that meeting). The first and third of these have been universally accepted as reflecting historical reality. Nonetheless, the credibility of these texts cannot be taken for granted for several reasons. Rather than accurately representing pre-Solomonic/early-monarchic realities, they more likely reflect realities of the later monarchy anachronistically applied to the earlier, only dimly remembered era.


The Appraisal of Prophets and Prophecy in the Deuteronomistic History
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Hans Barstad, University of Oslo

In a former paper ("The Understanding of the Prophets in Deuteronomy", SJOT 8 (1994) 236-51), the present writer argued that the Book of Deuteronomy holds a rather negative view of prophecy. Deut 13 is more concerned with the problem of prophetic counseling of idolatry than it is with prophecy as such. Deut 18:9-14; 18:15-19, and 18:20-22 represent three disparate segments of texts which deal with quite different themes without any logically necessary sequence. These texts, consequently, do no constitute any "prophetic law", similar to what we may find with regard to other "official" figures (judges, kings, priests). Deut 18:15-19 does not legitimize a prophetic movement which traces its office back to Moses, and according to which prophets will appear within the Mosaic tradition at regular intervals. Rather the "prophet like Moses" is Joshua, the successor of Moses. The article stresses the importance of Moses as the great prophet in Deuteronomy, and the view that Deuteronomy represents the revelation of the final will of God to the prophet Moses. Against this background, it is of interest to see whether this highly negative view of prophecy is also found in the so-called Deuteronomistic history. The present paper deals with the most important texts that describe prophecy in DtrH, and finds that this is not the case. Even if it is possible to find some significant material in a few of the texts that reveal diachronic growth (for instance in the story of David's rise to power in 1 Sam), there is no vigorous anti-prophetic agenda to be found throughout DtrH, similar to what we find in Deuteronomy (and in the Book of Jeremiah!). Some of the consequences of this discovery are discussed.


Theological Interpretation of the Old Testament with Particular Reference to Old Testament Wisdom Literature
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Craig G. Bartholomew, Redeemer University College

This paper will explore different models of theological interpretation of the Old Testament with a view to concrete proposals about a way forward in recovering thick theological interpretation of the Old Testament today. Particular attention will be paid to the role of biblical theology, and the application of the Old Testament to public life. Throughout the paper will be exegetically grounded in Ecclesiastes and Proverbs.


Ideological Strategies in the Letter of James
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Alicia Batten, Pacific Lutheran University

Ideological criticism analyses the ideologies at work at three levels of biblical interpretation: the author, the text and the interpreter (Yee, 1999). This paper will primarily explore the second level as manifested in the letter of James. It will examine what “ideological strategies” (Eagleton, 1991) are at work in James with special focus upon the rhetorical structures evident in the letter. Attention to these strategies will serve as a heuristic device for clarifying an understanding of the letter’s stance on care for the poor, wealth and patronage.


States of Reading: “Red” and “Blue”—and White All Over
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Angela Bauer-Levesque, Episcopal Divinity School

After the Presidential election last year a map circulated on the internet overlaying “red states” and “blue states” on a pre-civil war map of states supporting slavery and those who had abolished it. The overlap was striking. Particular readings of biblical texts were promoted during the campaign. Examining the “biblical” rhetoric of public discourse from a feminist, anti-racist perspective, the paper explores connections between critical awareness of whiteness and various biblical hermeneutics. An alternate mapping of states of reading further includes urban-rural, male-female, as well as richer-poorer divides, raising questions as to the functions and implications of biblical interpretations among various publics.


Micah and Nahum: New Evidence for a Closer Connection
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Gerlinde Baumann, Philipps Universität, Marburg

One of the main theories in historical-critical examination of the book of the Twelve says that there existed two corpuses of prophetic books, from which the later book of the Twelve had been formed on a relatively late stage of the formation of the book. One corpus contains Hosea-Amos-Micah and one (at least) Nahum-Habakkuk. However, a combination of historical-critical and intertextual examination shows, that there is evidence for a much closer connection between Micah and Nahum than it has been assumed. This link must have been established on a relatively early stage. Therefore, a modification of the common theories is necessary. In my paper, I will present parallels and connections in catchword, motifs and in structure between Micah and Nahum and outline a new theory about the formation of the book of the twelve.


Lament Lost and Lament Regained in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Richard Bautch, St. Edward's University

In ancient Israel, lament was a type of prayer comprising formal elements that often included bitter complaint against God for the misfortune and distress at hand. Such lament occurred in the psalms and other, largely pre-exilic, types of prayer. In the second half of the past century, there arose among scholars the consensus that such lament ceased in Israel as a result of the Babylonian exile and theological developments in the wake of this catastrophe. Scholars today routinely speak of the “loss of lament.” During and after the exile, lament certainly underwent transformation that involved a degree of decline or diminution. Post-exilic developments involving lament, however, are complex and heterogeneous such that they cannot be subsumed under a single concept such as loss. There are alternative ways to document lament in the post-exilic period, and this paper presents one of them: lament as an influence that may be vestigial or proximate. An analysis of Isa 63:7–64:11 demonstrates that lament exerted a certain influence upon those responsible for this poignant prayer of penitence, and that the authors of this text adopted and adapted the classic lament for their composition. In their work, lament has not been lost. This paper questions the notion of lament lost by examining one prayer in which lament has been reconstituted, and in this sense regained.


Textual Arts: Iconography in the Composition of Hebrew Texts
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Eleanor Beach, St. Ambrose University

Appreciation of visual arts as resources for biblical interpretation shifted in the twentieth century from assertions that Israelites had no visual arts (but relied on the crafts of others) to applications of ancient Near Eastern iconography as illustrations of the Bible's cultural context. Diachronic study of local Israelite iconography also provides a kind of history of Israelite religion(s) independent of the Bible. This paper offers another method: (1) cases in which visual referents were used to generate major aspects of texts, (2) criteria for identifying these generative cases (more than only one thing looking like another), and (3) consideration of how "movements" in ancient visual arts may manifest in biblical, especially prophetic, texts, using examples from Mesopotamian, Phoenician, and Persian iconography.


The Edomites Are Coming
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Maxine Clarke Beach, Drew Theological School

The Edomites are coming! This Hebrew ostracon, from the Arad fortress, warns of an impending Edomite invasion. Dated from late seventh or early sixth century BCE, this dispatch testifies to the urgent threat Edom posed to Judah from the south. With the findings at Horvat 'Uza, Judah's hatred for Edom seems to come, at least partly, from Edomite presence in the territory of Judah prior to the destruction of the First Temple. Did the Edomites just watch during Judah's destruction by the Babylonians? Did they take advantage of the situation created by the exile of leadership in Jerusalem (Lamentation)? What became of the Edomites in the Second Temple Period? What level of hybridity might have happened prior to the Judaism of the Second Temple between and people of the land and the Edomites? Theologically, the Edomites/Idumeans are a problem for Second Temple Israel. Certainly they take on the role of "most hated" of the "other". But what did they do and can the material culture findings help with the theology of the "other" as these two peoples share space in the Persian period and beyond.


Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith
Program Unit: Semiotics and Exegesis
Timothy Beal, Case Western Reserve University

Roadside Religion and Imagining the Holy Lands


The Use of Genesis 1 in the Epistle to the Colossians
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Greg Beale, Wheaton College Graduate School

Commentators have noticed clear allusions to Gen. 1:27 in Col. 1:15 and 3:10. A very few commentators have noticed in passing that the language of “bearing fruit and increasing” in Col. 1:6 and 1:10 appear to refer to or echo Gen. 1:28. The problem with seeing a conscious allusion is that Colossians speaks of the “word” or “gospel” “bearing fruit and increasing” (v. 6) or “bearing fruit and increasing in knowledge” (v. 10), while Genesis 1:28 appears to speak differently: bearing fruit and multiplying” with respect to the proliferation of physical progeny. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the following things about Col. 1:6, 10: (1) that Col. 1:6, 10 do, indeed, make conscious allusion to Gen. 1:28; (2) that early Judaism interprets Gen. 1:28 both literally and “spiritually,” the latter in line with Paul’s perspective; (3) that the NT elsewhere and other early Christian texts repeatedly interpret Gen. 1:28 “spiritually;” (4) that the “spiritual” interpretation by Judaism, Paul, and other NT and early Christian passages appears to be rooted in Genesis 1-3 itself and in the use of Gen. 1:28 repeatedly elsewhere in the OT. The last observation would appear to indicate that Paul’s use of Gen. 1:28 is not “wildly spiritual” or “allegorical” but his attempt to express what he believes is the fuller original meaning of Genesis.


The Use of ‘Mystery’ in the Epistle to the Colossians
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Greg Beale, Wheaton College Graduate School

While commentators have noticed that there are a few Old Testament allusions in Colossians, apparently only one scholar (Jean-Nöel Aletti) has suggested very briefly that Daniel 2 may be part of the background for Paul’s use of “mystery” in the epistle (1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3). The problem with attempting to see a conscious allusion to Daniel 2 is that there is no formal citation of Daniel in Colossians and the vast majority of commentators have concluded that there apparently is not enough evidence to propose even an allusion. In addition, the context of the uses in Colossians does not appear to concern the same theme as the “mystery” in Daniel 2. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the following things about “mystery” in Colossians: (1) that each of the uses of “mystery” in Colossians do, indeed, make conscious allusion to Dan. 2:28-29, 44-45; (2) that, while these uses are not identical to Daniel’s, they can be seen easily as consistent developments of the use in Daniel 2; (3) that early Judaism (especially Qumran), like Colossians, makes allusion to the Daniel 2 “mystery” in an eschatological context; (4) that the specific use of “mystery” in Colossians fits remarkably well into the auto-biographical and rhetorical uses in Romans and 1 Corinthians, especially in its application to Paul as an authoritative interpreter of eschatological Danielic mysteries in relation to establishing new end-time communities of faith; (5) that such a use in Colossians comports well with a notion that Paul was the original author of Colossians; (6) that the evidence in Ephesians 3 is virtually identical to that in Colossians and points to the same conclusion about authorship, though there will not be time to develop this.


A Bone of Contention: Foundation Deposits from the Dura Synagogue
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Christopher Beall, Wolfson College

Excavators digging in the synagogue at Dura Europos uncovered human finger bones and teeth in cavities constructed under the door sills of each entrance to the building's main hall of assembly. Most historians have ignored the bones in their interpretations of the synagogue remains. Those few who have mentioned them assumed the bones were either a foundation deposit or some sort of reliquary. Both interpretations are used to suggest a degree of permeability in local Jewish practices, and significant influences from the religious practices of the surrounding community. This example highlights problems with using material remains to examine questions of centre and periphery in diaspora Judaism. Each assumes that artefacts and their decorations reveal information about the religious practices and beliefs of their patrons and users. However, architects, builders, and craftspeople also have an equal effect on the design and construction of artefacts, and many aspects which might be thought evidence of "open boundaries" might, instead, be evidence of the influence of non-Jewish builders. This paper will discuss the use of material remains in relation to questions of centre and periphery in diaspora Judaism and will suggest that the bones found at Dura Europos may have been put in the synagogue building without the knowledge of the Jews, perhaps as a curse against those using it.


The Institutional Transition from the Babylonian to the Persian Empire in Mesopotamia, 539-482 BC
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Harvard University

The present paper investigates changes in the administrative organization of the Babylonian heartland during the first decades of the Persian period. The focus is on the cuneiform documentation and evidence for imperial intervention in local administration.


The Theme of Child Sacrifice in the Work of Canadian Women Authors
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Mary Ann Beavis, St Thomas More College

In modern Jewish literature, the Akedah or "Binding of Isaac" has played an important role as a metaphor for the destructive power of misguided faith in the lives of contemporary Jews (Brown, 2001). In this paper, I shall argue that the theme of child sacrifice (e.g., Jephthah's Daughter, the crucifixion), along with other biblical motifs, plays a leading role in the works of several Canadian women writers as a metaphor for the destructive power of patriarchy in the lives of women and children. Works considered will include Adele Wiseman (The Sacrifice, Crackpot); Joy Kogawa (The Rain Ascends); Anne-Marie MacDonald (Fall on Your Knees, As the Crow Flies); Alyssa York (Mercy) and Edeet Ravel (Ten Thousand Lovers). References: Brown, Michael. "Biblical Myth and Contemporary Experience: The Akedah in Modern Jewish Literature." Judaism (2001) 99-111.


The Deadly Search for God: Absolute Aggression in the Heritage of the Bible
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Matthias Beier, Drew University

What happens in humans when they kill in the Bible, often in the name of God? From Cain and Abel to the killing of Jesus, God is cited as reason for the killing, the absolute form of aggression. Renowned German theologian and psychotherapist Eugen Drewermann argues that when humans kill they ultimately do so in an attempt to regain the lost absolute recognition from God. This paper will present Drewermann’s key ideas, first developed in his monumental analysis of Gen. 2-11, on the relationship between aggression and the desperate search for God in the Bible. The historical context within which his work grew, post-Nazi Germany, sensitized him to the misuse of the Bible for the legitimation of ‘final solutions.’ Cognizant of the socio-historical implications of biblical interpretation, the paper will develop Drewermann’s argument that aggression escalates in the Bible when humans lose sight of God as their spirits get caught in a spell of fear. It further will present his thesis that without a hermeneutics of the radical alternative between fear versus trust--grounded in exegetical, psychoanalytic, and philosophical-theological analysis--exegetes and theologians are in the danger of attributing acts of absolute aggression in history and the Bible to God when they are actually the result of a distorted image of God under the spell of fear. In conclusion, important hermeneutical consequences for a nonviolent understanding of the ‘historical’ character of biblical revelation will be presented.


What's a Woman to Do? An Examination of Authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12 in Light of Hellenistic Non-literary Materials
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Linda L. Belleville, North Park Theological Seminary

With the advent of computer databases of ancient Greek literary works, papyri and inscriptions, and archaic and classical texts and artifacts, hapax legomenon NT words such as authentein can be determined with greater ease and confidence. The literary database, TLG, has been explored but has failed to shed light on authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12. A search of non-literary databases produces quite different results. While authent-words appear quite regularly in Greek literature from the 6th century B.C. on, they first appear in non-literary materials in the first century B.C. and in such a way as to confirm the Old Latin and Vulgate dominari or "domineer." This combined with recent historical investigations of women in the Asian imperial cult and the cult of Artemis provide helpful insights into what led the author of 1 Timothy to pen chapter 2:11-15. They also provide helpful insights into what prompts modern translators to render authentein "exercise authority over" and "have authority over"--a meaning not attested until well into the A.D. 3rd and 4th centuries.


What's a Woman to Do? An Examination of authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12 in Light of Hellenistic Non-literary Materials
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Linda L. Belleville, North Park Theological Seminary

With the advent of computer databases of ancient Greek literary works, papyri and inscriptions, and archaic and classical texts and artifacts, hapax legomenon NT words such as authentein can be determined with greater ease and confidence. The literary database, TLG, has been explored but has failed to shed light on authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12. A search of non-literary databases produces quite different results. While authent-words appear quite regularly in Greek literature from the 6th century B.C. on, they first appear in non-literary materials in the first century B.C. and in such a way as to confirm the Old Latin and Vulgate dominari or "domineer." This combined with recent historical investigations of women in the Asian imperial cult and the cult of Artemis provide helpful insights into what led the author of 1 Timothy to pen chapter 2:11-15. They also provide helpful insights into what prompts modern translators to render authentein "exercise authority over" and "have authority over"--a meaning not attested until well into the A.D. 3rd and 4th centuries.


Psalm 102: Lament and Theology in an Exilic Setting
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
W. H. Bellinger, Jr., Baylor University

Tucked into Book IV of the Psalter is Psalm 102 that raises a variety of literary and theological issues. This paper will consier the poem's structure in its context in Book IV and related theological issues. The text explores the place of lament in an exilic context. The poem begins with a prayer characteristic of individual laments in the Psalter (vv. 2-12). The prayer uses intense physical imagery to describe personal suffering, taunting from enemies, and rejection by God. The poem's second movement (vv. 13-23) offers a prophetic vision of God's restoration of Zion. Underlying the poetry is a plea that God bring about the envisioned restoration. This description of the literary structure of verses 2-23 is the majority view of interpreters. The place of verse 12 in the description is, however, ambiguous. Its affirmation of the contrast between human transience and divine kingship may be the conclusion of the first movement of the psalm or it may be the beginning of the second movement and as such continue the plea from verses 2-11 in a heightened poetic voice. The paper will explore the place of poetic ambiguity in readings of the psalm. The concluding movement of the psalm (vv. 24-29) is a brief and muted reprise of the first two movements. The paper will explore how the conclusion of Psalm 102 is mirrored in the sequencing of the psalms in Book IV. Tied to its context in Book IV, one of the psalm's theological affirmations is the kingship of God. The poem offers ways of integrating individual and community and is among the church's seven penitential psalms. The concluding part of the paper will explore these theological issues embedded in the poem.


National Identity and Territory in the Second Temple Period
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

In this lecture I would like to show the affinity between national identity and the way that national territory, was grasped by the people living in the second temple period. This affinity will be illustrated by several examples: 1. The book of Chronicles, comparing Ezra and Nehemiah: The Chronicles have an Israelite identity (See: S. Yefet) and the land the book portrays is a large country that covers the area between the Euphrates and the Nile. This contrasts with the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which have a Judean identity, and do not mantion any location or region outside of Judea. 2. The Book of Judith reflects an Israelite identity when it refers to the people living in the hilly regions that include Judea and Samaria. It calls the group that lives in Samaria (located within the Kingdom of Israel), which it considers as vits land “ The children of Israel that dwelt in Judea” (Judith 4, 1). 3. The group in 1 Maccabees is Israeli and not Judean, whereas the boundaries of the wars of Judah that are portrayed in chapter V are the boundaries of the United Kingdom. This conclusion also derives from the rhetoric of the author who uses Biblical names for the nations the Hasmoneans fought. 4. When Paul becomes part of the framework of the story in Acts, and talks about the necessity of opening the boundaries of the nation, the narrative that had been situated in the land of Israel, now shifts to a land over the sea. These examples are designed to show the relationships between the limits of national identity and the boundaries of the land that people in the Second Temple period considered to be their land.


De-historization and Historization in Prophetic Books
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Ehud Ben Zvi, University of Alberta

Through their reading and rereading of prophetic books, the literati, who constituted their primary target readership, developed and shaped images of a past and even past events. The world portrayed in some books, or at least vignettes of that world were unequivocal marked in terms of historical circumstances (e.g., Jer 25:1;26:1; Hag 1:1). But the worlds of the majority of the prophetic books did not present themselves to their intended and primary readerships as anchored in particular historical circumstances or events, except in very general terms (e.g., late monarchic period, the reigns of Jeroboam, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah) or none at all (e.g., Joel). The worlds of these books were construed as loosely marked in temporal terms or atemporal. They do not refer or tend to refer to particular events or historical figures. In fact, these books de-historicize the text and suggest to their target readership that knowledge of precise events and historical figures is of secondary importance, if at all, for understanding the divine messages communicated and shaped by the book.. Although even if still anchored in some conceptual realm associated with agreed memories of the past (e.g., Assyrian period; late monarchic), the worlds of these books edge into the realm of the atemporal or paradigmatic. This essay will examine both this tendency of de-historicizing present in most prophetic books, and the counter tendency present in some prophetic books to explicitly and emphatically narrow the freedom of temporal interpretation/imagination of their intended and primary readers to particular, narrow circumstances, even to the point of marking it to a precise day in their past.


The Poor's Curse: Exodus 22:20–26 and Its Background in the Ancient World
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Jonathan Ben-Dov, Haifa University

The laws of the poor in Exod 22:20-26 and Deut 24:10-15 put special emphasis on the poor's prayer. The poor man prays with regard to his creditor, and he is rewarded accordingly. Exod 22:23 depicts YHWH as an avenger, who uses his sword to bring calamity upon the malefactor. This paper expands upon the drama of revenge. We examine the reality of the abuse of power in Biblical and ANE law. The keyword ??? expresses the outcome of hierarchic relations, like its Akkadian cognate hablum. The cry to God is compared with the cry to the king as administrator of justice. This drama is further explored in Homeric Greece, where Odyssey 17 presents an array of beliefs and practices about the beggar. The harmed beggar summons evil powers to avenge his humiliation, notably the group of the Erinyes, who exact full retribution for any evil. The goddess dik?, justice, is another savior in such cases. The beggar is considered a threat to society if it fails to treat him properly. Prayers for justice are attested in Greek and Latin curse poetry and in curse-tablets from the later Hellenistic world. The role of the Mesopotamian god ?amaš as protector of the poor is discussed in the light of the ?amaš-hymn. This god observes any malevolence done on earth and executes judgment. His epithets as ilu rimenu, i?lu qarradu, ‘merciful god, heroic man of war’, attest to a similar atmosphere to Exod 22:23-26. Psalm 109 is finally discussed, since it has some parallels with Biblical law. Psalm 109:6-19 is a fine example of what may be called “Hebrew curse poetry”.


Composition and Thematic Structure in the Book of Astronomy
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Jonathan Ben-Dov, Haifa University

In this paper I wish to reexamine some of the numerous problems facing whoever approaches the astronomical book of 1 Enoch (AB; chs. 72-82) and propose some new solutions. Three main points will be presented: 1. a reaffirmation of Milik's argument that the Ethiopic AB is an abridgement of the Aramaic 'synchronistic calendar' of 4Q208-209. the conceptual method of this abridgement will be studied closely. 2. to demonstrate that in its early stages of transmission, AB circulated not only in textual "copies", but also in reworked, expanded and abridged editions, just like other scripture in Qumran. 3. finally a new proposed thematic structure for the AB will be presented. I maintain Neugebauer's assertion that the Ethiopic AB includes two separate versions of the old composition. I take this line further, showing how each of the two versions contained a comprehensive cosmological treatise, covering the issues of: sun, moon, stars and weather. Several duplicates in AB will be given renewed attention for this purpose.


Afrocentric Biblical Criticism and Reconstructing Social History in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: New Historicism and the Hebrew Bible
Harold V. Bennett, Morehouse College

Within the last twenty-five years, understanding the social worlds of ancient Israel has become the focus of considerable scholarship on the Hebrew Bible. With a growing concern for delineating social history in the biblical communities, it should come as no surprise that innovative approaches to depicting this phenomenon also became a feature of the landscape in the academic study of the Hebrew Bible. Salient among these angles of vision on the Hebrew Bible and on delineating social worlds in ancient Israel, then, is Afrocentric Biblical criticism. Afrocentric Biblical criticism is a recent, alternative paradigm for sketching features of social life in ancient Israel and for appropriating the data in the Hebrew Bible. This paper, therefore, explores the possibilities that Afrocentric Biblical Criticism offers the New Historicist regarding the reconstruction of social worlds and accounting for social history in ancient Israel. This essay delineates an angle of vision on the biblical evidence that takes the plight of those persons, who existed on the periphery of the social structure, as a starting point for sketching features of social life in the biblical communities during Iron Age II. The goal of this essay is to introduce into the New Historicism and into the marketplace of ideas a competing paradigm for understanding and viewing marginalization and disenfranchisement at a moment in the history of the biblical communities.


We Have Seen the Enemy—He Is Only a ‘She’: The Portrayal of Warriors as Women
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Claudia D. Bergmann, University of Chicago

It is a well-known literary convention in the Hebrew Bible that the behavior of warriors who are about to lose a war can be compared to the behavior of women. During the history of interpretation, it has often been assumed that this comparison was applied to enemy warriors in order to belittle their valor. But why can this comparison also be applied to men belonging to one’s own people? This paper suggests that belittling the enemy was only a minor purpose of the literary convention. The texts that portray warriors as women have to be seen in the context of a larger group of texts that metaphorically compare the behavior of men in a life-threatening crisis to the behavior of women giving birth. As women’s lives are seen to be on the crossroads between life and death when they give birth, so men’s lives are on the crossroads between life and death when they are afflicted by war. This paper will discuss the applicable texts in three different groups: texts that feature the simile “like a woman in labor”, texts that compare warriors to women in general, and texts that only allude to the idea that warriors in severe crisis and women (in labor) can be compared by applying birth-specific vocabulary and imagery. Most texts discussed in this paper will be from the corpus of the Hebrew Bible prophets. It will also refer to a few Ancient Near Eastern texts that compare warriors in life-threatening situations and women giving birth.


Secular Study of the Qu’ran: Possibilities and Problems
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Jacques Berlinerblau, Georgetown University/Hofstra University

Can the tools of historical-critical analysis which were so profitably applied to the Bible, be applied to the Qu’ran? This paper engages this question from a variety of perspectives. We begin with a survey of opinions from Muslim and non-Muslim scholars suggesting that no comparable exegetical development has taken hold in modern Islamic theological circles. It is asked why critical methods of textual analysis have been slow to achieve legitimacy among scholars of Islam. Four possible impediments are cited, 1) the Qu’ran’s repeated and explicit emphasis on its divine origins, 2) the conservatism of an exegetical tradition that has often (though not without exceptions) championed this view, 3) the absence of institutions in the contemporary Islamic world akin to the liberal seminaries and university religious studies departments of the West, and, 4) the emergence of postmodern and postcolonial forms of critique that have associated higher-critical methods with the worst excesses of Enlightenment rationality. The paper ends with a call for a “secular hermeneutics” of all sacred Scriptures, one rarely seen in the theologically inflected discipline of religious studies.


Sacral Imagery in David’s Lament over Saul and Jonathan
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
David A. Bernat, Wellesley College

In the Lament over Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam 1:19-27), the recurring clause, “`al bamotecha hallal (vv. 19, 25)” is typically translated with language such as “on your heights (or ‘your back’) a corpse.” However, it might also be read as “on your shrines (ie ‘high places’) profaned.” David’s qinnah is, in fact, replete with such cultic imagery. The cumulative effect of this suffusion is a powerful sacral undercurrent in an already evocative elegy. The sacred imagery, which has, for the most part, been overlooked in the scholarship, can be revealed through close attention to instances of polyvalence and paranomasia in the poem. A few examples are the anomalous expression “sde terumot” and the ambiguous verb “nig`al” in verse 21, along with the pairing of “dam” and “cheleb” in 22. The presentation will bring to light to several related themes in the Lament, including “War as Divine Imperative,” “Victory as Cultic Offering,” “Battlefield as Temenos,” “King as Divine Agent” and “Sanctification of Weaponry.” En passant, evidence for a late dating of the composition will be offered.


The Prophecies of Balaam in Aramaic Garb
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Moshe Bernstein, Yeshiva University

The four "oracles" or prophecies of Balaam contained in Numbers 23 and 24 constitute a linked group of texts whose meaning is certainly enigmatic in their biblical Hebrew original. The Aramaic targumim - Onqelos and the several Eretz Yisrael traditions - represent some of the earliest systematic exegesis of these texts. Unlike the modern translator or commentator, the Aramaic versions could not leave a series of dots to mark an untranslated text, comment in a footnote that the text being translated is emended, or present an alternative reading in the margin. The targumim had to render the text somewhow or other, and it is in their grappling with texts of this sort that they give us the greatest insights into their techniques. There has been no systematic attempt to study comparatively the translation technique, exegetical method and theology of the targumim of these texts, although attention has been paid to a few of the "messianic" references in them. In this paper, I shall present some of the results of a comparative study of these Aramaic versions, employing methodology which I have used in the analysis of other targumic texts such as Deuteronomy 32 and the targum of Psalms. I shall focus on both convergence and divergence among these targumim in the areas of translation technique, exegesis and theology.


“Revealed” and “Hidden” Law; Esotericism, Election, and Culpability in Qumran and Related Literature
Program Unit: Qumran
Shani Berrin, University of Sydney

Considerable attention has been devoted to the technical use of the terms “nistarot” and “niglot“ in early Jewish writings. Deut 28:29, the source for the word pair, establishes a general legal context for their usage. Specific exegesis has developed in two directions, focusing upon either (1) access to esoteric halakhic knowledge or (2) legal culpability. In both Qumran literature and rabbinic writings, the word pair may distinguish between privileged recipients of special revelation, and those “have-nots” with more limited access to divine law. Both corpora also use the word pair in a more legalistic manner: to distinguish between deliberate and inadvertent sin at Qumran, and between overt and covert transgressions in rabbinic writings. Although Deut 28:29 is not explicitly cited in the book of Jubilees, it lies at the heart of Jubilees’ concern with extra-Sinaitic revelation of divine law, and the roots of both of the above interpretations can be found in this work. For example the problem of individual culpability is bound up with the issue of unfolding revelation in Jubilees’ sympathetic treatment of Judah and Reuben. The issue is particularly illuminated by an examination of the significance of karet in our sources. At Qumran, one is liable to be "cut off" from the Community for deliberate transgressions. The rabbis associate the punishment of karet with covert transgressions. In Jubilees, early figures are liable to be "cut off" in various ways for violation of known laws, but have allowances made for violations of hidden law. There is a distinct correlation between laws subject to "karet" and a heavenly depository of legal knowledge. Lastly, there is assurance that secret transgressors will be subject to divine retribution.


Mary in the Tafsir Literature of the Shiite al-Tabarsi (d. 548/1153)
Program Unit:
David Bertaina, Catholic University of America

The Qur’an and its corresponding commentaries contain strong examples of Marian devotion in the Near East during late antiquity. This paper will examine a commentary (tafsir) entitled Majma‘ al-bayan li ulum al-Qur'an, composed by the Shi‘ite commentator al-Tabarsi who lived c. 470-548/1075-1153. After examining Tabarsi’s work in context, I will discuss the essential features of the Muslim Mary. These include her purity, virginity, role as model believer, and her status as the one chosen over the women of the world. Based on the evidence, we can ascertain points of convergence and divergence in the Marian traditions of Christianity and Islam. In this context, the Infancy Gospel of James shares a close relationship to the stories in Islamic commentary. I propose that commentators may have transmitted these stories via an Ethiopic or Syriac text. However, the paper concludes that the Muslim Tabarsi’s commentary is a figure of Muslim faith.


Weaving Houses for Asherah
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Thomas Beyl, Hebrew Union College

Are the commonly accepted ad sensum translations of the text “wove coverings for the Asherah” (II Kings 23:7 JPS) preferable to an ad verbum translation of the Masoretic text? This paper investigates the connection between Asherah and cult dwellings made of reeds. Utilizing Mesopotamian and Levantine iconographic and textual evidence, this study expounds on the connections between the Sumerian goddess Inanna, and the Levantine goddess Asherah. The evidence results in new proposals regarding the iconography of the Taanach stand and provides a practical framework for understanding the term battim as a reference to cultic dwellings.


Political and Theological Realities in Jeremiah
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Bryan D. Bibb, Furman University

The prophetic encounter between Jeremiah and the city leaders in Jeremiah 21:1-22:9 demonstrates the fundamental theological conflict between Jeremiah and the Jerusalem political class. This paper will examine the theological dynamics infusing this prophetic scene, arguing that Jeremiah reveals the emptiness of the Zion Theology espoused by Jerusalem's leaders. The theological principles underlying Zion theology could not be blind, Jeremiah says, to the requirements of the law. This analysis leads to two conclusions about the interrelation of theology and politics in Jeremiah: 1) Since prophetic oracles have real and immediate political consequences, Jeremiah's judgmental response to the prophetic inquiry paints the political leaders into a corner. They must either follow his advice, publicly denounce him as a fraud, or repress his message so that it cannot become a factor in the public debate about Jerusalem's capitulation to Nebuchadrezzar. 2) Since prophecy is founded on the conviction that all events are the direct result of divine decision, Jeremiah is less concerned with the “realities” of the political landscape than with the theological landscape of Yahweh's unfolding will. Ironically, though Jeremiah does not care about what is politically or militarily expedient, his advice holds the best chance for heading off the impending destruction of the city. If Jeremiah is oriented only toward the theological landscape, it is unclear, ultimately, what the thinking of the Jerusalem leadership is. The leaders are motivated either by a sincere belief that the political and military situation has shifted to their side, or by a belief that God is fighting on their behalf and will guard against any riskiness inherent in their plan of resistance. Is it more likely that they are astonishingly incompetent political realists, or foolhardy Zion Theology idealists blind to their impending doom?


Kennedy and the Gospels: An Ambiguous Legacy
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
C. Clifton Black, Princeton Theological Seminary

George Kennedy’s rhetorical criticism has yielded, to date, an equivocal influence on interpretation of the Gospels. This paper will offer an examination and diagnosis.


Lament for a Broken Body: The Complaint Psalms and the Fragmented Biblical Subject
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Fiona Black, Mount Allison University

Biblical scholarship has traditionally read the complaint psalms as inversions of their more usual counterparts, psalms of thanksgiving. As such, it has taken note of the speaker’s suffering, but ultimately has “read for the ending.” There, the speaker is usually released of the source of his grievances and order is restored. As a result, his lament—whether specific or styled—is effectively erased. Today, form-critical designations of psalms tend not to be ubiquitous, but many of their broader evaluations, including the trend described above, still influence contemporary readings. Rather than reading these texts solely within the dialectic of petition and rescue, however, I ask if it is possible to read them without recourse to the erasure of dissonance, without insistence that the divine character is predictable and prefers unity and coherence. The key might be the body. In all of these texts, the body is fragmented and abject: bones melt, tongues cleave to palates, predatory enemies lie in wait. These descriptions are usually understood as "stock imagery," or nondescript markers of suffering. It would appear, though, that fragmentation and annihilation, like the texts that contain them, are never nondescript; rather, they are particular, and subversive. The incoherent, piecemeal formulation of the body disrupts unity and demands that readers ask questions about subjectivity (the speaker's, and their own). In the end, and drawing on insights from theoretical work on the abject and melancholia, and on recent theoretical formulations of gender, it will be suggested that the physical body is an indicator of the speaker's fragmented sense of self, a fragmentation, moreover, which is essential to the practice of lamentation. The speaker's laments, rather than simply successful prayers for rescue, are readable as intermittent points on the journey between love and melancholia.


Is Peter Rehabilitated after His Denial of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew?
Program Unit: Matthew
Steve Black, Toronto School of Theology

Next to Jesus, Peter appears more often than any other narrated individual in the gospel of Matthew. His character has both been understood as a symbol of Christian leadership and as symbol of the Christian disciple. This all means that Peter’s subplot within the gospel of Matthew is important in determining the first evangelist’s message. Traditional interpretation has affirmed Peter's rehabilitation after his denial in this Gospel. This interpretation has come under fire by some recent commentators (namely Robert H. Gundrey and, Arlo J. Nau), who argue that Peter, at the end of the first gospel, has been either demoted (Nau) from his primary position or has turned from the faith altogether (Gundrey). If either of these readings were accepted, the implications for Matthew’s overall story are significant. This paper will argue that although there are some compelling elements in Gundrey and Nau’s argument, a traditional interpretation that rehabilitates Peter is more in keeping with the evidence found in Matthew. Nevertheless, a traditional interpretation will have to be nuanced somewhat to account for issues raised by Gundry and Nau.


A Fragment of Apocalyptic Ontology: 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 and Greco-Roman Philosophical Debates about the Coincidence of Opposites
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Ward Blanton, Luther College

This presentation will consider 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1 against the backdrop of Greco-Roman philosophical debates about the coincidence of opposites. The philosophy of this period inherited from its Classical predecessors lively debates about the way in which philosophy’s ability to reveal the truth (rather than the mere play of appearances made available by their sophistic or poetic counterparts) required that philosophers be able to distinguish between opposites like justice and injustice, virtue and vice, or being and non-being without becoming entangled in the endless mirror play such opposition-making seems to bring with it. While the philosophy of the Hellenistic and Roman periods often picked up these conversations in a less explicitly ontological mode than earlier thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, the uneasy problem of opposites and their possible coincidence remained a pressing issue. The paper will describe some of these Hellenistic and Roman philosophical discussions and their socio-political stakes, show their striking thematic and verbal similarities with 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1, and explore the way these comparisons afford a rethinking of this passage, Paul, and his Corinthian interlocutors. As my historical analysis is very relevant to recent philosophical receptions of Paul as a thinker of the “exception,” the untotalizable set, and even “anti-philosophy” by Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, and Giorgio Agamben, I will conclude with a brief consideration of the implications of my study for these interpreters of Paul.


David at the Cave of Adullam, Depression, and Hypergraphia
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Adrien Janis Bledstein, Chicago, IL

What if David wrote the psalms tradition ascribes to him? What if each prayer could be connected with a moment or period of his life? Would that change our perception of his heart, mind and soul? For adults in a congregational setting, I designed a course integrating Psalms which tradition attributed to David with the narrative about him in 1 Sam 16 through 1 Kings 2. A variety of insights emerged from this hypothetical construction. This paper focuses on one example, what I call “descent into the valley of dark shadows.” Utterly alone, David hid in a cave at Adullam. A series of prayers reveal a downward spiral from desperation through suffering, illness, and hopelessness. After acknowledging human frailty David began to rise, asserting confidence in his own righteousness. He emerged with strengthened trust in YHWH and renewed belief he would become king. Modern notions of depression and hypergraphia (ala A. W. Flaherty) provide insight into this extraordinary biblical personality.


"Against Them, My Son, Be Warned!" Reading Ecclesiastes as Satire Written by a Woman
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Adrien J. Bledstein, Independant Scholar

Full of contradictory observations about life, justice, and death, Ecclesiastes has long been a puzzle to readers. What if we take the end seriously and imagine a woman instructing her son with a satirical presentation of a “wise man.” Such a reading plays upon inconsistencies and turns upside down 7:“26 Now, I find woman more bitter than death; she is all traps, her hands are fetters and her heart is snares.” A mother might, with scathing humor, warn her son against pithy sayings advanced by a pompous man.


"My Mother Told Me Everything": Ezekiel Exagoge 34–35 and Myth
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
René S. Bloch, University of Lausanne

The point of departure of this presentation is an astonishing choice of words in Ezekiel’s Exodus tragedy Exagoge: In the beginning of the second fragment, Moses tells the audience that before his mother brought him back to the Egyptian princess, she „recounted everything and told me all about my ancestors and the gifts of God“ (verses 34-35). Remarkably, the word Ezekiel uses for „recounted“ is the verb mutheúein, which is used by Jewish (in particular Philo and Flavius Josephus) as well as Gentile authors (such as Euripides and Strabo) almost exclusively to describe the telling of fables and imagined stories or to delineate the plot of a myth. How can we understand Ezekiel’s surprising word choice, in particular given the context of Moses being instructed in the history of Judaism? This presentation will examine several examples of mutheúein in Greek literature in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of the Ezekiel passage. It will be shown that Ezekiel’s language usage situates itself within the tradition of Hellenistic tragedy, most closely aligned with the language of Euripides. The position occupied by the Moses story in the Exagoge is, in other words, similar to the position of a recounted myth in Greek tragedies. Moses’ mother tells her son - and Moses in turn tells the audience - the myth (or the fabula in an Aristotelian sense) of the Jewish people. At the same time, the Jewish tradition is never actually questioned: at least in the prologue Ezekiel adheres very closely to the text of the Septuagint and in the end, even the Egyptians are made to realize that they are helpless in front of the God of the Jews. Almost certainly staged in Alexandria, Ezekiel’s Exodus tragedy is a wonderful example of the negotiation of ethnic boundaries through a tactics of cultural convergence.


From Womb to Tomb: The Israelite Family in Death as in Life
Program Unit: Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Saint Joseph's University

Throughout the Iron Age (ca. 1200-586 BCE), Israelite burials reflect the centrality of family and community. The dead in their tombs provide a still-life picture of the living in their homes. Interpreted within the context of biblical and extra-biblical writings, burial remains suggest the deceased joined their ancestors and attained low-level divine status as indicated by the necromancer of En-dor referring to the deceased Samuel as elohim (1 Sam 28: 13). Those who possessed special powers in life, such as Elisha's ability to revive the dead, retained those powers after death (2 Kgs 4: 32-35; 13: 20-21). Accordingly, the living provided nourishment for the dead and consulted them. In burial, as in cultic practices in general, early Israelites followed indigenous customs. Alleged religious reforms, including efforts to curtail the cult of the dead, left no imprint in the physical burial remains.


Messengers of Hope in Haggai-Malachi
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Mark J. Boda, McMaster Divinity College

Recent work on the Book of the Twelve has consistently identified various sections of Haggai-Malachi as a corpus that existed prior to its incorporation into the Book of the Twelve. Many see Haggai/Zechariah 1-8 as an initial collection to which later (prior to inclusion and/or after inclusion in the Book of the Twelve) was added Malachi and Zechariah 9-14. This paper will investigate this corpus by interacting with past research and the text of these prophetic sections to argue that although each section in the corpus (Haggai, Zech 1-8, Zech 9-14, Malachi) displays an integrity of its own, the corpus as a whole is witness to a developing tradition, the resulting literature of which has been unified through a "messenger" leitmotif. This leitmotif, however, rather than signaling the end of prophecy (as argued by some) identifies the importance of prophetic, priestly and royal streams to the emerging hope for a heavenly visitation.


Judas and Iblis: From Evil to Tragedy and Back Again
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Whitney S. Bodman, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

This paper argues that Islamic interpretations of Iblis, and Christian interpretations of Judas Iscariot, follow common patterns of vacillation between understandings of the two characters as evil, and alternative, counter-narratives which portray each figure as tragic. Both the narratives and the counter-narratives are rooted in the authoritative Scriptures, the Qur’an and the Bible. Wolfgang Iser, a proponent of reader-response criticism, suggests that every narrative allows for a certain range of interpretation, with readers stretching the interpretative possibilities of a text, while the text itself imposes limitations on that range. The paper begins by surveying very briefly the layering of the Qur’anic stories of Iblis, and the Biblical stories of Judas Iscariot. I then give a brief account of the interpretive range of each character. In the case of Iblis, I describe the dominant interpretation that sees Iblis as a proto-Shaytan, a thoroughly evil character. The tragic counter-narrative can be seen in Sufi literature, from the pens of Rumi, Hallaj and Sana’i among others, in legends preserved by al-Majlisi, and finally in the modern writings of Muhammad Iqbal and Tawfiq al-Hakim. A similar range of interpretation is traced for Judas Iscariot, with the dominant interpretation of Satan dwelling within him, but complicated by stories of an ancient more sympathetic Gospel of Judas, by medieval Oedipal legends of his birth and life, romantic depictions of an anguished Judas, and modern dramatic interpretations such as those in Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. I will conclude with a re-examination of the texts from which these interpretations allegedly derive, the Gospels and the Qur’an, suggesting that the texts are interpreted in the light of human experience and certain theological premises to yield a significant, but not unlimited, range of interpretation that stretches from evil to the tragic, but no further.


Public Opinions: A Bakhtinian Reading of 2 Samuel 3
Program Unit: Bakhtin and the Biblical Imagination
Keith Bodner, Tyndale University College

In The Dialogic Imagination, Mikail Bakhtin articulates his theory of pseudo-objective motivation by drawing on, among other works, Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. This short paper has two parts. First, I will briefly survey Bakhtin’s theory of pseudo-objective motivation and his discussion of Little Dorrit. Second, I will then suggest that the notion of pseudo-objective motivation may illuminate certain aspects of 2 Samuel 3, an episode that features the assassination of Abner (commander-in-chief of Israel’s “northern alliance”) and King David’s apparent innocence. I will suggest that that key lines in this episode are 2 Samuel 3:36-37, where the crowd’s response to David’s elaborate mourning and funeral lament for Abner is given: “And all the people noticed, and it was good in their eyes; indeed, everything the king did was good in the eyes of the people. Thus all the people knew, even all Israel, on that day that it was not from the king to cause the death of Abner son of Ner.” My thesis is that not only does consideration of pseudo-objective motivation serve to illustrate the versatility of Bakhtin’s theory, but also has useful application in the analysis of this important stretch of biblical narrative.


The Strange Death of Ish-bosheth: Solutions to a Text-Critical Mystery
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Keith Bodner, Tyndale University College

The troublesome reign of Ish-bosheth comes to a graphic conclusion when he is assassinated – seemingly at midday while reclining on a couch in his own house – by two of his own captains, the brothers Rechab and Baanah. Ish-bosheth himself is something of an enigmatic figure in the Deuteronomistic History; he does not do a great deal in the narrative apart from tremble in fear. Ish-bosheth only speaks one line in the entire narrative (2 Sam 3:7), and this sentence itself is awkward and indirect. In light of the artful enterprise of the Deuteronomist with respect to Ish-bosheth’s characterization, it is not overly surprising that the manner of Ish-bosheth’s death should be shrouded in ambiguity. That Ish-bosheth is assassinated there is no doubt; the guilty are charged and duly executed. But the puzzle is how exactly the murder takes place – and this is subject of my paper – as there are significant discrepancies between the Hebrew and Greek texts. The MT seems to imply that the brothers gain access to the house by impersonation and stealth, and subsequently eliminate their target. The LXX, by contrast, introduces a new character into this somnolent drama – a doorkeeper – whose siesta allows the assassins to enter the inner chamber of Saulide king. After summarizing the key differences between the MT and LXX in this passage and discussing some of the literary implications that emerge when these textual trajectories are compared, I will survey a number of “solutions” posited by scholars and evaluate the various attempts to resolve this text-critical mystery.


Visualizing the Gospels
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Sean Boisen, SemanticBible

Information visualization is an established computer technique for providing rich, typically interactive, visual presentations of complex multivariate data. In this paper we present several visualizations of the Gospels texts, focusing on the length and overlap (or lack thereof) of their various accounts. The fundamental data comes from Composite Gospel Index (http://www.semanticbible.org/cgi/cgi-overview.html), a unified index and alignment of the pericopes in the four canonical Gospels, expressed in the Resource Description Framework (RDF), an XML-based language for representing meta-data. The Composite Gospel Index as the underlying data source will be briefly introduced, followed by several live visualization examples based primarily on treemaps, a "space-filling visualization" that uses size and color to effectively show complex relationships, developed by Ben Shneiderman of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland. Our claim is that treemaps are a novel and useful tool for investigating textual overlap within the Gospels.


Aesthetic Intensification at the Red Monastery Church (Sohag, Egypt)? Evidence from Wall Painting Conservation
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Elizabeth S. Bolman, Temple University

The church sanctuary at the Red Monastery (Deir Anba Bishay) near Sohag, in Upper Egypt, provides interesting opportunities to consider questions of change and continuity in Late Antique aesthetics. This trilobed eastern end includes two tiers of niches (framed with pilasters, columns, and entablatures), surmounted by three massive semidomes. Not only were all interior surfaces originally covered with painted decoration, but uniquely, most of it remains. Results from on-going wall painting conservation have permitted surprising new art historical conclusions. These include the partial reconstruction of the first phase of painting in the church, dated approximately to the time of the building’s construction circa 500 C.E. New art historical evaluation of the now visible paintings makes it possible to redate the final major phase of painting from the fourteenth century to circa the eighth century C.E., making the entire effect of the paintings evidence of Late Antique aesthetics. We can now suggest the dominant visual effect of three major phases of decoration in this sanctuary. While no textual sources survive about this monument and its decoration, from the period in question, I am nevertheless in a position to advance some preliminary hypotheses about the reception of the first two major phases. As evidence, I use evaluation of the changes in the visual programs, and textual sources on Late Antique aesthetics.


A Formalist Hears the Dependence of Acts on Luke: The Hinge Points in Early Acts
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Paul Borgman, Gordon College

In "Luke-Acts: The Whole Story" (soon released by Eerdmans), I argue that witnesses in Acts neither add nor subtract a thing from the Way of salvation taught by Jesus, as represented in Luke's gospel. The narrator provides four hinge points ("hearing clues") in early Acts: (1) a paralleled preface, with an echo of "instruction"; (2) prefatory instruction regarding "the kingdom" (Acts) has been summarized in the most crucial of all hinge-points, the paralleled last-words speeches which challenge witnesses to teach "these things": (summarized by summary-word, "repentance") and the divine imprimatur (summary-word, "resurrection") on God's Chosen, Messiah, and on his teaching of the Word (resurrection); and the Holy Spirit, whose coming is critical for salvation, for empowerment to do the heard word (Lk 24:45-49; Lk 11:13, anticipatory for Holy Spirit). (3) The paralleled departure scenes-end of Luke's gospel, beginning of Acts-emphasizes a role of the witnesses that parallels that of their Lord: they are empowered by the descent of the Holy Spirit as was Jesus. Departure makes possible descent, and carrying on. (4) The narrator's insistence on beginning Acts with concern for the twelfth apostle reiterates from the gospel the key role of Israel, saved Israel, "servant Israel" (Lk 1:54) in bringing the blessing of salvation to all peoples (Acts 3:25). Luke's gospel and Acts might be "a single continuous work" (Henry Cadbury); what my formalist reading/hearing provides is pattern recognition, the extent to which Acts depends on Luke's gospel for its meaning--correcting reductionist views of Acts: as a "history of the church" (Talbert); a playing-out of "divine necessity" (Mark Reasoner); an interpretation of the cross and salvation that goes beyond the so-called "ethics" of the teaching of Jesus (C.K. Barrett). Formalist viewing patterns: I conclude with speeches of Peter (7) and Paul (7) for "these things": "repentance," "resurrection."


Spiritual Growth in the Gospel of Philip (NHC II, 3)
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Gerrit K. Bos, Vrije Universiteit-Amsterdam

Since Schenke's first article in 1959 the Gospel of Philip has mostly been interpreted within a Valeninian frame of reference. While some consider the gospel as coming from mainly one source (Schenke, 1997), others have proposed the work originating from several sources (Turner). Recently Luttikhuizen has related the Apocryphon of John with a form of middle Platonism influenced by Aristotelian ideas. An approach with a similar philosophical framework can be a helpful alternative for interpreting the Gospel of Philip. The cosmology and anthropology used in this gospel is based upon the aristotelian distinction of a nous, a logos and a soul. Each of the three elements uses a specific form of pneuma as its instrument. After baptism a fourfold proces of spiritual growth can be discerned related to the logos and nous and their specific form of pneuma. The paper discusses the instances in the Gospel of Philip in which a fourfold division is mentioned: e.g. par. 115 (p. 79, 18-30); par. 20 (p. 56, 13-15); par. 68 (p. 67, 27-30). On the basis of this fourfold pattern the relation between the Gospel of Philip and the Exegesis of the Soul that Krause proposed in 1975 should be reconsidered.


Whose Child is This? Elisha and the Woman of Shunem (2 Kings 4:8–37)
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Johanna W.H.van Wijk-Bos, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

In the recent past this story has been examined from a variety of feminist perspectives that assign patriarchal power to Elisha and female subversiveness to the Shunamite, finally put in its place by the prophet. My examination of the narrative calls into question an understanding of Elisha as the representative of patriarchal power by destabilizing his character and by raising the possibility of at least an initial absence of resources and by a recognition of need on the part of the "man of God." This absence and lack compare to a presence of resources on the part of the Shunamite, including the right to exercise "sexual hospitality." The narrator chose not to openly discuss the nature of the relationship between the main actors in the story but left behind a number of clues about its true character through phrasing and use of symbol. By following these clues one may arrive at a more complex interpretation of both Elisha and the Shunamite than otherwise possible.


Reprehensible Fluidity: Menstruation and the Significance of the Body in Leviticus
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Johanna W.H.van Wijk-Bos, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

An examination of biblical perspectives on the body, specifically the female body, through the lens of legislation concerning genital discharge in leviticus 15. A strong taboo surrounding menstrual blood has endured through the ages until today and is still overtly or covertly present in the rationale for barring women from ordained office in large sectors of the Christian Church. Shame, misunderstanding and secrecy all too often shroud the topic of menstruation between women and men, and among women themselves. A serious consideration of the posture toward the body from which the Levitical text proceeds may provide helpful starting points for a lifting of this veil of secrecy and for a discussion of the body as the vehicle of the approach to God and of God's presence in the world.


“The Word Moved into the Neighborhood”: Rethinking Issues of Quality in Bible Translation
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Freddy Boswell, Wycliffe Bible Translators

The issue of quality is rooted at the heart of Bible translation practice, but the author shows that definitions of quality are extremely diverse and continuing to emerge. The author interacts with the commonly accepted tenets of accuracy, clarity, and naturalness, commenting particularly on how perceived inaccuracy can sabotage public reception of a translation. Reflections on the phenomenal reception and sales of The Message cause us to consider the place of quality (and resulting acceptability and usability) vis-à-vis a pragmatically expressive translation. Moving from theory to practice, the author outlines curent trends in promoting good quality translations, noting training materials for mother tongue translators which are under development and tools for accessing contextual information. The paper concludes with a brief summary of key points made on this overall theme at the Bible Translation 2005 conference, held in Dallas in October. The author particularly notes issues related to the impact of quality upon on-going work in lesser-spoken languages of the world.


Teaching Creation as a Case Study
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
David A. Bosworth, Barry University

Most Hebrew Bible classes begin with creation, which provides an instructor an excellent opportunity to challenge the worldviews of students, discuss the details of biblical interpretation, and prepare students for the remainder of the semester. The case study that I will outline uses news items to get students interested in the biblical creation stories. The case was taken from the Dover Area School District in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the school board incorporated intelligent design into the public high school biology curriculum. Naturally, law suits followed. Students read several news reports, including material from the Dover Area School District website. Students were asked to come up with one major question that, in their judgment, was at the center of the dispute. They were also asked to ask several “smaller” questions that would need to be answered in order to resolve the one major question. These student questions (modified and arranged by me) became the basis for the module on creation. Students study the Genesis creation accounts, the Enuma Elish, scientific discoveries concerning origins, and compare these accounts with one another. Additional readings include the Catholic document Dei Verbum, the conservative Protestant “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” creationist websites, and documents concerning the separation of Church and State. Through readings, discussion, and “low stakes” writing assignments, students consider what the various creation stories suggest about the universe and the place of humans within it. They discern why some people want creationism or intelligent design taught in schools, and why others (including religious people) strongly object. They also learn how to perform a detailed exegesis of a biblical passage and the major issues involved in biblical interpretation.


The History of Melchizedek in the Slavonic Tradition
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Christfried Böttrich, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität

The History of Melchizedek in the Slavonic Tradition


Mixed Conversational Dynamics and Male Deafness to Lady Wisdom
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Carlos R. Bovell, Institute for Christian Studies

Empirical studies have shown that conversational behaviors in mixed groups and between married couples tend to evince an implicit power structure that largely corresponds to that of the wider culture. The pattern is such that although women have a tendency to talk more and bring up a wider range of topics, their proposed topics of discussion are less likely to be accepted by men than vice versa. Furthermore, men, by use of varied interruptive discourse strategies, have a tendency to establish control of conversations in a way that women typically do not (again, in mixed company). My proposed paper will examine the apparent inability of Lady Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs to keep her male audience’s attention in light of contemporary theories of language and gender. An interesting contrast can be made, I think, in light of the above insights into language and gender between Lady Wisdom and Dame Folly; their respective communicative strategies; and their respective measures of success as they vie for the attention of prospective young male interlocutors. I would suggest further that the biblical author(s) of Proverbs may have intuited such an asymmetrical conversational dynamic and naturally construed the persona of Lady Wisdom as they did, understanding the prospects of a truly successful dialogue (or ‘communication’ a la Irigaray) between Lady Wisdom and a wisdom-questing ‘son’ as a virtual mission impossible.


A New Fragment of the Acts of Peter?
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Francois Bovon, Harvard University

While engaged in my current research on byzantine hagiographical documents related to Stephen, the first Christian martyr, I discovered in a menologion a Greek fragment of six pages with the title “[Extracted] from the Acts of the saint apostle Peter.” It narrates the story of a confrontation of Peter, on his way to Azot, with seven demons and the apostle’s victory over them in which he forces his opponents to manifest their demonic identity that is hidden by an angelic appearance. The goal of my paper will be to present the fragment, to analyze its content, to evaluate the possibility of it being a section of the lost first part of the Acts of Peter and finally to compare it with a similar episode preserved in Arabic and in Ethiopic.


Excavating Christianities Past: The “Christianization” of the Durres Amphitheater
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Kim Bowes, Fordham University

Frequently the “Christianization” of buildings is assumed to be a synchronic process in which a single insertion of Christian liturgical space irrevocably converts a building to Christian use. The example of the amphitheater in Durres, Albania describes something quite different. New excavations and survey in this well-preserved amphitheater suggest that it underwent a series of Christian moments, followed by periods in which Christian structures and interventions were lost and buried, only to be ‘rediscovered’ and reinterpreted by later Christians. This paper surveys the thousand years of Christian activity and building in the Durres Amphitheater, from late antiquity through the Ottoman period. It will suggest that the Christianity of late antiquity served as a reference point which shaped later (both Medieval and Ottoman) Christian interpretations of the monument.


Hosea 1–3 and Rhetorical Strategies for Reading the Book of the Twelve
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Craig Bowman, Rochester College

The opening chapters of Hosea, positionally and rhetorically, set a tone and a rhythm for the whole Book of the Twelve, especially if the final editor of the BT strategically ordered the prophetic books that follow Hosea around a cluster of key terms that are based in Hos 1-3. Thus, a reading strategy emerges, which when discerned clarifies the rhetorical function of the Hosea prologue as a guide for reading the book of the Minor Prophets together. Incorporating recent work by Odil Hannes Steck, emphasizing the intrinsic “reading directions and reading paths” supplied by the BT itself, and by William Schniedewind regarding the most plausible periods for the formation of biblical textuality, literacy, and preservation, this paper argues for a simpler model of composition, redaction, and editing for the BT compliant with internal rhetorical clues within the BT itself and with external evidence for the development of writing and reading within the social history of ancient Israel.


Dionysus and the Septuagint: Bickerman Revisited
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Cameron Boyd-Taylor, University of Toronto

The noted classicist, Elias Bickerman, once observed that the Septuagint should be viewed as an important witness to the spread and influence of Dionysiac rites in the Hellenistic period. There are, of course, such texts as 3 Maccabees where direct reference is made to the cult. But what of the translational corpus? To what extent has Dionysiac terminology crept in here? Are there references or allusions to the cult in this literature? And if so, what do they tell us (if anything) about contemporary Dionysiac worship and the range of Jewish attitudes towards it? In this paper, I survey and critically assess a number of putative references to the cult against the background of Greco-Jewish interet in and ambivalence towards the mysteries.


Earth Community in Joel: A Call to Identify with the Rest of Creation
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Laurie J. Braaten, Judson College

The Book of Joel offers an excellent example of a text with a major focus on Earth Community. Joel 1-2 contains not only some of the clearest articulations in biblical literature of the voice of non-human creation, but it also issues a call for humans to identify with the rest of Earth Community. Nevertheless, most studies on Joel center on the common anthropocentric questions, e.g.: What is the historical crisis at hand bearing upon the human community? Why are humans being punished by the demise of their land, cattle and crops? While the book does indeed address the human community, a careful reading of Joel 1-2 reveals that the non-human community plays a major role here. Nature is presented as a model of the proper response to Earth Community's crisis at the hands of God. Joel admonishes humans because they have failed to identify and join with the mourning chorus of the rest of Creation. This lack of human identification and response seems to jeopardize the entire Earth Community. When humans finally do join with the rest of the mourning Creation, the entire Earth Community will be responding properly. God, in turn, will then act on behalf of this Earth Community – land, plants, animals, and humans. The current study will show how this human identification with mourning nature is found elsewhere in the Bible and in literature from Israel’s neighbors. It will also demonstrate that humans sometimes engaged in this mourning in imitation of nature without knowing the reasons behind the demise of Earth Community — as is apparent in Joel.


Teaching the Book of Proverbs via a Play
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Robin Gallaher Branch, Sterling College

As an Old Testament professor, I struggled with how to teach the Book of Proverbs and the genre of Wisdom Literature in general to my seminary students. As I read and re-read Proverbs, however, I saw it contained many character stereotypes. It is a very contemporary book, for it shows the qualities that contribute to success or failure in life over a long period. The characters in Proverbs, exaggerated as part of the genre, make important choices about how to live. I grouped verses about the types of people one sees daily in life's marketplace and wrote a vaudevillian-style play called "Life's Choices: A Play Based on Eight Characters in Proverbs." The play, containing musical interludes and dances, was so well received that it was videod professionally by the university and thereby became a permanent teaching tool for various Old Testament classes and modules. The actors, all associated with the seminary, wear nametags. The time is morning; the place is Main Street in a university town. Simple Youth, a first year student and the play's hero, faces many choices. He meets Sluggard, who tries to sleep all day; Drunkard, who totes a big wine bottle and looks for a fight; Satisfied Husband, a magistrate who constantly talks about his noble wife, the Proverbs 31 woman; Gossip, who delights in breaking up friendships; Adulteress, a lonely woman looking for men; Lady Folly, who likes the easy way; and Lady Wisdom, who invites everybody to her banquet. Which lifestyle will Simple Youth choose? The play clearly integrates the modern media and the biblical text in a contemporary, creative way.


Space for Joy: A Look at the Book of Job and Job Himself in Light of Some Principles in Wisdom Literature
Program Unit: Poster Session
Robin Gallaher Branch, Sterling College

Some commentators say the Book of Job, part of the biblical genre called Wisdom Literature, presents a biblical perspective on suffering. Others see it as an internal biblical correction to retribution theology. Some argue that the righteous suffer without an adequate explanation from God. Wisdom Literature, however, looks at life from a long-term perspective. It bases success on right speaking, right relationships, and right actions. These principles hold true in Job. Wisdom Literature shows how to achieve a stable and successful life. Its keynote principles include the following: *Wisdom is a teachable, acquired skill *Wisdom's pursuit must be ongoing throughout life *Someone of Greater import teaches someone of lesser standing *The fear of the Lord enlarges one's understanding of God and life When God starts speaking to his servant Job in Chapter 38, God follows his own agenda. For example, God takes delight in outlining details of his creation. By sharing his thoughts with Job, he invites this righteous sufferer also to enjoy creation's wonders. Via his monologue, God puts in perspective Job's difficulties and hardships. God teaches Job. Significantly, God's agenda serves as an answer that satisfies Job. Throughout the book, Job grows as a character. He increases in wisdom. Arguably, he experiences joy in repentance (42:3, 6) and obedience (42:8, 10). Blessings and restoration come only after his wisdom lesson. He expresses awe and worship, clearly goals of Wisdom Literature. For Job, knowing God more deeply and hearing his voice bring this upright man joy. Amazingly, there is much space for joy in Job.


PastoralEpistles.com: Biblioblog? Annotated Bibliography? Or Something in Between?
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
R.W. Brannan, Logos Bible Software

PastoralEpistles.com is an attempt at sharpening the focus of a biblioblog. It is one part blog, to allow for the regular random-yet-informed musings that define the popular biblioblogs of the day. It is also one part annotated bibliography, with bibliography content added blog-style, integrated directly in the site RSS feed. This allows the regular addition and annotation of material into the normal flow of the blog. The software that is PastoralEpistles.com is a collection of scripts, written in JScript, running on Microsoft's Internet Information Server. The blog and other post data (e.g. bibliography information) is kept in XML. All posts and other entries have different sorts of metadata encoded to allow for future processes to create subject or reference indices of the site material. The structure of PastoralEpistles.com is extensible, so other "post types" may be added in the future, allowing PastoralEpistles.com to grow and adapt over time. For instance, an "article" post type could be created simply by adding an XML file that defines the structure of the "article" to the proper location on the server. This flexibility will hopefully allow PastoralEpistles.com to adjust itself as biblioblogs grow and mature over the next few years.


Meta-ethics, Identity, Social Identity: A Right Relationship with God and Ethics in Galatians
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Robert L. Brawley, McCormick Theological Seminary

I show a relationship between identity and ethics in Galatians by appropriating (1) philosophical approaches to identity of Charles Taylor, Paul Ricoeur, and Immanuel Levinas, (2) feminist perspectives on identity of Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Iris Marion Young, and Manuela Kalsky, and (2) social identity theory. Paul invests in building up the identity of the Galatians. At the heart of this identity is a relationship with God expressed by the verb dikaioo in 2:16 and by the fictive kinship of parent and child, the latter in relationship both to Abraham and God and to each other (offspring and siblings). In 2:16 Paul is concerned with how human beings stand in a relationship with God. One basic meta-ethical question is how ethical judgments can be justified. For Paul, the issue is more radical: How can a human being be justified? Justification is not dependent on ethical action but on a relationship with God. That is, Paul enters the discussion about justification at a meta-ethical level. Justification is the presupposition, source, conviction, and power for ethics. This plays out in two ways. (1) Paul judges that the behavior of Cephas, Barnabas, and other Judeans who withdrew from eating with Gentiles in Antioch is condemnable (2:11-14) on the basis of the way human beings are justified (2:16). (2) Paul moves from the way human beings are justified (2:16) to persuade the Galatians of their identity as God’s offspring and Abraham’s heirs. This identity includes being empowered by a dynamic relationship with the Spirit in 3:5 and a dynamic relationship with God in 5:16 expressed as living by the Spirit. This dynamic relationship with God is the source for the behavior of the Galatians (5:22-23).


Job as a Maieutic Text: Kierkegaard and the Incarnation of Indirect Communication
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Brennan Breed, Princeton Theological Seminary

I will explore Kierkegaard’s use of the book of Job. I argue that Kierkegaard sees Job the character and the story as ‘indirect communication,’ closely modeling his own work. Following a discussion of Kierkegaard’s intertextuality, I will describe his attempt to write maieutic texts based on his principle of indirect communication. For Kierkegaard, the point of a maieutic text is to force the readers to contemplate themselves and live thoughtfully as a result. Since this cannot be communicated with cognitive propositions, Kierkegaard employs irony, humor, and confusion to subvert commonly held and unquestioned ideas. He thus build texts that do not communicate what they seem to say, but indirectly force the reader to struggle to comprehend, which is itself the goal. In Repetition and the Job discourse, Kierkegaard employs Job as a maieutic figure, who was not a teacher of facts but “left humankind only himself as a prototype.” Thus Kierkegaard saw both the form and content of Job to be similar to his own project. Job is an example of ‘repetition’ and a foil to other attempts to define the term in Repetition. As an exemplar of faith, which cannot be explained or systematized, Job can only be contemplated and possibly repeated. Maieutic teachers help Kierkegaard criticize philosophy as a whole, with emphatic jabs at Hegelianism. Literarily, Kierkegaard structures his book Repetition on the book of Job. This raises the possibility of reading the book of Job itself as a maieutic text of indirect communication. The structure, irony, genres, voices, and its subversion of received theology do not communicate cognitive theological propositions or even practical didactic teaching but rather draw the reader to think, question received theology, and ultimately, grow in faith.


Performing Lament Psalms: Tribal Death Rituals as Healing Practice
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
James Brenneman, Episcopal Theological School, Claremont

This paper argues for understanding the Psalms of Lament as performance: linguistic acts able to put into force a state of affairs that did not exist before their ritualized utterance. A "ritual sampler" comparing funerary rites described in Genesis 50 ("the days of weeping" over the death of Jacob) and that of the Dagara Tribe (Burkina Faso) will underscore the performative power of ritualized communal lament. Far from being "magical," such use of the Lament Psalms suggests a certain healing power made available through the social constellation between readers and the text, between the Divine and the text, between people and the Divine. Special attention will be given to particular Psalms that speak of the borderland between life and death (e.g., Ps. 88).


The Concluding Columns of the Anonymous Commentary on the Parmenides
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Luc Brisson, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

In this paper I would like to examine if, from the perspective of Porphyry (which, according to P. Hadot, should be the author of the anonymous Commentary on the Parmenides), it is possible to affirm that the second One (that of the second hypothesis of the Parmenides), which is participial being (tò ón), can participate in the first One (that of the first hypothesis of the Parmenides) which is infinitival being (to eînai).


"Cursing the Day" Revisited
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Brian Britt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Ancient Near Eastern lament texts such as the Laments for Damu and the Lament for the city of Ur contain the element of cursing the day that also appears in Job 3. Together with other patterns of resemblance between biblical and non-biblical laments, this element suggests the presence of widely-shared literary and perhaps cultural conventions for curses and laments over death and defeat. The question addressed in this paper is how to understand the relationship between cursing the day in the pre-biblical lament texts and in Job 3. By cursing the day of his birth, Job challenges core biblical values of procreation and divine creation. It has even been argued that Job 3 follows a step-by-step curse on the creation story of Genesis 1. Other commentators have observed how Job 3 strains against literary conventions by merging genres and issuing surprises. Through analysis of the literary elements of Job 3 in canonical context, I will show how Job 3 shapes and mixes elements of curse and lament tradition. This paper will thus argue that literary innovation in Job 3 turns the curse of the day into a reflexive model of tradition that includes but does not reduce to the powerful speech of lament and cursing.


After the Tsunami: God and the Bible in British Culture
Program Unit:
Ralph Broadbent, University of Birmingham

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The Reasonableness of Seeing the New Testament as an Inspired Book
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Thomas L. Brodie, University of Limerick

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The Priority of James: James with Jesus and without Paul
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
William F. Brosend II, Louisville Institute

Sharyn Dowd has famously said that James and Paul were using the same vocabulary, but a different dictionary. She is right as far as she goes, but she may not go far enough. What happens to our reading of James if we leave Paul out of the discussion altogether, and instead treat the Synoptic Jesus as James' primary conversation partner? Against a tradition of reading the letter of James alongside the letters of Paul, this paper summarizes the socio-rhetorical methodological presuppositions, and significant conclusions, that result from reading James without Paul. Accepting the tradition's attribution of authorship to James of Jerusalem, with a subsequent dating in the mid-to late 50's C.E., the letter of James is explored more for the light it sheds on the Jesus tradition than the shadows cast by Paul.


The Public, the Political, and the Private: The Literary and Social-Spatial Functions of Luke 18:35–19:48
Program Unit: Poster Session
Bart B. Bruehler, Emory University

Using a social-spatial mode of analysis based on the theoretical work of Robert D. Sack, this study will describe and defend a fresh classification of the ancient public-private spectrum. This classification draws upon a wide survey of extant literary material with special focus on Plutarch's "Precepts of Statescraft" and book IV of the "Life of Apollonius" by Philostratus. It will also be grounded in excavated archaeological realia from Pompeii, Palestine, and Ephesus. This study demonstrates that Luke 18:35-19:48 functions as a microcosm of the preceding material in the gospel and a transition into the passion narrative. In addition, this section of Luke's gospel contains 4 representative scenes that make it ripe for social-spatial analysis: Jesus performing a miracle on a road, Jesus encountering welcome and opposition in a city, Jesus teaching in a house, and Jesus travelling with his disciples. The proposed classification of public and private space in the Greco-Roman world will be applied in the exegesis of this representative section of Luke's gospel in order to show how the author has emphasized the unofficial public sphere and local politics in his particular portrayal of Jesus.


The Song of Songs and the “Enclosed Garden” in Paintings and Illustrations of the Virgin Mary
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Christina Bucher, Elizabethtown College

In European art of the 15th century, the Virgin Mary is frequently portrayed seated in an enclosed garden. This image, which art historians suggest symbolizes Mary’s purity, originates in the Song of Songs 4:12: “My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.” This paper will examine selected 15th-century European paintings and manuscript illustrations that associate Mary with an enclosed garden. Included will be paintings by Stefan Lochner, the Master of the Paradise Garden, the Master of the House-Book, Matthias Gruenewald, and Hans Memling, as well as a Book of Hours that is located in the Free Library of Philadelphia. The paper will explore ways in which other symbolism in these paintings and illustrations may have its origin in the Song of Songs, and it will identify other biblical texts that appear to underlie the artistic symbolism.


On Climbing the Cosmic Ladder: Clement of Alexandria's Hierarchical Cosmology and Its Innovations
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Bogdan G. Bucur, Marquette University

The surviving fragments of Clement of Alexandria's Hypotyposeis reflect the theology and practices of the "elders" – Jewish Christian teachers of earlier generations, among which an important place is held by Pantaenus. Underlying all of Clement's theology (doctrine of God, theory of prophetic inspiration, ecclesiology, ascetic theory) we find in these works a strictly hierarchical cosmology, featuring, in descending order, the Face, the seven first created angels, the archangels, finally the angels. This type of hierarchical cosmos is widely disseminated in Jewish and Jewish-Christian texts such as the 2 Enoch, Ascension of Isaiah, or the Epistula Apostolorum. Yet, Clement's account is problematic in that it seems to incorporate a contradiction. One set of texts (Excerpta 10, 11, 27) presents a cosmic hierarchy having at its top the seven protoctists, endowed with an eternal perfection "from the moment of their creation," who function as "high priests" of the archangels, just as the archangels are "high priests" to the angels, and so forth (Excerpta 27:2). In a second set of texts (Eclogae Propheticae 56-58), Clement interprets this process of initiation as a continuous ascent on the cosmic ladder, marked by a millennial "upgrading" from archangels to angels of the face, from angels to archangels, and from humans to angels. My paper will be setting out the principles governing Clement's hierarchical cosmos, and will propose a solution to the apparent contradiction between the two accounts. In essence, Clement of Alexandria internalizes the cosmic ladder and the associated experience of ascent and transformation, offering an early example of what scholars have termed "interiorized apocalyptic."


Biblical Hebrew Vocabularies
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Tim Bulkeley, University of Auckland

A collaborative, online, multidimensional free tool to facilitate teaching and learning of Biblical Hebrew vocabulary will be described. The project is based at the University of Auckland. The usefulness - and use - of the tool for students, and the possibilities for teachers to join the project, or to make use of the materials will be demonstrated.


YHWH’s Cult Statue in Post-Exilic Judaism: A Linguistic and Theological Reinterpretation of Ezekiel 28:12
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Silviu N. Bunta, Marquette University

The paper focuses on the differences in the manuscript traditions of Ezek 28:12. In 1954 G. R. Driver concluded in a major article that the LXX version is the product of a misreading of toknit, perfection, as tabnit, pattern. Driver’s arguments have since been followed by subsequent analyses of Ezek 28:12. The primary purpose of the present paper is to evaluate critically Driver’s findings. What Driver did not address is the meaning and the viability of the LXX “misreading.” Did anything in the ideological context of LXX probably even influence and solicit this interpretation? Moreover, if such incubative ideological context for the LXX version did exist in the first half of the Second Temple period, can it not be traced back to the time of Ezekiel? Could it not very well be that it is not the eyes of the translator to blame for the LXX version, but rather the eyes of the author himself? Ultimately Driver’s arguments do not prove the priority of the MT version over the LXX, but rather clarifies the connection between them, which is either way a misreading, subconsciously inoculated and innocuous ideologically or not. An analysis of early post-exilic ideologies will evince a shift from the preexilic theology surrounding the cult statue of YHWH in the First Temple. With the First Temple and its statue no longer extant, the presence of YHWH in the sacred space had to be reinterpreted. In a profoundly liturgical mentality the statue of YHWH is replaced in functions, namely in its value as physical presence and iconic representation of YHWH, by a new theophoric concept, kabod, and a new theomorphism, Adam. The present paper argues that the LXX version of Ezek 28:12 reflects, concomitantly or not, synchronically or diachronically, this early post-exilic shift in Israelite ideology.


“Going Down” to Bethel: Elijah, Elisha, and Theological Geography in 2 Kings 2
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Joel S. Burnett, Baylor University

The statement in 2 Kgs 2:2 that Elijah and Elisha “went down” from Gilgal to Bethel has long puzzled commentators. Some have assumed that the passage refers to a Gilgal in the hills of Samaria. Others, recognizing the larger passage’s connections with the Joshua 3–4 account of the Jordan’s crossing at Gilgal near Jericho, assume this to be the Gilgal in 2 Kings 2 and are left simply to ignore the directional detail in v. 2. My aim in this paper is to examine this apparent dilemma of historical and biblical geography in the light of relevant literary and theological factors. I will consider whether, in view of the Deuteronomistic context of this passage, the reference to “going down” to Bethel from Gilgal is to be understood not as topographical but as theological and polemical in nature. That is to say, for the Deuteronomistic History, which elsewhere express a special antipathy reserved only for Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25-13:34; 2 Kgs 23:15-20), does the language employed here serve as the theological opposite of “going up” to other sanctuary sites, most importantly Jerusalem (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 19:14; 2 Kgs 20:5, 8; 23:2)? This understanding might explain not only the geographic conundrum mentioned but other apparent oddities of this passage as well, namely, Elisha’s cursing and the resulting deaths of the young boys who exhort him to “go up” on his way to Bethel and the prophet’s subsequent itinerary involving Carmel and Samaria (vv. 23–25).


The Essene Aesthetic and Social Differentiation in Post-70 C.E. Judaea
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Joshua Ezra Burns, Yale University

The current study aims to identify the determining factors in the formation of social boundaries between Jewish groups in Judaea following the quelling of the Judaean revolt in 70 C.E. Conventional historiography of this period has yielded a scenario wherein the sectarian composition of pre-70 Jewish society ceded to a program of homogeneous reorganization, reevaluating prior secatian ideologies for the benefit of a Jewish people whose former social fragmentation had recently played a role in the deleterious campaign against Rome. While the failure of the revolt provided adequate grounds for a general reevaluation of the notion of religious and political factionalism, it is the position of the author that the disaster likely did not radically alter the social behavior of the individual sectarians. Those sectarians who had been active participants in the broad social canvas of pre-70 Judaea would have had little trouble integrating with the homogeneous provincial society of post-70 Judaea. However, the Essenes, who had famously removed themselves from the broader Jewish populace during the late Second Temple era, would have encountered manifold difficulties in the process of social integration. Whereas Pharisees and Sadducees would have had to make significant ideological concessions to social homogeneity, Essenes would have had to undertake a far more radical program involving behavioral reform as well. Such concession would have included migration to urban environments, adoption of new modes of diet and dress, and neglect of their idiosyncratic standards of ritual purity and communal organization. Factors such as these likely discouraged many Essenes from complete integration with the homogeneous post-70 Jewish society known to the rabbis, thus providing a formidable demographic basis for the continued occurrence of post-70 Jewish groups noted for operating outside of the bounds of perceived normative Jewish society.


Paul's Letter-Spirit Contrast and Hellenistic Kingship Ideology
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Brett D. Burrowes, Siena College

It has often been assumed that Paul simply derived his letter-spirit contrast (Rom 2, 7; 2Cor 3) from the OT account of the law inscribed on stone (Exod 31:18) and the prophecies of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. But this background is insufficient, since no contrast is present in those contexts. Among Jewish writers, only Philo uses gramma with respect to the Scripture or to a command in the law, but again no contrast is intended. Philo also never uses gramma with a pejorative sense as Paul does (the “oldness of the letter” and “the letter kills”) and Philo never denies the life-giving character of the law. Thus Philo's use of gramma is also insufficient as a background for Paul's though and we should look outside Judaism for the background of Paul’s use of gramma. Gramma is used in a pejorative sense by the Hellenistic philosopher Pseudo-Archytas, who contrasts the lifeless letter of the law as written (apsuchos gramma) with the king as living law (empsuchos nomos), as the living embodiment of virtue. This contrast of gramma and king as empsuchos nomos may have influenced Paul, albeit not directly, but through the medium of popular street philosophy. I propose that Paul contrasts the written letter of the Mosaic legislation with the Spirit of Christ as the exalted king and kurios (Rom 1:3-4, 10:9, 2Cor 3:17-18), who is in some sense identified with a higher form of law (“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2). According to Paul, the indwelling Spirit of the exalted Lord transforms believers into the image of God that the king is (an additional element of Hellenistic kingship ideology), enabling them to live lives of virtue not possible under the "oldness of the letter."


Early Christian Asceticism and Family Values
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
Virginia Burrus, Drew University

This paper will address the usefulness of the category of “the family” from the perspective of the study of early Christian asceticism and of the general ascetic tendency of early Christianity itself. Erotic and pedagogical cultures, for example, had arguably always existed in some tension with “family values” in many periods and parts of ancient Mediterranean society. Ascetic practice may be seen to have participated in and intensified cultural ambivalence toward the familial, even as it also not infrequently presented itself as a revision (rather than simply a repudiation) of the familial, with particularly significant implications for reconfigurations of gender and sexuality. Of interest here, then, are the ways that Christian ascetic practices and social formations, especially in their erotic and pedagogical dimensions, interact with and complicate models of “family,” both ancient and contemporary.


The Testimony of History and the Ideology of Testimony in Provan, Long, and Longman’s A Biblical History of Israel
Program Unit: New Historicism and the Hebrew Bible
Sean Burt, Duke University

The recent book, A Biblical History of Israel, coauthored by Iain Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman III, attempts to counter the current trend in biblical historiography of rejecting the reliability of biblical texts on account of their ideological nature. Ideology, they observe, inheres in every account of the past, and therefore historians cannot but rely on ideologically fraught stories. Provan, et al., seek to reframe the question, turning ideology, a distorting force, into “testimony,” a constructive building block for knowledge about the past. This paper discusses the validity of their use of testimony and ideology, with reference to the concept of ideology in the work of Louis Althusser. On one level, their attention to the ubiquity of ideology (cf. Althusser’s notion that ideology has no history) is healthy, since it draws attention to the social nature of knowledge and rejects the naïve empiricism of the master-knower. On another level, however, it dulls the critical edge of attention to ideologies, and the particular ways in which they integrate subjects into them (a criticism also sometimes levied at Althusser). A Biblical History’s homogenizing of ideology inhibits the authors from turning a critical eye on their own concept of testimony, particularly on the questions of whether or how biblical texts can be considered testimony. This paper agrees with Provan, et al. that history-writing subjects do indeed employ testimonies, but adds the corollary that testimonies, like ideologies, interpellate historians as subjects. In the case of Provan, et al., the authors do not recognize how the testimony of the Bible as history hails them as participants in and heirs of that history.


Dialogues of Empire in Mark's Gospel
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Austin Busch, Stanford University

The demonic Legion possessing the man who lives among the tombs in Mark 5:1-20 seems to be a transparent allegory of resistance to Roman imperialism. Jesus' expulsion and destruction of Legion would place him in opposition to Roman imperial power (i.e., the Roman "legions"), which Mark's story literally demonizes by portraying as a horde of devils. Yet this pericope's representation of Rome is actually far more ambivalent than that. The pronouns with which Legion refers to itself are unstable: they shift ungrammatically from singular to plural throughout the story (see 5:10, 11, etc.), drawing attention to the fact that Rome, like the demoniac Legion here representing it, was, to use a Bakhtinian category, polyphonic, speaking with different voices. While some voices were undoubtedly cacophonous, others were appealing indeed, as imperial ideological literature and propaganda of the period amply demonstrate. Since the demoniac Legion, like the Rome it represented, was not monolithic, Jesus' attitude toward Legion cannot be straightforward. Therefore, while Jesus does cast the spirit(s) out, he also mercifully grants their final request not to expel them from the country they occupy, but rather to allow them to enter a nearby herd of swine (5:10-13). Jesus' action can be variously interpreted, but at one level at least it demonstrates his compassion for Legion. Jesus' ambivalent response to Legion, which involves condemnation in dialogue with sympathy, emblematizes Mark's dialogic representation of Roman imperial power throughout the gospel, especially in Jesus' trial and crucifixion (ch. 15) and in the controversy about paying taxes to Caesar (12:13-17), both of which I shall also discuss.


Language Issues with Greek Bible: Youdith, Tobit, Yosef, and Aseneth
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Randall Buth, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Several Second Temple Jewish writings are extant in Greek and have complex questions of original language and redactional history. As an example, Youdith is commonly thought to be originally Hebrew though it has been recently claimed that its use of specifically Greek Bible quotations in sensitive contexts shows it to be a Greek composition. Better may be to posit a complex history that includes a Hebrew original, translation and exegetical expansion within the Greek tradition. Tobit shows a very complex tri-lingual development. Language evidence suggests that it started out in Hebrew, added an Aramaic translation (with multiple pre-Christian recensions?) and also a multi-versioned Greek translation. This attested complexity (multi-lingual and multi-recensional) of Tobit needs to be remembered when approaching works like Youdith and Yosef and Aseneth. With demonstrations of such textual, translational and redactional complexity, the pedigree of a book like Yosef and Aseneth needs re-evaluation. The most difficult question is the relationship to the Old Greek, not just in text citation but also in possible word-crafting. Analysis of the Greek texts with sections of tight Hebraic-Greek (literal translationese) and pools of clearly Greek composition point in the direction of a history at least as complex as Youdith’s, including a viable thesis for an original Hebrew story.


Topic and Focus in Biblical Hebrew..., If BH is VSO, if Biblical Hebrew is SVO
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Randall Buth, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The terms Topic and Focus refer to linguistic features of discourse that encode instructions for the reader-listener to facilitate the effective communication of the intended message. While the precise semantics and pragmatics continue to be debated within linguistics, their affect on the syntax of languages, like Biblical Hebrew, is easier to identify: they often result in the 'fronting' of the constituents which carry the Topic or Focus. However, discerning whether a given constituent at the front of a BH clause has been fronted because it presents a Topic or Focus presents challenges for a reader. In addition, questions may arrive as to whether every fronted constituent is marked and representing a pragmatic function, how to distinguish them, and the scope or functions of Topics and/or explicit Subjects within a larger discourse..These two papers will use the text of Ruth and Jonah [also Judges 6 and 13] to present contrasting analyses, Randall Buth (VSO) and Robert Holmstedt (SVO), in order to illustrate best the implications of each position for the analysis of BH discourse-pragmatics and syntax.


Monogamy, Imprints, Arboriculture
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Ryan Byrne, Rhodes College

Response to Dever


Ambiguity and Expression: Genesis 18 and the Problem of "Myth"
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Dexter Callender, University of Miami

The study of Israelite religious discourse as manifested in biblical literature is properly undertaken as part of the larger question of religious discourse as a human phenomenon. Central to the discussion is the question of myth, which has been fiercely debated and vigorously reexamined by scholars across a wide range of disciplines for well over a century. Much of the recent discussion of myth within biblical studies has proceeded along lines of investigation which construe myth as genre-an approach driven largely by the positive results of anthropological and folklorist research. This paper endeavors to continue the re-examination of the term "myth" and its use as a conceptual tool for the study of Israelite religion and thought. It will do so both by pointing out limitations of the genre-based approach and by invoking judicious appeal to the "necessary fiction" approach, which frames "myth" with respect to the fictive aspect of all mental activity. Toward this end, this paper will focus upon Genesis 18-a passage in the patriarchal narratives, often treated as saga-and its seemingly deliberate ambiguity in depicting the divine presence encountered by Abraham. Insofar as recent discussion of the patriarchal narratives typifies the state of the question in biblical studies, the text provides a useful focal point for reflection on the question for biblical studies and for the broader debate. The paper will argue that the employment of ambiguity in this setting is instructive with regard to certain intellectual contours of the question. Further, it will argue that an examination of the language of this particular account might fruitfully be incorporated into the broader effort to clarify the terminological issues of the debate and to advance the prospects for a new phase of resolution.


Reactions to Binary Messianic Expectation in the Second Temple Period: Its Expectation, Embodiment, and Rejection
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Robert R. Cargill, University of California, Los Angeles

John Collins has articulated the development and expectation of two messianic figures in the late Second Temple period. This paper briefly outlines this development, and proposes that the expectation of two messianic figures was held by various groups in the Second Temple period and was far more prevalent than previously thought. The paper then offers solutions employed by three specific groups to deal with the binary messianic expectation. 1) The Qumran sect expected two messiahs and wrote about or preserved writings endorsing this expectation (Damascus Document, War Scroll, 4Q285, 4Q174, etc.). 2) Shimon Bar-Kokhba and his followers attempted to embody the expectation of two messiahs by portraying Bar-Kokhba as the nasi’ (“prince”) of Israel and his companion priest Eliezar as the Priestly Messiah (Bar-Kokhba letters, numismatic record). 3) The Christian community, which also knew about the expectation of two messiahs, rejected the notion in favor of a singular messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. The Christians were forced to address the problem of a single individual (Jesus) fulfilling roles designated for descendents of two different tribes (Judah and Levi), and overcame it by employing a clever exegetical maneuver involving Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews. The Testament of Levi is also addressed as evidence of Christian knowledge of the binary model.


Old and New Observers Agree, "The Hills ARE Alive with the Sound of Music"
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Keith Carley, St John's College, Auckland, New Zealand

The iconic song of the 1960s – "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music" – conveys an insight that is affirmed both by numerous texts of the Hebrew Scriptures and by contemporary scientific theories. Moving beyond the human self as the centre of existence (Bede Griffiths) to recognise that "in creation all things are related" (Bruce Birch) assists our identification with Earth and all of her creatures. No longer can humans stand over against Earth as if their actions had no impact upon her. Nor can Earth any longer be regarded as an inert object impervious to violence, whether inflicted by God or by humankind. Every human activity makes an impact on the environment, and ethics for sustainable existence need urgently to be clarified. This paper will consider what can be learnt from the identification of Earth as Mother by the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa-New Zealand and their genealogies which link humankind with all aspects of creation. Among some Maori lethal combat was abolished and an egalitarian social structure reflected harmonious adaptation to their environment. There are important implications for our reading of the biblical text.


Identifying the Hand of Secret Mark
Program Unit: Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
Stephen Carlson, Fairfax, VA

The Secret Gospel of Mark is only known from a single manuscript of a previously unknown letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria that had been copied onto the end papers of a 17th century book. The experts consulted by the original editor of Secret Mark, Morton Smith, initially dated the hand to the 18th century, and this dating has not been seriously disputed since its publication in 1973. This study revisits the paleography of the manuscript by comparing the hand with MSS written at Mar Saba in the 18th century and concludes that the hand differs in many significant respects, including a "forger's tremor" and other mistakes in execution. This study also uncovers a second, previously unnoticed, MS at Mar Saba from the same hand, which Smith himself identified as belonging to a 20th century individual. Samples of that individual's Greek handwriting have been obtained and are found to account for the observed anomalies in the hand. The person who penned the Secret Mark MS is no longer a mystery.


The Moralized Bible as Paraenesis
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Susanna Bede Caroselli, Messiah College

The Moralized Bibles prepared for the French royal family in the 13th century contrasted visual images and texts from scripture with “moralizations” from contemporary life. This paper indicates that the choice of biblical narratives and the invention of the moralizations demonstrate an agenda on the part of the makers that may be characterized by the philosophical mode of paraenesis, an exhortation to engage in or refrain from a particular behavior. Textual and visual evidence suggests an origin for these bibles at the Augustinian foundation of Saint-Victoire, home to a number of celebrated monks/schoolmen including Hugh, Richard, and Andrew. Their program in the Bibles includes both the promotion of moral action by their monarchs and the encouragement of royal protection for philosophy, embodied by an extensive visual narrative of the Levite’s Concubine (Judges 19), at a time when Parisian philosophers were suspected of heresy by the University.


New Perspectives on the Deuteronomistic History through Chronicles: A Re-evaluation
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
David M. Carr, Union Theological Seminary

Since the pioneering work of de Wette almost 200 years ago (1807), one assured result of Hebrew Bible scholarship has been the idea that the books of Chronicles had the Deuteronomistic History as their source. Partly as a result of the finds at Qumran, this viewpoint has been refined lately to recognize the Chronicler’s use of a pre-Massoretic form of Samuel-Kings, and some (e.g. S. McKenzie and G. Auld) have even suggested that the books of Chronicles may provide evidence regarding earlier redactional forms of books found in the Deuteronomistic history. This paper explores these questions from the perspective of the oral-written educational model for ancient textuality advanced in the presenter's (D. Carr’s) "Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature" (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). First, working with comparative and text-critical evidence I argue that a primary Sitz im Leben for the sort of writing seen in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles was small-scale education that involved memorization and performance of written texts. Second, I show how this model makes clear that the Chronicles and Deuteronomistic History traditions are even closer in their synoptic portions than has been supposed previously. Third, in light of this research I provide a critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of G. Auld’s hypothesis of a shared source seen in the material shared by Samuel-Kings and Chronicles that was expanded by both (e.g. in Kings Without Privilege: David and Moses in the Story of the Bible's Kings [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994]). I will suggest that, though parts of Auld’s approach are weak and can be over-applied, his model may provide a compelling way to reevaluate, in a radical way, the formation of crucial parts of the Deuteronomistic history.


Being God's Wife: The Construction of Faithful Subjects in the Christian Bible
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
David M. Carr, Union Theological Seminary

This paper explores how biblical texts use various concepts of a "married female self" to develop constructs of "faithful people" and "faithful selves" (or their unfaithful counterparts). The distinctive aspects of these biblical portrayals are highlighted by comparing and contrasting them with other constructions of women as "lover" and/or "wife" in the Semitic and Greco-Roman worlds. Such diversity is found within the Bible itself, e.g. the picture of a woman as unmarried lover advanced in the Song of Songs, in contrast to the focus on married women, prostitutes, and other female roles elsewhere. This latter construction of the woman as "lover" has much in common with "sacred marriage" and related non-biblical texts, while the biblical constructions of woman-people as "wife" have much in common with treaty rhetoric where vassals were called upon to assume a female-like role vis-a-vis their imperial ruler. As we move to the New Testament, the inter-texts for constructions of the religious people or individual as female shift. In the Roman world, legal constructs of "married women" tended to focus on the virginal purity of a prospective bride (and protection of the virtue of the married woman). Philosophical constructs varied between Stoic idealizations of (pseudo-)companionate marriage as a foundation of the ordered society and Cynic critiques of male marital attachments as distractions from the pursuit of philosophy. These cultural streams may provide an important context for emphases in the New Testament on the church as the virginal bride of Christ and the arguments, particularly in Paul, for the implications of this conceptuality for the bodily sexuality of female and male believers.


John’s Gospel: Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Warren Carter, Saint Paul School of Theology

While much contemporary scholarship views John’s gospel as the “spiritual” and “anti-synagogal” gospel, John has seldom been viewed as a gospel involved in negotiating the Roman imperial world. This paper explores three ways in which the gospel engages Rome’s empire. It considers the gospel’s plot (the clash over power between Jesus, God’s agent, and the Jerusalem-centered, temple-based, Rome-allied elite that results in Jesus’ crucifixion), its central revelation of eternal life (physical transformation and establishment of God’s purposes in a world dominated by the urbs aeterna and imperium sine fine), and the creation of a community of friends of Jesus (in contrast to those who are friends of Caesar).


A Dragon in the Seas: Egypt in the Book of Ezekiel
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Corrine Carvalho, University of Saint Thomas

This paper examines the literary function of references to Egypt in the book of Ezekiel in light of the relationships between Egypt, Judah, and Babylon at the time of the text's production. This paper will be available on line prior to the meeting, and will only be summarized at the meeting.


Persecution Complexes and the Scriptural in Contemporary U.S. Political Discourse
Program Unit: Bible and Cultural Studies
Elizabeth Castelli, Barnard College

TBA


Romanesque Sculpture as Hermeneutic: Mâcon, Cluny, and the Last Judgment
Program Unit: Poster Session
Leslie Cavell, Albion College

The early twelfth-century porch, or galilee, of Burgundy's Mâcon cathedral enshrines a Last Judgment sculpture based only in part on the Gospel of Matthew and Revelation. Close-up photographs reveal narrative details not present in the texts, remarkably enough equating the cathedral with Heaven, its clergy with the Electors, and its adherents with the eternally Blessed. Reflexive imagery is unusual in Romanesque art, signaling an urgent local need to change people's perceptions of reality. Mâcon's cathedral clergy needed to reclaim social and spiritual authority lost to the increasingly prominent abbey of Cluny. To better understand how their visual exegesis of the Last Judgment helped satisfy the need to redefine spiritual leadership for the diocese, I employ principles of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. The reflexive visual details mentioned above, and others, draw the viewer's attention to the "otherness" of the galilee's central message. Roman-like architectural forms introduced at Mâcon echoed Christ's own physical surroundings, "fusing the horizons" of medieval and Early Christian worship. The continuing meaning of the Mâcon Last Judgment lies not only in its testimony to the lability of ecclesiastical hierarchy in the High Middle Ages, but in its compelling statement of spiritual and social self-determination.


Platonic Receptions of the Gospel of John: Marius Victorinus and His Predecessors
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Serge Cazelais, Universite Laval

This paper will focus on Marius Victorinus' Adversus Arium, a treatise replete with important platonic features. One of Marius Victorinus' main concerns is to harmonize these features with the Johannine Gospel's Prologue and certain other passages, such as the Jesus' dialogue with the Samaritan Woman in chapter 4 or the farewell discourse in chapter 14 (esp. vss. 7-10). Moreover, some of these sections of the Gospel were initially received and commented upon by Gnostics like Theodotus (apud Clement of Alexandria) and Heracleon (apud Origen, Commentary on John) but also by Plotinus' disciple Amelius (apud Eusebius). The question is, exactly which features of such Gnostic and Platonic interpretations of this Gospel contributed to its interpretatio platonica by Marius Victorinus?


Who Is the Real El? A New Proposal for Hosea 12:5a
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
R. Scott Chalmers, Lewis University

Scholarship has long held that there is no polemic against El in the Old Testament, and for all purposes that is practically true. In this paper I will propose however that the book of Hosea is one of the few places in the Old Testament where evidence for this transition from El to Yhwh worship can be found. In much of chapter 2, Hosea is intent on showing unfaithful Israel that they suffer from a case of mistaken identity: it is not Baal who provides fertility, but it has been Yhwh all along who has provided the grain, the wine, and the oil (2:8). This paper will attempt to show that when Hosea turns his attention to the cult at Bethel, he has a similar agenda, namely to proclaim that the God of the ancestor Jacob is not El but is rather Yhwh. This paper focuses primarily on a difficult and long controversial text in Hosea 12:5a: wysr ’l ml’k wykl, normally translated along the lines of “He strove with the angel and prevailed.” An investigation into the history of the text suggests that in all probability ml’k is a later addition to the text and that the MT’s preposition ’l was originally not a preposition at all but the divine name El. I conclude that in vv. 4-5 Hosea is in all probability quoting directly from a “Bethel liturgy” that celebrates Jacob’s meeting with El; my reconstruction of 5a reads wysr ’l wykl, “but El played the prince and prevailed.” But Hosea is intent on teaching Israel the true identity of the God of Jacob: “Yhwh is the God of Hosts, Yhwh is his Name!” (12:6)


The Cursing of the Temple and the Tearing of the Veil in the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
J. Bradley Chance, William Jewell College

The paper explores the literary connection between the pericope of the "cursing of the Temple" (Mk 11:15-17), which stands at the beginning of Jesus' passion, and the tearing of the Temple veil, which stands near the end of Jesus' passion (Mk 15:38-39). Whereas Mk 11:17 offered a word about the inclusion of the gentiles in the place of prayer, followed by a word of judgment against the Temple, the death scene concludes with a word of judgment directed at the Temple (the tearing of the veil), followed by a word of Gentile inclusion (the confession of the centurion). Judgment and proleptic destruction of the Temple, presumably for its unfaithfulness to be a place of gentile inclusion, must precede the inclusion of gentiles.


The Romanization of Jewish Palestine: What We Can Learn from Anthropology, Post-Colonial Theory, and Studies of Other Parts of the Empire
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Mark A. Chancey, Southern Methodist University

This paper considers the relevance of scholarly discussions of the processes of "Romanization" in other parts of the Empire (e.g., Western Europe, the United Kingdom, and North Africa) for the investigation of the Romanization of Palestine. Topics to be addressed include: the different approaches of recent major studies of the Roman East, such as those by Fergus Millar and Warwick Ball; various models used to understand Romanization (accommodation, assimilation, "veneer" or "overlay," etc.); ways in which material culture might reflect local resistance to imperial power; the significance of regional variations; and suggestions of how the insights of these studies might shed light on archaeological evidence from Palestine, especially numismatic images, artistic decoration of lamps, and inscriptions.


Woman, Satan, and the Curse: Job's Wife in Text and Image
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Cynthia Chapman, Oberlin College

This paper focuses on the pairing of Job’s wife with Satan in early Christian and Jewish midrash and in the visual narrative found in the early Christian sarcophagus of Junius Bassus. As the speaker of one tantalizing line – “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die” – the character of Job’s wife presented an open invitation for midrashic comment. An examination of rabbinic and early Christian written interpretations of Job’s wife demonstrates that one trajectory of interpretation linked Job’s wife to Eve in the garden. Both of these women were understood as instruments of Satan in their husband’s trials. The juxtaposition of Adam, Eve and the serpent with Job, his wife and Satan on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus represents a visual midrash on the character of Job’s wife. Moreover, the grouping of a third scene of divine trial from the Hebrew Bible on this sarcophagus – the binding of Isaac – suggests a need to consider Sarah as yet another wife who experiences the divine test by proxy and like Eve and Job’s wife proves inadequate to the challenge.


Jerusalem in the Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament in Light of Archaeological Discoveries
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
James Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary

A review of some references in the OTP and NT to Jerusalem and an exploration of ways archaeological discoveries over the past 40 years have enriched our understanding not only of pre-70 Jerusalem but also of asides to it that have often been missed by experts on the history of Second Temple Judaism.


Ophidian Symbology, Johannine Theology, and the Historical Jesus (John 3:13–16)
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
James Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary

This paper will explore several key questions relating to the background and interpretation of the "serpent" imagery in John 3. What is the meaning of the reference to “the serpent” in Jn 3 and how is it related to the Son of Man traditions in the Fourth Gospel? How has the exegesis of Numbers 21 and the perception of Genesis 3 informed the Fourth Evangelist's thinking? How does intertextuality help us grasp the meaning of this chapter? How and in what ways, if at all, has serpent symbolism shaped this saying of Jesus and how is it related to other sayings of Jesus? Finally, why have New Testament scholars not taken seriously the language of symbolism in interpreting John 3?


Nomina Sacra as Windows on Textual Authority and Comparative Transmission of Canonical and Non-canonical Gospels in the Second Century
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Scott Charlesworth, University of New England, Australia

Can the nomina sacra in canonical, apocryphal, and unidentified gospel papyri shed any light on the comparativetransmission of Christian gospels in the second century? The nomina sacra system standardised by the second century and found in the earliest papyri may represent a nascent Christian creed with Palestinian Jewish Christian origins. Perhaps the differentiation between secular and sacred terms was too complex to have been rightly used by ordinary scribes without official directive, so writings containing the nomina sacra may have been viewed as authorised and authoritative. Can the papyri support such a contention? If so, there are implications for present trends in text-critical scholarship


The Canaanite Women in Matthew 15:21–28 Revisited
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Emily R. Cheney, Athens, GA

Does a study of the two women as Canaanites have anything to offer an analysis of Matt 15:21-28? Literary analyses have focused on the mother’s persistence and self-denigration. These analyses have at times contrasted her responses to Jesus to those of the Roman centurion (8:5-13). Still others have noted that the Canaanite mother marks the peak of increased involvement of women in Matthew’s narrative, even though the silence of women during the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 is overlooked. In most of these studies, her conversation with Jesus marks the turning point of Jesus’, or at least the gospel writer’s, admission that the Christian community must include Gentiles, a position up to this point only implied. In addition, analyses have examined the power relations represented in the text to explain the woman’s words as defiance towards Jesus. The mother and her demon-possessed daughter, however, are not mere Gentiles; they are Canaanites, a factor not given much attention in these exegetical studies. As Canaanites they represent the epitome of everything despicable: sodomy, bestiality, idolatry, and especially child sacrifice (Lev 18:21-23, 20:3; Deut 12:31, 18:10-13; 1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 16:3, 21:6). Yet, this woman is foremost concerned not about child sacrifice but about ending the suffering and pain of her child through the relinquishment of the demon within her daughter’s body, even if it means that she must experience Jesus’ disinterest and verbal abuse. This paper will explore and examine the images and characteristics of Canaanite religion that could have been familiar to Matthew’s community and the manner in which the author dismisses these features so that the two Canaanite women are helped but nevertheless remain outsiders.


The Canaanite Women in Matthew 15:21–28 Revisited
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Emily R. Cheney, Athens, GA

Does a study of the two women as Canaanites have anything to offer an analysis of Matt 15:21-28? Literary analyses have focused on the mother’s persistence and self-denigration. These analyses have at times contrasted her responses to Jesus to those of the Roman centurion (8:5-13). Still others have noted that the Canaanite mother marks the peak of increased involvement of women in Matthew’s narrative, even though the silence of women during the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 is overlooked. In most of these studies, her conversation with Jesus marks the turning point of Jesus’, or at least the gospel writer’s, admission that the Christian community must include Gentiles, a position up to this point only implied. In addition, analyses have examined the power relations represented in the text to explain the woman’s words as defiance towards Jesus. The mother and her demon-possessed daughter, however, are not mere Gentiles; they are Canaanites, a factor not given much attention in these exegetical studies. As Canaanites they represent the epitome of everything despicable: sodomy, bestiality, idolatry, and especially child sacrifice (Lev 18:21-23, 20:3; Deut 12:31, 18:10-13; 1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 16:3, 21:6). Yet, this woman is foremost concerned not about child sacrifice but about ending the suffering and pain of her child through the relinquishment of the demon within her daughter’s body, even if it means that she must experience Jesus’ disinterest and verbal abuse. This paper will explore and examine the images and characteristics of Canaanite religion that could have been familiar to Matthew’s community and the manner in which the author dismisses these features so that the two Canaanite women are helped but nevertheless remain outsiders.


Meanings of Venus: In the Temple, in the House, in the Tomb
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Alice Christ, University of Kentucky

The paper will investigate the continuing favor of identification of women with Venus in early Christian art through the fourth century. Examples like the Projecta Casket of the Esquiline Treasure, where the idealization of the matron's toilette is accompanied by both the image of the nude goddess, and the Christian exhortation to the portrait couple to "live in Christ," have been seen as "pagan" survivals, signs of the imperfect catechizing of the flood of better educated, higher status converts that followed Constantine. Application of Venus to a toilet casket, or a serving dish, for use by Christians can perhaps be explained as pertaining to a secular or religiously neutral sphere of traditional classical culture. But such uses of Venus, even including direct portrait identification, are also among the most popular funerary imagery for Christian women. This study will present primarily fourth-century Christian funerary commemorations of women as Venus. It will compare monuments from the long tradition of Roman portraiture in divine guise to establish the conditions that allowed its Christian continuation. These conditions must include changing modes of viewing, and perhaps changing expectations of how viewers relate to the power of images.


Four Rivers, Two Trees, and the Garden of Eden
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Duane Christensen, Graduate Theological Union

An unnamed river flows from a mountain in Eden to water the Garden (of Eden) in Gen 2:10-14, which becomes four "heads" (i.e., rivers): Pishon, Gihon, Hiddeqel and Euphrates. This paper explores various attempts to identify these rivers, including those based on ancient cosmology and mythology where the rivers are interpreted symbolically. The paper includes a new approach in which the main river is understood as the alphabet and the four river-heads as four different ways the alphabet is used symbolically in the Tanakh. The paper includes a logoprosodic analysis of Genesis 2, which demonstrates that the story of the four rivers is the structural center of that chapter. As time permits, we will also explore the nature of the two special trees in the Garden of Eden, as presented in Genesis 3.


Nahum and the Book of the Twelve Prophets
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Duane Christensen, Graduate Theological Union

This paper challenges common assumptions about the date and authorship of the book of Nahum in light of its literary structure, as revealed through logoprosodic analysis, and explains the significance of the phenomenon of numerical composition in the formation and transmission of the Book of the Twelve Prophets. “The Progress Report on Word-Count in the Book of the Twelve” was posted on our website (www.bibal.net) on April 16, 2002. That information is now updated and incorporated into the introduction of my commentary on Nahum in the Anchor Bible Commentary. As anticipated in that report, Nahum is one of the best preserved texts in the Tanakh so far as word-count is concerned. The original word-count for the Book of the Twelve Prophets was apparently 14,352 (= 7,852 words before + 6,500 words after ’atnach), which is a symbolic number -- much the same as the original word-count in the book of Deuteronomy [14,300 = 8,082 words before + 6,218 words after ’atnach (see my commentary on Deuteronomy in the Word Biblical Commentary)].


Hagar and Ishmael in Light of Abraham and Isaac: Reading Genesis 21:8–21 and Genesis 22:1–19 as a Dialogue
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Il-Seung Chung, University of Sheffield

Hagar and Ishmael in the biblical narrative are often ignored by biblical interpreters because they are usually understood as minor characters within the story. However, reading Gen. 21:8-21 and Gen. 22:1-19 in light of each other shows that Hagar and Ishmael are heroic figures, not secondary figures. As the narrator carefully selects the words to draw out the parallels between Gen. 21:8-21 and Gen. 22:1-19, narrative linkage between these accounts encourages the first-time reader to understand the two accounts together rather than as separate unrelated accounts. The purpose of this paper is not merely to investigate the parallel elements between Gen. 21:8-21 and Gen. 22:1-19 but to explain the significance of this narrative linkage between the two accounts in narrative context. Striking narrative connectedness exists between Ishmael and Isaac, between Hagar and Abraham. The narrative linkage between Gen. 21:8-21 and Gen. 22:1-19 clearly indicates that Hagar and Abraham are narratively bound together as parents who have to see the life-threatening trial of their sons. It also shows that Isaac and Ishmael are narratively bound together as treasured sons of Abraham who have to go through the life-threatening ordeal that is caused by Abraham obeying God’s commands. The narrator intentionally portrays Hagar and Ishmael’s suffering in the wilderness as equally significant as Abraham and Isaac’s suffering on the mountain of Moriah. Through many parallels between Gen. 21:8-21 and Gen. 22:1-19, the narrator portrays Abraham not as the father of only Isaac but as the father of both Isaac and Ishmael.


Rupturing God-Language: Feminist Dialogics and the Metaphor of God as Midwife in Psalm 22
Program Unit: Bakhtin and the Biblical Imagination
L. Juliana M. Claassens, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

This essay employs a feminist dialogics that utilizes Mikhail Bakhtin’s emphasis on dialogue and particularly his desire to hear all voices equally, in investigating the role of the female image of God as midwife in Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is a good example of the struggle involved in finding adequate God-language in those times when traditional metaphors seem insufficient. Within this process, it is significant that one encounters one of the few instances in the Psalms where a female image for God is used. Although this female image in vv. 9-10 constitutes a relatively small occurrence in light of the other metaphors used for God, this metaphor fulfils an important rhetorical function in the context of Psalm 22 – particularly in the way the believer experiences God in this time of crisis. Bakhtin teaches us that it is when an idea comes into contact with other ideas, what he calls “alien thought,” that new meaning is born. He says: “the idea begins to live, that is, to take shape, to develop, to find and renew its verbal expression, to give birth to new ideas, only when it enters into genuine dialogic relationships with other ideas, with the ideas of others” (Problems of Dostoevky’s Poetics, 88; “Discourse in the Novel,” 284.) It is exactly the unlikely voice, or the unexpected thought that generates dialogue and contributes to the formation of new meaning – often by rupturing traditional formulations about God, which may have the effect of expanding our understanding of God.


The Eucharist Prayers in Didache 9 and 10 and the Gospel of Matthew
Program Unit: Didache in Context
John Clabeaux, Pontifical College Josephinum

In this paper I wish to take the measure of the position that the Eucharistic prayers of Didache 9 + 10 are based on the Birkat Ha-Mazon, and certain other Jewish prayers. The theory has taken on the status of a consensus. There have been dissenting voices, but authors of the newest commentaries on Didache do not challenge the consensus. Prior to the parallel column examination of the Didache prayers and their reputed Jewish sources, I will examine different methods by which dependency can be asserted or rejected. After demonstrating that the prayers in Didache 9 + 10 do not meet the criteria for dependency on the Jewish prayers usually named, I will suggest alternative sources from the Gospel of Matthew and other Jewish prayers, which come closer to meeting the criteria.


A Hard Headed Woman? Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Later Jewish Interpretations
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Dan Clanton, Jr., University of Denver

It has become commonplace for feminist scholars to claim that the character of Eve has suffered immensely at the hands of biblical interpreters. However, by a close reading of the biblical text and texts that interpret it, we may be able to address some of these more harmful images. This presentation will examine the story of Eve in Genesis 2-3, assess what it says and doesn’t say about this character, and note ambiguities or questions left unanswered by the Genesis story. Following this, I will survey briefly how Jewish writers in the 2nd Temple Period and early rabbinic era tried to concretize these ambiguities and answer these questions. In these interpretations, we find sources that blame Eve, but we also find sources willing to blame Adam as well. This multivocality in later interpretations can be a valuable asset in our evaluation of Eve’s story. Finally, I will conclude by noting the importance of the history of interpretation in the attempt to counter prevalent views of biblical women.


Susanna and Spiritual Songs in the Renaissance
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Dan Clanton, Jr., University of Denver

During the Renaissance, the story of Susanna was disseminated through many aesthetic means. One of the most successful ways in which the story was conveyed to the masses was through the small-scale setting of vocal music. The most popular version of a chanson spirituelle with Susanna as its topic was published in 1548. Entitled “Susanne un jour,” with lyrics by Guillaume Guéroult and music by Didier Lupi, this piece soon became the most popular chanson of the mid-16th century. This presentation will examine the view of Susanna found in this piece, and pay specific attention to two of the most famous settings of the poem: the settings of Orlando Lassus and William Byrd. In so doing, I will discuss not only the way in which these songs popularized a certain view of Susanna, but also how that view intersects with other views of Susanna during the Renaissance.


The Silence in Dinah’s Cry: Narrative in Genesis 34 in a Context of Sexual Violence
Program Unit: Bible and Cultural Studies
Ronald R. Clark, Jr., Cascade College

The rape of Dinah, Genesis 34, is a text that has been discussed by both male and female scholars in various disciplines of Biblical studies. A surface view of the text leaves the reader with questions, judgments, or accusations concerning the characters, sexual violence, and the dilemma of right and wrong. Yet a deeper study of the text seems to address leadership and social justice issues in the community of Yahweh. The text may provoke the reader and community to action through the silence of Jacob, the power struggle between Hamor, Shechem and Jacob’s sons, and the revenge of Simeon and Levi. The narrator has left statements of conviction in the Hebrew text designed to speak for the silent Dinah. Current research on violence to females and the community of God indicates that action concerning these issues also needs to be provoked in modern communities where the Biblical text is alive but the stories of modern Dinahs are silenced.


Submit or Else! Intimate Partner Violence, Aggression, Batterers, and the Bible
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Ronald R. Clark, Jr., Cascade College

Batterer intervention is the process of confronting abusers who use power to coerce, control, and engender fear in their intimate partners. Faith communities and faith based counselors have been slow to confront and hold batterers accountable. This has enabled abusers, who are most commonly males, to use Biblical texts to support their issues of power and control. Victims of intimate partner violence have been told that these texts support their victimization. Do the Biblical texts actually support male dominance and dominance or are they simply tools in the “wrong hands?” In this session I will explain the dilemma that families in domestic violence, counselors, and spiritual leaders face concerning intimate partner violence and the victimization of women. I will then suggest that male aggression and abuse are contrary to the “new paradigm” suggested in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. This paradigm involves using the Bible to 1) redefine masculinity and 2) call the community to promote accountability, peace, and safety for all humans who are in the image of God.


Polemicizing Paradise: The Rhetorical Use of Paradise Mythology in an Oracle Against Tyre [Ezekiel 28:11–19]
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Terry Ray Clark, Iliff School of Theology/University of Denver

The prophet Ezekiel is both an adaptor and innovator of tradition in his oracles against the prince of Tyre and king of Egypt in Ezekiel 26-28 and 29-32, respectively. Two important traditions he juxtaposes in these oracles are those pertaining to paradise and the underworld. This paper will argue, on the basis of the oracle against Tyre in Ezek 28:11-19, that paradise mythology is utilized rhetorically to deliver the following messages to the prophet's exilic audience: 1) a critique of the pride and national policies of the foreign power of Tyre, a pseudo-ally; 2) a critique and correction of Jerusalemite royal theology.


Do Not Be Conformed to This World, but Be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Minds…
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Jaime Clark-Soles, Southern Methodist University

I am currently writing a book which explores the views of death and afterlife presented by various New Testament authors. All of the teaching about death and afterlife on the part of the authors is aimed at personality development. I propose, then, to present a paper which argues that point. For the New Testament authors, eschatology is anthropology in a way that is often absent from modern psychological categories. Our authors are greatly concerned about “the existential issue of temporality, particularly the future tense” (Lester, Hope). Why do these authors devote such attention to this? I will argue that the answer to that is at least threefold, each of which relates to “personality development.” First, the authors were concerned to inspire clearly delineated ethical behavior. Second, the authors knew the importance of offering encouragement to a minority group that often perceived itself as persecuted. Those who “endured to the end” (language from Mark and Revelation) would be “saved” and those who did not would have an unhappy future. Third, the authors had to assist converts with identity formation. When an individual joined a Christian group, learning to “hate father and mother,” she needed to be assimilated to the new group of “fictive kin,” a group which would surely include people of economic and ethnic backgrounds different from her own. Eschatology aided this process. At the most fundamental level, the person would have to ask, “What makes me a Christian?” “What dispositions do I have and in what ways are they in keeping or not with what it means to be a Christian?” “What are the boundaries?” In sum, I would welcome the opportunity to present this tripartite thesis regarding New Testament death and afterlife views as vehicles for personality development.


That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die
Program Unit: Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
Jaime Clark-Soles, Southern Methodist University

“Dying, therefore, is inseparable from the conduct of life; dying well is part of living well. For the poets and moralists of antiquity, therefore, death is the recurrent, indeed the inevitable, subject of ethical thought.”—Charles Segal, Lucretius on Death and Anxiety. I am currently on sabbatical to write a book entitled Death and Afterlife: New Testament Options? which has chapters devoted to Paul, Matthew, John, Luke, the Petrine Literature, and Revelation. One stated goal of the project, and the primary proposal for this SBL section, is to investigate how, if at all, various schools of contemporary Hellenistic philosophy informed the New Testament views on death and afterlife. One may suppose that the New Testament authors were influenced by Hellenistic philosophical views related to death and the afterlife—the more so because in the first century it was not religion but philosophy that typically addressed questions on the nature of the body, the soul, and the Divine. How did the Stoics, Platonists, Neopythagoreans, Cynics, and Epicureans conceive of death and afterlife? To what extent did erudite philosophical notions trickle down to the daily worldviews of ancient folks? The evidence includes, of course, the consolation literature produced by philosophers such as Cicero and Seneca. The notable classicist Ramsay MacMullen denies that most Romans had any serious conception of an afterlife, an opinion based on the fact that one could find on tomb inscriptions the acronym for the tripartite exclamation: “I was not, I was, I am no more. Who cares?” My own analysis of the evidence contradicts his argument. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to test some of my relevant hypotheses on a group of colleagues.


When Biblical Exegesis Makes a Difference: The Contested Meaning of "Mingling" in Gregory of Nyssa's Christology
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Sarah Coakley, Harvard Divinity School

This paper will examine the difference that arise in understanding Nyssa's christology based on how one understands the notion of "mingling."


To Rest in the West, to Feast in the East? How Geography and Traditions Relating to Afterlife Interrelate in Early Jewish Mystical Literature
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Kelley Coblentz Bautch, St. Edward's University

This paper concerns traditions about the localization of the realm of the dead and places of punishment in Second Temple period Judaism by focusing on one of the earliest apocalypses with an otherworldly journey: the tour of the patriarch Enoch in the Book of the Watchers. We consider first the key sites in the tour that relate to afterlife and judgment: the mountain that serves as realm of the dead in 1 Enoch 22, the holding cells for the watchers and disobedient stars (1 Enoch 18:6-19:2), the valley of judgment in Jerusalem (1 Enoch 27). We also investigate sites evocative of post-mortem paradises: the mountain of God with the tree of life (1 Enoch 24) and the paradise of righteousness with the tree of wisdom (1 Enoch 32). After noting how the text describes such sites, we explore their potential to be localized by means of the narrative. Is it the case that the Book of the Watchers situates the realm of the dead to the West and a paradise of righteousness to the East? Is a reader of the text to locate these seemingly otherworldly places? We consider how space functions in the visionary’s journey and finally we ask whether the geographical traditions reveal something about the visionary’s world view or Sitz im Leben. This paper explores the geographical traditions as they are found in the Book of the Watchers, giving preference first to the fragmentary Aramaic of the work where available. We also consider the Greek and Ge'ez versions of the text and any variant readings they provide concerning the geographical traditions in question.


All about Eve: How the First Woman Fares in Enochic Literature
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Kelley Coblentz Bautch, St. Edward's University

This paper traces depictions of the first woman in Enochic literature. From ‘aged mother’ who eats from the tree of wisdom and is made wise to Eve led astray, we find several profiles of the first woman in the Enochic literature. The author of chapter 32 from the Book of the Watchers seems to know of the first woman’s act of disobedience as described by Genesis 3, but does not accord the event the same significance as the canonical text. Eve, along with Adam, it might be argued, appears rather as a progenitor of wisdom (1 En. 32:6). Likewise, Eve, in the guise of a young heifer in the Book of Dreams’ Animal Apocalypse, plays the role of the devout mother (1 En. 85:3, 6-8). While these Enochic views of Eve seem rooted in certain developments of plot found in Gen 2:4-4:25, the allusions do not dwell on the culpability of the character. Adam also seems to fare better in the Enochic texts than he does in Genesis 3 and in other of its interpretations that pass judgment on the protoplast. Thus, we consider why Enochic texts evaluate differently the first couple and the events in Eden. It is only in the later Similitudes that Eve is referred to by name and is characterized as one deceived, in this context by the angel Gadre'el (1 En. 69:6). Through close analysis of three references to Eve in the Enochic corpus, we explore developments in Enochic Judaism, the community’s strategies for interpreting Scripture and how these strategies affect the depiction of women in the corpus.


An Obedient Son: Key to the High Priesthood of Christ according to Hebrews
Program Unit: Hebrews
Gareth Lee Cockerill, Wesley Biblical Seminary

The writer of Hebrews gives evidence that the High Priesthood of Christ is effective and explains why it is effective. How can his readers be sure that this High Priesthood provides an adequate salvation? The author answers, because Christ, according to Psalm 110:1, has entered heaven, because he has offered himself once-for-all, and because, again according to Psalm 110:1, he has “sat down” at God’ right hand. These events are given as evidence of Christ’s “perfection” as high priest, but what made him such an effective high priest? The writer argues that Christ has been “perfected” as his people’s high priest through his self-sacrifice. Furthermore, that sacrifice was effective because he is the eternal Son of God who lived a human life in complete obedience to God. While eternal sonship and earthly obedience may seem to be in tension, there is an intrinsic connection between them. It is of the nature of the Son to obey. This paper argues that the above understanding of the effectiveness of Christ’s priesthood provides a consistent integration of Hebrews’ Christology. Furthermore, it offers a helpful understanding of the prologue, Heb 1:1-4, and a solution to the apparent tension in Heb 1:1-5 between the affirmation of Christ’s eternal sonship and the declaration of his sonship at the exaltation.


Kadesh: A Site That Vanished
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
David Ben-Gad Hacohen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

There is a contradiction within D at the beginning of Deuteronomy, namely a verse referring to the Israelites staying at Kadesh for 'many days' (Deut 1:46) and another verse with the instruction given to Moses: 'As for you, turn about and March into the wilderness’ (Deut 1:40). The article demonstrates that both concepts are further emphasized in D. This tends to evidence that there are two distinct sites in D: 1) Kadesh-barnea where the spies’ incident took place and where the Israelites had stayed for just a short period of time, and; 2) Kadesh where they have stayed for many days. A Toponym of two words can be shortened into one word when the directional '?' is added. If so, the direction to both Kadesh and Kadesh- barnea will be written – ‘Kadeshah’ (????). If 'Kadeshah' in P (Num 13:26) means 'towards Kadesh-barnea' we get in P the same distinct sites as in D. All the references of Kadesh and Kadesh-barnea may be separated into two well-defined groups: The verses that mention Kadesh-barnea connect it with the spies' incident, the journey of the Israelites, the southern border and with the Paran Desert. No connection is made to the spring incident, the Edomite border, Aaron's burial or the Zin Desert. Contradictorily, Kadesh is connected with the spring incident, and Aaron's death and burial. Geographically, Kadesh is seated in the Zin Desert and is connected to the Edomite border.


Anti-imperial Discourse in James 2:14–26: A Postcolonial Reading
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Jason Coker, Drew University

The faith/works binary in James 2:14-26 has received a tremendous amount of attention since the Reformation due to the anti-Pauline rhetoric that James employs. Although many scholars downplay the oppositional nature of James 2:14-26 with Romans 3-4 and Galatians 2-3, I will highlight the differences and argue that James and Paul are in direct opposition to each other. The conflict between James and Paul, however, has less to do with a faith/works binary than with the issue of identity. The faith/works binary simply functions as the site for James and Paul’s politics of identity. The language that James uses, the location of the recipients of the letter as described by James, and the anti-Pauline polemic in 2:14-26 makes this passage ripe for a postcolonial reading. Through the postcolonial lens, James takes a nativist position over against a hybrid position, which Paul represents in Romans 3-4 and Galatians 2-3. The polemical nature of this dialogue between James and Paul is then set in the context of anti-Imperial discourse. James takes a very conservative position and argues that the identity of believers should come from a pure religion that is set in opposition to surrounding cultural norms and has continuity with that which is old, i.e., the religion of Abraham and Rahab. Paul, on the other hand, argues for an identity that is based on something new and hybrid. James and Paul’s argument can then be seen as the argument between nativist resistance to colonial power, which is characterized by reproducing colonial representations, and hybrid resistance, which is characterized by blurring the boundaries of colonizer/colonized in order to renegotiate a new set of power relations.


Ioudaioi as White Boy: Identity and Name-Calling in the Fourth Gospel and White Culture
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Jason Coker, Drew University

The author of the Fourth Gospel generally uses Ioudaioi to describe Jesus’ enemies. In this way, it is a method of identity construction and/or name-calling. This troubles scholars because it is apparently anti-Jewish or, even worse, anti-Semitic. Therefore, scholars have concentrated many hours and written many pages trying to determine the “real” identity of the Ioudaioi. Their identity, nevertheless, has been elusive for these scholars, but recently Daniel Boyarin’s work has been extremely valuable in understanding exactly who the Ioudaioi were. In addition to Boyarin’s work, Tina Pippin raises serious questions about how to translate Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel. Since translation is never neutral, Pippin argues, the translation of Ioudaioi has been extremely damaging for Jews throughout history. In another area of scholarship, issues of identity and name-calling have also become extremely important and problematic. This fairly new area of scholarship is what Simon During calls “white studies,” which he defines as “the study of whiteness as a historically constructed ethnic or cultural identity.” During goes on to say that “the field was first defined in left-wing U.S. labor history, for it was in the difficult past of working-class Americans that the contingencies and strategies involved in establishing oneself as white became impossible for American academics to ignore.” White then has less to do with skin pigmentation, than with representation and performance. White as a constructed identity then can exclude people whose skin pigmentation happens to be white. This inside/outside identity language within the larger white community is very similar to the use of Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel. In this paper, I will bring these two fields of study into dialogue around the issue of identity construction and name-calling.


Muslim and Jewish Otherworldly Dialogues: Revisiting the Question of Jewish Influence upon early Islamic Ascension Narratives
Program Unit:
Frederick S. Colby, Miami University (OH)

This paper analyzes three short texts from the early Middle period that report variations on the heavenly dialogue: an early Shi'i narrative contained in the Qur'an exegesis of 'Ali Qummi (d. 307/919), a reference to a popular version of the Ascension narrative ascribed to Ibn 'Abbas and preserved by the Qur'an exegete Tabari (d. 310/923), and a Sufi text entitled 'What Muhammad Asked his Lord on the Night of the Ascension' ascribed to Abu Layth Samarqandi (d. 373/983). This paper will examine the role that Jewish traditionists may have played in the construction of these texts, and scrutinize the references to the Jewish community that appear in them. It will propose that these narratives serve as a type of extra-qur'anic revelation. The paper will argue that during the early Middle period, select Muslim communities used the night journey and ascension narratives as a tool for interreligious dialogue and polemic.


The Problem of Election in 4 Ezra
Program Unit:
John Collins, Yale University

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Assuming the Position: The Rhetoric of Accommodation to the Empire in 1 Timothy
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Matthew Collins, Society of Biblical Literature

Assuming the Position: The Rhetoric of Accommodation to the Empire in 1 Timothy


Was There Another Vine? Questions on John 15:1
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Mary Coloe, Austrailian Catholic University

This paper will explore the historical and contextual background of the description of Jesus as the "true vine" in John 15. Against its Jewish backdrop, John 15:1-17 may have emerged to confront the undermining influence of Jewish Messianic hopes at the end of the first century. At the same time, the language and imagery of this passage suggest that there may be another possibility closer to Christian circles, namely the re-emergence of claims about John the Baptizer by disciples of his in the Disaspora. In this case the "vine" statement would make its appeal to those members of the Johannine Community who were once followers of the Baptist and may still be experiencing doubt about the relative status of Jesus and John.


Entering Aseneth's Mouth: A Socio-anthropological Approach to Community Boundaries in "Joseph and Aseneth"
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Jason Robert Combs, Yale University

The function of an individual's mouth in the first half of "Joseph and Aseneth" evinces the anxieties of a Diaspora community, and defines how they hoped their boundaries would be maintained or traversed. Following Mary Douglas's work on the body as a map to society, this paper analyzes the role of the mouth in table-fellowship and during the climatic mystical experience. Table-fellowship, as a boundary-maintenance ceremony, displays a fear of community infiltration and destruction by idol worshipers. Aseneth's mouth is, at first, a dangerous source of defilement having been contaminated at idolatrous tables. Since that impurity may be transmitted through forms of oral intimacy, such as kissing or eating, Joseph must avoid such intercourse. This division is resolved as Aseneth humbles her mouth, and is transformed in a mystical experience with an angel; this suggests that the community saw its ultimate hope in divine intervention. Rees Conrad Douglas has argued for the usefulness of ritual theory in understanding Aseneth's encounter with the angel. Following Douglas, this paper applies ritual theory to the enigmatic account of the honeycomb and the bees on Aseneth's mouth, defining them as ritual "sacra," which represent the initiand's future responsibilities. Aseneth, the "City of Refuge," is seen, therefore, to serve as both a paradigmatic proselyte and a symbol of the eschatological hope for mass gentile conversion. Aggregation into the new community is completed by Joseph with the meeting of mouths, signaling a successful traversing of boundaries. Aseneth's new status, however, is presented as a sort of honored servitude; she fulfills all the functions previously performed by slaves despite Joseph's objections. Ultimately, "Joseph and Aseneth" reflects a minority group's fears of dissolution and their hope for greater social mobility through the radical transformation of the surrounding society.


Roman Comedy and Pauline Humor: Metaphor of Slavery and Sons in Galatians 3:22–4:9
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Jason Robert Combs, Yale University

Numerous anomalies in the metaphors of Galatians 3:22-4:9 have prompted scholars either to reject the Greco-Roman context altogether, or to accept the legal tradition of that context while dismissing all peculiarities as hyperbole. This paper proposes that such hyperbole in Galatians 3:22-4:9 is best understood within the context of Roman comedic humor, in particular the plays of Plautus and Terence which remained popular in Paul's time. As Paul parodies the Galatians' acceptance of circumcision, he adopts the characterizations of three primary dramatis personae from Roman comedy: the servus callidus, the adulescens, and the senex. The various slaves, which Paul lists as analogous with the law, function with master-like authority over the metaphorical son, and although they should be responsible for his rectitude, they promote his rebellion instead: paralleling the characterization of the servus callidus. The heir, who Paul insists is not in any way superior to a slave, is destined, like the adulescens, to have his rights restored; it is not the son but the slave who is blamed for the transgression. God, the metaphorical father, stands as the good loving senex who in comedy would be contrasted with an oppressive father, but in Paul's duality of slavery and sonship functions as foil to the tyrannical slaves. Specific examples from the plays of Plautus and Terence are cited in support of each of these parallels. This paper does not propose that Paul had a particular play in mind, but rather that the humor which delighted the audience within the theater would be equally as effective within Paul's epistle. By evoking laughter and amusement at the expense of the "gospel" of his opponents, in which slaves are the masters, and sons are slaves, Paul encourages the rejection of circumcision for Gentile-Christians.


“I also Am a Man Set under Authority:” Empire, Cult, and Masculinity in the Gospel of Luke
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Colleen Conway, Seton Hall University

The paper explores the ambiguities involved in the construction of masculinity in Luke’s gospel, which echo the complexities of gender identity under Roman domination. On the one hand, this gospel, more than any other, heralds the coming of Jesus with the rhetoric of imperial masculinity. The links between Jesus and the temple in the infancy narrative evoke the imperial interest in the saving significance of cultic practices related to the emperor (both worship of the emperor and the priestly identity of the emperor). As the narrative continues, the use of power and authority are central to the characterization of Jesus and his disciples, and the elevation of status is a repeated theme of the gospel. All this suggests a construction of masculinity in the gospel that links closely with the heterodox masculinity of the first century Greco-Roman world. On the other hand, this gospel, as all the gospels, was written in a world already subjected to imperial power. It was a world in which local leaders remained highly invested in their manly status, while necessarily subjecting themselves to the authority of Rome. The gospel presentation of Jesus, his disciples and his opponents reveals the ambiguities of such a subjected identity. So for instance, while the Lukan Jesus proclaims the conferring of a kingdom with the disciples sitting on thrones, this promise comes in the context of the impending “humiliation/feminization” of Jesus under Roman power. In this way, the gospel both asserts masculine symbolic power and engages with forces that threaten feminization. In particular, I argue that the sacred cultic space marked out by the temple, and later, the meal, present ways to both assert masculine imperial identity and respond to the threat of emasculation represented in the crucifixion of Jesus.


Interpretive Ambiguity and the Exegesis of Proverbs
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
John A. Cook, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Biblical proverbs are often described as expressing generalized truths that allow for various exceptions (e.g., Prov 10:4 “A slack hand makes one poor, but a diligent hand makes one rich.”). While this approach makes sense in many instances such as this one, other proverbs appear to be less compatible with this approach. These include proverbs that describe actions taken by Yahweh (e.g., Prov 10:3 “Yahweh will not let the life of the righteous go hungry, but the craving of the wicked ones he will thwart.”), exceptions to which raise the issue of theodicy in a particularly pointed fashion, as well as those that make definitional statements (e.g., Prov 10:5 “One who stores up at harvest is a wise son; one who sleeps at harvest is a shameful son.”), which appear to disallow exceptions since the action described is the manifest basis for the defining property. In this paper I first explore the inherent interpretive ambiguity of generic expressions in languages generally, and then examine biblical proverbs against the backdrop of this understanding. In the paper I conclude first, that the interpretive ambiguity of biblical proverbs may be partially systematically accounted for in terms of the contribution of real world knowledge and the type of verb form used in the proverb; and second, that reconciling the ambiguities of individual proverbs is sometimes dependent upon one’s understanding of the tenets of wisdom teaching in Proverbs and/or the Hebrew Bible more generally.


Mood/Modality in Biblical Hebrew Verb Theory
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
John A. Cook, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Just as relative tense and then aspect have consecutively taken center stage in past discussions of the Biblical Hebrew verb, mood/modality has recently been given its due attention. Traditionally theories of the verb confined the application of mood/modality to the (at least partially) morphologically distinct verbal forms of Imperative, Jussive, and Cohortative. However, scholars have recently begun employing the category of mood/modality in their descriptions of those verbal forms that have traditionally been treated as non-modal, namely, yiqtol, qatal, weqatal, and wayyiqtol (e.g., Rattray 1992; Joosten 1992, 1999; DeCaen 1999; Hendel 1996; Gentry 1998; Warren 1998; etc.). Such recent applications of mood/modality to Biblical Hebrew is generally reflective of the state of flux in which linguistic discussion of mood/modality has been. This reflective characteristic is particularly manifest in the often-times vague treatment of the category (e.g., Joosten’s references to “future/modal” yiqtol). In this paper I first delineate the typological category of mood/modality, and then critically examine the application (or misapplication) of this category in recent theories of the Biblical Hebrew verb.


Porphyry's Reception of the Bible
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
John Granger Cook, LaGrange College

The church responded with fury to Porphyry's attack on the Bible - the Contra Chistianos - which may itself have been written in the service of the Great Persecution of Diocletian. Several later Christian rulers had it burned so that it survives only in fragments. What does remain of Porphyry's work is a remarkable testimony to the way that Biblical texts appeared in the eyes of a gifted Greco-Roman intellectual. Exploring Porphyry's reaction to the Bible is a very different way of doing reader response criticism. It illuminates the ideological and socio-political issues that the Bible created for the "pagans."


Plotinus on the Second Part of the Parmenides: Amelius, Porphyry, and Proclus
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Kevin Corrigan, Emory University

This paper will examine Plotinus' interpretation of the second part of Plato's Parmenides and its influence on the thought of Amelius, Porphyry, and Proclus.


The Crossroad of Language and Social Location in Q
Program Unit: Q
Wendy Cotter, Loyola University of Chicago

Several important contributions to the reconstruction of the social location and situation of the secondary stratum of Q (Q2) have been provided by impressive Q scholars such as John Kloppenborg, Burton Mack, Leif Vaage, Jonathan Reed, Ron Piper, Christopher Tuckett and Richard Horsley. By drawing on the contexts of Q sayings, recreated in various ways, be it, historical realia, philosophical coherence, and political/cultural dynamisms,- a variety of very erudite suggestions have been proposed. But a nagging problem exists as soon as the language of the Q document is set against those backdrops. If Q indeed is a non-translation document, comfortable in Greek, how does that fit with theories of social location among Galilean peasants, or mid-level local scribes defending the rights of the poor to other Jews, or friends of Pharisees hoping to call them into a reconciliation once more? This paper opens out those problems, and then, not to be solely critical, proposes in the light of the evidence, a scenario which would seem to have a better fit.


Labor Metaphors for God in First Isaiah
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
J. Blake Couey, Princeton Theological Seminary

A striking set of metaphors in First Isaiah portray God as some sort of laborer, such as a silversmith (Isa 1:22-25), vintner (Isa 5:1-7), beekeeper (Isa 7:18-19), barber (Isa 7:20), woodcutter (Isa 10:15, 33-34), or potter (Isa 29:16). The density and variety of such imagery in these chapters is notable. Central to these metaphors is the identification of Israel and/or Assyria as the tool, resource, or commodity appropriate to the trade in question, squarely under the control of the adept laborer; in several instances, the metaphor highlights this instrumentality by positing absurd scenarios in which the tool or commodity rebels against the laborer. The metaphors thus maximize the role of divine initiative in world events while consequently minimizing human power, especially military prowess or political stratagem. In this way, they aptly fit the theology of First Isaiah, contributing to the picture of Judah’s God as the sovereign Lord who controls the actions and destinies of nations as part of a divine plan. They offer a tangible way to understand this relationship.


Researching and Teaching Greek Using Computerized Media
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Steven L. Cox, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

Academia of the twenty-first century has a plethora of research materials of different formats whether hard copy books and journals, Internet media, or books on a computer. The challenge of teaching students of the twenty-first century often lies in the manner of the presentation of the data that with instruct yet also will be enhanced by sight, sound, and speech. Furthermore, such sophisticated students most of whom do not know what it was like in the days prior to PCs and laptops must challenged to think rather than simply regurgitate facts. To many presentation can be greater than content. The design of this paper is to demonstrate effective ways in which professors and students may integrate technology in the classroom that will stimulate a desire to work with biblical languages long after the student graduates from colleges, universities, and/or seminaries. Methods and resources will be discussed along with a presentation. The desire is to show how computer assisted research and teaching does not simply involve “cut and pasting,” but how such research can enhance processing and evaluating the data under consideration. Illustrations from Philippians (the Greek text) will be made. A conclusion and selected bibliography will close this work.


Were the Gospels Right after All? Redescribing the Quest for the Historical Jesus
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Pieter F. Craffert, University of South Africa

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The Providential Family as Community of Interpretation: L’Abri Fellowship International and the Word of God
Program Unit: Poster Session
Thomas D. Craig, Brock University

As with all narrative constellations, the L’Abri family story of fundamentalist piety and overcoming faith offers a retrospective interpretation of a variety of heterogeneous events – some disclosed, others unexpressed, still others only hinted or suggested indirectly – in a mixture of fictional history and actual experience (See P. Ricoeur 1992, Y. Lotman 1992). By examining the inevitable gaps between the multiple narrative and pictorial versions of a triumphant missionary story and the everyday stream of experience they portray, in this cultural semiotic project I display the carefully chosen threads of unity that have come to constitute the providential family status of American missionaries in Switzerland, Francis and Edith Schaeffer. In this poster presentation, I track the semiotic negotiation of meaning across shared cultural codes between missionary storytellers in the Swiss Alps, their particular brand of biblical interpretation, and the global audience to whom they appeal. The L’Abri family story provides a particularly poignant example of signs, signing, and signage that drift toward the self-regulating closure characteristic of all cultural systems. As I will demonstrate through a composited collection of photographs and film across five and a half decades of evangelistic ministry, though unique in its details of separatist fundamentalism in a small alpine village, the Schaeffer’s jubilant narrative configurations of faith and triumph move from a state of unsettling semiotic indeterminacy and potentially implosive family values toward emphatic closure of all other competing signs and conflicting interpretations of the Word of God.


Cutting the Calf or Making the Calf? On the Preferred Reading of Jeremiah 34:18–20
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Cory D. Crawford, Harvard University

The account of the covenant-making ceremony preserved in Jeremiah 34 is among the more interesting text-critical problems in the Bible. The Massoretic Text reports an allusion to a ritual in which a calf is cut in two and various groups of the Israelite elite pass between its pieces, clearly related at some level to the ritual in Genesis 15. The oldest LXX mss. for this section, however, have it differently: the Israelites make the calf “to serve it”, a clear allusion to the golden calf episode of Exodus 32. There is no scholarly consensus on which of the two traditions is to be preferred. The situation is further complicated by the unreliability of this section of the Septuagint text of Jeremiah, described by E. Tov. S. Wijesinghe advanced the most ambitious argument for the preferred reading, arguing on literary grounds that the Vorlage of the LXX tradition is original, and the tradition preserved in MT is an interpolation based on Genesis 15. Although his careful treatment of 34:8-22 is noteworthy for its use of text criticism in the reconstruction of the entire chapter, his conclusions about the originality of LXX above MT are faulty for several reasons. After surveying the scholarship on these verses, this paper will situate the text-critical question in the context of the chapter, and will then attempt to show that there is no clear reason to prefer LXX, and, most importantly, to show how the LXX tradition is derived from the account preserved in MT.


Wisdom and Torah in Ben Sira
Program Unit: The Texts of Wisdom in Israel, Early Judaism, and the Eastern Mediterranean World
James Crenshaw, Duke University

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Coptic Medical Papyri and the Healing Traditions of Christian Egypt
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Andrew Crislip, University of Hawaii at Manoa

The corpus of Coptic medical literature comprises at least twenty-seven texts, including books (in codex and roll form), single sheets, ostraca, and graffiti, which document the healing traditions among Egyptian Christians. Extant Coptic texts represent but a small portion of what constituted a significant literature in late antiquity. The content of Coptic medical literature is almost exclusively pharmacological, which makes it especially relevant to both intellectual and social history, as such manuals are in fact the books that most doctors would use in daily practice. The paper will focus on two interrelated areas of interest: the monastic context of the Coptic medical papyri; and the papyri as evidence for the confluence of Greek and Egyptian healing traditions. Coptic medical papyri were transmitted primarily—though not exclusively—within early Christian monasteries, documenting monastic knowledge of a range of medical traditions, some of which require explanation in an ascetic setting (e.g., the many prescriptions for inducing lactation in a medical handbook from the White Monastery). How such pharmacological texts were used for the treatment of monastics and nonmonastics will thus be explored. Of further interest is the intellectual heritage of Coptic medicine. What relation does the pharmacology of late antique Egypt hold with earlier medical traditions of Egypt? Of special interest is the incorporation of familiar Greek pharmacological traditions with ritual practices and materia medica more commonly associated with “magic.” Should this be interpreted as evidence of a cultural tradition that can be traced to the similar combination of pharmacology and ritual in the medical literature of pre-Alexandrian Egypt? Or should it be understood as an example of a more common “folk medicine”? This exploration will introduce the neglected corpus of Coptic medical papyri as primary evidence for the manifold healing traditions of early Christians in Egypt.


Text and Image: Paul and Roman Imperial Theology
Program Unit: Future of the Past: Biblical and Cognate Studies for the Twenty-First Century
John Dominic Crossan, Mineola, FL

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Another Baker's Dozen of Tips and Resources for Teaching Biblical Greek
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
N. Clayton Croy, Trinity Lutheran Seminary

The session will conclude with a general discussion of resources and strategies for teaching Biblical Greek. Packets of resources will be distributed.


De-demonizing Cain...and Wondering Why?
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Philip Culbertson, University of Auckland

Freud’s theory of sibling rivalry is cited relatively frequently by both Biblical scholars and psychodynamic theorists as an explanation for Cain’s murder of Abel. But I think this is inadequate to explain fully the dynamics of the story. There seem to be two intergenerational processes at work in Cain’s violence that are often overlooked by Biblical exegetes—maternal anger and paternal shaming. Understanding Cain’s actions as the logical but tragic extension of maternal anger and paternal shaming (based on Nancy McWilliams and David Dutton) sets his violence in a new light. It also opens up the possibility of learning some new lessons from Cain. Yet this still seems too simple. A man—Cain—is so angry that he wants to murder someone. But who does he want to murder: the brother who stole divine favour from him (the displacer)? The biological father whose shame he already carries, so that it erupts when he is shamed again (the depriver)? Or the great Father, the heavenly Lover with the ultimate power to bless or destroy (the despot)? But whoever the object, the ultimate result, as Levinas points out, is that Cain destroys himself in an act of perverse yearning for the object of his desire. My methodology will be Autobiographical Criticism. I am the older of two sons, and my childhood was haunted by a desire to murder my younger brother. As an adult, I can now ask: Was it really my brother I wanted to murder? Or was it perhaps my biological father as an act of unconscious Oedipal jealousy? Or was it God, or at least the God whom I was taught was a constant threat if I relaxed for a moment? Or was it, following Levinas, myself whom I wished to murder?


Double Case Constructions in Koine Greek: Recognizing Double Nominative, Genitive, and Dative Constructions
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Martin Culy, Briercrest Seminary

It has long been recognized that the Greek language makes frequent use of double accusative constructions. Drawing on notions from Transformational Grammar and Relational Grammar, this paper will demonstrate that the other cases of Koine Greek (with the sole exception of the vocative) also occur in double case constructions, and will explain the linguistic phenomena that produce such constructions.


Discourse, Performance, and Communion: Three Paradigms in Current Theological Interpretation of Christian Scripture
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
S.A. Cummins, Trinity Western University

Among the rich range of paradigms deployed by biblical scholars and theologians currently engaged in the theological interpretation of Christian Scripture, three commend themselves as particularly fruitful: discourse, performance and communion. Scripture is a divinely uttered, dialogical and intertextual Word (discourse); it is to be embodied, enacted, and improvised (performance); and it operates within a redemptive economy whose ultimate end is human participation in the divine life of the triune God (communion). This paper will examine these overlapping paradigms with a series of interrelated interests in view, principally in terms of their capacity to contribute constructively to our understanding of the nature and intent of Scripture in relation to church, academy and the public sphere.


Children, Sex, and Family Values in Christian Origins
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
Mary R. D'Angelo, University of Notre Dame

Ancient Jewish texts ( for instance the Sibylline Oracles, Pseudo-Phocylides and Philo) and 2nd c. Christian texts condemn male-male intercourse and sex with children, often identifying them as Roman or Greek and using parodic neologism paidophtore- . Didache (2.2), and Barnabas (19.4, cf.10:6-8) use it to extend the Biblical commandment against adultery, and the apologist to denigrate the ancient pantheon. Do the Jewish and Christian texts express an ethical stance or a construction of the family definitively different from that of the empire? Ancient Jewish and Christian texts adapt the Biblical prohibitions to claim that the “family values” of Judaism meet and exceed the moral traditions of their imperial masters, and the distance between the Jewish and Christian practice and Roman practice is less than has been assumed. Evidence for the sexual use of children in Roman antiquity is both widespread and elusive, as is any evidence for sexual practice in the ancient world. The difficulties are compounded by the constructions of sexuality and of the Roman past that have formed the traditions of scholarly interpretation and contemporary scholars. One major problem is the conflation of pederasty with homosexuality, a conflation that appears not only in older works, but also in recent studies that seek to argue for the “normal” status of male homoeroticism in antiquity. Interpreters equate ancient and contemporary practices too closely, or distance them absolutely; thus John Pollini identifies the use of slave boys for sex and sacrificial ministry with recent clergy sex scandals, while Christian Laes stresses the clash between Roman pederasty and “the moral values of our Western society.” Roman practice essentially protected free children and exploited slaves. Laes’ perception that Roman pederasty was strongly linked to slavery illuminates continuities as well as contrasts between ancient and modern “family values. ”


Paul and Timothy, Man to Man: Ethos and Pathos in the Construction of Author and Addressee in the Pastorals
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Mary Rose D'Angelo, University of Notre Dame

The Pastorals belong to a group of early Christian texts (including Luke-Acts and the Pastorals) that present the first-person voice of an author, elaborate his authoritative persona and construct a conversation between him and his (equally constructed) audience. In each of the Pastorals, that conversation constitutes a highly gendered, man to man talk in which the elder and authoritative "Paul" addresses his son and heir "Timothy" (or Titus), who is younger and less well established. "Paul" establishes his auctoritas by presenting details of his own history, laying special emphasis on his "suffering self" and by a conventionally moralizing set of instructions to Timothy and Titus that undergird their supposed authority. In response to Roman imperial power, the Pastorals (like Hermas and Luke-Acts) engage in a dialectic of resistance and accommodation whose terms are set in part by the desire of Trajan (98-117) and Hadrian (117-138) to reassert the “family values” which played a substantial role in Augustus’ consolidation of power.


Ontology as Gospel: The Person of Christ as the Structure of Salvation in Post-Chalcedonian Greek Theology
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Brian E. Daley, University of Notre Dame

Modern narratives of the early development of Christology tend to see the Chalcedonian formula as the conclusion of a long, complex series of debates about who and what Jesus was, assuming that it acted as a consensus statement solving the problems raised by unclear terminology and conflicting understandings of how Jesus is savior. In one sense, this focus on Chalcedon unnecessarily narrows our view of the concerns of earlier reflection on the person of Christ, and exaggerates the historical effect of Chalcedon as bringing about a resolution of conflict. Nevertheless, the Chalcedonian formula remained centrally important for imperially sponsored theology in the Eastern Empire after 451, and strongly influenced the ongoing development of theological reflection on Jesus’ person and saving work. This paper will look at the ways three major post-Chalcedonian theologians – Leontius of Byzantium in the sixth century, Maximus Confessor in the seventh, and John of Damascus in the eighth – incorporate the Chalcedonian definition into a wider ontological and soteriological picture of the identity of Jesus. For them, the very structure of his person – the yoking together in one acting subject of two complete, operative, and wholly incommensurate natures or orders of reality – became the model of human salvation and of the fulfillment of God’s purposes in history, the summary of the Christian Gospel.


From Modern Hebrew Immersion to Classical Hebrew Proficiency
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Helene Dallaire, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

Today, teachers of biblical Hebrew are discovering creative ways to help students acquire an active knowledge of the language, and subsequently gain access to the text for biblical interpretation. For the most part, these new approaches have been used with students at the introductory level. Teachers of intermediate and advanced levels are now venturing away from the traditional 'inductive/deductive' methods to explore the field of Second Language Acquisition, and apply its techniques to the learning of biblical Hebrew, endeavoring to produce higher levels of proficiency in their students. In this session, the presenter will reflect on some of the realities (strengths, weaknesses, challenges, new programs, assessment tools) of an American graduate program where no student is at the Hebrew Introductory level, where a year-in-Israel immersion program is required of all, where proficiency in classical texts is a goal of the curriculum, and where faculty members are beginning to integrate new learner-centered methods of teaching in the classroom. Presenters will discuss the challenges of the current program and propose new approaches that will enable intermediate and advanced students of biblical Hebrew to reach a higher level of classical Hebrew text proficiency.


Using Rhetorical Criticism to Address the Synoptic Problem: A Case Study of the Question on Fasting (Matthew 9:14–17, Mark 2:18–22, Luke 5:33–39)
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Alex Damm, University of Toronto

This paper assesses the more plausible sequence among the synoptic gospels in the pericope known as the Question on Fasting (Matt. 9:14-17/Mark 2:18-22/Luke 5:33-39). In Greco-Roman terms, this pericope takes the form of a _chreia_, or short and useful saying ascribed to a person. My aim is to elucidate rhetorical conventions for adapting forms such as chreiai, and to use these to address the synoptic problem in a way that ancient authors would appreciate. To this end, I shall proceed in three steps. First, by studying basic rhetorical manuals known as _Progymnasmata_, I shall summarize techniques for adapting chreiai and some motives that influence these. Second, I shall turn to examine techniques and motives for adapting speech traditions in select writings of Plutarch and of Josephus. With an eye especially on the important consideration of making a saying apt for its new literary context, I shall then apply these insights to the gospels' Question on Fasting, asking which among the Two-Document Hypothesis, Two-Gospel Hypothesis and Farrer-Goulder Hypothesis reflects the more plausible scenario of adaptation. In the end, I hope to show one way in which rhetorical criticism is a useful method for solving source-critical problems.


Accountant Paul
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Frederick W. Danker, Christ Seminary

A number of items in the commercial vocabulary used by Paul in the NT will be examined.


The Syntactic, Semantic, and Lexical Properties of Ditransitive Verbs of Transference in the New Testament
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Paul Danove, Villanova University

This study investigates 32 NT verbs of transference that require completion by three complements that designate a mover, what is moved, and a goal of motion. The study first resolves the syntactic, semantic, and lexical properties of this ditransitive usage and proposes a semantic feature, ± animate, that accounts for the distribution of the lexical realizations of the verbs' third (goal) complements. The study then identifies alternative ditransitive usages of transference for 24 of the 34 verbs, resolves their syntactic, semantic, and lexical properties, describes them in relation to the first (goal) usage according to the principle of complement substitution with semantic distinction, and determines the implications of the semantic feature, ± animate, for the distribution of the lexical realizations of their third complements. A concluding discussion clarifies the patterns of usage among these verbs.


Levgw Melding in the Septuagint
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Paul Danove, Villanova University

This study investigates the grammatical phenomenon, levgw melding, which arises in linguistic contexts in which two or three verbs of communication, one of which usually is levgw, govern the same object complement. The study establishes the syntactic, semantic, and lexical requirements of the verbs of communication that participate in levgw melding, develops the distinctive constraints that this phenomenon places on indirect object complements, and considers its implications for interpretation and the formulation of lexicon entries for the Greek words of the Septuagint.


"To Everyone Who Conquers and Continues to Do My Works to the End I Will Give Authority over the Nations to Rule Them with an Iron Rod" (Revelation 2:26): The Book of Revelation through a Postcolonial
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Lynne St. Clair Darden, Drew University

This proposal casts a postcolonial theoretical gaze upon the Book of Revelation in general, and upon the author's rhetorical strategy in particular, in order to unveil the complex dynamics that are involved in the construction of a colonized identity. Through the application of the concepts of cultural hybridity, mimicry and ambivalence as articulated by Homi K Bhabha, the paper will propose that while the author of Revelation is well aware of the oppressive nature of imperialism as is evident by his fierce, non-accommodating stance towards participation in the imperial cult, the author ironically, reinscribes aspects of imperial cultic processes and practices. John's colonized construction as "almost the same but not quite" has resulted in a "blurred copy" of the colonizer which is made evident in his mimicry of certain aspects of imperial culture, behaviour and manners, especially those aspects which revolve around disruption, displacement and replacement. No matter how determined the author is to disconnect from the religio-poltical mechanisms of provincial Asia Minor, his own hybridity disallows him. The paper proposes that the author's ambivalence is in large part due to his being a member of a society that demanded participation in the ritualistic/mythic practices - (that is, the sublimnal, symbolic communication which function to construct cultural identity) - of the imperial cult in provincial Asia Minor. The aim of this paper is twofold: 1)to convey a more complex understanding of the formation of cultural identity in the ancient world via a postcolonial theoretical reading coupled with the application of ritual/myth theory, and 2) create a greater sensitivity between the ancient and modern contexts in order to suggest a more complex understanding of contemporary race and global relations.


What Was "Wrong" with Augustine: The Sixth-Century Reception (or Lack Thereof) of Augustine's Christology
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
David Maxwell, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

The Nestorian and Pelagian controversies intersected in a group of monks from Scythia who arrived in Constantinople in 519 advocating their Christological formula, “One of the Trinity was crucified in the flesh.” These Scythian monks were concerned to oppose what they saw as a Nestorianizing misinterpretation of the Council of Chalcedon in which Christ’s human nature is considered the subject of his suffering, while his divine nature is considered the subject of his miracles. They drew heavily on Latin translations of Cyril of Alexandria to support their Christological position. At the same time, they drew heavily on Augustine to fashion a case against the Semi-Pelagians. They do not, however, appeal to Cyril in their opposition to the Semi-Pelagians, nor do they appeal to Augustine in their opposition to the Nestorians. This raises the question: is there something “wrong” with Augustine’s Christology? Or more precisely, what is it about Augustine’s Christology that made it less than helpful to the Scythian monks? The answer to this question may help further current attempts to evaluate Augustine’s Christology and to place it historically.


Leave Babylon: The Trope of Babylon in Rastafarian Discourse
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Steed V. Davidson, Union Theological Seminary

Babylon is used in Rastafarian thought to represent the oppressive network of Western imperial systems that dominated societies like that of Jamaica. It became representative of systems of white imperial oppression such as religion, capitalism, education and politics, against a largely economically deprived black population. The appropriation of the ancient empire to signify modern colonial domination forms part of a Rastafarian hermeneutic of resistance. While denouncing white Christianity’s interpretative claims regarding Judeo-Christian scriptures, Rastafarians claim ownership of the texts as heirs of the ancient Israelites and use these same scriptures in their critique of forms of imperial power and their elevation of black identity and power. This paper investigates the usage of the trope of Babylon in Rastafarian discourse as a form of critique and resistance to contemporary forms of imperial power. It shall explore the songs of Bob Marley, a major exponent of Rastafarian beliefs, as representative of a dominant Rastafarian discourse. Additionally, selected Biblical texts that deal with Babylon both as a reality and literary construct will be analyzed. This analysis will suggest various attitudes towards Babylon that will inform the evaluation of Rastafarian interpretation and usage of the trope of Babylon in Marley’s songs. Representative texts from Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel and Psalm 137 will be used in this paper.


On the Social Origins of Apocalypses: Getting Rid of "Apocalyptic"
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Philip R. Davies, Sheffield University

As biblical scholarship learned from Gunkel, ancient literary genres have their own social settings. But these settings provide only the origin of the genre itself, not of every example of it. The rather limited repertoire of literary genres in the ancient Near East could be used in a range of functions, which contribute to the communication of meaning but hardly exhaust it. Furthermore, genres do not necessarily carry their own "world-view," nor are they the exclusive property of particular groups. "Apocalypse" as a literary genre has been quite well investigated, and some of its subgenres (e.g. the "symbolic vision") have been tracked in the prophetic corpus. But relating the genre to social settings is problematic. We have seen a swing in recent decades from marginalized, even sectarian groups, towards displaced elites, and from prophecy to the wise, to priesthood as the typical producers of this genre. The failure to match any single group with the genre, and even more so to define "apocalyptic" as a social or theological category, calls for a different kind of understanding. The so-called "apocalyptic worldview" is not a distinct set of ideas, but a widely-held belief about the relationship between the human and divine world and reflects a culture obsessed with the exploitation of tat relationship: a culture for which the best (though perhaps not a perfect) name is "manticism". This culture is not exclusively Jewish, and though it has distinct social contexts, these include not only the literarily attested court divination but also no doubt other popular forms. The problem with the concept "apocalyptic" is actually how to get rid of it as a barrier to understanding the social background and function of apocalypses.


Enter the BiblioBloggers
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
James Davila, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

The rise of weblogs or "blogs" (web pages produced with software that facilitates frequent updates and allows links to individual posts) as a media and political force has been an important cultural milestone in the last few years. Along with political pundits, hobbyists, diarists, etc., biblical scholars and those in related academic disciplines have also been establishing a niche for themselves in the "Blogosphere." By common consent, or at least in resignation, biblical scholars who blog refer to themselves as "bibliobloggers." As of this writing in the spring of 2005, for the last two years I have operated a blog called PaleoJudaica, which focuses on news and Internet content on ancient Judaism and its historical and linguistic context. Since PaleoJudaica began, there has been a gradual but ultimately geometric increase in the number of biblioblogs. At present I am aware of more than two dozen. Given the rate at which web-based technology and its effects on our culture are developing, it is difficult to predict more than half a year in advance what aspects of blogging will be of greatest interest at the time of this CARG session. But I plan to share with you some of my experiences with PaleoJudaica and also to describe my work on Qumranica, a blog I have set up for the spring semester of 2005 for a course I am teaching on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I will also discuss some of the uses to which I and other bibliobloggers have put our blogs, such as commenting on and supplementing media stories in our areas of expertise; noting errors (which frequently are rife) in such stories; reporting on scholarly conferences we've attended; sharing our preliminary thoughts on our research; and sometimes providing advance summaries of scholarly work we are publishing.


Christians Hearing Isaiah
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Ellen Davis, Duke University

N.A.


Always Chosen: Divine Protection of the Jewish People in Esther Rabbah
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Stacy Davis, Saint Mary's College

The paper will analyze the interpretation of Esther 3.7-9 in the tenth century Midrash Esther Rabbah 7.11-13. The biblical book of Esther is the only one in the Tanakh that does not mention God. The paper will argue that the midrash compensates for that oversight by making God and the angels Haman's adversaries and thwarting his genocidal plans before they develop. The midrash does this through the hermeneutical methods of intertextuality and personification. Esther Rabbah functions as homiletical midrash, designed to show Jewish readers/listeners that God always will be on their side. The paper will conclude by examining Esther Rabbah's historical context and determining how much that may have influenced the midrash's arguments.


Are U.S. Politicians God's Servants? Romans 13:1–7 and Political Rhetoric
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Stacy Davis, Saint Mary's College

This paper will examine the use of religious imagery in the 2004 Presidential Election, particularly in the descriptions of President Bush and Senator Kerry. To varying degrees, both men made campaign statements based upon their religious views. In the case of President Bush, however, a number of his Christian supporters presented him as the "only" choice for "true" Christians. Romans 13.1 argues that "those authorities that exist have been instituted by God." I will analyze the political commentary found in religiously affiliated journals and magazines in order to determine whether and / or how this argument appeared and what purpose it may have served.


Alexandrian Christology on the Nile: Monastic Controversy, Ritual Practice, and Shenoute’s Doctrine of the Incarnation
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Stephen J. Davis, Yale University

The mid-fifth-century writings of the Upper Egyptian monk, Shenoute of Atripe, provide a vivid glimpse into the early reception of Alexandrian Greek Christology in a Coptic-speaking monastic setting. Most treatments of Shenoute’s Christology have focused on his anti-Origenist treatise, I Am Amazed (ca. 445 CE; ed. Orlandi) and a sermon of his entitled, And It Happened One Day (ca. 455 CE; ed. Lefort). By contrast, very little attention has been paid to an unedited sermon by Shenoute called When the Word Says, in which he has occasion to elaborate on his doctrine of the Incarnation and its implications for human salvation. In this paper, I examine all three of these works with an eye toward showing how Shenoute reappropriated the work and cultural legacy of earlier Alexandrian theologians (including their characteristic modes of biblical interpretation) in the context of monastic heresiological controversy and liturgical-ritual practice.


Semantic Domains for Biblical Greek: Louw and Nida's Framework Evaluated from a Cognitive Perspective
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Reinier de Blois, United Bible Societies and Mekane Yesus Theological Seminary

This paper focuses on semantic domain theory and its use in biblical lexicography. The first biblical lexicon making use of this theory was Louw and Nida’s Greek - English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, which was first published by the United Bible Societies in 1989. The theoretical framework underlying this lexicon was based on the semantic model that is usually referred to as componential analysis of meaning. Over the past decennia new linguistic insights have seen the light, which may have a large impact on semantic domain theory. This paper looks at semantic domain theory from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and shows how this new approach may serve to improve Louw and Nida’s framework significantly and may make this lexicon an even more useful tool than it already is.


From Spoken Words to Literature: The Earliest Development of the Isaiah Tradition in the Light of Assyrian Texts
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Matthijs J. de Jong, Leiden University

This paper attempts to show that an exploration of the Assyrian prophetic texts (Parpola, SAA 9, and others) significantly contributes to our understanding of the initial stages of the Isaiah tradition. On both sides we have originally spoken words, which were recorded in a written format, and which, at a later stage, received a ‘second life’ in the form of collection, reworking and revision. First, with regard to the Assyrian material I deal with two aspects – (a) re-used prophetic oracles, (b) and written text closely resembling the genre of prophetic oracles – both representing the development of prophecy finding its way into literature. Second, I propose that the Isaiah tradition initially underwent a similar development. As a point of departure, I take those texts from First Isaiah that can be dated in the late eighth century BCE with a great amount of plausibility (i.e., texts that evidently relate to circumstances of that period). Next, I discuss the first substantial revision of these texts in the seventh century (by adopting the hypothesis of an ‘Assyria redaction’ [H. Barth, Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit, 1977, and others], but in a new form). I conclude that the Assyrian texts (studied in their own right) provide a strong analogy for the development and reworking of the words of Isaiah in the Assyrian period. This paper is an offspring of my PhD-project, a comparative study to texts from First Isaiah and the Assyrian prophecies (started September 2001).


Parallelism and Grammar as a Strategy in Building Biblical Poetry
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Francisco J. del Barco, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

The aim of this paper is the study of parallelism as a strategy in building a text, together with the use of grammatical (especially syntax) and semantic elements. In this paper we will analyse different texts from Isaiah and Minor Prophets (Biblical Hebrew prophetic poetry) which can be considered as textual sections or linguistic units larger than the sentence. The recognition and analysis of such text-linguistic strategy will help to understand the use of parallelism in relation with syntax and semantics in preexilic prophetic poetry, and therefore to achieve a better understanding of the meaning of the texts.


Textual Critics Are from Mars, Medieval Codicologists Are from Venus: The Current Disconnect between Two Guilds and What Textual Critics Have to Learn from Medieval Codicologists
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Steve Delamarter, George Fox University

This paper will explore the radically different ways in which textual critics and medieval codicologists look at manuscripts and the difference it makes in what they see. We will review characteristic traits of the work of the so-called “new codicologists” (scholars like Michelle P. Brown, Sarah Lipton, Christopher De Hamel, Martin Irvine and Kathleen Corrigan, etc.) as well as those of biblical textual critics. Finally, we will explore ways in which textual critics may be able to profit from a re-engagement with medieval codocologists.


Texts from the Monastery of Bawit and Monastic Life in the Eighth Century
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Alain Delattre, University of Brussels, Belgium

The monastery of Bawit in Middle Egypt is one of the greatest of Egyptian monasteries. At the beginning of the 20th century, French archaeologists found near the village of Bawit a great monastic settlement dedicated to the Apa Apollo. The hundreds of papyri and ostraca of this convent found by the archaeologists and illegal diggers are now spread in many museums through the world. I will present some published and unpublished Greek and Coptic documents which can help us reconstruct the life of this eighth-century monastic settlement. The particular focus of the paper will be the religious practices of the monks and the organization and economy of the monastery.


From Desolation to Delight: The Transformative Vision of Isaiah 60–62
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Carol J. Dempsey, University of Portland

Isaiah 60-62 presents a glorious vision of transformation and defines the mission of the prophet who, as the anointed one, will not only proclaim the vision but also work to bring it to fruition. From a literary and theological perspective, this paper explores both the vision and role of the prophet as presented in Isaiah 60-62. The paper will attempt to show how these chapters, though linked to Isaiah 40-55, are distinct from Deutero-Isaiah, and contain echoes from Isaiah 1-39. This vision of the glorious new Zion represents the culmination of the Abrahamic blessing. The paper also looks at the links between redemption and the restoration of the natural world, and the role that Jerusalem, as a city and a people, plays in the unfolding vision of the new heavens and the new earth (Isa 65:17f) which one sees eclipsed in Isa 2:2-4.


Visual Catechesis: Museums as Classrooms for the Study of the Bible
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Terrence E. Dempsey, Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St Louis University

Many public and private visual arts institutions have collections that are rich in images of biblical subjects and themes. Too often, these resources have gone unused by the educational and religious institutions in those same areas. The purpose of this paper is to show the power of incorporating the visual dimension into the scriptural education of college students, seminary students, and members of religious congregations. Drawing primarily on the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, this paper will offer a demonstration of how visual dialogues among different cultures and periods may be developed for classroom and research purposes regarding subjects and themes that have biblical roots. Properly organized, courses utilizing nearby art collections can create an appreciation for the role of visual art in deepening the faith experience; can provide students with the experience of encountering an actual work of art; and can help develop more discerning eyes in the students that may provide them with an understanding of what different cultures and periods found of particular interest in the Bible by what was represented visually and how it was represented.


Missing Martyria, Derelict Relics, and the Case of the Vanishing Holy Woman in Late Antique Rome
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Nicola Denzey, Bowdoin College

The formulation and articulation of the cult of the saints in late antique Rome was the conscious and conscientious endeavor of a small number of highly placed ecclesiastics, nowhere more trenchantly obvious than in the work of Pope Damasus (366-384) and his favored calligrapher, Furius Dionysius Philocalus. As the recent work of Dennis Trout has so ably demonstrated, Damasus re-crafted a new Christian sacred topography, marked out by inscriptions he erected in the catacombs that invoked Rome’s heroic past in Vergilian language. But Damasus’ deliberate invocation of glorious Rome reinscribed a discourse of masculinity on a city full of revered female martyrs. Focusing on the catacombs of Bassilla and Priscilla and the cult of devotion to their eponymous female patron/saints, this paper examines the problem of gendered space in late antique Rome and the implications of Damasus’ radical de-emphasis on the city’s holy women and female patrons.


The Catacombs as Mundus Muliebris: Ceres, Proserpina, Mothers, and Daughters
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Nicola Denzey, Harvard University

The Via Latina catacombs (also known as the Catacombs of Via Dino Compagni) have captivated scholars of art since their discovery in 1956. With their mixture of Christian and non-Christian wall paintings, the Via Latina catacombs house the burials of a cross-section of Roman citizens of the fourth century. This paper will focus on cubicula N and O, arguably the last burial chambers to be constructed. The visual evidence from these chambers suggests that their patron was a wealthy Roman freedwoman well versed in the myth and cult of Ceres in Rome. Furthermore, this paper argues that this patron deliberately commissioned the iconographic program of these two chambers to allude to the complex family relationship and religious adherence of its owners, both Christian and non-Christian.


The Strategic Evocation of Story in 1 Peter
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
David A. deSilva, Ashland Theological Seminary

Participants in this session are initiating a conversation about the configuration and rhetorical deployment of "story" in early Christian texts (Mark, Acts, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Jude, and Revelation). Presenters are studying the configuration of story in a particular text at three levels: the story of the Hebrew Scriptures and other Jewish traditions embedded in the text; the story of Jesus invoked in the text; the story of believers constructed in the text. Uncovering these three "plot lines" provides the starting point for the rhetorical analysis of the stories as they are told, as they interrelate, and so forth. Particular attention will be given to correlations between these stories (for example, parallel configurations between the "back" story of the Hebrew Scriptural epic, the story of Jesus as recalled in the particular text, and the story, past, present, and future, of believers) and to the rhetorical and ideological goals advanced by these particular evocations and crafting of story at the various levels.


Seven Papyrus Fragments of Greek Exodus
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
David A. deSilva, Ashland Theological Seminary

This paper presents critical texts and preliminary evaluation of seven fragments of a previously unpublished fourth-century papyrus manuscript of Exodus (Exodus 10:3-5, 8-9, 12-15, 17-22, 24-28; 11:2-5; 12:9-12, 15-18; 26:21-25, 30-33; 30:11-15, 18-21; 34:12-15, 20-24; 35:9-17, 22-25). These seven fragments come from a sufficiently early manuscript to show considerable independence of both Alexandrinus and, more surprisingly given its greater antiquity, Vaticanus. The text reveals the absence of any conscious effort to bring the text closer in line with the Hebrew text. When offering a reading attested by another major witness or group of witnesses, it "selects" the reading that shows greater conformity with the MT eight times (the most important of which is the omission in Exod 34:14) but the reading that diverges more widely from the MT at least eighteen times. The text does not follow any significant hexaplaric additions, and shows a great deal of resistence to pre-Origenian recensional work bringing the readings in line with the Hebrew. Although covering a regrettably small percentage of the text of Exodus, this manuscript recommends itself to textual critics on the basis of its antiquity, its independence, its non- revisionist character (in regard to the MT tradition), its tendency to preserve shorter readings rather than to expand the text, and its general avoidance (except for one verse marred by a series of egregious errors) of carelessness in reproducing its exemplar.


Cultural Continuity and/or Discontinuity Between Jesus and the Communities of His Followers: the Contact with the Divine World.
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
Adriana Destro, University of Bologna

One of the fundamental problems in understanding the birth of Christianity is that of the continuity or discontinuity between Jesus and his followers. This paper wishes to study some «cultural forms» that make possible contacts with the divine world, as conceived in the cultures of the I and II centuries. In a series of episodes, Jesus enters into contact with the world that he, or the gospels, considered supernatural. Apart from the historicity of these narratives, and from the fact that Jesus had initiated the disciples to these practices, the fact remains that early Christian traditions have transmitted an image of him in which a significant part consists of the search for "embodiment of the spirit", "visionary imaginations", and revelations. A continuity between Jesus and early Christian groups consists however in cultural practices, rather than in the content of the teaching itself. Direct access to the supernatural makes the disciples of Jesus both independent and diverse. Everyone has his or her own truth, and this truth has divine origin. This explains not only early Christian multiplicity, but also the insurgence of internal conflicts. Signs of discontinuity, however, do exist. In Jesus we do not find trace of heavenly journeys (which were important for a certain section of Johannist circles, from the Ascension of Isaiah to John) or of collective prophetic liturgies (as in Acts or Paul). A reason for the difference could also be found in the fact that the Hellenistic-Roman world, in which the groups of Jesus' followers multiplied, was highly familiar with various forms of practices of contact with the supernatural. This could have led to modifications and contaminations.


Text Work and Religious Experience: Philo and Clement
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Celia Deutsch, Barnard College

In this paper, I examine two Alexandrine authors, one – Philo – a Jew, and the other – Clement – a Christian much influenced by Philo. I focus on two texts: Philo’s Spec.Leg. 3.1-6 and Clement’s Strom. V.4 (ANF 2.449), showing ways in which both authors use the language of mystery religions available through the prevailing culture, to describe the nature of the hermeneutical task as a cultic act related directly to contemplation of the divine. Such description is particularly appropriate in the broader context of Egyptian culture which honored the function of the sacred scribe.


Do Tupoi Really Specify Historical Events or Persons? Reconsidering Typological Exegesis in Its Formative Period: Justin Martyr, a Case Study
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Steven Di Mattei, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

We are all familiar with modern definitions of typology, which, following from the pioneering work of Leonhard Goppelt (Typos, 1939), usually run something such as: an exegetical practice whereby Old Testament ‘types’ (i.e., historical events and/or persons) prefigure New Testament realities, or at any rate provide historical correspondences between Old Testament ‘type’ and New Testament ‘antitype.’ Certainly, upon examining the voluminous output of typological exegesis and the care that went into defining this brand of exegesis, often vis-à-vis Alexandrian allegory, that the Antiochene exegetes advanced in the forth century, we would have to concur with this definition.Yet, does this definition square with exegetes of the second and third centuries? Did tupoi specify historical events in the works of, for example, Justin Martyr? This paper attempts to demonstrate that tupoi were in fact never conceived of as historical events or persons to the exegetes of the formative period of typological exegesis. The emphasis on the historicity of the ‘type’ is an apologetic which enters the discourse as an Antiochene reaction to Origen’s apparent neglect of the historia of the Old Testament. Primarily focusing on the works of Justin Martyr, but also making reference to the Epistle of Barnabas and the work of Irenaeus, this paper will demonstrate that tupoi were rather those things done or made by the prophets, as opposed to said, which announced what shall happen to or by Jesus Christ. Thus, Moses extending his arms (Ex 17:11) was a form (tupos) which announced, by way of resemblance, the salvific act of Christ on the cross. We may furthermore wish to question: if tupoi were not historical events to the exegetes prior to the ‘school’ of Antioch, would they have been to Paul?


Maori Traditions
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Jo Diamond, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

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Nimrod, Ninurta, and the Assyrian King as Hunter and Šar Kiššati
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Michael B. Dick, Siena College

Like biblical Nimrod in Genesis 10:8–9 (gibbor #?ayid), through his hunt the Assyrian king merited the epithet #šar ki#š#šati. “King of the Universe”. The Neo-Assyrian royal lion hunt served ritually (see m#elultu and m#elulu “sport”) to transform the violent chaos of the EDIN/#?eru “steppe” into something positive and productive, thereby restoring cultural order in society. In nuce the gods designated the Assyrian king as “Herr der Tiere” who emulated Ninurta and Palil in controlling the steppe populated by wild animals, demons, and political foes. Seal representations of this Master of Beasts frequently accompanied such symbols as the sacred tree and show the intimate relationship between this control of the wild animals and maintenance of world order.


Ritual Turf Wars: Understanding the Biblical Ban on Magic and Divination
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Shawna Dolansky Overton, University of California, San Diego

It is a common assumption that the biblical stance on the use of magic and divination is one of condemnation. The Law Code in Deuteronomy 18 and the Holiness Code in Leviticus 19-20 explicitly forbid a variety of magical and divinatory practices. Yet certain Israelites perform actions that look suspiciously like magic: Jacob manipulates the genetic material of his flocks with some well-placed rods; Moses and Aaron can turn their rods into serpents; and a drink of the bitter-cursing waters, administered by a priest in the Tabernacle, can determine a suspected adulteress’ innocence or guilt. Rather than a unified position against it, source criticism demonstrates that the biblical authors have mixed feelings when it comes to the use of magic and divination. This paper addresses the issue of why the Priestly and Deuteronomic strands condemn magic so strongly while the other authors accept it as part of their worldview.


Indigenous Ghost Stories: On the Haunting of Biblical Criticism
Program Unit: Bible and Cultural Studies
Laura Donaldson, Cornell University

This paper will explore what some scholars have called the discursive process of spectralization. By discursively emptying ancient Mediterranean territory of its indigenous peoples and by removing their traces into the dominant imaginative spaces of Jews and Christians, biblical studies claims an exterior landscape for itself while simultaneously transforming the interior landscape into non-indigenous territory. Spectralization functions as a powerful technique of removal because it effectively transforms the Bible’s indigenous peoples – and its indigenous scholars – into insubstantial, disembodied, and ultimately ghostly beings. This regrettable state of affairs has forced me to undertake a pervasive campaign of haunting biblical studies, and biblical criticism in particular. My haunting of biblical studies will re-tell two of the Bible’s most compelling, indigenous ghost stories: that of the demon-possessed daughter in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, and the Medium of Endor. If, as Avery Gordon affirms in Ghostly Matters, “following the ghosts is about making a contact that changes you and refashions the social relations in which you are located” (22), then the demon-possessed daughter and the Medium of Endor make a contact that profoundly transforms the production of biblical knowledge. If following the ghosts is about “putting life back in where only a vague memory or a bare trace was visible to those who bothered to look” (Ibid.), then these figures point toward the indigenous life that pulsates just below biblical criticism’s spectralized interpretation of them. Finally, if following the ghosts strives to understand the conditions under which a memory was produced in the first place, “toward a countermemory, for the future” (Ibid.), then the demon-possessed daughter and the Medium of Endor gesture toward a countermemory that must irrevocably change the future of biblical criticism.


An Egyptian Mark on the Prologue of Qohelet
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Jacques Doukhan, Andrews University

This paper will explore the structure of the Prologue of Qohelet (1:2-11) in regard to spell 1130 of "The Coffin Texts," and infer from this study pertinent literary and theological lessons for the understanding of the biblical passage. Indeed, parrallels of structure and specific motifs, numerous and significant, not only indicate a definite literary connection between the two documents, but also suggest directions of interpretatikon for the exegesis of Qohelet, namely, beyond its obvious cosmogonic evocation, its anthropocentric, ethical and even eschatological and apologetic "intentions."


The Politics of Divine Presence: Temple as Locus of Conflict in the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Ira Brent Driggers, Pfeiffer University

A mere listing of Mark’s references to the temple suggests an ambivalent stance, on the part of the narrator, toward its place in the life of Israel. However, when those same references are viewed in the context the story’s dominant conflict—that of Jesus versus the Jewish leaders (Pharisees, scribes, chief priests)—one finds that the temple as cultic institution does not concern the narrator as much as its affiliation with a priestly elite that abuses its God-given authority at the expense of those in need. As the mediator of God’s presence (to both Israel and the Gentiles) Jesus exposes this abuse through a ministry of outreach, meeting rejection by the very ones charged to oversee the “house of God” (2:26; 11:17). Jesus’ condemnation of the temple (11:11-25; 13:1f), on the other hand, symbolizes God’s judgment of its caretakers, the hostile “tenants” once commissioned to care for God’s own vineyard (12:1-12). It is theologically appropriate, therefore, that Mark stages the climactic confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leadership in and around the temple. The traditional dwelling-place of God becomes the locus of a paradigmatic conflict, a conflict that exemplifies the Jewish leadership’s rejection of the divine presence and finds resolution through the crucifixion of God’s Messiah.


Penitential Prayers within their Literary Settings
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
Michael Duggan, St. Mary's University College

The three penitential prayers in Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezra 9:6-15; Neh 1:5-11; 9:6-37), function as keys for interpreting the whole narrative from a theological perspective. While the prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah exhibit greater integration within their respective literary contexts than does the psalm of the Levites, all of them stand in reciprocity with their respective contexts in a manner that contributes substantially to understanding the Ezra-Nehemiah complex. Examination of these prayers within their narrative settings may help explain why the author preferred the comparatively innovative genre of penitential prayer to the more traditional communal lament. Furthermore, this paper will consider recent developments in the study of Hebrew prose, which enhance our understanding of prose prayers.


The Interjection "h'" in Biblical and Inscriptional Material
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Robert Duke, University of California, Los Angeles

Genesis 20:5 is a perplexing verse when one tries to understand the logic behind the Masoretic pointing. Did he not say to me, “She (hw') is my sister.” And she (hy') also she (hw') said, “He is my brother.” In purity of heart and innocent hands I did this. This translation is how the verse is universally understood. According to Masoretic pointing the two third feminine singular pronouns are referring to the same antecedent, but when the reader notices the different orthographic forms (hy' vs. hw'), the Masoretic pointing (and understanding of the text) seems forced and in need of reconsideration. This paper will show that the initial third feminine singular pronoun in the text should be read as the interjection a h'. This very infrequent particle (only twice in the Hebrew Bible according to lexicographers) will explain the extant orthography in Genesis 20:5 in a way that is honest to the text and consistent when compared to the other uses of this and similar interjections in Hebrew and inscriptional material. The relationship between hnh and h' will also be elucidated in the discussion. Finally, the results of this study will help explain this little understood particle and will open the possibility that other third person pronouns, both masculine and feminine, should be considered interjections.


Constructing Christian Otherness in the Second Century: The Case of Hermas and Diognetus
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
Ben Dunning, Harvard University

This paper will examine the ways in which Christians used the language of foreignness, sojourning and outsider status to construct diversified Christian identities in the 2nd century, focusing specifically on the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle to Diognetus as test cases. While foregrounding and valorizing the idea of Christian ‘alien’ identity, Diognetus also presents it as the unjust result of Christians living as obedient and even exemplary members of Roman society (Diogn. 5-6). In this way, the text not only argues for a particular construction of Christian identity rooted in alterity, but also positions itself in a larger field of competing philosophical stances and ways of life in the ancient Mediterranean (the project of 2nd century Christian apologetics). Hermas, however, does something quite different with its use of the alien/stranger motif. Instead of emphasizing alterity as the definitive marker of Christian identity, the text uses its construction of Christians as alien as an opportunity to polemicize against everything it opposes, explicitly marking certain kinds of practices, financial assets and business arrangements as outsider and other (Herm. Sim. 1). Hermas then goes on to produce Christian difference (and thus, identity) in another way, through the advancement of a radical economic agenda. Seen together, these two texts highlight different ways in which the language of outsider status could be used to stake distinctive ground in terms of the shape of Christianities of the 2nd century.


Strangers and Aliens No Longer: Negotiating Identity and Difference through Pauline Authority in Ephesians
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Ben Dunning, Harvard University

This paper will explore questions of Christian identity and difference in Ephesians through an examination of the relationship between the designation of the text’s audience as ‘Gentiles’ and its use of stranger / resident-alien language. While other early Christian texts from the late 1st century embrace the stranger/alien category as a key building-block for constructing Christian identity (i.e. 1 Peter, Hebrews), Ephesians 2.19-20 puts this category to a very different use, maintaining that the text’s addressees are no longer strangers and aliens but something else besides. The paper will argue that in Ephesians, the stranger/alien designation functions to explain and fill out the meaning of a more basic identity marker, the label ‘Gentiles.’ Whereas the Jew/Gentile distinction is not an obvious or necessary ‘difference that makes a difference’ from the standpoint of Ephesians’ implied audience, the alien/citizen distinction is one that would have resonated deeply across the Roman Empire. Thus Ephesians’ alien rhetoric functions to make sense of Pauline theology (and the crucial categories of ‘Jew’ and ‘Gentile’ within that theology) for an audience that is not (and never has been) wrestling with the issues that produced that theology in the first place – i.e. circumcision, food laws etc. The larger project the text has in view is the construction of Christian identity and the domesticating / disciplining of difference in a very specific way – one which has as its ultimate goal the production of a vision of unity, embodied in the church and propagated with all the weight of Pauline authority.


Synopsis-based Translation Concordance as a Tool for Lexical and Text-critical Explorations
Program Unit:
Janet Dyk, Vrije Universiteit-Amsterdam

Since 2000 the Peshitta Institute Leiden and the Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, have jointly been developing a database of the Peshitta Kings. One of the products is a translation concordance at word level based on a synopsis of the texts at clause level. The results are useful in showing both the general patterning in renderings of a lexical item and in pointing out glaring exceptions, which are usually of a text-critical nature.


Damning the Edomites: Obadiah and the Scheme of Edom
Program Unit: Poster Session
Jason C. Dykehouse, Baylor University

Current scholarship is generally in concord on one critical aspect of Edom in the Bible: perceived Edomite atrocities and betrayal ca. 587/6 B.C.E. fueled the especially vehement attitude toward Edom expressed by many exilic and postexilic biblical compilers. Problematic discord exists, however, due to the multiple and contrasting reconstructions of the political relations between Edom and Judah provided by recent scholarship. This discord becomes apparent in comparing recent commentaries on Obadiah, which is the most detailed account of supposed Edomite atrocities at or about the time of the fall of Jerusalem. There is, however, no consensus regarding what Edom did and when the activities took place. This paper seeks to identify the scheme of Edom by means of a reading of the MT of Obadiah 1-15. Textual elements and semantic nuances within Obadiah (especially when compared to a parallel oracle found in Jeremiah 49) communicate that by the time Babylon attacked in or about 589 B.C.E., Edom had initiated a clandestine treaty with Babylon to the detriment of Edom’s deceived and treaty-based ally, Judah. Such a betrayal would cause the shock, outrage, and accusations of lies and deception that characterize many of the anti-Edom passages in the OT. It is hoped that this reconstruction will provide a working model for understanding other exilic and postexilic oracles against Edom/Esau. Geography, history, archaeology, and a textual “worldview” coalesce in this work. At the very least, this work both offers a reading of vv. 1-15 without emendation of the MT and provides new insights into textual elements of Obadiah that have political and treaty connotations, some of which have not been addressed in the literature.


A Church upon a Church: Architecture and Christian Identity in Late Antique Philippi
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
David Eastman, Yale University

This paper examines the re-adaptation of sacred space, both Christian and pagan, in Philippi in late antiquity. This process is seen in the construction of a late fifth-century octagonal church that lies just to the east of the forum. This church replaced a smaller, fourth-century, Christian basilica dedicated to St. Paul and, in addition, incorporated an adjacent Hellenistic heroon into an enlarged Christian complex. The discussion focuses on architecture and inscriptions as part of a discourse in which the Philippians made claims about their association with the legacy and cult of the apostle and the victory of Christianity over paganism. I will consider, for example, how the ecclesiastical architecture of Philippi functions in both reflecting and creating realities. Theoretical approaches, such as Foucault’s “technology of the self,” and scholarship on comparable material, such as the cult of St.Demetrios in Thessaloniki, are brought to bear in the interpretation of the archaeological record. The image that emerges is that of a late antique city, “renowned for and proud of her apostolic links,” which expressed its sense of identity through the erection of sacred architecture on already “holy ground.”


The Cult Term “Isheh”: Remarks on Its Meaning, Importance, and Disappearance
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Christian Eberhart, Lutheran Theological Seminary

The Hebrew term “isheh” occurs almost exclusively in cult texts of the Torah. In this paper I will begin with a contribution to the ongoing discussion regarding its meaning and translation. In recent scholarship, different proposals have been made that “isheh,” void of any connotation to “fire,” means “(food) gift” (J. HOFTIJZER, J. MILGROM, R. RENDTORFF). I will challenge these proposals and argue that connotations of “isheh” to “fire” can be established because of the usage of this term in describing sacrificial rituals, and by analyzing its rendering in LXX. I therefore suggest that a more adequate translation is “fire offering.” Building on this broader understanding, I want to show that “isheh” is a key notion of the sacrificial cult in which it can also be used as a comprehensive term for all sacrifices (e.g., Leviticus 23:25, 27, 36, 37). The peculiar fact that it occurs almost exclusively in the Torah indicates that the term as such disappeared. In later biblical text, however, equivalent terms with connotations to “fire” replace “isheh” in its function as comprehensive cult term.


Settlement Patterns and the Economic Development of Yehud in the Persian Period
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Diana Edelman, University of Sheffield

Data compiled from currently available survey and excavation results that pertain to Persian-era settlement patterns in Yehud can serve as a basis for examining the economic, military, and administrative dimensions of the imperial plan for the region’s expansion and development. Specifically, two strings of forts and relay stations can be identified, as well as a network of new farmsteads established in their vicinities. Together, they demonstrate a concern to bolster food production in the province and a desire to have manpower available, as necessary, for military purposes. The increase in population allowed the crown to stockpile food surpluses in silo facilities along the edge of the coastal route to Egypt, a province that rebelled frequently, while at the same time having paramilitary units available for call-up, as necessary. It can be argued on the basis of the settlement patterns that the newly established farmsteads had a different administrative status carrying different obligations than those that probably had remained occupied from the Neo-Babylonian period into the Persian period. When set beside the biblical traditions, it can be argued that these changes were introduced during the reign of Artaxerxes I.


Jesus is my Homeboy: The Function of Jesus Images in Contemporary Popular Culture
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Katie Edwards, University of Sheffield

He may be the messiah but he's also a movie star, a supermodel, and big business for purveyors of popular culture. This paper investigates the role of Jesus as a contemporary popular cultural icon. Building on theories in celebrity/ star studies (e.g. Dyer) and studies on the representation of masculinity in popular culture I ask why, in spite of the increasing secularisation of Western society, Jesus maintains his position as the ultimate celebrity figure? Why would contemporary consumers want to see Jesus in a fashion magazine? Or in advertising campaigns? And, ultimately, how does the image of Jesus function in contemporary culture?


Christians and the Parmenides
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Mark Edwards, Christ Church, Oxford

The Parmenides is not a familiar dialogue to Christians before the Constantinian era. It is not cited in the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, and even the Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, show little knowledge of it. Apophatic theology of this period looks back to (purportedly) Pythagorean sources, and negation is not followed to its logical conclusion except in certain Gnostic texts. Even after Constantine, traces of the Parmenides are not easy to come by except in Dionysius the Areopagite, and even here Ritter’s parallels with the Phaedrus outnumber those with the Parmenides. The parallels observed by Hadot between the anonymous commentary on the Parmenides and the work of Marius Victorinus do not prove that he had read the dialogue. Of course it is not surprising that the Christians should neglect a difficult work which did not form part of common Hellenic culture as Plato’s more elegant dialogues did; but at the same time, they had better reasons to avoid it, as they did not wish to pursue negative theology in the manner exemplified in the Parmenides or to the same conclusion. They relied for their knowledge of God on revelation, interpreted by philosophy, rather than on speculation from first principles; they continued to combine cataphatic with apophatic theology. In contrast to the Timaeus, which could be adduced in favour of a Christian cosmogony against Platonists of the Roman era, the Parmenides is the work in which the difference between Platonic metaphysics and Christian theism reveals itself with inescapable clarity.


“Words from the Mouths of Prophets”: Zechariah 8:9–13 as a Literary Crux in Haggai-Zechariah
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Chad Eggleston, Duke University

Observing a number of literary seams in Zechariah 8, Otto Eißfeldt concludes that the chapter consists of a “loose collection of independent sayings,” minimizing the significance of these verses by divorcing them from their literary context and implying a haphazard process of literary formation. Yet lexical and thematic correspondences demonstrate that Zechariah 8 is not as “loose” or “independent” as Eißfeldt believes. This paper explores the significance of one oracle, Zech 8.9-13, by examining its literary function as 1) a retrospective summary of an original Haggai-Zech corpus (Hag – Zech 8.13) and 2) a proleptic key to the apocalyptic material of Zech 9-14. Functioning as a lexical and thematic bridge, Zech 8.9-13 relies especially on language derived from Haggai, conflating key phrases from that text to heighten the connection (e.g. she’erit haam [Hg 1.12, 14] + ha’am hazeh [Hg 1.2, 2.14] = she’erit ha’am hazeh [Zech 8.11, 12]). The text of Zech 8.9-13 picks up on the themes of temple reconstruction, the former prophets, and shalom. Moreover, this oracle provides a literary model employed by later tradents as they sought to signify connections to the words of former prophets (e.g. 8.14-23; 9-14). As Zech 7-8 draws from Haggai, so Zech 9-14 draws from Zech 7-8, employing similar vocabulary and expanding earlier themes. The result is a Haggai-Zechariah corpus connected in a variety of ways, but dependent upon Zech 8.9-13 as a crucial link. Situated between the enigmatic visions of Zech 1-6 and the apocalyptic imagery of Zech 9-14, Zech 8.9-13 provides an important clue to comprehending both the Haggai-Zechariah corpus and the literary formation of the Book of the Twelve.


The Priestly Office in Calvin’s Interpretation of the Prophets
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Chad Eggleston, Duke University

According to Alexandre Ganoczy, John Calvin justified his ministry “by an appeal to the model of the OT prophets.” Given the nature of his invective against abuses in the priestly office, one might expect Calvin to be particularly interested in the anti-cultic rhetoric of classical prophets like Amos or Micah. Instead, Calvin often identifies with the weeping prophet Jeremiah, observing that, as a priest, Jeremiah is specially qualified for the prophetic role since the “priestly order was as it were the nursery of the prophets” (Comm., Jer 1:1). For Calvin, prophet and priest are not mutually exclusive offices, a fact that becomes increasingly clear when considering Calvin’s interpretation of post-exilic prophecy. By reflecting on his readings of three texts from post-exilic prophecy, Haggai 2:11-14, Zechariah 6:11-14, and Malachi 1:6-2:9, this paper explores the relationship between the prophetic and priestly offices in the Reformer’s thought. Each of these texts reflect different perspectives on the role of the priesthood in ancient Yehud, with Haggai and Zechariah describing the diarchic rule of governor and high priest and Malachi issuing a strong challenge to the wider community of priests. Calvin finds in the post-exilic community’s priestly interest an opportunity to discuss the office in his own time, reflecting on abuses of the priestly office in his commentary on Malachi 1:6-2:9 (a favorite text of Eck) and describing the relationship of the priest to governmental and prophetic authority in his commentary on Haggai and Zechariah. Extended reflection on these representative texts yields a more robust picture of Calvin’s social vision and his personal prophetic/priestly vocation.


Hebrews, Supersessionism, and Jewish-Christian Relations
Program Unit: Hebrews
Pamela Eisenbaum, Iliff School of Theology

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The Desolating Sacrilege: A Jewish-Christian Discourse on Statuary, Space, and Power
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Yaron Z. Eliav, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

In the current paper I demonstrate that so-called "reports" of Jews and Christians about encountering roman sculpture at the site of the ruined Jewish Temple in Jerusalem do not stand on their own. Rather, they are part of a long, intricate, and at times elusive tradition about statues that contaminate — but paradoxically also demarcate (through their negative power) — the space of the Jewish Temple. Placed in this context, these texts contemplate and then articulate the meaning, relevance and function of Roman statuary and at the same time partake in a multi-faceted dialogue on the meaning of space, spatial layout and power in the wake of the destruction of the Jewish Temple. Surprisingly, Christian and Jewish authors operated within the contours of the cultural discourse about statues that took place throughout the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean; not as outside observers, fraught with hostility, but rather as integral members of this milieu.


Mark 13 and the Spatial Layout of Early Christian Consciousness
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Yaron Eliav, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Nineteenth century scholarship shared the view that the stones and buildings that Jesus and his entourage encounter at the beginning of Mark 13 must be decoded against the background of Josephus’s depiction of the marvellous gigantic stones of the Herodian Temple (Ant. 15:392). Based on this view, the conventional interpretation since then, espoused in every commentary and study I have found, identifies the content of the excerpt as the destruction of the Temple. In the current paper, I revisit this common opinion. Utilizing an un-recognized discussion of this passage Eusebius' Theophany, I revisit the text and its literary tradition within the synoptic Gospels. I claim that in the early days of the Christian movement, the prophetic pronouncement of Jesus in this passage was understood completely different and was associated to a heated debate and a multi-faceted dialogue on the meaning of space, spatial layout and power in the wake of the destruction of the Jewish Temple.


Behind and Beyond Parker: The Key Moments and Voices in Reformation Romans Commentating
Program Unit: Romans through History and Cultures
Mark W. Elliott, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

We are indebted to T.H.L. Parker’s "Commentaries on Romans 1532-1542" (T&T Clark, 1986) in which he deals painstakingly with the 11 commentaries written between 1532 and 1542. Parker was prepared to state his opinions: Melanchthon was a giant, Calvin is to be praised for his single-minded objectivity. There is admiration for Bucer even though he is unreadable. Bullinger is great on theory, less so in practice. Yet, Sadoleto (pace Roussel) is quite mediocre; indeed, as a group, the Catholics seemed to find Romans hard going. They did not use rhetorical tools to explain texts. Perhaps they were looking over their shoulders; after all, Sorbonne and Catharinus censured Caietan’s attempts for being interested in Erasmus NT and the OT Hebrew. There are three matters in which there is room for complementing Parker’s work. There seems in Parker a tip-toeing around controversial and polemical theology and no real account of the awareness of other opposed views. Second, in giving us what 11 commentators had to say on Rom 1.18-23; 2.13; 3.20-28, he does not centre on the passage which must have given the sharpest differences of opinion: Romans 7:14-8:4. Third, in limiting himself to a decade the story of Romans in the Reformation lacks its beginning as well as its resolution. Parker’s work is invaluable and is a spur to more research rather than a last word. In this paper, a review of treatments of Rom 7:14-8:4 and their reception will aim to show more clearly what was at issue between the interpreters.


The "Transformed Mind": Political Formation in Romans
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Neil Elliott, University Episcopal Center

Recent scholarship provides divergent readings of the cultural politics of Romans: reinscribing Augustan morality (Stowers), or politics (Blumenfeld), or imperial ideology (White), or conservative Stoic ethics (Dowling), or the public mores of honor and shame (Moxnes). Esgetical suggestions by Dieter Georgi and the suggestive sultural-anthropological work of James C. Scott suggest an alternative reading of Romans as expressing a partially hidden transcript of dissent and defiance, suggestions that gain weight in close comparison with a near-contemporary text, Seneca's Autocolocyntosis


Empire as Metaphorical Family: Paul’s Use of Family Metaphor to Oppose Caesar’s Family Empire
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
Susan M. Elliott, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Fairmont, MN

The role of metaphor in political and moral discourse has recently been discussed by linguist George Lakoff, particularly in his work Moral Politics. He proposes that such discourse relies on the root metaphor of family, viewing the nation as a family. The key difference undergirding a frequent experience of mutual unintelligibility of liberal and conservative perspectives in contemporary discourse is the pattern of family relationships each is assuming. These patterns are designated as "Strict Father" and "Nurturant Parent" corresponding to conservative and liberal political and moral perspectives. The family metaphor is also a major element in the success of the Roman imperial cult as a binding force for the early Empire, relying on the form of "Strict Father" family assumed as the norm for the elites. This paper will indicate some of the ways that Paul assumes an alternative metaphorical family in an Empire ruled by Christ and grounds this alternative in a transformed understanding of proximate social relations as “family” in the early Christian communities he founded. Several affinities with Lakoff’s “Nurturant Parent” model will be suggested as a mode of comparison. Special attention will be given to the letter to Philemon.


Dr. Benjamin's Household: Rabbinic Orthodoxy in Sassanian Babylonia
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University

Numerous religions and sects interacted and competed in the Sasanian Empire (224-651CE). The Babylonian Talmud itself contains evidence of the involvement of members of the Babylonian Jewish community of fourth-century Mahoza in these theological controversies. In a series of encounters with heterodox elements of his community, “the members of ‘Dr.’ Benjamin’s household” and unnamed others, none of whom show sufficient respect to rabbis, Rava is pictured as outlining his argument for the authority and authenticity of rabbinic tradition. It is clear from these reports that these members of the community were convinced by the Manichaean argument against oral transmission, an argument so successful that Zoroastrian priests embarked on the task of devising and alphabet for the Avesta (their Scripture) and writing down this huge text that had been orally transmitted for up to a millennium and a half. Rava’s essential claim was that the rabbis controlled the interpretation and application of biblical teaching, and thus were co-partners with God in establishing divine law. Evidently, his opponents agreed on the authority of the Bible, but were skeptical of the rabbinic Oral Torah. His response was that since they relied on him for the proper interpretation of biblical law, they should rely on him on the broader issues as well. These arguments were directed at people who still consulted the rabbis, and whom the rabbis wished to keep within the community. The one issue on which there was no flexibility was the question of rabbinic authority.


Paul's Necessity: The Construction of Religious Experience in Paul
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Copenhagen University

How should we conceptualize the religious experience that underlies Paul’s claim that non-Jews have access to the thoroughly Jewish Christ faith on completely equal terms with Jews and without following the Jewish law? Paul himself speaks of a ”necessity” that lies upon him (1 Cor 9:16). And he describes this necessity in heavily experiential language (1 Cor 9:15-27 and elsewhere). The paper first discusses the way the notion of experience is being used in Pauline scholarship. Next it provides an analysis of one of the most conspicuous experiential passages in Paul (Phil 3:4-11), aiming to diagnose the way in which Paul here uses the body to construct an experience that will serve his rhetorical purposes in the letter. The claim is that a combination of a rhetorical or literary approach with an approach that draws on French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of the embodied habitus will best capture this heightened expression of Paul’s religious experience.


The Word of God as "Counter Intelligence"
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Michael Eschelbach, Concordia University

What is the relationship between the Word of God and human nature under the affects of “original sin?” More specifically, is the Word of God given to provide data which human intellect needs in order to adopt a “reasonable” belief system? Or, is the Word of God given as a response to the noisy contradictions of human thought? Is the Gospel really complex and complicated or does it only appear to be so as a necessary response to increasingly sophisticated contradictions to its truth? The proposed paper would consider the biblical witness in regard to human nature after the fall, its abilities and disabilities. The paper will also explore the implications of this argument for other fundamental teachings such as universal atonement, the sacraments, and universalism.


A Report of 14 New Fragments Held in Private Hands
Program Unit: Qumran
Eshel Hanan, Bar Ilan University

In this paper I will give a survey of fourteen new fragments found in Qumran, held in private hands. These fragments include both biblical and non-biblical texts.


The Riddle of Galatians 3:10 and Its Context: Revisited Again
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Bryan Estelle, Westminster Seminary California

Few passages in the New Testament have received as much attention as Galatians 3. Even so, it involves many "silent points." Consequently, uncovering its logic has turned into a major focal point of debate among biblical scholars in recent decades. The thesis of this paper is that Paul is not trying to obfuscate here. Rather, the contention is that modern communication theory, i.e., relevance theory, has tremendous explanatory power for the text under consideration. Application of this modern linguistic theory proves to be a helpful supplement to the process of biblical interpretation.


The Relationship of Isaiah 20 and Isaiah 7 Reexamined
Program Unit: Poster Session
Paul S. Evans, Wycliffe College

Isaiah 20 has remarkable similarities with Isaiah 7 that are not often noted. Isaiah 20 is parallel to Isaiah 7 in that it is a rare third person narrative about the prophet. A further parallel between the two passages is the nature of the historical reference with which both chapters begin as the events referred to initially actually take place after the events narrated in the following verses. Another interesting correspondence between these two chapters is the way in which we first find Yahweh’s instructions to Isaiah to do something, followed by direct speech of Yahweh. In Isaiah 7.3-9 we have Yahweh’s instructions to Isaiah, followed by Yahweh’s direct speech (vv. 10-11, 13ff). In Isaiah 20.2 we have Yahweh’s instructions to Isaiah, followed by Yahweh’s direct speech (vv.3ff). Once again, we find style to be a compelling link between these two chapters that is suggestive of common authorship. Furthermore, Isaiah of Jerusalem is not considered to be the author of Isaiah 20, for similar reasons such a judgment should probably be made of Isaiah 7.


A Hebrew Bible Studies Perspective
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
J. Cheryl Exum, University of Sheffield

A review and evaluation of recent developments and major prospects in the literary criticism of the Hebrew Bible.


The International Syriac Language Project (ISLP): Aims, Publications
Program Unit:
Terry Falla, Whitley College

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The Use of Ezra-Nehemiah in a Quest for an African Theology of Reconstruction
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Elelwani Farisani, University of KwaZulu-Natal

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how Ezra-Nehemiah can be used as a new paradigm in a quest for an African theology of renewal, transformation and reconstruction. The paper, then, consists of two related parts. The first part consists of an analysis of how Ezra-Nehemiah has been used by African scholars, in a quest for a theology of renewal, transformation and reconstruction. The focus here is on Charles Villa-Vicencio, Jesse Mugambi and Andre Karamaga. The second part consists of a sociological analysis of the text of Ezra-Nehemiah. The focus here is on two related issues. Firstly, we identify the prevalent ideology within the text, and how this ideology is used to sideline the am haaretz. Secondly, we spell out the contribution of a sociological analysis of the text of Ezra-Nehemiah.


The City of God as Interpretive Space
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Douglas Farrow, McGill University

The city of God, as the divine architecture, is at once the object and goal of scripture, and the only provision for the competent interpretation thereof. A contrast will be drawn between patristic and Kantian approaches to biblical interpretation.


The Cosmic Center: The Struggle of the Prophets to Hold the Center in Iron II Israel
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Peter Feinman, Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education

The language of geography is metaphorical. The prophets painted pictures with words and one of the pictures created was the stage on which God’s history was revealed. The mental map of the people and the prophets changed over the centuries as the world which mattered to them also changed. Distant lands of peripheral people suddenly gained central importance and the identity of a deity defined in leading a people out of Egypt and celebrated in the national holiday became less relevant as Egypt declined on the international arena and Mesopotamia rose in significance to the people in the land of Canaan. This paper will examine the mental map of the prophets as revealed in their writings and the effort to position Jerusalem (and therefore Yahweh, his home, and his son) in the new world which Assyrian imperialism was creating.


Location, Location, Location: Tamar in the Joseph Cycle
Program Unit: Bakhtin and the Biblical Imagination
Judy Fentress-Williams, Protestant Epsicopal Theological Seminary in VA

This paper examines the placement of the Tamar story in the Joseph cycle and the role of dialogue in the chapter. Using Bakhtin's notions of dialogue and chronotope I will argue that Genesis 38 is not an interruption in the Joseph narrative, but an interpretive lens that provides keys for understanding the larger, surrounding narrative.


Bak’s Impossible Memorials: Giving Face to the Children
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Danna Nolan Fewell, Drew University

Continuing an earlier study of Samuel Bak’s themes of covenant in his 1997 painting Elegy III, we move from an exploration of the Flood story to his use of the Crucifixion as a symbol of Jewish suffering. Bak’s primary image of crucifixion is comprised of the famous photographic image of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, an image that has come to represent the fate of the million child victims of the Holocaust and, for Bak, both the face of his childhood friend murdered by the Nazis and his own alter-ego. A combination of memorialization, self-portraiture, and ironic reconstruction of a Christian archetype, Bak’s variations on the Warsaw Ghetto boy engage not only Albrecht Dürer, whose self-representation as Christ [“Self –Portrait” (1500)] is thought to have hailed the advent of Renaissance self-portraiture and the mass production of Christ images (Vera icon), but also a tradition of Christian theodicy and theology that understands the suffering of Christ to be salvific and God-ordained. By replacing Dürer’s face of the Renaissance Man, a celebrated imago dei, with an effaced Holocaust child, Bak signals “an age that has lost its light and plunged itself back into darkness” (Bak 2002: 272). Further, Bak’s (self)representations remind us (following Schweitzer) that every construction of “Christ” reflects the unique needs and experiences of its specific historical community. As each gospel writer’s “Jesus” reflected its first century gospel community, and as Dürer’s Christ reflected the humanistic triumph of the Renaissance, the face of Bak’s fragmented Christ-child holds up a new mirror to history, showing us what is true in our time and asking how we will now live. Co-presenters: Danna Nolan Fewell, Drew University; Gary A. Phillips, The University of the South.


Iamblichus' Interpretation of Parmenides' Third Hypothesis
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
John Finamore, University of Iowa

In Iamblichus Commentary on the Parmenides Fr. 2 the philosopher adopts an interpretation of the Third Hypothesis which no other Platonic philosopher before or after him had done. According to Iamblichus the Hypothesis concerned not Soul but the so-called "Superior Classes," i.e., angels, daemons, and heroes. As Dillon has suggested, the reason for this unusual interpretation surely has to do with the importance of these intermediary divinities in Iamblichus' religious system. Iamblichus' thoughts on this subject are preserved in two further fragments, 12 and 13. The former fragment merely re-asserts the claim, but the second offers an explanation. The Platonic text (Parm. 155e-156a) indicates that the "one" in question partakes of being at one time but not at another. Damascius, who has preserved Iamblichus' doctrine in this fragment, states that there is some alternation involved, and he relates it to Iamblichus' conception of an ascent and descent experienced by the Superior Classes. But what precisely could Iamblichus thought this ascent and descent was?


The Death of Moses in Samaritan and Jewish "Midrash"
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Steven Fine, University of Cincinnati

The integration of Samaritan biblical interpretation into the study of late antique Palestine is still in its infancy, despite the fact that critical editions and translations of all significant texts have been available since 1988. This paper is one step in a larger project dedicated to exploring this relationship. Both Midrashic literature and the roughly contemporaneous Samaritan anthology known as Tibat (or Memar) Marqe describe the death and burial of Moses. In this lecture I will compare these very different portrayals and set them within the contexts of Jewish and Samartian literatures and cultures, with reference to archaeological discoveries that help to illuminate both.


Between Texts and Archaeology: Making Liturgical Sense of the Dura Europos Synagogue
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Steven Fine, University of Cincinnati

The synagogue at Dura Europos, completed in 244/5 CE and destroyed c. 256 CE, is by far the most impressive single monument of ancient Jewish art to have survived from antiquity. This lecture will interpret the Dura Europos synagogue, utilizing all of the architectural, visual and epigraphic discoveries at this site together with parallels with polytheistic and Christian contexts at Dura and Rabbinic sources. The synagogue will be treated as the religious building of a local Jewish community, using methods developed by art historians and liturgists in recent years to interpret religious buildings in a more holistic manner than had been previously attempted. The Dura synagogue will be used to exemplify ways that seemingly disparate forms of evidence may be marshalled for such interpretation.


The Battle of the Kingdoms: Carnivalistic Versions of the World in the Gospel of Luke
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Bettina Fischer, University of Cape Town

According to the Russian 20th literary scholar, Mikhail Bakhtin, the Menippea of the Graeco-Roman period is a body of diverse serio-comic texts, which contain the element of carnival as their distinguishing feature. Carnival presupposes double-voicedness, the carnival version being an inverted rendering of the mainstream discourse and of authoritarian structures of its time. This can take the form of either parody or utopia. Bakhtin classes the Greek Romance and early Christian literature, including the canonical Gospels, within this larger body of the Menippea. Part of a larger exploration into the carnivalistic inversions in the Gospel of Luke, this paper demonstrates how this element plays a crucial role on every level of the discourse of this text, which, if read that way, has a significant impact on interpretation. Jesus, as the carnival king, embodies the idea of the coming kingdom of God, this being the primary discourse that is tested throughout. The story line follows the carnival movement of birth, life, death and rebirth in the person of Jesus. The paper will also show how the text utilizes sections of Hebrew Scripture in a carnivalistic manner, rooting itself in the older text even when it renders it in an inverted form, actively entering into dialogue with it. The paper ends with a discussion of the carnival element in the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and the beggar, Lazarus, and the Lost Son.


Captain America Meets the Markan Christ: On Removing the Superhero-Sized Beam from the American Psyche
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Paul Fisher, Independent Scholar

In this essay I will explore the psychological dynamics of what Robert Jewett and John Lawrence in their book, "Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil" have called "the captain America complex." The Captain America complex is essentially an American monomyth that depicts the super-hero as a selfless soul that transcends the constitutional limits of power in order to save the helpless community from ultimate evil through redemptive violence. The myth is expressed most powerfully in comic strips and motion pictures, but draws on the Hebrew and Christian Scripture as well. Drawing on research in the area of narcissism I will suggest that this myth is an expression of grandiose conceptions of American virtue that preclude the kind of self-critical reflection that would temper aggression toward the "enemy." The counterpart of the American monomyth that fosters the idea of redemptive violence is the voice of prophetic realism that also draws on Scripture and manifests itself as the other side of the American pscyhe. I will suggest that the Gospel of Mark in its depiction of Jesus as engaged in a war of myths with Roman imperial power and Jewish religious power can function as a compensatory image in the current struggle for the American soul.


Papyrus 967 and the Text of Ezekiel: Parablepsis or an Original Text?
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
John P. Flanagan, Southern Seminary

The most important textual problem in the book of Ezekiel pertains to Papyrus 967 and its significance for establishing the original text. This paper shall seek to analyze the importance of Papyrus 967 for interpreting the original text of Ezekiel. Attention will given to a colmetric synopsis of the ancient versions of Ezekiel 36:23-38. I will briefly summarize and evaluate scholarly contributions to the problem with particular attention given to the work of Johann Lust. I will argue that the differences between the MT/LXX and Papyrus 967 indicate both a minus of parablepsis and the existence of an earlier Hebrew text.


Religious Experience
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Frances Flannery-Dailey, Hendrix College

As an introduction to the new consultation and our topic, religious experience in early Judaism and early Christianity, this brief plenary presentation will review scholarship on the broader topic of Religion and Experience. In this way, we also hope to eliminate the need for each presenter in the sessions to conduct a summary of past scholarship of the same material on Religion and Experience in general, although each is welcome to do so, with varying emphases. Hence, in conjunction with definitions of religion we will mention the work of Rudolph Otto, Mircea Eliade, William James, Gershom Scholem, Steven Wasserstrom, and others, delineating past pitfalls and suggesting avenues for further inquiry that are consonant with the consultation’s long-term goals of rethinking definitions of religion and providing a lens and a language for the concept of religious experience. We will also briefly survey the ways in which the discussion of religious experience stands at the nexus of several fields and methodologies, including but not limited to: classical methods of biblical scholarship such as form criticism, sociology, phenomenology, psychology, neuro-biology, anthropology, postmodernism, and ritual studies. Finally, we will sketch some implications of this renewed field of inquiry in light of the upcoming split between SBL and AAR, particularly with respect to approaching established topics (such as mysticism and ritual) in new ways.


Q and the Jewish War: A Forschungsbericht and Evaluation
Program Unit: Q
Harry Fleddermann, Alverno College

Several Q texts treat violence, and some scholars want to interpret these texts against the background of the political situation that led up to the Jewish War. These interpretations color our reading of Q as a whole, not just the texts that mention violence. For example, this interpretive line affects how we view the apocalyptic features of Q, and it tends to see Q as a document that responds to a crisis situation. Setting Q aginst the backdrop of the Jewish War also obviously influences how we answer the difficult question of when Q was written. The proposed paper will survey and evaluate current interpretations that presuppose a setting of Q in the milieu of the Jewish War. It will treat all of the relevant Q passages, and it will further discuss the broader problems of how to interpret the apocalyptic elements in Q and how to go about dating Q.


The Use of Female Imagery and Lamentation in the Book of Judith: Penitential Prayer or Petition for Obligatory Action?
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
LeAnn Snow Flesher, American Baptist Seminary of the West

Although our extant copies of the book of Judith are found in Greek, Latin and Syriac the many Hebraisms found in the Greek suggest it was originally written in Hebrew. This paper will focus primarily on Judith's prayer found in chapter 9:1-14, which contains evidences that suggest an original composition in Hebrew poetry. Through a study of the female imagery and references to (as well as use of) lamentation(s) throughout Judith this paper will compare and contrast the laments of the elders and the towns people with the prayer of Judith to discover the book's purported rhetorical means by which God is persuaded to deliver the Jews in Jerusalem from the hand of the enemy. Staying within the spirit of this joint session this paper will focus primarily on evidences of penitential prayer set in comparison to petitionary prayer(s) and the relationship of each to lamentation.


Religious Experience and the Modern Study of Apocalyptic Literature
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis, St Mary's Bryanston Sq., London

In the apocalyptic texts of Jewish antiquity certain religious experiences are claimed as the framework for the revelation of heavenly secrets (ascent to heaven, an angelophany, a vision of God, and so forth). Frequently these experiences are presented as the product of specific religious practices (fasting, incubation at a sacred site, chanting, for example). In the modern study of apocalyptic literature the evaluation of these phenomena has differed markedly between two intellectual traditions. A dominant view, particularly in older German scholarship, either rejects the authenticity of these experiences or diminishes their significance for the defining heart of “apocalypticism.” On this view apocalypticsim is an essentially intellectual and literary phenomenon. On the other hand, an alternative view, nurtured in older British scholarship, now adopted in diverse quarters, treats the texts¹ religious experiences as somehow constitutive of their genre and worldview. A careful examination of both strands to this modern historiography in the light of the most recent advances in our understanding of Jewish practice and belief reveals the degree to which a proper appreciation of religious experiences has been hampered by the philosophical proclivities of the modern contexts of study. However, the rediscovery of the role of the Jewish temple, its cosmology and distinctive theological anthropology, now offers the chance of an historically accurate appreciation of the role of religious experiences in the creation of apocalyptic literature.


Drawing the Line: On the Uncertainties of Rabbinic Heresiography
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Stanford University

The Mishnah famously draws on a list of named groups of others (Samaritans, Sadduceans, Boethusians) in order to discuss differences of practices and belief amongst different Jewish groups. It further creates a new category towards the same purpose, namely the 'minnim.' While it is not always entirely clear whether and how far beyond the pale of Judaism - rabbinically understood - these categories of practioners are, the fact remains that they are named others. As such they are juxtaposed to the category of Israel, the term for rabbinic Jew and the rabbinic claim to authenticity. This paper will analyze the categories of "others" that are not clearly nameable, and therefore raise a systemic question on the rabbinic efforts of heresiography. In particular, this paper will focus on the mEruv 6:1-2 and the talmudic discussions thereof. The Mishnah here names, next to the Sadducee and the non-Jew the "one who does not agree to the principle of the Eruv," which engenders an extended discussion in the Talmuds about the identity of transgressive Jews who are nonetheless still named Israel. The Eruv, one of the essentially rabbinic innovations vis a vis biblical law, will be dealt with as a paradigmatic case of rabbinic halakhah to disguise its potential heretical nature versus forms of Jewish legal and ritual traditionalism.


Adventures in the Biblical Syntactic Forest: Studies Enabled by Phrase Markers
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
A. Dean Forbes, University of California, Berkeley

The syntactic categories, precedence relations, and dominance relations describing the constituents making up clauses are all concisely presented in their phrase markers. Having a complete set of phrase markers for the Hebrew Bible allows one readily to address questions that were formerly either out of reach or highly Sitzfleish-intensive. In this paper, we provide examples illustrating the usefulness of phrase marker analysis in four sorts of contexts: 1. constituent incidence: complex nomina recta; 2. constituent precedence: OSV in the Hebrew Bible; 3. constituent dominance: prepositional phrase attachment; 4. syntactic complexity: clause complexity versus genre and source in Genesis


How Syntactic Formalisms Can Advance the Lexicographer’s Art
Program Unit:
A. Dean Forbes, University of California, Berkeley

We consider five topics from contemporary syntactic theory, investigating how insights gained from their study might enable us to address known deficiencies in traditional lexicons, and extend the coverage and usefulness of future lexicons. With lexicography very much in mind, we will explain and evaluate these five topics: (a) phrase markers (“trees”) of polysemic forms; (b) mixed (“overlapping”) categories; (c) gradient (“squishy”) categories; (d) multipurpose (“metatheoretical”) data structures; and (e) the elaborate (“richly-structured”) lexicon.


Metaphor, Metonymy, and Medicinal: Classical and Christian Antecedents to the Qur’anic “Bee”
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
J. Andrew Foster, Fordham University

While Saint Ambrose was still in his cradle, a swarm of bees once settled on him, left some honey on his lips and flew off. This sign requires a competent reader of Classical literature in order to be understood as prophetic of Ambrose’s future eloquence. Herein is an example of how Classical literature is appropriated by Christians to serve as an instrument by which the divine will is expressed and interpreted. Yet, this anecdote of Ambrose’s infancy points to a deeper appreciation of the classical semiology of bees. Bees, as agents of divine discourse, offer an analogue to Ambrose’s career as a divine spokesman of the orthodox faith. In these respects, bees roughly approximate the Qur’an’s statement that bees are a sign for “those who know.” In addition the Qur’an’s assertion that “from its bellies comes forth a syrup of different hues, a cure for men” also presupposes Classical Greek scientific beliefs about how honey is produced and what in particular it is good for.


Appealing to the Nations and Israel: The Rhetoric of Psalm 96
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Robert L. Foster, Southern Methodist University

In this 125th year of the Society of Biblical Literature, it seems only appropriate to return to the subject of James Muilenburg’s formative presidential address of 1968, rhetorical criticism. This paper uses the type of rhetorical criticism outlined by George Kennedy in his New Testament through Rhetorical Criticism, and adopted by Karl Möller’s study of the book of Amos, A Prophet in Debate, to perform a ‘holistic’ rhetorical analysis of Psalm 96. Thus, this paper investigates the persuasive impact of this psalm using the categories of the rhetorical unit, rhetorical situation, rhetorical genre, rhetorical strategy and style, and the rhetorical effectiveness of the psalm. In the end, such analysis yields an understanding of Psalm 96 as the psalmist’s attempt to persuade the audience that YHWH deserves greater praise than he receives. For the psalmist, this means that the nations must be included in the praise of YHWH, but this will only happen as the people of YHWH proclaim YHWH’s glory, miraculous deeds, and reign among the nations. The result of this type of analysis differs from form-critical investigations in the way it divides the discreet sections of the psalm, emphasizes the foregrounded imperatives as key to the psalm’s presentation of YHWH (rather than a central motif), and views the primary audience as human beings (a proclamation) rather than YHWH (a hymn).


Law, History, and Narrative in the Damascus Document
Program Unit: Qumran
Steven D. Fraade, Yale University

The question of the relation of law to narrative has been of great recent and current interest to practitioners and theorizers of law and iterature. Similarly, the relation of law to narrative in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and of halakhah to aggadah within rabbinic Judaism and its descendants, has likewise been of persistent interest. Now that the legal materials in the Dead Sea Scrolls have been published in full, renewed interest in the place of legal traditions and legal interpretation at Qumran are receiving their long overdue attention. However, the question of the relation of law to narrative, especially historical narrative, in the Dead Sea Scrolls has not received the attention that it deserves. The Damascus Document provides a particularly apt focus of such attention, especially now that the Cave Four fragments of that document have been published. This paper will begin to address this question with regard to three aspects of the Damascus Document: (1) the relation of the exhortations in the first part of the Damascus Document to its legal body, (2) the interweaving of law and historical narrative within the exhortations themselves, (3) the social and ritual function of both law and historical narrative in the Damascus Document in light of its setting in a covenant renewal ceremony as indicated by the end of the document (as found in 4Q266, 269, 270). Finally, broader implications for the relation of law to narrative in the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Judaism will be suggested.


Artistic Interpretations of Messianic Themes from the Book of Isaiah
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Chris Franke, College of Saint Catherine

This paper will examine how messianic motifs in Isaiah were used by artists to portray changing understandings of the messiah or messianic days over time. Themes in works of art taken from Isaiah include the annunciation (allusions and direct references to Isaiah 7); the man of sorrows (from Isaiah 52:12-53); the Jesse tree and the peaceable kingdom (Isaiah 11) . Special attention will focus on works from the Philadelphia Museum, including annunciation paintings and Edward Hicks’ "The Peaceable Kingdom." Our focus will be on how the context and historical circumstances of the times influenced changes of emphasis in the paintings, and in the visions of the painters as their views changed. The many renderings of the “peaceable Kingdom” by Hicks, for example, reflect his anguish over the bitter battles within his Quaker community.


Horrors of the Inner Chamber: Temples, Homes, and Secret-Atrocity Panics in Late Antiquity
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
David Frankfurter, University of New Hampshire

Christianization brought with it fears about domestic and traditional shrine spaces as loci for barbaric rituals and subversive magic. Reflected in Theodosian edicts and hagiographical texts, this anxiety about the interior and closed-off stems from earlier Roman fears of magic and secrecy, but it assumes a much more graphic character in late antique depictions of the dangers of heathen cult.


Order and Discipline: Augustine on Violence toward Pagans, Non-Catholic Christians, and Jews
Program Unit: Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity
Paula Fredriksen, Boston University

Augustine ultimately evolved theological justifications for the use of state coercion against the “enemies of the Church,” condoning Theodosius’ closure of public temples and orchestrating a campaign of muscular pastoral attention toward Donatists. Of Jews he made a principled exception: they alone, Augustine argued, were permitted to be left alone. I propose to lay out the different policies that Augustine articulated against these groups, placing his positions on the use of violence within the various frameworks of Augustine’s theological views on the will, the state, and history, and within the framework of Roman law.


Response: Latter-day Saint Prospects for Biblical Study
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
David Noel Freedman, University of California, San Diego

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Reading Scripture Against the Grain in Christian and Islamic Communities: A Comparatively Enriched Case Study
Program Unit:
David Freidenreich, Columbia University

The practice of interpreting Scripture without regard for the evident meaning of the text is common to many religious communities. This paper presents a two-part case study of such reading “against the grain” by analyzing the ways in which different Christian and Islamic communities interpreted scriptural verses regarding the preparation of meat. Christians of the Latin West rejected the New Testament’s prohibition of meat containing blood, preferring, in constrast to their Eastern counterparts, to understand Acts as prohibiting murder. Shi`i Muslims rejected the Qur'an’s permission of meat prepared by Jews and Christians, accepted by Sunnis, and limited the qur'anic permission to “grains and greens.” This paper employs comparatively enriched analysis to examine both the cultural factors that led to divergent interpretations of these scriptural passages and the interpretive techniques used by those who opted for the less natural reading of the sacred text.


Greco-Roman Symbols in Jewish Life: Old and New Controversies
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Richard A. Freund, University of Hartford

The use of classical, Greco-Roman mythological symbols incorporated into Jewish art and architecture has created new ferment in the study of Second Temple and post-Second Temple Judaism. It has been long accepted that although zodiac and other mythological symbols are found in the Byzantine period, these same symbols were forbidden in the earlier period. Now evidence is emerging that the tradition of use of these Greco-Roman symbols may have emerged, in limited use,in the Second Temple Period. Evidence from excavations in Israel and comparison with Diaspora communities will be presented.


Jewish Glass, Pottery, Metal, Architecture as Indicators of the Jewishness of Bethsaida
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Richard Freund, University of Hartford

Recent studies have concentrated on a variety of different markers (pottery, glass,architecture, etc.) for identifying the ethnicity of the people who occupied an archaeological site in a certain period. These indicators have contributed to our understanding of the ethnicity of the inhabitants of the Bethsaida site in the Greco-Roman period. This study will bring together the different markers and compare and contrast them with pronouncements in literary texts (primarily rabbinic texts) to see if the reasons for these markers are rooted in religion and ritual.


Yohanan Hakkohen, A Second-Temple Priest with Urim and Thummim
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Lisbeth S. Fried, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

According to Ezra 2:61-63, several priests could not find documentation of their priestly status at the time of the return. Consequently, the Tirshata forbade them from partaking of the most holy food until a priest should appear with Urim and Thummim. According to the rabbis (Yoma I 21b), the Urim and the Thummim were absent from the Second Temple. Textual evidence from the Bible, the LXX, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha, and Josephus combine to suggest that the Urim and Thummim were known in the Second Temple period. Their use seems to have been restricted by the imperial powers, however. A close reading of Ezra suggests that one priest who did take control of the Urim and Thummim was Yohanan Hakkôhen, the very one who minted coins with his name on them and who murdered his brother in the temple.


Gardens of Earthly and Heavenly Delight
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Deborah Gordon Friedrich, University of Chicago

We project into the past and future what we desire. In this way we frame, contain, and contextualize the flow of experience. If we imagine a spatial paradigm, the garden is at the center - a place we may have been expelled from, but to which we can return. Human existence is seen as an odyssey - an exile and a return to the place from which the source of abundance emanates or springs forth. Whereas teachings about the world to come are articulated in postbiblical traditions, my paper will focus primarily on the garden in the Hebrew Bible in its ancient context. I plan to explore elements of garden landscapes in Ancient Near Eastern literature, iconography, and archaeology, and also to bring together garden imagery from a variety of texts within the biblical corpus, in order to elucidate the Gan 'Eden topos.


Retrofitting Ephesus for Christian Identities
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
Steve Friesen, University of Missouri, Columbia

The first century assemblies in Ephesus were not engaged in constructing Christian identities. That was a task for later writers. This paper surveys some of those later texts that tell stories about Ephesus in order to construct Christian identities. Particular attention is given to the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Ignatius, the Acts of Paul, and the Acts of John.


Contemporary Histories of Biblical Women: The Politics of Reconstruction
Program Unit: New Historicism and the Hebrew Bible
Esther Fuchs, University of Arizona

The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented effort among biblical scholars to reconstruct gynocentric histories and literary traditions in the Hebrew Bible. The claim that women have enjoyed a central role in Israel’s cultic and economic life (at least in pre-monarchic periods) has been made by Carol Meyers, whose work was published in the late 1980s. Following Mieke Bal Ilana Pardes has asserted the role of women’s “counter-traditions” in the Hebrew Bible. Following Jonathan Smith’s theory of comparative religion, Susan Ackerman claimed in the late 1990s a central role for ‘women’s types’ or ‘women’s genres’ with roots in the ancient Near East, as well as a central cultic role during the monarchy. Following Phyllis Trible, Tikva F. Kensky has reclaimed the role of women as pivotal to Israelite history and to the Hebrew Bible as a narrative continuum. The recent literary and historical reconstructions of biblical women suggest that patriarchy is a cultural context, or ‘background,’ an unchangeable given, a ‘fact’ whose construction cannot and does not have to be critically examined, because the object of inquiry, ‘women,’ can be studied independently. What I seek to do in this paper is to return the discussion to the question of gender and textual politics, in light of the essays I published in the early 1980s, and more recently in my book Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative (2000). Premised on the proposition that representation is inseparable from history, I suggest that we consider the biblical text as a site of textual and sexual power negotiations. Drawing on Joan W. Scott’s theory of the politics of feminist historiography, I call attention to the ideological position of the historian and the politics of biblical women’s reconstruction.


"An Immediate Need to Do Something": Gibson's Passion in the Light of Pasolini's Gospel
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Christopher Fuller, Carroll College

In all the discussion of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" there has been surprisingly very little mention of Pier Paolo Pasolini's "The Gospel according to Saint Matthew" except for the purposes of referring to other Jesus movies. Yet, the circumstances that surround the production of each film are remarkably similar. In both cases a controversial figure felt compelled to film the story of Jesus with public declarations of fidelity to the Bible. Both films were filmed in the midst of religious controversy. Both films draw upon European art traditions. Both films were shot at the same Italian locations. Finally, both films have been accused of inflaming anti-Jewish stereotypes. In this paper I intend to demonstrate how Pasolini's film serves as a useful vehicle for examining "The Passion of Christ" both in terms of the controversy that Gibson's film aroused and the question of anti-Jewish stereotypes. Most significantly, Pasolini's practice of "stylistic contamination" which visually structures the mise-en-scène of "The Gospel" according to Renaissance pictorial traditions (e.g., Piero della Francesca), sheds a clearer light on the anti-Jewish potential of "The Passion."


A Better Understanding of the Genitive Absolute Construction
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Lois Fuller, McMaster Divinity College

Most Greek grammars consider it to be the norm that a Genitive Absolute (GA) is "absolute," that is, the noun/pronoun that agrees with the genitive participle does not normally also occur in the main clause. However, over a quarter of the GAs in the NT (and almost half in Matthew and Mark), are not absolute in this sense. The paper looks at the explanations given by scholars so far and deems them inadequate. The GA constuction combines the featurs of an adverbial/circumstantial participle and the adverbial use of the genitive case. It is not really about being absolute, so lack of concord has nothing to do with it. The function of the construction is to draw the reader's attention to certain information in a more detached way than other circumstantial participles do. The most common use of the GA in narrative is to give prominence to a piece of remote background information necessary to properly understand everything else in the sentence or discourse. This is often notice of time or scene change, but can be many other things as well. The principle is illustrated from some of the texts often seen as most problematic to grammarians, such as Matthew 1:18, Acts 22:17-18, and Hebrews 8:9, as well as other biblical and extrabiblical texts. The GA has other less frequent uses too, and different authors use it differently. This makes it useful in discussions on questions of sources, authorship, intended readers, discourse analysis, exegesis and translation. Some examples of these applications are given.


Death and Return to Life as Narrative Signal in Homer, Chariton, and the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Paul Fullmer, The Graduate Theological Union

This study identifies an ancient storytelling convention in which narratives of death followed by a return to life accentuate significant points in a story. I will demonstrate the convention through a summary reading of certain novelistic texts such as Chariton’s Callirhoë and Apuleius’ Golden Ass, as well as in Homeric epic, the progenitor of such novelistic writings (Il. 5.628-703; 14.412-15.293; 22.437-515; Od. 5.423-493; 24.302-355). In Mark’s Gospel, this convention accentuates the power of Jesus’ ministry (Mark 5:21-43) as well as the ironic disloyalty of Jesus’ disciples as their failure is first assured (Mark 9:14-29) and then realized (Mark 16:1-8). The identification of this convention in the Gospel affirms an identification of the genre of Mark as novelistic literature (as Reiser, Tolbert, Wills, Vines, etc.). Moreover, the significant influence of epic, non-biblical traditions upon the Gospel becomes manifest without an assertion of direct dependence upon Homeric epic. Overall, the study provides a model for the examination of specific themes of the Gospel in light of related ancient literature that enhances modern understanding and appreciation of Mark’s story.


Where Did the Postmonarchic Judeans and Benjaminites Settle? Revisiting the Text of MT and LXX Nehemiah 11:25–36
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Deirdre N. Fulton, The Pennsylvania State University

The list of postmonarchic settlements in Nehemiah 11 has drawn much attention in both historical and interpretive studies. The list of settlers and their locations of settlement in Nehemiah 11:25-36 have been examined in light of similar settlement lists in Ezra 2, Nehemiah 7, and Joshua 15. Yet little has been said concerning the differences in length and number of settlements in the MT and LXX texts, specifically with regard to verses 25 through 36. The MT of Nehemiah 11:25-36 is the longer text, listing several towns in the regions of Judah and Benjamin that the people settled in, while the LXX list is much shorter, with far fewer cities listed in Judah and Benjamin. These discrepancies in the settlement of Judeans are important to consider in light of text-critical and historical studies. I will examine the differences between the MT and LXX versions, the geographical implications concerning the size of Yehud presented in the two lists, and discuss what the implications are for future scholarship.


Girls, Women, and the Sexual Laws of War in the Old Testament
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Kathy L. Gaca, Vanderbilt University

One of the more pressing contemporary concerns of social justice is the gender-specific practice of military assault in two phases that dates back to the Bronze Age in its methodology. In this method of assault, armed ethnic groups of male aggressors attack and strive systematically to kill off the adult males in a community deemed enemy or alien, and then they capture, brutalize, and subjugate the surviving girls and women through wartime sexual assault, related torture, and other practices of debasement that focus on abusively commandeering female sexuality, such as forced impregnation and coerced concubinage and prostitution. The narratives of contemporary female survivors from the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and the Darfur region of the Sudan offer chilling yet important insights into this cluster of practices, and especially into the second phase that has long been considered unfit to mention or describe. Three historical questions still need to be addressed: Why was this two-phase practice developed and sustained as a norm of war in Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean society? What precisely are the methods employed in the female-targeting second phase? How do some of our earliest sources rationalize the ruthless organized violence of the second phase as a just or rightful act of war and conquest? My proposed paper focuses on the highly significant Old Testament contribution to this formative ancient template. In my paper I elucidate the systematic yet often understated ways in which the Yahwist ideology of warfare presumes and legitimates this impulse to dominate girls and women after killing off their menfolk, particularly as this ideology is expressed in Genesis 34:1-31, Numbers 20:14-25:18, 31:1-42, Deuteronomy 7:1-6, 7:22, 21:10-14, 26:5-6, 28:29-34, 28:68, 29:10-13, 32:25, Judges 3:1-2, 5:30, 21:15-22, and Hosea 1:1-3:5.


The Pilgrimage of the Nations in Zephaniah 3:9–10 as Redactional Bridge between Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Judith Gaertner, Philipps-Universität, Marburg

The paper is based on the assumption that Zeph 3:9-10 forms a redactional bridge between the topic of the pilgrimage of the nations to Jerusalem/Zion as it is reported in Isaiah and in the Book of the Twelve. In order to prove this assumption, the paper argues that the wrath of Yahweh as it is reported in Zeph 3:8 is interpreted in Zeph 3:9 as a judgment of purification of the nations (as opposed to a possible understanding as judgment of destruction). This results from an understanding of the prepositional phrase "'alehem" in Zeph 3:8 as alluding to the nations. Furthermore, it is argued that Zeph 3:9-10 combines three different ideas or traditions of the pilgrimage of the nations to Jerusalem/Zion: 1. The nations bring a tribute ("minchah") or, more generally spoken, their possessions, as in Isa 18:1-7; Isaiah 60 and Hag 2:6-7. 2. The nations come to worship or seek Yahweh as is mentioned in more detail in Zech 8:20-23 and Micah 4:1-3 (par. Isa 2:2-4). 3. The tribute ("minchah") of the nations actually consists of God's people returning from exile. That is, the nations will bring the dispersed people of God home as is described in Isa 66:20. The semantic background of the pilgrimage of the nations clearly is derived from Isa 18:1-7 and Isa 66:20. However, the combination of the different traditions linked to the pilgrimage of nations in Zeph 3:9-10 evolves equally from the Book of Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve. This leads to the assumption, that Zeph 3:9-10 forms a redactional bridge designed to combine both Isaianac traditions and traditions of the Book of the Twelve. This conclusion is also proved by the peculiar role of Kush in Zeph 2:15; 3:9-10 and Isa 18:1-7.


Hearing the Word— Translation Matters: A Fem/Womanist Exploration of Translation Theory and Practice for Proclamation in Worship
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Wil Gafney, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

God may sing soprano (forthcoming work of Marcia Dyson) but most folk in black churches hear double bass. By this I mean that church folk hear the androcentric biblical text through the filter of masculinist translation. The end result is reification of a thoroughly masculine god-construct and relegation of women and girls to second-class citizenship in the divine-human oikoumene. I will not address the gender imbalance in African American pulpits except to say that there is no parity between pulpit and pew. I want to focus on the translations most church folk hear because translation matters. Rabbi Michael Lerner raised the issue in a conversation on religious fundamentalism in the U. S. with three African American bishops moderated by Tavis Smiley on 2 December 2004: “It’s funny to learn of these Christian fundamentalists who tell us that they have to stick with the word of the bible but they have never read it in Hebrew. They don’t even know what the bible actually says… there are many wild mistranslations in the King James Version…” Rabbi Lerner’s critique of English-based reading practices, resonates with my experience as a catechumen in the AME Church and as a preacher and pastor in the AME Zion Church. My experience as a Hebrew Biblical scholar has demonstrated that all of the published translations of the biblical text that I have encountered in the context of worship have male translators. The translators of familiar versions of scripture faithfully preserved masculine language about God, but scandalously failed to preserve feminine biblical imagery depicting God and humanity. This presentation asks: “What might the gathered people of God hear if black women translate scripture?” This presentation responds with my own fem/womanist translations of texts that feature prominently in African American religious discourse and brief discussion of translation theory.


A Fem/Womanist Hermeneutic Reading Ruth against the Grain: The Valorization of a Race-Traitor and a Pimp
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Wil Gafney, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

This hermeneutic will explore the characters and relationships in Ruth from the underside. The marriages of Ruth and Orpah will be examined as examples of rape-marriage characterized by the use of the verb ns’. The seizure and sexual exploitation of women for the purposes of providing Israelite progeny, forcibly when determined necessary, will be explored in the broader literary context of the Hebrew Scriptures. The primary hermeneutic applied to the Book of Ruth consists of comparisons between the characters in Ruth and women in the African diaspora (African slaves in the Americas, contemporary Tutsi and Darfurian women) who have been abducted and sexually assaulted to provide progeny for an alien culture. The conduct and motives of women who facilitate the sexual exploitation of other women will also be considered. Ruth as race-traitor: Ruth’s covenant with Naomi will be explored from the perspective of a non-Israelite, cultural outsider. Ruth’s abandonment of her family, land, ancestors and gods will be analyzed through the lens of the abducted, enslaved and sexually exploited. Orpah as cultural exemplar: Orpah’s return to her family, land, ancestors and gods will be analyzed through the lens of the abducted, enslaved and sexually exploited, and through the perspective of those who escaped a similar fate. Naomi as pimp: Naomi’s conduct in securing a kinsman to provide for her material needs at the cost of Ruth’s and (initially) Orpah’s bodies will be considered from her textual silence at the abduction of Orpah and Ruth to her exploitation of Boaz’s ego and desire, and Ruth’s sexuality. Finally, the literary transformations of Ruth from race-traitor to woman of valor [eshet chayil], Orpah from cultural exemplar to extraneous outsider and Naomi from pimp to messianic maternal surrogate will be considered.


Evangelium: Resurrection Celebration
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Linda Galate, Drew University

The most important and popular depiction in the ante pacem art of the Roman catacombs, the orant, remained an allegorical figure for more than four centuries. The data indicate that she is the first witness, the Magdalene, an illustration of the Evangelium (Good News) episode within the Resurrection Narrative (Matthew 28:1,7-10; Mark 16:9-10; Luke24:9-10; John:14-18). Her continual proximity to the Good Shepherd image presented the observer with an abbreviated visual of the death and resurrection of Christ. Together they emphasized a severing of Jewish law. Neither the shepherd, first to announce the birth of Christ, nor a woman, first to proclaim his resurrection, were allowed to be witness in the Jewish court of law. The application of Origen’s method for reading scripture, to assist in Christian continuing education, provides a strategy for understanding the sacramental and eschatological implications within this most potent ante pacem image.


Borders inside Alexandria: The Situation on the Ground During the Jewish Persecution in 38 CE
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Sandra Gambetti, The College of Staten Island - CUNY

In the summer of 38 CE, after the Prefect Flaccus issued an edict depriving the Alexandrian Jews of their rights of residence, the Jews underwent persecution and were clustered in a small part of the city; if they tried to exit that area, the “the mob,” Philo says, would torture and kill them. This dynamic could not have taken place if the limits of that area were neither marked on the ground, nor known to the Alexandrians. Building upon this consideration, this paper will try to understand what that territorial boundary was about. I will initially argue that that small quarter was the neighborhood where the Jews were first allowed to settle in Alexandria, and that Flaccus’ edict restricted the Jewish rights of residence there. I will then examine some evidence from the time of Tiberius, when a juridical principle was applied according to which rights and privileges not confirmed by Roman officials or not officially published were questioned, sometimes abrogated. When Josephus says that the granting of Jewish rights of residence in the entire city by all of the Ptolemies were not believed because they were not officially published, he confirms that the Alexandrian Jews had to confront this problem. I will then suggest that likely that small quarter was the area where the Augustan stela, with the official recognition of the Jewish rights of residence, stood. I will finally argue that in 37 CE an imperial adjudication (P. Yale II 107) applied the abovementioned principles against the Alexandrian Jews; this legal action will ultimately provide the ground for the expulsion of the Jews from most of the city; and that Flaccus, in his capacity of Prefect, enforced the Roman law abiding by the imperial orders conveyed to him in the summer of 38 through Gaius’ mandata.


The Function of the Nazirite’s Concluding Purification Offering
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Roy E. Gane, Andrews University

Numbers 6:13-21 outlines a ceremony for termination of a successfully completed Nazirite period. Among the sacrifices is a purification offering (vv. 14, 16), the function of which has eluded scholars. For what debt of inadvertent sin or ritual impurity could the sacrifice expiate in this context? It appears that the purification offering of the Nazirite has basically the same function as that of the priestly consecration service: purification that is necessary before offering consecration gifts to the Lord. The difference is that whereas the priests offered their consecration gifts at the beginning of lifelong service at the sanctuary, Nazirites offer theirs at the end of temporary, voluntary periods of holiness.


Imagining the Days of the Messiah and the World-to-Come: Gleanings from Sinai and Cyanide
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Zev Garber, Los Angeles Valley College

This paper focuses on the rabbinic doctrine gleaned from the Torah of Moses of the days of the Messiah distinct from the World-to Come.Perspectives using Rabbinic law and teaching, martyrdom directive,Hebrew and Yiddish poetry, and post-Shoah Israeli Knesset ruling will be presented.


Didache 16: The Tradition Behind 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
Program Unit: Didache in Context
Alan Garrow, St Albans & Oxford Ministry Course

Many scholars agree that Luke’s account of the creation of the Apostolic Decree in Acts 15 is incompatible with Paul’s recollection of his meeting with the apostles in Galatians 2. Among other difficulties, why did Paul neglect to quote the Decree if such a document had arisen at the council? This paper seeks to identify an early version of the Didache with the text of the apostles' ruling on the basis of commonalities in date, authorship and purpose. Such an identification, it will be argued, also serves to explain the disparity between the Lukan and Pauline accounts of the Apostles' Jerusalem meeting.


A Tale of Two Sufferers: The Rabbinic and the Patristic Job
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Joshua D. Garroway, Yale University

Is Job a patient sufferer who endures the most unimaginable of plights, or is he an indignant sufferer who demands explanation for his torment? It seems as though both alternatives are possible, depending upon which part of the book one chooses to emphasize, and what sort of Job one seeks to find. Those looking for a paradigm of patient endurance will find it in the opening chapters; those on the lookout for affronts to divine justice need look only to Job’s own monologues to prove their case. The role of the reader is crucial in determining the character of Job. This paper examines the different ways in which Jewish and Christian readers of late antiquity understood the character of Job. Through a survey of the relevant Rabbinic and Patristic sources, it shows how distinct trends developed in these interpretive communities. The Rabbis’ interest lies mainly in Job’s identity as a Jew or a Gentile and in the potentially blasphemous remarks made by Job to his companions. The Church Fathers, on the other hand, take Job’s Gentile identity for granted and see in him a type for Christ and a model for patient suffering. Factors accounting for these different interpretive trends are then considered. These include the theological concerns unique to each community, the use of different translations of the Book of Job, and the impact on later readers of prior interpretations, such as "The Testament of Job."


The Apocalyptic Community: Gospel and Congregation in Romans
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
Beverly Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary

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Comparative Cult
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
John Gee, Brigham Young University

This paper will deal with the similarities and differences in the cult of Israel and Egypt focusing on the daily temple liturgy. The activities, purposes and settings will be compared and contrasted. Finally the issue of the extent to which theological generalizations can be made will be addressed.


Polytrophic Identity: Hebrews under a Form-Critical Lens
Program Unit: Hebrews
Gabriella Gelardini, University of Basel

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Passover in Its West Asian Context
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Jeffrey C. Geoghegan, Boston College

Scholars have long conjectured that Israel’s Passover ultimately derives from a springtime shepherding rite. The comments of Roland de Vaux are still representative: “Passover was the springtime sacrifice of a young animal in order to secure fecundity and prosperity for the flock…It was, in a more general way, an offering for the welfare of the flock, like the old Arab feast which fell in the month of Rajab, the first month of the spring” (Ancient Israel [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965] 2:489). Rather than look outside ancient Israel (e.g. to later Bedouin practices) to find this shepherding ceremony, I would propose that it has been preserved in the biblical text all along. The number of common elements between the Passover, on the one hand, and Israelite sheepshearing celebrations, on the other, make this springtime feast the best candidate for the shepherding rite hypothesized by scholars. Indeed, J. Segal has argued that several features typical of New Year’s celebrations in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean basin can be found in the festivals of Passover and Purim, suggesting to him that these shared features derived from an earlier, perhaps Canaanite, spring New Year’s festival. Segal’s description of the contributions of this festival to the origins of Passover (the slaughter of sheep, the release of slaves, etc.) and Purim (drunkenness, sharing portions of the flock, etc.) fit quite well with the descriptions of Israelite sheepshearing celebrations, where we find the slaughtering of sheep (1 Sam 25:11), the escape of slaves (Gen 31:19-21; 1 Sam 25:10), feasting (1 Sam 25:36; 2 Sam 13:27), the sharing of portions from the flock (Gen 38:20; 1 Sam 25:11) and drunkenness (1 Sam 25:36; 2 Sam 13:28).


Translating Hebrew Poetry into Greek Poetry: The Case of Exodus 15
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Deborah Gera, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

What happens when a Greek translator wishes to preserve the poetic effect of a passage of biblical Hebrew song? While Josephus tells us that Moses composed his Song of the Sea in hexameter, the Septuagint version of Exodus 15 clearly is not metrical. Nonetheless, even though the single most significant characteristic of Greek poetry, meter, does not appear in this Greek version, the Septuagint version of the Song of the Sea does have many poetic features, such as assonance, alliteration, symmetrical cola and clauses, and the use of repeated words and word stems. My purpose in this paper is to point to the poetic features of LXX Exodus 15 and compare it briefly to versions of other biblical songs. While certain deviations from the Hebrew text have been ascribed to the theological outlook of the translator, his artistic sensibility may have influenced his choice of words as well. I would also like to look at some of the wider implications of this "poetic" version. LXX Exodus 15 points to the fact that a translation can be fairly close to the Hebrew and nonetheless include recurring words and motifs which are not found in the original text. A cohesive, rhetorical passage of (Septuagint) Greek need not be original.


Complaint and Lament— Brief History of Two Genres
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Erhard Gerstenberger, Philipps Universität, Marburg

Obviously, there is a certain promicue use of the terms "complaint" and "lament" in scholarly debates on the OT psalms. The German word "Klage" for the phenomena of "wailing" and "pleading" does not help to clarify this situation. It is my contention to distinguish "complaint" from "lament" on the basis of ritual practices connected with determined psalm-genres, notwithstanding a degree of cross-fertilization in linguistic patterns and spiritual concepts. "Complaints" are very much tied to petition in a primary group context. "Laments" belong to the larger community voicing despair after catastrophes but also exercising communal persuasion and pressure on the deity to step in with substantial help.


Prosopopoeia in the New Testament: Where Should We Look, and What Should We Expect to Find?
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Craig A. Gibson, University of Iowa

This paper attempts to establish a method for detecting the influence of instruction in prosopopoeia on the writers of the New Testament. The paper presupposes that we cannot expect to find convincing evidence of this influence in every example of attributed speech in the New Testament because (1) the form of the exercise itself (as opposed to the general techniques learned from it) would be apparent only in monologues of a certain length and (2) this exercise was merely one stop on a much longer educational journey. Therefore, rather than examining the extent to which speeches in the New Testament conform (or fail to conform) to the recommendations of ancient treatises on the progymnasmata, the paper proposes instead that we approach the problem differently by asking the following questions: How can we use the treatises to define the parameters within which we should expect to find evidence of the writer’s instruction in prosopopoeia? Where in the New Testament should we be looking, and what might we expect to find there? Since the extant treatises suggest that we should be looking for speeches in which the illustration of ethos and pathos (or a combination of the two) is the writer’s main goal, and since most of the surviving examples of both types portray speakers at moments of intense joy or suffering, I attempt to identify speeches in the New Testament that are most reflective of their formal origins in the classroom using these parameters. I close with an assessment of the usefulness of the method proposed.


Karl Barth's Theological Reading of Isaiah
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Mark Gignilliat, Beeson Divinity School

The ways in which biblical scholars and dogmatic theologians approach Scripture can be rather disparate. In today’s theological climate these rather different approaches are in one respect the result of the clash between modernism’s claim of catholic objectivity and the church’s desire to continue to read Scripture as the viva vox Dei. There is a new climate in today’s theological discourse. Catholic objectivity has not lived up to its claims and as a result biblical scholars, of the Christian sort, are calling on theologians to read Scripture. At the same time, theologians are calling on biblical scholars to think carefully about reading Scripture in a particular dogmatic locale. In the midst of these two realms stands one giant who brought the two worlds of biblical exegesis and dogmatic reflection together in a combustive manner, namely, Karl Barth. In line with Brevard Childs’s new book, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, this paper will seek to address the ways in which Barth read Isaiah as Christian Scripture. I will seek to show the dogmatic contexts in which Barth appealed to Isaiah, particularly in CD I.1, I.2 and IV.1, and the ways in which his reading of Scripture differs from biblical scholars addressing the same text. How does Barth address their concerns, if he does so, and how does he move beyond the hegemony of historical criticism in his reading of Isaiah? In the introduction of the paper an overview of the various approaches to Barth’s reading of Scripture will be given (e.g., Bächli, Büttner, Baxter, Burnett and McCormack) with attention turning specifically to Isaiah. This paper will be a first step paper toward a larger project on Barth and Isaiah with specific issues being addressed in Barth’s theological reading of Isaiah.


Who Were the Sikila Sea People? New Light from Tel Dor on Early Iron Age Identities on the Northern Canaanite Littoral
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Ayelet Gilboa, University of Haifa

Tel Dor, on Israel's Carmel coast, is the only site specifically associated in Egyptian records, especially the Wenamun report, with non-Philistine "Sea People" -- the Sikila. These, however, in contrast to their southerly neighbors, the Philistines, were excluded from biblical tradition. Extensive excavations at the site have revealed a wealth of data relating to the Early Iron Age town that indicate that, in many respects, Early Iron Age material culture at Dor indeed differs from that in Philistia. How should this difference be understood? The paper surveys the Early Iron Age sequence at Dor in the context of existing paradigms regarding the onslaught of the Sea People on the Canaanite coast and Early Iron Age "Sea People" and Phoenician mercantalism, and offers a different reading of Sea People and Phoenician identities along this part of the coast.


Blood as Purificant in Priestly Torah: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?
Program Unit: Pentateuch
William K. Gilders, Emory University

What do texts of the Priestly Torah claim about the power of sacrificial blood as a purifying agent? This paper offers a critical review of recent scholarly answers to this question. It considers the nature of the biblical textual data identified and interpreted by scholars, the conceptual gaps that must be filled, and the resources used to accomplish this gap-filling. Particular attention is given to clarifying when, if at all, the texts employ the verb kipper to refer to the purifying effect of blood manipulation. Additionally, questions are asked about the use of comparative cross-cultural evidence to explicate the ritual practices represented in Priestly literature. While affirming the basic validity of scholarly identifications of sacrificial blood as a purificant in Priestly ritual, the paper highlights the relative lack of explicit textual data and urges caution in extrapolating a systematic ideology of blood manipulation from this limited data.


The First Passover (Exodus 12): Interpreting a Textual Ritual
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
William K. Gilders, Emory University

This treatment of the Passover in Exodus 12 investigates the relationship between textual representation and living performance of ritual practice in ancient Israel. In its present form, Exodus 12 narrates instructions for a complex of ritual actions to be performed in Egypt on the eve of Israel’s liberation from slavery, and also provides for future ritual observances outside of Egypt. In dealing with this textual material, the paper emphasizes the importance of first-order attention to the literary representation of ritual performance, involving accurate construal of what is represented, and a self-reflective approach on the part of the interpreter, who seeks to make explicit his or her own gap-filling interpretive moves. Second-order interpretive activity may then focus on the textual ritual, the literarily-represented performance, which must methodologically be distinguished from a living ritual performance. Only when the first-order and second-order work has been accomplished should an attempt be made to move behind or beyond the textual ritual. This third-order work addresses questions about living practice. Following this approach, therefore, the paper concludes with a discussion of the evidence for the existence and characteristic features of an ancient Israelite household Passover rite involving the slaughter of an animal at the family home, the manipulation of its blood, and the roasting and consumption of its flesh.


Twice Used Songs: Performance Criticism of the Songs of Ancient Israel
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Terry Giles, Gannon University

There are a number of songs from Ancient Israel that have made their way into prose sections of the Hebrew Bible. Implicit in the definition of a song is the recognition of a performance of some type. Songs are made to be sung and it is in the singing that a performance takes place. Therefore, these songs of Israel provide likely opportunity for the application of Performance Criticism. This paper will examine Deborah’s Song from Judges 5:1-31 by using Performance Critical analysis. The paper has two basic components. First, appropriate dramatic concepts are detailed. This discussion contributes to the growing refinement of the Performance Criticism methodology by considering: the performance, the performed and literary appropriation. The second part of the paper applies these concepts to Deborah’s Song of Judges 5:1-31. The application considers both the pre-Judges 5 version of the “Performed Song” and the changes that took place in the “Literary Poem” that resulted in the current Judges 5:1-31 text. Co-presenter: William Doan, Miami University of Ohio


The Empirical Models Theory Twenty Years Later: A Reappraisal
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
David A. Glatt-Gilad, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

In 1985, Prof. Jeffrey Tigay of the University of Pennsylvania published a landmark volume of essays entitled Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism. The stated purpose of this endeavor was to put the methodological assumptions underlying the classical documentary hypothesis on firmer ground. According to Tigay, this could be accomplished by adducing various ancient near eastern "analogues", that is to say, ancient near eastern sources whose known literary development mirrored, in various ways, the processes of literary development assumed by proponents of the documentary hypothesis to have produced the Pentateuch. Tigay's work touched off a spirited scholarly discussion at the time regarding: a) the appropriateness of the concept "empirical" when applied to any literary-historical reconstruction and b) the usefulness of the particular analogues assembled in Tigay's volume for illustrating the methodological underpinnings of the documentary hypothesis. After twenty years marked by post-modernist approaches to the Biblical text and a plethora of alternative understandings of the Pentateuch's development, the two issues just noted with regard to Tigay's work are as pressing as ever. I shall be reexamining Tigay's thesis in the light of recent research. In my estimation, some slight refinements can be made to Tigay's approach. Nevertheless, the basic principle he advocates of bringing demonstrable analogues to bear for illustrating hypothetical conceptions of the Biblical text's composition remains cogent, and indeed ought to be extended, where possible, to other issues pertaining to the nature and growth of Biblical historiography. Thus, for example, the "empirical models" theory is directly relevant for examining the purported presence of known literary genres of ancient near eastern historiography (such as the "conquest account" and the "royal apology") within the Deuteronomistic History.


Hebrew Misreadings or Free Translation in the Septuagint of Amos?
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
W. Edward Glenny, Northwestern College

The purpose of this paper is to test the theory of A. Gelston, “Some Hebrew Misreadings in the Septuagint of Amos” VT 52 (2002) 493-500. In this article, based on observations made during the preparation of the apparatus for Amos in the new edition of Biblia Hebraica (Editio Quinta), Gelston argues that several of the differences between the Septuagint and MT of Amos are caused by the Septuagint translator’s difficulty in deciphering the Hebrew Vorlage. The article contains twenty-three examples of such differences, three of which are discussed more fully. I will test Gelston’s theory on the basis of three criteria: (1) the textual evidence from his twenty-three examples in Amos; (2) the translation technique of the translator of Septuagint Amos; and (3) the translation technique of other translators of the Septuagint. I believe this examination of Gelston’s study will demonstrate that the Septuagint translator of Amos did not have as much difficulty in deciphering the Hebrew Vorlage as Gelston suggests and that several of the differences that Gelston discusses are better attributed to other causes.


The Bodily Disabilities of God's Images in Isaiah 40–48
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Gregory L. Glover, Southminster Presbyterian Church

It is well known that the so-called idol passages of Deutero-Isaiah mock the disabilities of foreign (Babylonian) gods. These gods are subjected to easy ridicule because they are embodied as mere wood, idols that lack even basic mobility. They stumble and fall easily in transit; they are unable to see; they cannot hear. (Perhaps more to the point, they lack hands with which to grasp the ruler Cyrus.) What is less well published--perhaps owing to an interest in isolating these passages from the so-called servant songs (etc.)--is that Israel's God, according to the prophet, is also similarly disabled in body. YHWH is embodied by an exiled people, and is similarly lame, deaf, blind and dumb. This paper will compare and contrast the two divine embodiments, seeking an answer to the question why YHWH is not also open to ridicule and what theological advantage the prophet may find in the image of a disabled God.


Ben Sira and the “Doctrine of Opposites”: A Reconsideration
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Greg Schmidt Goering, Harvard Divinity School

The supposed presence of a “doctrine of opposites” in Sirach has dominated much scholarly ?interpretation of the book. The notion that Ben Sira perceived the world through a system of ?polarities, for example, influenced Argall’s interpretation of the creation poem in Sir 42.15-??43.33. Many scholars found their assertion that Ben Sira held to a doctrine of opposites on Sir ??33.7-15. Nonetheless, Ben Sira’s worldview seems to be based not on a system of opposition, ?but rather on the idea of “election.” Ben Sira derives his “doctrine of election” both from ?observation of the cosmos and study of Israel’s national traditions. In Ben Sira’s reappropriation ?of the doctrine of election, the elect are not the opposite of the non-elect. Rather, the elect, while ?set apart from the rest of the nations for a special divine purpose, share fundamental ?characteristics with the non-elect. Ben Sira’s emphasis on election represents a development ?within the Israelite wisdom tradition, and also sets him apart from contemporaneous apocalyptic ?texts, even those such as 4QInstruction, which combine features of traditional and revealed ?wisdom. Moreover, understanding the basic dynamic in Ben Sira’s thinking in terms of election, ?rather than opposition, has implications for the interpretation of individual passages, as well as ?for a proper understanding of Ben Sira’s anthropology and eschatology.?


Ben Sira and Papyrus Insinger
Program Unit: The Texts of Wisdom in Israel, Early Judaism, and the Eastern Mediterranean World
Matthew Goff, Georgia Southern University

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Jezebel and the Shunammite: Strong Women Put Down
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Amy R. Gohdes-Luhman, St. Olaf College

The Elijah/Elisha Narrative that runs through 1 and 2 Kings is notable for the presence of strong women. The separate stories of two particular women, Jezebel and the Shunnamite, are told in a manner that clearly depicts the Shunnamite as a good woman and Jezebel as a bad woman. Curiously, both the bad woman and the good woman are punished. Building on David Jobling’s work on the Shunammite Woman and using Meike Bal’s narratological tools, I note a similar move made in the characterization of both the Shunnamite and Jezebel. Both women begin as either a strong opponent or a strong helper to a male prophet, but these strong women go too far. Both the Shunammite and Jezebel cross the line into the anti-subject position. Jezebel becomes an anti-subject to YHWH and his people, and the Shunammite becomes an anti-subject to the prophet Elisha. Jezebel is killed and Shunammite is made to beg for her land. Why would both be punished if only one is truly “bad?” Is it possible that the story of the Shunammite marked a transition in the YHWH-alone movement from a grass-roots campaign inclusive of powerful women, to a movement sanctioned by the king and directed by the male prophet? I also consider the possibility that a later writer uses the figure of the Shunammite as model for the character of Jezebel, in order to portray Jezebel as a strong contrast to her weak husband Ahab. Good or bad, the narrative makes it clear: these strong women must be put down.


Some Rabbinic Views of Gan Eden
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Edward A. Goldman, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

Although the topic of this session is Gan Eden and Olam Ha-Ba', because of limitation of time I have chosen to address only one end-point in the "historical continuum." The Garden of Eden in Genesis Two and Three poses many questons which intrigued the Rabbis and the rabbinic commentators, and it is to some of these questions which I propose to turn in my presentation.


The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Eastern Christian Ascetic Writings
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Alexander Golitzin, Marquette University

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Magdalen's Song by Women Composers
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Deirdre Good, General Theological Seminary

Women composers from Kassiani to Chiara Margarita Cozzolani compose songs and motets for Magdalen in the first person singular drawing on biblical traditions about Eve and the lovers in the Song of Songs. In contrast to works of male composers using the 3ps, such compositions, articulating both lament and longing, go beyond Luke 7 and expand John 20 to personalize a spiritual quest that effects transformation from sorrow to joy or death to life.


The Rock on Rocky Ground: How Matthew Read Mark's Characterization of Peter
Program Unit: Matthew
Mark Goodacre, University of Birmingham

It is a commonly held view that Mark’s negative portrait of Peter is overwritten in Matthew, with its positive depiction of Peter as the Rock on which the Church will be built. But the standard view underestimates the extent to which Matthew’s characterization of Peter builds on Mark’s, repeating the pattern of immediate, enthusiastic response followed by falling away. Peter is temporarily successful in walking on the water but then falters (14.30-31); he is commended for his confession of Jesus as Christ but then is rebuked for rejecting Jesus’ suffering (16.13-23); and he promises to stand by Jesus in his Passion but then forsakes him (26.33-35; 69-75). Peter in Matthew behaves like the seed that fell on rocky soil (pet??de?) in the parable of the Sower (Matt. 13.20-21 // Mark 4.16-17). What Mary Ann Tolbert famously observed for Mark turns out to be just as true for Matthew. While a narrative critic might see this pattern, it is often missed by redaction critics placing undue emphasis on Matthew’s difference from Mark, allowing Jesus’ commendation of Peter in 16.17-19 to eclipse everything else. But careful attention to the development of Matthew’s narrative as a whole encourages one to explore his Gospel as a successful reading of Mark. Far from supplanting or vanquishing Mark’s characterization of Peter, Matthew underlines, clarifies and nuances his source. The analysis of this rock on rocky ground sheds light not only on Mark but also on Matthew, his first interpreter.


Christian, Jewish, or Jewish-Christian? The Q Gospel and the Vocabulary of Christian Origins
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Daniel Goodman, Gardner-Webb University

The significance of the Q sayings in the study of Christian origins continues to occupy the attention of biblical scholars and historians. That this collection of sayings has apparently now won the designation "gospel" reflects the investment scholars are making in Q. Anyone familiar with Q studies over the past twenty-five years has watched the transformation of Q from a source, where its value rested in how it helped fill in the narrative skeletons of the first and third gospels, to a gospel in its own right, where Q now suggests its own theology, its own community, and its own interpretation of Jesus. Yet "gospel" is a problematic genre for Q, insofar as "gospel" is typically interpreted as pressing certain "Christian" confessions while canonizing stereotypical "Jewish" opposition to the foundation and mission of those "Christian" confessions. By that reckoning, Q's achievement of "gospel" status is neither particularly descriptive nor desirous unless our vocabulary specifically names Q as a "Jewish-Christian" gospel. Thus Q's evolution to gospel status serves as a test case for our vocabulary of Christian origins. For Q scholars and historians alike, the designation of Q as a "Jewish-Christian" gospel helps demonstrate that Q is not participating in the wholesale indictment and rejection of "Israel" and "Judaism." Awareness of Q's Jewish-Christian character saves Q from "Christian" readings which find in Q a mission to Gentiles or a forsaking of Israel. Furthermore, attention to Q's prophetic call for Israel's repentance should prompt a greater engagement with the category of first-century "Jewish-Christian" expressions of the Jesus movement, not the pursuit of something Gentile or Christian in their stead. Such conceptual clarifications will have great bearing upon our reconstruction of Christian origins and the vocabulary we employ to designate texts and groups as Christian, Jewish or Jewish-Christian.


Creation Imagery in Qumran Hymns and Prayers
Program Unit: Qumran
Matthew E. Gordley, University of Notre Dame

The use of language evoking biblical ideas associated with creation is a prominent feature in a number of poetic texts at Qumran. This paper surveys the types of creation imagery represented at Qumran and suggests that creation language is deployed in poetic texts for a number of distinct purposes. Specifically, this paper will argue that in the texts that are clearly liturgical in nature (e.g., 4Q503, 4Q504) creation imagery is used in a way that mirrors the use of creation imagery in the canonical Psalms. It will also suggest that in the hymn-like texts that lack indicators of a liturgical function (e.g., Hodayot) creation language goes far beyond that of the canonical Psalms and is used to promote the Qumran community’s distinctive theological outlook.


Priests and Pagans: Ritual Structures, Blood, and Purification
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Frank Gorman, Bethany College

The rituals detailed in Leviticus 14:1-32 (purification from skin disorders), Leviticus 16 (the annual Day of Purification), and Numbers 19 (the red cow and purification from corpse contamination) are generally understood to contain ancient and “pagan” elements, which were adapted by Israel in terms of its own ritual system. This paper will (1) present a comparative structural analysis of the rituals; (2) review the possible “pagan” elements in them and Israel’s adaptation of them; (3) determine the ways in which blood functions in these rituals to effect purification; (4) briefly discuss their pentateuchal contexts; and (5) raise issues relating to the dating of these rituals and the Priestly traditions.


“Although/Because He Was in the Form of God”: The Theological Significance of Paul’s Master Story (Philippians 2:6–11)
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Michael Gorman, Saint Mary's Seminary and University

This paper explores aspects of the christology, ethics, and especially theology (proper) of Phil. 2:6-11 by focusing on the interpretation of 2:6. I argue that both the concessive (“although”) and the causative (“because”) interpretations of the participle hyparchon are correct and theologically significant, the former being the surface structure of the text, the latter its deep structure.


Edgy under Greek Rule? The Question of Jews on the Margins in the Ptolemaic Period
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Lester L. Grabbe, University of Hull

The initial encounter of the Jews with Hellenism came in the Ptolemaic period. The Maccabean crisis in the middle of the 2nd century was preceded by a long period in which the Jews were already a part of the Hellenistic world. There were differences between the Judean homeland and the growing diaspora communities, but both Jerusalem and Alexandria were a part of Ptolemaic Egypt. The Jews in each city were on the margins, either of a Greek community or a Greek empire. How did they see themselves in relationship to the Greek empires that now controlled much of the civilized world, including the cities where they lived? What boundaries were there between Jew and Greek? How did the Jewish community define its identity? The answer is not as easy or straightforward as many recent treatments seem to think. This paper will explore what we can know about Jewish identity and ethnic boundaries in the Ptolemaic empire from a variety of sources, including Jewish literature, Greek papyri, and comparison with the situation under the earlier Persian rule.


Economy of Hellenistic Yehud
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Lester Grabbe, University of Hull

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The Reception of the New Covenant Concept (cf. Jeremiah 31:31–34) in Early Judaism (Especially Qumran) and in the Early Church (Barnabas, Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origin, and Aphrahat)
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Petrus J. Gräbe, Regent University

The purpose of this paper is to trace the history of effect ('Wirkungsgeschichte') of the concept of a new covenant, found especially in Jeremiah 31:31–34, in early Judaism and early Christianity. A brief investigation of the new covenant concept in the Hebrew Bible will be followed by an investigation of the meaning of the phrase ‘new covenant in the land of Damascus’ in the Damascus Scroll (VI,19; VIII, 21 = XIX, 33/34 and XX,12). Following an overview of the new covenant concept in the New Testament, the use of the new covenant concept in Barnabas, Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origin and Aphrahat will be discussed. It will be pointed out that the term ‘kaine diatheke’ (‘new covenant’) is used by Clement both to speak of the theology of salvation history and to designate the writings of the New Testament. In a similar way, Tertullian uses testamentum in certain contexts to refer to the biblical books and uses it elsewhere in a theological context to refer to ‘last will/covenant.’ In Origen’s commentaries ‘kaine diatheke’ refers, however, primarily to the New Testament. This development can be explained by discerning five phases in the way early Christianity used the new covenant concept. The paper will be concluded by reflecting on the implications of this textured history of effect on our current understanding of the new covenant concept.


The Bible and Film: Current Pedagogical Trends
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Patrick Gray, Rhodes College

While “The Bible and Film” courses have become increasingly popular in recent years among students and professors alike, curricular limitations in both seminaries and undergraduate departments of religion often preclude entire courses devoted to the subject. Many more instructors incorporate movies into existing biblical studies courses on an ad hoc basis. This paper draws on collaboration with several dozen professors in the United States, Canada, and Australia and offers a survey of current pedagogical trends in the use of movies in the biblical studies classroom. What specific strategies have proven successful? Which strategies have proven ineffective? What objectives—implicit and explicit—are best suited to the use of film in teaching the Bible? What are the underlying assumptions in various pedagogical approaches to the Bible via the medium of film? If “blockbuster” status were determined by use in the classroom, which movies are among the biggest hits (and why)? By incorporating movies into courses on the Bible, are we simply using different tools to do the same job we were doing before, or have we altered the subject matter in some fundamental sense? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using film to help students overcome preconceived ideas about what the Bible is and how one goes about interpreting it in a critical manner? The presentation concludes with a brief exercise (focusing on a well-known instance of biblical interpretation in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction) and invites audience comment on its utility in achieving desired outcomes in biblical studies courses.


The Liar Paradox in Titus 1:12–13
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Patrick Gray, Rhodes College

While the commentary tradition has paid an inordinate amount of attention to the popular stereotype of Cretans as “always liars,” this paper considers the function of logical paradoxes in antiquity, the author’s purported appropriation of the famous Stoic Liar Paradox in Titus 1:12-13, and how it fits with pervasive paraenetic concerns about talkativeness and taciturnity here and elsewhere in the Pastoral Epistles.


INTERFACing our Teaching Challenges
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Barbara Green, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology

This session will focus on the INTERFACES series of books on biblical characters (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN). The scope will include explanation of the series, examples from it, and sample syllabi. Posted in advance will be the basic information about the series (volumes, assumptions, implications, and three sample syllabi: to teach/learn the whole NT in a semester; a thematic course organized around a specific topic; a course taught in relation to general humanities material). The actual session will feature a syllabus which does the whole Bible in a semester for undergraduates. The INTERFACES books, assumptions, and implications for teaching will be discussed anecdotally between presenters and dialogically with those in attendance. A new (not-posted) syllabus for teaching the Bible in one semester will be provided as the sample. The expectation is that the discussion will clarify the value of the series for various sorts of classrooms (e.g., denominational, non-religious, introductory, advanced, seminary, general education, and so forth).


Evidence of Spices in Jewish Burials
Program Unit: Midrash
Deborah A. Green, University of Oregon

In the Mishnah, we find a curious statement, “A benediction may not be said over the lights or spices of the dead” (M. Berakhoth 8.6). Later commentary on this injunction (B. Berakhoth 53a) explains that one should refrain from saying a benediction because of the utilitarian purposes of these items. That is, the lights are not engaged to honor the Divine, but are employed to honor the dead, and the spices or perfume are used to cover up the odor of decay. However, the archaeological record of Jewish burial practices in Palestine during the Roman period demonstrates that non-utilitarian items (including personal effects such as cosmetic containers and jewelry) were included with interred bodies. In addition, in many instances, perfume bottles are found sealed in tombs or in ossuaries. This evidence may serve to contradict the rabbinic assertions concerning perfume and the dead, and these inconsistencies between texts and the archaeological record remain unresolved. This paper explores the textual evidence in the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the Talmud for anointing the dead with perfumed oil, incense used in burials, and the perfume buried with the dead, and compares that evidence with the archaeological record in Palestine during the Roman period and in other areas of the Mediterranean (both for Jewish and non-Jewish burials). The paper will conclude by discussing the implications these findings may have on understanding midrashim that involve scent and spices, such as those concerning Abraham and myrrh, perfume, and incense (as found in Song of Songs Rabbah and Genesis Rabbah).


Another Word about Words: Lexical Pragmatics and Biblical Interpretation
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Gene L. Green, Wheaton College

A central focus current biblical exegesis is the interpretation of words in semantic structures. The literature witnesses the considerable attention given to lexical semantics in the discipline (Barr, 1961, 1962/1969; Sawyer, 1972; Caird, 1980; Gibson, 1981; Louw, 1982; Silva, 1983/1995; Cotterell and Turner, 1989; Nida and Louw, 1992; Carson, 1996). However, research has not adequately explored the importance of lexical pragmatics which does not stop at the relationship between words and encoded concepts but discusses the way the concepts suggested by a word broaden or narrow in use. Some current discussions of Relevance Theory (RT) forward the notion of ad hoc concept formation, suggesting that words are “pointers to a conceptual space” (Carston, 2002) and that the concepts themselves must be pragmatically inferred in the process of interpretation. This paper will explore this RT approach to lexical pragmatics in relation to biblical interpretation, focusing upon the Pauline use of kurios (Lord) as a title for Christ Jesus.


Typology, Allegory, and Plain Sense in Selections from the Church Dogmatics
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Smith College

This paper examines figural reading in Barth's Church Dogmatics.


Spaced Out: The Septuagint as an Urban Document
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Leonard Greenspoon, Creighton University

It is well known that all translations, with the exception of the most literal ones, reflect the environment or context of the translators as well as the text being translated. This is in fact the case for the Old Greek or Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, which originated in the city of Alexandria during the first half of the third century BCE. Although this Greek text has been analyzed and investigated from a variety of approaches, there has been little extended effort to consider the impact of its urban context on both translators and intended audience. My paper will serve to partially fill this void. Because what we refer to as the Septuagint is not a unified document, but rather a collection of texts from several centuries, this presentation will necessarily be selective. Looking primarily at changes (vis-à-vis the presumed Hebrew Vorlage) in vocabulary, terminology, and proper names, among other elements, we will demonstrate that LXX translators were indeed affected by the city life they experienced. These transformations in turn document a lively exchange between the translators, their Jewish context, and the larger urban communities they inhabited. Among the topics we will explore are (1) changes brought about because of the "urban outlook" of the original intended audience (as, for example, in the change from "tents" to "houses"); (2) modifications due to the location of the translators in a Hellenistic city (as seen in the substitution of "city center" for "city gate," etc.); and (3) specific concerns that arose from the context of Alexandria, Egypt (visible in a number of geographical references, both specific and general).


Asceticism, the Household, and the Father in the Gospel of Thomas
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Sheila Dugger Griffith, Dallas Christian College

Saying 16 of the Gospel of Thomas contains a parallel to the canonical saying on household division found in Luke 12:49-53. The key difference between GThom 16 and the versions contained in Q, Matthew, and Luke is the concluding statement from GThom 16: “and they will stand as solitaries.” This striking clause highlights the asceticism found throughout GThom and suggests that the intrafamilial division was a result of the disciple’s efforts to pull away from his natural family; family division is linked to family renunciation. This redactional addition to the saying on family division highlights the importance of singleness for the author’s view of discipleship. In GThom 16, the former family member recognizes God as his true Father and renounces his connections to his natural family, with its emphasis on blood connections, its ties to the world (which is identified as a corpse in GThom 56), and its association with death and harlotry (GThom 101, 105). Removal from the hated natural family results in identification as a solitary, a socially-isolated, celibate disciple (GThom 16). Relative to the synoptic Gospels, GThom reveals a social radicalism that intensifies the ideas of family renunciation through the lens of asceticism embodied in the language of the “solitary,” the “single one,” and the “one.” There is an expectation that the ethical practice of the disciple will mirror reality: if the disciple truly knows himself and has found the kingdom, then the kingdom reality will prevail. Counter to Gerd Theissen’s claim, GThom does not soften the radicalism of the ethical demands found in the sayings tradition. Rather, for GThom, radical renunciation is a vital and necessary step to follow the path of the solitary and to open the doors to the kingdom.


The Historical Jesus: Family Renunciation and Fictive Kinship
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
Sheila Dugger Griffith, Dallas Christian College

The issue of the historical Jesus and family remains relatively unexplored despite the numerous weighty volumes on the historical Jesus. In most cases, the topic of “family” commands only a few pages, even in works of substantial length. The literary evidence from Q, Mark, Thomas, Matthew, and Luke is rife with anti-social statements on the topos of family renunciation and alienation, indicating a widespread idea that family renunciation was a key component of discipleship. The question is whether and how far the idea of family division and renunciation was integral to the message and practice of the historical Jesus. This paper investigates the independent attestations of four key family renunciation texts (Q 12:49-53/GThom 16; Q 14:26/GThom 55/GThom101; Mark 3:31-35/GThom 99; and Q9:57-58/GThom 86), hypothesizes a plausible social situation for understanding them, and then seeks to determine which texts likely reflect the situation of the historical Jesus. From these wide-spread and well-attested traditions, I extrapolate a picture of the historical Jesus and his earliest disciples with respect to families and discipleship, challenging two widely argued and diametrically-opposed views about Jesus’ relationship to patriarchy and egalitarianism: Jesus abandoned his familial, social, and economic responsibilities as a first-born son in order to herald the coming kingdom. He then called to himself individuals who were willing to become his disciples and to share in the task of kingdom proclamation. In imitation of their master, the disciples adopted Jesus’ lifestyle, abandoned their own families and responsibilities, and joined a fictive kinship group based on common commitment to the kingdom. Though not egalitarian, the group’s leadership was determined by kingdom commitment rather than social status, accidents of birth, and gender.


Elias of Nisibis' Treatise On Dispelling Sorrows: The Philosophical Life in Muslim/Christian Intellectual Exchange in Late Abbasid Times
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Sidney Griffith, Catholic University of America

In the wake of the publication of Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi’s (c.800-867) popular treatise, On the Art of Dispelling Sorrows, a number of Arab Christian philosophers and theologians in succeeding generations composed works with similar names in which, taking their inspiration from the popularity of al-Kindi’s work, and often quoting from it, they sought to commend Christianity's response to the challenge of seeking happiness in this world. The present communication offers an overview and discussion of one of these Christian works, Elias of Nisibis’ (975-1046) treatise, On Dispelling Sorrows. The presentation will put an accent on Elias’ ideas about the role of the philosophical life as a medium of intellectual exchange between Christians and Muslims, with the apologetical aim of commending Christianity as a religion more attuned to the requirements of reasonableness than other religious or philosophical options.


Transformation by a Text: The Gospel of John
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Robin Griffith-Jones, Temple Church

It was observed long ago that John’s gospel “functions for its readers in precisely the same way that the epiphany of its hero functions within its narratives and dialogues” (Meeks). But the implications have not been seen. Within the story Jesus riddles, teases and cajoles; he heals, gives sight and brings to new life. What Jesus does among the actors in the gospel, so the gospel does among its recipients. How? Arguably, by taking the individual readers through the riddles and warnings and healings of Jesus which the gospel records – and so by bringing the readers to the new life of which John speaks. The gospel is written not to describe and vindicate the setting of its recipients; but to give those recipients, in and through its reception, new health, new sight and new life. How are we to catch a glimpse of that process, at our great distance from the communal, catechetical and ritual structure within which the process was undergone? We must survey the intellectual, cognitive and emotional responses to which the reception of the gospel might be expected to have given rise. This paper explores the possibility of such a reading, and the questions about the readers’ experience to which it requires an answer:- How was “birth again from above” prepared for and brought about? What was its effect? These questions are integral to the exegesis of John. For the gospel is mystagogic; John writes as the midwife of eternal life.


Valuing and Challenging Student Worldviews in Biblical Interpretation
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Jim Grimshaw, Carroll College

Through the use of student papers, I will present an approach to teaching contextual biblical interpretation that welcomes and challenges the worldviews students bring to the biblical text. This approach, which draws from the work of O’Connor, Patte, and Grenholm, begins with students defining their context by taking a context survey. It then moves to a disciplined study of the text which includes a first reading by the students themselves and then a second reading with the use of other resources in examining the text. The third part involves a reinterpretation of the text for their context, a step that asks them to bring these two worlds together (cf. Gadamer). The final stage is an ethical reflection on the interpretation to determine “who is hurt or helped” by the students’ appropriation of the text. This process of interpreting the Bible, in which several points of the process are discussed together as a class, helps students to see the value of their own worldviews and interpretations but also challenges them to recognize and consider those that are different. They are not asked to set aside their preconceived ideas but to be intentional about identifying them and incorporating those that can be supported in a disciplined study of the text. The process asks students to be responsible in examining both their context and the biblical text. By seeing how other students incorporate their contexts in interpreting a text, they come to appreciate different worldviews and value different interpretations. This process, especially with the stage of ethical reflection, also leads many to question their own ideas and worldviews as they are exposed to different contexts and interpretations and as they explore how, for example, a reading of Revelation 21 might hurt the environment.


Apostate Turned Prophet: Paul’s Retrospective Self-Assessment
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Sigurd Grindheim, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

This paper proposes a new model for understanding the continuity and discontinuity in Paul’s theology. Building on the observation that he describes his calling as patterned after the prophets (Gal 1:15), I suggest that his view of his contemporaries as well as his view of his own past are informed by this self-understanding. As seen through the eyes of the Christ-believing Paul, his unbelieving contemporaries are the spiritual children of those who killed the prophets (1 Thess 2:15), a verdict that is not unusual among various groups of Judaism at the time. For the apostle Paul, his own past also had to be included in this judgment. The merit of this model is its explanatory value. It accounts for all the deep-seated Jewish convictions that continue to characterize Paul. At the same time it explains why Paul can understand his Damascus experience as a complete reversal of his value system (Phil 3:7), not merely as providing a more advanced conclusion to his previously held convictions. Elements of Paul’s theology that have been difficult to explain, such as his pessimistic anthropology and his ambivalent attitude to Israel’s election can be accounted for when Paul is understood as renewing the prophetic critique of Israel found in the Hebrew prophets.


The Warranty Clause in the Judean Desert Documentary Texts
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Andrew D Gross, New York University

In recent years, more and more of the Aramaic documentary papyri from the Judean Desert have been published, including the texts from the Wadi ed-Daliyeh and from Nahal Hever. With the task of publication nearly complete, we can more fully assess the place of these texts within the Aramaic legal tradition. This paper will attempt such an assessment by examining one particular clause in these documents, namely, the warranty clause (also sometimes referred to as the defension clause). What degree of continuity does this clause, as attested in these documents, show with its counterparts in earlier and later Aramaic corpora? To what degree does it differ, and to what can we attribute these developments?


The Book of Daniel in Jewish Liturgy
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Mayer Gruber, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

A number of years ago a famous authority on Second Temple Judaism declared at an international conference, "The Book of Daniel is of no great interest to Jews." He added, "Just ask Mayer Gruber." In fact, the Book of Daniel is one of the most frequently quoted texts in the liturgy of the Jewish Day of Atonement. Dan. 12:2 is quoted in the second section of the Amidah three times every day and five times on the Day of Atonement. Daniel 12:3 is quoted in the Memorial Service for the Dead and at virtually every funeral. Dan. 9:18-19 is quoted three or more times in many of the services of the Day of Atonement and in other penitential services throughout the Jewish liturgical year. In addition, quotations from Daniel 6:28; 9:5, 7, and 9 are repeated over and over again in all of these services. If for the author of Ps. 99:6 Moses, Aaron and Samuel were the paradigmatic intercessors, it appears that for the people who put together the traditional services for the Day of Atonement, Daniel was, if not the intercessor par execellence, then at least second only to Moses. The proposed paper will demonstrate the centrality and the ubiquity of the Daniel texts in the Day of Atonement liturgy. In addition, the meaning of these texts in their biblical and prayerbook contexts will be compared and contrasted. Finally, the Sitz im Leben in which Daniel became the exemplary author of pentitential liturgy will be explored.


The Jews of Rome: Alienation, Toleration, or Integration? Or None of the Above?
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Erich S. Gruen, University of California, Berkeley

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Symbolic and Real Violence in Fourth Century Alexandria
Program Unit: Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity
William Gruen, University of Pennsylvania

During the fourth century conflict between the Arian and Catholic factions of Alexandria, Athanasius was accused of many things including sorcery, treason, and murder. Also among these charges was the breaking of a sacred vase in one of the opposition’s churches. In fact, it was this charge that was most vigorously denied by Athanasius and ultimately led to one of the bishop’s depositions from his episcopal see. Similar acts of desecration against religious symbols are plentiful in the literary evidence from this period. This paper explores how this “symbolic” violence which revolves around desecration of sacred objects and sacred spaces is represented in comparison to “real” violence against persons and property.


The Rending of the Temple Veil (Mark 15:38): Mark's Apocalyptic Exposition of the Death of Jesus
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Daniel Gurtner, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

This paper examines Mark’s portrayal of the temple throughout his gospel and his use of Jewish Temple cosmology as means to interpreting the rending of the temple’s veil in 15:38. In addition, profiling the relationship between the temple veil and the heavenly firmament (Gen 1:6) in Second Temple and Rabbinic literature, this paper explores apocalyptic images, such as the opening of heaven, doors, etc., to inform a contextual reading of the tearing of the temple curtain. It argues that the veil belongs within an apocalyptic tradition providing an exposition of the death of Jesus. This helps us understand the nature of the centurion’s profession subsequent to the tearing of the veil and how it relates to Mark’s notion of the temple’s destruction.


Matthew's Temple and Christian Origins: An Examination of Matthew's Portrayal of the Temple as a Means to Determining His Relationship with Judaism
Program Unit: Matthew
Daniel M. Gurtner, Bethel Seminary

This paper attempts to contribute to the ongoing discussion of Matthew’s relationship to first-century Judaism by examining his portrayal of the Temple. It employs both redactional and narrative approaches to conclude that Matthew’s portrayal of the Temple, similar to his portrayal of the Law, is entirely positive. Matthew recognizes the temple and its sacrifices as legitimate. This conclusion is then appropriated into the intra muros/extra muros discussion of Matthew’s gospel, where I will discuss whether a positive view of the Temple requires a substantive relationship with Judaism and how it may shed light on this discussion.


The Structure of Hebrews: Retrospect and Prospect
Program Unit: Hebrews
George H. Guthrie, Union University

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Creating the Ancient and Curating the Ruined in Early Christian Rome
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Adam Gutteridge, Brown University

The relationship between the present and the material remains of the past is complex during any period in history, and is a well-studied field of research in late antique Rome. One specific aspect of this is the issue of the creation of the ‘ancient’ past by Christians seeking to replicate it, the means by which such illusions were achieved and maintained, and the effect that such efforts had on social perceptions of the Christian past and temporal change. This paper will try to understand how and why the artifice of age was added to religious architecture and Christian material culture, and how this was sustained through the careful curation of ruined structures to preserve their scars of entropy. The paper will examine some of the ways in which an earlier Christianity could be manufactured and then inscribed onto the material present, and the important role that this recreated past had in imagining the fifth and sixth century Christian present.


Late Antique Alexandrian Intellectual Life: An Archaeological Perspective
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Christopher Haas, Villanova University

This paper surveys recent excavations at Kom el-Dikka, with particular attention given to the numerous lecture halls in the vicinity of the late Roman baths and "theater."


'Playing God or Playing Earth?' An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1:26–28
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Norman C. Habel, Flinders University

In the SBL Forum earlier this year, Jan Willem van Henten presented a challenging paper entitled 'Playing God in the Movies: The Proposterous History of Genesis 1.26-27'. The study illustrates how interpreters, both in theology and film, have tended to read this passage by seeking to play/identify with God or some dimension of God. God and humans are understood to have something in common that makes this playing/identification possible, whether it be holiness, reason,a spiritual bond or something else. If, however, we consider the full text and include verse 28, we faced with a dilemma: how do we integrate the subduing/crushing of Earth, a feature that environmentally minded theologians have tended to play down. What happens if we dare to play Earth, to identify with what we are, a species made of Earth? This investigation is designed to explore the principle/process of 'identification', a feature of ecological hermeneutics. At the 2004 Consultation, the three fold process of suspicion, identification and retrieval were introduced as directions for an ecological hermeneutic.


On Revising and Updating BDB
Program Unit:
Jo Ann Hackett, Harvard University

The authors are beginning a 5-year project to revise and update the Brown-Driver-Briggs edition of Gesenius’ Hebrew and English Lexicon. Since BDB was published in 1906, other Biblical Hebrew dictionaries have been written, but BDB remains the major English-language Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic dictionary. While it is an excellent dictionary, it is of course out of date, particularly with respect to the advances made in the understanding of Biblical Hebrew as a result of the discovery of the Ugaritic tablets and the century of progress in the study of Akkadian. The authors propose to produce a dictionary that takes into account a century of work in the Semitic languages, keeping what is dependable and familiar in BDB, and updating and revising where necessary.


Asherah in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Judith M. Hadley, Villanova University

Response to Dever


Rethinking Paul and Luther on Law and Sin
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Wilfried Härle, University of Heidelberg

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Finding Joel in His and Eleven Other Prophetic Books
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Anselm C. Hagedorn, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

The current debate on the redactional questions and problems of the Book of the Twelve has sparked new interest in the place and function of the Book of Joel within this larger prophetic corpus. Thus, the book can be described as “Literary Anchor” for the Dodekapropheton (Nogalski). The question for the ‘prophet’ does not feature prominently in this discussion, since the main focus is placed on the ‘rediscovery’ of the prophetic book as a whole. This emphasis is due to the fact that we are forced to rely in our reconstruction of the ‘teaching of the prophet’ and his historical context almost exclusively on the prophetic book itself. Our paper will try to fuse both aspects of research by undertaking a literary critical diachronic study of the Book of Joel, demonstrating how an original ‘liturgy’ remembering the restoration after a locust-plague is transformed into an announcement of an invasion of foreign forces, before being later reshaped into an universal judgment of the nations before becoming a document of a universal (and ethnically diverse) community of Yhwh. During this analysis it will become apparent that many features that are generally used as a structuring principle for Joel and the book of the Twelve as a whole, such as the ‘Day of Yhwh’ cannot be used as an indication for an overall redaction since those passages are employed without any special intentions or purpose. We will demonstrate that the obvious connections to other prophetic books (esp. Amos) were only made at a very late stage in the compilation of the book and the main message of the book is unaffected by the placement of the book in the larger context. Nevertheless the view of the foreign nations presented in Joel can probably serve as a structuring principle for the Dodekapropheton.


The Literature used by the Ebionites
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Sakari Hakkinen, Finland

Epiphanius, in his Panarion, gives a large description of a Jewish Christian sect called Ebionites. He is the only Father who also cites some works written by or at least used by the Ebionites. In the paper an analysis is given of the Ebionite literature in Panarion 30. Also other sources of Epiphanius are listed. The close parallels between Epiphanius’ description of Ebionites in Panarion 30 and Pseudo-Clementine Literature is also examined. It is quite obvious that Epiphanius used some of the material we now know by the name Pseudo-Clementines. The use of these works by Epiphanius does not, however, lead to the conclusion that the movement responsible for the Pseudo-Clementines was Ebionite. Epiphanius had certain reasons for using Pseudo-Clementine material especially in Panarion 30: it was a remarkable part of his anti-Arian campaign.


“Friendly” Pharisees and Social Identity in the Book of Acts
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Raimo Hakola, University of Helsinki

The portrayal of the Pharisees in Luke-Acts is complex which has resulted in conflicting views concerning their characterization. Some scholars say that Luke describes the Pharisees as on the whole being friendly to Christians, some say that the Pharisees in Acts are presented as more friendly than the Pharisees in the gospel, and still others claim that the Pharisees are presented consistently in a negative light in Luke-Acts. In this paper, the portrayal of the Pharisees in Acts is approached from a social identity perspective. I suggest that the appearance of “friendly” Pharisees (Acts 5 and 23) makes an important contribution to the validation of the social identity of early Christians. Recent developments in the field of social identity theory suggest that the need for positive social identity does not always result in favoring of ingroup members at the cost of outgroup members. In certain situations, outgroup members who deviate from a negative outgroup prototype are judged more positively than ingroup members who deviate from an ingroup prototype. Outgroup deviants are accepted and ingroup deviants are rejected because they undermine the integrity of their respective groups. This explains why Luke can present non-Christian Pharisees as sympathetic to early Christians whereas Christian Pharisees (Acts 15) represent convictions that are misguided from Luke’s perspective. Rather than affirming theological continuity between Judaism and Christianity, Luke’s “friendly” Pharisees serve the need to categorize early Christians as a group distinct from Judaism. The role of these Pharisees is not necessarily in conflict with critical attacks against the Pharisees in the first part of Luke-Acts; both the criticism of the Pharisees and the appearance of “friendly” Pharisees assist in maximizing the distinctiviness of intergroup boundaries.


Pre-creation Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Robert Hall, Hampden-Sydney College

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Text and Artefact: Two Monologues?
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Baruch Halpern, Pennsylvania State University University Park

Discussion of use of texts and artefacts in the study of the Bible with attention to comparisons with the use of such sources in the study of the Quran.


Reconsidering Jewish Kingship in the Hellenistic Period: Comments on 11QTemple LVII–LIX and Pseudo-Aristeas 187–294
Program Unit: Qumran
Mark W. Hamilton, Abilene Christian University

Jews under Hellenistic states worked out theories of the nature of monarchy, its purposes and limitations, drawing on multiple resources such as the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern political reflection, contemporary philosophy, and their experiences under empire. While one trajectory of these reflections led to messianism(s), others led to considerations of "ordinary" monarchs. 11QTemple LVII ff. and Ps.-Aristeas 187-294 provide two examples of the latter. This paper examines those texts' discussions of such topics as royal self-restraint, rules of succession, display of power and wealth, and bodily self-display. Points of both contact and divergence will be considered.


The Rhetoric of Adventure: Deuteronomy 1:19–46 and Gilgamesh Tablet III
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Mark W. Hamilton, Abilene Christian University

The texts in question, though lacking a direct genetic connection, share in common several features: heroic quests for conquests of giant(s), deliberation of a group over the proper course of action, interactions with the divine, and one or more rhetors who must persuade an audience of the wisdom of the contemplated action. Moreover, both Deuteronomy and Gilgamesh recount these speeches for their own audiences (not merely the audiences inside the text) for other rhetorical purposes. This paper examines each speech in turn, drawing on contemporary argumentation theory and studies of ancient(especially Aristotelian and Stoic) rhetorical theory to identify ways in which the speeches are designed to persuade imagined ancient audiences. Particular attention will be given to the use of emotional appeals (pathos) in the two speeches, as well as to how aphorisms, appeals to collective memory, and other devices serve argument. As illustrations of ancient Near Eastern speechmaking, these two texts offer resources for future research on the rhetoric of the region. Such research is desirable given the absence of ancient handbooks comparable to those of the Greco-Roman world. Accordingly, the paper will conclude with reflections on future studies of ancient Near Eastern rhetoric.


A Framework for Analyzing Religious Texts as Accounts of Interactions Between a Learner and a Merciful and Just Sovereign
Program Unit: Poster Session
Eric Hansen, Fairless Hills, PA

An understanding and appreciation of various religious traditions may be enhanced through a framework that views a religious text as an account of an interaction between a merciful and just Sovereign and one or more Learners. In the proposed framework, Learners come in two major varieties: (1) individuals, consisting of an individual person (e.g., Adam) and (2) non-individuals, such as a family group (Family of Jacob), a nation (Abrahamic Nation), and the World as a whole. Each Learner is composed of two parts, the Leader and the Follower, where Follower should follow (or obey) Leader, and both Leader and Follower—as a complete Learner—should follow (or obey) the Sovereign. For example, in the case of an individual person, let us define the spirit as Leader and the body as Follower. This pattern of interaction involves a set of 18 elements (stages), wherein the choices made by the Learner (and Leader and Follower within it) have an important influence on later events. This study examines the pattern for several Learners as portrayed in texts such as the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Book of Mormon, and the Ancient Egyptian Opening of the Mouth Ritual. For example, if we define a Learner called the "Abrahamic Nation" as consisting of a Leader called the "Covenant Group" (e.g., Sarah, Isaac, Israel, etc.) and a Follower called "Non-covenant Group" (Hagar, Ishmael, Gentiles, etc.), then we may examine how well evidence from the Christian Bible (or related texts) fits stages such as element 6 (also called the First Probation element), which is described as: "Follower is given an opportunity to obey Leader but rebels or transgresses" (see Genesis 16:3-4) and element 16 (also called the Restoration element), which is described as: "Follower and Leader are restored and reconciled to each other. Follower is healed." (see Isaiah 49:6; Acts 13:46-48; Jeremiah 12:14, 16; Matt. 3:9; Gal. 3:7-8, 14, 4:22-31). The study concludes that while not all proposed Learners fit the pattern equally well, instances of reasonably good fit can be found in the sacred tests of diverse religious traditions, suggesting similarities in the thinking that gave rise to the texts.


Claudius' Letter to the Alexandrians: Those Interested in Its Contents
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Ann Ellis Hanson, Yale University

Claudius' letter was sent to the Alexandrians in response to an embassy the city dispatched to congratulate Claudius on his accession. The embassy asked that the new emperor accept various honors; tried to ascertain which of the privileges that the city had enjoyed under previous Julio-Claudian emperors would again be forthcoming; and presented the city's official explanation for the recent anti-Jewish disturbances. These items were of great concern for the Greek citizens of Alexandria. Yet, as H.I. Bell was well aware when he prepared the editio princeps of the papyrus, the copy we have was found among the papers of the local tax collector in the Fayum village of Philadelphia and was copied on the back of a long record of taxes collected in the last full year of the reign of Gaius. Thus Bell concluded in P.Lond. VI, "The presence of the Claudius letter in a collection of village records whose reference is purely local is at first sight not easy to account for, and may be due to the private interest of the writer." Much more is now known about the man who made the copy of Claudius' letter, Nemesion, son of Zoilus, praktor argyrikon at Philadelphia for some twenty years. This paper will address the question Bell left unanswered: Since this letter was by no means directed toward affairs in a farming village nearly 200 kilometers to the south of Alexandria, what reasons did Nemesion have for copying out this letter?


The Holy One of Israel and the Message of Social Justice in Isaiah of Jerusalem: A Model for Contemporary Proclamation
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Paul Hanson, Harvard University

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In the Name of Love: Resisting Reader and Abusive Redeemer in Deutero-Isaiah
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
James Harding, University of Otago

It has been customary to apply a positive hermeneutic to the opening words of Isaiah 40, reflected in translations such as “speak tenderly to Jerusalem” (Isa 40:2 NRSV) or “siaradwch yn dyner wrth Jerwsalem” (Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd), and in scholarly elaborations such as “speak to the heart of Jerusalem, meaning, speak words of encouragement and reassurance … since she can look forward to a better future” (Blenkinsopp 2002: 182). This paper balances this trend by reading Isa 40:1-2 from the perspective of a resisting reader, in light of intertexts that share with Isa 40:2 the idiom dbr ‘l lb (Gen 34:3; 50:21; Judg 19:3; 2 Sam 19:8; Hos 2:16; Ruth 2:13). In an important 1989 article, Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes noted that three of these texts (Gen 34:3; Judg 19:3; Hos 2:16) relate directly to the perpetration of sexual violence. In light of this, there is a strong case for reading Isa 40:2 as assuming the prophetic metaphor of Israel as wayward bride and Yhwh as violent rejected husband. If so, the text also assumes that the sexual violence with which Yhwh threatened Israel in Hos 2:4-15 has in fact been perpetrated (Lam 1:8; cf. 5:11). Yhwh’s overtures of comfort, redemption, and love in Deutero-Isaiah, which call to mind his love song in Hos 2:16-25, must thus be resisted. The reader who co-operates with these overtures of love also implicitly valorises a metaphor that re-inscribes the most violent and abusive aspects of male power, evident elsewhere in Deutero-Isaiah in the image of the divine warrior, and colludes in the sexual violence perpetrated on Babylon in Isaiah 47, an act threatened in the name of love (Isa 48:14). The only appropriate position for the ethically responsible reader is to resist.


"You Have Captured My Heart’: The Dynamics of Power in the Song of Songs
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Kathryn Harding, University of Sheffield

Until recently, the Song of Songs has been celebrated by many feminist scholars, not least for the apparently mutual and egalitarian relationship which the poem’s male and female protagonists seem to enjoy. Some dissenting voices have begun to emerge, though, which suggest that the power dynamics between the sexes in the Song are as imbalanced and problematic as those described in most of the other biblical texts, and that the woman in the Song appears to be a well developed subject only to reinscribe patriarchal interests. In this paper, I suggest that both of these dualistic positions represent an oversimplification of the complex exchange of power that takes place between the male and female protagonists as a result of their desire for one another, and, using some of the insights of Roland Barthes, I re-examine this exchange of power, suggesting that both the desire to surrender and to assert power over the other is evident in the speeches of both the man and the woman in the poem, and thus the poet creates a sensitive and perceptive picture of desire.


"Words Spoken from the Deck of a Ship— as It Sinks:" Apocalyptic Exegesis and the Question of Israel in Barth's Romerbrief (1922), chs 9–11
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Douglas Harink, The King's University College in Edmonton

This paper will examine Barth's treatment of Israel in Rom. 9-11.


Christ is the Telos of the Law: Therefore the Church Does Not Supersede Israel
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
Douglas Harink, King’s University, Edmonton

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Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Reality and Imagination: Banqueting Values and the Associations
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Philip Harland, Concordia University

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Principles of Adult Learning as Guides for the Successful Design and Delivery of First Year Hebrew Online
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Joel Harlow, Reformed Theological Seminary, Virtual Campus

The Virtual Campus of Reformed Theoglogical Seminary has offered the first year of Biblical Hebrew (Hebrew I and II) totally at a distance, asynchronously online, for 3½ years. Over 130 students have registered for the two courses, with a dropout rate of 16%. The average grade in Hebrew I is 93. The average grade in Hebrew II is 94. RTS Virtual Hebrew students have gone on to exegesis and readings courses. Both the students themselves and RTS professors agree that Virtual Hebrew students have a good grasp of the basic grammar and syntax of first year Hebrew. This presentation will describe how Malcolm Knowles’s principles of andragogy (that adult learners are self-directed, bring a pool of experience to learning, are in roles that make them ready to learn, desire to put to use what they learn, and are intrinsically motivated to learn) informed the design and delivery of RTS Virtual’s successful online Hebrew I and II courses.


Successfully Teaching the Biblical Languages Online
Program Unit: Poster Session
Joel Harlow, Reformed Theological Seminary-Virtual Campus

Reformed Theological Seminary's Virtual Campus has been offering the biblical languages online for 5½ years. New Testament Greek has been available online since the summer of 1999; online Hebrew since the summer of 2001. More than 530 students have availed themselves of this opportunity, from several locations around the world – including military personnel, foreign nationals and missionaries, as well as students from residential campuses of RTS and from other seminaries. There have even been a few students from undergraduate programs. The online biblical language program at RTS Virtual has been very successful. The dropout rate is around 12%. The average grade in online Greek I is 92 and in Greek II is 89. Some students who have finished RTS Virtual Greek have gone on to exegesis or Greek reading classes at a residential campus. They report feeling that they were at least as well prepared as any others in the class, and that they performed satisfactorily. RTS New Testament professors from several campuses agree that students from RTS Virtual Greek have a good foundation in the basics of Greek grammar and syntax, and that there is no discernable difference between the skill level of Virtual online students and other students. The average grade in online Hebrew I is 93 and in Hebrew II it is 94. Students and professors alike report satisfaction levels similar to those of online Greek. This poster will display the above information, as well as list key issues to be considered when designing and delivering seminary courses online: (1) principles of distance education; (2) principles of adult education; (3) the nature of part-time study; (4) barriers to distance learning for adults; (5) learner-centered instruction; and (6) learning and teaching at a distance.


Is There a Sectarian System of Purity Law Among the Qumran Scrolls?
Program Unit: Qumran
Hannah Harrington, Patten College

With the recently completed publication of the extant texts from Qumran a new trend in Scrolls scholarship has developed. The older assumption of a Qumran Community represented by the various non-canonical documents discovered in the Caves is giving way to analysis of the particular community or even “Judaism” behind each document. Several scholars argue that neither the Temple Scroll nor the Damascus Document are sectarian law since they refer to all Israel not to an elitist group (Hempel, et al.). In one study of Qumran purity texts, only two were identified as sectarian: 1QS and 4Q512 (Himmelfarb). Another view sees sectarian ideology in most of the Qumran texts but regards each as a different “sectarianism” (Davies). An extreme view regards all of the Scrolls as an unrelated library of texts brought to Qumran for safekeeping (Golb). In addition, critical methods are now being employed to identify the layers of composition within each document. With all of this indeed necessary critical work, the notion that there is an underlying system of sectarian “halakhah,”i.e. “Biblical legal interpretation,” in the Scrolls is being challenged. My contention is that the Qumran texts repeatedly emphasize several stringencies of purity law, not found elsewhere in Second Temple Judaism, and that this provides justification for describing some sort of sectarian system of purity among the Scrolls. Methodologically, I will compare textual components rather than complete documents. I will examine first, a common rhetoric related to purity and second, several particular principles of sectarian purity law that are in evidence throughout the non-biblical, non-apocryphal Scrolls.


Paul and the Gymnasiarchs: Two Approaches to Pastoral Formation in Antiquity
Program Unit: Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
James R. Harrison, Wesley Institute

Scholars have explored the extent to which popular philosophical discussions of pastoral leadership in antiquity informed Paul’s strategies in his house churches. Paul appropriated the philosophical traditions of pastoral care in 1 Thessalonians (A.J. Malherbe), embraced Philodemus’ principle of adaptability in Romans and 1 Corinthians (C.E. Glad), and interacted with Antisthenes’ motif of the ‘enslaved leader’ in portraying Christ and himself to the Corinthians (D.B. Martin). However, scholars have overlooked the possibility that the pastoral role attributed to the gymnasiarchos in the honorific inscriptions constitutes relevant background for Paul’s approach to pastoral formation. The gymnasiarchal inscriptions highlight the commitment of the gymnasiarchs to ancestral honour and high ethical standards and emphasise how these officials fulfilled the obligations of the reciprocity system. There are echoes here of Pauline concerns that warrant further investigation. Moreover, fragmentary inscriptions at Kyzikos and Thera preserve ethical maxims from the Delphic Canon taught to students in the eastern Mediterranean gymnasia. What would have been Paul’s attitude to these lofty ethical ideals? To what extent would Paul have endorsed or critiqued this theology of civic virtue? What do his disagreements with the gymnasium curriculum reveal about the personal and social dynamics of his gospel? The paper argues that Paul’s cruciform gospel sought to transform his house churches in order that believers might act as ambassadors of divine reconciliation within Christ’s body and within the network of client-patron relationships comprising Graeco-Roman society. Paul’s gospel relativised hierarchies of merit and gender; it pinpricked self-sufficiency and fatalism; it redefined the operation of reciprocity — the lubricant of social relations in antiquity — in light of God’s cruciform love. In redefining the curriculum taught to the epheboi and neoi in the gymnasia, Paul endorsed what was compatible with the gospel of grace, but deepened its application and redirected its rationale.


The Revelation of the ''Man of Lawlessness'': Paul and the Anti-Christ in Political Context
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
James R Harrison, Wesley Institute

In 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 Paul portrays the ‘man of lawlessness’ as a self-exalting deity seated in God’s Temple. The figure is an amalgam of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Pompey, and Caligula, each of whom defiled (or attempted to defile) the Jerusalem Temple. This could be Paul’s symbolic way of referring to the (developing) anti-Christ tradition, alluding to the teaching of Jesus and Second Temple Judaism. But it could equally refer to Caligula who, in Paul’s view, had become the historical precursor to the destruction of the Temple and to the eschaton itself. Either way, Paul strips the imperial cult of a prize claim. There was only one epiphany and parousia worth waiting for—Christ’s (2 Thess 2:4, 8). Notwithstanding the multivalence of his imagery, Paul probably believed that the Roman authorities had exceeded their divine mandate (Rom 13:1-7; 16:20). Caligula had displayed hubris in attempting to place his statue in the Temple. The eastern poleis no longer registered gratitude to the ruler, securing his favour through the imperial cult; but, by means of the cult, Caligula sponsored his claim to divinity (Josephus, AJ 18.261ff; Philo, De Leg.) or, more likely, the veneration of his numen. If this assessment of imperial power in 2 Thessalonians is correct, a positive imperial interpretation of ‘the restraining principle’ (2 Thess 2:6: ho katechon) and ‘the restraining person’ (2 Thess 2:7: ho katechôn) is unlikely. Paul warned believers about the idolatry of the imperial cult (1 Cor 8:5-6, 10; 10:14ff), establishing Jesus’ superiority over the apotheosised Augustus (1 Thess 4:13-5:10; Phil 3:20-21) and his iconic beneficence (Res Gestae 15-24; cf. Rom 5:12-21), highlighting Christ’s peace over Nero’s celebrated ‘quinquennium’ (Rom 5:1). In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10, however, Paul exposes the demonic potential of Roman rule, a perspective that John expanded on a generation later (Rev 13:1ff).


"Do Not Cut Down Its Trees": Israel's Laws of Warfare in Near Eastern Perspective
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Michael G. Hasel, Southern Adventist University

Deuteronomy contains the laws governing early Israelite warfare, including the prohibition to destroy fruit trees to build siege works. This paper will begin with a contextual and linguistic study of Deut 20:15-20. Questions to be addressed include the interpretation of key terms and the syntax of Deut 20:19-20. With A. D. H. Mayes, the paper proceeds with the hypothesis that these siege laws were intended as a polemic against the warfare tactics of surrounding nations. The laws governing the siege of an enemy city will then be compared with contexts of first and second millennium ancient Near Eastern military activity. Special attention is given to the practices of siege warfare through the analysis of Near Eastern textual, pictorial, and archaeological evidence. This in-depth study has notable implications for placing Israel's laws of warfare in their original context.


The Modal Nature of TRM in Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Galia Hatav, University of Florida

Translations of the Hebrew Bible usually translate the word TRM in biblical Hebrew as ‘not yet’, interpreting its clauses as reporting events that occurred in the past. The problem is that this word usually appears with the verb form yiqtol, which is understood to be modal. Hebraists such as Greenstein (1988) account for the problem within a historical analysis, claiming that in such cases the yiqtol is a historical preterit form. However, TRM may appear with yiqtol referring to the future, or appear with a qatal verb (referring to the past). In this paper, I will analyze the word synchronically, showing that it does not mean ‘not yet’ in the Bible but ‘before’. I will show that it stands in a complementary distribution with the word TRM, where the latter takes a nominal as its complement while TRM takes a clause. Recent semantic studies such as Beaver and Condoravdi (2003) show that ‘before’ is a modal conjunction, whose clausal complements are modal. Accordingly, I claim that TRM is modal, which explains its co-occurrence with the modal form yiqtol as well as with the non-modal form qatal.


Saul's Altar
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
L. Daniel Hawk, Ashland Theological Seminary

1 Samuel 13:8-15:35 constitutes a discrete literary unit that elaborates the rejection of Saul through a reconfiguration of metaphorical associations. The unit is bracketed by episodes in which the prophet Samuel rejects Saul for disobedience and sacrificial impropriety (13:8-15a; 15:10-33). The two episodes follow a corresponding pattern, but with different outcomes; the first leads to the rejection of Saul’s dynasty but the second to the rejection of Saul as king. Bridging these episodes is a narrative dense with ritual imagery, during which images of rejection (death, curse, separation) are transferred from Jonathan, the dynastic heir, to the king himself (14:1-46). The narrative, which begins with Jonathan separated from the king and the people, relates the curse that descends on the heir when he transgresses his father’s oath unawares and consumes honey (vv. 1-30). It concludes with Saul bringing a curse on himself; he transgresses his own oath when the people side with Jonathan and “ransom” him (vv. 36-46). At the center stands a terse episode in which group disintegration (symbolized by the people eating meat with the blood) is halted and order restored when Saul orders the construction of an altar and the institution of sacrifice (vv. 31-35). This act of sacrificial propriety counters the bracketing incidents of impropriety and suggests that the account functions as a narrative hinge. The significance of the altar as a site of transformations (e.g. disorder/order, group/individual, guilt/innocence, life/death) renders it an apt metaphor for the end of the deteriorating tribal order and the inauguration of a new order, the dynastic monarchy. Having reconstituted Israel through sacrifice, Saul, the transitional figure between judge and king, is cast aside (14:36-15:33) so that the monarchy can be constructed by one “better” than him.


Problems in Using the Quran as Evidence for Its Own Origins
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Gerald Hawting, School of Oriental and African Studies

This paper examines certain problems in using the Quran as evidence for its own origins.


When None Repent, Earth Laments: The Chorus of Lament in Jeremiah and Joel
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
Katherine Hayes, Setauket, NY

The prophetic lament in Jer 12:1-6 and the divine lament in Jer 12:7-13 are linked by declarations of the absence of human repentance in contrast to the visible mourning of the earth (Jer 12:2, 4, 11). This paper examines the poetics of interaction among the personae of lament in Jeremiah 12 and related texts from Jeremiah as well as the coordinates and language of lament in these passages. The paper will then consider their possible impact on the summons to public lament and repentance in Joel 1-2.


The Silence of the Wives: Bakhtin's Monologism and Ezra 7–10
Program Unit: Bakhtin and the Biblical Imagination
Christopher B. Hays, Emory University

This paper examines an understudied aspect of Bakhtin’s literary theory, monologism, and then brings the observations to bear on the account of the sending away of Israel’s foreign wives in Ezra 7-10. Bakhtin’s ethical interests make him a perfect lens through which to view this troubling text.


Contesting the Test: Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Genesis 22
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
R. Christopher Heard, Pepperdine University

In 1401, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi, along with five other artists, entered a competition for the commission to sculpt bronze panels for the doors of the Baptistery in Florence. Their "audition" panels depicted Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), and now hang side-by-side in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. Although based on the same text, Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's reliefs tell different stories. Their treatments reflect and/or anticipate many issues in the artistic and scholarly interpretations of this perennially fascinating text.


The Gospel of Mark and Realism in Western Narrative
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Charles W. Hedrick, Southwest Missouri State University (Emeritus)

There are five different ways that "reality" has been represented in the literature of Western Civilization: myth, romance, fantasy, fiction, and history. I will describe each of these representations of reality and give examples. I will also describe the features of realism in literature extrapolated from the work of Eric Auerbach, "Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in in Western Literature." Finally I will compare the Gospel of Mark against the types of realism discussed to determine how Mark's "sense of reality" should be categorized.


The Sacrality of the Cell in Egyptian Monastic Architecture: Spatial Discourse and Material Evidence
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Darlene Brooks Hedstrom, Wittenburg University

The cell as a sacralized space had a defined purpose; remaining within the space could profoundly affect the individual who was within that space. Abba Silvanus refused to leave his cell after having a vision of monastics being tortured for their association with the world. After vowing to remain in his cell alone, he said, “Why should I seek to see this earthly light, which is of no use?” His reaction to the exterior spaces suggests that his cell was of a different nature from the world outside his dwelling. Abba Isaiah of Scetis agreed with Silvanus’ view and taught his students that one could only flee the world by residing in the cell and diligently maintaining one’s askesis within that sacred space. This paper will examine the evidence for the sacrality of the cell in Egyptian monasticism through a consideration of the literary evidence and the material remains of excavated monastic communities. Together, this evidence affords the opportunity to analyze the discourse of sacrality in light of the actual spaces occupied by the monastic fathers and mothers of the Egyptian deserts. The discussion will highlight how monastics adapted spaces for the spiritual and manual work referenced in the textual sources and to what degree those spaces were indeed viewed as the heavenly spaces that Silvanus and Isaiah preferred to live in.


Jesus with the Wild Animals in Mark 1:13
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
John Paul Heil, Kenrick School of Theology

That Jesus was with the wild animals during his testing by Satan in the wilderness after his baptism by John occurs within the Synoptic Gospels only in Mark 1:13. This motif is often interpreted to mean that Jesus is living in peaceful, paradisal harmony with the wild animals as a new Adam victorious over the temptations of Satan in contrast to the original Adam who lost this peaceful relationship with wild animals by his disobedience to God. This paper aims to contribute to an alternative interpretation, namely, that this motif, rather than signifying that Jesus is in peaceful co-existence with the wild animals as a new Adam, is part of the menacing wilderness testing by Satan of Jesus, the antitypical embodiment of Israel, as the beloved Son and Servant of God.


Lucian's Icaromenippos: A Parody of an Apocalypse
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
David Hellholm, University of Oslo

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The Literary Development of the S Tradition: A New Paradigm
Program Unit: Qumran
Charlotte Hempel, University of Birmingham

This paper will re-examine the much-debated question of the literary growth of the Community Rule traditions. This topic has attracted a considerable amount of scholarly interest. The debate to date has focused on attempts to find agreement about the recensional sequence of the manuscripts. More particularly one of the cruxes of the debate has been whether or not the palaeographically earlier 1QS manuscript represents a more developed form of the Rule. Scholarly hypotheses to date have tended to work, implicitly or explicitly and in any case in practice, on the basis of two assumptions which I wish to challenge. These are: a. Scholars have searched for signs of the development and growth of the tradition by focusing on the significant differences between a number of manuscripts. This paper will demonstrate that there are equally significant correspondences that shed light on the growth of the tradition and deserve to be taken more seriously. In our initial excitement about long hidden variants we did not pay sufficient attention to the areas where the manuscripts agree across the board. It is my belief that the latter passages hold as much a key to the growth of the tradition as the variants. b. As far as 4QS is concerned, scholarship to date has tended in practice to read the evidence of the primary versions as though they represent something akin to solid building blocks in the growth of the tradition. It is this assumption that 4QSd/b and 4QSe constitute more or less solid stages in the history of the growth of the S tradition that I would like to challenge both on the basis of a number of general considerations as well as on the basis of my reading of a number of key texts.


"Quid sit magus"? Apuleius and Magic in a Polytheist Courtroom
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Ian H. Henderson, McGill University

The Apologia of Apuleius represents a uniquely articulate, radical and aggressive defense against a charge of magic in the context of North African polytheism. Both the defendant and the rhetorical-religious culture of the second sophistic are artfully set against the historic, provincial backdrop of a “real” lawsuit involving conflicting understandings of polytheist practice and interpretation. This study will examine Apuleius' aggressive defense against the charge of "magic," admitting all the facts -essentially more-or-less deviant ritual practices- alleged against him, but claiming that practices sanctioned by philosphy cannot constitute the capital offense of magic. Apuleius' defense has rich implications for understanding polytheist perceptions of magic, Christianity and theurgy.


"For My Salvation": Suffering and Vindication in Philippians 1:19
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Suzanne Watts Henderson, Salem College

This paper explores the Paul’s theology of suffering in the letter to the Philippians by focusing on his intertextual appeal to Job 13:16. Not only to these writings share a thematic interest in the problem of suffering, but they also both employ juridical language to dramatize their protagonists' vindication. Yet, despite this common ground, Paul departs radically – and, I suggest, purposefully – from Job's dominant interest in this respect: while Job seeks his own vindication over against the “godless,” Paul views his present circumstance as an opportunity for the vindication of the gospel. Further, the gospel embodied in Christ’s own self-sacrifice (Phil 2:5-11) provides a template through which the Philippians’ own experience of suffering (1:29-30) functions to unite rather than divide. Thus Paul adapts Job’s view of “salvation” in at least two respects: 1) he suggests that his suffering is best understood as a corporate, rather than individual, experience; and 2) he focuses concern away from the cause of his suffering and toward its purpose within the overarching, reconciling work of God’s grace. In so doing, Paul provides a durable model through which beleaguered Christians might understand their suffering as participation in Christ's death even as they anticipate sharing in his resurrection as well.


Masculinity and Disability in the Bible
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Thomas Hentrich, Kyoto University

The objective of this paper is to address disability issues in the Bible from a gender-related perspective. The topic is largely determined by the impact of the purity laws on any illness or injury in the Old Testament. One consequence of this is a lack of any mention of disablities in women. Disabilities in the Hebrew Bible concern mainly men: the priests in Lev 21, David’s nephew Meribaal in 2 Sam and the “lame and blind” on top of Jerusalem’s wall to defend the city 2 Sam 5,8). Since according to the purity prescriptions in the Holiness Code Lev 13-14, women would spend a large part of their adult life in a state of impurity, an added disability, which certainly existed, was probably deemed irrelevant by the editors of the HB. In the New Testament, the situation has slightly changed, but disabled men are still the norm. The main focus here is on Jesus’ healing practices that openly challenge the traditional views of purity. He approaches and heals disabled and sick people despite their perceived impurity and especially during Sabbath (Lk 5, 12-26; 6, 6-11; 8, 40-56; 13,10-17; Acts 3,1-10). Only when these purity restrictions are being challenged can an independent view of disabled women and men be developed.


Scribal Tendencies in the Apocalypse: Starting the Conversation
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Juan Hernández Jr., Emory University

The impact of theological concerns and controversies on the NT’s MS tradition has headlined text-critical discussions in recent years. While the Gospels and Paul’s letters are featured prominently in these conversations, the Apocalypse has been noticeably absent. This paper will seek to remedy this situation by arguing that an analysis of the Apocalypse’s singular readings is a good place to begin the conversation of scribal tendencies in this esoteric work. The paper offers a brief history of text-critical research of the Apocalypse, an explanation of the methodological use of its singular readings, and a sampling of the yields of this method when applied to Codex Sinaiticus.


The Digital Nestle-Aland Prototype
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Luc Herren, University of Münster

The Münster Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung, Peter Robinson's Scholarly Digital Editions, Leicester, UK, and the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, cooperate in preparing the 28th edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece, known as Nestle-Aland, in digital form (funded in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn.) A prototype of the Digital Nestle-Aland will be presented in this session. The digital edition offers two features not available in the printed book: transcripts of important Greek New Testament manuscripts (Nestle-Aland's 'consistently cited witnesses'), and a complete apparatus based on these transcripts. The comparison of any two or more manuscripts in any given verse has been made effortless. At every point, a careful distinction has been made between real variant readings and mere spelling differences so that the transcripts' apparatus is very easy to read (an original spelling collation is available as well.) At the same time, the digital edition is easier to use than the printed book, particularly for people new to the edition. There is no more any need to flip back and forth between the New Testament text and apparatus on the one hand and the book's introduction and appendices on the other, as the relevant information is made available by means of pop-up messages wherever critical signs, witness symbols, and abbreviations occur.


Interpretive Lecture and Discussion
Program Unit:
David Herrstrom, Drew University

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The “House of God,” Its Social Setting, and a New Perspective on the Interpretation of the Pastoral Epistles
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Jens Herzer, University of Leipzig

The church as the “House of God” is one of the major ecclesiological categories in the interpretation of the Pastoral Epistles. The paper asks for the specific profile of this idea as well as its sociological implications and presuppositions. From this perspective, it argues that each of the three letters shows a different social setting. Thus, it proposes a new perspective on the inter-textual relations among these letters.


Paul, Job, and the Quest for Justice
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Jens Herzer, University of Leipzig

In systematic theology and ethics, the interpretation of the so-called Job problem, or philosophically spoken the problem of theodicy, has often been connected to Paul’s theology of justification. The paper discusses some aspects of the interpretation of the book of Job and relates them to Paul’s understanding of God’s justice and human righteousness. It addresses the question raised for the third part of the Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation group: How does attention to specific texts shape the way we do theology and ethics-or does attention to theology and ethics shape the way we interpret texts? The paper elaborates how the two “crises of wisdom” represented by Job and Paul provide a new pattern for theological thinking and ethical arguments.


Bronze and Early Iron Age Canaanite Deities of the Underworld and of Lunar Cults
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary

This study explores the appearance of particular divine names in the Late Bronze Age West Semitic archives as well as extrabiblical sources of the Early Iron Age. The proposal considers the manner in which the occurrences of these divine names in onomastica and elsewhere provides a background for various deities known from the Hebrew Bible. Consideration is given to divine names representing underworld and lunar deities. Proposals regarding the background of Sheol are considered in light of evidence in biblical names. In addition, suggestions regarding the presence of lunar cults in the Huleh basin area and beyond are also looked at in terms of the cuneiform evidence. Conclusions from a variety of sources suggest cautions as well as directions for further research in tracing the background and origins of deities in the biblical world.


Kennedy's Reading of Paul: What We Can Learn From It
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
James D. Hester, University of Redlands

This paper will highlight key elements in George Kennedy's rhetorical analysis of Paul and the resulting picture of Pauline rhetoric. It will also explore the significance for the study of Paul of Kennedy's use of cultural intertexture and reception, especially as derived from the history of rhetoric.


The Greek Pentateuch and IV Maccabees
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Robert Hiebert, Trinity Western Seminary

Composed probably sometime during the first century CE, IV Maccabees is a treatise whose author invokes the ideals of both Judaism and Greek philosophy in exhorting Jewish readers to stand firm in their beliefs and convictions in the face of pressure from the dominant culture to assimilate. The contention at the heart of this appeal is that devout reason, embodied in the Mosaic Law, controls the human emotions. The martyrdoms of a Jewish priest named Eleazar and of seven brothers and their mother during Antiochus IV's reign of terror (cf. 2 Maccabees 6:18-7:42) exemplify this thesis for the author. But other traditions from Israel's storied past are also employed, including not a few drawn from the Pentateuch. In this paper I propose to discuss the role that IV Maccabees plays in the history of the transmission and interpretation of some of the Pentateuchal traditions to which it refers.


Air: The First Sacred Thing—The Conception of ruah in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Climate Change Crisis, and Earth Bible Principles
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Theodore Hiebert, McCormick Theological Seminary

This is an attempt to rethink the traditional categories by which humans distinguish themselves from the naturual world by reexamining one concept from our religious traditions, the notion of ruah, "air, wind, breath." First, we will examine the range of usages of this term in the Hebrew Bible, noting the inadequacy of our traditional philosophical distinctions between spirit and matter, creator and creation, divine and human to account for its use and meaning in biblical texts. Second, we will reconstruct aspects of the alternative biblical worldview captured in the use of ruah. Third, we will offer some observations about how this alternative worldview might provide some helpful ways of thinking about the Climate Change Crisis to which the National Council of Churches has dedicated special attention. And fourth, we will reflect on the implications of all of this for Earth Bible Principles and for this Consultation on Ecological Hermeneutics.


The Tower of Babel and Cultural Diffusion
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Theodore Hiebert, McCormick Theological Seminary

This is a proposal that the story of the Tower of Babel in Gen 11:1-9 is not a story of pride and punishment, as traditionally interpreted, nor a critique of empire, as more recently argued, but an account that deals with the problem of homegeneity and difference after the flood. It does not function in Genesis as the culmination of human corruption in the primeval age, but rather it intends to explain the variety of cultures in the age of the writer that followed the flood.


Cultic Prophecy in the Psalms in the Light of Assyrian Prophetic Sources
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
John W. Hilber, Dallas Theological Seminary

Doubts about the contribution of cult-prophetic speech to psalmody remain in current debate. Psalms containing first-person divine speech exhibit numerous features and suggest life settings that conform to actual prophetic speech. Alternative explanations of prophetic speech in psalms, such as the sermon or poetic imitation, lack comparable examples external to psalms. On the other hand, Assyrian cultic prophecies, arising from a culture not far removed from ancient Israel, parallel the characteristics of prophetic speech found in psalms. In addition, the Assyrian sources support possible composition and performance scenarios that overcome objections raised against the compatibility of genuine prophecy with psalmody. A model of cultic prophecy remains the best explanation for the origin of psalms containing first-person divine speech.


Torah for the Chosen Only? Reflections on Late Antique Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit:
Marc Hirshman, Hebrew University

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Why We Should Read the Commentaries on Aphthonius' Progymnasmata
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Ronald Hock, University of California

New Testament scholars are increasingly using the Progymnasmata as yet another tool for analyzing compositional units from brief chreiai to entire gospels and epistles. This use, however, can prove even more valuable if the Progymnasmata are themselves read in the light of commentaries on Aphthonius' Progymnasmata. Byzantine commentaries--in particular those by John of Sardis and John Doxapatres--not only preserve much of what was lost in Aphthonius' penchant for epitomizing previous discussions of definitions, differentiations, and classifications, but also make explicit the rationales for Aphthonius' order of progymnasmata as well as providing explanations for why Aphthonius defined, classified, and illustrated as he did. To illustrate what the John of Sardis and John Doxapatres do in these respects I will focus on their commentaries on Aphthonius' chapter on ethopoiia.


Is Galatians a Deutro-Pauline Letter?
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Harold W. Hoehner, Dallas Theological Seminary

Since more than a century ago Baur’s designation of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians as the Hauptbriefe of Paul has been readily accepted by New Testament scholars. Other letters within the canonical New Testament that claim to be by Paul, however, have been a matter of discussion for New Testament scholarship over the last century. In regards to investigations concerning the genuineness of certain letters, there seems to be a different standard used in determining the Pauline authorship of the Hauptbriefe in contrast to the authorship of deutro-Pauline letters. A good test case would be to review the criteria used in deciding the authenticity of the books of Galatians and Ephesians. The reason for such a comparison would be twofold: both claim to be written by Paul and both are approximately the same length. Yet no one really doubts the Pauline authorship of Galatians whereas many would doubt the Pauline authorship of Ephesians. Why is there this disparity? The issue at hand is: are we, as New Testament scholars, using a double standard: one for the Hauptbriefe and another for the deutro-Pauline letters? If this is the case, then, an investigation is warranted.


Techniques for Teaching Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Victoria Hoffer, Yale University

As institutions become ever more adaptive to the varying needs of their students who want to study Biblical Hebrew, they are faced with unique opportunities and challenges. Programs for an introductory course can be as short as four weeks or run for two semesters. This range of offerings also affects the structure and content of upper level courses. In such a pedagogical climate, the teacher has to flexible and creative in considering resources that best suit each circumstance. This talk will address issues of setting goals, establishing priorities, use of materials and methodologies, the place of “extras” (such as singing), and computer-based aids in different classroom contexts at both the elementary and more advanced levels.


Biblical Hebew Teaching
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Victoria Hoffer, Yale University

As institutions become more adaptive to the varying needs of their students who want to study Biblical Hebrew, they are faced with unique opportunities and challenges. Programs for an introductory course can be short as four weeks or run for two semesters. This range of offerings also affects the structure and content of upper level courses. In such a pedagogical climate, the teacher has to be flexible and creative in considering recourses that best suit each circumstance. This talk will address issues of setting goals, establishing priorities, use of mateerials and methodologies, the place of "extras" (such as singing), and computer-based aids in different classroom contexts at both the elementary and more advanced levels.


Building the Temple of Repentance: Confession as Cornerstone
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
Jay Hogewood, University Baptist Church, Baton Rouge, LA

This proposal presents a phenomenological study of the use of ydh in the hitpa‘el verb stem: “acknowledge,” “confess.” Confessing sin provides the meaningful encounter of a penitent with God and serves as a key element of the rite of sin’s riddance in the priestly legislation. Confession also forms a central component in the later rites of repentance known as penitential prayer in the literature of the Second Temple.Eleven occurrences of this verb are: Lev 5:5; 16:21; 26:40; Num 5:7; Dan 9:4, 20; Ezra 10:1; Neh 1:6; 9:2, 3; and 2 Chr 30:22. In each confessionary episode, the word represents the spoken act by which the confessor separates the community from its transgressions. However, the nuance of forces differs between the priestly prescriptions for confession and the Second Temple descriptions of penitential prayer. In saying confession, the confessor, alone or as a representative of the community, enacts penitence. A speech act occurs; saying something is doing something. Through the use of speech act theory and a performative approach to rites of sin’s separation, the biblical interpreter gains an understanding of the force of confession. The instances of Levitical legislation ritualize speaking away the community’s sins. The Second Temple liturgies of repentance benefit from earlier rites and adapt their force to shape communal behavior. I propose that the priestly ritual of confession functions as the cornerstone upon which penitential prayer develops. Two movements comprise this proposal. First, I apply the theory of speech act and the criticism of ritual upon the text of Lev 16:20-22. Second, I apply such theory and criticism to the text of Ezra 9:5-10:1. The findings of the investigation focus on the shared function of confession and the differences in force between the Levitical legislation and Second Temple prayers of penitence.


Abuse at Accession: The Chronicler's View of Royal Fratricide
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Kenneth Hoglund, Wake Forest University

One of the recurring motifs used by the Chronicler is the actions of royal figures upon their taking power. When they act to remove potential rivals from among their brothers, their actions are presented as an abuse of their newly acquired power, casting the direction their rule will take. Once the pattern of abuse of royal power is established, their continued reign leads to disaster.


Calvin's Hermeneutic and Tradition: An Augustinian Reception of Romans 7
Program Unit: Romans through History and Cultures
R. Ward Holder, Saint Anselm College

The 7th chapter of Romans considers the law. However, at vs. 14, Paul abruptly changes to the first person. The history of Christian exegesis on this pericope has broken into two broad streams. One claims that Paul's language represents a pre-conversion state, that the misery described in vss. 14-24 represents the life before receiving Christ's grace. The other maintains that this passage signifies the state of the believer after grace, that Paul is characterizing the life of faith, whether autobiographically or symbolically. John Calvin, in his commentary on Romans, notes that although Augustine had first chosen the first option, he later corrected himself and that, in fact, this passage cannot be referred to anything but the regenerate (non aliter quam de renatis posse exponi). But why did Calvin make this choice himself? David Steinmetz has pointed out that this was hardly a "Protestant" choice in the early modern period, as Cajetan made the same choice. Steinmetz makes clear that this choice was main-stream in the 16th century. But what Steinmetz does not consider is why Calvin made this choice. Certainly, Calvin was not hesitant about disagreeing with Augustine's exegesis. Further, there is significant biblical support for the alternative choice, which should have borne weight with Calvin. The paper argues that this passage proves to be a test-case for Calvin choosing to have his hermeneutical principles overwhelm his exegetical practices, which led him to choose an answer which, though possible, is not that which his own exegetical methods would have dictated.


Playing to the Groundlings
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Glenn S. Holland, Allegheny College

Since reading in the Roman imperial world was reading aloud, the New Testament documents were essentially texts for performance within the context of Jesus congregations. In this respect, Shakespeare’s plays offer a striking parallel, specifically as the objects of performance criticism. Like the biblical documents, Shakespeare’s plays are commonly studied as texts rather than as works for performance; the interpretation of both is restricted by traditional ideas of their “correct” meaning; and both are primarily studied as complete texts and actually performed and apprehended in edited, partial forms. Shakespearean performance criticism can therefore provide insights into the reception of the New Testament as texts in performance, the contingency of their meaning for audiences in a given time and place, and whether there is properly such a thing as the text “in itself” as an object suitable for scholarly interpretation.


Assur Is King of Persia: Illustrations of the Book of Esther in Some 19th Century Sources
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Steven W. Holloway, American Theological Library Association

Both academic paintings and wood cut illustrations of the Book of Esther pursue an unexpected tangent in the mid-19th century: the Persian court of Ahasuerus begins to resemble Nineveh, this despite 150 years of European circulation of Persian relief reproductions. Biblical illustration, a signal force within the stream of historicist artworks, embodied and perpetuated western fantasies about the mysterious Orient and should be placed in context of both the rise of the biblical archaeology movement and western Orientalism.


The Fiery Furnace in Ancient Near Eastern Court Tales: Daniel 3 and Egyptian Parallels
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Tawny L. Holm, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Burning as a death penalty in the ancient Near East can be found especially in historical inscriptions and legal documents. Burning as an eschatological punishment appears in the post-exilic prophecy and apocalyptic literature of ancient Israel and in Egyptian eschatological texts, as well as in some iconographic materials. However, there are few literary parallels to the story of the fiery furnace in Daniel 3, in which the three young administrators, Daniel’s fellow exiles, are sentenced to death in a furnace but miraculously survive. This paper examines the motif of execution by fire in compositions belonging to the same specific genre as Daniel 3, the court tale. It is especially those tales from Egypt ---such as Meryre and Onchsheshonqy from the Late Period, in which courtiers who displease the king are condemned to the fire--- that provide a broader perspective for examining the use of the motif in the Book of Daniel.


Parents Facing the Death of Their Children in the Light of Unexplored Sources from the Early Christian East
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
Cornelia B. Horn, Saint Louis University

Recent studies of children’s death argue that early Christians had a greater interest than non-Christians in commemorating children, but placed lesser emphasis on family sentiments. Thus far, research has concentrated on the Western Roman Empire and has utilized primarily material evidence. This paper employs literary evidence from the early Christian East and focuses on parents’ grief to advance these studies. A number of heretofore neglected letters, homilies, and treatises from the fourth and fifth centuries, written or preserved in Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Ge’ez, witness to the sudden death of children in early Christian families. Analysis shows, first, that the categories of visual “beauty” and “goodness,” rather than children’s “innocence,” are called upon when consoling Christian parents. Instead of baptism, paradisiacal imagery promises immediate fulfillment. Secondly, while allowing for parental affection, the texts strongly appeal to ascetic virtues of the parents as aid in overcoming pain at the loss of a child, a clear intersection of early Christian family life and asceticism. Third, these texts allow one to reconstruct a canon of biblical, primarily OT, exempla to which Christian authors took recourse in their consolation of parents. The investigation of biblical motives that are typical of early Christian texts dealing with children also reveals as insufficient recently expressed assumptions that the repertoire of visual representations on sarcophagi of Christian children does not noticeably differ from that of adults. This paper expands research on the death of early Christian children by extending the inquiry into the eastern Mediterranean world. It combines the study of material evidence with literary and theological sources, and explores aesthetical and ascetical dimensions of the evidence. Finally, it establishes a canon of biblical topoi that emerge as characteristic of consolation-literature directed to parents at the death of their children in early Christian times.


Mary between Bible and Quran: Soundings into the Transmission and Reception History of the Protevangelium Jacobi in Coptic and Copto-Arabic Sources
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Cornelia B. Horn, Saint Louis University

Interested in the question of the permeability of boundaries between early Eastern Christian and Islamic communities and their literatures, this paper studies the Coptic and Copto-Arabic trajectory of the transmission and reception histories of the Protevangelium Jacobi (PJ). A second-century Christian apocryphal text, the PJ tells of Mary’s infancy and youth and ends shortly after the birth of Christ. Stryker, who critically edited the Greek text in 1961, rejected Syria and favored late-second-century Egypt as likely milieu of the text’s origins. Important early Islamic as well as Egyptian Christian traditions from early Islamic centuries witness to a certain familiarity of both with the PJ. Significant details of the portrayal of Mary’s life in the Qur’an signal parallels between the written record of Muhammad’s revelation and this apocryphal work (see, e.g., Mouard 1999). On-going research on Christian women in Copto-Arabic sources points to traces of the usage of PJ at the latest in the 11th-century layer of redaction of the Copto-Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria (HPA).Thus, on the basis of the transmission history of the Coptic and Arabic versions of the PJ as well as by investigating the reception history of PJ both in Coptic art and in Coptic and Copto-Arabic literature up to and including the work of Mawhub ibn Mansur Mufarrij on the HPA, this paper traces the use of PJ in Christian Egypt. The emerging picture, on the one hand, contributes towards the goal of a systematic study of the spread of the PJ-tradition in the late antique and Byzantine Christian East. On the other hand, the paper contributes towards a better understanding of the quality of the oral, written, and visual milieu in which early Islamic tradition could have encountered apocryphal motives derived from the PJ.


The Label "Christianos:" 1 Peter 4.16 and the Formation of Christian Identity
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
David G. Horrell, University of Exeter

The label Christianos appears only three times in the NT, and has received rather little direct attention in recent NT scholarship. Its appearance in 1 Pet 4.16, where it is set in the context of accusation and hostility from outsiders, offers important insight into the origins and significance of the name and its importance for the making of “Christian” identity. Pliny’s famous letter-exchange with Trajan provides an outsider’s perspective on the name in the context of such hostility and accusation, while 1 Peter provides an important and early insider’s viewpoint. Informed by social-scientific analyses of conflict and of social identity, an examination of this text can offer considerable insight into the process whereby conflict heightens the salience of a particular facet of group-identity and in which an initially hostile label is claimed as a positive self-designation.


Saccharine Madonnas: Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice Is That What Celluloid Madonnas Are Made Of?
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Gail Horsfield-Porter, Sheffield University

This paper will look closely at the characterisation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus in the 1999 TV biopic of the same name. The film offers what could be loosely termed a 'post feminist' image of Mary for the 'post feminist' faithful. She is, in comparison to early biblical epics, portrayed almost as a biblical Lara Croft figure, She has become a 21st century hero for a 21st century audience. So then why does this image leave such a bitter taste in my mouth? This paper will argue that this film is duplicitous, misleading, two faced even. That far from seeing a hero of the 21st century what we see is still the stereotypical image of a Patriarchal Church, industry and society. One of which has been and continued to be used in order to suppress and repress both men and women.


Social Memory and the Gospel Tradition
Program Unit: Mapping Memory: Tradition, Texts, and Identity
Richard Horsley, University of Massachusetts-Boston

An assessment of the implications of social memory analysis for the historical study of the Jesus movement and the history of the synoptic tradition.


Bibliographical Report on Joseph Smith and the Bible
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Paul Hoskisson, Brigham Young University

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Urban Uprisings in the Roman World: The Social Setting of the Mobbing of Sosthenes
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Moyer V. Hubbard, Biola University

This paper examines the mobbing of Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue in Corinth, described in Acts 18.12-17. The unresolved difficulty of this passage involves finding an adequate explanation for the (seemingly) unprovoked hostile reaction of the crowd toward Sosthenes. Commentaries and secondary literature appeal most commonly to Greco-Roman anti-Judaism, though the most straightforward reading of the Greek text of Acts 18.17 implies that the Jewish delegation who brought Paul before the Roman proconsul also participated in the violence. In order to resolve this dilemma this investigation places this incident within the larger social context of urban unrest and mob violence in the Roman world. Civic disorder is a widely attested phenomena in the Roman world—both east and west—and is abundantly illustrated in the literature of the early principate. This article brings this material to bear on Acts 18.12-17 in order to highlight the socio-economic factors (poverty, overcrowding, etc.) that inevitably that gave rise to such frequent outbursts of urban aggression during this period. This larger context reveals culturally ingrained patterns of civic unrest and vigilantism which render the reaction of the crowd more intelligible, almost predictable. As such, this study illumines not only Acts 18, but numerous other passages in the book Acts where mob violence plays a leading role (e.g. 14.1-7; 14.8-20; 16.19-24; 19.23-41). I conclude with a methodological reflection on the importance of a self-consciously emic perspective in descriptive, historical analysis.


Virginity in the Book of Revelation: Reflections and Responses to Roman Social Discourse
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Lynn R. Huber, Elon University

The Book of Revelation employs the language of virginity to describe a holy remnant, seemingly all male, who stand in opposition to “the beast,” a metaphorical incarnation of the Roman social-political system (Rev 14). The image of male virgins, men who have not “defiled themselves with women,” strikes many scholars as unusual, since male continence was not a dominant virtue in Roman discourse and since later Christian discussions of virginity typically assume a female audience. A key component of the Roman social discourse introduced by Augustus in the first century B.C.E. and embraced by the Emperor Domitian, during whose reign Revelation was written, was the call for families to be productive. In a context in which legal incentives were offered to women who bore multiple children, continence reflected a decidedly counter-cultural perspective. It is within this context, in which discourse about the family and sexual behavior had a political quality, that the author of Revelation intimated at what he believed to be appropriate and/ or ideal sexual behaviors. In light of this, this paper examines 1) how Revelation constructs the image of male virginity in relation to Roman social discourse and 2) how Revelation’s view of male virginity functions as part of the text’s anti-imperial perspective. The paper will also consider how Revelation's understanding of virginity might relate to other early Christian discussions of sexual practice and continence.


Sexual Violence Against Men: Israel and Its Neighbors
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Herbert B. Huffmon, Drew University

(I sent an abstract directly to the unit chairs on March 3, but neglected to send a copy to myself; now I have discovered the correct "new" unit heading and I will try to replicate the abstract. My apologies for my confusion.) Genesis 19 (with the related text in Judges 19) describes sexual violence against male outsiders/enemies, akin to 1 Samuel 18. Mesopotamia and Egypt provide graphic examples of similar sexual violence by military and paramilitary groups against male enemies (competitors). The issue is neither homosexual relationships nor the "law" of hospitality, but sexual violence as a form of male dominance. Archaeological discoveries, as well as comparisons with animal behavior, provide abundant examples of such acts.


Language as Extension of Desire in Space: Lefebvre and Winnicott in Response to Lacan
Program Unit: Constructions of Ancient Space
Mary R. Huie-Jolly, School of Mininstry Knox College, New Zealand

Henri Lefebvre's pioneering work on critical spatial awareness is, in part, informed by psychoanalytic theory. Lefebvre shares with J. Lacan the Freudian view that the human body is a physical nexus motivated by drives that, like a river or electric charge, excite currents within the body. These drives link human beings with primal forces that are repressed by the imposition of conceived space, or “civilising” impulses which alienate the body from desire. The question of how one construes desire impacts the way one positions the body in relation to the symbolic order of social/spatial construction. Lefebvre's spatial appropriation of desire is consistent with assumptions made by D.W.Winnicott: consciousness remains grounded in the bodily, spatial feeling of going on being connection with primal dependence on the facilitating maternal environment. Bodily, spatial awareness facilitates regression back to feelings of dependence. This regressive fusion with the facilitating environment enables renewal of vital connection within one's habitat. Winnicott's perspective is inherently spatial. Yet Lacan challenged it strongly, maintaining that in its tendency toward fusion it lacks otherness. Unlike Lefebvre and Winnicott, Lacan positioned the formation of the human self, not within the body in relationship within the habitat, but within language. Language forms the human subject in abstraction from the body. For Lacan, language emerges not because of the bodily presence of the mother, but as a cry in response to her absence. Thus language, like zero, emerges from nothingness, or empty space. The symbolic order that language constructs is similarly formed to compensate for gaps in relationship, to compensate for absence. Accordingly, it frees the mind from the constraints of the body, eluding the gendered determinisms of “nature.” This paper will attempt to answer Lacan's critique. It will explore a critical spatial response to Lacan's interpretation of the symbolic order.


"Intertextual Disposition" and Ephraim's Interpretations of Genesis 22
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
L. Andrew Huizenga, Duke University

Employing the concept of “intertextuelle Disposition” developed by the German scholars Susanne Holthuis and Stefan Alkier, this paper will examine how the intertextual disposition of the Diatessaron and Gen 22 motivated Ephraim’s particular presentation of the typological relationship between Isaac and Jesus in light of Jewish traditions of the Akedah.


Disobeying Jesus: An Element of the Messianic Secret Motif
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Jeremy F. Hultin, Yale University

The Synoptic Gospels depict (1) Jesus demanding that people be silent about his identity, and (2) people disobeying Jesus and spreading the word about him. Since the gospels rarely portray Jesus failing at his intentions, this pattern demands some explanation. Wrede argued that with the motif of the Messianic Secret Mark tried to account for the fact that Jesus had not actually been known as "messiah" or "son of God" during his life. But the references to people disobeying Jesus are singularly ill-suited to address such a discrepancy, since they portray many people proclaiming Jesus' identity—precisely what, ex hypothesi, was not taking place. A satisfactory explanation for the motif of the Messianic Secret must explain both the fact that Jesus tries to silence others and that he fails. The gospel material was taking shape at a time when Jewish rights could be endangered by any hint of Jewish nationalism. Some Jews even turned over potential revolutionaries, lest nationalistic ambitions endanger their communities. A story about a charismatic Galilean who assembled a following and called himself (or even let himself be called) by royal titles would have sounded like a tale of recklessness. To many Jews in Palestine or the Diaspora, it would have appeared that the Jerusalem authorities did precisely the right thing by handing Jesus over before the Romans had to intervene. It was not possible or desirable for Christians to deny altogether that Jesus had been declared Messiah by some. But since this might make Jesus appear reckless, they claimed that he had tried to keep his identity a secret; it was others who spread the word about him. Such a motif—attempted secrecy which fails—absolves Jesus, while acknowledging that during Jesus' lifetime bold claims were in fact made.


The Goddess in the Deir Alla Plaster Text— A Reassessment
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Regine Hunziker-Rodewal, University of Berne, Switzerland

One of the few things that is clearly discernible in the Deir Alla plaster text, combination I, is the vis-à-vis of a divine collective and one single goddess. Her name seems to be $GR-W-($TR. In order to identify her, neither the god $AGGARU of Emar, the Ugaritic deity $GR-W-)I$M, the Biblical $GR // ($TRT nor the Punic proper name (BD$GR provides the essential clues. Of greater importance is rather the epithet $IGARU(M)/SIGARU “bolt” that is frequently applied to the goddess Inana/Ishtar in the 1st millennium B.C. She, the twilight as well as the dawn, is the opener of the bolt of the skies, is the Lady of Heaven. In anger, however, she roars with storms and thunder, brings dark clouds and causes fear and trembling. When acting this way as a storm demon, her profile is quite the same as that of the goddess in the Deir Alla text. And as a storm demon, Inana/Ishtar is depicted as resembling a bird, as being winged and with claws and a raptor’s head. Against this background and keeping the Inana hymns in mind (where the goddess is presented as a bird of prey among the gods as birds), one should read the bird oracle in the Deir Alla plaster text: Following the divine collective’s demand to the goddess to contain her anger, the text immediately continues with “in fact, the sis cry of [a bird] has angered the eagle, but the voice of mercy will give the answer”. Namely, according to the hymns, the same Inana who can be very angry is also “the Merciful One”. From a pragmatic point of view, we are dealing with an incantation.


Kahal, the Shorter Halat: A Hebrew Lexicon Project in Progress
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Regine Hunziker-Rodewald, University of Berne, Switzerland

During the lifetime still of Professor Johann Jakob Stamm (†1993) who was the leading editor of Koehler–Baumgartner, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament, 3rd ed., Leiden 1967–96 (HALAT), and with his explicit consent, a group of German and Swiss scholars considered an abbreviated, updated and corrected edition. The project is based at the University of Berne, Switzerland, under the direction of Professor Walter Dietrich. The aim is to reduce HALAT (5 vols., 1800 pages) to a single volume of 1000 pages (KAHAL = Kurze Ausgabe des Hebräischen und Aramäischen Lexikons zum Alten Testament). In principle all the lexical entries of HALAT will be adopted but some lemmata will be omitted (e.g., conjectures). Etymologies will be shortened and updated. References will be checked and the many mistakes in HALAT will be corrected. The publication date is foreseen at the latest as 2007.


Solomon's Temple and the "Big-Foot Temple" at Ain-Dara
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Victor Hurowitz, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

The temple at Tel-Tayinat, Syria was long considered the closest architectural parallel to Solomon's Temple. Some scholars (Monson, Stager)now propose that the Ain-Dara temple (the "Big-Foot Temple"), published fully in 1990 by Ali Abou-Asaf, is closer still. In our opinion, proper interpretation of the description of the Solomonic Temple in 1 Kings 6 shows that the Tel-Tayinat temple remains the closest. Be this as it may, more interesting than the architectural details and indicative of the temples' respective symbolism, is the iconography of the two temples. The reliefs adorning the low wall between the outer and inner sancta ("heykal" and "devir")at Ain-Dara, are strikingly similar to the divine chariot described in Ezekiel 1 and 11. Comparison with the engravings ot the corresponding wall in Solomon's temple shows that whereas Solomon's temple was designed as a divine garden, the Ain-Dara temple was considered a heavenly dwelling.


The Biblical Arms Bearer (Nose' Kelim)
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Victor Hurowitz, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

The Arms Bearer (nose' kelim) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible seventeen times in seven different contexts, and the position has drawn sporadic exegetical comments in the commentaries; but the role has never been the subject of systematic scholarly inquiry. This paper will examine the various functions performed by characters so designated, emphasizing especially their battlefield task of "finishing off" the wounded.


Remembering and Revelation: The Human Jesus and His Divine Glory in the Gospel of John
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Larry W. Hurtado, University of Edinburgh

I build upon the discussion of Johannine Christianity in my recent book, "Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity" (Eerdmans, 2003), exploring how the Gospel of John advocates a knowledge of Jesus that is revealed "post-Easter" by the Spirit, and also emphatically affirms that this revelation only lays bare the glory of the historically-situated figure of Jesus. "Remember/remembrance" is the uniquely Johannine terminology adapted to convey this dialectical notion.


The Recent Debate on Late Biblical Hebrew: Solid Data, Experts' Opinions, and Indecisive Arguments
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Avi Hurvitz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

It is widely recognized that the sixth century B.C.E. marks a significant turning point in the history of Biblical Hebrew. The books written after this point reveal new linguistic features whose appearance reflects far-reahing modificatons in the structure of the language.These "neologisms," attested in grammar, lexicon and syntax, are entirely lacking in Standard Biblical Hebrew but are common in post-Biblical Hebrew sources (Qumran, Ben-Sira, Mishnaic Hebrew) and in the Aramaic dialects of the post-exilic period (Imperial Aramaic, Nabatean, etc.). Consequently, the dominent view prevailing among linguists and philologists speciaizing in the linguistic history of Biblical Hebrew is to classify them as post-classical features. In recent years, however, a dissenting thesis against this diachronic research has been voiced, denying the very existence of a chronological factor in the history of Biblical Hebrew. This paper seeks to examine the validity of the said non-canonical approach.


Interrelationship of Mimesis and the Theme of Apostolic Parousia in 1 Corinthians 5
Program Unit: Poster Session
Jin K. Hwang, Fuller Theological Seminary

One of the most remarkable tendencies in recent biblical scholarship on Paul’s calls to imitation of himself in 1 Corinthians (4:16, 11:1; cf. also Phil 3:17; 1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; 2 Thess 3:7, 9; Gal 4:12) is to consider them as a rhetorical strategy for personal exemplification or authority claim. The scholarly opinions diverge, however, regarding the rhetorical genre of 1 Corinthians and, more significantly, the relationship of Paul’s double imitation call to the issue of his apostolic authority. Insofar as the latter issue is concerned, three options are available to us: in terms of the imitation calls (1) is Paul strongly ‘assertive’ at the expense of his mimetic role (e.g., W. Michaelis; E. A. Castelli; E. Schüssler Fiorenza), (2) or primarily playing a ‘mimetic’ role with quite established, unchallenged authority (e.g., W. P. de Boer; M. M. Mitchell; B. Fiore; B. Dodd), (3) or trying to not only reestablish his apostolic authority over the community but also give himself as a living example to be followed (e.g., N. A. Dahl; G. D. Fee; A. Reinhartz)? Simply put, is Paul superimposing, exercising, or defending his unique authority when he makes imitation calls in 1 Corinthians? This study, basically supporting the third option above, aims to present an ‘apologetic-mimetic’ interpretation of the imitation calls and various paradigmatic ‘I’ statements in 1 Corinthians, which can be considered as a deliberative letter. 1 Corinthians 4 and 5 can be a test case for the probability of such an ‘apologetic-mimetic’ interpretation of the mimetic texts in Paul’s undisputed epistles (cf. Gal 2; 2 Thess 2-3; Phil 2-4). This study shall explicate the interrelationship of mimesis and the theme of apostolic parousia in these chapters (especially chapter 5), and its implications on Paul’s rhetoric of imitation and the self-consciousness of his apostolic authority and ministry.


Reassessing Religious Identity and the Character of “the Jews” in John
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Susan E. Hylen, Vanderbilt University

Studies of early Jewish-Christian relations that focus on the Gospel of John have largely concluded that a negative and even hostile relationship to Judaism existed for the Johannine community. Central to this argument is the assertion that “the Jews” (hoi Ioudaioi) in John respond with hostility to Jesus, which yields a negative impression of Jews as a group. Drawing on the approaches of Baruch Hochman and David Gowler to characterization, this paper challenges the hostile characterization of “the Jews” in two ways. First, I argue for a more complex understanding of “the Jews” as a character. The Jews are characterized not by simple hostility toward Jesus but by their division in response to him. Second, I explore the role of irony in relationship to John’s naming of this character, especially in ch. 8 and in the trial scene. These passages do not simply convey the Jews’ rejection of Jesus; they underscore that the Jews who reject Jesus betray deeply-held commitments of Judaism. In conclusion I discuss how this reading opens up possibilities for a different understanding of John’s relationship to Judaism.


Solomon and the Two Prostitutes
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Avaren Ipsen, University of California, Berkeley

In popular consciousness, the occupation of the women in the Solomon judgment story of 1 Kings 3:16-28 is generally absent. Indeed, this is often true of biblical criticism as well. The prostitution aspect is downplayed by being portrayed as a naturalized component of ancient Israelite society or effaced by emphasizing the women as mothers so that a comforting certitude of maternal nature can be discerned. Another way the prostitution aspect is elided is by focusing upon the story as mainly about Solomon’s virtuoso display of wisdom. Thus the significance of the story as one about and/or ideologically impacting prostitutes is not usually in the spotlight. What are the consequences of fore grounding the story element of prostitution? There are many analogies and similarities between the justice seeking prostitutes in 1 Kings 3:16-28 and stories of modern day activist prostitute women who are demanding justice and protesting the coercion and violence they experience in relation to current judicial/legal systems. This paper attempts to “read with” such prostitute women by intercalating their writings and/or life texts with a biblical text. Together, we produce an ideological reading of 1 Kings 3:16-28 that privileges a non-hegemonic theory of sex work produced by prostitution rights activists that pertains to current prostitution politics in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP-USA), a group of activist sex workers, has “read with” me, a biblical scholar, this Solomon story with fascinating results.


Meet the Author of Secret Books: The Role of the Woe Sayings in the Apocryphon of James
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Eduard Iricinschi, Princeton University

This paper sees the author of the Apocryphon of James as a professional scribe who used his private collection of Jesus sayings, parables and similes for the production of apocrypha in order to contest the apostolic authority of James and Peter. In the Apocryphon of James, Jesus “elects” James and Peter for a special revelation, but has a sudden change of mind and subjects them to a thorough criticism on account of matters of martyrdom and prophecy, as well as so-called esoteric matters, such as “becoming filled,” “discovering the Kingdom,” or “finding life.” This paper shall attempt to examine the role of the woe-sayings in the Apocryphon of James, addressed to James and Peter, within a dialogical rhetorical environment, rather than listen to them as to a vox clamantis in deserto. The endeavor to put flesh back on the bones of the prophetical woes may enable one to reread the woes against James and Peter from within a double, new perspective, rhetorical and sociological, and also to sketch the profile of the author of the Apocryphon of James. According to this paper, this author attempts to isolate and criticizes those Jerusalem parties that derive their legitimacy from James and Peter by employing a long woe-discourse of Jesus against James and Peter.


Christian Historiography Reflecting on Jewish Violence in Fifth Century Alexandria
Program Unit: Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity
Oded Irshai, Hebrew University of Jerusalerm

The 4th century brought about with it new modes of Christian behavior. The persecuted sheep from yesterday were becoming the persecuting wolves of today. This change in the public atmosphere became especially apparent in the course of the evolving dogmatic controversies of that period, whereby heated debates were decided and scores were being settled among conflicting religious factions, with violent outbursts. It would seem that the famous expression vox populi was assuming among the Christians a whole new dimension. As we come closer to the turn of the century, violence as a mode of public assertion of views and emotions was being used more and more in interfaith combats, as can be detected in the late 4th century Christian and pagan outbursts in Alexandria. Though it is difficult to assess firmly whether religious marginalization was its source two decades later in the ca. 414-415 CE, Alexandria witnessed yet another extreme outburst of violence in which the Jews took an active role, or might I even assert were instigated by them. The chronicle of this rather unique set of episodes has come down to us via the 5th century church history of Socrates Scholasticos. But surprisingly enough he was at the time the sole reporter of these momentous events. However, a close reading of his reports seems to reveal that lurking behind their representation within the overall depiction of the period were other considerations that had more to do with Christian leadership than with public demeanor.


Joseph Smith as a Reader of the Bible
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Kent Jackson, Brigham Young University

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Seen and Heard but Hardly Eating: Women's Consumption in the Book of Tobit
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Naomi S. Jacobs, University of Durham

The Book of Tobit is marked by, among many other things, two prominent elements: frequent eating-related activities and women. Notably, these two features appear rarely to intersect. The paper will discuss whether women are understood to be part of the various table scenes, an issue that is unclear at times, and in some cases, may even reflect differing viewpoints deriving from different stages in the story's development. It will also examine the one point in which a woman's consumption receives any explicit attention: Hannah's non-eating (10:7 Short Greek, Third Greek, Old Latin Manuscripts) and its distinction from the way non-eating by three other male characters is portrayed. Finally, it will comment on the significance of a tale in which though some women (even female slaves) are vocal, one never sees a woman in the position of actually eating anything. In doing so, Tobit's dependence upon biblical models will be taken into account, and cognate literature will be considered.


Can(n)ons of Empire: Revelation and the (Re)writing of Empire in the African-American Experience
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Leslie R. James, DePauw University

The paper explores the function of the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, in the quest for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, in the European writing of history and its impact on the interpretation of the Black/African-American Other following the establishment of the Spanish American and other empires following the encounter between European and African civilization in the modern world. The paper argues that following Columbus' "discovery" of the New World, that select passages of Revelation, such as the vision of a new heaven and earth, were used by Columbus, and others, to subvert indigenous, non-European cultures, legitimate conquest, and justify empire. The text was used as a step toward the acceptance of European empire by the Other as the path toward its own enligghtenment and civilization. Columbus' obsessive quest for personal redemption had negative impact on the indigenous peoples of the Americas and cleared the way for the development of African-American New World slavery. In their struggle for emancipation African-Americans had to recover Revelation from imperial control. The paper will illustrate the diverse results of that project in terms of African-American religious traditions, the struggle for Civil Rights, and biblical interpretation. African-American biblical hermeneutics needs to exercize critical responsibility in its appropriation of apocalyptic, especially Revelation, in its attempt to imagine and mediate an alternative vision of humanity for African-Americans.


Law and Prophecy at Qumran: The Conceptualization of the Classical Prophets as Lawgivers in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Qumran
Alex P Jassen, New York University

Prophets and prophecy loom large in the Qumran literature, both sectarian and non-sectarian. Yet, scholarly treatment of these themes in the Dead Sea Scrolls pales in comparison to their dominant place in the ideology of the Qumran sect and centrality in the Qumran corpus. Previous research on prophets in the worldview of the Qumran sect has focused on the presentation of the classical prophets in the pesharim as possessors of hidden secrets relating to the course of sectarian history. The present study explores a hitherto unrecognized additional characterization of the classical Israelite prophets in the sectarian literature. Numerous documents depict the classical prophets as lawgivers, transmitting divine law to Israel as well as providing its correct interpretation. At times, the prophets accompany Moses and both are conceptualized as equal mediators of divine law. We begin by examining these texts and the conceptualization of the ancient prophets contained therein. We then explore the wider historical and social context standing behind this sectarian model. In particular, the sectarian understanding of the ancient prophets as lawgivers is grounded in an ongoing debate in Second Temple Judaism over the role of the prophets and prophecy in the ongoing formation and interpretation of Jewish law. At times, the sectarian documents reflect evidence of alternative viewpoints, some of which are the objects of nuanced polemics. Finally, we explore the continuing traces of this debate in later rabbinic and Karaite Judaism and its implications for understanding the Qumran and Second Temple material.


Pre-creation Discourse in Colossians
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Roy Jeal, William and Catherine Booth College

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Early Christian Engraved Gems and Their Iconographic Significance
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Jeffrey Spier, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Several hundred gems of the late third and fourth centuries with Christian images survive and provide us with a body of iconographic and epigraphic material comparable to other images in a variety of media, primarily from the West. The gems are of special value for their primarily Eastern origin, their non-funerary context, and their relatively early date. The speaker will draw upon a larger study to present a survey of the material with emphasis on iconography and chronology.


Paul and (Post-modern) Political Thought
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Theodore W. Jennings, Chicago Theological Seminary

The discussion of Paul and Politics has often focused on Paul in his own 1st century environment. In this paper I propose to link up that discussion with another that has been underway for some time in contemporary continental thought that deals with Paul as a political thinker of importance for contemporary radical politics. Building upon reflections on the intersection of Pauline thought with that of Jacques Derrida on the question of justice I will indicate in what way Paul becomes a central figure for the political perspectives of thinkers as diverse as Alain Badiou, Slovoj Zizek and Giorggio Agamben. In Jacob Taubes’ phrase these are not specifically Christian thinkers but they are decidedly paulinists who understand Paul as in one way or another engaged (again to paraphrase Taubes) in a declaration of war, or at least unremitting struggle, against empire, then and now.


On Analogous Appropriation
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Robert Jenson, Princeton, NJ

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Joel and the Twelve: The Hermeneutical Function of the Book of Joel in the Masoretic Text of the Twelve Prophets
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Joerg Jeremias, Philipps-Universität, Marburg

The paper will add further evidence that the book of Joel serves, in James Nogalski's description, as the "literary anchor" of the Masoretic text of the Book of the Twelve. The paper will demonstrate that Joel draws together many concepts and phrases from different parts of the Twelve (and other authoritative writings) and assembles them into one coherent scenario of the coming Day of the Lord. This event will bring a full self-disclosure of God's character along the lines of the traditional confession in Exod 34:6-7. It will be argued that a technique of combining citations and allusions is deliberately used to construe Joel as a hermeneutical introduction into a multi-prophet book, with implications for the relative chronology of the Masoretic and Septuagint sequences of prophetic books, and the completion of the final version of the Twelve.


Freeing Exegesis
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Ann Jervis, Wycliffe College

It is commonplace to say that theology and ethics shape interpretation of biblical texts. The question for exegetes is whether the influence works the other way around. Does exegesis have a pay off in terms of the way theologians and ethicists work? Assuming that theologians and ethicists are will to engage biblical scholarship and that biblical scholars value this engagement, the question for exegetes is what approach to the biblical text might be most productive for engagement. What kinds of questions might the exegete bring to the text that maintain the hard won independence that critical biblical scholarship has established for investing the Bible apart from dogmatic readings while providing material for discussion with theologians and ethicists? I suggest that the recognition that an exegete’s theology and ethics inevitably influence her interpretation can liberate biblical scholars to ask a wider range of questions than those typically entertained. Consequently, among the questions exegetes might give themselves permission to ask are those that interest also theologians and ethicisits. For instance, an exegete’s own interest in the nature and function of suffering in the Christian life may be brought to a biblical text. Posing such a “theological” and “ethical” question to a biblical text does not necessarily compromise the clarity of exegesis, for a good read will ask her question of an appropriate text without presuming to know what the text will say. Furthermore, a good exegete will acknowledge where the text may not be understood in terms of the problem or question with which she approaches the text. The paper will provide an example of such exegesis by asking what Paul says about the nature and function of suffering in the Christian life in Phil 3:7-11.


"Ich Schutzte Sie Und Sie Ernahrte Mich": Elizabeth Hauptmann, Bertolt Brecht, and the Question of Women's 'Authorship' of Biblical Texts
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
David Jobling, St. Andrew's College, Saskatoon

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The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe Revealed: Syrianus' Exegesis of the Second Hypothesis
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
John Dillon, Trinity College Dublin

Generations of Platonists had puzzled over the exact significance of all the characteristics which Plato had denied of the One in the First Hypothesis, and asserted of it in the Second, and the precise order in which he presents them, but it would seem that no one before Proclus' teacher Syrianus, the great doctrinal innovator of the Athenian School, had arrived at the notion that these attributes all represent distinct levels and classes of divine being, so that the Second Hypothesis in particular becomes a fairly detailed road-map of the intelligible world. This paper sets out this scheme, and explores various aspects of it.


Currency of a Calling
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Bradley A. Johnson, Glasgow University

One the most powerful evangelical Christian sentiments is that one is potentially imbued with the divine mandate and capacity to enact the will of God on earth. Since becoming president in 2000, Bush's sense of calling has encompassed the responsibility of the United States to bestow and/or protect freedom, which he has deemed "God's gift to humanity." However, inasmuch as Bush declares, "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, are in a permanent state of war," or that America's ideal of freedom is sustained by moral "ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today and forever," the freedom to which such a call directs attention and investment is an impossible, static ideal of time wherein nothing happens except the forestalling of its end. With regard to the War on Terror, as with the Cold War, the neo-conservative mythmakers who frame the conflict have a speculative interest in maintaining the conflict: there is always another regime, another threat, etc. With regard to Bush's domestic policy, the economic independence of the proposed "ownership society," and its attendant Social Security and tax code reform, effectively render more people debtors without the recourse of bankruptcy – which, significantly, effectively coincides with the spiritual affirmation of his evangelical constituency's being "poor in spirit." As such, following the philosophical inquiry of Philip Goodchild's Capitalism and Religion, and the political critique of Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception, I will examine the nature of Bush's calling, namely the degree to which it co-opts the precedents of the Abrahamic and Davidic callings in a purely speculative, exceptional maneuver, i.e. unconcerned with the subsistence level of reality, to heighten the creation of political capital.


Mark 12:13–17: Which Caesar's Coin?
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Earl Johnson, Jr., Presbyterian Church, Johnstown NY

The difficult issues surrounding the controversy narrative of Caesar’s coin are notorious. One negelected issue concerns which image of which Caesar was in mind. Most commentators assume that the denarius bore the image of Tiberius. Examination of the role of Roman coins as propaganda indicate how important the messages of the coins were, especially the claim of Tiberius to be “son of the divine Augustus” . For Mark and his readers, however, the coins in view were not Tiberius’ but those of Nero. Although some of the early denarioi with Nero’s image show him bareheaded or wearing a laureate crown, he is later depicted with the radiate crown, a sign of divinity. Was Nero indicating that he was already a god and that he did not have to wait for the senate's vote to achieve apotheosis; or was he merely like a god (Apollo), not first among equals, but the one with absolute and supreme authority? In either case, Nero had upped the ante with his coins and for Mark and his readers the stakes were higher than they had been during the time of Tiberius. What did such assertions portend for a community in the late 60’s so concerned about questions of Christology? For Mark and his readers the answer to Jesus’ question about giving to Caesar could be fatal, not only for Jesus, but as the reader is led to understand in the next chapter, for all those who follow him.


Biblical CSI: Mixing it up in Ecclesiastes
Program Unit: Poster Session
Michael Johnson, Buffalo State College

The poem on time at Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is presented as a riddle game. The poem narrowly delineates a wide range of human activities, and specifically a full spectrum of physical faculties. Key lexical items suggest that this poem is a catalog of all the visibly important parts of the human body. The body parts are encrypted in the acts of which they are distinctively capable, and for which they are necessary. There are over thirty form-function links to be made. Some are obvious and explicit: for instance, the eyes weep. Some are less obvious: the cheeks show the marks of mourning. The passage implicitly gives poetic support to the teleological rationale for the human physique. Once it is seen as the image of a virtual body, this tabulation of healthy human physiology is counterpointed within Qoheleth as a whole by the enigmatic depiction of the decrepitude of the aging body at 12:1-7.


The Theological Conception of the Holy Land in Jewish Christian Writings and Its Impact on the Formation of Christian Identity
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
R. Boaz Johnson, North Park University Theological Seminary

There have been limited studies on the signficance of the Holy Land in early Christianity. W. D. Davies has studied the New Testament’s attitude toward the Holy Land, and Robert Wilken has focused on Gentile Christian views. It has been shown that the New Testament’s attitude toward the Holy Land is generally consistent with that found in Jewish texts of Late Antiquity. This paper will focus on the theological conception of the Holy Land, and its place in the formation of a Jewish Christian identity. It will show that the issue of Jewish Christian identity is intrinsically linked to the theological conception of the Holy Land, as seen in select Church writings from the first three centuries C.E.


Passive Bodies in Thessalonica: Reading Paul's Letter with Geography and Gender
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Luther College

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is often characterized as a letter of encouragement to a community in the midst of suffering and much of the exegetical-historical interpretation of the letter focuses on the nature and the extent of the persecution being suffered in Thessalonica. This paper brings a different lens to the representation of suffering in the text. By drawing on the insights of critical geography and examining the letter’s constructions of gender, this paper attends to the way that 1 Thessalonians constructs both Paul’s and the Thessalonian bodies. I argue that the letter creates a mental map that displaces all suffering and active bodies to places spatially or temporally beyond or apart from Thessalonica. The effect of this displacement is to render Thessalonian bodies passive, localize them to smaller spheres of movement and influence, and minimize the associations of the Thessalonian body with suffering or affliction. This active/passive dichotomy corresponds to the gender constructions in the letter. While Paul presents himself as a female nursemaid and the Thessalonians as sexually active men, it is Paul’s gender-bending body that actively provides for the infant community and the Thessalonian male body that must be rendered morally inactive in order to reduce community conflict. Mapping this rhetorical landscape helps us to see how the treatment of suffering in the letter is linked to the socially conservative exhortations, which seek to reduce the suffering or distress of the community rather than encourage them to persevere in spite of it.


Exilic Isaiah: Persuasive Preacher and His Counterpoint in Zoroaster
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Ann Johnston, Bangor Theological Seminary

Isaiah of the Exile had to preach to a people in despair under the influence of the newly forming Persian Empire. This Prophet is called to address both the theological crisis arising from the sense of feeling abandoned by their God and the social crisis of loss of identity, mission, and purpose.The Prophetic voice heard among the Persians at this time was that of Zarathustra, who was faced with a similar reforming and reformulating task. The God of Zarathustra as proclaimed in their Scripture, is also seen as the Great God. Isaiah proclaims to the Judean Community words of comfort and promise, New Creation and New Exodus, in a return to Zion. This is their God, their Creator, their Redeemer, the One who chose them to be source of blessing for a world and light to nations. Their Holy One is reforming, redirecting, re-purposing their lives as Servant of the Holy One of Israel (44:24-28). Cyrus the Persian, general of the Persian forces is, unbeknownst to him, agent of this Holy One of Israel (44:24-45:7). Cyrus will soon be suceeded by Darius, a loyal follower of Ahura Mazda. Under Darius, Zoriastrianism entered on a new phase of expansion and influence as they strove to unite the world under the crown of Persia. Within this context, we will examine the mission and ministry of Isaiah of the Exile as Prophet and Theologian for this community. This voice is called to persuade this people to turn again to their God, Holy One of Israel,who is still and forever there for them and is their God and God of the whole universe. In the "musical score" recorded in Isaiah 40-55, can we find a counterpoint in the Prophetic voice of Zarathustra as recorded in the texts of the Avesta?


The Pseudo-Clementine Basic Writing as a Response to Marcionites
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
F. Stanley Jones, California State University-Long Beach

After a brief review of previous research on the topic, this paper works out the profile of Marcionism that is combated in the Pseudo-Clementines. It then identifies the source(s) of the information on the Marcionites. The Basic Writer used Hippolytus’s Syntagma and was apparently confronted with at least two identifiable varieties of Marcionism: (1) those who held to traditional Marcionite views and (2) those who followed Apelles’s modification of Marcion’s position.


Lexicography and Orthography: Inspirations from the “Syriac Massora”
Program Unit:
Andreas Juckel, University of Munster

The so-called “Syriac Massora” is an 8th/9th century scholastic compilation of various philological and grammatical materials, especially of words and phrases taken from the OT, NT and patristic texts that are difficult to write or that are ambiguous to read. As the origin of this compilation is the Syr.-Orth. Qarqphto (“Skull”) Monastery near Rishaino, its Syriac designation is “Mašlemonutho Qarqephoito.” The sixteen extant manuscripts represent the first attempt to standardize Syriac orthography and pronunciation by introducing matres lectionis, the five “Greek” vowel signs, and Quššoyo/Rukkokho. The large biblical section of this compilation (which includes all Syriac versions of the OT and NT) is an important source for a new Syriac Lexicon by: (a) the presentation of proper nouns and of Greek loan words; (b) lists of difficult or curious words properly spelled and vocalized; (c) offering different traditions of orthography and pronunciation. The general inspiration for the new Lexicon drawn from the “massoretic” compilation is to include a maximum of orthographical information which implies reference to biblical manuscripts and not to printed editions only. Starting with “massoretic” samples, this paper will outline the role of orthography in a new lexicon of the Syriac New Testament.


The Royal Official and the Historical Jesus
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Peter J. Judge, Winthrop University

This paper investigates the possible “nuggets” of the historical life of Jesus that may be embedded in the story of Jesus’ healing of the Royal Official’s Son – John 4:46-54. Practically all agree that John narrates the same incident as is found in Matt 8:5-13 par. Luke 7:1-10. Some scholars rely on what they see as a pre-Johannine tradition, independent of the Synoptic Gospels, as an aid in reconstructing the historical or the literary tradition behind the texts of Mt 8 and Luke 7. Indeed, the Critical Edition of Q and the complementary volume, Documenta Q – Q 7:1-10, reflects something of this approach. Others prefer to regard John 4:46-54 as a post-Synoptic development. Does John offer a glimpse at the historical event that might not be available to us in the Q/Synoptic story? Thus, for example, C. Tuckett: “in some respects FG’s story seems to be more primitive than the Q version”(2001. Was it Q (Tuckett) or Mt/Lk (Catchpole), for instance, who made the official a Gentile centurion, while John preserves the more primitive tradition that the man was Jewish or at least of undetermined ethnicity? I try to frame the question somewhat differently by paying attention to the possibility that John’s version of the story is the end-point on a trajectory from the historical Jesus through Q and the Synoptic Gospels. I recognize fully that the author of John reported this incident of miracle and faith with a peculiar theological nuance and higher Christological signification, in line with the full sweep of the Fourth Gospel. In examining John’s version of the story, however, might it be suggested that this author both preserves some special historicity of the incident and knows the ways in which it has been manipulated and presented by previous authors?


A Study on the Allusion in Luke 1:17
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Chang-Wook Jung, Chongshin University (Seoul, Korea)

Concerning the allusion in Luke 1:17 ('to turn the hearts of fathers to [their] children), many commentators argue that it derived from the Hebrew text of the OT, either from Mal. 4:6 (the LXX Mal. 3:23) or Sirach 48:10. It is accepted that the plural nouns in Luke 1:17, i.e., 'fathers' and 'children', reflect the plural nouns in the Hebrew OT. This observation seems to confirm the argument that the phrase in Luke 1:17 allues to the Hebrew text rather than the LXX of either Malachi or Sirach. The issue, however, is not so much simple as it appears. The problem lies in the fact that the Lukan text does not exactly follow either the Hebrew OT or the LXX. A close examination may demonstrate that the phrase in Luke 1:17 stemmed from the LXX rather than the Hebrew OT. This paper will investigate various aspects of the alluded phrase in Luke 1:17 in order to show that this phrase depends on the LXX rather than the Hebrew OT.


The Function and Meaning of the Phrase "men oun"
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Chang-Wook Jung, Chongshin University (Seoul, Korea)

men oun is usually used to introduce a new section of the narrative in the New Testament. Thus, this phrase is not translated in many English versions. Translators appear to assume that it is not necessary for the phrase to be mentioned, since its function is simply to introduce a new section. Some English versions translate the phrase in some cases as conveying the inferential force, 'therefore' or 'so'. The phrase, however, may convey not only the inferential force, 'therefore' (or 'thus') or the transitional one, 'then' (or 'now') but also the adversative one, 'but' or even 'nevertheless'. With the latter force, some verses which include the phrase men oun are to be properly understood. The interpretation of this phrase has implications for the proper understanding of such verses. This paper will investigate all the instances in the NT in which the phrase occurs and suggest where the phrase may mean 'but' or 'nevertheless'. It will be shown that the phrase men oun does not always function as inferential or transitional conjunction; sometimes it functions as adversative (or contrastive) conjunction to suggest a contrastive thought to the idea to which it is connected. The usage of this phrase in the LXX as well as in classicla and Hellenistic Greek literature will be also examined in order to find a possible explanation about the origin of the adversative meaning of the phrase men oun.


Genealogies of Power: Pergamene Combat / Birth Images and Paul’s Contested Motherhood in Galatians 4:19
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Brigitte Kahl, Union Theological Seminary

The Great Altar of Pergamon in the Roman province of Asia , formerly the crown jewel of the Attalid dynasty, portrays an elaborate construct of fight, family and power that links the mythological combat scenes of the outer frieze (Giganto/Galatomachy) to the ancestral birth saga of Pergamene rule on the relief plates of the inner courtyard (Telephos frieze) . I want to show three things: (1) The images themselves and how their family /power constructs work, i.e. how in the Great Altar the bloodshed of the battle is linked to the bloodline of the new dynasty to be born- how the “family of order” defeats the “family of chaos.” (2) This profoundly resonantes with the Roman imperial family and power construct after Actium (i.e. Aeneid; Gemma Augustea). The Great Altar is therefore very much a “living monument” at Paul’s time that may illustrate the ideological and imagery background before and against which NT textual production is to be understood. (3) In particular I want to focus on the motif of Paul’s “contested motherhood” in Gal 4:19 both in the context of the disputed birth giving of Gaia and Auge at the Great Altar and of the heavenly woman in Rev 12. Typologically Paul’s opponents might be seen in the same role as the imperial dragon in Rev 12 and the divine-human alliance of “power against disorder” at the Great Altar as they persecute and make war on the messianic seed – which within the logic of the Great Altar needs to be perceived as a family of lawlessness and a new creation of chaos that subverts the imperial genealogy and exercise of power.


The Struggle for Leadership: The Conflict of Philippians 4:2–3
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Jennifer Anderson Kalbas, Christian Theological Seminary

In two swift verses (Phil. 4:2-3), the apostle Paul places Euodia and Syntyche at the forefront of the Philippian discord. The literature concerning the existent friction often stops short of identifying the underlying cause. Indeed, Paul leaves minimal concrete details. Through a historical reconstruction based upon the rhetorical structures of the text, I propose a thesis that points to the primary reason for the conflict: In light of Paul’s absence, the Philippian church finds itself in need of a new spiritual leader. The persons supported by the community to fill this role are Euodia and Syntyche.


"How Do I Get Out of Here?" Escaping the Cosmos, Gnostically
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Michael Kaler, Laval University

A common theme in "gnostic" writings is the ascent of the soul through the various heavens, leading to its eventual escape from the cosmos. In its ascent, however, the soul is almost certain to be challenged by the heavenly powers, the cosmic rulers and authorities, which do not allow it to escape from their sphere of influence. The means by which this challenge is overcome vary from text to text, but by and large they break down into two motifs: either the soul presents a “sign” of some sort, whose authority enables it to pass by the heavenly powers, or there is a “question and answer” session, wherein the heavenly powers ask the soul a number of questions, and the soul, in correctly responding, demonstrates its possession of gnosis and therefore its right to escape their grasp. The proposed paper will examine these two motifs, their variations, and the contexts in which they occur, with especial attention paid to their use in the only gnostic text to combine them, the Apocalypse of Paul (NHC V,2).


The Trinity in the Tripartite Tractate
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Joel Kalvesmaki, Catholic University of America

In recounting or describing the theology that underlies the Tripartite Tractate most scholars state that the divinity is conceived by the author as a trinity consisting of Father, Son, and Church. I believe this is an incorrect assessment of the Tractate. I shall argue that the Tractate reflects a stage of Valentinianism that has replaced the traditional triacontad with a subdued orthodox trinitarianism. This new top theological layer presides over more traditional Valentinian doctrines of emanation, creation, salvation, and so forth. The trio Father, Son, and Church certainly play a central role in the Tractate, but they are the fundamental stages in the process of the universe’s emanation and recapitulation; they are not the prime members of the godhead.


Embodied and Embodying Hermeneutics of Life in the Academy: Musa W. Dube’s HIV/AIDS Work
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Emmanuel Katongole, Duke University

Homi Bhabha argues that “The body politic can no longer contemplate the nation’s health as simply a civic virtue; it must rethink the question of rights for the entire national and international community from the AIDS perspective” (1994:6). In biblical studies, Musa W. Dube’s work on HIV&AIDS best represents this effort. This paper will explore how Dube reads the HIV&AIDS epidemic as an epidemic within other social epidemic; how she has challenged biblical and theological guild for curriculum transformation in the light of the epidemic and how she has engaged faith communities for the HIV&AIDS struggle for healing.


From Autochthon to Alien: The Israelite Idea of Possession
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Robert Kawashima, New York University

In the ancient world we discover a widespread concept for the relation between society and land: the Native. Humans are often said to spring up from the earth itself (the Autochthon). Such is the unstated premise of Enuma Elish and Atrahasis, according to which humans are created from clay in order to furnish the gods of Mesopotamia with an abundant labor supply. Conversely, the gods themselves may be essentially joined to (inseparable from) a particular locale. Thus, Marduk rules over the cosmos for all eternity from Babylon, Zeus from Olympus, Baal from Zaphon. Deut 32:8-9 likely contains the remnant of an analogous Israelite myth. What is surprising is that other Israelite religious traditions reject the concept of the Native, insisting instead that Israel and its god are alien to Canaan. Yahweh comes from the south: Sinai, Seir, Paran, etc (Deut 33:3, Jud 5:4-5; Hab 3:3,7). Israel descends from "a wandering Aramean" (Deut 26:5); Abraham comes to Canaan from Ur by way of Haran (Gen 11:27-32). Not coincidentally, several of Israel's key theological concepts revolve around this central negation: the covenant of grant, the exodus, Sinai and the wilderness generation, and the conquest. In order to account for this structural transformation, I invoke the distinction between inalienable and alienable possession. The concept of the Native establishes inalienable relations between humanity, divinity, and world — relations that are eternal and therefore cannot conceivably be severed. The biblical rejection of the Native transforms these into alienable relations. If alienable possession leads a more fragile existence — what one acquires in time can also be lost — it also enabled Israel to conceive of and ultimately to accommodate another central idea and reality: the exile.


Dirt, Disgust, and Demons: Body and Morality in Biblical Purity Laws
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Thomas Kazen, Stockholm School of Theology

In the present discussion about ritual purity it is often pointed out that Judaism does not equate impurity and sin. There is no consensus, however, on the question whether “moral” impurity should be understood as a secondary metaphor, or as another type of ritual impurity with a different set of rules. In spite of this, both purity and morality are concepts intimately associated with the human body. The body is the arena for both, and, I would suggest, the origin of both. Turning to evolutionary biology, psychology and neurology, we find that bodily emotions are intimately involved in moral judgement and that primary emotional development is based on bodily reactions to threatening or promising stimuli, such as pleasure or pain. Of the emotions associated with morality, disgust has aroused prominent interest. This paper examines to what extent “core disgust” could be understood as one underlying explanation for biblical purity laws as well as for some moral precepts bordering to the purity system. With the use of interdisciplinary insights as heuristic tools, a selection of legal texts are examined, primarily from Leviticus and Numbers. The results suggest that purity and morality are concepts sharing common origins and that impurity and sin, although not equal, both are bodily and to some extent secondary ideas.


The Use of Scripture in Abu Ra’itah al-Takriti’s Response to the Charge of Tahrif
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Sandra Keating, Providence College

The Jacobite Abu Ra’itah al-Takriti (d.c. 830) of Iraq is one of the first Christian apologists whose name is known to write in Arabic. His apologetic writings in response to questions posed by Muslims are primarily concerned with showing that Christian doctrine is not inconsistent or irrational. Although he emphasizes a rational approach to the questions in order to circumvent the contention that Christian scripture has been altered (tahrif) and therefore is not reliable, he does not wish to abandon scripture as a source of knowledge about God. This paper will look at the way in which Abu Ra’itah does use scripture in his apologetics, focusing particularly on those verses he believes will be acceptable evidence in his responses to Muslims, and will conclude with some observations on his method.


John's Theophanic Vision of Jesus
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Craig S. Keener, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary

John claims an eyewitness testimony to Jesus, but virtually scholars recognize that he interprets and expounds this vision differently than the Synoptics. Because John presents Jesus' enfleshed glory in terms of prior biblical theophanies, he invites readers to grapple with his theologizing interpretation of the history he reports.


Mnemohistory: Rethinking the History of the Gospel Traditions
Program Unit: Mapping Memory: Tradition, Texts, and Identity
Werner Kelber, Rice University

An analysis of the implications of memory theory for research into the history of the gospel traditions


The Diet of John the Baptist: "Locusts and Wild Honey" in Synoptic and Patristic Tradition
Program Unit: Poster Session
James A. Kelhoffer, Saint Louis University

This presentation will summarize my recent monograph (Mohr Siebeck, 2005) on John the Baptist’s diet of “locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6c||Matt 3:4c). The book examines what this diet may have meant not only to the historical Baptist or two Synoptic evangelists, but also the various meanings attached to that diet in the Patristic period, and beyond. A review of scholarship reveals no consensus concerning the meaning(s) of John’s diet. A study of locust eating in the ancient near east and the ancient Mediterranean world offers perspective on how Mark 1:6c||Matt 3:4c could have been interpreted by various audiences, whether locust eating or non locust eating. Another inquiry considers the various possible sweet substances, including bee honey, that could have been denoted as “wild honey.” A survey of the history of interpretation of Mark 1:6c||Matt 3:4c illustrates the various ways that John’s diet came to be construed as ‘vegetarian’ and as an example for believers to emulate.


Suppressing Human Anger in Early Christianity: Examples from the Pauline Tradition
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
James A. Kelhoffer, Saint Louis University

Ancient Jewish and early Christian commands concerning human emotions—for example, covetousness, anger, jealousy and love—merit study in their ancient contexts, as well as in relation to contemporary approaches to religion and the social sciences. This paper has two main parts: an analysis of anger in the NT letters attributed to Paul and interaction with contemporary theories on the psychology of anger. An underlying question concerns whether the suppression of human anger for the sake of some greater good is a necessary component in the theology of Paul or any of the deutero-Pauline authors. For example, Eph 4:26 warns against sinning when becoming angry and includes the familiar advice not to “let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26). In the same passage, this (deutero-Pauline) author further commands not to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” but instead to “put away all bitterness and wrath and anger” (Eph 4:30-31). The implication seems to be that pleasing the Holy Spirit is antithetical to any expression of ‘bitterness, wrath or anger’ (cf. Eph 6:4). Competing theories of the psychology of anger can be brought to bear on these and other Pauline passages. Perhaps Paul or the authors of Colossians and Ephesians assume that the Oedipal repression of anger is necessary for the existence of the Christian community and that only God as ‘Father’ is allowed to become angry. Or do we instead find commands against infantile or narcissistic rage? Moreover, is anger to be sublimated for the sake of some greater good—for example, human charity, the peace of the congregation, or appeasing God’s anger? If suppressing anger is indeed concomitant with fidelity to Pauline Christianity, one can further ask about the potentially deleterious effects of such suppression.


The PsCl Recognitions in the Context of Fourth-Century Syria
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Nicole Kelley, Florida State University

The Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 9.17.1ff contains an extended debate about astrological knowledge between the old man Faustinianus and his long-lost sons Clement, Niceta and Aquila. Pseudo-Clementine specialists have long realized that this material stands in some sort of literary relationship to Philippus’ Book of the Laws of the Countries/Bardaisan’s lost Dialogue on Fate (as mentioned by Eusebius). Much of the existing discussion about this section of the Recognitions and its partial parallels in the Homilies is an attempt to determine the precise relationship between the Recognitions, the Book of the Laws of the Countries, and the text quoted by Eusebius. This paper does not attempt to solve this chicken-and-egg problem raised by previous scholars. Instead, it proposes that we look to the Recognitions’ fourth-century Syrian context to gain a better understanding of why its author chose to devote such a large amount of narrative space to a dialogue about astrology, fate, and free will. By placing this material in conversation with other fourth-century Syrian Christian writings on similar subjects, such as Ephrem’s Hymns against Bardaisan, this paper attempts to treat it as more than just a remnant of the past carelessly appropriated by the Recognitions (or its predecessor the Grundschrift). I will argue that this astrological material plays a crucial role in the Recognitions’ fourth-century apologetic and polemical agenda, which is a multifaceted attack reflecting a complex rivalry between several types of Christian and non-Christian groups such as that found in fourth-century Syria.


Two Ancient Christian Interpretations of John 9:1–3
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Nicole Kelley, Florida State University

In John 9, Jesus heals a man born blind, after his disciples ask if the blind man is being punished for his or his parents' sins. Although it undermines the understanding of “blindness” and its connection to sin, this pericope depends on the ancient assumption that deformities were divine punishment for sin. This paper explores how two later Christians interpret John 9, and how they understand its implications vis-à-vis sinfulness and disability. The PsCl Homilies recounts the Johannine story but alters Jesus’ answer to the disciples as follows: “Neither did he sin at all, nor his parents, but that the power of God might be made manifest through him in healing the sins of ignorance.” Such ignorance means not knowing when to have sexual relations in accordance with purity concerns: those who engage in impure sexual intercourse produce children with birth defects. Peter concludes, “Give me the man who doesn’t sin, and I’ll show you the man who doesn’t suffer.” Because of its purity concerns, the Homilies contravenes the original meaning of John 9.1-3. The PsCl Recognitions does not mention John 9 in its version of the story but retains the notion that congenital deformities result from improper timing of sexual intercourse. According to the Recognitions, these afflictions are caused by demonic infestations and gratification of lustful desires rather than by ignorance or violation of purity regulations. Although these authors have different agendas, they share the belief that bodily deformities result from disobeying religious principles. I will explore how these interpretations reflect the larger concerns of their authors and how they can be understood in relation to prevailing ideas about sinfulness and disability in antiquity.


"And Your Young Shall See Visions": The Role of Heavenly Visions in the Book of Acts
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Shawn Kelley, Daemen College

The book of Acts contains an unusually large number of visions. Angels, voices from heaven and the risen Jesus appear regularly throughout the story. In an attempt to come to grips with this distinctive aspect of Acts, I will focus on two major aspects of the heavenly visions: their distinctive narrative features and their place in the narrative. i) I will begin by identifying the narrative features that are shared by most, although not all, the Lukan visions. These include the following: a heavenly appearance, clear instructions and immediate comprehension. The clarity of these visions distinguishes them the visions of apocalypticism and from the oracles of Hellensitic novels. I will take a close look at the one scene (the vision to Peter in Acts 10) that relies upon a vision that is neither clear nor immediately comprehended. ii) In the second part of the paper, I will pay particular attention to the relationship between the concentration of heavenly visions and a strong central character. The majority of the visions in Acts, once again excluding the vision to Peter in Acts 10, tend to either introduce a major character (i.e. Paul) or to guide secondary characters (i.e. Cornelius, Philip). Furthermore, the visions tend to be clustered in the one place in the narrative- the one narrative place in Acts which lacks a single, clearly identifiable primary character (Acts 6:8-13:3). The paper will end by asking what this analysis might reveal about this section of Acts and about those characters who populate this section of Acts, with special attention devoted to Peter.


Reclaiming Stolen Thunder: The Book of Isaiah and the Persian Empire
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
James M. Kennedy, Baylor University

Against the current flow of scholarship on the book of Isaiah, this paper proposes that the ideological underpinnings of the book of Isaiah sustain a consistent anti-Persian outlook. First, the paper sets forth a discussion of the significance of implication with regard to how texts operate ideologically. Avoiding an overt condemnation of Persian policies, the book of Isaiah participates in a form of protest that effectively depends on the interpreter's capacity to extrapolate social and political implications. Second, the book of Isaiah employs theological symbols that possibly derive from Persian influence. Although this in itself is not a new idea, this paper proposes that the religious symbolism in the book redirects its social impulses toward and in favor of Yahwistic significance. Instead of, for example, Ahura Mazda as the agent of light, the book of Isaiah casts Yahweh as the true bearer of light to humanity. The book of Isaiah attacks the dualism of Persian religion by portraying Yahweh as the only valid claimant for supreme power in the cosmos. Whereas in Persian thought the force of darkness (Angra Manyu) mitigate and balance the force of light (Ahura Mazda), Yahweh mysteriously encompasses both forces. This paper explores the social and political implications of such claims.


Methodological Considerations in Respect to Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash
Program Unit: Midrash
Rivka Ulmer, Bucknell University

Cultural icons are easily recognizable as belonging to a specific culture. Midrash contains many recognizable Egyptian cultural icons. Although the rabbis might have followed the high prestige that anything Egyptian enjoyed in late antiquity in order to provide a historical garb to their statements, there are several very specific intersections with Egyptian culture that require us to examine Egyptian references in midrash in addition to the elements from Graeco-Roman, Persian and Babylonian cultures. One challenge in isolating and interpreting these Egyptian elements is the temporal distance between the “late” date of some midrashim and the Egyptian cultural icons that are found in pharaonic, Roman or Coptic Egypt. My methodological discussion in respect to the analysis of Egyptian cultural icons in midrash involves hermeneutics and the presuppositions of rabbinic texts, the rabbinic culture of memorializing, the double inversion in evaluating anything Egyptian and the rejection of “the others.” From a reader-response perspective, the Egyptian elements make for a picturesque, visibly pleasing, story. However, their deictic function revolves around the present of the midrashic works, e.g., the time of the bubonic plague during the Byzantine era. The question of why the framers of midrashic texts refer to Egyptian cultural icons is a hermeneutical question that is largely determined by rabbinic theology. This hermeneutical question might have been created by the cultural and religious situation of the late midrashic texts themselves, in which Egypt had become a metaphor for the Romans, Byzantines or other foreign rulers. Egypt was associated with the estrangement of Jews from the situation in the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora. Whether or not the rabbinic interpreters of the Bible inherited accurate descriptions of Egyptian cultural icons, their historicizing and Egyptianizing reconstructions, and my Egyptological readings of the texts, are close to the models provided in Egyptian culture.


Admonition to Assemble Together in Didache 16.2 Reappraised
Program Unit: Didache in Context
Taras Khomych, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

This contribution focuses on the analysis of a largely neglected passage of the Didache. After a short overview of some approaches to its interpretation, the paper attempts to shed some more light on the understanding of this section, adapting Milavec’s recent theory about the unity of the Didache and progression of thought within it, while modifying his interpretation of Did 16.2. Based on the analysis of the passage and its context, this study concludes that Did 16.2 gives an admonition to the local community to assemble together in unity. This interpretation is further supported by the analysis of the implied military imagery of Did 16 and correspondences between the passage in question and references to the Eucharist in Did 9-10 and 14. In the presentation it is also pointed out that Did 16.2 is distinct from the other eucharistic passages of the Didache as it contains a reminder of community’s responsibility in view of the coming end and presents the local liturgical congregation as an image of the final gathering of the Church in the eschaton.


Second Thoughts on the Destructive Power of Religion
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
D. Andrew Kille, Revdak

The Destructive Power of Religion (Praeger, 2004) offers a unique collection of reflections on the images and symbols of violence and destructiveness in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. For that collection, I explored the interaction of scripture and communities of interpretation to ask where the psychological roots of destructive forces in religion and scripture interpretation might lie. I will reflect further on what impact the book series might actually have both in understanding those foundations and in addressing the manifestations of violence and aggression that continue to arise from religious communities and their reading of sacred texts.


Reflections on Writing a Book on Ethnicity of Biblical Peoples
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Ann E. Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University

This presentation will give reflections on writing a book on ethnicity for biblical peoples. I will include my method and some issues raised in the process.


Chiastic Structures and Relationships of Isaiah 60–62 within the Book of Isaiah
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Methodist Theological School in Ohio

This study attempts to look at the chiastic structures of Isaiah 60-62 both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic dimensions. Ever since James Muilenburg's commentary on Isaiah 40-66, many studies have investigated the chiastic patterns and rhetorical functions of smaller units of Isaianic texts. Now, with the recent contributions of intertextual attention to the concatenated correlations of phrases and motifs, it would be helpful to examine the complex interconnections of key phrases and motifs together with attention to the chiastic patterns and correlations. Hence, by analyzing chiastic patterns both within Isaiah 60-62 and in light of Isaiah 60-62 within the book of Isaiah, the present study will explore its rhetorical and metaphorical relationships as well as functions of these core chapters within Isaiah 56-66, 40-55, and 1-66.


"Greater Than These": The Healing Stories in John as a Struggle against the Roman Empire
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Jean K. Kim, Moravian Theological Seminary

John’s description of Jesus’ manner of healing the sick and raising Lazarus seems to present Jesus as a shamanic healer of Jewish community, similar to shaman leaders in (de)colonizing contexts. However, the political significance of Jesus’ shamanic activities has been largely neglected. Only a few scholars, observing an ambiguous relationship between shamanism and colonialism, have begun to pay attention to shamanic aspects of Jesus. There has been a tension between shamanic practices and centralized political authority. The experiences of terror unleashed by colonial power have configured the practice of shamans and turned it into a counter-hegemonic force in colonial contexts. The paradoxical power relationship between power/state and subject is not confined to a central place but displays an ambiguity through which the two form a hybrid space where they resemble or depend on each other. This relationship appears in John’s healing stories: the royal officer asks for healing for his son; Jesus heals the paralytic man by sharing a space near a pagan Roman temple, heals the blind man by mimicking Vespasian, and raises Lazarus from his death by appropriating Mithra. Considering that John and his community were living under the harsh Roman Empire, I propose that John’s healing stories present Jesus as a subversive shamanic leader seeking to restore the community that had been terrified by Roman imperial power.


Liar, Allegorist, or What? Varying Approaches to Homer in Dio Chrysostom
Program Unit: Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
Larry Y. Kim, University of Texas at Austin

This paper will explore different approaches to Homeric Epic in the speeches of Dio Chrysostom in the light of recent work in reception theory and in the context of the literary and cultural aspects of the Second Sophistic movement.


Rupturing the Empire: Reading the Poor Widow as the Postcoloinial Female Subject (Mark 12:41–44)
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Seong Hee Kim, Drew University

In this paper, I read the poor widow’s offering (Mark 12:41-44) from the perspective of the postcolonial female subjects in general, and the Korean women in particular, who are among the representative postcolonial female subjects that inherited the deeply rooted patriarchal tradition of Confucianism, Japanese colonialism, historical urgency of national unification, and neocolonialism. Generally, women in the Markan community represent the subalterns who are nameless, marginalized, hybrid, ambiguous, outsiders and without a language of their own. They are anonymous and invisible due to the structures of patriarchy and colonialism. Like today’s Two-Thirds World women who suffer under neocolonialism and patriarchy, they are also doubly colonized. These women in Mark are like a reflecting mirror that shows how unstable the system of Empire is and enables us to look at the self as the other, rupturing the fixed identity and culture. Their multiple identities are also threatening the colonizer/patriarchal authority in their mimicking roles, and their hybrid subjects who live in-between the worldly Empire and God’s Empire bring hope to create a new society for liberating one another. The poor widow is a representative of the colonized subalterns in the Markan period. She throws out all the money to reveal how the imperial temple system exploited the poor widows as victims and signals the disruption of the Roman Empire. The poor widow’s action reflects her situation as an imperial victim and the unstable colonial system itself. By exploring the issues of Empire and gender in the Gospel of Mark, this study will reinterpret the poor widow as subversive, hybrid, and threatening subjects in colonial/postcolonial situations, who function as an example of empowerment for contemporary women in the postcolonial world.


Reading Josiah's Death, Reading Domain Assumptions
Program Unit: Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics
Uriah Y. Kim, Canisius College

The circumstance of Josiah’s death is described in one enigmatic verse, 2 Kings 23:29, and without any obvious theological explanation or comment from the Deuteronomist. Many biblical scholars, following the description of the Chronicler (2 Chr 35:20–27) and other versions based on the Chronicler’s account, continue to believe that Josiah was killed in battle at Megiddo while trying to stop Necho II’s march to join the Assyrians at the rive Euphrates. Some even argue that Josiah was trying to defend his territory, which they believe extends as far as Megiddo. Although the enigmatic report in 2 Kings 23:29 doesn’t explain how Josiah died, nevertheless, the paper argues that it should be considered more accurate than the Chronicler’s version, which is thoroughly influenced by the Chronicler’s theology. The paper questions whether the preference for the “Josiah died in battle protecting his territory” scenario is due to biblical scholars appealing to some domain assumptions operative in biblical studies. The appeal to these domain assumptions is not limited to Western scholars. The paper examines three recent dissertations on King Josiah by Asian and Asian American scholars who either accepts without any question or critiques these domain assumptions. Finally, the paper ask whether it is possible to read Josiah’s death outside of these assumptions and suggests two categories derived from the experience and history of Asian Americans to read Josiah’s death.


Translation of “Infinitive Absolute + Finite Verb” in Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Yoo-ki Kim, Johns Hopkins University

The infinitive absolute followed by a finite verb of the same root has usually been rendered in English versions as a variety of adverbs with different levels of grammar: some of these adverbs express speaker’s judgment or conviction about the proposition, while others simply modify or strengthen the semantic meaning of the predicate itself. Most grammars define the function of this infinitive construction with a vague term such as “emphasis,” and include both the predicate level and the proposition level of “emphasis” in their explanations and renderings. This paper, however, shows that the construction is concerned with the focus on the proposition level only, and that the adverbs that modify the verbal idea itself may not be justified as renderings of this construction. Translations that reflect these findings would provide us with a better understanding of certain biblical passages in question, with a closer approximation to the true meaning of this special Hebrew construction.


What is the Difference between Second Temple Penitential Prayers and Rabbinic Penitential Prayers?
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
Reuven Kimelman, Brandeis University

This paper will use Weinfeld's thesis about the linkage between the penitential prayers at Qumran and the Amidah as a departure point to investigate more closely the character of the Rabbinic penitential prayer


Sex, Gender, and the Human Body in the Apocryphon of John
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Karen L. King, Harvard University

Contrary to the stereotype that “Gnostics hate the body,” the Apocryphon of John presents names of demons for practices of healing the body. Contrary to the notion that Nag Hammadi texts generally advocate sexual asceticism, it describes the sexual reproduction of Adam and Eve as an act of salvation that works to correct the deficiencies produced by Sophia. Contrary to the remonstrations of Irenaeus, it presents the human body as the site of salvation through bodily acts of moral purification and ritual practice. Contrary to the understanding of Gnostic theology as docetic, it figures the human body as both map and territory of the divine and cosmic realms. The paper will offer an overview of the Apocryphon of John’s complex figuration of the human body, which at once mirrors the gender ambiguities of the divine world above and locates the contest for salvation in the human body, including the proper understanding of sexual productivity.


A Multi-tier Interlinear to the Syriac New Testamen
Program Unit:
George Kiraz, Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institut

The paper gives a description of the multi-tier Interlinear to the Syriac New Testament Project, carried out by a team of international scholars. The Interlinear is meant as a pedagogical tool and provides lexical and linguistic analysis of the Syriac NT, along with a literal English translation, that will be of immense help to the student. For each word, the Interlinear gives in its first few tiers full lexical, morphological and syntactic analysis (based on the SEDRA database). The remaining tiers give translations starting at the lexeme level, moving to morphosyntax and then full idiomatic translation. This project is being undertaken in conjunction with the International Syriac Language Project (ISLP).


One Nation. . . Indivisible, with Justice: Empire, Sex, and Power
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University Divinity School

The 1892 Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America is a Twentieth Century ritual of engagement that makes an implicit claim for empire as a republic, under God, indivisible, and allegedly with justice for all. Republics or monarchies often come with charismatic leadership, and with that leadership comes intimate relationships. Some of these leaders have explicit, extramarital sexual relationships, sometimes for the sake of political expansion, that causes one to question matters of justice, ethics, and the divine. In the monarchy or empire of ancient Israel this matter arises in the life of David with Bathsheba and the triangle between Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom. Similarly in the republic of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, the author of "all men are created equal," and its third president, was married and had a slave woman, Sally Hennings as a mistress; a woman who bore him six children. What is the connection between hierarchical power, political expediency, and sexuality? This paper explores the dynamics of empire, monarchical texts, and the ethics of sexuality. After exegeting the relationships between David and Bathesheba and Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom, I then: examine the notions of empire in those texts (2 Samuel 11-13) in dialogue with those of colonial US; analyze the role of sex in both political arenas; and compare the Davidian monarchy with that of the Jeffersonian era, noting the plight of African Americans in the colonial U.S.


Feminist Re-thinking of Paul
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest

The insights of feminist hermeneutics have not yet reshaped scholarship on the central authoritative texts of the Christian tradition. Although rhetorical-critical methods that interrogate texts and interpretations have been proposed, many approaches to these texts are still variations on the traditional “Jesus and Women” or “Paul and Women.” Even feminist interpretation is caught up in the dynamics of this model by reconstructing the relationship as either positive or negative. Arguing that biblical scholarship constitutes a rereading and representation of authoritative texts, this paper will show how research on women in the first century, on worship and prophecy in the ecclesia, and on the social formation of the early communities contributes to a thorough rethinking of how to speak about the early Christian communities revealed in the letters of Paul. By exploring the tensions among multiple christological and practical perspectives in the letters, the contemporary interpreter is able to enter into dialogue with those perspectives in the early Christian communities. A paradigm shift away from “Pauline Christianity,” “pre-Pauline tradition,” and “Paul’s opponents” makes possible a more critical theological engagement with the letters. Such a rethinking changes how these letters are taught, preached, and employed in debates in the current social and political environment


Methodology and Ideology in the Study of Priestly Ritual
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Jonathan Klawans, Boston University

It has been established that various biases—Christian, Jewish, and other—impact the ways in which scholars study the Pentateuch. The focus of this paper will be on the relationship between methodological choices and ideological stances with regard to the study of priestly rituals in particular. The first part of this paper will review—briefly—a number of open methodological questions facing scholars who wish to understand better biblical purity and sacrificial practices. The second part will illustrate how some methodological choices may reflect or otherwise be influenced by certain ideological stances. This paper will conclude with some preliminary suggestions for avoiding the potential pitfalls in the nexus between ideology and methodology—offered without the suggestion that the presenter is somehow devoid of bias.


James, Rhetoric, and the Jesus Tradition
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto

Three features of James make the assessment of its relationship to the Jesus tradition problematic. First, James never frames any of his materials as though they were citations of the Jesus tradition; second, there is almost no verbal correspondence between sayings of Jesus known from Q, Mark, Matthew, Luke or Thomas and James' materials; and third, there is numerous points of conceptual contact with the Jesus tradition. This paper proposes the rhetorical model of aemulatio or paraphrase as a means to reconcile these three seemingly divergent aspects of James.


Biblical Allusions and Echoes from Psalm 97 in Isaiah 60–62
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Sheri L. Klouda, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

The presentation explores possible instances of literary borrowing in Isaiah 60 and 62 from Psalm 97. The introduction distinguishes between the function and purpose of biblical allusion and echo, then proceeds to examine Isaiah 60 and 62 in light of Psalm 97 based on a designated list of evaluative criteria. The paper further implies that Isaiah's appropriation and adaptation of Psalm 97 constitutes but one example of the prophet's dependence on Psalms 96-99.


Gorging and Guzzling, Red Stew, and the Cult of the Dead: Brichto Revisted
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Robin J. DeWitt Knauth, Lycoming College

Herbert Brichto argued convincingly in "Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife…” for an Israelite belief that the dead required care, connecting Biblical commands to "honor" parents with a requirement to provide for the dead. Lack of descendants or proper burial in their vicinity was the worst possible curse – precluding any hope for a satisfactory afterlife. Brichto asserts that concern for the firstborn’s willingness to carry out the “memorial honors” on which his parents’ afterlife depended drives the severity of punishment in Deut 21:18-21, which connects “gorging and guzzling” with disobedience to parents, punishable by stoning. Imposition of the death penalty for gluttony cannot merely reflect concern for “selfish ingratitude.” Brichto's assertion can be pushed further. The crime of “gorging and guzzling” may have involved eating and drinking food offerings intended for dead ancestors (Eli’s sons similarly ate sacrificial portions intended for YHWH). This could also make better sense of Gen 25:29-34, where Esau “despised his birthright” by selling it to Jacob for some “red stew.” Since the right of the firstborn involved not only double inheritance but responsibility for the ancestor cult, the possibility that the “red stew” was not just a dish of lentils but was being prepared as a food offering for ancestors (perhaps "consisting of blood" with prosthetic aleph, or colored red to represent blood) ought to be considered. Then Esau’s insistence on eating sacrificial blood stew would rightly cost him his birthright of primary responsibility for the ancestor cult – especially in view of Deut 21. Archaeological evidence for food provisions in Judahite tombs (Bloch-Smith), prophetic polemic, and biblical concern over consumption of blood (Grintz) and place of burial confirm the existence of such practices, despite their apparent suppression in the biblical text.


Remembering the Covenant
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Robin J. DeWitt Knauth, Lycoming College

The special association of covenantal remembrance with P has already been widely recognized. YHWH’s remembrance of covenant (or covenant partner) marks the central focus and turning point of several important pentateuchal narratives. These same narratives also exhibit remarkable resonances with the exilic situation, with a clear emphasis on deliverance. The prominent presence of such distinctive statements of YHWH’s covenantal remembrance at pivotal points in the structure of the Pentateuch, appearing in both non-P and transitional texts (i.e. at the intersection of originally separate sources) that seem to shape the larger narrative significantly, suggests the possibility that the phrase is redactive. In one instance, Propp’s proposal of a parallel text in Ezekiel reflecting a pre-redaction version of P finds this distinctive concept conspicuously absent. This special usage of zkr, showing such clear evidence of redactive purpose, is thus suggested as a potential marker of the redactive layer. A further use of the same distinctive phraseology, found prominently at the end of Leviticus 26 among sermonic exilic additions in conjunction with a notice of exilic fulfillment of sabbatical-year provisions, may serve to tie that redactive layer specifically to a time when the end of the exile was imminent, possibly signaled by the anticipated advent of a Jubilee after 50 years of captivity in the immediate aftermath of the Cyrus Edict.


Reception History and the Current Study of Hebrews
Program Unit: Hebrews
Craig R. Koester, Luther Seminary

This paper will explore major trends in the history of reception of Hebrews and their implications for contemporary study of the book.


Using Linguistic Difference in Relative Text Dating: Insights from Other Historical Linguistic Case Studies
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Jens Kofoed, Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology

Whereas it is relatively easy to write a consensus list of demonstrable syntactical, orthographical, and lexicographical differences between, say, the books of Kings and Chronicles, consensus soon comes to an end when these differences are to be explained. Instead of explaining them as a diachronic development within the Hebrew language that, on linguistic grounds, enables us to establish a relative chronology among the texts in which they occur, a growing number of scholars now theorize that such differences are much more likely to be explained along synchronic lines as different dialects, sociolects, and idiolects, thus being of rather limited usefulness in dating the texts. Though there can be no doubt that synchronic hypotheses about linguistic difference may be the best explanation in some cases, it seems unwarranted, however, to postulate such explanations for every case. Applying insights from Old Nordic and Slavic historical linguistic case studies, it is the aim of this paper to argue for a balanced view on the possibility of determining the chronolocial stage of language represented by biblical texts embedded and preserved in late copies from the second century B.C. or later.


The Wisdom of Solomon and the Formation of the Canon
Program Unit: The Texts of Wisdom in Israel, Early Judaism, and the Eastern Mediterranean World
Michael Kolarcik, Nairobi, Kenya

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Philo’s De Virtutibus in the Perspective of Greco-Roman Philosophical Literature
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
David Konstan, Brown University

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Clement of Alexandria on Faith and Knowledge: Quotations of and Responses to Valentinian Ideas
Program Unit: Religion in Roman Egypt
Judith L. Kovacs, University of Virginia

This paper aims to shed light on the early history of Christianity in Alexandria by focusing on sections in the writings of Clement of Alexandria (ca.150-ca.215) that respond to teachings of the earlier Alexandrian Christian teacher Valentinus and his followers. At several points in his pioneering work of Christian theology, the Stromateis, Clement quotes Valentinus and his followers, sometimes with approval, more often for criticism. In addition there are, this paper argues, many sections in Clement’s works in which he discusses Valentinian ideas without identifying their source. Using Nag Hammadi texts, Clement’s own collection of gnostic texts the Excerpts from Theodotus, and the report of Irenaeus to assess Clement’s use of Valentinian ideas, the paper focuses on a central theme in Clement’s Stromateis, the contrast between faith and knowledge. In books two and five of this work, Clement takes issue with the Valentinian assertion that “faith” belongs to “us, the simple” (apparently the majority church), while they themselves possess superior knowledge. In other passages Clement disputes this depreciation of his own Christian group in a less direct way, through a polemical adaptation of Valentinian ideas. Agreeing with Valentinians that there is Christian knowledge that goes beyond the basic "faith" of the church (the teachings of the creed), Clement contrasts the genuine gnosis found within the majority church with false gnosis of groups such as the Valentinians. Faith and knowledge, he argues, are not two different paths to salvation — one for the majority church and the other for the Valentinian elect — but two stages in the one universal way of salvation. In his descriptions of the perfected Christian, whom he calls the “true Gnostic,” he adapts Valentinian exegesis of the New Testament.


Visions of Wisdom, and Realities, in the Similitudes of Enoch
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Robert Kraft, University of Pennsylvania

Although the beginning of the "Similitudes" of Enoch promises a "vision of wisdom" and "words of wisdom" mediated by Enoch, the contents of this lengthy and rambling work (1 Enoch 37-71) seldom deliver much "wisdom" beyond the repeated message that praise and devotion to the supreme being is the be all and end all of righteous existence. While there are several detours describing natural and social phenomena, these are largely background to the main theme of judgment on oppressive human powers and on the angelic agents who taught humankind the "secrets" that lead to ruin (notably metallurgy, used in warfare). Even the "visions" and/or "parables" are not easy to follow, and suggest a complex prehistory to the development of much of this material (e.g. both Noah and Enoch are first person participants). "Wisdom" here seems to be adherence to the stubborn promise of vindication for the oppressed, and the main guide is, appropriately, the "angel of peace."


Situating The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila in the Wider World of Dialogues with/against Jews
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania

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Idols and the Way of God: Eidwlon, Zoanon, and Eidolomanhs in the Apocalypse of Peter
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Thomas J. Kraus, Germany

After years of silence the apocryphal texts - above all potential gospels and apocalypses - have received fresh attention recently. However, the focus of studies is still primarily put on the relationship between these texts and those that have become canonical. Only rarely the apocryphal texts are dealt with independently first and then treated in their historical context as witnesses to early Christianity. In a series of articles I have elaborated editions of the Greek manuscripts of the ApocPet (and the Gospel of Peter) and, then, concentrated on specific features of its text (taking the Ethiopic version into account as well). This paper presents a continuation of my work focusing on the role of "idols", "carved images," and those being "mad after idols". What do these mean in their wider context? What is their relation to other concepts (e.g., Plato; Pausanias; canonical writings of the New Testament)? How and in what respect do they oppose the "way of God"?


Manuscripts with the Lord’s Prayer—They Are More Than Solely Witnesses to That Text Itself
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Thomas J. Kraus, Germany

On the basis of two premises - (1) every manuscript with a certain text has to be taken as what it is actually: an artifact or even fingerprint of real people; (2) manuscripts may tell a story so that we may get to know something of their socio-historical background - I intend to present various extant manuscripts of the Lord’s Prayer not included in the Gregory-Aland list, each entry accompanied by a detailed description. Then follows a brief survey of their materials and basic purposes. Finally and with the help of one specific sample item, the benefit to be gained from examination of individual manuscripts is to be demonstrated, finally by means of those where images are available in order to offer a brief overview of significant conclusions that eventually focus on P.Princ. II 107 = Suppl.Mag. I 29 as a model text to demonstrate in detail what a manuscript like that can tell us today.


Deuteronomy 32 in Early Christianity
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Wolfgang Kraus, Universität des Saarlandes, Germany

What is the function of the Greek Scriptures for Early Christianty to obtain an identity of its own, apart from Judaism? This is the question the papers deals with. The test case is Dtn 32. The investigation is concentrated on two verses of Dtn 32, vv. 8 and 43 and the reception history in Early Christianity. Disposition of the paper: 1. Dtn 32 in the Hebrew Bible and in the srolls from Qumran. 2. The Greek text history. 3. Dtn 32 in the letter to the Romans. 4. Dtn 32 in the letter to the Hebrews. 5. Dtn 32 in Apc 15. 6. Dtn 32 in Justins Dialogue with Trypho. 7. Conclusion. The paper tries to show the development of the use of Dtn 32 within the early Christian church from the middle of the first to the middle of the second century (CE), that means from Paul to Justin Martyr.


Beyond King or Congregation: A New Solution for the Beginnings of the Septuagint
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Siegfried Kreuzer, Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal / Barmen School of Theology

In its first part, the paper will review the two basic concepts for the beginning of the Septuagint: The traditional information that it was initiated by king Ptolemy and his librarian, and the widespread scholarly assumption that the Septuagint was translated out of (different?) inner Jewish necessities. In the second part it will be shown, that besides all plausibility of an inner Jewish origin, it is hard to explain as a later invention the initiative of the (heathen) Ptolemaic king for the translation of the sacred books of the Jews. Then, the source value of the letter of Aristeas will be discussed and compared with what we know today about the political, cultural and social situation of the early Ptolemaic period. The thesis is, that the basic roots and the competence for the translation lay within the Jewish community, but that the idea of the letter of Aristeas (though written in the 2nd century) and of other Jewish sources - and the 'publication' of the Septuagint - reflects the cultural politics of the early Ptolemaic kings and the Jewish reactions in that environment. Thirdly there will follow a brief discussion about differences and revisions of the Septuagint of the Pentateuch and a suggestion how to relate the early stages of the Septuagint, i.e. the Pentateuch or part of it, to the historical background.


Egyptian Funerary Stelae and Biblical Masseboth
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Jutta Krispenz, University of Marburg

Although archaeologists can show us a considerable number of artefacts, which they label as “masseboth”, we can by no means be sure, that those artefacts – usually some kind of stelae – really represent, what the biblical texts denoted as “massebah”. But looking at the functions usually connected with biblical masseboth and trying to describe the semantics of the Egyptian funerary stelae in their context of the grave and the objects close to the stelae might help not only to confirm the widely accepted view that the “masseboth” are probably to be understood as stelae, but it can also help us to understand, why the deuteronomists were so eager to eliminate (almost) all the masseboth.


Introduction
Program Unit: Late Antiquity in Interdisciplinary Perspective
Derek Krueger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

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From the Bodies of Bees: The Classical Echoes in Surat al-Nahl
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Kathryn Kueny, Fordham University

This paper examines the qur’anic appropriation of classical and late antique bee imagery in Surat al-Nahl. Part I explores the role of the bee as the sole non-human recipient of the Lord’s revelation (wa awha rabbuka ila ‘l-nahli). That an insect would receive what is ordinarily reserved for prophets makes sense only when viewed in light of classical antecedents, where bees serve as transmittors of divine communication. Part II examines the drink produced within the bee’s belly, which contains a healing (shifa’) for men. Though absent in the rest of the qur’anic repertoire, this metaphorical link between honey and divine wisdom commonly appears in classical, late antique, and Christian writings. Part III examines Surat al-Nahl’s portrayal of a seamless cosmos where natural and social orders become indistinguishable from the divine, and suggests how this understanding of the cosmos ultimately strips the bee of its classically-determined, privileged metaphorical and revelatory potency.


The Ancient Dialogue Source in The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Lawrence Lahey, Chicago, IL

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Reconsidering the "Penitence" in "Penitential Prayer"
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
David A. Lambert, Yale University

Over the past five years or so, there has been a concerted effort to study the genre of the “penitential prayer.” Form criticism has gone a long way in clarifying the component parts of these prayers but not how they actually functioned in the religious lives of those who are thought to have recited them. As betrayed by the very name given to this phenomenon, “penitential prayer,” scholars have felt that it suffices to describe the experience behind these prayers as one of repentance: the long verbal component of the experience constitutes the outer garb that gives expression to the inner experience of repentance. While it is not impossible that confessional prayer would accompany repentance, they cannot be simply equated by explaining their relationship as one between an inner experience and external performance. When Daniel is said to recite a long “penitential prayer,” does he do so in order to repent? Daniel is no penitent sinner, abandoning his evil ways and returning to YHWH. In fact, the actual confessional phrase, “I have sinned” (?????) or “we have sinned” (?????), does not literally mean “I am sorry.” It is not an expression of contrition but an admission of guilt. By admitting having sinned, Israel identifies the essential problem of the exile as one of its own making. “We have erred,” not God. Confession thus serves to justify the ways of God; indeed declaring God righteous serves as a secondary confessional formula and appears throughout confessional prayers, as in the following: “With You, O Lord, is the right, and the shame is on us to this very day” (Dan 9:7). The subtle distinction between acceptance of responsibility and expression of contrition and penitence requires further investigation.


Plutarch, Allegory, and Philosophy
Program Unit: Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
Robert D. Lamberton, Washington University of St. Louis

This paper will survey various approaches to Homer and Greek mythology in Plutarch's writings, with special attention to differing functions for philosophical and historical interpretation.


Guide Us to Thy Perfect Light: An Introduction to the Syriac "Revelation of the Magi"
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Brent Landau, Harvard University

Although the various non-canonical infancy narratives refer to the Matthean Magi in more or less abrupt fashion, there has come down to us from antiquity only one substantial narrative composition which is totally devoted to the Magi and their encounter with Christ. In this text, the Syriac "Revelation of the Magi", the Magi are understood as descendents of Seth residing in the extreme eastern portion of the inhabited world, rather than the more common ancient Christian understanding of them as Persian priests. This paper will provide an overview of this little-known apocryphon, discussing the manuscript situation, contents, source-critical problems, and previous scholarship related to the text. The presentation will conclude with a brief outline of the interpretative possibilities for this unusual document.


The Textual Standardization of the Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Qumran
Armin Lange, University of Vienna

In Second Temple times, the books collected in the Hebrew Bible were transmitted in a multitude of different textual traditions. This is especially well attested by the Biblical manuscripts from the Qumran collection. For some Biblical books such a textual plurality is also reflected in the ancient versions (see e.g. 1Samuel-2Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel). Different from the Qumran collection, the biblical manuscripts found at the archaeological sites from the Dead Sea which are related to the first and second Jewish wars attest exclusively to the proto-Masoretic text. Already in the late1st cent. BCE, the Greek Minor Prophets scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXII gr) documents the kaige recension of the Old Greek towards the proto-Masoretic text. Early Christian quotations which resemble the Lucianic text of 1Sam-2Kgs show that the proto-Lucianic recension on which Lucian based his work comes from the same period as the kaige recension. In case of the proto-Lucianic recension the Old Greek was revised towards a text similar to 4QSama.b. Both, the kaige- and the proto-Lucianic recensions, show that in Ancient Judaism efforts of textual standardization started well before the rise of Christianity. This paper will show that in Ancient Judaism these first efforts of textual standardization are motivated by an increased influence of Graeco-Roman culture due to the incorporation of Judea into the Roman empire. The Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls as well as Jos. Against Apion I:36-47 show, that at the latest after the destruction of the Second Temple the concept of a standardized text became dominant. When the scriptures supplanted the Jerusalem temple as the cultural focus of ancient Judaism the idea of a unified scriptural texts existed already for almost 100 years.


Wisdom and Canon
Program Unit: The Texts of Wisdom in Israel, Early Judaism, and the Eastern Mediterranean World
Armin Lange, University of Vienna

Research often gives a prominent role to scribes in the canonical history of the Hebrew Bible. But the question in how far wisdom was involved in the canonical history of the Hebrew Bible in general and in the development of canonical lists and standardized texts in particular has been mostly neglected (notable exceptions are the works of G.T. Sheppard and Ph.R. Davies). This is all the more surprising as, for example, Sir 38:34b-39:3 emphasizes greatly how the sage is involved with the literary tradition of ancient Judaism. This lecture will ask in how far the development of paratextual literature, a standardized text of scriptures, and canonical lists are of sapiential origin? Furthermore, it will be discussed in how far paratextual literature, standardized text, and canonical lists have parallels in Ancient Egyptian and Graeco-Roman culture and in how far the international character of Jewish wisdom thought allowed for their inculturation.


Storied Space: The Interaction between Place and Narrative in Late-Ancient Monasticism
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Lillian I. Larsen, Columbia University

The material evidence from the communal spaces of the Monastery of Epiphanius in Egypt affords one of few glimpses into the ways in which space mediated lived experience in late-ancient desert monasticism. A network of semi-independent dwellings clustered around a central monastery reflects a loosely organized structure of monastic organization. The bench-lined rooms, that serve as vestibules for both the central and auxiliary communal establishments add a material dimension to narrative accounts of community gatherings. They likewise vivify the imagination when used in framing literary portrayals of the reception of monastic and non-monastic visitors. The red ochre inscriptions on the walls of these communal areas afford us access to primary teaching traditions of the community. Such prominent displays of text, likewise, add interesting texture to the debate surrounding levels of literacy among the early monks (Rubenson, 1995; Brakke, 1998; Burton-Christie, 1995; Harmless, 1998, 2004; Larsen, 2002). Because the bulk of the historical record of early monasticism is hagiographical in nature, the materiality of this locus is particularly significant in affording an important hermeneutic, or perhaps better, an orienting tool for identifying the “larger than life” aspects of narrative representations of early monastic existence. On the one hand, the concrete parameters of this physical locus, and its accompanying material remains, add rich dimensionality to our reading of the narrative tradition. On the other hand, these same concrete parameters firmly anchor our interpretive horizons in the less imaginative details of the texts and afford us a concrete rubric for, quite literally, separating fact from fiction.


Elijah's Dance with Death
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Stuart Lasine, Wichita State University

Many commentators believe that the conflict between Yahweh and Baal is responsible for the dramatic unity of 1 Kings 17-19. However, Hauser contends that Yahweh's struggle with death is more pervasive and prominent in these chapters than the struggle with Baal. In this paper, I will argue that not only 1 Kings 17-19 but all of the Elijah narratives involve the prophet's personal struggle with death quite apart from the oft-described theomachy. Elijah evades death, he defeats it, he inflicts it, he flees it, he desires it, he forecasts it, and he ultimately escapes it forever. Elijah's relations with death are marked by ambivalence; in a sense, they are more of a _Totentanz_ than a battle. In fact, Elijah hops between two opinions about death within a few verses of one chapter. One reason the Elijah narratives are so unusual is the extent to which the narrator focuses on the ways in which personality and situation affect one another, helping to determine the outcome of important events. Some of the most enigmatic features of Elijah's story become less puzzling when viewed in terms of his specific personality type. These include his wanting God to take his life immediately after fleeing in order to save his life, his misrepresentation of his situation as the only prophet left, his claim that his own people seek to kill him, his God-given ability to bring someone back from death, and his failure to attain the death which he himself had desired.


Christian Icon Processions and the Transformation of Late Antique Rome
Program Unit: Late Antiquity in Interdisciplinary Perspective
Jacob A. Latham, University of California, Santa Barbara

Icon processions—large parades led by the bishop, carrying icons from one church to another—constituted a privileged set of ritual spatial practices that formed the basis of ordinary practices. People, as they processed through the city, formed the city even as they were formed by it. Processions afford a unique vantage point from which to observe the ways Rome was transformed, as how citizens experienced, understood, and even moved through the city was altered by a subtle, bodily pedagogy. Icon processions forged a new cognitive map of Rome by providing a paradigm of movement under the auspices of the bishop and oriented by churches as opposed to traditional polytheist temples. These same processions also asserted Christianity’s claim over the urban space of Rome by parading through the city singing Psalms and carrying. Moreover, these processions often required the participation of a representative cross-section of the city. In some, seven categories of citizens—clerics, monks, nuns, children, widows, married women, and laymen—gathered at different churches before coming together just before the destination church. These categories were clearly a Christian way of re-conceptualizing Late Antique social structure. So not only did these categories ensure that the entirety of Rome participated in the procession, but also transformed the way Roman social structure was imagined. Finally, these processions dramatically performed the icons of Christ and the Virgin. On Easter, the Lateran icon was processed to S. Maria Maggiore so that Christ could meet the icon his mother. These two icons were carried in processions so often that their meeting constituted a kind of family reunion. One learned, then, in these processions that to be Christian meant to follow Christ, present by means of icons and symbols, and his earthly representative, the pope, who carried him, alongside the entire city, which was symbolized in various ways.


God-Talk Reflecting Tsunami
Program Unit: Poster Session
Kari Latvus, Diaconia Polytechnic

An unexpected natural catastrophe on 26.12.2004, the Tsunami, caused huge damage. About a quarter of million people from many countries were killed including thousands of European tourists, especially Scandinavians, millions were left without home and large areas were left with destroyed infrastructure. Did media use religious paradigms of God-talk appearing in the Hebrew Bible in this occasion? If yes, how? Media analysis is concentrated on Finnish mainline newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat) and weekly church newspaper (Kotimaa). In the analysis four categories were used to represent existing theological models of the Hebrew Bible. Classification is as follows: the deuteronomistic God-talk (God as the ultimate reason for historical events, national responsibility, cause and effect logic), the God-talk in the book of Job (Job as an innocent, God as accused), the cultic God-talk in the Psalms (lament and mourn in the front of God) and the God-talk of Ecclesiastes (unexplained world to be modestly celebrated if survived). The analysis shows how modern geology and other sciences have changed the God-talk. God is no more the reason of events. However, there is still relevance to talk about God and talk to God using some models of the Hebrew Bible. Major change to ancient usage is that the deuteronomistic God-talk has lost its value and position.


The Limits to the Ways of Legitimately Communicating with the Divine: Ezekiel 13 in Light of Greek and Mesopotamian Parallels
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Dale Launderville, Saint John's University

Polytheistic cultures established limits to the ways that one could communicate with the divine. Pluralism without limits was not possible. How these limits in the polytheistic cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia and Archaic Greece differed from those promoted by Ezekiel the monotheist will be the primary question addressed in this paper. I will examine Ezekiel’s opposition to magical rituals (Ezek 13:18-21) in light of opposition to analogous rituals within the traditions of Ancient Mesopotamia and Archaic Greece. Ezekiel expressed his opposition in Ezek 13:18-21; the Mesopotamian law-codes regulated aspects of magical practice; Heraclitus of Ephesus (ca. 500) expressed his opposition to practitioners of magical rituals. How Ezekiel’s opposition to these rituals differed from that of representative voices from the cultures of Ancient Mesopotamia and Archaic Greece will bring the character and dynamics of Ezekiel’s monotheism into sharper relief.


Jethro and Jewish Identity
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Beatrice J. W. Lawrence, Emory University

Jethro is a problematic character for ancient Jewish interpreters of the Bible for a few reasons: as priest of Midian, Jethro is the leader of a non-Israelite ethnic and religious community; however, Moses agrees to live with him and marry into his family. In addition, Jethro advises Moses to create a system of courts and judges to handle the problems of the Israelite community, which later develops into a complex system of jurisprudence that is the source of a great deal of positive Jewish self-reflection. [See, for example, Deuteronomy Rabbah 5:7: "The Holy One said: Of all the nations I created, I love only Israel. Of all else I created, I love only justice. So I will give what I love to the nation I love."] In this paper, I will explore how two texts of early midrash, Mekhilta and Sifre, handle Jethro's identity and negotiate his relationship to the historical Jewish community. These texts demonstrate a variety of strategies for interpreting Jethro, including conversion stories, moral evaluations (both positive and negative), and discussions of Jethro's descendants and their place in the nation of Israel. By examining these midrashic texts, we gain an understanding of how the early midrashists viewed the boundaries of the Jewish community (and how fluid those boundaries were), interactions between Jews and 'others', and the nature of Jewish identity.


Bathing on the Other Side of the River: Ritual Baths, Jews, and Jewish Christians in Roman Transjordan
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Jonathan D. Lawrence, University of Notre Dame

Miqva'ot, or stepped bathing pools, have often been cited as one indicator of Jewish presence in Roman Palestine. Several such structures have been discovered in the Transjordan, some of them in locations not known for Jewish activity in the Roman period. This paper will compare these structures to pools from known Jewish sites and discuss textual evidence for Jewish presence in the Transjordan. Since some Jewish-Christian groups were reputed to continue Jewish ritual bathing practices, one important consideration will be how these sites are related to Christian presence in the Transjordan. If some of these can be identified as Jewish-Christian in nature, our assumptions about indicators of Jewish presence may need to be reconsidered.


Skeptical Visions and Scriptural Truths in Samuel Bak's Genesis Paintings
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Lawrence L. Langer, Simons College (Emeritus)

I will examine several paintings from In a Different Light that interpose on the landscape of Genesis signs of destruction which urge the viewer to re-view the bond between God and his creatures as traditionally described in scripture. Three biblical themes emerge: the creation of Adam and the expulsion from Eden; angelic presence, and the Noah story. The Holocaust imagery in these paintings requires the viewer to adjust to a vision of spiritual reality that fuses threat with promise and thus questions the authority of divine providence in human affairs. The blending of skepticism and faith that inhabits the canvases leads to a re-scrutiny of the original religious implications of the stories, once so full of promise for a people presumably under the guidance and guardianship of God. Instead of simply dismissing the relevance of scriptural authority, Bak raises the issue of how to repair the damage done to a narrative that history has turned awry. “In Need of a Tikkun,” for example, presents angels who were once messengers of God caught in the dilemma of what to do about the rent in the fabric of heaven by smoke pouring from the adjacent crematorium chimney. The angel’s finger points to the tear much as God’s finger pointed at Adam at the moment of infusing life into his new creature; the angel’s other hand tries in vain to stifle the deadly smoke. Robert Alter has stated: the “most metaphorically extended body part in biblical Hebrew is the hand.” But in Bak’s paintings it is not always a sign of fellowship with the human or the divine. Bak’s paintings are visual meditations on how modern history has affected and afflicted ancient traditions of belief.


Interpretation on the Way to Emmaus: Are We There Yet?
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
D. Brent Laytham, North Park Theological Seminary

In Theology on the Way to Emmaus, Lash suggested that “the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus can serve as a parable for the task of Christian interpretation” (xi). Luke 24:13-35 is a journey of interpretation that moves from text to table. The text talk on the road opens a narrative dimension of “Moses and all the prophets” in which plot is crucial (van Buren). The table action in the house opens a dramatic dimension of “the things about Jesus of Nazareth” to which performance is critical. The argument will engage recent proposals in theological hermeneutics for the significance of narrative (Green and Turner, Green and Pasquarello) and for the superiority of performance (Wells). This reading of the Emmaus story will conclude that narrative plotting and ethical performance are equally necessary if we are to receive and read Scripture as witness to the risen Lord.


Is God Able to Save? The Grammatical, Contextual, and Theological Problem in Daniel 3:17–18
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Daniel Leavins, The Catholic University of America

The response of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:16–18 contains a profound interpretive problem over which translators and commentators disagree. The problem concerns the translation of the protasis of the conditional sentence in verse 17, especially the syntactical function of the Aramaic particle ’yty. This paper will consider the three main interpretive options for the passage by examining how the particle ’yty is used in Daniel, by considering the parallel structure of Daniel 3:17–18 and by discussing the theological and contextual issues of the different views. Based on this analysis, the paper will conclude that the protasis should be translated, “If our God whom we serve is able to save us . . . .”


Qoheleth's Ethic of Enjoyment
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Eunny Lee, Princeton Theological Seminary

This paper will explore the ethical implications of Qohelet’s theology of enjoyment. It will begin with a discussion of the place and function of enjoyment in Qohelet’s thought and an explication of the meaning of enjoyment (what it is and what it is not for Qohelet). His commendation of joy is not, as other scholars have argued, merely “a counsel of despair,” or lapses into “wishful thinking,” or a hedonistic call to maximize pleasure and avoid pain. I will argue, instead, that it is the vehicle through which the sage most emphatically communicates his vision of the moral life. Enjoyment is what God provides in order to make and keep human life human. The second (and larger) half of the paper will focus on the social dimensions of enjoyment in Qohelet’s discourse. Ecclesiastes is often charged with neglecting the important dimension of community in its search for a meaningful existence. The moral life is discerned and practiced in relationship to the neighbor; Qohelet, however, is said to dwell in utter isolation, with communal concerns being largely absent in his self-referential monologue. If communal concerns were indeed absent from the book, or oriented only to meet self-serving needs, one would have to be wary about Qohelet’s theology of enjoyment—the validation of enjoyment could easily be misappropriated to rationalize one’s self-indulgence at the expense of neighbor. I will demonstrate, however, that Qohelet does in fact offer a vision of how a person ought to live in relationship with neighbor, and what it means to be a responsible and moral citizen of this world. Indeed, his ethic of enjoyment is intended to promote not only the flourishing of the individual, but also the life of the larger human community.


Assurance of the Word: An Ideological Reading of John 17
Program Unit: Ideology, Culture, and Translation
Hyo Joong Lee, Vanderbilt University

This paper aims to draw out a relevant message for contemporary marginalized communities by presenting a positioned, ideological reading of John 17. Applying the depth hermeneutics of John B. Thompson and the poststructuralist theory of Michel Foucault, the study argues that the Johannine community is therein presented as a marginalized group pressed down by four violent institutions. In the face of these challenges, the study further argues, the evangelist constructed a set of meanings meant to establish, maintain, and bolster a strategy of inverted domination over their enemies. Thus, the study argues that John 17 is more than a prayer conveying christology, ecclesiology, or soteriology, that it is rather an assurance of the Word for marginalized believers. Applying these findings to the contemporary world, the study contends that John 17 carries strong words of assurance for contemporary marginalized communities: uplifted divine identity; divine protection and well-being; a sanctified mission; and divine unity and love. Through such a positioned, ideological reading of the text, this study seeks to construct an ethically accountable reading of the Fourth Gospel especially to today’s multiethnic and multicultural religious communities.


Justification of Difference in Galatians
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Jae Won Lee, McCormick Theological Seminary

Contemporary social movements for liberation have contributed to the production of contested discourses on the notion and meaning of “difference” among political theorists, ethicists, theologians, and biblical scholars. Our approaches to the theological, ethical, and practical aspects of “equality” are intertwined with our presuppositions and assumptions about, and practices of the meaning of difference. I engage in the two contrasting --“assimilationist” and “emancipatory”-- understandings of the meaning of difference, and apply the understanding of difference as social construction to offer a fresh (socio-historical and rhetorical) reading of Jew-Gentile difference in Galatians, especially the Antioch Incident (Gal. 2:11-21). What has equality between Jews and Gentiles to do with their differences, particularly in terms of neither Jews nor Gentiles? The paper will deal with the ethical imperative in Paul’s theological articulation of justification by faith in the midst of the identity formative practices of Jew-Gentile difference among different groups in Galatians. My main arguments are: (1) the Jew-Gentile difference in the table-fellowship in Antioch (Gal. 2:11-14) is socially constructed and shows a tendency that the dominant (“strong”) Jewish identity pushes the Gentile (“weak”) identity into a marginal difference to be disregarded and suppressed. (2) As a theological and ethical response to such Jew-Gentile difference, Paul’s justification by faith (Gal. 2:15-21) functions to deconstruct the emergent hierarchical relations among Jews and Gentiles and justify the difference of the marginalized as equal in the community of faith in Christ. (3) Paul’s politics of difference is thoroughly grounded in Christ’s solidarity with the weak and calls for the practice of radical mutuality among Jews and Gentiles on the basis of solidarity with the weak in the community.


Lending Nature a Helping Hand: An Examination of Galen's Treatise "De Affectuum Dignotione" in Reference to Pauline Christianity
Program Unit: Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
Max Lee, Wheaton College

This paper focuses upon Galen of Pergamon's account of moral transformation, as described in his treatise "De Affectuum Dignotione" ("On the Passions of the Soul"). According to Galen, the most important factor to moral progress is nature (physis) which pre-determines one's ability to experience development in moral character. Only those born with the right kind of human nature (namely kings and philosophers) could benefit from philosophical training, while the rest of humanity possessed a nature that was fixed and enslaved to the irrational movements of the soul. But if one possessed the right pre-disposition towards virtue, philosophical teachings and practice brought about moral progress. Galen also describes the social structures necessary to support moral formation. If the greatest barrier impeding moral progress is the blindness of a person to his/her own passions and errors, then the only way to overcome such blindness is to submit oneself to the guidance of a moral mentor, i.e., a pedagogue, an overseer, or sage. The role of the moral mentor is dual: to point out frankly the vices of his students, and to become a model or paradigm for virtuous character. The last section of this paper investigates possible points of cultural intertexture between Galen's system of moral transformation with the discourses of the Apostle Paul, especially Pauline texts on imitation (1 Cor. 4:16-20; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2:15) and on the idea of superimposing one's sinful nature with a new divine one (Rom. 1:20-32; Gal. 5:19-23; 6:7-9).


Syntactic Changes of Legon, Hina, and Hoti
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Sang-Il Lee, University of Durham

It has been said that hypotactic legon, major usages of hina, and causal function of hoti are due to Semitisms or Septuagintisms. Whatever the solecisms were influenced by the Semitisms or by the Septuagintisms the two approaches are based on the same presupposition that the solecisms resulted from Semitic languages. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the same syntactic changes, called Semitisms or Septuagintisms, are also found in Classical Greek as well as in Modern English in spite of no geographical, cultural, or political relation to the Semitic languages. In relation to the syntactic changes, Cognitive linguistic scholars think of the so-called solecisms as ‘grammaticalisation’ one of general syntactic changes. From the angle of grammaticalisation theory various syntactic functions of legon, hina, and hoti should not be called Semitisms nor Septuagintisms but just universal linguistic phenomenon found in most languages of the world.


Vowels Change, Consonants Disappear
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Carolyn S. Leeb, Valparaiso University

A cursory examination of nearly every elementary Hebrew textbook reveals a bewildering collection of linguistically sophisticated rules which students must learn, a phenomenon which runs counter to the method and practice used in the teaching of other languages, as well as the sequence of development of language for native speakers. This approach may have made sense at a time when most students of Hebrew arrived with several years of Latin and Greek study already achieved, but it has persisted long after such preparation has ceased to be the norm, with the result that very few seminarians continue to use their Hebrew after passing the required course. This paper will present a collection of simple rules and methods, developed while teaching beginning Hebrew both to undergraduates and to seminarians, which allows them early access to reading the biblical text and which leads to enjoyment and continued study of Hebrew language.


From Sacred to Sublime: Robert Lowth, Johann David Michaelis, and the Reinterpretation of Biblical Poetry
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Michael C. Legaspi, Harvard University

This paper examines a momentous change in the interpetation of biblical poetry whereby portions of the Hebrew Bible, once revered as sacred, were reinterpreted as sublime expressions of the human spirit. It is concerned, more specifically, with the way in which this move, though regarded by some interpreters as the bringing together of mutually reinforcing hermeneutic ideals, ultimately signalled the alienation and decline of both. In this study, I will consider the nature of this shift in the work of Robert Lowth (1710-1787) and the problematic attempt to import Lowth’s aesthetic criticism into a larger historical-critical framework such as we find in the work of German scholar Johann David Michaelis (1717-1791). Between 1741 and 1750, Lowth, then Professor of Poetry at Oxford, delivered a series of lectures on Hebrew poetry that provided the impetus and critical vocabulary for a reappraisal of biblical poetry. In providing a literary, aesthetic, and avowedly non-theological analysis of biblical poetry, Lowth sought to bolster traditional notions of inspiration with judgments vindicating the literary genius of biblical authors. Lowth’s lectures were mediated to the larger community of European scholars by Michaelis, who attached extensive notes to Lowth’s lectures and published them in their original Latin. Michaelis agreed fully with Lowth’s larger objective but sought to reconcile Lowth’s results with his own historical-critical research. This study, then, reviews many of Lowth’s proposals and their reception in Michaelis’s edition. It undertakes, furthermore, to judge the success of Michaelis’s appropriation and argues, finally, that though the historical contextualization of sublime poetry accorded well with critical objectives, it ultimately subjected ‘sublimity’ to an historico-linguistic relativization that destabilized claims of its universal validity. In this way, it undermined the union of sacredness and sublimity which both men had sought.


Reviving the Dead Letter: Johann David Michaelis and the Quest for Hebrew Antiquity
Program Unit: Poster Session
Michael C. Legaspi, Harvard University

This is an inquiry into the history of scholarship of the Hebrew Bible in Germany in the mid-eighteenth century. Its central concern is the rise of an emancipated, historical, and scientific philology in this period and the extent to which a philology thus oriented toward a critical recovery of the biblical world can retain its relevance—especially when practitioners no longer plead the special status of the Bible. This study examines the work of one scholar, Göttingen professor Johann David Michaelis (1717-1791), widely hailed as a founder of critical study of the Bible. It argues that Michaelis’s strategy for reviving biblical studies was bound up with the larger, contemporaneous attempt to make the study of classical literature a force in cultural transformation. By examining the work of Michaelis in a previously neglected context, neohumanist classical philology at Göttingen, this study explicates what must be seen as its deepest concern: the full-orbed recovery of Hebrew antiquity as a ‘third culture’ after the Greek and the Roman. The rationale for such a recovery, in light of its relation to classical studies, may be described as humanistic. Ultimately, though, Michaelis’s humanistic project succumbed to criticisms that exposed the tension between a critical philology on the one hand, and the attempt to derive contemporary cultural goods from it on the other. Though he revived the study of Hebrew antiquity by importing aspects of critical method from classical philology, the humanistic movement which he sought to inspire was short-lived. Michaelis’s critical legacy thus survived even after its humanistic rationale was discredited. The case of Michaelis thus illumines the intellectual context of biblical criticism in a formative period and the problematic relation between attempts to revive the dead letter and the ends for which it is revived.


Hazar Susah and Beth Marcaboth: Achaemenid Military Colonies in the Northern Negev
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Gunnar Lehmann, Ben Gurion University

This paper presents the results of archaeological investigations in the northern Negev. It focuses on the administrative organization of Achaemenid rule in the border areas of Palestine, Egypt and the desert of the Negev. The sites such as Khirbat Shamsaniyah (= Sansannah or Hazar Susa/Susim) and Khirbat Tatrit (near Khirbat Umm Dimna) (= Madmannah or Beth Marcaboth) are interpreted as fortresses guarding the rural areas and borders of Achaemenid Palestine. It is suggested that there is a link between such military posts (i.e. Hazar Susa) and the military colony institutions (hadru) mentioned in Achaemenid cuneiform texts.


The Chariots of Egypt and the Exodus Narrative
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Mary Joan Winn Leith, Stonehill College

The recurrent references to the Exodus event in the text of the Hebrew Bible suggest that the Exodus functioned as a key expression of Israelite self-identification. The narrators of Exodus 1-15 chose to depict Israel as an entity which defined itself by opposition to Egypt—and in particular by opposition to symbols of Egyptian power. One important motif in this wide-ranging dialectic is that of Egyptian chariotry which will be the subject of this presentation.


The Defilement of Shame: "Moral Impurity" in Ezekiel and the Holiness Code of Leviticus
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
T. M. Lemos, Yale University

Increasingly, discussions of impurity have turned to the question of so-called “moral impurity,” and whether this type of impurity indeed constitutes a separate category from ritual impurity, whether or not it is a secondary category, etc. Much of the discussion thus far has been purely taxonomic, delineating in which biblical passages one might find examples of moral impurity, with more descriptive analysis for the most part lacking. My paper shall attempt to provide some of this analysis, arguing that moral impurity is in fact secondary to ritual impurity, upon whose language constructions of it are drawn in the texts of Ezekiel and the Holiness Code of Leviticus. These two texts provide us with the most developed discussions of moral impurity, though one does find this impurity in rudimentary form in earlier texts. In the early prophets, moral impurity is most often figurative in nature, unlike in Ezekiel and the Holiness Code, where the use of defilement language to refer to non-ritual forms of impurity, such as sexual sins and murder, is far more expansive and is not metaphorical. Ezekiel and the Holiness Code take behaviors that elsewhere are negatively constructed for non-theological reasons and reframe those behaviors in order to bring them into the cultic sphere and give them theological significance. This reframing, of which moral impurity is the main byproduct, allows them to give a fuller explanation for the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile and is accomplished by a collapsing of the language of shame with that of ritual defilement, the latter thereby giving theological meaning to the former. Thus, illicit sexual behaviors and murder no longer relate merely to a husband’s shame or to a family’s reputation but also to God’s shame and God’s reputation.


Music and Librettos as Midrash: A New Methodology
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Helen Leneman, University of Amsterdam

I am proposing a new study of biblical afterlives: musical settings of biblical narratives. This methodology can be applied to the large repertoire of musical works based on biblical texts. The components of this methodology are: 1. Literary analysis of the biblical text, with particular emphasis on character depiction and gap filling; 2. Search of online databases, or library catalogs, for musical settings of biblical narratives; 3. Study of the librettos and music of the works selected, and comparison of both with the biblical narrative; 4. In-depth analysis of specific sections of a musical work, both of the text and music. This can include comparison between two or more works based on the same narrative. In this paper I will illustrate the above methodology applied to the Scroll of Ruth. In my study of 12 works based on this book, I found that each librettist reflected his own preconceptions and agenda by omitting, expanding, or altering scenes found in the Scroll. Some librettos foreground the Ruth-Boaz relationship; others, the Ruth-Naomi friendship. The composers reinforced these choices with a range of musical techniques. Charts and graphs highlighting particular elements of the re-telling will be included in a PowerPoint presentation. One significant alteration is the addition of a love interest between Ruth and Boaz, represented by a love duet. Using this as a case study, I will describe this gap-filling midrash in the libretto and music in several works. Short musical excerpts will be offered as illustrations. The librettists and composers worked together to create convincing and consistent portraits of the biblical characters, however they may differ from the listener’s preconception The final result-- the transformation of a biblical narrative into a different medium-- will challenge many of our conscious and unconscious presumptions.


Moses: The Israelite Apkallu
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Alan Lenzi, Brandeis University

In this paper I summarize the results of comparative work I have undertaken in Mesopotamian and Israelite materials concerning secrecy, divinity, and textual corpora that claim revelatory status. The specific focus will be on the implications this comparative work has for understanding Moses as prophet par excellence and authorizing figure for the Book of the Torah. In Mesopotamia, scribal scholars called the "ummanu" were the exclusive custodians of several secret textual corpora that guided them into interaction with and appeasement of the deities. These scribal scholars created a mythic connection between their ideologically important written texts and the divine realm by asserting that their texts originated with ancient sages called the "apkallu" and had come down to them in the present through normal channels of textual transmission. The "apkallu" were separated from the scholars qualitatively by their direct relationship with the sponsoring deity and historiographically by means of the epoch dividing flood. By claiming these sages as their forebears, the scholars essentially created a myth of scribal succession that established their texts as the permanent "standing orders" of the divine assembly. I will show that Moses, as the paradigmatic prophet in Israel, is essentially the Israelite equivalent of the Mesopotamian "apkallu." In so doing, I will, on the one hand, fill out the implications of the prophetic mediation of all cultic law in the Pentateuch, and, on the other, provide yet another instance of how Mesopotamian and Israelite traditions may be mutually enlightening.


The Gospels' Use of the Epistles in 'The Birthing'
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Heikki Leppa, University of Helsinki

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Believers and Unbelievers in 2 Corinthians 6:14–15
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Outi Leppa, University of Helsinki

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the origin of 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 in the light of the usage of the terms 'believer' and 'unbeliever' in Early Christian Literature. Paul utilises the term 'believer' (pistos)as an adjective denoting the faithfulness of God or people (1 Cor 1:9, 4:2, 2 Cor 1:18). However, in 2 Cor 6:14–15 the term is used as the opposite of unbeliever (apistos) which suggests that the text is non-Pauline. Joachim Gnilka has pointed out that the same kind of usage of the term can be found in Col 1:1, Eph 1:1 and 1 Tim 4:12 where the members of the congregation are called believers. This suggests that 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 is a later interpolation and that the believers in 2 Cor 6:14-15 refer to the believing members of the congregation. Who are then 'unbelievers'? Titus 1:14-16 and Mark 9:19 suggest that, unlike in genuine Paulines where 'unbeliever' refers to the Gentiles (1 Cor 6:6, 7:12–15, 2 Cor 4:4), in post-Apostolic time the term is used to mean faithless Christians. This interprets the motive for the interpolation. The redactor regarded Paul’s exhortation to open wide the heart in 2 Cor 6:11-13 as motivating the faithless Christians for too unrestricted accommodation to the pagan society and wants to limit it with an addition which represents rigoristic separation from all unclean. The redactor likely has in mind such Christians who in Col 2:16 condemn all abstinence concerning food and drink and in 1 Tim 4:3–4 and Titus 1:15 emphasise that all food are good and not to be rejected. The motive for the interpolation is thus to construct authority within early Christianity. It was added in order to influence the way how Paul’s doctrine was interpreted after his death.


A Symphony of Satire: Elijah and Jonah
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Robert Lessing, Concordia Seminary

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Translating and Interpreting Isaiah 23:13
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Robert Lessing, Concordia Seminary

The translation and interpretation of Isaiah 23:13 dictates--to a large extent--not only how one understands Isaiah's Tyre Oracle but also the thrust of Isaiah's Oracles Against the Nations section in chapters 13-23. Problems arise due to the text's many syntactical discontinuities and grammatical shifts. The tendency is to read these discontinuities as seams that demonstrate different stratums, which in turn necessitate different historical references within the verse. The two most recent English commentaries on Isaiah by Joseph Blenkinsopp (2000, Anchor Bible) and Brevard Childs (2001, Old Testament Library) understand the discontinuities in just this way, as referring to a redactional replacing of 8th century Assyria with 6th century Babylon. Moreover, Christopher Seitz (ISAIAH 1-39. Interpretation, 1993) uses this verse to clinch his appeal for a "Babylonian framework" imposed on Isaiah chapters 13-23. This investigation not only reviews how Isaiah 23:13 has been translated and interpreted, but it also builds upon the work of Marvin Sweeney (ISAIAH 1-39, FOTL, 1996), to offer a new direction for the understanding of this crux interpretum.


"The Levite In Your Gates": The Deuteronomic Redefinition of Levitical Authority
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Mark Leuchter, Hebrew College

Scholars have consistently noted the attention paid to "the Levite" in the book of Deuteronomy, with suggestions ranging from Levitical authorship of the book to an anti-Levitical polemic woven through its chapters. A careful analysis of the rhetorical strategies involving these "Levite" passages, however, reveals a thorough re-imagining of Levitical figurehood during the reign of Josiah, reflected in the Deuteronomic legislation. This involved the positioning of local Levites in the satellite communities of Judah as administrative agents, judges and curators of official religion emanating from the central Jerusalem establishment. This administrative model draws directly from Neo-Assyrian administrative practices, especially those instituted during the reigns of Esarhaddon (681-669 BCE) and his son Assurbanipal (669-627 BCE). The influence of Assyrian administrative prototypes in the "Levite" passages of Deuteronomy form part of the new ideological matrix that permeated Judean religion in the late 7th century BCE, resulting in a paradigm shift in Israelite understandings of religious and cultic authority. This shift had a dramatic effect upon the concept and function of the Levites in the exilic and post-exilic periods, leading to the characterization of the Levites in Ezra-Nehemiah and 1-2 Chronicles.


Uncovering the Isaian Personality: Wishful Thinking or Viable Task?
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Barbara Leung Lai, Tyndale Seminary

This paper is a demonstrated example of a) a model of psychological biblical interpretation; and b) the necessity of employing psychological interpretive tools (along with historical-critical ones) in constructing Hebrew personalities. Using the "I"-window as a "port of entry" (15 identifiable passages where Isaiah speaks in the 1st person singular voice), I seek to uncover the Isaian personality through a psychological lens--the psychological implications of monologues, the language of religious faith and metaphors. As markers of the construction of the Isaian "self," the prophetic pathos is another "point of entry" toward an internal profile. On the empirics of engaging text, I shall further explicate the effects (therapeutic and/or pathogenic) of the Isaian text on its readers.


"Surely, All Are in Vain!" Psalm 73 and Humanity Reaching out to God
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Barbara Leung Lai, Tyndale Seminary

Operating within the three interconnected worlds of the text, this paper is a demonstrated example of the function of lament in humanity's reaching out to God. Employing a psychological lens along with historical-critical ones, I shall focus on the psychological implications of the language of protest and of accusation; and the therapeutic function of monologues on the part of the lamenter. Bringing my world in front of the world of the text, I shall further explicate the "empirics" in engaging text--the role that gender-culture-context-situatedness play towards an understanding of this Psalm. It is hoped that through the employment of inter-disciplinary interpretive tools, I shall be able to substantiate the thesis that the function of the practice of lament is "to provide resolution to the troubled and restoration to the sufferer towards a renewed relationship."


Catholic Biblical Exegesis 1280–1750: What Happened?
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Matthew Levering, Ave Maria University

This paper will explore the relationships between doctrine and exegesis during this period to illuminate some of the reasons for their separation.


The Birth of the Lemma: The Holiness Code's Restrictive Reinterpretation of the Covenant Code's Manumission Law
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Bernard M. Levinson, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The Holiness Code contains a previously unrecognized restrictive reinterpretation of the Covenant Code’s law requiring manumission of the Hebrew slave after six years of service. This case, which involves studied lemmatic citation and reformulation of the earlier law, has important implications for contemporary pentateuchal theory, where the question of the dating of the Holiness Code relative to the other literary sources has been reopened during the last quarter century. The reasons why this case has escaped the attention of scholarship are equally significant. The Septuagint translator failed to recognize the reuse of two technical legal idioms relevant to manumission law and misconstrued the syntax and punctuation of the Hebrew Vorlage of Leviticus 25:44, 46. That ancient misunderstanding has had a lasting impact upon the way this unit has subsequently been understood. Seeing the text in its own light opens up a significant new perspective on the sophistication of the Holiness Code and its literary relation to the other pentateuchal sources. The techniques for legal reinterpretation employed in Leviticus 25 include the use of the Wiederaufnahme and pronominal deixis. These techniques, as well as their larger goal of textual reapplication, reveal an emergent form of the methods that are well attested in the pesher and other more formalized exegetical literature of the later Second Temple period. That they occur here in a text that presents itself as revelatory rather than as exegetical, however, raises a series of fascinating hermeneutical issues.


The Rhetoric of Prophecy in Modern Religious Nationalisms
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Gabriel J. Levy, University of California, Santa Barbara

My paper will examine the interplay between sexuality, technology, and violence in Bin Laden and Bush’s rhetoric of prophecy. The first section presents six figures of prophecy evident in the Biblical text. The second section compares the two nationalisms based on these six figures, arguing that the religious discourse on prophecy holds central place in a genealogy of the modern nation-state, for the modern subject must be understood in light of Luther’s democratization of prophecy. The final section examines theoretical material concerning the interface between religion and politics to try to get a better grasp of the comparisons presented in the second section, with particular emphasis on sexuality, media technology, and violence. Bush and Bin Laden see themselves as mediators acting on behalf of the divine. They are both reacting to the ascendancy of scientific humanism in modern liberal democracies. Both forms of nationalism also rely on new media technology. While Bush’s prophetic rhetoric attests to his own masculine self-certainty, Bin-Laden’s rhetoric attests to loss of face, embarrassment, and emasculation that accompanies all forms of colonial violence, theft of natural resources, and poverty, when parents can no longer provide for their children, when the women men wish to control are liberated to bare their virgin bodies to white Europeans. Both Evangelicals and radical Islam are fervently puritanical, and this is no coincidence, for the family values program of both camps concerns sexuality most centrally. In light of Foucault’s arguments about the biopolitical construction a nation’s body, it is no coincidence that we find explicit parallels with Hebrew prophecy. The most dominant metaphor the Hebrew prophets used to express their religious-political message was that of Israel’s promiscuity, a sexualized language which understood the people of Israel as a harlot, cheating on her faithful husband, God.


Ethno-genesis and Iron Age Edom: Nomadism, Archaeology, and Identity
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Tom Levy, University of California, San Diego

Using models of ethno-genesis, this paper explores some of the processes that led to the formation of ethnic identity amongst the lowland population of Iron Age (ca. 1200 – 500 BCE) Edom.  Biblical, Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts provide a number of possibilities for identifying changing ethnic groups who inhabited Edom during the Iron Age.  After examining these sources to make an historical survey of these changing social groups, the recent excavations at the Iron Age cemetery of Wadi Fidan 40 in the lowlands of Edom will be used as a test case to explore ethno-genesis during the 11th – 9th centuries BCE in this part of the Biblical world.


“You Have Heard [and Seen] What the Kings of Assyria Have Done”: Disarmament Passages vis-à-vis Assyrian Rhetoric of Intimidation
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Theodore J. Lewis, The Johns Hopkins University

I propose to explore the following aspects of rhetoric and reality regarding the disarmament passage in Isaiah 2:2-4. 1. A description of the external Assyrian threat that was a central part of Isaiah’s world. Isaiah’s “swords into plowshares” passage must be grounded in the reality of war in the Iron Age. I will document through iconography and text what could be called “Assyrian war crimes.” It is clear that one of the intents of the Assyrians’ own tabulations of such atrocities was to create a rhetoric of power and persuasion. 2. A discussion of how such visual and written rhetoric served to instill fear and to intimidate a Judean audience. Biblical scholars have argued that the author of Isaiah is well versed in the “official rhetoric” of Assyrian kings. I will argue that Iron Age Judah also knew of the Assyrian reputation for committing atrocities. 3. A discussion of “survival rhetoric.” How do intimidated people respond to their intimidators? “Survival rhetoric” allows a weaker party to create a mental space to handle psychological warfare. 4. A discussion of “Divine Warrior” rhetoric. While often hailed as being non-militant overall, Isaiah’s “swords into plowshare” passage in Isa 2:4b is immediately preceded by a reference to Yahweh judging the nations (Isa 2:4a). First Isaiah’s Divine Warrior rhetoric stands in a long biblical tradition of God fighting on the people’s behalf and therefore they need not take up arms. 5. A description of how Divine Warrior rhetoric expresses itself in the political arena during the time of Isaiah. Isaiah consistently argues that Judah should not join international coalitions that trust in military hardware rather than divine providence. The ruling Judean monarchs both accepted and rejected such advice. 6. Conclusion: Three radical prophetic responses to Isaiah’s disarmament philosophy: Joel, Habbakuk & Jonah.


The Imperfective Participle in the Aramaic of Daniel
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Tarsee Li, Oakwood College

The active participle in the Aramaic of the biblical book of Daniel has a wide range of ?functions, ranging from an aspectual progressive to an allegedly aspectless simple past, ?making it one of the most intriguing features of the verbal morphosyntax of this form of ?Aramaic. This paper examines its various functions in the light of cross-linguistic ?diachronic evidence. I conclude that the best way to account for the various functions of ?the active participle is to suggest that it developed from a progressive into an ?imperfective, and is on its way to becoming a present. Furthermore, I also propose a distinction in function between hwh/yty) + participle and ?participle + hwh.?


Black Magic: Ink and Ink Recipes in the Greek Magical Papyri
Program Unit: Religion in Roman Egypt
Lynn LiDonnici, Vassar College

In describing a ritual that is going to involve some form of writing, the great magical formularies known as the Greek Magical Papyri frequently specify the use of a certain type of ink, and even give recipes for their creation. These ink recipes are both simple and elaborate. Some of them seem to create a large quantity of ink out of dozens of substances, many of them common but some rare and presumably expensive. Several examples make clear that the special inks are powerful or ritually active in themselves, but in other cases it is difficult to tell whether the text is presenting a “ritual ink” or an instance of technical communication about how to make good ink - specialist knowledge perhaps, but not necessarily magical or religious knowledge. At the same time, both the names given to the inks and the comparison of their ingredients with other ritual recipes in PGM do often suggest a symbolic resonance with the logos of the spell or other part of the overall religious content of the spell. In this paper, I survey the ink recipes in PGM and analyze the relationship of technical and religious elements in them; and also begin to problematize the distinctions between the categories ‘technical’ and ‘religious’ in the world of the PGM.


Penitential Themes in Early Synagogue Poetry
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
Laura Lieber, University of Chicago

This paper presents a close contextual reading of two poems by Jewish liturgical poet, Yose ben Yose (4th-5th century CE), who is the earliest named poet of a synagogue. The poems are entitled, "Truly Our Sins are Too Numerous to Reckon" (Amnam Ashameinu) and "Once You Made Us the Head" ("Az Le-Rosh Tatanu"). In addition to examining these works as penitential prayers in their own right, the paper attempts to understand them in the context of other early penitential poetry from the Jewish liturgy, including Ashamnu ("We have sinned") and Al Heyt ("For the sin."). The paper briefly considers points of continuity with later medieval Hebrew poetry as well.


"How Great is His Measure" : Mapping the Divine (Male) Body Upon the Cosmos
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Andrea Lieber, Dickinson College

The compilation of texts known as the “Shiur Qomah” traditions are perhaps the most graphically detailed visionary narratives to survive late antiquity. The Shiur Qomah maps the divine body in cosmic proportions, painstakingly naming and measuring each of God’s limbs and facial features. The texts present a stunning visual map of an anthropomorphic deity and an anthropomorphic cosmos. Using Frederic Jameson’s concept of “cognitive mapping” as a point of departure, this paper explores the ritual function of Shiur Qomah, focusing specifically on what it means to map the divine body (and the heavens) as explicitly male. Jameson argued that cognitive mapping is a means of bridging the vast gap between individual consciousness and the complexity of the global world system. Cognitive maps, which are allegories for representing the un-representable, provide an interesting lens for the study mystical texts, which also attempt to describe the ineffable. Reading Shiur Qomah as a cognitive map, this essay asks: What work does the divine map of Shiur Qomah do in its ritual context? The text claims repeatedly that the adept who possesses the esoteric knowledge of God’s measured form is promised both heavenly and earthly rewards. But, as Naomi Janowitz has suggested, the text also suggests an important identification of the ritual practitioner (who is male) and the divine, whose enormous limbs serve to concretize and literally, embody, God’s power. Shi’ur Qomah thus serves as a ritual means for inscribing God’s male body on human consciousness, as well as upon the cosmos. The text thus affirms the religious and social reality of its practitioner, in which the domain of both ritual and power are exclusively male.


Moses as Priest and Apostle in Hebrews 3:1–6
Program Unit: Hebrews
John Lierman, University of Sioux Falls

This paper examines often-neglected evidence that Jews saw Moses as priest and as divine emissary (or more daringly, apostle). The main focus lies on the earliest extant reference to the apostleship of Moses, in Hebrews 3, where he receives the title apostolos. In the same period he is probably also called aggelos (tracing back from nuntius in As. Mos. 11:17), in a sense akin to that expressed by apostolos. His apostleship also appears explicitly in other Jewish writings, in colorful statements in rabbinic midrash, piyyutim, and probably the Passover Haggadah as well, where he is sheliah, in the sense of an apostle of God. Prior to the New Testament the simple idea of “sentness” is certainly present in traditions about Moses, though a special title along that line does not seem to appear. Hebrews 3 links the title of apostle with that of high priest, and here as well a significant body of Jewish sources points to a Jewish perspective along that line.


Paul’s Ascent into Heaven: 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 and the Rapture of the Mystics
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Bert J. Lietaert Peerbolte, Theological University Kampden

Paul’s description in 2 Cor. 12:1-10 is one of the clearest examples of a report on a ‘religious experience’ from antiquity. This paper will position the rapture experience described in this pericope in the context of early Jewish apocalypticism. It will argue that this experience is typical of the type of mysticism we encounter in apocalyptic circles by exploring the evidence on visionary experience in apocalyptic texts. Thus, the case argued is a triple one: firstly, that apocalyptic literature originates from social groups that did indeed practice visionary experiences; secondly, that these experiences were interpreted as religious in character; and thirdly, that these mystical experiences were regarded as a means of divine communication. Paul shared not only the language, but also the phrame of reference of these apocalyptic mystics.


Redressing Jewish Bodies in Corinth: Racial/Ethnic Politics, Religious Difference, and Diasporic Lives
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Chicago Theological Seminary

In recent years, issues of the body (both socio-political and biological) have captured major scholarly attention. Paul's "first" letter to the Corinthians readily lends itself to such scholarship given its emphasis on power relations within the Corinthian church body as well as its insistence on the future resurrection of individual human bodies. Biblical scholarship of the last two decades have helped us to learn much about the integrity of the letter's textual body and the economic issues that split the Corinthian social body. I would suggest, however, that we have yet to pay adequate attention to the racial/ethnic and religious difference in this letter. Not only were the Gentile believers in Corinth converting to follow a minority religion (in both racial/ethnic and religious terms), Paul—as their church founder but a (colonized) Jewish person in diaspora—also found himself in a very delicate and controversial position. What this paper addresses is how Paul actually lifted up two rejected Jewish bodies in this letter (his own and that of Jesus) to negotiate these various dynamics.


Luring the Laity to Baptism: Gregory of Nazianzus’ Oration on Holy Baptism and the Healing Miracles of Christ in Representative Sculpture of the 4th Century CE
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Vasiliki Limberis, Temple University

This paper examines Gregory Nazianzan’s Oration on Holy Baptism, written in early 380, as an ekphrasis of the iconographic themes found on three “typical” works of art of the fourth century: the Claudianus Sarcophagus, the Ivory Panels in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Miracle Sarcophagus from Istanbul. Although no one can prove that Gregory was looking directly at -or even referring to –any of these works of art, their iconographic themes are so common during the fourth century that they are “representative.” The style and subject of this oration reveal that it was intended for the widest audience, trying to entice people to get baptized earlier, rather than later, in their lives. When analyzed with the carvings of Christ’s most popular miracles and a few surprising tableaux on the Claudianus Sarcophagus, the Oration becomes a richer source illustrating the ambiguities involved in understanding the role of baptism. Heard along side some of the most popular images of Christianity in the fourth century, the oration is understood as an effective advertisement for baptism as entrance into a life of physical health, with the benefit of immortality. Close attention will be given to the arrangement of the healing miracles of Christ on the sculptures, the woman with an issue of blood, the paralytic, the leper, and the blind man. And, for the Claudianus Sarcophagus, seeing how they work with the other tableaux is key. As an ekphrasis of these scenes, Gregory’s Oration transforms the meaning of the images to take on a potent, mystical message. Gregory’s language promises the powers of protective magic and the awesome initiation rites of a mystery cult. Above all, Gregory’s ekphrasis indicates the multivalent understanding of baptism in the Christian life.


Amos among the Ancient Prophets: Memory, Imagination, and the Mythic Present
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
James R. Linville, University of Lethbridge

The Book of the Twelve not only preserves words attributed to God but also presents an institutionally authorized memory of legitimate prophetic figures. Alongside their preserved messages, the figures of the prophets themselves should be recognized as significant subjects for the imagination and edification of the ancient writers and readers and, therefore important topics for interpreters. The collection and its series of individual documents, which locate paradigms, models and prototypes in the past, deserve examination as expressions of mythological thinking. While each installment in the Twelve is unique, the portrayed history becomes a cycle of the prophetic revelations. Each component employs a number of cosmic and theophanic conceptions, and adapts preexisting mythic, legendary or historical traditions in various ways to drive home its religious, political and moral ideals. Although embedding reminiscences of previous divine-human encounters, there are also a number of ideas, including the important theophanic conception of the impending “Day of the Lord”, which give the collection an orientation towards the future, not the past, even as several such “days” may be identified in the collection. As chronologically and sequentially early, however, the portrait of Amos is an important interpretational key to understand the sequence of prophetic encounters. Moreover, Amos’s overwhelming and coercive encounters with God provide one model among many for the collectors and redactors to understand and express their own social role and personal experiences as curators and repeaters of divine speech. Although Amos is set in a particular time and place, reading the book typologically as an example of the “myth of the ancient prophet” raises a new interpretative avenue for exploring its relationship with the Book of the Twelve and other prophetic texts, and understanding its relevance in the post-monarchic period.


“Should He Treat Our Sister Like a Whore?” The Sexual “Defilement” of Women in Biblical Texts
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Hilary Lipka, Brandeis University

In Num 5:11-31, the case of the suspected adulteress, the stem tm’ appears eight times, where it is used in two different, though related senses. On the one hand, tm’ is used in the same sense as that found in other priestly texts addressing impurity brought about by prohibited sexual acts such as adultery. The woman commits a willful moral transgression that results in defilement on a religious level, that is, she is defiled for her god. Yet at the same time, the author characterizes the behavior of which the woman is accused as “defiling” herself in relation to her husband. The term is used elsewhere in a similar sense to denote the “defilement” of a woman for her husband or future husband, either of a wife through adultery (Ezek 22:11; 33:26), or of an unmarried woman through loss of virginity outside of wedlock (Gen 34:5, 13, 27). In the prophetic metaphors of Judah/Jerusalem as Yahweh’s unfaithful wife, these two senses of tm’ coalesce, in that the unfaithful metaphoric wife defiles herself for her husband, Yahweh (Jer 2:23; Ezek 23:13, 17, and 30). In this study, I will examine the different ways in which biblical texts represent the sexual defilement and “defilement” of women, and how these two senses of are tm’ are interconnected.


The Slow Development of Jerusalem in the Persian Period: Archaeological, Paleographic, and Historical Perspectives
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Oded Lipschits, Tel Aviv University

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The Identities, Contexts, and Nature of Conflicts of the "Strong" and the "Weak" in Romans 14:1–15:13
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
Lung-kwong Lo, Chinese University of Hong Kong

The identities of the "Strong" and the "Weak" in Rm. 14:1-15:13 has drawn a lot of attention since the publication of a lengthy study of Rauer in 1923. However, strong consensus has not been reached. Under such conditions, the contexts of the conflicts between them are difficult to be clear. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that these two groups formed important parts of Roman Christians, and probably the main addressees of Paul's letter. From recent studies of Pauline letters in general, Romans in particular, we propose that the "Strong" were probably not simply Gentiles, but Christians (include both ethnic Jews and Gentiles) free from Jewish food laws, and the "Weak" were not simply ethnic Jews, but Christians (include both ethnic Jews and Gentiles) strongly attached to Jewish traditions. The context of the conflicts are not in the daily life in general, but specific context of table fellowship of early Christian worship in house churches of the "Strong". The issues that this paper addresses include not only the identities and contexts of the "strong" and the "weak", but also the nature of identity crisis among Roman Christians, which represent an important part of early Christianity, that how could Jewish Christians preserve their identities of both Jews and Christians, so as non-Jewish Christians could be members of "people of God" but not converted to become Jews? How could both Jewish and Gentile Christians preserve their ethnic-religio-cultural identities when they shared table fellowship together? What are the teachings of Paul to make the conflicts generated by identity crisis of two early Christian groups be solved at the practical level of Christian worship?


“Pure and Undefiled Religion”: Purity and Pollution as a Means of Cultural Antagonism in the Epistle of James
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Darian Lockett, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

This paper analyses the use of purity language in the Epistle of James as a means to assess the texts’ level of cultural accommodation. Beginning with an analysis of the explicit and implicit allusions to purity and pollution in the text, the notion of purity in James is compared with the dominant understanding of first-century purity scripts. Finding areas of convergence and divergence between these scripts and James it is concluded that purity, functioning as an important conceptual model for ordering the ideological world of the author, is used to label “the world” and its accompanying social values as polluting influences upon the community. In order to understand how this information helps locate the socio-cultural stance of the document, the scales of acculturation and accommodation developed by J. Barclay are used to determine whether the text’s use of purity language indicates cultural integration or antagonism. The information garnered through the analysis of James based on the social model of purity and pollution is used to locate the text’s overall concern for cultural antagonism.


Biblical Spectacles: Entertainment, Instruction, Nationalist Affirmation
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Burke O. Long, Bowdoin College

Focusing on "The Fall of Nineveh", one example of many c. 1900 Bible based, big-stage dramatic spectacles in America, this lecture illustrates the variable mix of nationalism, popular religion, and show business that enlivened such culturally rendered Bibles prior to the development of cinematic epics. These holy books performed in pantomime were sites of implicit contest, where ideological and political debates were played out as Orientalizing entertainment, socially conservative instruction, and nationalist affirmation.


Imagining the Holy Land: Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels
Program Unit: Semiotics and Exegesis
Burke Long, Bowdoin College

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Weighing Supersessionism in Paul
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
Bruce Longenecker, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

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Roman Visual Ideology and Paul’s Galatian Image-in-Nation
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Davina C. Lopez, Union Theological Seminary, New York

Roman imperial art communicates messages about power relationships and social structures, reflecting a visual ideology of Roman victory as central to state, and therefore cosmic, order. Roman public art draws upon Hellenistic-era imagery to depict this cosmic order, particularly scenes featuring mythological combat between Greeks/Gods and Amazons, Lapiths, Centaurs, or Giants as well as portrayals of subjugated foes (e.g. the “Dying” Gaul, Amazon, Centaur types) alone without their subjugators. Roman monuments commemorating defeat of non-Roman peoples, when seen in these mythic terms, legitimize imperial conquest and domination. Exemplary images from Aphrodisias and Ephesus in Asia Minor will illustrate this point. Monuments rendering conquered “barbarians” as defeated and deferential to Roman conquerors employ familiar elements such as Amazon costuming and heroic/divine nakedness, thereby collapsing boundaries between history and myth. Much like mythological Amazons, the Romans’ historical enemies represent threatening feminine disorder that must be energetically fought and destroyed by elemental manly normalcy. These battle scenes also constitute a carefully constructed ideology of Roman rule as “patriarchy.” Captured and assimilated ethne/nations are often personified in a woman's racially-stereotyped body while an impenetrably masculine Roman emperor or soldier embodies his superior race. Roman imperial world order, born of celebrating (male) victory over various (female) nations, also creates divisions between them. This visual ideology is a complementary semantic system through which New Testament texts can be interpreted. In light of Roman visual ideology, Paul’s letters suggest a counter-imperial strategy, born of a woman, in which a different victory comes “from below” as transgressive solidarity among defeated nations. Through this lens, Paul’s emphasis on “oneness in (the crucified) Christ” in Galatians is an anti-portrait of Roman imperial power relationships, an image-in-nation on dissident terms. Paul’s oneness culminates in a challenging inheritance: a “new creation” that destabilizes gendered, ethnic, state, and cosmic order.


Cult Statues in Ancient Egypt
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
David Lorton, Baltimore, MD

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New Possibilities for Understanding Ancient Gospel Performances
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
J. A. (Bobby) Loubser, University of Zululand

This paper will contribute to gospel performance criticism in two ways. Firstly the range of performative options for evangelists will be reviewed. In the absence of contemporary models, questions are asked such as: Were the gospels performed in the first centuries in a manner similar to pieces of classical literature? (With any of the variations evidenced by literary and iconographic materials?) Or, were they be rhapsodised like modern epics in Serbo-Croatia? Or, were they like the Kathekali temple performances in the south of India? If there were variations in the performances, what were the limits? More questions arise: What was the role of manuscripts in these performances? How much freedom did performances allow for composition and/or rhythm and rhyme? What range of psychodynamic processes were involved? As second contribution leading to a model for imagining gospel performances, will be the examination of some of the residual textual features, viz., how the texts were shaped by the demands of the oral performance. Such performances apparently were holistic events, which established solidarity between performers and empathetic audiences. Such communications did not only involve verbal actions, but the whole body and other illocutionary aspects of the text. It will be argued that reported bodily movements sometimes served as cues for the performer. It is noteworthy that words for bodily movement are often used with more precision than words for verbal communication.


Propitiatorium in the Apocalypse of Abraham
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Basil Lourie, Xristianskij Vostok

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Female Honor in Genesis 16:1–5
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Vanessa L. Lovelace, Chicago Theological Seminary

This paper will examine the issue of female honor in Genesis 16:1-5. The Mediterranean paradigm referred to by cultural anthropologists as “honor and shame” has been used in biblical hermeneutics for more than twenty years now in an attempt to analyze certain attitudes of and behavior by men in biblical texts. The emphasis has been on male “honor” and female “shame.” However, this writer contends that certain aspects of honor and shame among women have been overlooked. This paper will analyze Genesis 16:1-5 using the Mediterranean paradigm of honor and shame, and provide a critique of the model as it pertains to women through a womanist lens.


Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) and Visualizing the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Kirk Lowery, Westminster Theological Seminary

Biblical scholars, particularly those who work in the original languages, are known to attend very closely to the text. No jot or tittle will escape notice. That attention to detail has lead to any number of insights into the text, from compositional history to interpretation of difficult passages. But is it the case that the forest cannot be seen for the trees? Put more positively, are there are less detailed views of the biblical text that lead to new insights into the smallest levels of textual detail? To answer these questions a technology first developed in the 1980's for text mining is applied to the Hebrew Bible. The method is called Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs). Briefly, the method assigns values to words in the text, which are then clustered according to their "similarity." The meaning of the term "similarity" in a SOM departs from common usage. "Similarity" in a SOM is a measure along the dimensions specified in the construction of the data that is used to build the SOM. It does not necessarily mean "similarity" as it would be used in everyday speech. The SOMs of the Hebrew Bible presented here were created along several dimensions. As a starting point to illustrate the technique, the text is seen as a map of the words in the texts with their roots being the only measure of similarity. That is expanded to include their context with other words and to various aspects of their morphology. Relying upon the Westminster Hebrew Morphology dataset, this presentation demonstrates the construction and exploration of SOMs to the text of the Hebrew Bible. The results are a tool with which scholars can obtain a view of the entire Hebrew Bible in order to discover likely places to apply the more traditional tools of textual research.


“When You Find Yourself in Times of Trouble…”: Answers through Mother Mary in the Sortes Sanctorum
Program Unit: Religion in Roman Egypt
AnneMarie Luijendijk, Harvard University

I propose to present a paper on an unpublished sixth century Coptic manuscript containing Sortes sanctorum. In my lecture I will situate the manuscript in the religious and cultural context of Late Antique Egypt by offering three points: First, I will briefly introduce the genre of Sortes texts. These sortes (Latin for ‘lots’) are book oracles: one asks a question about one’s future and then by throwing die finds a number that corresponds to an answer in the book. They are thus ‘instant oracles.’ As such, the Sortes sanctorum are Christian counterparts of Graeco-Roman book oracles, like the Sortes Astrampsychi. Other early Christian and Jewish writings also help to contextualize this text. Yet church fathers such as Augustine condemned these Christian oracular practices. Second, this codex contains one of the earliest and most complete texts of the Christian sortes. More significantly, this is the earliest manuscript that preserves the text’s title: “The Gospel of the Lots of Mary, the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (The title Sortes sanctorum stems from Medieval Latin manuscripts). This original title, I contend, forms an important link in the transmission history and use of this text, since sortes are added in the margins of several gospel manuscripts, most famously in the Codex Bezae. In addition, I will present arguments supporting my hypothesis that the Christian sortes tradition originated in Egypt. Thirdly, I will analyze the socio-religious milieu of this text by discussing the following questions: What do these ready-made answers tell us about religious life in Late Antique Egypt? What were issues the compilers were wrestling with? And hence: What does this practice tell us about the everyday concerns of Christians in late Antique Egypt? As for the Coptic manuscript specifically, what do its content and miniature format indicate about its use?


Violent Properties and Contested Identities: Roman Persecution of Christians in the Papyrological Evidence
Program Unit: Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity
AnneMarie Luijendijk, Harvard University

I propose to present a paper on Roman and Christian perspectives on the general persecutions of Christians (250-313 CE) in Egypt based on papyrus texts from that period. From Cyprian to church historians Eusebius and Lactantius to hagiographic literature, it is Christian authors that have compiled the sources that inform our understanding of the general persecutions of Christians in the third and early fourth centuries. Many of these texts narrating the persecution of Christians are among the most graphic descriptions of violence within early Christianity. Yet contemporary papyrus documents from Egypt discovered over the past one hundred years present a different point of view on the persecutions. Many of these papyri offer the Roman administration’s side, such as libelli of the Decian persecution, orders to arrest from the Valerian persecution, and official documents from the Great Persecution, but private correspondence among Christians referring to this topic has been found as well. In my paper I will argue that the papyri provide an important counternarrative to the literary sources on the persecution. While these mainly Christian literary sources on persecution present the persecutions as contests over Christian identity between the Roman state and Christians, usually ending in violent death or physical disfigurement, the Roman and Christian documentary sources chronicle the seizure of property and the economic impact of reclassification of persons and groups as subject to seizure and loss of legal rights. Hence the Christian stance is identity-centric, whereas the Roman perspective is bureaucratic, centering on institution and status through the violent intervention in the rights of individuals.


A Syntactic Database of the New Testament
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Albert Lukaszewski, University of St Andrews

For some time, scholarship has been privileged to have access to electronic morphological datasets of the New Testament. However, the restrictions of morphological tagging is plain to those who regularly use these databases. While being able to compare forms and repetition across texts, one lacks a means of comparing the force and function of words and clauses. To this end, the present author has begun development of a syntactically annotated database of the New Testament which will be published in the Fairhaven series of Logos Research Systems. This database allows for the searching of words and clause structures by force and function. This paper details the procedure used in developing the dataset and graphically illustrates the end result.


Observations on Some Peshitta Readings in Aphrem's Commentary on Genesis
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Jerome A. Lund, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

I will examine the Syriac church father Aphrem as a text witness to the Peshitta on the basis of some of his citations of the Peshitta of Genesis.


Adam and Edom in Ezekiel, LXX, and MT
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Johan Lust, Catholic University of Leuven-Belgium

In the MT of Ezekiel, the epilogue of chapter 34 reads: "And you, my flock, the flock of my pasture, you are human, I am your God, says the Lord" (34:31). In the epilogue of chapter 36, on finds similar observations: "I will multiply them as a human flock...so will the ruined citied be filled with a human flock" (36:37-38). In the Old Greek version of chapter 36, best represented by p967, there is no mention of a human flock. Indeed the chapter ends in v. 23ba. As a matter of fact, every ms of LXX 34:31 lacks the phrase "you are human." The present paper first situates the remarks concerning the "human flock" within their context in MT and then analyzes their absence in the Old Greek, likewise within a larger context.


When Is a Jew Not a Jew? Gamaliel the Elder and the Reception of Acts in the Early Church
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
William John Lyons, University of Bristol

Modern scholarship remains polarised on the question of whether Acts portrays the Pharisee Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, positively (with, e.g., D.B. Gowler) or negatively (with e.g. J.A. Darr). Nevertheless, all agree that he remains a Pharisaic Jew. In the early Church, however, an explicit expression of this position is wholly absent. The same interpretation of Gamaliel is offered by both a Jewish-Christian (the author of the source underlying Clementine Recognitions 1) and a Gentile Christian (John Chrysostom); namely, that he must have become a believer in Jesus. The actual ‘religions’ of the two Gamaliels ‘observed’, however, are radically different. This paper seeks to answer the question of why these very different interpreters agreed on seeing a convert, and asks what implications this has for modern studies of Luke-Acts?


The Influence of the Odyssey Meals on Jesus' Eating with the Pharisees in Luke
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Dennis R. MacDonald, Claremont School of Theology

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'The Birthing': A Reliable Method of Relating Texts?
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Dennis R. MacDonald, Claremont School of Theology

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The Diet of the Ancient Israelites: Problems and Prospects
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Nathan MacDonald, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

A recent Semeia volume (86) identified food as an exciting new theme in biblical studies. Accurately determining the Israelite diet is an important preliminary task involving negotiation of text and artifact. This paper will examine the difficulties that attend this task and the dimensions that must be taken into account. The question of whether some recent discussions of Israelite diet are misleading will be addressed.


Divinely Revealed History and Geography in Noah's Vision: Genesis Apocryphon cols. 13–17
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Daniel Machiela, University of Notre Dame

The symbolic dream-vision of Noah, in Genesis Apocryphon cols. 13-15, has been remarkably neglected since its publication in the mid 1990’s, primarily due to its fragmentary nature. This paper will offer a new reading of these columns, drawing heavily upon their multiple connections with the books of Daniel, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch, in order better to identify some of the vision’s poorly preserved elements. Such an investigation will serve the two-fold purpose of helping situate this fragmentary vision among the other, generically similar symbolic visions of the above-mentioned works, as well as give a better idea of how this vision functions within the narrative structure of Genesis Apocryphon. In particular, focus will be placed on the connection of cols. 13-15 with the following two columns, which describe Noah’s apportionment of the earth between his three sons, dependant upon Genesis 10-11. It will be suggested that these two sections (cols. 13-15 and 16-17) are closely related to one another, and that this relationship is further illuminated by a treatment of the same topic in Jubilees 7-9. It will be concluded that Genesis Apocryphon indeed drew upon many of the same traditions as Jubilees and 1 Enoch in shaping its treatment of the earth’s history and geographical division, but that it did so in a unique way. Finally, through pursuing these connections, Genesis Apocryphon’s place in relation to other (roughly contemporaneous) works of ‘rewritten scripture’, will be explored. (This paper is part of a dissertation being written under the direction of James VanderKam)


Texts and Contexts at Qumran
Program Unit: Future of the Past: Biblical and Cognate Studies for the Twenty-First Century
Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

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Jerusalem as Sacred Space
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Christl M. Maier, Yale University

The paper explores the formation of Jerusalem as a sacred space in pre-exilic times. Based on spatial theories and the work of Jonathan Z. Smith who shows how a given place is sanctified as the result of the cultural labor of ritual, the paper engages archaeological data as well as texts like Ps 46, 48, Isa 6:1-6, and Mic 3:12. Thus, it evaluates the interrelatedness of a given topography, of mythological motifs about holy places, and of the rhetoric to establish Jerusalem as a center for the worship of YHWH.


Body Space as Public Space: Jerusalem’s Wounded Body in Lamentations
Program Unit: Constructions of Ancient Space
Christl M. Maier, Yale University

The paper addresses gender and space as categories of text analysis in the framework of the seminar’s ongoing discourse on spatial theory. It relates the theoretical work of sociologists and geographers to the feminist discussion on metaphor and body. As a test case for its theoretical approach, the paper interprets passages of the book of Lamentations, in which a female and a male body represent the public humiliation of a city and the citizens’ experience of war.


“A Noticable Array of Barbarians”: Roman Imperial Theologies of Victory and Representations of Subject Peoples in Pagan and Christian Iconography
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Harry O. Maier, Vancouver School of Theology

The Augustan era developed and deployed an ambitious iconographical programme promoting an imperial theology of Victory in which emperors were celebrated as divinely appointed to bring the diverse peoples of the Mediterranean Basin under what was heralded as the saving banner of imperial dominion. Public monuments such as the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias in which emperors were represented as deities or cosmic powers towering over subject peoples represented iconographically an imperial theology of Victory acclaiming Roman religious and political ideals. This paper takes up the iconographical tradition representing subject peoples by relating it to a Roman imperial theology of Victory. It shows how the portrayal of subject peoples was inflected and transposed in the Constantinian and post-Constantinian period to give expression to a Christian Victory theology. In Eusebius of Caesarea’s Oration in Praise of Constantine, for example, Eusebius celebrates Constantine’s achievements along the lines of a traditional Roman Victory theology, but now interprets churches, where “a noticeable array of barbarians” gather in united worship, as the new imperial monuments of a Christian imperial Victory cult. The paper compares and contrasts fourth and fifth century representations of subject peoples on public monuments, churches, sarcophagi and coins with earlier representations to show how an iconographical programme has been taken up and an imperial theology of victory has been reconfigured to express Christian ideals and promote Christian Empire.


YHWH, a Trader's Deity?
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Sarah Malena, University of California, San Diego

This paper first analyzes the relationship between traders and their deities and then proceeds to examine YHWH in this context. Our best example from the ancient Near East is Hathor as a protectress of traders and tradespeoples throughout the Levant. Other evidence concerning traders and their gods comes from inscriptions and shrines at known trade centers or stations along trade routes, as well as stories about merchants' travels. Concerning YHWH, the Egyptian mention of "the land of the Shasu Yhw" may be an early indication of such a relationship, since the Shasu were also reported to be traders in unguents. Later, YHWH is invoked in the well-known Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscription--a site that provides strong evidence for trade and travelers' worship in the Iron Age. Biblical texts, while not focused on trade, provide some information about the activity crossing through the biblical kingdoms; the texts describe both favorably and unfavorably the merchants in and passing through Israel. Through this variety of evidence, we have the opportunity to assess the potential role of YHWH as a trader's deity from the perspectives of Israelites as well as foreigners.


What Anthropologists have Learned about Bible Use.
Program Unit:
Brian Malley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

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Barth and the Apocalypse
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Joseph Mangina, Wycliffe College

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But What Kind of Unity? Towards a Feminist, Postcolonial Analysis of Philippians
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Joseph A. Marchal, Colby College

Recent developments in the fields of biblical interpretation necessitate a reevaluation of the process for and import of interpreting Pauline letters. A growing body of work on postcolonial, anti-imperial, and/or decolonizing approaches emphasizes the relevance of biblical rhetorics in colonizing and colonized discourse. Running parallel to and occasionally overlapping with these approaches, a number of Pauline scholars are more carefully attending to the political context of the letters written to communities within the Roman Empire. Feminist interpretation has made significant contributions in both of these “strands,” even as it has often been de-centered in the process. As a result, perhaps, there has yet to be a specifically feminist, postcolonial analysis of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. This paper offers an initial pursuit of this task, aware of these contexts and focused upon the contributions of postcolonial feminist work by biblical interpreters, including Musa W. Dube and Kwok Pui-lan. Feminist and postcolonial analysis can and should work toward mutual goals, recognizing both the difference between and the intersections of sexism(s) and imperialism(s). For this reason, an examination of the unity rhetorics in Philippians and in biblical scholarship should prove to be particularly relevant.


The Use of Masorah Parva Catchwords for Biblical Exegesis
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
David Marcus, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

This paper deals with those Masorah parva notes that indicate that a word or a phrase occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible. Some of these doublets are simply marked by the number two while others are accompanied by brief catchwords directing the reader to the companion text where the second occurrence of the word or phrase is to be found. These catchwords appear on manuscripts but are not included in the Masorah parva printed in BHS nor in the earlier more diplomatic representation of the Masorah in BHK3. Some manuscripts, instead of recording these catchwords in their Masorah parva notes, record them in their Masorah magna notes. It thus seems likely that these brief catchwords are precursors of the more comprehensive Masorah magna notes. This paper explains the function of these catchwords and demonstrates how they can be used for biblical exegesis especially in the area of intertextuality.


Prophecy on Minoan Rings
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Nanno Marinatos, University of Illinois, Chicago

The island of Crete had an Oriental type theocracy in the fifteenth cent. BCE. Minoan texts have not survived; consequently Minoan religion can be reconstructed only from iconographical sources. There exists a group of gold rings that have prophecy as their subject (this will be the argument here). Two types of prophetic activity are depicted: frenzy and incubation. The prophets are either male or female and they seem to have enjoyed a relatively high social status. The scenes of prophetic activity take place within a sacred space: an open air sanctuary defined by a rock and\or a tree. This type of sanctuary corresponds closely to Israelite open air sanctuaries asey may be reconstructed from Biblical sources. Incubation and frenzy are well attested in the Mari and Nineveh sources. The Minoan rings, however, add some more information to our over all picture of prophetic performance. A special role seems to have been played by a sacred tree that the prophets touched and became frenzied.


The Grooms’ Blessing as an Extreme Makeover of Jewish Wedding Feasts
Program Unit: Late Antiquity in Interdisciplinary Perspective
Susan Marks, New College of Florida

In prescribing wedding blessings, the rabbis of late antiquity script a new vision of Jewish weddings and a new place for themselves at these communal feasts. Seth Schwartz recently made the argument that Christianization spurs Judaization, suggesting that late antiquity creates the category of “religion” into which the rabbis must then fit. The case of Jewish wedding blessings provides a fine example of this phenomenon. While earlier rabbis display ambivalence about the weddings that occur in their communities, the amoraim create “rabbinic” weddings. New approaches to ritual allow us to see changes in practice as opposed to the continuity emphasized by earlier models. New features of weddings in late antiquity include the text of blessings (later called “Sheva Brachot”) that appear for the first time in the Babylonian Talmud. In addition, other amoraic sources push for the learning and acceptance of these formulae. In focusing on ritual one finds that in addition to being celebratory, wedding meals could also be charged and dangerous. The nearby bridal chamber exudes sexuality, at first calling forth proscriptions forbidding certain speech and songs at wedding feasts. Nonetheless, scrutiny of this dining context uncovers the potential power of such gatherings as well as their danger. Examination of wedding banquets, together with the text of wedding blessings in the Talmud, reveals that the later rabbis forged a new answer to these challenges. A simultaneous consideration of new Christian involvement with weddings in late antiquity suggests that the dangers and possibilities of these feasts went well beyond internal communal concerns.


The Call of the Wild: The Voice of Nature in the Book of Amos
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Hilary Marlow, University of Cambridge

The book of Amos is characterised by speech. Not only is YHWH portrayed as the one who speaks – as one might expect in a prophetic book, but the author also uses the literary device of direct speech to set up the tension between Amos and Amaziah, and to depict the peoples’ failings. So YHWH, Amos and the people may all be said to have a ‘voice’. But what about nature - does it too have a voice? This paper asks whether nature is marginalised as an object in the book of Amos or if it speaks in its own right and if so how. Close examination of the text suggests that there are a number of ways in which both the voice and the actions of nature perform a crucial, prophetic role in the book. First, by providing the vehicle of metaphor and the substance of visions which illustrate and explain complex realities; secondly, as a means of revealing YHWH – rendering visible the invisible; and thirdly, as the instrument of YHWH’s judgement and punishment of the people. Nature is thus given a high status and performs a role similar to that of the prophet Amos himself: speaking in response to YHWH’s call, revealing YHWH to the people and executing judgement on his behalf. In a very real sense then, the voice of nature in the book of Amos may be said to be one of its prophetic voices.


Postcolonial Cultures and Literatures
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Mustapha Marrouchi, Louisiana State University

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Herod the Hasmonean: Architecture, Coinage, and Dynastic Maneuvering in the Early Reign of Herod the Great
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Adam Kolman Marshak, Yale University

In this talk, I will discuss the attempts by Herod the Great to create and maintain his own legitimacy by connecting himself with his predecessors, the Hasmoneans. In his public presentation he both linked himself with this dynastic family and asserted his own independence by adapting their imagery to suit his own needs. Although Herod's family had been long-serving high officials in the Hasmonean court, he was not royal and had a dubious ethnic background; at best he was an Idumaean half-Jew. Immediately after securing his throne, Herod connected himself with the family he had ousted, the Hasmoneans. In the realm of architecture, Herod targeted Hasmonean sites, and although he kept their Hasmonean names, he indelibly placed his own stamp on them by rebuilding, enlarging and aggrandizing them. Further, he publicly asserted his ties to the Hasmonean family by naming important buildings and even a city after his wife, the Hasmonean princess Mariamme. In numismatics, Herod struck issues that invoked Hasmonean symbols and imagery. However, by slightly modifying the standard Hasmonean motif of the double cornucopiae, Herod connected himself to the dynasty while still asserting his own independence. Finally, Herod relied on marriage and naming to forge his new quasi-Hasmonean identity. He first married Mariamme, who was the granddaughter of both sons of Alexander Jannaeus. Additionally, by naming his sons by Mariamme, Alexander and Aristobulus, Herod recalled the past glory of the Hasmoneans and positioned them as a new Hasmonean/Herodian royalty. Although Herod ultimately abandoned his attempts to portray himself as a Hasmonean, this early endeavor at creating and maintaining legitimacy through connection to his predecessors was a significant political strategy. It reflects his conscious realization that while force of arms might have taken Jerusalem and Judaea, he needed legitimacy to govern it.


The Structure of the Pastoral Epistles
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
I. H. Marshall, University of Aberdeen

Against the background of recent contributions to understanding of the use of language in the Pastoral Epistles, especially the works of R. Van Neste (Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles (London: T & T Clark International, 2004)) on the cohesion of the letters and of R. Fuchs on apparent differences between the letters (Unerwartete Unterschiede: Müssen wir unsere Ansichten über die Pastoralbriefe revidieren? (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 2003)), the paper will attempt to take further the analysis of the structure of the letters proposed in the author’s commentary (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999)).


“Hybridity”—A Postcolonial Interpretive Approach to Romans 13
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
John W. Marshall, University of Toronto

Interpreters of Paul have made substantial progress in identifying anti- or counter-imperial strands in the writings of the apostle. In many cases, postcolonial theory has been an important resource to such interpretations. It has emphasized the Imperial (or colonial) character of Roman rule and provided avenues of analysis of resistant action and discourse that are well-grounded in theoretical and comparative context. Postcolonialism, however, does more than identify and valourize resistance; it also attends to the discourses of affiliation that colonial subjects so often generate. Homi Bhabha’s articulation of “hybridity” as a rubric under which to understand the relationship between resistant and affiliative responses by colonial subjects enables a deeper understanding of Paul specifically in that area that the politically engaged readings of Paul have made even more enigmatic, namely the relationship of the affiliative Romans 13.1-7 to the apostle’s evidently resistant discourse elsewhere in his literary corpus. Too often, Romans 13.1-7 is ignored by interpreters who formulate a Paul whose resistance to Roman imperial domination takes on the character of exemplary purity. In Romans 13.1-7, Paul embraces the key elements of colonial empire: military-political domination, economic exploitation, and a discourse of natural hierarchy. The postcolonial concept of hybridity makes possible a more truly historicist understanding of the situation of highly conditioned agency in which Paul and his congregations often maneuvered. Without imputing a false coherence to Paul’s thought, we see the tensions within it in a theoretically coherent frame.


Levi the Toll Collector, the Gospel of Mary, the Pharisees, and Matthew 21:31b
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Mary J. Marshall, Murdoch University

Recent studies on the Gospel of Mary have focused largely on the figure of Mary Magdalene, and on the portrayal of her in that text as apostle, leader, and visionary. The resultant image is frequently compared with the traditional, but erroneous, Western depiction of Mary drawn from conflated New Testament references, i.e. that of perennially penitent prostitute. Yet the fact that the toll collector Levi also features prominently in the Gospel of Mary seems to have been overlooked by scholars. He has the significant role of supporting Mary Magdalene over against the apostolic heavyweights Peter and Andrew. Though I fully endorse the updated image of the Magdalene, I will argue in this paper that Levi and Mary, as well as being historical figures, function as exemplars of reformed characters, and demonstrate the salvific value of repentance. I will cite on the one hand, some possible grounds for Jesus’ criticism of Pharisees, namely their circumvention of Sabbath regulations and avoidance of legitimate taxes, and on the other hand, his commendation of the regenerate toll collectors for their hospitable practices. The parable of the Pharisee and the Toll Collector will then be considered in relation to these scenarios. In conclusion, I will assert the probable authenticity of Matthew 21:31b, and show how this logion correlates with relevant canonical texts as well as with the portraits of Levi and the Magdalene in the Gospel of Mary.


Children in the Early Church
Program Unit: Poster Session
John Martens, University of Saint Thomas

This poster presentation is designed to present a collaborative effort, between John W. Martens and Cornelia Horn (SLU), which joins the disciplines of Biblical Studies, Patristic Studies, and Early Church History. The poster presentation has as its purpose and goal an introduction to the story of children through the first six centuries of the Christian Church. The study utilizes methods from a number of disciplines, such as philological and text-critical approaches, historical reconstruction, social and cultural history, theological and philosophical study, archaeological data, ancient medical and child-rearing texts, pedagogical information, and other data which can illumine the history of childhood. The structure for the study defines the most important themes that reflect the concerns and the realities of life concerning “children” in the early Christian world. We examine family life, issues of marriage and celibacy, asceticism, discipline and education, play and work, and the place of the child within the Christian community, amongst other concerns.


Fathers and Daughters in 1 Corinthians 7:36–38: The Social Implications for Children of Parents' Belief in Christ
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
John Martens, University of Saint Thomas

Older translations of the Bible in English, such as the KJV and the Jerusalem Bible, used to translate 1 Corinthians 7:36-38 as having to do with whether fathers ought to let their daughters be married in light of Paul’s teachings on the eschaton. Every major translation today rejects this reading (RSV, NRSV, NIV, NJB, NAB), interpreting these verses in light of the purported practice of spiritual marriage in Corinth. This is a case of exegetical insights driving translation, for the problems with interpreting the passage in this light leads to numerous problems in dealing with the meaning of the Greek. In addition, it does not pay close attention to the social context of the reception of Christianity or the Greco-Roman understanding of marriage in which daughters, often young, were given to their spouses by their fathers. They did not, as the current translations of this passage suggest, make these bonds with fiancées of their own accord. In this passage we get a sense of the shift in children’s lives, as related to early Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality. Understanding the passage as concerning fathers and daughters allows us to see the social reality of marriage for the first Christians. A father asks, how do these teachings affect my daughter? What if she has reached marriageable age and a contract has previously been made for her marriage when she reaches puberty? Paul offers a response to social realities set in motion by the Christian teaching regarding marriage, celibacy, and sexuality.


Cognitive Science, Ritual, and Mystery Religions
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Luther H. Martin, University of Vermont

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Angels Run Amok: Inverting the Problem of God's Violence against the Natural World in the Apocalypse
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Thomas W. Martin, Susquehanna University

God's violence against the earth and its ecosystems in the Book of Revelation remains a major impediment to the rehabilitation of this book as environmentally friendly. This paper proposes a re-reading of the three visions of sevens and a revalorization of "angels" to find an ecological focus consistent with what Barbara Rossing has aruged can be found in the contrast of Babylon and the New Jerusalem. Any reading depends on where one begins reading - the beginning is not always the best place to start a book. In the Apocalypse the starting point matters more than in many books, and it can govern how the rest of the message unfolds. It will be argued that the best starting point is to begin with the two cities. If the anaylsis of their variant economies and ecologies is allowed to frame the preceding visions of sevens, the visions read not as God's negative actions against the earth, but as a portrayal of the natural consequences of Babylon's environmental policies. Help for this new reading will be drawn from Harry Maier's analysis of parody in Revelation's portrayal of divine violence extended to God's violence against the environment. Other hermeneutical perspectives include, the work of Walter Wink (on principalities and powers) and new work in ecosystem dynamics both used to re-read the angels who seem to carry out divine destructive acts against the environment. This allows us to read them as powers from God, intended for the environment's and humanity's good, but when directed by the power dynamics of Babylon they "run amok" bringing a reflexive judgment on humanity and the environment. As a result this apocalyptic text can more fully function in building a positive environmental ethic.


Rethinking Rhetorical Situations in Pseudepigraphic Letters: Revisiting the Case of 1 Timothy and Titus
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Troy W. Martin, Saint Xavier University

This paper examines the complexities of identifying the rhetorical situation in pseudepigraphic letters. According to Lloyd Bitzer, the rhetorical situation arises from the historical circumstances of the letter. However, pseudepigraphic letters are written in different historical circumstances than those portrayed in the letter. According to R. E. Vatz, the rhetorical situation is shaped by the mind of the author, but the author of a pseudepigraphic letter conceives of two different situations simultaneously. According to D. L. Stamps, the rhetorical situation is entextualized, but a pseudepigraphic text addresses a rhetorical situation that differs from the one embedded in the letter. This paper explores these as well as other complexities by rethinking the rhetorical situations of 1 Timothy and Titus.


Divine Sonship at Qumran and in Philo
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Florentino Garcia Martinez, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

This paper examines the relationship of Philo of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls on the matter of Divine Sonship.


Essenes in Josephus's Judean War—and in History
Program Unit: Josephus
Steve Mason, York University

Although historical questions concerning Qumran and the Essenes appear increasingly open, Josephus's portrait of the Essenes, which is a crucial reference point for any hypothesis, has seldom been read in context, without reference to the DSS or other external constraints. My paper seeks mainly to understand the function of the Essenes within the author-audience dialectic of Josephus's War. Such a reading also has clear implications for historical reconstruction---missed, to my knowledge, in previous explorations. These I spell out in the conclusion.


Survival and the Impossible in the Work of Samuel Bak and the Book of Job
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Dan Mathewson, Wofford College

In Between Worlds Samuel Bak compares himself and his life’s work to the biblical Job: one who perpetually asks questions to a silent deity, and fears never to receive an answer. In this paper I probe Bak’s intuitive connection to Job and explore the subtle and profound links the themes of his work have with those of the biblical book. Broadly, both function as survival testimony, actualizing what Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub describe as the imperative to bear witness to an “impossible” event. Specifically, I examine three broad themes of survival testimony in Bak’s work and the book of Job, each of which foreground the impossibility of survival. First is the impossible as the shattered world, where images of incomprehension, illogicality, and existence as bewilderment predominate. Second is the impossible as the death-tainted life, where the terms of life (vitality, liveliness, connection, and so on) are inseparable from those of death (separation, disintegration, stasis, and so on). Last is the impossible as hope, where hope is expressed as the bricolage: the grafting of incompatible and ill-fitting elements into a gangly and cumbersome, yet working, whole. In fact, for the viewer/reader of Bak’s work and the book of Job, the bricolage becomes the lasting image and represents that paradoxical site of both impossibility and hope. Bak, therefore, connects to the biblical Job not only because he asks questions perpetually to a silent deity (as Bak suggests), but more significantly because he becomes the Modern Job that Maurice Friedman describes: one who confronts the experience of “radical evil” head-on and shapes from it an image of meaningful human existence.


The Practice of the Gospel: A New Proposal for the Structure of Galatians 2:16
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
R. Barry Matlock, University of Sheffield

Given the centrality of Gal 2.16 both to the ‘new perspective on Paul’ and to the question of pistis Christou, there has been surprisingly little attention paid specifically to the structure of this verse. Yet both these debates raise structural questions (the connection between ‘works of law’ and 2.1-14; the problem of redundancy and tautology). And while detailed proposals for the structure of 2.15-21 have been made, these have focused elsewhere than on the inter-relation of the elements of 2.16. On any reading of Gal 2.16, there is a threefold repetition of ‘works of law’; on the objective genitive reading of pistis Christou, there is a corresponding threefold repetition of ‘faith in Christ’. Is this gratuitous repetition? Is Paul attempting to ‘prove’ his point simply by restating it? Do these anomalies arise solely from the objective genitive reading, and disappear with the subjective genitive reading? These questions concern the inter-relation of and movement between these repeated phrases. This paper posits an interlocking, two-part parallelism displaying this inter-relation and movement. This new proposal, I argue, is intuitively compelling; entails no redundancy or tautology; constitutes a powerful argument in its own right for the objective genitive reading; offers a better way of dealing with other troublesome features of the verse that are a legitimate concern of the subjective genitive reading (e.g., the hina clause); and observes overlooked connections between 2.16 and the surrounding context. Finally, I draw on ancient and contemporary rhetorical theory and on the approach to practical reason developed by R. B. Brandom and J. Stout to elucidate Paul’s antithetical argument, revealing how it serves to make explicit what is implicit in the practice of the gospel. In this way, an analysis of the fine structure of Gal 2.16 leads directly to a wider inquiry into Paul’s theological reasoning.


Historical and Adventure Time in Luke’s Gospel
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Mark A. Matson, Milligan College

As part of an ongoing exploration of the gospels’ use of narrative time, the examination of Luke’s Gospel presents some particularly interesting issues. This paper will explore Luke’s use of time using categories derived both from Ricoeur’s Time and Narrative and Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope. Paul Ricoeur explores narrative time primarily from the perspective of a binary opposition between historical and fictional time. And within this construct much of Luke must be seen as an attempt at portraying historical time. Certainly the opening chapters, given the synchronization of Jesus’ ministry with the political world of the Herodian and Roman governments, can be seen as an attempt at establishing a sense of historical time. But this careful chronological development gives way in the travel narrative (chaps 9-18) to a more vague story line. Here time markers become less precise and more in the nature of fictional time. In a similar way, Mikhail Bakhtin uses the concept of the chronotope to consider the genre of various kinds of literature as part of his overall exploration of the novel. One particular chronotope is that of “adventure time” which is closely linked to romance novels. The travel narrative in Luke can be understood in terms of this chronotope of “adventure time.” Each approach has some advantages in gaining some purchase on Luke’s purpose and rhetorical effect in his gospel. In addition to exploring the contours of Luke’s narrative use of time, I will attempt to evaluate each theoretical model of time and what each can offer to an understanding of the relationship of narrative time to authorial construction of a narrative.


It's "All in the Family": Aspects of Identity in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures
Victor Matthews, Southwest Missouri State University

In order to create a sociology of the family in ancient Israel, it is necessary to take into account both archaeological investigations and social theories that provide basic indicators of identity (group and individual). Such an investigation draws on a variety of factors, including gender, age, economic status, social affiliation, kinship, and spatial location. It takes into account narrative descriptions and the physical remains of living and work space, clothing, marriage and inheritance patterns, and basic economic activity. Through such a creative synthesis of material and textual data, we can obtain a better understanding of the shared social cognitions that shaped behavior and identity.


Local Ecosystems, Tribal Village Land Management Practices, and the Social Economy of Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Poster Session
Alice Maung-Mercurio, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Three climatically and geographically similar sites are compared, including a paleobotanical analysis of sites in Upper and Lower Galilee, and two modern ecosystems. These analyses broaden our understanding of the hill-country settlements of early Israel. Tribal village small-plot agriculture and herding practices of these semi-arid regions include interstitial areas of open territory that can provide a wide variety of wild grass grains, and other edible plants such as tubers, berries and other fruits, nuts; and also small and large wild animals over an annual cycle. Besides cultivated food sources, the variety of available foods from gathering, hunting or trapping may revise our view of the socioeconomic patterns of ancient Israel and estimates of the population “carrying capacity” of this type of ecology.


Implications of a Comparative Analysis of the Flora in Three Ecologies and Tribal Village Land Management Practices for the Social Economy of Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Alice Maung-Mercurio, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

This paper presents the findings of the botanical analyses of three ecologies (one ancient and two modern), all of which are described as: semi-arid to arid desert savannah adjacent to pine-forested, rocky hill-country, containing sparse water sources (one river with few tributaries). These ecological analyses hold important implications for understanding early Israelite settlement in the Galilean hill-country, the “carrying capacity” of the hypothesized population of the region, and implications for the development of the economy and culture. This study will review the similarity of climates and ecologies along the 32nd-36th latitudes of northern New Mexico, southern Anatolia/northwestern Syria, and of ancient Israel (from the data that exists in textual and current archaeological sources). The tribal village small-plot agriculture and herding practices of these three regions is compared along with the data regarding the native edible plants of adjacent uncultivated areas. These analyses reveal a complexity and floral diversity of this type of climate and ecology that has not been acknowledged in the literature. This paper will show that in all three ecologies, there is an almost continual availability of foodstuffs that ripen or become available at different times of the year. In certain areas, there are new tubers, berries, fruits and vegetables that mature each “season” so that availability is staggered throughout the seasonal cycles of the year.


In Search of the Missing Probatio: The Audience as Participant in Ancient Speeches
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Kathy Maxwell, Baylor University

The speeches in Acts have long attracted the attention of NT scholars. George Kennedy and others have produced studies of considerable value that examine the Acts speeches in light of the ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric. This study begins with that foundation, but it continues further to consider the purpose of rhetoric in practice. How flexible are the elements of rhetoric? Once a rhetor leaves the declamation schools, in what ways do the skills learned in the classroom grow and change through practice? With these questions in mind, we will examine two speeches in Judith 5 and Acts 24 that stand out because of their “poor” rhetorical construction. I would like to suggest that this “poor” rhetorical construction serves a purpose on the level of text and audience: the speaker deliberately leaves out part of a speech in order to invite and encourage audience participation (for this idea in antiquity see for example Theon, Prog., 106-107 in Pantillon’s translation; and Plutarch, Moralia, “On Listening to Lectures”). If indeed missing speech elements are an invitation for listener participation, the audience may collect information from the surrounding narrative and supply the missing element. Not only does this inform the audience concerning the degree of the speech’s veracity, but finally it also reinforces the inherent point of the speeches. Attentive listeners become active participants in the speeches, creating a connection between the story and the audience. By understanding the way ancient speeches were composed, by noting deviances from these structures, and by drawing conclusions based on observed rhetorical practice, we can hypothesize about the audiences’ reaction to, and indeed participation in, the stories we have examined. In some cases, poor rhetoric may be an intentional device used to invite the audience’s involvement, and therefore investment, in the story.


Transcendental Hyperontology, Primordial Self-Reversion, and the Utility of the Category of "Gnosticism"
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Zeke Mazur, University of Chicago

This paper--- based on my current dissertation research and following up a paper I presented last year at the AAR Platonism and Neoplatonism panel--- will argue (contrary to the predominant trend of recent scholarship) that Gnosticism is still a useful, if fuzzy, structural category, as it helpfully subsumes a cluster of striking conceptual motifs posited by learned sectaries in late antiquity. In particular, I shall call attention to a little-noticed ontogenetic motif that recurs in several texts commonly called “Gnostic.” In this scheme--- which I would call “Primordial Self-Reversion”--- an absolutely transcendent and often hyper-ontic supreme principle produces the subsequent principles (“aeons”) through an eternal act of self-reflection. This is evident in the earliest systems known as “Gnostic” (i.e. in Hippolytus’ account of the teachings of Simon Magus), but also in Valentinian doctrine and in Sethian treatises from Nag Hammadi as well. Although this motif was later adopted with qualifications by Plotinus and subsequent Neoplatonists (as I have argued previously), it appears, interestingly, not to have occurred in mainstream patristic theology, i.e. those systems not typically called “Gnostic.” I shall conclude by suggesting that (1) far from being a kind of pessimistic “dualism,” this scheme is a particular response to the theological problems entailed by the creation of the obviously mediocre cosmos by a hyper-transcendent first principle, and that (2) it would have arisen among sectaries more deeply committed to a certain degree of philosophical coherence than to the authority of revealed scripture.


The African Novel: An Unlikely Source for African Theology?
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Andrew Mbuvi, Duke University

I will be exploring the novels of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, Wole Soyinka vis a vis some of the ideas that are developed in Valentin Mudimbes, Parables and Fables. The aim is to analyze the intriguing interplay of Biblical interpretation and struggle for independence and post-independence critique of corrupt nationalism/s in creative literature. I will analyze how African novelists are engaging the social issues of their day. Perhaps the novelists can offer a more nuanced mode of biblical interpretation in African scholarship than has been hitherto realized.


Sennacherib of Assyria: Architectural Rhetoric and the Claims of the King
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
C. Mark McCormick, Stillman College

Assyriologists have repeatedly illustrated the function of wall reliefs and palace building programs as elements of royal propaganda in ancient Assyria. This paper illustrates how wall reliefs and the architectural features of boundary and access for Room XXXVI in Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh function as a rhetorical claim surpassing all previous kings. The palace not only presents the king as creator and sustainer of the empire’s power in the world, but also makes a unique claim to divine status. Sennacherib’s political/religious claims were not entirely convincing, however, and the end of his reign, as well as the end of his favored city, as archaeological excavations indicate, is evidence that his innovative spirit outstripped his ability to maintain his assertions. This paper will also explore how Sennacherib becomes a rhetorical trope for hubris in biblical texts. The King of Assyria appears in prophetic oracles of Isaiah as a verbal icon of overreaching one’s appropriate status. Ultimately, Sennacherib’s architectural declaration became the hallmark of royal pride, and his royal city a broken monument to unsupported political rhetoric. His political posters claimed more than he was able to sustain.


Eroticism, Death, and Redemption: The Operatic Construct of the Biblical Femme Fatale
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Peter McGrail, Liverpool Hope University College

The paper explores the construct of the biblical femme fatale in three operas based on the story of John the Baptist’s beheading. The manipulation of the biblical data by the librettist/composer are scrutinized; in particular, how the chief female character becomes a complex construct based on themes of desire and death, and sometimes redemption or its failure. The first two operas enact elaborated versions of the biblical story itself – Massenet’s Hérodiade (1880) and Richard Strauss’ Salome (1905). The libretto of the former is based upon a story by Flaubert contained in his Trois Contes (1877); the latter is directly derived from Oscar Wilde’s play (1883). Both radically re-write the biblical story to introduce a powerful erotic element into the relationship between Salome and the Baptist. In Salome this takes the form of Salome’s consuming lust for John; in Massenet’s opera the passion is reciprocal. The link between the bible and the sung text is less direct in the third work, Wagner’s Parsifal (1882), set in the post-biblical world of the legend of the Holy Grail, but in the character of Kundry, Wagner (both librettist and composer) abstracts from the biblical milieu a highly developed image of femme fatale: a wandering Jewess, a mocker of Christ, who was once Herodias. With Kundry the theme of redemption is explored and worked through more fully than in the other operas. The paper will consider the texts in the light of feminist readings of the operas and the biblical data. It will also explore the way in which the musical universe created by each composer develops and intensifies the female constructs found in the libretti, transforming the biblical source texts beyond recognition to construct a vision of woman as, literally, fatale.


"Destroy This Temple": Issues of History in John 2
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
James F. McGrath, Butler University

The proposed paper will provide a case study of the usefulness of the Gospel of John for historical study at those points where John’s information overlaps with that found in other sources. The saying attributed to Jesus in John 2:19, claiming that he said something about the temple being destroyed and rebuilt in three days, is also found in Mark 14:58 and in the Gospel of Thomas. Given that this is one of the rare instances where we have an opportunity for such ‘synoptic’ comparison of John and other sources, it represents an important window into the question of John and history. John’s transformation of the saying is not that different from what we find in other sources, ones that are usually considered to be of greater historical value than John. This paper will note both the evidence that John knew this saying/incident independently of the Synoptics, and also that the author took liberties with the saying in using it in his Gospel. The study will conclude that, in the case of this saying at least, it is impossible to simply place the evidence into airtight categories like ‘history’ or ‘fiction’, since we find evidence of both preservation of information about the past, and new creative reworking of that information.


Was Jesus Illegitimate? The Evidence of His Social Interactions
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
James F. McGrath, Butler University

Recent studies have drawn attention to this question, but with radically varying conclusions, and with little attention to questions of method or the relevance of perspectives from the social sciences. Whereas John P. Meier’s study suggests that Jesus most likely shared the social status of his family, as a part of the skilled laborer class in his village, Bruce Chilton places Jesus into the category of mamzer, an illegitimate child whose reputation and participation in society would be permanently marred by this fact. Yet both sides appear for the most part to overlook the most historically accessible evidence, namely the implications of his interactions with people of various social classes, as compared with the range of interactions possible to someone whose status was marred by illegitimacy. This paper will begin by reviewing the relevant social-scientific data regarding the situation of illegitimate children in first century Mediterranean and Jewish society. These preliminary investigations will provide a basis for assessing whether Jesus’ social status (as evidenced by accounts of his social interactions) fits with that of an illegitimate child. Attention will be drawn in particular to the discrepancy between the suggestion that Jesus was a mamzer, with the social implications that would have had, and the actual activities of Jesus depicted in our sources that appear to reflect authentic historical information, such as the accounts of Jesus teaching in synagogues, and the consternation that his association with the unclean, tax collectors, and ‘sinners’ apparently caused. In investigating the evidence for Jesus’ social status, attention must be paid to the social realities that are assumed by the historically authentic traditions about Jesus, and not just the explicit claims made therein.


Imperial Echoes in Jesus’ Cursing of the Fig Tree in Mark
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Rachel A. McGuire, Institute for Christian Studies

Biblical memory evoked by Jesus’ parabolic action (withering of the fig tree) exposes longstanding imperial strategies for establishing hegemony over the faith community. Five specific imperial strategies are discerned through the investigation of three promising intertextualities. 1) The parable of the trees (Judges 9:8-15), recalls the corrupt leadership of Abimelech and the resulting violence in Shechem. Read through Jesus’ action, this parable raises questions about connections between Abimelech’s use of wealth and patronage and that of first century Palestinian leaders. 2) The killing of the tree in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 4:13-16) generates startling insights into the economic and political practices of first century leaders and their distinguishability/indistinguishability from the practices of the leaders of the nations. Have Palestinian leaders, like Daniel, retained integrity in the face of pressure? Or have they allowed their names to be changes and their religious convictions to be weakened in exchange for offerings of wealth? And 3) Sennecherib’s duplicitous claim to Judah that the Assyrian Empire will provide each with her “own vine and fig tree” (2 Kings 18:31-32) raises the issue of manipulating religious rhetoric as an imperial tactic. Are Jesus’ followers, like the Judeans, being called to distinguish between the true fig tree promised by Yahweh and the false fig tree promised by the Romans? Might Jesus see comparisons between the false promises of the Assyrians and the false promises of Pax Romana (as both vie for the allegiance of the people)? Might Jesus be highlighting the difference between those human powers that falsely claim the power to provide prosperity (like a deceptively leafy but ultimately fruitless fig tree) and God who is the creator and sustainer of all that exists?


Greek Sanctuaries: Location and Function in Greek Religious Topography
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Jeremy McInerney, University of Pennsylvania

In this paper I offer an overview of the various functions of Greek sanctuaries by concentrating on their location in the religious and secular landscapes of Greece. Drawing on the work of François de Polignac I examine the role of sanctuaries as neutral spaces mediating competition first between aristocrats and later between emerging city states. While this approach has been usefully employed to elucidate a centre-periphery model of official religion in the Greek city-states, less attention has been payed to the border lands, and I will attempt to show that in a variety of ways, ranging from the psychological to the economic, border lands were dangerous areas best assigned to the gods. Accordingly, this paper is not restricted to the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia but will also examine smaller, local sanctuaries, their land, and their administrative structures.


The Horse in Warfare in Ancient Israel: A Rereading of the Biblical Texts
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Heather McKay, Edge Hill College

In 2004, Robert Drews published Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe his important assemblage of the archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence for the role of the horse in ancient warfare - along with his substantial critique of the theoretical constructions based on that evidence. He worked painstakingly through the European, Asian and Egyptian evidence from the fourth millennium BCE to Roman times but did not discuss biblical materials in any detail, making reference only in passing to texts from Isaiah, Jeremiah and Job. The insights gained from his discussion will be brought to bear on biblical texts that treat of horses in battle, in particular, the powerful and long-lived role of the horse as the power provider in war chariots and the more short-lived successes of mounted raiders. This paper will re-examine the biblical data using Drews's findings to clarify and enrich the interpretation of those texts that refer to the military role of horses and misconceptions in current interpretations will be highlighted.


Priesthood, Taxation, and Rome: The Art of Compromise
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
James McLaren, Australian Catholic University

The paper will challenge the widely held view that the Jewish priesthood, especially the elite high-priestly families, willingly accepted the imposition of Roman rule and that they also eagerly adopted the role of being the local representatives of imperial rule. For much New Testament scholarship the high-priesthood has replaced the Pharisees as the antithesis of everything espoused by people like Jesus, who called for reform and change. It will be argued that elements of the high-priesthood may have tolerated Roman rule but that they also aspired to the removal of Roman rule and took an active role initiating the revolt in 66 CE. There are two main components of the paper. One is a discussion of how Josephus’ narrative should be read as a critique of Rome. The other main component is a discussion of the Jewish coinage produced during the first revolt, especially the silver coins.


The Greek Translations of Daniel 4–6
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
R. Timothy McLay, St. Stephen's University

It is widely acknowledged that the OG in Daniel chapters 4–6 is significantly different from Th/MT. As a matter of fact, these chapters are so distinct from Th/MT that there are hardly any verbal agreements between the Greek texts. Therefore, the fact that there are occasional agreements raises the question as to their nature and origins. There are only three possible explanations for these agreements: 1) they are due to Th revising or employing the wording of OG; 2) they are coincidental; or 3) they are due to textual corruption. Given the almost complete lack of agreement between the OG and Th/MT for these chapters, the most reasonable presupposition for a text-critical analysis is to question any textual agreements between the OG and Th for these chapters. Based on the expansion of the OG with readings that agree consistently and usually verbatim with Th, it is argued that the agreements in these chapters are due to Th influence on the OG. In this sense Montgomery and Bludau were correct to refer to the many additions and corruptions to the OG, but it has not been demonstrated before that many of these corruptions to the OG may be isolated to Th.


Destructive Demons or Suicidal Swine in Matthew 8:28–34, Mark 5:1–20, Luke 8:26–39?
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Samuel A. Meier, Ohio State University, The

An overwhelming consensus accepts as a matter of course that when Jesus expelled demons on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the subsequent lemming-like behavior of nearby pigs is to be attributed to the malevolent character of the demons. A reanalysis of the distinctive features of this account as it appears in each of the synoptic gospels demonstrates that other presuppositions from overlooked cultural perspectives (both from the Old Testament and the Greco-Roman environment) combine to counter this consensus. These pigs commit suicide. This conclusion has important ramifications for the presentation of Jesus in his role as exorcist and for the function of this story in its present contexts.


Profitable and Unprofitable Shepherds: Economic and Theological Perspectives on Ezekiel 34
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Ezekiel 34 appears to stand out amongst the prophet’s oracles of restoration for the degree of genuine concern YHWH shows for the people of Israel. This raises the question whether there is a contrast to be drawn with the more theocentric, and indeed harsher images of restoration to be found elsewhere in the book (see e.g. Schwarz 2000). In ch. 34 YHWH is portrayed as the good shepherd who cares for his sheep and, especially among Christian commentators, there is a tendency to read this passage in the light of its subsequent interpretation in John’s gospel as representing divine love and even self-sacrifice. However, closer attention to the economics of shepherding presupposed by the oracle is revealing. YHWH is presented as the owner of sheep, whose hired hands, the ‘shepherds of Israel’, have failed to perform their duties of care and protection. In economic terms the problems are those of misappropriation of property and the failure to produce an adequate profit, and the disadvantage to the owner is of more significance than the suffering of the sheep. With this in mind, it may be better to understand YHWH’s recovery and protection of his flock as primarily part of the demonstration of divine might that characterises the restoration oracles more generally. The logic of the oracle is therefore of a piece with the refrain of chapter 36: ‘it is not for your sake, O Israel, that I am about to do this, but for the sake of my holy name’.


The Elect and the Election: What Isaiah 42:6, Sanctimonious Language, Political Posturing, and Tom DeLay Have in Common
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Janet Ross Melnyk, Clark Atlanta University

"This ideal of America is the hope of all...That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it." George W. Bush. The familiar mandate found in Isaiah 42.6 and again in chapter 49.6 identifies the election of 'you' the audience, as "a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth". The universality of this mission to bring divine salvation has carried heavy implications throughout history, as it continues to bear on current biblical/theological and political issues. Such an identification of a universalistic faith meant to offer the sole possibility of salvation necessarily implies that all other religions (or even other versions of the same religion) are false and, therefore, dangerous to the spiritual well-being of the faithful. Also implied is a community sense of moral superiority that begs a closer look at the confluence of ideas of community, religion, and politics. This paper will explore ways in which the readers of this text have negotiated the ideologies of politics and religion, first as separate ideological constructs, but then as a unique ideology that occurs when political and religious ideologies become inseparable through the use of pious rhetoric and especially ideological memory. Or, in other words, the ideological identification of those who have been the elect, those who are the elect, and those who are not will be analyzed. Next, this paper will look at Tom DeLay as an example of "political fundamentalism," defined by as the combination of "theological fundamentalism and the personal commitments of religious adherents to combat worldly vices." Here, too, the religious ideology that becomes inseparable from the political ideology, the identity construction, and finally the sense of moral superiority in connection with an idea of manifest destiny will be considered.


Isaiah and the Morality of the American Dream
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Roy F. Melugin, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University

The freedom to pursue one's own individual self interest represents the glory of America, according to many. The prophet Isaiah, however, reflects a different moral vision -- a vision of a just and righteous social and political order, with princes who plead for widow and orphan and a Davidic heir who rules in justice and righteousness. If, in a teaching and learning environment, the Isaianic tradition is approached from the hermeneutical perspective of use theory as a body of precedents to be discussed and evaluated for possible present-day usage, we find there precedents which envision governance as having the responsibility of protecting society's weakest members (e.g., widows and orphans) from those who would oppress them. There are also traditions in the Hebrew Bible which quite explicitly mandate a certain degree of redistribution of wealth for the sake of protection of the poor. This paper emphasizes theory concerning precedents because precedents are utterances created in an earlier context which can appropriately be applied and reapplied in later contexts. In our present-day crisis about society's moral responsibilities toward the poor, precedents long respected both in Judaism and Christianity (and even in much of Western secular culture) could contribute significantly to discussion of public morality.


Embodiment in the Book of Daniel and the Problem of Divine Presence, Absence, and Power
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Amy C. Merrill Willis, Gonzaga University

It has often been argued that the function of apocalyptic literature is to answer questions concerning theodicy. The present study proposes to address the question by reframing it as a problem of divine presence and absence and then noting the way in which the problem seeks resolution in Daniel’s graphic depictions of embodied power. The point of departure for this paper is the recognition of a persistent cognitive and experiential dissonance at work in the Book of Daniel. This paper will examine how that dissonance is continually expressed and resolved in the various visions. This study will argue that this dissonance is rooted in the community’s perceived absence (or complicity) of the Most High in the success of Seleucid power. The paper will then argue that chapters 2,7, and 8 use differing models of divine embodiment and disembodiment to resolve the dissonance, often in paradoxical ways.


Pure, Impure, Permitted, Prohibited: A Study of Classification Systems in P
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Naphtali S. Meshel, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

The dichotomies pure/impure and prohibited/permitted are frequently used for the ritual classification of animal species. Often, as in the traditional Israelite system, the categories "pure" and "permitted" overlap, as do "impure" and "prohibited". The rationale for this overlap in Biblical law is that animals considered impure by nature should not be consumed by a holy nation (D) or by a community striving for holiness (H). The Priestly authors of Leviticus 11 rejected this binary system, and developed (in three or four historical stages) a more intricate one, that included four possible combinations: impure and prohibited; impure and permitted; pure and prohibited; pure and permitted. The complexity of the system proves even greater, as it applies both to the consumption of animals and to contact with their carcasses. By formulating a taxonomy in which the animal’s status within the permitted/prohibited system is independent of its status within the pure/impure system, the authors claimed that permission and prohibition are divine decrees (nomos), imposed upon nature (physis), not inherent in it. This analysis accords with Lévi-Strauss’s theory that animal categorization systems cannot be explained on narrow, materialistic grounds, but rather serve to express theoretical messages concerning the relationship between nature and culture.


The Textual Traditions of Leviticus and the Oxford Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Sarianna Metso, Albion College

This paper presents a preview of my project of preparing a critical edition of the book of Leviticus for the Oxford Hebrew Bible project. The purpose of this collaborative project is to produce critical editions for all the books of the Hebrew Bible, taking into account for the first time the full Hebrew manuscript evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unlike earlier 'diplomatic' editions of the Hebrew Bible, in which a single manuscript is selected as the base text against which textual variants in other manuscripts are mirrored, this 'critical' edition will present a text that is a compilation of the best readings from all the manuscripts available, whether from the Dead Sea Scrolls or from other important ancient textual witnesses. The text-critical study of Leviticus opens up interesting insights into wider questions of the textual development as well. I will examine a few examples of cases (1) how the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts enhance our knowledge of the original text of Leviticus and provide readings superior to the Masoretic text, (2) how the book of Leviticus in the course of its textual development gradually evolved from a handbook of cultic rituals into a book of scripture, (3) how the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts of Leviticus show that the Old Greek text was faithfully translated from an ancient Hebrew text that was simply different from the traditional Masoretic text, and (4) how the text of Leviticus was used in the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period.


Figurine Form and Function: An Archaeological Response
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Carol Meyers, Duke University

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What Ever Has Happened to the Dialogue between Archaeology and Biblical Studies in an Age of Conservatism?
Program Unit: Future of the Past: Biblical and Cognate Studies for the Twenty-First Century
Eric Meyers, Duke University

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Unlocking the Secret of Meter in Hebrew Poetry
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
David Miano, University of California, San Diego

Exegetes since the Greco-Roman period have grappled with the Hebrew Bible's poetry in the hope that they would be able to find the system of rhythm that governed its composition. It is generally agreed that, with the possible exception of the poetry of the Prophets, the majority of poems were once set to music and sung by the ancient Israelites, but the lack of any useful literature from antiquity on the subject, or clear-cut internal data, has posed a serious challenge to metrical analysis. To this day there is still no consensus about the rhythmical structure of the poetry, and most scholars have stopped trying to find the answer. The difficulties have even caused some to doubt the existence of meter in the Biblical poems. This paper shall return to the heart of the issue and offer some additional insights and a new solution to the problem.


Did God Come to Praise Job or Bury Him? YHWHs Pride in Job and Leviathan in the Second Speech from the Whirlwind
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
J. Richard Middleton, Roberts Wesleyan College

The Book of Job is an artful, complex, polyvalent text, whose meanings have exercised interpreters for millenia. Among the oft-debated hermeneutical issues is the divergence between the perspective found in the poetic dialogues and the prose framework of the book. One egregious divergence between the dialogues and the framework is the tension or contradiction between 1) God's explicit approval of Job's abrasive complaint, in contrast to that of his friends' speech (stated twice in the prose epilogue) and 2) God's implicit rebuke of Job's arrogance at daring to question divine justice, a rebuke that is followed by Job's 'repentance'. Without claiming to provide any definitive resolution of the tension between dialogue and prose framework, this paper will engage in a close reading of God's speeches and Job's response, with a focus on the second speech. My purpose will be to explore the wild possibility that God's intentions in the speeches might actually cohere with the explicit approbation given Job in the prose epilogue. Central to my reading of the second speech will be three questions: First, what is the status of God's appeal to the primordial monsters, Behemoth and Leviathan? Secondly, of what does Job 'repent' in his response to the second speech? And, thirdly, why is there a second speech at all? In answering these questions it will become clear that God greatly values both Job and Leviathan in their untamed wildness.


Let Not the Foreigner Say the LORD Will Surely Separate Me from His People: The Inclusive Vision of Isaiah 56 and Contested Ethical Practices in the Ancient and Contermporary World
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
J. Richard Middleton, Roberts Wesleyan College

The inclusive vision of Isaiah 56 may be understood as addressing (and critiquing) practices of exclusion in postexilic Yehud mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah. While both Isaiah 56 and Nehemiah 13 seem to interact with the same Mosaic legislation concerning the exclusion of certain categories of people from full participation in the community of Israel (Deut 23), their response to this legislation is widely divergent. This paper examines the fruitfulness of using Isaiah 56, in the context of contested ethical practices in ancient Israel, for teaching a biblical vision of social justice in the contemporary world. Based on my experience of studying Isaiah 56 with theologically conservative Christian college and seminary students, the paper will explore a hermeneutical framework for understanding the contested nature of inclusino and exclusion in Scripture that opens up honest discussion of such questions among Christians of divergent opinions.


The Distress Signals of Didache Research—Quest for a Viable Future
Program Unit: Didache in Context
Aaron Milavec, Center for the Study of Religion and Society

My paper will formulate a status questiones addressing the current crisis within Didache research. Firstly, I will provide a brief overview of how Adolph Harnack and, after him, how Jean-Paul Audet succeeded in giving a determined direction to Didache research. In so doing, the Didache took on a discernable identity and was perceived to contribute to the pressing academic discussions of the day. Secondly, I will show why scholars during the last twenty years have largely abandoned both Harnack and Audet and left us with no persuasive origination hypothesis or research program to guide our way. The field of Didache scholarship is thus in disarray and unable to substantially contribute to the academic questions of our day. This explains why, during a twenty-year period when the number of participants and the number of papers was increasing three-fold during the annual meetings of the SBL, the number of persons addressing the Didache remained at a low standstill. Finally, therefore, I hope to sketch out a possible future for resolving the current crisis. In so doing, I will name certain practices and lines of inquiry that even now may be preparing for such a resolution. I will close with a visionary hope that the Didache will someday be included within standard editions of the New Testament.


Flow Charts for the Didache
Program Unit: Poster Session
Aaron Milavec, Professor Emeritus

A flow chart is a pictorial representation describing a process under examination. In my case, I have made use of flow charts by way of making plain the implied logic and progression of topics found in the Didache. Flow charts enable my students and my readers to grasp the overarching unity of the text and to visualize how the parts are juxtaposed within that unity. My display will include four posters (24x34). One poster will list the advantages of using flow charts and three will illustrate this with blow-ups of the charts drawn from my research on the text of the Didache.


The Syntax of Comparative Constructions
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Cynthia L. Miller, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Comparative constructions in Biblical Hebrew encompass a wide range of constructions involving a variety of comparative words (e.g., k-, ken, koh, min). Crucially, many comparative constructions involve ellipsis of varying kinds and to varying degrees. Syntactically, ellipsis may occur at either the phrase or clause level. On the phrase level, an anaphoric pronoun may replace a full noun phrase, as in Num 23:10 ‘and may my end be like his [end]’ (described as “blitz” by M. O’Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure [Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 1980], 122). On the clausal level, comparative constructions may be the result of ellipsis of the verb and sometimes additional constituents, as in Isa 11:7: ‘and the lion will eat straw like the ox [eats straw]’. In some exceptional cases, the comparative clause is severely reduced to such an extent that the original argument structure is obscured, as in Isa 10:14 where the preposition l- has been deleted in the surface structure: ‘My hand found (l-) the wealth of the peoples like [my hand found l-] a nest’. Other kinds of comparative constructions, however, do not rely on syntactic processes. Instead, the interpretation of the sentence depends upon the reader filling in semantic or pragmatic information, as in the common expression k-X k-Y ‘like X like Y’. From a linguistic point of view, comparative constructions also raise a number of issues. Most centrally, linguists have debated whether ellipsis involving comparatives is distinct from other elliptical processes in a language, and whether phrasal and clausal comparative constructions can be understood together.


The Messenger, the Lord, and the Coming Judgement in the Reception History of Malachi 3
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
David Miller, Briercrest College

Given early Christian identification of John the Baptist with both the returning Elijah of Mal 3:22-24 and the messenger of Mal 3:1, it is surprising that scholars seldom consider how Malachi's early readers interpreted the prediction of Elijah's return within the wider context of Malachi 3. Instead of interpreting Mal 3:22-24 atomistically, I will argue that Ben Sira, 4QMessianic Apocalypse (4Q521), as well as the New Testament writings attributed to Luke, integrate Elijah's return into the larger eschatological scenario of Malachi 3. In each case, this holistic reading strategy links God's judgement more closely to the activity of the characters mentioned in Mal 3:1, 22-4 than a casual reading of Mal 3:22-24 might suggest.


Mangy Mutt or Man's Best Friend? Rethinking the Old Testament Dog in Light of the Book of Tobit
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Geoffrey D. Miller, Catholic University of America

In his influential 1960 article, “Kelebh ‘Dog’: Its Origin and Some Uses of It in the Old Testament,” D. Winton Thomas argued that the Israelites viewed dogs as vile, contemptible creatures. Many scholars have since followed his lead, but their claims have been built on insufficient evidence. First, while it is true that many OT texts portray canines in a negative light (e.g., David calls himself a “dead dog” in 1 Sam 24:15), not all references to dogs are negative. Some are merely neutral, and a few show that the Israelites valued dogs. Job 30:1 reveals that they were used for herding sheep, and the Book of Tobit presents a dog who serves as a lovable travel companion. Second, Israel’s neighbors all cherished canines, especially the Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks. This was further confirmed by the archaeological discovery of thousands of dog burials at Ashkelon in the mid 1980’s. The dog was greatly appreciated and utilized in the ancient Near East, and it is odd that Israel would be the only group to abhor them. A look at the Book of Tobit as well as archaeological and textual evidence from Israel’s neighboring cultures will demonstrate that the claims of Winton and others are exaggerations. The Israelites often used the word keleb derisively, but their attitude towards dogs was not entirely negative.


Jesus at Thirty: A Psychological and Historical Portrait
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
John W. Miller, Conrad Grebel College

A summary and retrospective overview of the book Jesus at Thirty: A Psychological and Historical Portrait by John W. Miller.


Paul’s Dream at Troas: Reconsidering the Interpretations of Characters and Commentators
Program Unit: Book of Acts
John B. F. Miller, McMurry University

Paul’s dream-vision at Troas (Acts 16:6-10) is perhaps the most perplexing visionary encounter in Luke’s narrative. Prevented by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus from proclaiming the word in Phrygia, Galatia, and Bythinia (16:6-7), Paul and his fellow travelers come to Troas where “a vision appears to Paul during the night” (16:9). Whereas other visions in Luke-Acts typically feature some sort of divine agent (e.g., an angel or a voice from heaven), this one depicts a Macedonian man requesting help. Although God is mentioned nowhere in the narration of the event, the characters in the story immediately interpret Paul’s vision as divine direction (16:10). Commentators almost universally accept this conclusion; some even treat the passage as a commission scene, parallel to the Holy Spirit’s commission of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13:1-4. If Paul’s vision is such a breakthrough moment, however, Paul’s experience in Macedonia is surely an anticlimax. Paul’s reception in Philippi is abysmal, and even the moderate success of the mission in Thessalonica and Beroea pales in comparison to that found in Acts 13-14. It is not until Paul reaches Achaia (as distinct from Macedonia [cf. Acts 18:12, 27; 19:21]) that the mission begins to flourish once again. After discussing the Troas episode within the narrative context of Acts 13-17, the present paper will argue that the characters’ act of interpreting Paul’s vision is crucial for understanding this and other dream-vision stories in Luke-Acts.


Dream-Visions and the Experience of God in Luke-Acts
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
John B. F. Miller, McMurry University

Dreams and visions are an important vehicle for divine communication in Luke-Acts. Unfortunately, many treatments of the dream-vision passages in these texts have ignored them as examples of religious experience, suggesting instead that they represent something approaching divine compulsion (e.g., Haenchen’s well-known depiction of the visions in the Cornelius-Peter episode as “very nearly the twitching of human puppets”). Such interpretations oversimplify Luke’s depiction of visionary encounters, and thereby obscure them as presentations of the religious experience of people in Luke’s story. This issue is complicated by the fact that some of the visionary episodes are rather flat, depicting situations in which a person receives a divine command in a dream-vision and immediately obeys it (e.g., Philip in Acts 8:26-40). A careful reading of the dream-visions in Luke-Acts, however, reveals that exceptions abound: in a number of passages, Luke presents people struggling to understand their encounter with God or God’s agent (e.g., Saul/Paul in Acts 9:1-19 [along with the retellings in 22:6-21 and 26:12-18], and Peter in Acts 10:1 – 11:18). After examining several of these passages, the proposed paper will discuss their import for describing and defining the experience of God in these texts. Contrary to earlier dismissals of dream-visions as divine compulsion, I will argue that Luke presents people interpreting their visionary encounters, and that this act of interpretation is an inextricable part of defining the way people experience God in Luke-Acts.


The Renewal of the Earth. Mark's Gospel and the New Creation
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Susan Miller, University of Glasgow

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the role of apocalyptic eschatology in the denigration of the earth by human beings. This paper aims to examine Mark's portrayal of the earth in relation to his understanding of the new creation. In Mark, Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God in terms of the miraculous growth of plants and an abundant harvest. At the same time he permits demons to lead a herd of pigs to their deaths in the sea, and he also curses a fig tree because it has failed to produce fruit. Jesus has power to still storms and multiply loaves in the desert but he is condemned to death by his human enemies. At the crucifixion nature responds by covering the earth in darkness for three hours until Jesus dies. He gives his life as a covenant between God and humanity but also with the whole of creation. His death inaugurates the new creation, and the fig tee which has been cursed will flourish again in the new age. In Mark, the abundance of the new creation does not come about through the subduing of the earth by force but by the sacrificial way of the cross.


The Woman at the Well: John's Portrayal of the Samaritan Mission
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Susan Miller, University of Glasgow

The account of the meeting of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John's gospel contains several similarities to the synoptic description of the encounter of Jesus with the Syrophoenician woman in Mark and the Canaanite woman in Matthew. In both accounts a meeting between Jesus and a woman is developed into a narrative that supports the mission to those outside Israel.The conversations focus on the sharing of water and bread, and in this way are related to purity issues between Jews, Samaritans, and gentiles. These issues reflect current conflicts in the gospel communities. In both accounts Jesus meets the women alone. In John, the disciples are surprised to find Jesus talking to a woman, and in Matthew the disciples urge Jesus to send the woman away. A comparison between the account of the Samaritan woman and the portrayal of the Syrophoenician woman also points to tensions between John's community and the Pharisees over the Samaritan mission. In both narratives Jesus withdraws to Samaria and gentile territory on account of conflicts with the Pharisees. John, moreover, juxtaposes the positive account of the woman's faith with the lack of understanding of the Pharisee, Nicodemus. There is also a later indication that some Pharisees become followers of Jesus (8:13, 31), and they accuse him of being a Samaritan. This passage is concerned with the question of the legitimate children of Abraham, which is also an issue of tension between Jews and Samaritans.


Power, Eros, and Biblical Genres
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Christine Mitchell, St. Andrew's College

For most of the past century, the study of genre in biblical scholarship has been the purview (implicit or explicit) of form-criticism. The goal of this paper is two-fold: 1. to detach the study of biblical genres from the exclusive purview of form criticism; while 2. reconceptualizing genre as a site of politics, a politics constructed by the operation of power and eros. “Genre as power” was a part of the efforts in literary criticism of the late 1980s and 1990s to rethink genre theory, and in this paper it is combined with a political conception of eros (as in Plato), in order to understand the motivation of the power operative in genre. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Deleuze, Girard, Bakhtin, and others, I outline what this understanding of genre might imply for biblical texts and biblical studies.


The Power of Genre in Chronicles
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Christine Mitchell, St. Andrew's College

In this paper I attempt to understand the power of genre in Chronicles. I begin by reading the source citation formulae of Chronicles and Kings. The source citations have previously only been examined in terms of their historical reliability, the existence of the putative sources, or the location of the citations synoptically within the narratives. Instead, I focus initially on the literary form and context. The standard formula of Kings, “Are they not written in…?” is contrasted with the standard formula of Chronicles, “Behold they are written in…”. From these readings, I examine how these citation formulae operate generically, pointing to the innovativeness of the Chronicler within generic expectations. This leads to an examination of how genre operates as a locus of power in Chronicles, going beyond an equation of genre with form to seeing genre as operation.


F. C. Baur and Christian Origins: Pauline Scholarship and Universalism in the 20th Century
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Matthew W. Mitchell, Dalhousie University

Despite the appearance of reprints and renewed attempts to “update” his work in recent years, F.C. Baur’s reputation in English-language biblical scholarship has remained relatively stable throughout the 20th century. Most scholarly assessments of his work characterize it as overly simplified, and as dependent upon idealized, philosophical abstractions and presuppositions derived from Hegel’s writings. This paper surveys the prevalence of this presentation of Baur among Pauline scholars, and argues that Baur’s understanding of Paul and Gentile Christianity is adequately explained by his view that Paul’s gospel was a universal message that contrasted sharply with his exclusivistic Jewish heritage. Despite the influence of the New Perspective in Pauline studies in the latter years of the 20th century, it is precisely on this point that Baur’s views have the most in common with those of contemporary scholars, even those who consciously present themselves as sharply opposed to his legacy.


"Give Us a King": The Triumph of Satire in 1 Samuel 8
Program Unit: Poster Session
Eric A. Mitchell, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

This dissertation is a literary examination of the Israelite request for kingship in 1 Samuel 8 with satire in view as its genre. The dissertation presents a detailed literary exegesis of the passage using the colometric typography as a basis to analyze the text of 1 Samuel 8 with regard to satire utilizing a modified form of Fokkelman’s levels. The concluding chapter includes a summary of the rhetoric of the author of 1 Samuel 8 as well as contextual and theological implications to reading 1 Samuel 8 as satire. This work contends that both Yahweh's and Samuel's speeches combine in the form a judgment speech to the nation of Israel. Samuel's mišpati hammelek is a parodic satire upon the object of the elders' request for a king (i.e., the king himself). This parody of the kingship ideal found in Deut 17:14-20 includes direct references to Canaanite kingship as well as casual references to the covenant curses found in Deuteronomy 28 in order to satirize the object of the elders' request. The mišpati hammelek, as a "judgment concerning the king who will reign over you" (8:11b-c), is not a judgment upon kingship but a judgment upon the request that rejects Yahweh's rule as king-deliverer over Israel. The greater unit of 1 Samuel 8-12 also shows a satiric dialectic that is subtly anti-Saul but not anti-monarchy. This study argues that 1 Samuel 8 is religio-political satire seeking to reform the deviation from the covenantal norm of Yahweh's kingship as well as Yahweh-initiated (i.e., prophet anointed) kingship. It is asserted here that 1 Samuel 8 and 8-12 is pro-Davidic in nature and was perhaps used as anti-Saulide political propaganda during the reign of Ish-bosheth.


The Letter of James as a Document of Paulinism?
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Margaret M. Mitchell, University of Chicago

In this paper I seek to reframe the debate about the relationship between the Letter of James and Paul, away from the assumption that James must represent a version of "anti-Paulinism" and toward the possibility that James represents an inner-Paulinist response to some of the hermeneutical dilemmas created by Galatians and then exacerbated by its contextual position in the early edition of the corpus Paulinum. If it can be shown that James knows not just Galatians, but also 1 Corinthians, then is it possible that this author is responding to the same perceived difficulty that later patristic authors did: how to reconcile Paul with himself, and Paul with the "pillars" on which the church stands? Other second and third generation texts that are indisputably "Paulinist," such as 1 Clement and the Letter of Polycarp, also amalgamate faith and deeds in justification, but, perhaps because they do not use the rhetorical figure of prosopopoiia (itself a technique favored by Paul!), are never accused of anti-Paulinism. Has the assumption that James is somehow arguing against a monolithic Paul -- identified solely with Gal 2:16 -- blinded us to the Pauline sensibilities so comfortably assumed by this author, who may, like the author of the Pastorals and that of Acts, be seeking to secure his version of Paul's teaching through compromise and attribution to one of the "pillars"?


Are Monotheism and Election Bad for You?
Program Unit:
WalterMoberly, University of Durham

*


"Managing the Audience": The Rhetoric of Authorial Intent, Formal Poetics, and Reader Comprehension in Hellenistic Narrative Epistemology
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
David P. Moessner, University of Dubuque

"If the reader has become part of the action, is caught up by the language, the question of what the passage ‘means’ does not arise. Once the desired effect has been achieved, there is no need, or room, for interpretation." [Jane Tompkins, “The Reader in History: The Changing Shape of Literary Response”]* Contra Tompkins’ observations concerning audience impact in the ancient world, diegetic theory in the Hellenistic period had developed a rather sophisticated system of 'arrangement' (oikonomia) in which an author’s overarching purpose (telos) for the composition is realized through discrete poetic strategies that ensure audience comprehension and approbation of authorial interpretations of events. The Hellenistic composers Polybius of Megalopolis, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Diodorus Siculus, in particular, provide extensive discussions of their main diegetic ‘methods of development’ (exargasia) through which they will ‘manage’ (oikonomeo) their audiences to understandings of events that will conform and build to match the author’s own ideological construals of the larger narrative whole. This paper will present the most significant discussions in Polybius’ Histories, Diodorus’ Library of History, and in Dionysius’ literary treatises On Demosthenes and On Thucydides. It will be argued that by ‘re-visiting’ authorial intent in Hellenistic narrative, contemporary biblical and literary criticisms can carve some new and incisive inroads into evaluating postmodernism’s deconstructions of the authorial-purpose--audience-response nexus. Moreover, the Hellenistic hermeneutic of 'audience management' can shed new light on the Gospel writers’ choices of poetic-rhetorical devices which intend to elicit specific audience comprehensions of both part and whole. In particular, Luke’s Gospel prologue and John 20:31 will be examined within the larger diegetic-rhetorical panoramas of each Gospel. *J. P. TOMPKINS, (ed.), Reader-Response Criticism. From Formalism to Post-Structuralism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), p. 203.


The Women of Gilgamesh and Rahab of Jericho: The Use of Female Roles in the Composition of Canonical Texts
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Lauren A. S. Monroe, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

This paper grows out of a communication I presented in 1998 at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society, entitled "Female Roles in the Gilgamesh Epic." In this paper I argued that the introduction of prominent female roles (most notably, Aruru, Siduri and Shamhat) originated with the epic’s composition as a literary text in the Old Babylonian period, and that the Old Babylonian author deliberately added these roles in order to create an avenue by which s/he could explore themes that were essential to the epic’s cohesiveness and its composition as an epic. In the present paper I will suggest that in the biblical account of the Israelites' conquest of Jericho, the prostitute Rahab was likewise added at a secondary phase in the composition of the text, and that the addition of her character served a similar narrative function. The idea that women might function as literary devices whose purpose was to lend voice to central textual themes may bring into focus aspects of the compositional process, as well as illuminate certain attitudes towards women that are often obscured from view.


Women at the Empty Tomb: Divinely Appointed Agents, Not Mere Witnesses
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Anne Moore, University of Calgary

The story of the women at the Empty Tomb (Mark 16:1-8; Matthew 28:1-11a and Luke 23:56b-24:12) has been repeatedly discussed in reference to the role of the women as witnesses to the Easter story. However, it is apparent that the various authors and/or editors employed specific type-scenes or narrative patterns from the Hebrew Bible. These type scenes include: the commission story and the annunciation story. The commission story is found in twenty-seven stories in the Hebrew Bible. In all of the stories, the main human character is selected or commissioned, by God, as His agent; further, despite various difficulties or avoidance on the part of the human protagonist, God’s commission is always successful performed. The annunciation story is associated with the prophecy of the birth of a child. The ‘structural’ intertextuality between the Hebrew Bible narrative patterns and the empty tomb stories produces a different reading of the gospel material and a particular understanding of the women at the empty tomb. The women are NOT mere witnesses of the Easter event; they are agents commissioned by God to perform a specific task or they are the vehicles through which the birth of the new good news will be delivered. The intertextuality reconfigures the women from ‘witnesses’ to divinely appointed agents.


A New Testament Studies Perspective
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Stephen D. Moore, Drew University

A review and evaluation of recent developments and major prospects in the literary criticism of the New Testament, with special attention to treatments of the gospels.


Words of Wisdom: The Sermon on the Mount, the Easy Yoke, and Matthew's Wisdom Christology
Program Unit: Matthew
Rodrigo J. Morales, Duke University

This paper uses Jesus’ call to take up his easy yoke in Matt 11:25-30 as a springboard to explore various facets of Matthew’s wisdom Christology. The paper first considers the figure of Lady Wisdom in the OT and various Second Temple Jewish sources in order to help explain the apparent strangeness in characterizing Jesus, a man, with features of Wisdom, traditionally portrayed as a feminine figure. Next, the paper explores some of the allusions to Sirach 24 and 51 in Matt 11:25-30, suggesting that Matthew presents Jesus both as Wisdom incarnate and, therefore, also as Sage par excellence. Given this initial connection between Sirach and Matthew, the paper then suggests some other allusions to Sirach in the Sermon on the Mount, as well as considering some parallels to the Sermon in the DSS to demonstrate some of the wisdom features of the Sermon. In particular, the Sermon is framed at both the beginning and the end by wisdom material, and the equation of Wisdom with Torah in Sirach 24 sheds light on the intermingling of wisdom and Law themes in Matthew 5-7. The paper then proposes a link between the Sermon on the Mount and Matt 11:25-30, namely that the easy yoke to which Jesus refers in the latter text is his teaching in the Sermon. Finally, the paper makes some preliminary steps toward connecting this reading with other aspects of Matthew’s Gospel. In particular, this wisdom Christology dovetails well with one of Matthew’s most prominent christological titles, ‘Son of David.’ As the original anointed son of David was renowned for his wisdom, so now Matthew’s Son of David in a greater way (cf. Matt 12:42) embodies the Wisdom that instructed Solomon.


Re-thinking Earliest Christianity in Jerusalem in Light of Recent Archaeology
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Milton Moreland, Rhodes College

Prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, it is probable that a small Christian group lived in or around the city. By incorporating new archaeological and anthropological data, this paper proposes that a reasonable portrayal of the group can be constructed. Based on excavations of domestic areas and markets from Early Roman Jerusalem, we can begin to reconstruct some aspects of the day to day activities and living conditions of the residents. The paper also examines the extent to which the Roman military presence and temple administrators would have affected the group’s ability to have a public presence in the city. The result of this study is a picture of early Christianity in Jerusalem that contrasts in many ways to other reconstructions that are based solely or primarily on ancient literary sources.


The `Hand' of Saul in 1 Samuel 15:12: Do We Have an Early Israelite Inscription?
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Scott Morschauser, Rowan University

I Samuel 15 is a pivotal chapter in the Biblical history of Saul's reign, as the king is condemned for his failure to carry out "holy war" against the Amalekites. A curious feature of the narrative, however, is a little-noted allusion in v. 12, to the monarch's having erected a monument (lit. "hand") in Carmel. Although commentators generally regard its mention as a literary and theological device to demonstrate Saul's arrogance, references to such items are fairly limited in the Hebrew Scriptures, and should not be dismissed out of hand. Given the rarity of the practice in the Scriptural record, one wonders why such an object would be linked to this particular king at this particular site. Moreover, the surrounding narrative itself contains some pecularities: not only does it provide us with a detailed account of Israel's razzia against Amalek, but also with Saul's very different view of the practice of herem. Noting these oddities, we would suggest that this royal monument be taken seriously as a possible written source for the Deuteronomistic compiler/editor(s), against which they shaped their theological response to Saul's kingship. As such, it would provide us with a valuable- - - and unprecedented- - - look into royal policy and ideology of the early monarchial period.


Manufacturing Belief: Alexander and Paul as Case Studies of Religious Innovation in the Early Roman Empire
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Christopher Mount, DePaul University

Lucian’s account of Alexander the prophet of Glycon analyzes Alexander’s religious innovation as a complicity of religious intermediary and audience in the production of belief in the presence of the deity. Alexander the False Prophet is a narrative of religious fraud perpetrated by a clever charlatan with the all too willing consent of his gullible victims. In exposing Alexander’s fraud, Lucian articulates the methodological principle of apistia, disbelief, to know the truth of such matters. Alexander can no longer speak for himself, but about a century earlier the arrival of another new deity in the same area of the Roman East was announced by Paul the apostle of the deity Christ crucified. Paul also emphasizes the complicity of religious intermediary and audience in the production of belief in the presence of the deity. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul articulates the methodological principle of pistis, belief, to know the truth of such matters. A critical comparison of Lucian’s account of apistia with Paul’s account of pistis suggests a fairly stable set of publicly accessible criteria for constructing/identifying the arrival of a god in a city in the Roman East.


Where is "Following Jesus"? "Place" as Interpretative Model in Reading the Synoptic Gospels
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Halvor Moxnes, University of Oslo

“Place” is an important dimension of human identity, but spatial structures have often been overlooked in Gospel studies. This paper suggests that employing place theories developed by Henri Lefbevre (The Production of Space, 1974/1991) and David Harvey (The Condition of Postmodernity, 1989) on the relationship between material space, ideological space and imagined spaces provide help to uncover the social and mental maps of the gospels. Texts about leaving house/ household to follow Jesus provides a case study. House and household were at the centre of the social, ideological and mental map of the 1st century, and I will look especially at the way it determined male roles. In the Gospels it is young men who are called to leave households and to follow Jesus, but this new “place” they are called into and the new kinship groups that are established (Mark 3:31-35 par) are described in various ways in Mark, Matthew and Luke.


Is the Book of Revelation the Death of Scripture?
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Stephen Moyise, University College, Chichester

Against conservative tendencies to precisely delimit the Old Testament allusions in the book of Revelation and confidentially detail John's intended meaning, my intertextual approach suggests a much more complex interaction of "voices" which the reader has to somehow configure. The meaning of John's allusions does not lie in their original context(historical or literary) or in John's situation(historical or rhetorical) but in the dialogical tension between them. Critics have suggested that this theory inevitably leads to a radical reader-response criticism where texts can be manipulated like clay into whatever shape is required. Thus Robert Royalty's recent accusation that John does precisely this and is the death of Scripture might be seen as the "proof" of where my theory inevitably leads. In this paper, I will seek to clarify my position in dialogue with his.


A New Source of Scripture in John Chrysostom's Homiles on Matthew
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Ellen Muehlberger, Indiana University at Bloomington

During John Chrysostom’s tenure as a preacher in Antioch, he completed several series of exegetical homilies on the works of the New Testament. In the paper I wish to present, I will focus on Homilies 68, 69, and 70 of the series on Matthew, examining the rhetorical models of behavior that Chrysostom presents to his audience. These three homilies are similar in that they begin with an analysis of the New Testament Pharisees who challenge Jesus. Chrysostom concludes that the Jews of the New Testament are ever stubborn and fleshly; this is not a particularly novel tack for a late antique Christian orator to take. Consequently, my attention is directed elsewhere, namely, to where Chrysostom turns after he completes the stock portrayal of Jesus’ adversaries. His emphasis on the “fleshly” almost requires a corresponding “spiritual,” and Chrysostom finds this spiritual quality in a surprising place. It is not Jesus, nor any disciple portrayed in Matthew, nor even the Christians in his audience that Chrysostom praises as “spiritual” in comparison to the “fleshly” Pharisees. Rather, Chrysostom presents the ascetics practicing near Antioch, those who “live in Heaven like the angels” and are “almost bodiless,” as the opposite of the fleshly Jews he sees in the New Testament. Even as Chrysostom exemplifies these “angelic” ascetics, he does not exhort his audience to become like them by adopting their lifestyle, only to go and observe them. Chrysostom’s rhetoric in these homilies, then, positions ascetics as a new “text” for Christians to study: They exist for purposes of instruction, teaching ordinary Christians by their existence how to avoid the problems of the world. The ascetic exemplars who live around Antioch can be understood, in this reckoning, as a new scripture, one that—unlike the Gospel of Matthew itself—remains unassociated with the flesh.


How to Avoid Gossip: Angelic Appearances and Heresy in the Ascetic Literature of Egypt
Program Unit: Religion in Roman Egypt
Ellen Muehlberger, Indiana University at Bloomington

In the communities represented in Christian ascetic literature, offering a negative report about a fellow ascetic was particularly bad behavior. Speaking in disparaging terms about another, even if those terms were true, was considered slander. As one ascetic describes it, slander is a complex sin, comprising both “[f]ailure to recognize the glory of God and jealousy toward one’s neighbor” (AP Isaias 10). Robert E. Sinkewicz argues that given that the social bonds of ascetic communities depended on humility and comraderie, slander could be a particularly insidious force. Slander was not the worst of sins, however; that place was reserved for heresy. If slander is to be avoided at all costs, but heresy was such a danger to the community, what could an ascetic do in the event of learning that another has heretical ideas? In several different Christian texts from 5th-century Egypt, angelic appearances serve as the narrative solution to this problem. The Paralipomena of Pachomius, a letter of Ammon, the Apophthegmata Patrum and the Coptic Life of Aphou all relate stories in which angels appear to ascetics specifically to inform them of another’s heresy. My paper will examine these four sources and argue that these appearances removed the limit that avoidance of slander might impose; by reporting a vision, an ascetic can reveal potentially destructive information without participating in slander or implicating others in slander. Thus angelic appearances permit kinds of communication that are not possible under the requirements of the virtues professed in ascetic literature.


"You Will Do Even Greater Things than These": So What's Holding Us Back?! Transformative Leadership in a Black British Church Context
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Lynnette J. Mullings, University of Birmingham

This paper will address the crisis in black leadership in the Black Church in Britain and its wider community by arguing that essential to the development of a transformative black leadership model is a healthy critique of the biblical text that draws upon the experience of the Black British community. The author will illustrate that key to reading the Bible so that leadership becomes central to the black community of faith and an effective communication tool for engaging the wider black urban context is through the use of black vernacular and vernacular hermeneutics for critical dialogue and interpretation of the gospel sources making culture an integral aspect of the interpretative process. A case will be made for the application of Jamaican Patois to the biblical text that opens up the way for serious reflection on issues surrounding discourse and power that give space to unheard voices and the integrity of their experience, while, at the same time, providing a platform to construct their own story within a leadership framework that actively works on behalf of advancing and empowering the Black British collective.


Why Die? Philosophical Currents in Early Christian Evaluations of Martyrdom
Program Unit: Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
Pamela L. Mullins, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In his _Meditations_, Marcus Aurelius celebrates the soul that desires to be free from the body. While death enables such a release, the Stoic stresses that a rational, deliberate approach to death is critical. To exemplify an unreasonable approach, Marcus points to the theatrics of the Christian martyr (XI.3). Marcus Aurelius’ simplistic characterization recalls only one sort of martyrdom in early Christianity; as historians have realized, not all Christians agreed on the necessity or validity of martyrdom. Rather than focus on the dominant evaluation of martyrdom in early Christianity (the celebration of the suffering martyr), this paper considers a few alternatives, each with strong parallels in contemporary philosophical thought. First, Gnostic Christians generally diminish the value of physical martyrdom, as practiced by their ‘orthodox’ contemporaries. Second, Clement of Alexandria, while ascribing some value to physical suffering, promotes a different means of bearing witness, in life rather than death. I argue that these alternative constructions of Christian martyrdom relate, in part, to current philosophical trends, including Middle Platonic and Stoic thought. Specifically, attention is given to the intersection between conceptions of humanity, including the body, and related evaluations of death, with the option of voluntary death, in both Hellenistic philosophical and early Christian thought. For instance, a consideration of Clement of Alexandria’s views reveals striking parallels with the philosophy of Epictetus; both share a common understanding of the relationship between the body and soul, favor the apathetic ideal and its corresponding moral program, and offer similarly cautious perspectives on voluntary death.


Contextual Hermeneutics: Blending of Gospel with Culture in Visual Art
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Paul O. Myhre, Wabash College

This paper will examine efforts to contextualize the gospel in the South Pacific through visual art during the late 20th century. Contextual hermeneutical methods employed for the production of Christian visual art will be considered. Examples of Christian contextual art produced will be evaluated to discern what aspects of Gospel texts were accentuated to resonate with core Pacific Islander cultural values. Specific attention shall be focused on the Christian art produced by Robert Park for the Anglican Diocese of Polynesia.


Neither Jews nor Christians? Early Christian Identity within and outside Judaism
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Matti Myllykoski, University of Helsinki

In past three decades the early Christianity has been studies as a form of Judaism (“Christian Judaism”) that was not yet “Christianity”. Correspondingly, the old term “Jewish Christianity” does not anymore seem to refer to any real social and historical phenomena. This article aims to assess our possibilities to characterize the early Christian identity in terms of social reality opened up by the texts. In dialogue with the theory of early Christianity of Gerd Theissen, a hierarchy of six categories is developed. These six categories are helpful in locating the key interest of various views and theories presented on the “Jewish/Gentile Christianity” or, “Christian Judaism”. The fathers of the church claimed the superiority of Christian myth over Jewish rites, while the 19th century Protestant theology imagined the ethos of Christianity as superior to that of Judaism. In the 20th century, Marcel Simon emphasized that Jewish Christianity is characterized by Jewish practice, while Jéan Danielou claimed that most Christians shared a common orthodox teaching (“myth”) and merely used Jewish forms of expression for their faith. The recent emphasis on plurality of “Christian Judaism(s)” has turned the apologetical model of Danielou up side down: the early Christian ideologies are at home within the wide boundaries of Judaism. Some basic observations to the endurance of Jewish practice within Christian movement and the connection of this practice and low Christology speak for the old division into Jewish and Gentile Christianity instead of multiform pluralism within “Christian Judaism”.


Mark’s Oral Practice and the Written Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Matti Myllykoski, University of Helsinki

A critical look at the development of methodology in the study of Mark’s Gospel reveals that, in spite of the highly sophisticated discussion on various diachronic and synchronic aspects of the text and its prehistory, there is a huge gap in an area that should be of great interest: the oral practice of Mark as part of the process that led to the written gospel. I assume that Mark was practically trained to tell various clusters of Jesus stories, present them in new and different combinations and combine them in a creative way. If this is true, the development of his theological ideas, his interpretation of the historical context of his community and his skill as a storyteller belong inseparably together. I assume that Mark developed the themes and narrative clusters present in the written gospel in the run of his long career as a storyteller. He must have mastered numerous other stories in addition to those that he articulated in his gospel. I suggest that the “redaction” of individual stories started with his oral practice,


Gerald West's Biblical Hermeneutics as Model of Social Engagement
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Sarojini Nadar, University of Natal

This paper seeks to critically explore the ideological, academic and socio-political implications of the model of social engagement as developed and espoused by Gerald West, almost two decades ago. It will do so through an examination of three focus areas: motivation, method and representation. First the paper will discuss the rationale behind social engagement. Thereafter, an exploration and interrogation of the method itself (to be found primarily in the contextual bible study) will be undertaken, by asking vital questions concerning the functions and the responsibilities of both the faith communities and the intellectual/academic in such engagements. Thirdly, the paper will seek to question the ways in which communities of faith are subsequently represented in academic discourse. The paper brings the discussion to a close with an appraisal of the three focus areas explored in the paper, by arguing that each of the focus areas examined produce different results in key areas, when viewed at from the perspective of organic intellectuals. By bringing West’s work into dialogue with organic intellectuals who have used similar models, but have done so differently, the paper concludes that collaboration between scholars and the community is a vital one, but that the challenge which remains is for more organic intellectuals to use the opportunities which they have been given through their privileged access to education, to empower those in the community who have afforded them the opportunity.


Choosing Not to Choose: Negotiating the Tricky Terrain between the Text and the Context
Program Unit: Ideology, Culture, and Translation
Raj Nadella, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

Making use of insights from the postcolonial studies, this paper focuses on the ethics of translation, and on the complicated and potentially hierarchical relationship that exists between the translators and the translated – the source text (ST) as well as the target text (TT). While acknowledging that the translation takes place in a particular context and that it ought to be transforming, this paper seeks to show how the biases and agendas of the translators could easily lead to colonization of the text, regardless of the nature of those biases and agendas. It has been assumed that a translation is violent only when it perpetuates systems that sponsor and sustain hegemony. However, even a translation that is prescribed as an antidote to the oppressive structures can be equally violent to the text, if it fails to remain sufficiently faithful to the source text. To illustrate this point, I will highlight examples from different versions of the Telugu Bible. On the one hand, translators need to ensure that the translation is sufficiently faithful to the source text; on the other hand, they ought to be mindful of the need for transforming translations so that the oppressive structures based on race, class, and gender are not transmitted from the source text to the target text or the receiving community. When sandwiched between the two needs, the translators should aim not to choose one or the other, but to achieve a creative and dynamic tension between the two.


Revelation in the Desert: The Case of the Therapeutae and the Essenes
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Hindy Najman, University of Toronto

This paper examines the relationship between the writings of Philo of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls on matters of withdrawal from the city, communion with angels and idyllic wilderness.


Warning Labels for Young Biblical Scholars: Brief Notes on a Cushite in Joab’s Army— 100 Years of Research on Second Samuel 18 from the Imperium
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Peter Nash, Wartburg College

Much of the mainline research on 2nd Samuel 18 by north Atlantic scholars during the 20th century is toxic. This paper is intended as a corrective to the racialized assumptions perpetuated by the supposed neutral application of the Historical Critical Method. Representative material from a brief survey of commentaries published between 1899 and 2000 illustrates how the power of the commentator to form the questions of interpretation as detracted from the church’s ability to perceive the true nature and scope of Cushite influences in the ancient Near East, even as they are set for by respected scholars of north African antiquity.


Who Apologizes? Questioning the Category of Apologetic
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Laura Nasrallah, Harvard Divinity School

Apologetics has long served as an organizing category for early Christian and even some Jewish literature. Sometimes scholars use “apology” to mark a genre, although rhetorical handbooks from antiquity indicate no such genre; sometimes “apology” marks a (defensive or explanatory) tone; sometimes “apology” marks any Christian literature that seems to be directed against mainstream culture. This paper asks the questions: What work does the category of apologetic do for recent constructions of early Christian identity? In what cases does it prevent us from seeing how Christianity takes part in the broader culture wars of antiquity? Why is it that many discussions of ancient Jewish apology are at the service of larger conversations about Christian apology? It addresses these questions by briefly tracing the category of apologetic in the scholarship of the past two centuries and by evaluating texts traditionally defined as apologetic, such as Luke-Acts, Justin’s Apologies, and Tatian’s To the Greeks. When set within the context of the Second Sophistic and its resistors, early Christian “apologetic” texts can be better understood as part of a larger struggle at the time that constructed and contested Greek, barbarian, and Roman identities and that asked a complex ideological-political question that still has resonance today: (How) does diversity of law and religious practice square with a rhetoric of unity and oneness?


Greek Cities under Rome: Hadrian’s Panhellenion and Paul’s Travels
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Laura Nasrallah, Harvard Divinity School

Since Hans Conzelmann’s The Theology of St. Luke scholars have discussed Luke-Acts’ manipulation of geography for ideological-theological purposes. Luke’s narrative arcs from Jerusalem to Rome and symbolically invests countryside and city, mountain and plain, with different meanings. This paper reads Luke’s construction of Paul’s urban travels in light of archaeological evidence of Hadrian’s Panhellenion. This coalition of Aegean cities, founded by the emperor Hadrian in 131, fostered diplomacy among the Greeks and also encouraged various cities’ inventions of complicated genealogies which established their metropoleis as solidly Greek in race. Many of the still extant archaeological remains of the Panhellenion are in Athens, where Hadrian engaged in an active building program, including a sanctuary of the Panhellenion. Other evidence of this remains to us today in fifty-four known inscriptions from other cities involved in this league, including Thessaloniki and Corinth, some of which honor ambassadors to and officials in the Panhellenion. Both Hadrian’s Panhellenion and Acts’ geography and representation of Paul’s travels through cities ringing the Aegean are second-century products of the cultural currents of the Second Sophistic, with its emphasis on Greek paideia and its negotiations of Greek identity under the Roman empire. Both Hadrian’s Panhellenion and Acts’ traveling Paul rhetorically construct cities for their own political purposes. The Panhellenion captivates the (perhaps restive) attention and energies of leading elites in cities and directs their energies towards an Athens controlled and constructed by the Roman empire, while Acts constructs a Paul who especially in Philippi and Thessaloniki is accused of sedition toward the Roman empire, but who is ultimately presented as an ideal citizen of Rome.


Continuity rather than (‘Barbarian’) Catastrophe? On the Late Roman Origins of Early Medieval Book Illumination
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Lawrence Nees, University of Delaware

The story of the beginnings of the distinctively new medieval art of book illumination, here defined as the decoration and articulation of texts in books with ornament, is usually told in association with the paradigmatic master narrative of ethnic change as the key to cultural transformation, the starring role being given to the Insular world and such famous manuscripts as the Book of Durrow. It is commonly alleged that the invasion of book text by decoration would be meaningless or even "taboo" according to the norms of antiquity, and the new form is seen as an expression of Celtic and/or Germanic, i.e. "barbarian" traditions. However, the preponderance of surviving evidence suggests a different possible story, in which this new art form develops on the European mainland, especially in the Frankish kingdom, at an earlier date than it can be seen in the Insular world, and develops within rather than in opposition to the ancient traditions associated with books. Changes in reading and educational practices seem to have played a leading role, and it is probably of significant and hitherto neglected import that the earliest examples of book illumination are found not in the altar books, especially Gospel manuscripts and liturgical volumes, that from the Insular and Carolingian periods constituted the most luxuriously decorated volumes, but instead are found in patristic commentaries. At the center of the development should be set not the arrival of new peoples, in other words, but the elaboration of new patterns of writing, reading and contemplative study within early medieval monasteries.


Wisdom in Early Rabbinic Literature: Initial Considerations
Program Unit: The Texts of Wisdom in Israel, Early Judaism, and the Eastern Mediterranean World
W. David Nelson, Texas Christian University

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Mnemonic Method in Halakhic and Aggadic Midrash
Program Unit: Midrash
W. David Nelson, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University

The method of oral performance and transmission of early rabbinic tradition within the cultural setting of early rabbinic pedagogy is undergoing considerable scholarly examination. Within this area of research, the mnemonic structures and methods that served to facilitate the oral employment, retention and reshaping of both early aggadic and halakhic midrashic tradition require additional conceptualization and evaluation. Due to their overt mnemonic formulary characteristics, much attention has been focused on devising models and theories of oral transmission of halakhic material; however, the mnemonic underpinnings of early aggadic midrash remains, to a significant extent, unexplored. This paper will select both halakhic and aggadic excerpts from early midrashic texts, in order to analyze and compare the internal, mnemonic characteristics that facilitated their inclusion and employment in the oral-performative realm of rabbinic pedagogy. This paper will argue that attention to embedded mnemonic structure compels a reevaluation of previous theories of transmission of parallel halakhic midrashic tradition. This paper will also argue that elements such as prooftext employment, narrative framework and thematic structure formed the mnemonic foundation of early aggadic midrashic tradition. Evidence that is routinely adduced as exemplification of editorial characteristics of aggadic midrashic tradition will be recast, in order to offer an alternative to strictly redactional and written conceptualizations of the preservation and transmission of early aggadic midrash.


New Insights into Herod’s Jerusalem: The Antonia and the Temple Mount Area
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Ehud Netzer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This paper benefits from the lecturer recent reconstructions of the Temple Mount, based mainly on Josephus, the Mishnah and the nature of Herod’s architecture. Careful analysis of the data at hand points to the projection of the Antonia, of ca. 65 m, into the existing platform. (The existing scarp in the rock, towards south, is apparently Umayyad.) Josephus description of the Antonia (which replaced the Hasmonean Birah), resembles the outstanding round structure that crowned Herodium. It probably was a square building, close to 100 X 100 m in size. The limited time at hand, for the construction not only of the new Temple, but also the azarah, offices and gates around it, inspired Herod and his architects to implement a sort of a modular plan. Never the less, the new buildings fulfilled not only the current needs of the Temple but also Herod’s desire for impressive constructions. Once the Antonia and the Temple (with its courts) were accomplished, the enlargement of the Temple Mount got all the attention. A key structure here is the stoa basileia, which was badly needed by the king who, in contrary to his predecessors the Hasmoneans, could not enter the Temple and had no special status there. Although the stoa basileia integrated with the rest of the porticos (around the huge square), it was probably reserved, as well as “Robison Arch”, for the king and his guests during his visits to the holy precinct.


The Transgression of Aggression: Learning to Love the Hate in the New Testament (and Ourselves!)
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Michael Willett Newheart, Howard University

According to Melanie Klein, aggression is innate to humanity. In order to love fully, then, we must embrace the hate (i.e. anger, aggression) toward the very things and people that we love. In this paper I will explore the implications of Klein’s insight for New Testament studies. I will argue that at the heart of the New Testament is not only love, but also hate, and that hate (as well as love) is physical (as well as spiritual), directed toward the bodies (and souls) of God, Jesus, fellow believers, outsiders, and oneself. (In addition to Klein, Frantz Fanon will also be used to understand the New Testament writers’ aggression in the context of Roman imperialism.) Yet in order to appreciate this ambivalence of love and hate in the New Testament (the constructive and destructive power of the Bible), we as exegetes must be in touch with our own anger. What (and whom) do we love and hate? And how does our exegesis express our aggression?


Wisdom and Apocalypticism: Ten Years On
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Carol Newsom, Emory University

This paper seeks to assess the landscape of scholarship on wisdom and apocalypticism, in response to and on the basis of the publication of some of the work of this Group over the past ten years.


What You See is What You Get: Convention and Stereotype and Ancient Persons
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Jerome Neyrey, University of Notre Dame

Yes, say the rules for the encomium in the progymnasmata, you can tell a man by the clothes he wears, the books he reads and the company he keeps. The authors writing bioi and encomia have set categories which guide one in classifying another person. "Classify" is the right term, for data are sought according to stereotypical categories and processed into a stereotypical description. Data gathered about a nobleman will be different from that about a peasant; and even if data are not to hand, because noblemen are such and such persons, an author can safely supply it. This study presents not only the rules for an encomium, but explains what they signify: origins, birth, nuture and achievements, deeds of the soul, and death and posthumous honors. Finally, we wish to describe the person thus constructed, not as a modern individalist, but as a group-oriented person.


Defining Christian Apocrypha with Umberto Eco
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Tobias Nicklas, University of Regensburg

The problem of defining the term "Christian apocrypha" has been discussed for many years - several solutions have been offered (e.g., by Schneemelcher, Junod, and others). A.F.J. Klijn once even stated that a proper solution of this problem is impossible. The proposed paper tries to formulate a definition of "Christian apocrypha" from a reader-oriented perspective by using hermeneutical key issues of Umberto Eco's literary theories.


The Emotions of War and the Passage to Peace: War and Reconciliation in Ancient Israelite Literature
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Susan Niditch, Amherst College

Influenced by the work of classicist David Konstan, Niditch first explores the terminology for combatants in the Hebrew Bible to see whether a distinction is made between personal and public/political enemies. Then she asks how Israelites portray the return to the everyday world by those who have experienced the destructive emotions, mayhem, and trauma of war. She examines internal critiques of warring behavior in the Hebrew Bible and some of the rites of passage that allow for reconciliation. The roles of women and the body in this process are revealing of key aspects of worldview and culture.


A Letter from Jerusalem: James in the Mind of the Recipients of His Epistle
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Jena University

A combination of reader response criticism, exegetical, tradition historical, historical and theological approaches. What kind of imagination did the addressees of the letter of James develop when they received and read this diaspora letter from Jerusalem? Of course, they shared the convictions of the letter writer about the one God and the Lord Jesus Christ, they accepted the most important commandments of the Law of Moses and they expected a last, eschatological judgment as well. But what was their view about the letter writer? What did they knew about his relationship to his brother Jesus before Jesus’s death and afterwards? And how would they think about their own relationship to this letter writer, to his brother Jesus before and after his death and to other parts of the early Jesus movement?


Some Peculiar Matthean Texts in The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Donal Nilsson, Nyack College

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Sacred Marriages in the Biblical World: Introducing the Project
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Martti Nissinen, University of Helsinki

The idea of "sacred marriage" has been a source of fascination from the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia to Dan Brown's bestseller "The Da Vinci Code." The traditional understanding of the Mesopotamian sacred marriage as a fertility rite with emphasis on a ritual intercourse and reproduction has been strongly challenged in recent research. Instead, it is seen as a royal ritual, the purpose of which is to establish a benevolent relationship between the gods and the king, and through him, the people. Whether understood as a ritual or an element of mythical language or both, the idea can be found in most cultures and traditions of the biblical world, as demnostrated in various articles of a forthcoming book "Sacred Marriages in the Biblical World" (Eisenbrauns), edited by Martti Nissinen and Risto Uro. The purpose of the project behind this volume is to investigate how religious and metaphorical aspects of marriage and sexual union are used in biblical and extra-biblical traditions from Mesopotamia to Nag Hammadi and Early Christianity.


Josephus and the Pharisaic Narrative
Program Unit: Josephus
Noam Vered, Tel Aviv University

Reconstruction of Josephus’ self-image and social and religious affiliations within the Jewish society of his day must be carried out in light of his view of history and his interpretation of the events he described. Do the sources he made use of, the aspects he showed interest in, the moral and religious judgment he applied represent a mainly Jewish conceptual world – or, perhaps a gentile one? As for the “Jewish components” of his writing, can they serve to distinguish any close ties of his to a specific contemporary group, such as the Pharisees? Such an inquiry may be complicated, since the historiographic nature of Josephus’ writings has no real parallel in the variegated Jewish society of his day. However, an extremely significant source for purposes of comparison is provided us by rabbinical literature. This literature preserves a series of traditions referring to various events in the Second Temple period. Though rabbinic works were indeed redacted hundreds of years later, it would seem that these specific stories, once they are gathered, create an anthology of popular Jewish traditions from the days of the Second Temple, probably of Pharisaic origin, that have been embedded and preserved (and sometimes reworked and altered) in it. The existence of a long list of parallels between Josephus and these tales indicates the antiquity of the rabbinical traditions, on the one hand, and points to Josephus’ use of internal Jewish oral sources, on the other. The comparison of the parallel tales in Josephus’ writings with those in the rabbinical literature may give rise to important insights regarding the sources used by Josephus, the contexts in which he chose to make use of these internal Jewish traditions, and mainly his own viewpoint, in contrast with the Pharisaic-rabbinical views of those very same events.


Deuteronomistic History or Deuteronomic Debate?
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
K. L. Noll, Brandon University

Although many scholars continue to support Martin Noth's general hypothesis of a Deuteronomistic History, there are almost as many versions of the hypothesis as there are adherents of it. This paper suggests that a "Deuteronomistic History" did not exist in ancient times. Deuteronomistic language and theology appear in each book of the Former Prophets, but the pattern of use differs from book to book. When one ignores Noth's paradigm and evaluates the pattern of language and theology in literary context, a new hypothesis suggests itself: Each of the four books -- Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings -- was composed by persons aware of, but not entirely satisfied with, Deuteronomy. Judges and Samuel reject aspects of Deuteronomy. Joshua and Kings express ambivalence or, perhaps, grudging support for Deuteronomy's theological agenda. The Former Prophets are the product of a dialogue among authors with differing viewpoints.


Balaam the Villain and His Interpreters in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Ed Noort, University of Groningen

The negative judgement about Balaam (Num 22-24) in the history of reception is well known. Philo, the New Testament, Josephus, Pseudo-Philo and the Rabbinic commentators all agree- though in different ways- that Balaam represented the negative and dangerous side of prophecy. With exception of the speaking ass episode (Num 22:22-35), the Balaam story itself, however, has a positive tendency: a foreign seer blesses Israel and recognizes the power of YHWH, only prophesying what YHWH commands. Generally spoken there are two possibilities. Either an original negative narrative has been changed into a positive one with some older reminiscences still within the tradition, or a positive narrative is turned into a negative tradition because of changing views about prophecy and the communication of the will of the deity. The paper defends the latter position and seeks to identify the turning point in the Hebrew Bible. Deut 23:5f. and Josh 24:9 interpret the story as a saving act of YHWH. Num 31:16 reads the Balaam story together with its frame of Num 25 and makes Balaam responsible for the incident of Baal Peor. The Num 31:8 and the expanded Josh 13:22 (qošem) references where Balaam is killed, execute the view of Deut 18:10-12. Here the law about prophecy with its dichotomy between a “word of God theology” related to the true prophet from the midst of Israel and the now negatively judged other forms of inquiring the divine will is the key for the changing views. The paper explores the different views about the the son of Beor as a result of specific needs of redefining prophecy.


The Sea of Galilee: Development of an Early Christian Toponym
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
R. Steven Notley, Nyack College

New Testament scholarship has paid scant attention to the origins of the designation, Sea of Galilee, a place name that does not appear in literature of late antiquity outside of Matthew, Mark and John’s Gospels. In this study, we will trace references by Jewish and pagan writers to the Lake of Gennesaret. Particular attention will be given to the application of the Greek terms THALASSA and LIMNH (and their Latin counterparts, Mare and Lacus) to the body of water in non-Christian literature as background to their appearance in the Gospels. Finally, we will investigate the uniquely Christian toponym, “Sea of Galilee.” We suggest that the origins of the Christian place name lay in creative exegesis of Isaiah 8:23 [LXX: 9:1] in early Christian circles to present the locus of Jesus’ ministry as a fulfillment of Scripture.


Anachronistic Toponyms as Historical Markers in the Development of the Gospel Tradition
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
R. Steven Notley, Nyack College NYC

Scholarship has long recognized that imbedded in the narrative writings of the Hebrew Scriptures are anachronistic toponyms that reflect the period of their composition and not the historical period of the events described. For example, mention of “the land of the Philistines” in Genesis 21:32 is hardly a fitting ethnogeographic description of the coastal plain in the time of Abraham and centuries before the settlement of the Philistines there. Historical geographers of the Land of Israel during the Greco-Roman period have also identified regional references in the expansive writing of Josephus that reflect geopolitical realities after the tumultuous events of the First Jewish Revolt, although the historian is describing events in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Little notice has been given to similar toponyms in the New Testament that find no appearance in extra-canonical writings or epigraphical evidence prior to 70 CE. In this study we suggest that the tumultuous events surrounding the First Jewish Revolt resulted in changes in the political landscape, during the closing decades of the first century. These changes are reflected in toponymic usage in the Gospels that serve as historical markers for the period of their composition. The question at the center of our study is: “Can the use and non-use of these anachronistic toponyms inform us about the historical development of the Gospel tradition?”


Accounting for Context: Vehicle-Tenor Doublets in Pseudo-Jonathan's Renderings of Legal Verses
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Tzvi Novick, Yale University

Ancient exegetes of biblical law occassionally assigns a metaphorical interpretation to a passage so that it integrates topically with laws that precede or follow it. There are four certain instances of the technique in Pseudo-Jonathan. In each case, he provides first a literal and then a metaphorical rendering. A comparison of these four instances to parallel exegeses in targumic and rabbinic literature provides insight into the development of these metaphorical readings. I conclude with two explanations for Pseudo-Jonathan's decision to render the verses as doublets.


Pain and Production in Eden: A Hypothesis about 'Isavon
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Tzvi Novick, Yale University

Genesis 3:16 ranks among the most significant verses, theologically and historically, in the Hebrew Bible. It is also among its most difficult. This paper focuses on one of the crucial phrases in the verse, ?????? ?????. Speiser identifies this as “a parade example of hendiadys in Heb[rew].” Meyers raises an objection to the hendiadys approach: pregnancy is not figured elsewhere in the Bible as a painful process. I review four solutions to the problem and offer a fifth: the word derives not from ??? I (associated with toil and trouble) but ??? II (associated with fashioning, making). The same interpretation may be extended to the occurrence of the noun in Gen 3:17 and 5:29. On the above approach, the fundamental movement from prelapsarian to postlapsarian existence is not from pleasure (or painlessness) to pain, but from effortlessness to effort.


Thinking of Judith and Conjuring Salome: Why?
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Liliana M. Nutu, University of Sheffield

Judith and Salome are two biblical women that have played the muse to many artists through the centuries. Interestingly, while one is a righteous widow who saves her people from colonization by the Assyrians and the other is a young princess whose dance moves charm her stepfather, Herod, the two women have been confused. There is a common thread to both narratives, indeed, and in this case it seems to overpower the textual differences and command the hues for the interpretative lens. Judith and Salome are mostly remembered for making men’s heads roll, and many visual representations of the two depict them as femmes fatales par excellence. This paper looks at a number of artistic representations of Judith and Salome—from the Renaissance to the twentieth century—and investigates what gender, psychoanalytical and signification tensions are at play within the process of representation of the two characters.


Mysterious Passage: Origen and the Rites of Christian Passover
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Alena Nye-Knutson, University of Virginia

This paper examines Origen’s views of the Christian Pascha as found in his exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to John and his paschal treatise, Peri Pascha. A close reading of these two works - the former written as a refutation of the commentary of Heracleon, and the latter containing direct addresses to both Christian opponents and Jews - reveals that Origen was deeply engaged in the heated second century debates and controversy concerning both the true theological meaning and proper ritual observance of this central Christian holy day. Origen holds that the Christian Pascha should be observed on Sunday and focus, not on a remembrance of the Passion, but on the resurrected and living Logos. He rigorously promotes this position through a series of exegetical arguments that intricately interweaves key paschal texts from Exodus, the Fourth Gospel and the letters of Paul, but delivers the final masterstroke through a philological argument hinging on the correct root and meaning of the word Pascha. The word, like the holy day, is derived from the Hebrew pesach, meaning “to pass through” or more simply “passage,” not, as early Christians popularly believed, from the Greek verb paschein, “to suffer.” The Jewish Passover, consequently, should not to be viewed as a type of Christ’s physical suffering and death on the cross, but instead of his spiritual deliverance, the “passage” of the Logos from the earth to the Father. And the Christian Pascha is, likewise, not a memorial of the Passion event. Properly understood, it is a sacred “rite of passage,” celebrating the Church’s communion with the living Logos and the knowledge that Christ’s “passage” is a pre-figurement of our own.


The Indictment of Edom in Obadiah and in Biblical Scholarship
Program Unit: New Historicism and the Hebrew Bible
Julia M. O'Brien, Lancaster Theological Seminary

Setting the book of Obadiah in the context of contemporary investigation of ancient Edom demonstrates the degree to which the book’s depiction of Edom as brother to Judah is an ideological construct. While it alludes to the Jacob/Esau narrative in Genesis and while it may (or may not) bear treaty connotations, the language of brotherhood in Obadiah serves to shape the reader’s valuation of Edom’s political aspirations. Much biblical interpretation treats the brotherhood of Edom as an historical datum rather than the case of Israel/Judah’s own identity-construction; in so doing, it substitutes a “doubling” of the book for an analysis of its rhetorical effects.


How the Book of Jeremiah Confronts Disaster
Program Unit:
Kathleen O'Connor, Columbia Theological Seminary

This paper approaches the book of Jeremiah as a response to the collapse of the nation after the Babylonian invasions. Drawing from disaster and trauma studies, it asks what survivors of disaster need. It examines how multiple facets of the book of Jeremiah work to enable survivors to reconstitute themselves as a community, giving special attention to Jeremiah’s “war poems” (4:5-6:27; 8:16-17; 10:17-22; and 13:20-27).


"Caught in a Syn-Net" - Using the Louw-Nida Lexicon in the Computational Analysis of Hellenistic Greek
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Matthew Brook O'Donnell, OpenText.org

The WordNet database, which organizes English vocabulary into sets of synonyms ('synsets') representing lexical concepts, has become a important component in many NLP applications that perform tasks such as word-sense disambiguation, text summarization and information retrieval. Although developed from a different theoretical perspective, the Louw-Nida Semantic Domain Lexicon provides a similar resource for the computational analysis of the Greek New Testament. Words are classified into entities, activities, characteristics and relations, and then into further domains and subdomains within each of these divisions. This paper demonstrates the use of the Louw-Nida lexicon in the computational analysis of the Greek New Testament and considers its wider application to Hellenistic Greek, including the LXX. This paper first demonstrates the use of visualization techniques to display domain patterns across a text, which are of value in discourse analysis and text summarization. The use of lexical statistics and collocational analysis is limited in studies of the GNT because of its small size. The second application in this paper, however, shows how the combination of syntactical annotation and LN domain categories with collocational analysis can contribute to the development of new lexical resources through the 'lexical profile'. A key limitation of the LN domain lexicon for computational applications is the classification of single lexical items to a number of domains without full disambiguation. This paper seeks to address this by drawing on work in Computational Linguistics on word sense classification and disambiguation in developing an algorithm for disambiguating between the possible domains values for a word within discourse. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of how a semantic-tagger might be developed to apply the LN categories to Hellenistic Greek outside the New Testament.


Paul and Popular Post-mortem Divinization
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Peter Oakes, University of Manchester

Paul's Macedonian letters offer a controlled way into debate on NT ideas about afterlife. Sufficient evidence is available for us to survey local representations of beliefs about what happened after death. These can be compared with Paul's representations of afterlife in Philippians and 1 Thessalonians. The results suggest a close relationship with local popular depictions of divinization (being transformed into likeness of gods or heroes, or going to be with gods). This has implications for the origin and significance of Paul's ideas and for Paul's eschatological adaptation of non-eschatological concepts. This, in turn, has consequences for wider debate about resurrection in the NT.


Creeping Things and Singing Sculptures: The Iconography of Ezekiel 8:7–13 and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Maggie Odell, Saint Olaf College

It has been noted that the iconography in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice is derived from that of Ezekiel's inaugural and temple visions. Less well explained has been the motif of the singing walls, on which are carved figures of "gods" who sing praises to God. This paper argues that Ezekiel 8:7-13 and The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice derive from a common memory of temple iconography. Where Ezekiel repudiates the iconography by ridiculing it as "creeping things" and "idols of the house of Israel," the Songs preserve its normative function, as a representation of the heavenly hosts.


Re-reading Paul and Thekla in Ephesos
Program Unit: Late Antiquity in Interdisciplinary Perspective
Ruth Ohm Wright, Graduate Theological Union

While the evidence for Paul’s visits to Ephesos have been well attested in the textual sources, until recently any material witness to his stay in this metropolis have been lacking. Recent excavations in Ephesos have provided a new source for supplementing the narratives associated with Paul in both the canonical and apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. Exceptional interest was stimulated by an exquisitely preserved painting, tentaively dated to the fifth century, expressing a delightful iconographic rendition of the legend handed down in the Acts of Paul and Thekla. The choice to depict the scene of Paul teaching Thekla as her protesting mother Theoklia looks on offers a unique view into what is characteristic in some of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. Other images of Thekla from Late Antiquity are not lacking, though a number of these cannot be tied to a specific locale dedicated to Theklan veneration. The geographical center of her cult in Seleucia leaves no preserved images, but is rich in structural witness. In Egypt, Thekla is paired with Saint Menas of Phrygia on pilgrim flasks from Mareotis; the necropolis of El-Bagawat, located at the Kharga Oasis in Egypt’s western desert, preserves Thekla in two intriguing fresco programs. If we shift the focus to an appreciation of the Ephesian fresco’s visual composition, several noteworthy points arise. First of all, compared with that of Paul and Thekla, Theokleia’s portrait gives the impression of being larger in scale. Why is she so prominent? Rather than capturing the dynamism of Thekla otherwise visible in Acts of Paul and Thekla, here Thekla is shown smaller in scale and enclosed. If we instead assume that the emphasis was not exclusive to Thekla, then what is the significance of an image of Paul in the cave?


Anything to Offer? A Gendered, Viewer-Response Approach to Corinthian Votive Offerings and Their Donators
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Jorunn Økland, University of Sheffield

The offering of votives was one of the more ‘democratic’ religious practices in the ancient world. It could be done by the poorest and the richest people alike, by men and women. The paper will look at some minor objects and possible votive offerings from Corinth, including the amounts of scallop shells in the Roman layers of the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Taking these as a first point of departure, the paper will explore the threshold where a natural object ceases to be ‘dead nature’ and start to be a readable ‘cultural text’, and then proceed to speculate if this ‘cultural text’ can tell us anything about gender and class. Secondly, for lack of other possibilities readers of ancient remains generally have to take the contexts within which offerings are found as clues about who the donators may have been. On this basis and taking as methodological point of departure Lauren Petersen’s work on female subjectivity on Greek vases, the paper will speculate about the range of possible meanings the objects in question – and their donation - could have had for the donators.


Textual Reproduction: A Response to Boer's Marxist Criticism of the Bible
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Jorunn Økland, University of Sheffield

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Yoruba Traditions
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Oyeronke Olajubu, University of Ilorin, Nigeria

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Between Humility and Authority: The Interplay of the Judge-Prophet Laws (Deuteronomy 16:18–17:13) and the Judge-Prophet Narratives of Moses
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
Dennis Olson, Princeton Theological Seminary

Moses is portrayed as a unique and incomparable prophet (Deut 34:10; Num 12:8) as well as the supreme human judge of the people of Israel in the wilderness (Deut 1:17; Exod 18:22). Three important pairs of Pentateuchal narrative texts reflect on Moses’ dual leadership roles as prophet and judge: Exodus 18-19, Numbers 11-12, and Deuteronomy 1 and 34. Each narrative pair wrestles with the delicate balance of humility and authority, diffusion and centralization, in the character of Moses’ leadership. These narrative portrayals of Moses’ leadership will be put into dialogue with the Deuteronomic laws concerning judges and prophets (Deut 16:18-17:13), and possible implications for the ethics of leadership will then be explored.


The Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Heike Omerzu, University of Mainz

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"You See the Extent of My Body": The Shiur Qomah Tradition in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Andrei Orlov, Marquette University

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Medieval Sephardic Manuscripts: A History of Spanish Textual Tradition and Hebrew Manuscript Collections
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Maria-Teresa Ortega-Monasterio, CSIC

The aim of this paper is to present the most important Hebrew manuscripts conserved in the libraries of Madrid and El Escorial. The collection of Hebrew manuscripts is especially significant in the National Library of Spain, the Library of the Monastery of El Escorial and the Complutense University Library. Most of the manuscripts are of Spanish (Sephardic) origin. The importance and accuracy of Spanish biblical manuscripts has been recognized since the Middle Ages. Some of them have been used in the editing of such important Polyglote Bibles as the Biblia Poliglota Complutense or the Biblia Poliglota of Antwerp (Biblia Regia). We are working on a new catalogue in order to update old catalogues from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and in order to incorporate relevant data for librarians and researchers. Two volumes from the total of three have been already published. Our aim in this occasion is to present the materials catalogued in the National Library of Spain, the National Historical Archives and other libraries and archives. A presentation of the most significant manuscripts and the collections where they belong will be performed, showing new photographs of some of them and pointing out the importance of their authors, content and other relevant issues.


Catholic or catholic? Biblical Scholarship at the Center
Program Unit:
Carolyn Osiek, Texas Christian University

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The Judaean Ethnos-Politeia: Reinventing Jewish Collective Identity in a Hellenistic World Contending with Rome
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Kevin Lee Osterloh, Princeton University

Two late 2nd-century BCE elite Judaean texts, I and II Maccabees, engaged with the historical memory of biblical antecedents within the context of a Hellenistic interpretative environment, reinventing the Judaean community as a legitimate member of the broad constellation of sociopolitical possibilities in the Hellenistic world. Already in the 3rd-century, but especially after defeating the eastern Greeks in the first half of the 2nd-century, Roman elites undertook a similar negotiation of communal identity vis-à-vis Greekness, as reflected in the works of Cato and Polybius. They sought to re-found the Roman body-politic in the value-system bedrock of its simple agrarian past as a means of establishing its natural place within the Hellenistic Oikoumenê, the civilized, non-barbarian, Greek-speaking world. It is the thesis of this paper that Judaean elites pursued their reinvention of communal identity, to a degree, in emulation of the elite-constructed image of the Roman body-politic. Rome offered Judaean elites a tangible, alternative, non-Greek model of communal identity; Roman domination of the Hellenistic world from the cultural periphery excited both self-identification and envy. Judaean emulation of Rome is marked by two interrelated factors: preoccupation with ancestral ethê kai nomoi (customs and laws) and the harmoniously unified politeia (state or body-politic). Both elite groups emphasized these communal qualities as part of their move from the periphery to the core of the Hellenistic World, expedited via the cooption and subversion of Greekness. Judaeans followed the Romans in claiming traditional Greek virtue for themselves while denying it to contemporary Greeks. Scipio and Cato, Judah Maccabee and Dositheus, were the true descendants of Leonidas and Pericles. In sum, the elites of Rome and Judaea sought entry within the Oikoumenê by including Romanitas and Judaïsmos within it, i.e. by creating legitimate cultural space within the Hellenistic World on their own terms.


Can Second Language Acquisition Theory Enhance Ancient Language Acquisition?
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Paul Overland, Ashland Theological Seminary

In recent years the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has made significant strides, resulting in more effective learning. These advances are seldom applied to the benefit of Ancient Language Acquisition (ALA). This paper will examine a) several recent advances in SLA theory, b) potential benefits latent in these advances for ALA, c) probable causes for reluctance to adapt these advances by ALA instructors, and d) early reports of successful implementation of SLA strategies in ALA settings (with particular reference to Biblical Hebrew). Finally, it will propose and entertain discussion concerning "next steps" along which those interested in SLA / ALA experimentation might proceed.


Communicative Language Teaching: Second Language Methods for Ancient Language Acquisition
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Paul Overland, Ashland Theological Seminary

Recent advances in Second Language Acquisition have uncovered the importance of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). This paper provides an overview of CLT theory, then illustrates how selected components of Hebrew grammar may be introduced or reinforced via CLT methodology. The illustration employs a variety of learning experiences, ranging from songs and games to oral composition and interactive computer tutorial.


Post-Imperial Appropriation of Text, Tradition, and Ritual in the Writings of Henri Gamache
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Hugh Page, Jr., University of Notre Dame

Three short monographs by spiritualist Henri Gamache – The Master Book of Candle Burning (1942), Mystery of the 8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses (1945), and Protection Against Evil (1946) have long been popular among practitioners of Black Diasporan conjure. One of the distinguishing traits of these works is that they democratize access to the numinous through the abrogation of power typically vested in institutional hierocracies. By facilitating access to biblical texts, Judeo-Christian hermeneutical traditions, and selected data on indigenous religious rituals from around the world, these works provide non-specialists with the practical knowledge and authority to create personal liturgies for healing and canons for biblical appropriation that resist hegemony and promote individual and communal self-empowerment. This paper will present a close reading and analysis of these works, with particular attention being given to the biblical usage therein.


Jews? Christians? “Others”? What Intimate Enemies Does the Author of Revelation Have in Mind?
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Elaine Pagels, Princeton University

Investigating the much-debated question of the internal opponents whom Revelation’s author envisions within the ecclesiae of Asia Minor, this paper first explores the view recently reframed by David Frankfurter (HTR 94:4), who argues that the author challenges a constituency within the Jesus movement that invoked Pauline authority, perhaps to persuade what Paul Duff calls the “invisible majority.” Second, the paper notes evidence from other sources, including the letters Ignatius wrote within about a decade to three of the same Asian cities John addressed, which sketch quite different views of church order, and the relationship of the Hebrew Bible to what Ignatius champions as “the gospel,” and aggressively identifies as “Christianity,” by contrast with “Judaism.” The paper closes by considering the suggestion made by Philippa Townsend (2005) concerning the term “Christian” as originally designating Gentile converts.


The Interpretation of Knowledge: A Rhetorical Analysis (CG XI,1)
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Louis Painchaud, Laval University

The first tractate of Codex XI of Nag Hammadi, The Interpretation of Knowledge, is a paraenetic work apparently intended at the preservation or restoration of the unity of a community divided by dissensions. As such, it makes use of the rhetorical devices that characterize reconciliation speeches (Dunderberg 2003). While this text has generally been understood as a homily (Pezin 1981; Pagels 1988; Plisch 1994), it has been suggested recently that its addressee might be an individual, since references to its implied readership are in the singular (Emmel 2003). Be that as it may, its paraenetic character is patent (Tite 2004). The proposed paper will present a rhetorical analysis of the dispositio of the text, and of the function of the material found in each part in relation with its structure as a whole. This analysis will lead to the reconstruction of the rhetorical situation expressed by the text. In this situation, it will be argued, it is not a case of the addressee being the “spirituals” in a community (Pagels 1988), nor of their being a “Valentinian faction” (Tite 2004). Rather, the addressee (singular) will be seen to be a member of his or her Christian community, and one who is dissatisfied with his or her low status within the community. It will be further shown that the Interpretation of Knowledge was written with the intent of helping this recipient to accept his or her situation and to persevere in it in order to preserve the unity of the community.


What was Ezra’s Torah?
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Juha Pakkala, University of Helsinki, Finland

According to the book of Ezra, Ezra the scribe came from Babylon to teach the Torah to Israel. The content and extent of Ezra’s Torah has received considerable scholarly attention. Many suggestions have been made: Deuteronomy, priestly code, Deuteronomy & parts from the rest of the Pentateuch, final Pentateuch, or a lost version of the Pentateuch. The question is significant for dating the development of the Pentateuch. Most solutions to the question are problematic because they do not distinguish between the different literary layers of the book. It is probable that the authors of different textual layers were referring to different versions of the Pentateuch. It seems that the first authors and editors were using Deuteronomy, whereas the later editors increasingly used also other parts of the Pentateuch. The latest editors are clearly dependent on the priestly texts of the Pentateuch. In other words, the book of Ezra may reveal how the Pentateuch developed in the Persian and Hellenistic periods.


RS 94.2401 and the Biblical Karkob
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Dennis Pardee, University of Chicago

RS 94.2401, one of the new tablets from the House of Urtenu, bears an economic text dealing with the manufacture of _krkbm_. The new data from this text will be compared with the Hebrew word _karkob_, found in two passages in Exodus that refer to the building of the bronze altar (Exod. 27:5, 38:4).


The Composition of the Didache: A Text-Linguistic Approach
Program Unit: Didache in Context
Nancy Pardee, Saint Xavier University

The question of the compositional nature of the Didache is twofold: did the author/editor craft the work out of earlier texts and, if so, was this a singular redactional effort or did the text develop over two or more stages? While the general consensus answers the first in the affirmative, there is much less agreement on a resolution to the second. But is the compositional question even important? Some recent work on the Didache has emphasized a synchronic reading of the text that seems to bypass the problems raised by source and redaction criticism. The purpose of this paper is to pursue the question of the composition of the Didache from the perspective of text-linguistics and to address the issue of the importance of this question for our understanding of the Didache.


An Asian Woman's Deconstructive Reading of the Parable of the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8–10)
Program Unit: Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics
Jungeun Sophia Park, Graduate Theological Union

As an Asian woman, I try to understand the poverty of today in the context of globalizaiton. In the case of Asian women, those who do not have high education and money, easily fall into the victim of trafficking. As a way to understand the situation of trafficked women and the transformative meaning through those experiences, I interpreted the parable of the lost coin in Luke’s Gospel 15: 8-10 from an Asian woman’s perspective. I tried to integrate three dimensions of the text: the world before the text; the world behind the text; and the world of the text. I used scientific methods including interviews with social workers in Hong Kong, socio-historical approaches focusing on reconstruction of social construction, which is gender biased and class distinct society, and literary approach stressing the redactor’s literary strategy to control the meaning of the text. In the narrative of the chosen parable, the redactor uses a literary tool which is repetition as a way to control of the meaning of the text. The parable of the lost sheep and that of the lost coin repeat the pattern: lost-find-joy. However, each parable is concluded by suggestion of repentance. Then, readers suggest or expect the lost coin to repent. Those reading could be problematic. Unless reading the text from the perspective of the Other, the lost coin, the reader would lose the meaning of the text.


Re-envisioning Luke’s Household Discourse from an Asian Perspective
Program Unit: Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics
Rohun Park, Vanderbilt University

This paper will discuss Luke’s household discourse (Lk 15:1-32), which becomes the ground for fruitful examination of ethnic communities and identities under multicultural circumstances. While family continues its usual role, serving as a basis for the overall social and cultural dimensions of life in society, Lukan household as a project of life and for life erects a socio-economic umbrella for the otherwise uprooted, “homeless,” people. I will grapple with Luke’s reconfiguration of kinship in terms of God’s power of life (home) against death (homelessness), asking whether the author is releasing any claim to life or a worth apart from the mutual identification of human existence. By utilizing a critical rhetorical analysis, the research will attempt to reconstruct the voices of the margins who struggle against oppressive regulation, even below the subsistence level. For Asians still experiencing this in the two-thirds world, their inherent hermeneutics may elicit mutual support, liquidating artificial conflicts of values and smoothing jagged edges, where, according to the Tao Te Ching, harmony and unity persist beyond their differences. In this regard, the Lukan text will serve as the context, and the questions will be raised from a view of the margins grounded in the present.


Turning Lukan Economy Inside Out: Luke’s Concept of Oikonomia in Postcolonial Perspective
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Rohun Park, Vanderbilt University

This paper will examine the issue of Lukan economy (oikonomia) which creates tensions and ambivalence in the oikos discourse. The “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” in particular, presents a paterfamilias who crosses seldom traversed economic borderlines. His modest, yet persistent, boundary crossing releases the household from any misappropriation of colonial power. By featuring the father as one who transgresses the exploitative household, Luke formulates an alternative way of living for his community. No distinction exists between the prodigal and the principled son; yet, there is only a boundary-blurring reciprocity, which serves oikonomia for colonial subjects over against empirical dominance. Finally, distinctions between ‘have-nots’ and ‘haves’ and shamed and honored become unnecessary. The relationship between insider and outsider becomes compromised. In this way, the colonial margins, formerly conceived as voiceless and invisible, are now reclaimed and legitimated for the possible inclusion of the oikos. A closer look at certain Lukan texts will help uncover the encoded determinants of neglected economic models and their functions in Luke’s world. The research will include modern economics and socio-anthropological studies of reciprocity in order to elucidate several dimensions of Lukan oikonomia.


Adam's Presence Denied: Translation and the History of Immah in Genesis 3:6b
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Julie Faith Parker, Yale University

This paper explores how ancient and modern translations of Genesis 3:1-6 are intertwined with their interpretations, creating and bolstering beliefs about women. Early minds of antiquity already proffer influential analyses about the role of the woman in the myth of Adam and Eve, initiating an interpretative trend that continues for over two millennia (and counting). Of particular interest is the translation of Genesis 3:6b. In this verse, the Masoretic text, the Septuagint, the Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, Targums Onkelos, Neofiti, and Pseudo-Jonathan, as well as the Samaritan Targumim, all translate the undisputed word ‘immah (“with her”), conveying Adam’s presence with Eve at the fateful moment when they partake of the forbidden fruit. The Vulgate, however, chooses not to translate this suffixed preposition, and thereby minimizes Adam’s presence at the moment of culpability. Why did Jerome refrain from (or refuse to) translate ‘immah and what connotations does this choice carry? Why do other translators, through the Revised Standard Version and the JPS Tanakh, follow Jerome’s lead and omit the reminder that Adam is “with her”? This paper considers the ramifications of this translational choice from traditional and feminist perspectives. The larger implications from the discussion of this small word suggest that to translate sacred texts is inherently a theological endeavor.


The Management Style of a Monarch
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Simon B. Parker, Boston University

How did the kings of Judah actually administer their realm and how did they relate to their subordinates? While biblical literature portrays monarchs in a variety of roles and from a variety of points of view, the most direct historical testimony to an actual king's administrative style is Arad letter 24. This paper will interpret this letter as a historical document and consider the king's involvement in the minutiae of defence (micromanagement) and his means of enforcing obedience from his subordinates. It will also include a reconsideration of the realism of selected biblical texts.


Hans Robert Jauss’ Summit-Dialogue and Its Appropriateness for Biblical Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
David Parris, Fuller Theological Seminary

One of the contributions that Hans Robert Jauss made to Reception Theory that has been overlooked in the theological appropriations of his work has been his concept of the ‘summit-dialogue’ of authors. From the perspective of the researcher, the summit-dialogue is significant for three reasons. The first is obvious, this is the level that often defines the shape of a tradition. It is at this level that an innovative interpretation is publicly acknowledged and is accepted into the canon of exemplary commentators. This leads to the second reason why the summit-dialogue is a significant concept. For various biblical passages, the summit-dialogue presents us with what the accepted questions and answers that served as the boundaries of the hermeneutical playing field for what counted as a valid interpretation at various historical periods. Their work demonstrates the influence and normative function that a particular reading of a text can have through time. And third, a disproportionate percentage of the best textual evidence that has been preserved for how a passage has been interpreted and taught is located at this level. The Wirkungsgeschichte of the parable of the Great Feast (Matthew 22:1-14; Luke 14:15-24) I believe presents an illuminative case study to explore the value of Jauss’ concept of a summit-dialogue for biblical studies. Because a parable possesses a greater potential for a wider range of interpretations than other biblical genres, hopefully it will demonstrate the usefulness of this aspect of Jauss’ work in a more transparent manner. While the parable of the Great Feast has enjoyed a wide range of readings from the earliest church until the present there is also a clearly discernable trajectory of interpretation that makes this an interesting case study.


Verbal Imperative Variations in Qumran Legal Texts and Other Registers
Program Unit:
Donald Parry, Brigham Young University

The chief goal of this paper is to demonstrate the relatively low number (normalized by using a frequency per million factor) of verbal imperatives in the Temple Scroll (11Q19), Rule of the Community (1QS), Damascus Document (CD), and other Qumran legal texts when compared with other registers. Other registers examined in this paper include non-legal texts of Qumran, Exodus–Leviticus, and the Pentateuch. Linguistic variations among the different registers are often striking, and the verbal imperative is but a single example. The paper utilizes computerized based corpora—the Qumran texts and the Hebrew Bible—both of which have been grammatically tagged.


"Moral Character and Literary Characterization": Reading Acts in Light of Ancient Progymnasmata and Physiognomy
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Mikeal Parsons, Baylor University

The progymnasmata (in particular Theon) highlight the presentation and evaluation of moral character through a variety of rhetorical strategies and exercises (topos, proso/ethopoiea, ecphrasis, narrative, invective/encomium). Similarly, physiognomic handbooks explore moral character of literary (or historical) characters through their physical characteristics (on the assumption that the body reflects the moral character of the soul). The concerns of the progymnasmata and the physiognomic handbooks come together in interesting ways in several Lukan pericopae: the healing of the bent woman (Luke 13), the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19), the lame man (Acts 3-4), and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8). One of the purposes of both the progymnasmata and the handbooks is not only the presentation/evaluation of literary (or historical) characters but the formation of moral character of students, a purpose that may have been shared by Luke. As well, the concern for ethos in both sets of texts comes together in Luke.


An Unknown Greek Manuscript of The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Jacqueline Pastis, La Salle University

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When Reading Matthew "With Others" Deconstructs Our Western Concepts of Mission
Program Unit: Matthew
Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University

This paper emerges from Daniel Patte’s experience of editing the Global Bible Commentary and The Gospel of Matthew: A Contextual Introduction for Group Study, both of which provide a rich and varied experience of “reading with others”. After providing a brief introduction to the concept of “reading with others”, the paper will explore different concepts of mission in Matthew’s gospel which emerge from such a reading and will demonstrate how these deconstruct certain Western understandings of mission.


Philo on Atheism, Judaism, and Egyptian Identity
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Sarah Pearce, University of Southampton

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Publishing Critical Texts on the Web: Issues in Mounting the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Ken Penner, McMaster University

For some time it has been evident that scholars of early Judaism and early Christianity need better access to the texts of the Pseudepigrapha in their original (or extant) languages and with a critical apparatus. In many cases critical editions are prohibitively expensive or out of print, and scholars without access to a large library have been hard pressed to find them. The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha is intended to address this problem by publishing on-line, free-access critical texts of the Pseudepigrapha which are up-to-date and academically rigorous. This paper presents the issues we encountered in our endeavour to achieve this goal and the steps we have taken to resolve them. It outlines the various considerations for developing policies regarding quality control, copyright, data structure, and user interface, as well as the reasons for our decisions in these matters. Special attention is given to the technical issues of encoding, mark-up, and display of ancient languages. It is hoped that our experiences in mounting these texts with critical apparatus may encourage the development of similar resources for the careful study of primary ancient texts.


The Acts of the Apostles
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Todd Penner, Austin College

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The Medieval Slavonic "Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila": An Untapped Source
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath, Lund University

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Redescribing Antiquity: Reading Fiction, Seeing Dogma
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Judith Perkins, Saint Joseph College

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Greek Exodus: Re-shaping the Story
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Larry Perkins, Northwest Baptist Seminary

Generally the Greek translator of Exodus is regarded as careful and conservative in his work. However, there are contexts where significant changes are made, primarily through addition of material, but also through translation choices, to guide the reader into a specific understanding of the narrative. This paper will consider the additions made by the Greek translator Exodus 19-20 and argue that these were made for specific hermeneutical reasons and for the most part do not represent a different Hebrew vorlage. As a result of this review we may conclude that the translator was not as conservative with respect to his text as previously proposed. Adjustments made to the text, however, were purposeful, seeking to influence the reader to a certain understanding of the text.


Established for Judgment: Paul, Habakkuk, and the Politics of Exile
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Nicholas Perrin, Biblical Theological Seminary

For many commentators, Romans 13 presents an incongruity on two levels. In the first place, it has been observed that on just about any reading of Romans, Paul’s call to submit to governing authorities fits poorly, if at all, with the larger thrust of his argument. In the second place, given the recent surge in scholarship which has given increased recognition to the apostle’s polemic against the Empire of his day, the force of Romans 13 appears to undercut or least sharply relativize the socio-political stance assumed by the apostle elsewhere. In this paper, I will argue that certain intertextual connections between Romans 13 and Habakkuk clarify that Paul here is actually participating in an oblique Jewish critique of Roman rule and, moreover, intending his own teachings to be understood on the model of Judah’s exile under the Babylonians. In this case, the summons to submit to Roman authorities must be seen as a provisional accommodation to a specific political structure, not necessarily as a universal norm of Christian political conduct.


The Role of Non-human Characters in Jonah
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Raymond F. Person, Jr., Ohio Northern University

The Book of Jonah is often understood as a satire and the function of non-human characters is sometimes understood simply as contributing to the satirical tone of the narrative. However, the non-human characters clearly have a more important function. Not only do these characters obey God’s command (the winds, the fish, the plant, the worm), but God’s final words in Jonah 4:11 appear to validate their importance.


Identification Please: Aspects of Identity in Ancient Narrative
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Richard I. Pervo, Retired

The Issue of "identity" is central to much ancient narrative, including works at both the "center" and the "fringe" of the ancient novel, embracing romantic stories and historical tales, the serious and serio-comic, Jewish, Christian, and polytheist writings, gospels and Acts. Identity is always both an individual and corporate matter. Implicit answers to such basic questions as: What is and/or makes a genuine person, what prevents me/us from becoming what I/we ought and wish to be, underlie most, if not all of these disparate texts. Regaining/establishing/maintaining one's identity in the face of adversity drives the plot of most popular narrative. This paper will establish and compare some of these assumptions and seek to correlate them with several social histories and particular ideologies. Goals include demonstrating that similar narrative means can be used to justify different notions of identity and that focusing upon distinct religious identities(e.g., Judaism, Christianity) or such narrative features as miracles or sexuality can obscure deep rooted congruities. The old quasi-psychological expression "characters with whom one can(or cannot or should or should not) identify" reveals that identity has been a perennial concern for the guardians of public and private virtue, who have tended to assume that readers do identify with literary characters and that one responsibility of our "betters" is to see that we read the right kind of books or, failing that, to see that books are interpreted in the correct manner. Althought popular literature is, by definition (N. Frye), what our betters disparage, it also reflects, in its changing portrayals of heroes and heroines, the evolution of positive and negative role models and other types of social identity.


Luke as a Creative Ancient Historian
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Anni Pesonen, University of Helsinki

Ancient historiography provides valuable information about how the evangelists may have understood their task as transmitters of Jesus tradition. The rules of ancient historiography were quite different from that of our time. Most importantly, the very ideal historians strove to achieve was different. The embellishment of sources by invention was an intrinsic part of all historiography. History was supposed to be based on a factual basis. However, the creation of additional information was a merit if it resulted in a more exciting, elegant and edifying book. Demands and promises of sticking to plain truth must not be mistaken for a critical consciousness of history as carefully verified facts. Rather, they refer to the ideal of impartiality. It was legitimate practice to embellish and modify the subject matter as long as the traditional basis was not manipulated of inferior motives. This was a normal way to link up with and to honour one's tradition. As we know, Luke comes in many ways closer to the standards of the historiography of his day than Mark does, and it is commonly accepted that in Acts especially he used their methods, e.g. in the creation of speeches. The way Luke rearranges, alters and decorates some Markan scenes may reflect the invention technique of historiography. It is inspired by a similar understanding of how a good writer relates to tradition. Jesus' visit to Nazareth is taken as an example. From the viewpoint of critical history, it is a drawback, taking us only further of what may actually have happened. Luke's motives are aesthetic and theological, and the latter are best understood in the light of Acts. The outcome is not in line with our ideal of historiography, but is in line with the ancient one.


Romans 15:26 Eleven Years Later: "Make a Contribution" or "Establish Fellowship"?
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Gerald Peterman, Moody Bible Institute

In 1994 I published an article in New Testament Studies in which I asserted that English translations improperly render Rom 15.26 as "Make a Contribution." Rather it should be rendered "Establish Fellowship." For SBL 2005 I would like to review and strengthen the evidence I gave in 1994 as well as survey the recent responses made to my proposal in Romans commentaries and in English translations.


Romans 15:26 Eleven Years Later: Make a Contribution or Establish Fellowship?
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Gerald Peterman, Moody Bible Institute

Eleven years ago I published an article in New Testament Studies, asserting that the phrase in Rom 15.26 rendered as “make a contribution” in most English translations, should better be translated “establish fellowship.” The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, I will rehearse and expand the argument given in 1994. Second, I will assess the responses made to my proposal in recent commentaries and translations.


Noah the “Righteous” in the Genesis Apocryphon: Enoch’s Noah Rebiblicized?
Program Unit: Qumran
Dorothy M. Peters, University of Manchester

The term “righteous” with its collocations was a descriptor of Noah in the Genesis Apocryphon. However, in the Enochic Books extant at Qumran, the writers of all but the most ancient Noachic traditions contained therein appear to have, at the very least, overlooked Noah’s righteousness. Rather than being identified with the “righteous plant” itself, Noah functions as a seed-carrier that survives the flood; he is presented as a mere conduit of righteousness between the righteous Enoch and the generations of righteousness to follow. Three of Noah’s key speeches in the Genesis Apocryphon may give evidence that their author deliberately rewrote the biblical righteousness of Noah back into the Enochic Noah at strategic points where it had been neglected in the Enoch cycle. Furthermore, Genesis Apocryphon attributes to Noah the characteristics, activities, and revelations that were reserved primarily for Enoch in the books that bore his name. Noah is effectively made Enoch’s legitimate successor and a fitting righteous figure with whom a community could safely identify.


Second Clement and the Second Century Text of the New Testament
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
William L. Petersen, Pennsylvania State University-University Park

Usually dated to the first half of the second century, *Second Clement* is extremely important to scholarship as a very early source of recognizable parallels to the New Testament. This paper will present a sampling of the type of readings found in *Second Clement,* and analyze them. What they tell us about the shape of the (proto-) New Testament text, about the canon, and about the manner of "citation" (verbatim, "free," *ad hoc*), is illuminating. The thirty-nine recognizable parallels empirically demonstrate that while parallels found in *both* the OT and the NT (that is, places where the NT cites the OT) are virtually verbatim, the vast majority of NT-only parallels are not. Nevertheless, one must be cautious about characterizing the NT parallels as "free citations" or *ad hoc* adaptations by the author, for the deviating forms found in *Second Clement* often have other second-century Patristic parallels--thus demonstrating that the form of the passage is not due to the free hand of the author of *Second Clement.* Indeed, on the basis of some of these parallels, it is suggested that all extant editions of *Second Clement* are in error at three points, and need correction. These textual affinities also permit one to suggest a provenance for the work.


Paul, Passover, and Politics: Shaping Christian Identity in Corinth
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Jeffrey Peterson, Austin School of Theology

Paul's reference to Passover in 1 Cor 5:7–8 appears with no advance preparation in the text of the letter in the development of a point to which this Jewish festival is tangential. This presupposes that the letter's recipients have been made familiar with the annual celebration of Israel's deliverance and establishment as a people uniquely claimed by God, as 1 Cor 16:8 likewise presupposes for Pentecost. Indeed, the appeal to Christ as "our Pasch" presumes that Jesus' death has been interpreted in light of the paschal victim (cf. 11:23–25: 15:3–5) and offered to Paul's Corinthian converts as the basis for a new political identity (cf. 10:1–22) in which they are "gentiles" no longer (12:2) but have become subjects of the universal Lord Jesus Christ (1:2–3, 7–10; 8:6; 12:3) who live in expectation of his imperial advent (1:7–8; 15:23–28). Analysis of such passages reveals the key elements of the political resocialization involved in the formation of a Pauline community, which the letter builds on and seeks to further.


Ancient Concepts of the Netherworld in Image and Text
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati, University of Zurich

Religious symbol systems produce and convey images of the world through different forms of communication. Texts, images, rituals, music, buildings etc. can therefore be analysed as different levels of the religious message. The representation of space plays a central role within religious representations of the world, as for instance cosmological concepts demonstrate. The present paper considers a particular aspect of religious representations of space by focussing on descriptions of the netherworld in a selection of Mesopotamian literary and iconographic sources. The comparison between texts and images points out differences in the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic programs of the selected documents. This approach aims primary to reconstruct the cosmological place of death. Furthermore, it describes the temporal dimension of the netherworld as a reflection upon the transiency of human life. The simultaneous analysis of spatial and temporal aspects links general cosmological models of the world with the reflection on individual, existential experience.


“Criminal Elements in the Magician’s Clientele”: Reconsidering the Context of Invisibility Spells in the Greek Magical Papyri
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Richard Phillips, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

There are a handful of invisibility spells in the corpus of the Greek Magical Papyri. Noticeably absent in most of them is any indication of a context in which they are to be employed. Morton Smith boldly asserts that “the interest of the papyri in such matters [of invisibility and escape] suggests that there was a criminal element in the magician’s clientele”. At first glance his assertion is not unreasonable. One immediately thinks of the tale of the ring of Gyges’. More contemporary to the PGM are early Christian works that portray Simon Magus as possessing the ability to vanish and steal under his cloak of invisibility. But how reliable are such literary accounts, especially given the fact that Plato’s account is centuries removed from the PGM and accounts of Simon Magus are embedded within Christian polemic? This paper will present evidence from the extant invisibility spells to address two key questions implicit in Smith’s assertion. Should invisibility spells be paired with spells of escape? And if so, does such activity intrinsically implicate the practitioner in criminal activity? Internal evidence from the PGM suggests that invisibility spells were used as a component of escape acts or jailbreaks. The acquisition of invisibility is commonly listed side-by-side with spells to break chains as well as spells to break chains and open doors. Since we have individual spells to break chains and open doors within the PGM, it is not hard to imagine that invisibility spells could have been utilized in similar contexts. After presenting internal evidence of context, this paper will close by exploring the implications of these findings in literary passages portraying “jailbreaks” and acts of escape (e.g. Acts of the Apostles 12.5-12; Philostr. VA 8.5; Amm.Marc. 30.17, etc.).


Was Jesus Wise or Not?
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Thomas E. Phillips, Colorado Christian University

After Jesus was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton (Matt. 11:16-19//Luke 7:31-35), he responded that his opponents were never satisfied. Jesus complained that his audiences had refused to appreciate either John’s asceticism or Jesus’ indulgence. The account closes with the curious remark that “wisdom is justified by her children” or “by all her deeds” (Mt. 11:19//Luke 7:35). The overwhelming consensus of scholarship assumes that this proverb's reference to "wisdom" draws upon the OT tradition of personified wisdom. I believe this consensus is wrong. This "wisdom" reference draws upon a Greco-Roman philosophical tradition found in the common topos “Can the wise man get drunk?” In order to demonstrate this, I will trace the development of this drunkenness/wisdom topos through prominent philosophers, most importantly, Seneca and Philo. In this discourse, the common answer to the question “Can the wise man get drunk?” is: the wise man can drink in moderation, but cannot get drunk. When read in light of this philosophical discourse, the accusation from Jesus’ critics makes perfect sense. By the standards of the day, neither the non-drinking John nor the excessively drinking Jesus were wise. If they were wise, they would drink in moderation, but John abstains and Jesus overindulges. The detractors of John and Jesus assume that the pair’s drinking habits demonstrate their lack of wisdom, because wisdom is always plain to see. After all, “wisdom is justified by her children.” The proper cultural background against which to read this account is the philosophical topos of human wisdom and drunkenness, not the OT tradition of personified wisdom.


2 Timothy 3:12 and "the Ideal of Good Christian Citizenship": An Anabaptist Perspective
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Lloyd Pietersen, University of Bristol

Martin Dibelius famously described the Pastoral Epistles as being concerned to promote “the ideal of good Christian citizenship” (christliche Bürgerlichkeit). Yet this description fails to take adequate account of the rhetorical force of 2 Tim 3:12, a text which receives very little attention in the Dibelius and Conzelmann Hermeneia commentary on the Pastorals. Indeed most commentators pay scant attention to this particular verse. By way of contrast, the 17th century Anabaptist text, Martyrs Mirror, contains 25 references to this verse and a further three to 2 Tim 3:12-13. This proved a significant passage for Anabaptists facing persecution in the 16th and 17th centuries. This paper argues that modern commentators on the Pastoral Epistles have consistently interpreted them through the lens of Christendom – an interpretative stance that fails to do adequate justice to the precarious nature of Christian communities in the first and second centuries. Far from promoting a form of Christianity at ease with the authorities, this paper suggests, in the light of Anabaptist experience, that the Pastorals are concerned with appropriate Christian communal praxis in the light of the real threat of persecution of a group at the margins of society.


Fascinating Phrases on Dead Sea Scroll Fragments: Four Examples
Program Unit:
Dana Pike, Brigham Young University

Dealing with words and short phrases preserved on small fragments creates a number of challenges, not the least of which is the lack of a context in which to understand the preserved text. Confidently determining whether such fragmentary texts match previously known texts, are variations of known texts, or preserve unique readings is sometimes difficult. Of course, familiarity with biblical texts and the various Judaean Desert documents is essential. But in cases in which the text of a small fragment is not immediately identifiable, the DSSEL has proven to be a valuable tool that cannot be overlooked. The determination of the uniqueness of a phrase on a Qumran fragment or the successful matching of a rare phrase with the vocabulary of another document is facilitated by the Electronic Library. This study examines four fascinating phrases that are preserved on small scroll fragments from Qumran Cave 4. Following the determination of whether the phrases in question are unique or not, each of the phrases examined in this study is discussed in relation to other seemingly similar Qumran texts and relevant non-Qumran texts in an effort to better understand the nature of the documents minimally represented by the short phrases in question. The four phrases dealt with in this presentation are: “a light to/for Jacob,” “before the pillar (of),” “as/for a witness of YHWH,” and “he sends rain, lightening.”


The Marx of the Beast: Ideological Criticism at the End of Time
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Tina Pippin, Agnes Scott College

In this study I want to look at the various spaces of openings in the text of the Apocalypse: revelation, mouth, key, abyss, lake, face, scroll, books, bowls, heaven, and of course, Jezebel, Women Clothed with the Sun, Whore of Babylon, Bride of Christ/New Jerusalem. I will argue that these openings endlessly disrupt any ordered reading (from premillennial dispensationalists or historical biblical critics). In particular, I want to look at the openings that the beasts of the text provide. It is in-between the spaces of life and death that the beasts and angels and son of man (and the reader?) dwell. Derrida calls this indeterminent space the space of phantasms; we have at work in the Apocalypse what Derrida refers to as a “hauntology.” I will look at Derrida’s use of the “spectre” of Marx and how recent portrayals of the mouth of evil (the Antichrist) in the Left Behind series (books and films) and Revelations (six episode series on NBC) reflect a hegemonic discourse about the “last days” and thus represent the dominant ideology of the Bush administration’s Middle East and war policies. I will argue that the text also is a mouth (full of evil spirits, a sword, the word of God?), a bowl of wrath, an abyss. This textual mouth vomits on the reader, it swallows itself up, and it always, eternally, endlessly speaks. What possibilities for resistance—and justice--does an ideological critical reading of apocalypse offer?


"No Dew and No Rain": Conjuring of the Clouds or Lament for the Fallen? A Survey in Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Andres Piquer Otero, University of California, Berkeley

This paper analyzes the usage of the phrase "no dew and no rain" in Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew, as found, respectively, in the Epic of Aqhat (KTU 1.19 I 44) and in two locations of Sam-Kgs, the famous lament of David for Saul and Jonathan (2Sam 1:21), very possibly an instance of "Archaic Biblical Hebrew" poetry, and the episode of the drought in the Elijah Cycle (1Kgs 17:1). Though, on the surface, the phrase seems to be associated in each case with a different narrative function , the present research will try to delineate some strong relationships -especially between Aqhat and David's dirge- through the application of discourse analysis to the wider textual contexts where the phrase is used. This, in turn, will hopefully raise the question of the function of the formula and the possible changes/creative variations operating upon it through the process of transmission and assimilation of oral literature. Therefore, it can be also considered as a sample case for reflection on the wider problem of transmission and borrowing of literature and literary motifs in the oral/written merism of North Western Semitic testimonia.


Watch That Margin! Understanding the Scribal Peculiarities of CAT 1.4 Obverse
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Wayne T. Pitard, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The obverse of CAT 1.4, the largest literary tablet found at Ugarit, has a number of scribal peculiarities that are found on no other tablet that is attributable to the scribe Ilimilku. Most notable is the fact that instead of the standard double vertical lines between each column that is characteristic of Ilimilku's tablets (including the reverse of 1.4), here we find three verticals between columns 2 and 3, and four verticals between columns 3 and 4. This paper tries to reconstruct the actions of the scribe that led to these and other anomalies and to analyse what this can tell us about scribal practices at Ugarit.


“Those Who Stood on the Right Had More Glory”: Cosmology and Eschatology in the “Ascension of Isaiah”
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Catherine Playoust, Harvard University

In the heavenly ascent that gives the “Ascension of Isaiah” its name, Isaiah travels from the earth up to the seventh heaven before he returns to convey his revelations. Compared with other Jewish and Christian ascent apocalypses, the heavens in this text are remarkably simple and unadorned. This focuses attention on the intensely hierarchical structure of its cosmology, in which status is signified by location and appearance: higher and right are superior to lower and left, and each angel’s status is shown by the degree of its visible glory. The emphasis on vertical and horizontal axes and the attention given to visible glory are carried through even to the highest heaven and the subordinationist “Trinity.” But there is a twist in the symbolism of this cosmos, despite this structural clarity, for there is the possibility of deception. The Beloved (Christ) and Satan can each travel to other levels of the cosmos and can change their form to seem more lowly or more glorious. These insights turn out to be crucial to the text’s soteriology, and they point to the eschatological hope of the early Christians reading this text: although apparently just lowly humans, they will at last change their location and appearance, by ascending to the highest heaven and receiving their robes, crowns, and thrones.


"Gaudete in Domino": Aquinas among the Philippians
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Regina Plunkett-Dowling, Fordham University

Although he produced a commentary on Philippians early in his career, Aquinas demonstrates his most mature understanding of Paul's letter in the Summa Theologica. Using Paul's treatment of "joy" and "rejoicing" as a test-case, we will explore how Philippians has left its mark on topics as varied as the beatific vision; God's delight in creation; the passions; the fruits of the Spirit; and God's friendship with human beings. Aquinas, in turn, helps illuminate the paraenetic and eschatological dimensions of joy in Paul's letter.


Sociolinguistics, a Key to Typology, and Social Background of Biblical Hebrew Literature
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Frank Polak, Tel Aviv University

Sociolinguistics studies the interaction between the way language is used in communication, the social conditions surrounding the communication process, and the speakers’ attitude to this process. The group of people that are united by the common networks of communication constitutes a speech community. The sociolinguistic methods and models constitute excellent tools for the characterization of language use in such books as Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther and others. Many of the distinctive features of the language of these books are best explained in terms of the influence of the scribal language used at the Judahite chancery under Babylonian and especially Persian domination, in which Aramaic served as adminstrative language, according to the massive evidence from Elephantine, Wadi ed-Daliyeh, Jericho and Khirbet-el-Qom. Some distinctive lexemes in these books are clearly related to the field of the administration, in particular terms in the legal or the governmental register, while some distinctive syntactic and stylistic features reflect the stylistic norms of administrative formulation. In other words, the language used in these books reflects the scribal culture of the Judahite chancery that was subservient to the Persian empire. The language of texts situated in the Babylonian exile is also involved. Many syntactic and stylistic features indicate that the scribal culture also is reflected by Deuteronomic literature, as well as prose parts in the book of Jeremiah, and the redaction of Kings, and many texts relating to the cult. This conclusion is buttressed by the convergence of these strata and the Hebrew of the Judahite inscriptions. The remaining question, then, is the characterization of texts in which the scribal culture not reflected at all, or is only marginally alluded to. Can one point to data that allow us to characterize such discourse as based on an oral background?


"And Also to the Jews in Their Script": Power and Writing in the Scroll of Esther
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Don Polaski, College of William and Mary

On its surface, the scroll of Esther assumes the power and efficacy of writing. The king’s written edicts are immutable (1:19; 8:8). The archives have an important role in the plot (6:1-13) as do the conflicting edicts written by Haman and Mordecai (3:8-15; 8:9-14). Purim is established by imperial command (9:20-23, 29-32). The scroll itself seems to have been read early on as an authoritative writ establishing Purim (note the Greek colophon). But while writing points to imperial authority, that very imperial power is undermined. Ahaseurus, who has numerous texts written, is easily manipulated (3:8), acts out of anger and inebriation (1:21-2:1), and jumps to conclusions (7:7). He is hardly “in control” of people or events. Writing does not suffice to make imperial authority “real.” Yet, ironically, the “goal” of the book is to place the ability really to write in Mordecai’s hands. Indeed, Esther has been seen as a carnival, a place where normal power relations are reversed. We would thus expect that writing, so linked to imperial power, is also subject to reversal or displacement. For example, while writing is central to the plot’s outcome, the most important moments in the plot demand oral exchange. Esther (at great risk to herself) must appear in the king’s presence; a letter will not serve. If the scroll of Esther is to be “powerful,” to mandate practice, it must resist a complete carnivalization of writing even as it parodies royal authority. I wish to examine these uncertainties about writing in Esther, with an eye to relating this instability to larger uncertainties about the proper position of the Jews in imperial social and cultural power structures.


1 Enoch: Writing the Sectarian Subject
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Don Polaski, College of William and Mary

In many works from the Second Temple period (e.g., Nehemiah, Daniel 1-6) writing is understood as an instance of imperial power. How these texts construct writing ideologically is thus an important datum in discerning their stance vis a vis imperial power. In this paper, I examine the uses of writing in the sectarian works which make up 1 Enoch, looking for ideologies of writing. In the Book of the Watchers, writing is uniformly positive, not far distant from the view taken in Jubilees and the apocalyptic sections of Daniel. For example, Enoch, a “scribe” or “righteous scribe” (12:3-4), writes a memorandum to God for the Watchers (13:4). In the epistle of Enoch, Enoch has access to ancient tablets (93:2), and the deeds of the unrighteous are written down daily in heaven (98:8). Yet the epistle speaks against those – apparently to be understood as opponents of the text’s present – who use writing to alter or annul truth (98:14-99:2; 104:10-13). Writing is acceptable as a practice distant either temporally or spatially, but in the present is dubious. Writing as a powerful act is located in the past, while those who wish power in the present must gain their power from the authoritative text. An imperial mode of power, which the scribes continue to use, is adapted for use in ways that resist the “powerful.” 1 Enoch 69:8-11 moves in a different direction. This text challenges all writing; whatever Enoch does with it is an intervention in a “bad” technology. This position explains why writing is questionable – it takes an Enoch to twist this always-to-be-suspected gift into an appropriate vehicle for divine communication – and thus places scribes in a much more constrained ideological position regarding their own work and that of imperial authorities.


"Let No One Despise Your Youth": The Deconstruction of Traditional Authority in the Pastoral Epistles
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Sandra Hack Polaski, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

The community envisioned by the Pastorals is highly, even rigidly, structured by traditional authority. Community members are urged to show deference to figures in governmental authority (1 Tim 2:1–2 and Titus 3:1). The community is divided by age and gender for purposes of specific instruction (Titus 2:2–8). The roles of church leaders are mentioned frequently (1 Tim 3:1–13; 1 Tim 5:17–19; Titus 1:5–9). The church is described as the “household of God”(1 Tim 3:15), and in many ways it seems that the pastorals use the Haustafeln to structure the entire community. Furthermore, frequent cautions against false teachers and moral reprobates seem designed to persuade the community that danger lurks at every door, reinforcing the traditional structures of authority and deference that alone can protect them. Yet the addressees of these texts are not figures whom traditional authority would place in charge. Paul addresses his correspondents as “my true child” (1 Tim 1:1, Titus 1:4) or “my beloved child” (2 Tim 1:2). Timothy is presented as a “brother” to the younger members of his congregation (1 Tim. 5:1). Paul implies that Timothy is still a student, needing to study and consider Paul’s teaching (2 Tim 2:7, 15). At the same time, both Timothy and Titus are specifically directed to teach, a task otherwise entrusted only to “elders” (1 Tim 5:17). Somehow Paul’s “children” are exempted from the structures of authority that govern the rest of their community—an inconsistency that may present a problem, as Paul counsels Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth” (1 Tim. 4:12). Paul seems confident that these “children” of his can carry out their charismatically authoritative function without upsetting the traditional structures around them; but this inconsistency may also be read as the crack that leads to the downfall of those structures.


Tips for Teaching Greek Online
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Sandra Hack Polaski, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond

The presenters will share examples and insights from their experience teaching NT Greek online using two different courseware platforms (Blackboard and Moodle) and in two different seminary settings. Topics will include online pedagogy, integrating Greek with other coursework, online group dynamics, managing instructor workload, Greek fonts, student computer support, and using audio recordings. Supporting materials, handouts, and screen prints will be posted on a web page for Workshop participant access.


Alliances between the Gods and the King and the Transfer of Divine Knowledge
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Tübingen University

The analysis of various forms of marriage imagery in their literary and ritual context results in classifying "sacred marriage" as a key metaphor among the narratives of power which inform royal ideology in Mesopotamia. In all cases -- cosmogamy, hierogamy, and theogamy -- sexual union is coupled with verbal communication between the partners. The dialogue, as it implies transfer of knowledge and divine approval, turns out to be the key element in these settings while erotic language has nothing to do with sexual performance. Rather, the marriage imagery is part of a variety of relational patterns expressing the familial alliance between the king and the gods which serves to sacralize his kingship and promote his political and social authority.


'On the Shoulders of Giants' - The Expansion and Application of the Louw-Nida Lexicon
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Stanley E. Porter, McMaster Divinity College

The Louw-Nida Semantic Domain lexicon represents a significant (perhaps even 'gigantic') advance in Greek lexicography. This achievement has also been recognized outside of biblical studies in the field of general linguistics. This paper considers two main issues in the use and future expansion of the LN lexicon. The first concerns how applicable the LN domain categories are for the extension of the lexicon beyond the Greek of the New Testament. For example, how should the GIGANTES of Gen. 6.5 and other LXX words be classified? The second issue relates to using the lexicon in exegesis and textual analysis. Words are frequently placed within 2 or more major domains and a range of subdomains, but each instance in discourse will belong to just one of these. We present a method for disambiguating words in their contexts, using collocational and syntactical analysis.


“Each Be the Enemy of the Other”: Two Early Islamic Versions of the Fall
Program Unit:
Michael Pregill, Columbia University

Copious amounts of biblical, Christian, and rabbinic material are to be found in classical Islamic historical and exegetical works. The presence of this material, termed isra’iliyyat by later Muslim authorities, is often linked to early converts to Islam and their disciples such as Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 730). A tradition attributed to Wahb on the fall of Adam and Eve preserved in both the chronicle and Koran commentary of Tabari (d. 923) that is modeled directly upon the original narrative from Genesis 3 will be examined in the context of its sources and putative authorship. Comparison with a different tradition on the Fall in Tabari from the Companion Ibn Abbas (d. 687) will shed light on the problem of attribution and especially the portrayal of the avenues through which Judaism supposedly “influenced” the nascent Islamic tradition.


Unpublished Inscriptions from Beth She‘arim: Palaeography and History
Program Unit: Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University

Thirteen Greek epitaphs, painted in red on the walls of two caves at the great necropolis at Beth She‘arim, were studied by the author and are now being prepared for publication. These inscriptions had in fact been seen by the original excavators of the site but only two were published. The 13 texts seem to have been written by only four or five different hands, for the most part skilled and confident, with letter forms typical of the third-fourth centuries; one tantalizing text, however, in fact the longest, is unfortunately both written ineptly (regarding both palaeography and orthography) and water-damaged, but individual words and possible names can be made out. All the epitaphs, from both their palaeographical features and content, seem to relate to Jews with a common origin (the Phoenician coast). The inscriptions contain fifteen decipherable names which, although all written in Greek lettering, are a mixture of Greek, Hebrew and Latin names with no discernible generational pattern. They record, among others, an "archisynagogos" and a “rabbi”. Five of the names are hapax legomena in the Jewish onomasticon. A discussion of both palaeography and history.


"Why Do You Seek the Living among the Dead"? Rhetorical Questions and the Lukan Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Deborah Thompson Prince, University of Notre Dame

This paper will address the role of the rhetorical questions in the Lukan resurrection account. In each of the four post-resurrection appearance narratives in Luke 24 and Acts 1, two of the two angelic men (Lk 24:1-12; Acts 1:9-14) and two of the risen Jesus (Lk 24:13-35, 36-53), the appearing figure initiates verbal contact with a rhetorical question (Lk 24:5b, 17, 38, Acts 1:11a). Commentators have noted the presence of these questions but have not appreciated the connection between them, or their significance for identifying the author’s rhetorical goal for these vision narratives. The paper will discuss the place of these questions within Luke’s resurrection account and address their wider literary context. First, I will describe the criticism directed at the Christian tradition of Jesus’ resurrection, laying the basis for the conclusion that the Lukan post-resurrection appearance narratives are composed, in part, to present a cogent argument for the truth of Jesus’ resurrection in the face of skepticism. Secondly, I will summarize the use of rhetorical questions in ancient rhetorical theory in order to demonstrate that the narrative of Luke-Acts engages Greco-Roman rhetorical standards. Thirdly, the function of rhetorical questions in Luke 24 and Acts 1 will be discussed. My contention in this paper is that these rhetorical questions identify the points at issue in Luke’s argument for the resurrection of Jesus and the stasis upon which each point is based, as suggested by ancient rhetorical discussions. This presentation will further scholarly understanding of the concern Luke-Acts manifests for the utilization of rhetorical standards in narrative composition and give insight into Luke’s apologetic purpose.


The Poetic Climax of the Vision in Daniel 8
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Martin Pröbstle, Seminar Schloss Bogenhofen

While the book of Daniel features several poetic passages at significant places, usually toward the end of a vision or an angelic interpretation, the climax of the vision in ch. 8 has not yet been studied in terms of poetry. In this paper I analyze Dan 8:9-14 for poetic features and describe the purpose and function of the poetic style found in verse 11. The poetic analysis shows that Dan 8:11 exhibits a combination of several poetic features and should be interpreted as embedded poetry in the prose narrative of the vision report. Other parts in the passage (vs. 12, 13c, and 14b-c) also show some poetic features and are best placed in the middle of the poetry-prose continuum. A comparison with the other poetic insets in the visions and angelic interpretations of Daniel shows that the poetic inset in 8:11 has a corresponding purpose and function. It marks the climax of the symbolic vision and highlights the climactic act of the horn's presumptuous usurpation of divine power and control. However, since the other poetic insets specifically emphasize the theme of God's control and reign, the poetic style of 8:11 artfully increases by ironic contrast the theological tension already existent in the previous prose. Realizing the poetic-like style of Dan 8:11, one can appreciate the full rhetorical force of this text and at the same time understand some of its intricate syntactic features which so far have escaped a satisfying explanation.


Musa W. Dube's Postcolonial Feminist Reading of Mission Texts in Matthew and the Evolvement of the Concept of Mission in the HIV/AIDS Reading
Program Unit: Matthew
Nienke Pruiksma, Theological University Kampen

As the working title already suggests, this paper will sketch the work of Musa Dube, her postcolonial feminist reading of the Bible – in this case three texts from Matthew – her concept of mission derived from those texts and the way she has developed her ideas on mission in the light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. To outline this development, I will address three texts that Dube has also used in her books and articles, namely: 1. Matth. 28. 18-20; 2. Matth. 15.21-28; 3. Matth. 25.31-45. On the basis of the first text, the grand commandment, I will outline Dube’s arguments for the need for decolonisation of texts, readers, interpretations and theological institutions. The second text of the Samaritan woman at the well will be addressed to illustrate how Dube proposes the decolonisation of texts and how to move beyond (postcolonial) the patriarchal and imperial oppression found in the text. The third text will help to show how Jesus proposes a people-centred mission and how this text can serve as a call to all responsible in churches and in education to turn around and change their attitude to those in- and affected by HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is one of the most pressing social justice issues and affects all areas in life, faith and spirituality included: as such, Matth. 25 can serve as a redefinition of the first text – Matth. 28 – and as an incentive for social action and change. To conclude I will briefly recapitulate the development and note the continuities.


Using the Bible in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Its Influence and Impact with Reference to the Gay Debate
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Jeremy Punt, University of Stellenbosch

The Bible has generated a significant reception history in the first decade of a democratic, post-Apartheid South Africa. Its reception history testifies to how the Bible was considered important across a wide area of society, contributing also to believers’ lives and sense of self amidst the enormous changes in the country. The recent report of the Dutch Reformed Church, the largest Afrikaans-speaking church in SA, on homosexuality, the subsequent reactions from the Christian gay community and the ensuing debate, all highlight the influence and impact of the use of the Bible today. It shows how the reception history of the Bible concerns both a process of reading and writing, requiring attention for the role of interpretive traditions in the hermeneutical processes, and the social location – in the broad sense of the word – of those who use the Bible in the debate. Beyond its use for reference purposes in broader theological debates and related issues of power, the Bible also impacts on modes of identity, as these documents are found to contribute in different ways to the defense of existing and formation of up new worldviews, the construction of new realities – all of which are of particular importance in marginalised communities, such as the gay community in South Africa.


"Frozen Translations": The Tyranny of Tradition
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Frederic Clarke Putnam, Biblical Theological Seminary

This paper addresses the difficulty of rendering proverbs composed in Classical [Biblical] Hebrew into English. This challenge is semantic (caused by the use of infrequent lexemes), syntactical (caused by poetic compression), and cultural (caused by chronological and cultural distance). As great a challenge, however, is that of actually *reading* the text, which seems to be a direct reflection of the tradition that underlies any translation. This paper illustrates these challenges by examining the translation of at least two individual proverbial sayings (time permitting): the nearly universal mistranslation of Pr 11.22, and misleading choices in rendering [Pr 10.19] into English. The first is a case of persistent misreading of the predicate of 11.22b; the second illustrates the importance of poetic analysis in lexical and syntactical choice. [The reference is in brackets because the particular verse chosen may vary.] This paper thus cautions against relying too heavily on the translation tradition, and encourages close poetic analysis of the text of the proverbs in making translational choices.


Swallowed by a Song: Jonah as Midrash on the Jonah-Psalm
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Hugh Pyper, University of Sheffield

In the spirit of Graeme Auld's recommendation that the mirror image of the obvious may be more exciting and convincing, this paper argues that the psalm in chapter 2 of Jonah is the seed of the book which also draws on various other canonical sources, notably the brief notice of Jonah in 2 Kings 15, and the book of Nahum. This counter-reading, although intriguing in itself, will be used to raise the wider question as to what Jonah's readers might gain from this or any other literary analysis of the book and what the criteria for 'legitimate' analysis of such a text might be. The title is drawn from a lyric by Paul Simon on his album 'One Trick Pony' and this adds to the complexity of intertexts. Is this just one more reading to add to the cornucopia in Yvonne Sherwood's remarkable study of the book, or is it a better reading? How would we know, and to whom does it matter?


Latin American Literatures and Cultures
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Jose Rabasa, University of California, Berkeley

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Whence Came the Israelites and Their Language
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
A. F. Rainey, Tel Aviv University

During the past quarter of a century there has been a "consensus" among biblical scholars and archaeologists that the new settlements that sprang up during the beginning of the Early Iron Age in the hills of Ephraim, Manasseh, Judah and Upper Galilee came from the Canaanite occupied areas in the valleys and on the coastal plain. The springboard for that idea was an article and a book by George Mendenhall and a book by Norman Gottwald. J. Callaway got on board with a ceramic argument based on his pottery from et-Tell and Khirbet Raddanah. W. Dever has especially supported the latter's view of the ceramic evidence in favor of a Canaanite origin for the "proto Israelites." Dever also records continuity in Language. Here he is dead wrong. There are several features that make it clear that ancient Hebrew is a Trans-Jordanian language alongside southern Old Aramaic and Moabite.


Christian Soteriology and Christian Platonism: Origen and Gregory of Nyssa and the Biblical and Philosophical Basis of the Doctrine of Apokatastasis
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, Catholic University, Milan

Paul's statement that God will be all in all and other NT and OT passages are taken by Origen and by Gregory of Nyssa as the scriptural basis of their eschatological doctrine of apokatastasis and eventual universal salvation. At the same time, their doctrine rests on philosophical arguments mainly belonging to Platonism (Gregory's De Anima et Resurrectione is deeply influenced by Platonism both in form and in content, and so is Origen, though they both are Christians before than Platonists), and on the allegorical exegesis of Scripture, another heritage of the Hellenistic culture: Origen knew very well the Stoic and Platonic allegoresis of myth.


Eschatological Wounds: Disability in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Rebecca Raphael, Texas State University

This paper analyzes the representation of disability in two types of texts from Qumran. The community rules and eschatological documents (1QS, CD, 1QSa, 1QM and 4QM) amplify priestly concerns about purity. CD and 1QSa express practical prohibitions against disabled persons joining the community or holding offices. By contrast, 1QS uses terms of disability to describe the ‘way of darkness,’ very much in the tradition of Isaianic rhetoric. The War Rule, in turn, prohibits disabled persons from participating in the eschatological army. The significance of disability thus ranges across ritual, ethical, and eschatological concerns. These documents yield a consistent picture of the community’s view of disability as a physical instantiation of evil, to be definitively separated from the pure and good in the final conflict. The Hymns, however, throw this neat scheme into question: like the Psalmist, the speaker often uses terms of disability and dismemberment to depict the condition of a good person in the hands of persecutors. It remains a sign of sin, but the sin belongs to evil others who have inflicted disability on the good. This dynamic is at odds with imagery that associates disability with the spiritual status of the disabled person him- or herself. In part, these difficulties are explicable by ambiguities in the biblical traditions that the Qumran community inherited. However, the Qumran Hymns resolve the Psalmist’s language in favor of a dichotomy between good and evil that preserves the speaker’s own integrity. This resolution comes at the cost of strengthening the association between actual disability and impurity/evil. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can see one community’s attempt to resolve the tensions in the biblical representation of disability.


Sethianism: A Problematic Category
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Tuomas Rasimus, University of Helsinki & Université Laval

Hans-Martin Schenke’s theory of Sethian Gnosticism has played a dominant role in Gnostic studies for the past 30 years. The theory suggests that 16 documents, including both Nag Hammadi texts and heresiological reports, represent an early, possibly pre-Christian, form of Gnosticism, where the biblical Seth played a key role. While some scholars have criticized this theory (Wisse), many have accepted it, elaborated upon it (Turner, Logan, Sévrin), or transformed it (Layton). Schenke’s theory has not only created considerable amount of discussion and scholarship but it has also reinforced the theory of Jewish roots of Gnosticism. This paper aims (1) to present a quick overall view on the research history on Sethianism – from the 19th century until the present day and including discussion on some new evidence not available to H.-M. Schenke (BC20915) – but also (2) to discuss some problematic features and implications in Schenke’s theory. Schenke constructed his Sethian text-corpus by comparing and grouping together documents with similar features. But he used two different kinds of main criteria as to what is Sethianism: the utilization in texts of (a) the so-called “Barbeloite” mythology and (b) the central role of Seth. However, these two features do not always occur together in “Sethian” documents. There is also evidence of “Sethianization” of earlier materials, which suggests a late date for Sethianism per se. Schenke’s criteria also leave out texts that have an intimate relationship to Sethian ones (OrigWorld, SophJesChr.). The necessarily artificial character of Schenke’s text-corpus has resulted in a somewhat biased view of early Christian mythmaking. Many important texts have been pushed aside as a result. When the “Sethian” texts are viewed in a wider context, new light can also be shed on their social background, including the supposed practices of baptism and contemplative ascent.


The Long and Short of Joseph: An Analysis of Narrative Time
Program Unit:
Heather Rattray, Baylor University

Literary criticism used as an independent tool of exegesis is not a sledgehammer to shatter the wholeness, or holiness, of any sûrah but is in harmony with the unique written character of the Qur’ân. Narrative criticism can be an effective exegetical approach for exploring the meaning and message of 'Joseph' (sûrah 12). An analysis of narrative time in the story of 'Joseph' illustrates the meld of literary form and function in the service of the text’s theological message.


The Dependence of Ezra-Nehemiah on Chronicles
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Paul L. Redditt, Georgetown College

Scholars have long debated the direction of dependence vis-a-vis Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, with the current status at a standoff. This paper proposes that with regard to the question of the direction of borrowing, it is possible to break new ground. The paper will argue the following two points. (1) The mention of the name Jeremiah in 2 Chr 36:22-23 and Ezra 1:1-4 should be resolved by concluding in favor of the priority of 2 Chronicles. This is so because the name Jeremiah appears not only in 2 Chr 36:22, but also in 35:25 and 36:12 and 21, but nowehere else in Ezra or Nehemiah outside of Ezra 1:1. In other words references to Jeremiah are clearly embedded in the Chronicler's description of the fall of Jerusalem (though not in 2 Kings). The borrowing, therefore, should be reckoned as moving from Chronicles to Ezra. (2) The references to David in Ezra 3:10; 8:20; and Neh 12:24, 45-46 suggest that the redactor drew upon 1 Chr 16:5; 23:24, 27-32; and 25:1, 6 or (less likely) upon later non-biblical texts influenced by his view of David.


Persian Administration in Egypt
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Donald Redford, Pennsylvania State University

This paper brings an Egyptologist's point of view to discussions of early Achaemenid administration in the West. Analysis of historical evidence and new archaeological data from Egypt provides a window on problems of change and continuity.


Fourth-Century Rabbinic Judaism and the Redaction of the Homilies
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Annette Yoshiko Reed, McMaster University

Focusing on traditions not found in R, this paper will investigate the idenitity of H's redactors by exploring their relationship with the Judaism of their time. First, I will consider the depiction of Pharisees within H. Following Baumgarten's suggestion that H's redactors reinterpret references to the Pharisees in Matthew in light of contacts with Rabbinic Jewish contemporaries, I will propose that H attributes to the Pharisees a concept of transmission of the truth in a line from Moses that is akin to the emergent doctrine of the Oral Torah and that its equation of Rabbis and Pharisees seems to occur at the same time that the Sages themselves begin to write of the Pharisees, not as a wayward sect, but rather as their movement's progenitors. Secondly, I will use the possibility of contact as the basis for considering parallels between H and Rabbinic literature, focusing on fourth-century compilations like the Talmud Yerushalmi and Genesis Rabbah as well as fifth-century compilations like Leviticus Rabbah; the latter will prove significant inasmuch as it may provide non-Christian Jewish counterparts for H's views of sacrifice as a temporary measure meant eventually to be superceded (in this case by prayer). Lastly, I will consider H's ritual practice in the context of late antique Rabbinic halakha, focusing on the discourse about the nature and limits of Gentile purity, in the hopes of gathering further hints about the identity and context of H's redactors.


Jesus in Jerusalem: Reflections on Biblical Archaeology
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Jonathan L. Reed, University of La Verne

The importance of Jerusalem for understanding the historical Jesus can hardly be underestimated, and it’s no surprise that illustrations from that city’s excavations litter New Testament text and handbooks. Similarly, New Testament scholars working on Jesus in Jerusalem scan the archaeological record in an attempt to correlate artifact with text. Notably, this “biblical archaeologist” approach has been abandoned for some time in historical Jesus research with regard to the Galilee. There, for example, the importance of sites never mentioned in the New Testament, like Sepphoris, has been considered, and patterns in sites and artifacts never mentioned in the gospels has shaped larger questions like of socio-economics. With regard to Jerusalem, however, New Testament scholarship seems stuck in the mold of biblical archaeology as it looks to “find the spot where” or “find the thing that” can be related to a gospel account. Taking into consideration recent work in classical archaeology on place, power, and image, this paper will present a series of questions that can help understand Jesus in Jerusalem in a broader sense.


Reflecting on the Future of Archaeology and the Bible
Program Unit: Future of the Past: Biblical and Cognate Studies for the Twenty-First Century
Jonathan Reed, University of La Verne

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Enoch Arabus: The Parascriptural Dimensions of the ‘Tale of Harut and Marut’
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
John C. Reeves, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Early commentators and traditionists embed and amplify Q 2:102, an enigmatic allusion to angelic complicity in the transmission of esoteric knowledge to humankind, within a rich layer of interpretive lore frequently bearing the rubric ‘Tale of Harut and Marut.’ A close study of this verse alongside its external narrative embellishments uncovers a wealth of structural and contextual motifs that suggestively link the ‘Tale’ with biblical and parascriptural myths about ‘fallen angels’ and their perceived role in the corruption of antediluvian humanity. The present paper catalogs a representative number of these motifs, speculates about their mode of transmission, and offers some guidelines for analyzing the different versions of the ‘Tale’ which surface centuries later in medieval Jewish interpretive and mystical literature.


Decoration, Style, and Individualism in Roman Judea
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Eyal Regev, Bar Ilan University

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Caiaphas on Camera
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Adele Reinhartz, Wilfrid Laurier University

This paper will provide a survey of the representations of Caiaphas the High Priest in the Jesus film genre, with samplings from the earliest available silent movies to the most recent feature films. Particular attention will be paid to the film's perspective -- critical or sympathetic -- of the High Priest, the portrayal of his relationship to Pilate and the Roman presence in Judea, and the question of anti-Judaism/anti-Semitism.


Flip-Flop? John Chrysostom's Polytropic Paul
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
David Reis, College of Santa Fe

Throughout his voluminous writings on Paul, John Chrysostom tirelessly defends the apostle from the charge of inconsistency. Yet in his sermons in praise of Paul (de laudibus sancti Pauli), Chrysostom switches rhetorical strategies and offers a defense of Paul’s variability. At first glance, this is a surprising tactic that would seem to make Chrysostom himself vulnerable to the charge of inconsistency. A rhetorical analysis of the sermons shows, however, that the Antiochene is appropriating elements from a philosophical argument that stretches back to Cynic-Stoic debates on the character of Odysseus. Specifically, Chrysostom employs those topoi that portray Odysseus positively as a figure who used his versatility for the service of others. Similarly, by becoming all things to all people, Chrysostom argues that Paul was a multi-faceted figure who deserves commendation for adapting his message to his various audiences and practicing a virtuous humility that enabled him to missionize successfully throughout the world. This paper will thus support those studies that have argued that 1) Paul used a similar strategy in his Corinthian correspondence, and 2) patristic commentaries on Pauline rhetoric must be read rhetorically.


The Levite's Concubine: New Light on a Dark Story
Program Unit: Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism
Pamela Tamarkin Reis, Branford, CT

Abstract of "The Levite’s Concubine: New Light on a Dark Story" Commentators have either had to accept that an adulterous wife dared return to her father’s house and a benign husband sought to retrieve her or had to stipulate a unique meaning for the phrase znh al. By understanding znh al in a sense attested elsewhere in the Bible, this essay both resolves the crux of implausibility and obviates the need for singular translation. The essay also presents a new interpretation of the entire chapter. A close literary reading demonstrates that the theme of Judges 19 is neither hospitality nor the abasement of women but Israel’s Sodom-like abnegation of commitment and compassion down to that last stronghold of security: the family unit. Contrary to previous feminist readings, this feminist interpretation reveals the biblical author’s empathy toward the concubine, his contempt for the guilty, and his imposition of punishment on the wrongdoers.


Aramaic-like Features in Pre-exilic Biblical Texts
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Gary A. Rendsburg, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick Campus

Most attempts to date the (vast) majority of the biblical corpus to the Persian (or even Hellenistic) period totally ignore the linguistic evidence. A handful of scholars (e.g., A. Rofe, M. Brettler, and M. Waltisberg), to their credit, have included the evidence of language in their studies, even though the results of their work are questionable (see my earlier treatments in JBL 121 [2002]: 23-46; and in I. Young, ed., Biblical Hebrew [2003]: 104-28). The biggest mistake made by such scholars is to assume that all Aramaisms automatically point to the Persian period or beyond. But such is not the case, since Aramaic-like features appear in other texts for different reasons. For example, texts emanating from northern Israel are more likely to share isoglosses with Aramaic, while even southern authors introduced Aramaic-like traits into their compositions to achieve the literary affect of style-switching. This talk will summarize my earlier work on the subject and will present additional examples of Aramaic-like features (my term, in contrast to true Aramaisms, which indeed point to the late period) in biblical texts of the pre-exilic period.


Israel’s Election and the Nations
Program Unit:
Rolf Rendtorff, University of Heidelberg

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Psalm 102: A Lament in Exile
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Hans Renkema, Theological University Kampen Netherlands

Psalm 102 has long puzzled exegetes because of the significant variety of its content. In its introduction it is said to be the prayer of an afflicted man and there is a consensus that this (part of the) psalm belongs to the genre of individual lament. From verse 12 onwards, the psalm then becomes a prayer of hope and certainty concerning the restoration of Zion. In verse 23, however, it appears to revert to the individual lament. Since Duhm, it has been argued that the different parts should be ascribed to separate authors. Others support the idea that Psalm 102 is an elaborate reinterpretation of an older text. The structure of Lamentations 5, however, with the same alternation of complaint and hope in YHWH abiding in Zion, serves to counter to such solutions. The true nature of this lament and its structure becomes clear when we think of it as the complaint of an elderly exiled Israelite (collective) who knows that he may not return to Zion but is sure that the next generation will live again in the safety of God's mountain. The psalm offers textual evidence to support this view.


An Iconic Reading Strategy for the Gospel of John
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
David Rensberger, Interdenominational Theological Center

The narrative of the gospel of John is filled with passages that violate the reader’s narrative expectations. Scholars have long observed such aporiae, often explaining them as resulting from redaction of sources, multiple editions, or even accidental transpositions. It may be worth asking, though, whether the aporiae have a function in themselves. Perhaps the communication that this text wishes to undertake is not something that can be accomplished within the framework of ordinary narrative logic; the “distortions” in the text may be deliberately intended as part of its communication. In the eastern Christian visual arts, a technique of visual communication was developed that was deliberately non-realistic. John Baggley writes, “[D]eliberate distortions of normal perspective . . . can lead to the recognition that our normal everyday world is also the scene where events of an inner or higher or spiritual world are taking place, a world where our normal values and assumptions are turned upside down” (Doors of Perception: Icons and Their Spiritual Significance). Perhaps some of the aporiae of John work like the technique of the later iconographers, deliberately using unrealistic depictions to present a reality “not of this world.” To test this hypothesis, I will examine difficult passages from John to see whether their dilemmas of narrative logic can be read as pointers toward a reality that also violates logical expectations and turns assumptions upside down—the reality of the Logos made flesh and crucified. I do not claim that there is a direct historical connection between John and the technique of orthodox icon writers. I am simply asking whether the deliberately non-realistic aesthetic of the icons may provide the model for a reading strategy that takes positive account of the aporiae in the Johannine text.


The Influence of Plato’s Parmenides upon the Cappadocian Fathers
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Jean Reynard, Institut des Sources Chrétiennes

This paper will focus on the Cappadocian Fathers. Far from what one can see among contemporary Neoplatonic philosophers, it seems difficult to find a direct influence of Plato's Parmenides in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers. There is no explicit quotation in their works, but some themes exhibit a link with certain passages of the dialogue: for example, the spiritual ubiquity of God, participation as resemblance, or the impossibility of giving a name or definition of the first principle. Only a precise inquiry will allow one to confirm precise borrowings from the dialogue that are not merely general notions inherited from the Platonic tradition.


Why Are the Children of Adam Given Feathers to Wear in Q 7:26?
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Gabriel Said Reynolds, University of Notre Dame

This paper examines the motif of the children of Adam being given feathers to wear in Q 7:26.


Perhaps Biblical Texts Can Be Dated but Not Linguistically
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Robert Rezetko, None

The point of departure for my presentation is my essay, "Dating Biblical Hebrew:Evidence from Samuel-Kings and Chronicles," in Biblical Hebrew:Studies in Chronology and Typology (ed. I.Young, JSOTS 369, T & T Clark, 2003, pp. 215-250). I will begin by exploring two crucial issues in greater detail.First, scholars of the language of the Hebrew Bible must take seriously the pivotal role which comparing the language of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles has played in research on chronological layers in biblical Hebrew.The relatonship of these histories is complicated so that we cannot indiscriminately justapose their linguistic features. Second, scholars of the language of the Hebrew Bible must take seriously the text-critical dimension in their research on chronological layers in biblical Hebrew.We cannot affirm with certainty that the linguistic profiles of the texts we have are of those of original authors. Next I will develop two case studies in addition to those given in the above essay, one dealing with Chronicles' vocabulary and the other with Chronicles' verb syntax, to demonstrate that the coventional diachronic explanations are inadequate.


Chiasm and Christology in Hebrews 1:1–14
Program Unit: Hebrews
Victor (Sung-Yul) Rhee, Biola University

Many scholars in recent decades have recognized the complexity of the literary and rhetorical design of Hebrews 1:1–4. The exordium is so intricately organized in form and style that it is probably one of the finest literary works in the whole New Testament. Some even have come to recognize that this passage may have been written with a chiastic structure in mind (Daniel. J. Ebert, “The Chiastic Structure of the Prologue to Hebrews.” Trinity Journal 13 [1992]: 167). Moreover, some scholars have observed that there are correlations between 1:1-4 and 1:5-14. For example, Lane suggests that there exists a synthetic parallelism between the two passages (Lane, Hebrews, 1–8, Word Biblical Commentary, 22). Likewise, J. P. Meier argues that there is a general agreement between 1:1-4 and 1:5-14, even though the symmetry lacks one to one correspondence (John. P. Meier, “Symmetry and Theology in the Old Testament Citations of Heb 1:5–14,” Biblica 66 [1985]: 523). In this paper I will argue that the author of Hebrews may well have intended Heb 1:1-4 and 1:5-14 to be in a perfect symmetry with the idea of different stages of Christ's existence (i.e., exaltation, preexistence, and incarnation). I propose that Heb 1:1–14 is a chiastic structure, which can be displayed as follows: A. Function of the Son (1:1-2a); B. Exaltation of the Son 1:2b); C. Preexistence of the Son (1:2c-3b); D. Incarnation of the Son (1:3c); E. Exaltation of the Son (1:3d-4); E' Exaltation of the Son (1:5); D' Incarnation of the Son (1:6); C' Preexistence of the Son (1:7-12); B' Exaltation of the Son (1:13); A' Function of the angels (1:14). I will demonstrate the validity of this structure by comparing the conceptual and theological relationship in each corresponding section of the chiasm.


Performance Criticism: An Emerging Discipline in New Testament Studies
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
David Rhoads, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

This paper proposes that we develop “performance criticism” as a discipline to analyze New Testament writings with performance as the site of interpretation. The discipline would draw on and enrich such related disciplines as narrative criticism, reader-response criticism, rhetorical criticism, discourse analysis, social science criticism, orality studies, ideological criticism, and gender studies. The presentation includes a performance of Philemon in Greek and in English.


Tabernacle and Temple: Rethinking the Rhetorical Function of Acts 7:44–50
Program Unit: Book of Acts
James N. Rhodes, Catholic University of America

Conventional exegesis of Acts 7:44-50 tends to highlight a perceived contrast between the portable tabernacle, used during the wilderness generation, and the later Solomonic temple. In particular, verse 44 is often read to imply that the tabernacle sets a standard for the proper worship of Yhwh, from which the temple in Jerusalem represents a deviation. Such a reading drives a highly tendentious wedge not only between the tabernacle and the temple, but also between the roles of David and Solomon in establishing the latter. Moreover, it rests on a series of arguments that ultimately prove to be circular: (1) that v. 44 is an unqualified endorsement of the tabernacle; (2) that the criticism of v. 48 therefore applies only to the temple; and (3) and that the Greek particle de in v. 47 therefore marks a "strong contrast." Taken within the broader context of the Stephen speech, vv. 44-50 are better read as a deuteronomistic critique of a false trust in the national sanctuary. Notwithstanding the presence of the tabernacle, the wilderness generation is remembered as a time of rebellion (vv. 35-43), not a time when Israel's worship was pristine. Similarly, allusion to the Babylonian exile (v. 43) recalls the tragic fate of the first temple. One may concede that both the tabernacle (v. 44-45) and the temple (vv. 46-47) have honorable origins, but neither served as a guarantee of God's saving presence (vv. 48-50). The real point of the Stephen speech is to warn that those who reject God's messengers are courting divine judgment just like their forebears (vv. 51-53). Such a threat implies that the future of the temple is likewise in jeopardy.


"...Casting All Their Grief on Thee": Toward a Liturgical Hermeneutic of Lament
Program Unit: Poster Session
Kathryn Rickert, Seattle University

One small part of a doctoral dissertation that seeks to restore lament to Christian worship, this poster will make a case for the healing & creative potential of public, ritual lament. It will build upon the poetic and narrative laments of the Hebrew Bible to suggest relationally located patterns of "crying out in distress", as useful for public communal lamentation in 21st C. Christian worship. These potentially tehomic voices arise from the depths of struggle and grief, to convey the communities through an intimate and creative encounter with the Divine that consolidates all suffering into an ethic of compassion and justice.


Compositional Techniques in Post-Exilic Biblical Historiography: An Analysis of Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Ken Ristau, Pennsylvania State University

The parallel lists of returnees in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 have inspired many studies on the composition and redactional development of Ezra and Nehemiah. Williamson and Blenkinsopp are representative of the very complex theories of priority and composition for which these lists are the lynchpin. Largely ignored by commentators of this debate, however, is an analysis of these lists in light of the final form unity of Ezra-Nehemiah. Why did the redactor duplicate or preserve the two lists in the final form? Moreover, having duplicated or preserved the lists, why do clear variations remain in the numbers, names, and narrative? Did these variations exist at the time? Is the redactor not aware of the inconsistencies and their potential to undermine the credibility of the entire work? Or, does this reflect compositional techniques common in post-exilic biblical historiography and even wider classical historiography? If so, what purpose does it serve to preserve parallel lists with all their inconsistencies?


Towards an Ethic of Disruption: The Decalogue as an Interruption of Honor and Shame
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Charles M. Rix, Drew University

Refracted through Emmanuel Levinas’s ethic of responsibility to the Other and the Ancient Near Eastern ideological complex of honor and shame, I suggest that the elements of the Decalogue function to disrupt hegemonic structures embedded in Ancient Israel’s social narrative. My paper foregrounds the Sabbath as the focal point for observing how the Decalogue interrupts the rubric of honor and shame in order to create an ethical climate of responsibility to the Other. In this respect, I draw from the philosophical work of Emmanuel Levinas, which reveals the Sabbath as a revelatory moment in time, enabling the face of the Other to be seen. In remembering the Sabbath, the “face to face” encounter is not an abstraction, but an interaction with the Other who lives in proximity—one’s son, one’s daughter, one’s male and female servant, one’s work-cattle, and the foreigner living among the Israelites. Ethical responsibility to the Other is thus expressed in the remaining commandments. With YHWH as the centerpiece for remembrance, the Sabbath intermittently suspends the prestige structure where men are vying to “totalize”, or erase the otherness of the Other, through master-slave, father-child, or male-female relationships. As such, I suggest that the ethic, which emerges from the disruption of the honor and shame ideology, transcends both male and female gender narratives, and creates the possibility of a community, which like YHWH, speaks but without a recognizable form.


Quartet for the End of Time
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Charles Rix, Drew University

Samuel Bak's portraits of String Quartet Players were inspired by the work of French composer Oliver Messaien who wrote "The Quartet For The End of Time" while being detained in a concentration camp in 1941 using only the instruments available to him: a piano without all the strings, a violin, a cello, and a clarinet. As an act of protest against Nazi inhumanities, the "Quartet for the end of time" was first performed by prisoners for prisoners, as reflected in Bak's paintings. Encoding the titles of his quartet from scenes and texts in the book of Revelation, Messaien abandoned all "classical" forms of musical notation, combining atonalities, daring chromaticisms, and a host of other devices, to portray the depths of the human cry petitioning a divine audience to avenge an all consuming evil. Based on Messaien's music, Bak's String Quartet Players portray the human creative enterprise seeking to triumph over the threat of annihilation, even if their best effort produces only a faint sound. I suggest that juxtaposing Bak's Paintings of his Quartet Players against Messaien's music enables us to experience the confluence of cries of dispair and supplications for divine deliverance. Thus we are drawn into the complexities and ambiguities of "crying out to the divine realm", not only as conceived in the Biblical texts of Deuteronomistic historians and Apocalyptic writers, but in all human suffering extending across time, finding an expression in Bak's own "believing atheism". I propose a multi-media presentation consisting of Bak's paintings, Messaien's music, and relevant Biblical texts to allow the power of music, art, and text to work together to "speak" what "cannot be spoken": the crying out to God until the end of time.


The Nicene Creed: Pre-creation Discourse in the Imperial Christian Story
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Vernon K. Robbins, Emory University

In the context of the Roman Empire, where discourses like Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus and Isidorus's Hymns to Isis played a dynamic role in the conceptualization of deities, Christian leaders formulated the Nicene Creed. One of the effects of the presence of these deities with vast powers over the universe was to create an environment where religious people reflected deeply on roles that deities played in the beginnings of the universe. Already during the first century, early Christians blended their beliefs about earthly kingdoms and the end of time with beliefs about functions and roles of God and Christ before the creation of the world. The Nicene Creed establishes a "precreation frame" that reaches beyond concepts of kingdom to concepts of empire that are "eternal," including non-time before time began and after time ends. At the beginning of its discourse, the Nicene Creed introduces an "imperial" precreation scope for its conceptualization and programmatically energizes the Christian story from creation through the birth, death, resurrection, and return of Jesus Christ with this wide-reaching imperial concept of both God and the Lord Jesus Christ.


Establishing the Critical Edition of The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Robert Robertson, Second Baptist Church, Sanbornton, NH

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Sword, Famine and Plague: Ancient Israel’s Understandings and Responses to Communal Catastrophe
Program Unit: Poster Session
Warren Calhoun Robertson, Rutgers University

Communal catastrophes—natural disasters and warfare—are universal phenomena among human communities. Because they randomly destroy human life and property and disrupt the intellectual and social status quo of the community, communal catastrophes require explanation by the affected communities. Ancient Israel is one such community affected by natural disaster and warfare. This interdisciplinary study integrates textual analysis of the Hebrew Bible and comparable ancient Near Eastern material with social theory and archaeology in order to articulate the ancient Israelites’ taken-for-granted understandings of communal catastrophes, their intellectual and theological challenges to those understandings, and their intellectual and theological responses to those understandings. We find such understandings cast in terms of sin and punishment, in particular, reward for covenant fidelity and punishment for covenant infidelity. When communal catastrophes are understood as divine punishment for human action, however, their arbitrary destruction challenges those taken-for-granted assumptions. At least three responses are articulated once the imbalance is acknowledged: revise the assumptions of divine punishment, revise the assumptions of human action, or despair of identifying any correlation between human action and divine punishment. The ancient Israelites express various challenges and each of the above responses to communal catastrophe, especially in the wake of, but not restricted to, the fall of Judah in 587 B.C.E., their most destructive and disruptive of communal catastrophes. What is more, these challenges and competing responses come from specific sub-groups within ancient Israel. Attention to the prophetic, priestly and wisdom traditions within ancient Israel help to explain their respective responses and their inherent interests that are at stake.


The Gospel of Jesus for the Non-academician
Program Unit: Q
James M. Robinson, Claremont Graduate University

I have just published a small book for the laity entitled The Gospel of Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco). I wrote it off of the top of my head, with no references to scholarly literature or academic debates. But I realize that curious colleagues will look at it anyway, and so I am bold enough to summarize it here and I am very pleased that Prof. Verheyden has agreed to respond to it: The church knows very well the gospel about Jesus, but hardly realizes it is all-too-ignorant of the gospel of Jesus. This is made glaringly obvious in the Apostles' Creed. It begins with what was done for Jesus ("conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary") and skips right to what was done against Jesus ("suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead, and buried"), without saying a word about what was done by Jesus himself! Jesus understood that what he was doing in Galilee as God reigning through him, when he healed the sick and cast out demons. God reigns in providing food and clothing, so one does not need to work any more than do ravens and lilies. Jesus prayed to God to reign by providing a day's ration of food, and trusted God to answer by providing bed and breakfast for himself and his few followers. His gospel: You can trust God as a loving parent to provide for you through what others do for you, and to provide for the needs of others through what he calls on you to do for them. A society of looking out for number one, of retaliation, is being replaced by a society of mutual support, God's kingdom. Of course this calls for a future completion, but Jesus' message was fist of all good news for the here and now.


Slavonic Apocryphal Traditions in the Romanian Lands: Diffusion and Diffraction
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Nicolae Roddy, Creighton University

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Discoursing Miracles: Jesus’ Healings in Early Christian Memory
Program Unit: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament
Rafael Rodriguez, University of Sheffield

This paper will assess the early Jesus-tradition in which Jesus, in response to John the Baptist’s disciples, generalises from the healings-traditions to a larger conceptualisation of his activity and the relationship of that activity to that of the Baptist’s (cf. Matt. 11.2-19//Luke [Q] 7.17-35; 16.16). Theorists of social memory have demonstrated many of the discursive practices by which the past is reconstituted in light of the needs and circumstances of the present. In addition, the work of Gary Alan Fine and Barry Schwartz, among others, has put forward the notion of ‘reputation’ as a social handle by which important figures and events can be quickly accessed. Reputations can then also be employed to express social values in the present as well as to assess present needs and circumstances and thereby suggest appropriate courses of behaviour. The consequent images of the past sustained and developed via reputations of key historical figures, whilst not being merely constructions, are inevitably always constructions. The image of Jesus healing people of various ailments, as a subset of the larger image of Jesus proclaiming the kingdom of God, became a key ‘handle’ in the constructions of Jesus’ reputation within the later communities of his followers, including their assessment of what Jesus was doing and what, consequently, they were doing in the decades following Jesus’ death.


Hermeneutics as Cross-Cultural Encounter: Obstacles to Understanding
Program Unit: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament
Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Lewis and Clark College

Americans readily recognize the cultural disconnects that can occur in face-to-face cross-cultural encounters. Given our assumptions about the transparency of the written word, however, we do not we expect similar difficulties in reading foreign texts. Yet the New Testament was not written by, for, or about contemporary Americans. Moreover its communication style differs radically from that in the Western world. The paper will explore reasons for the persistence of the communication disconnects that result from this fact.


Transjordanian Scribal Traditions: The Epigraphic Productions of Ammonite Scribes
Program Unit: Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
Christopher A. Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion

During recent years, there has been a substantial amount of discussion about the scribal traditions in Iron Age Israel (based on epigraphic evidence). Within this presentation, various epigraphs from ancient Ammon will be analyzed, focusing especially on the diversity of the epigraphic record (e.g., monumental, royal, administrative, etc.). Ultimately, it will be argued that there was a significant scribal apparatus in the "Kingdom of Ammon."


Psalm 44: The Powers of Protest
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Reading the communal lament of Psalm 44 in the context of the theological deliberation of the early sixth century BCE, this paper examines the traits of biblical protest and its contents. Through its praise, complaints and requests the lament demonstrates two covert polemics, the first concerns the concept of the covenant and the second the divine justice. Intertextual study reveals the author's ideological position opposing prophetic voices of his time, and shows further that protest still has its balances. These observations do not only illuminate the Psalter's distress but even more so indicate his piety.


Israel’s Sojourn in the Wilderness and the Construction of the Book of Numbers
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Thomas C. Romer, University of Lausanne

This paper wants to show that the book of Numbers was created during the Persian period in order to integrate the latest texts of the Torah. The few wilderness narratives in the book of Exodus were originally positive accounts, revealing the same ideology as the allusions to the wilderness in Hosea and Jeremiah. This view is also represented by the priestly document. Post-priestly redactors transformed these positive accounts in Exod. 15-17 into stories of complaint. The invention of a “cycle of rebellion” in the book of Numbers presupposes this transformation and radicalizes the negative view of Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness. This is shown through an analysis of Numb. 11 and 12. Numb. 11 reveals concerns of the post-exilic charismatic prophecy; Moses is presented in a somewhat ambiguous way; and prophecy can exist without his mediation. Numb. 12 presents Moses as the incompatible mediator between Yhwh and Israel to whom the priestly as well as the prophetic functions are clearly subordinated. The author of Numb. 12 tries to correct ideas expressed in Numb. 11, in responding directly to the main assertions of the foregoing chapter. Despite their ideological differences all texts in Numb. 11-20 agree on the idea that Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness was a time of ongoing rebellions.


Popular Music in Introductory Bible Courses
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Mark Roncace, Wingate University

The study of the “Bible and Popular Culture” has grown in recent years, and work in this area offers numerous possibilities for enhancing teaching strategies. One such possibility is the use of music—rock, country, and hip hop, for example. Unlike incorporating some other forms of media into the classroom, music can be used easily: one only needs a portable stereo (no “smart classroom” required), lyrics can be distributed or posted, and it typically takes only five to seven minutes to introduce and play the piece. This paper will first offer some theoretical observations about the pedagogical employment of music. Gerald Graff, for instance, in his recent book entitled Clueless in Academe argues that teachers miss opportunities “to exploit the many connections between academia and popular culture”—connections which make learning meaningful and encourage a genuine nurturing of the intellectual life. Music not only plays on students’ natural interests, but it also challenges them to compare the Bible and its worldviews with those expressed in contemporary music and with their own perspectives. It bridges the gaps between an ancient book and the students—it fuses horizons, which facilitates an open-mindedness toward the Bible as relevant literature. Further, carefully analyzing song lyrics helps students to become better interpreters of pop culture, that is, more critical “readers” of cultural “texts.” The paper will also share resources (including many on line ones) that will help teachers implement music into their classrooms. The second part of the presentation will offer a practical demonstration.


Translatability of the Gospel: Use and Abuse of Contextualization
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Halvor Ronning, Hebrew University of Jerusalem / Bible Translators

Critical analysis of a test case: origins and development from Barnabas to Augustine of the teaching that the “Church is Israel.” Introduction: the translatability of the Gospel – the philosophical issue: the relationship between understanding and communicating. The proper use of the translatability of the gospel is contrasted with the abuses which result when either the source culture or the destination culture receive a nearly exclusive emphasis. A TEST CASE: “The Church is Israel” Firstly, the genesis of this idea will be traced from the New Testament period till the triumph of the Church as the Imperial Religion of the fourth century Roman/Byzantine Empire. References to Israel in the Church Fathers are discussed. Secondly, an attempt will be made to assess the factors of contextualization of the Gospel which motivated the development of this idea, esp. the appearance of Christianity as the religion of the empire. Thirdly, the factors uncovered will be evaluated against the biblical foundations upon which they claim to stand. The idea will be located on a scale between Rome and Jerusalem. Conclusion: lessons to be learned about the use and abuse of contextualization.


Solomon and His Women: A Handelian Triptych
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Deborah Rooke, King's College London

This paper examines the use of female figures by the librettist of the Handelian oratorio ‘Solomon’ (1749). The oratorio is a piece of royal pageantry with a political message that functioned as an epilogue to the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-46, and it reasserts the right of the Hanoverian monarch to the English throne. Each of the three parts of the oratorio depicts an aspect of Solomon’s (and by extension, George II’s) reign: his appropriate and strong religious stance together with his happy marriage; his administration of justice; and his external relations. Each of these aspects is portrayed by means of a female figure (or figures) - the first by the daughter of Pharaoh, the second by the two harlots, and the third by the Queen of Sheba. The paper explores how, in his adaptations of the biblical portrayals of the women, the librettist plays upon the gender stereotype whereby women’s role is to reflect well upon men and to complement them, giving men the opportunity to display their abilities and prowess. The effect is that in the libretto, to a much greater extent than in the biblical text, Solomon’s women reflect his glory, and in so doing they allow Solomon to reflect an equally glorious image of His Royal Highness King George II.


Is Q Really a Source for the Galilee?
Program Unit: Q
Bradley W. Root, University of California, San Diego

The synoptic sayings source known as “Q” is widely regarded by most contemporary New Testament scholars as the most important source for first century Galilee. In fact, a sizable majority of scholars studying Early Roman Galilee consider Q a firsthand account of daily life in that region. This view has become so influential in the field that many scholars have started using Q as a filter for interpreting the archaeological data from Galilee. The belief that Q is of Galilean origin has become so widely accepted that much of the recent Q scholarship simply assumes—without argument—a Galilean provenance for Q. While it is true that a tentative case can be made that Q was composed in the Galilee, the evidence is not as conclusive as many New Testament scholars now claim. Since few scholars have mounted serious challenges to the theory that Q is Galilean in origin. This theory, which began as mere speculation about Q’s Sitz im Leben, is now erroneously being treated as fact. Indeed, New Testament scholars are currently publishing myriad books and articles on how much Q can tell modern researchers about first century Galilean society. The current work is an attempt to redirect Q scholarship from its current focus back to more fundamental questions by challenging the assumption that Q was written in Galilee.


Go Tell It on the Mountain! Bisitun and Naqsh-i Rustam
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Margaret Cool Root, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

This paper offers new reflections on the iconography and cultural resonances of the rock-carved monuments of the Achaemenid Persian kings. It problematizes the thrust of their “propagandistic” intent and efficacy. It goes on to make a case for the layered spiritual, cultic, and hegemonic valences of their medium as their message.


Irony and Truth: The Value of De Historia Conscribenda and Verae Historiae for Understanding Hellenistic and Early Roman Period Historical Method
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Clare Rothschild, Lewis University

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Baptist Traditions and the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
Clare Komoroske Rothschild, Lewis University

This essay argues that the author of the Gospel of Mark’s a priori understanding of John the Baptist as Elijah pervades his work. Although the view is common that an Elijah typology determines Mark’s presentation of John in the beginning of his gospel, this essay proposes that this characterization is brought to a climax in the center of the gospel at Jesus’ transfiguration, and even recurs elsewhere (Mk 6:15; 8:28; 9:11), including, perhaps, Jesus’ enigmatic cry to Elijah in Mk 15:35. These references to the Baptist as Elijah in the beginning, middle and end of this gospel function as a sub-structure over which the entire ministry of Jesus is superimposed. On one hand, the phase of Jesus’ ministry that is based predominantly on healings and miraculous displays is inserted between John’s baptism of Jesus and John’s resurrection on the so-called mountain of transfiguration in Chapter 9. On the other hand, the phase of Jesus’ ministry that is based predominantly on teaching is inserted between John’s resurrection in Chapter 9 and Jesus’ resurrection in Chapter 16. John’s baptism, backed by the message of a divine voice, provides the esteemed imprimatur on Jesus’ healing ministry; John’s resurrection, also backed by the message of a divine voice, provides the same for Jesus’ teaching ministry, offering official sanction of Jesus as John’s successor. The implications of this argument are wide-ranging. In terms of the making of Christianity, the integration of a key tradition (John's resurrection) of a rival group (Baptists) at the level of the Synoptic texts offers valuable evidence regarding the extent of the complexity in which early Christian groups and texts evolved.


The Text of Philo’s De Virtutibus
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
James R. Royse, San Francisco State University

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Sacred Impurity: The Red Cow (Numbers 19) as Anti-sacrifice
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Nicole J. Ruane, Union Theological Seminary

Of all the sacrificial and purity laws in the Hebrew Bible, the rite of the red cow is perhaps most enigmatic. This paper will seek to unravel the mystery of the cow rite by seeing it as an “anti-sacrifice” in which all sacrificial norms are inverted. The purpose of the rite is to create a cultically manageable form of impurity that can expel the similar impurity of death. Some consideration will paid to the female nature of the cow and its usefulness in creating a tactile expression of impurity.


Ancient Fakes and Imitations in Cuneiform
Program Unit: Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
Gonzalo Rubio, Pennsylvania State University

There exists a small number of cuneiform texts that were forged in antiquity. Probably the most famous is the Cruciform Monument of manishtushu, a 6th-century Neo-Babylonian fake that was intended to pass for an original, 23rd century inscription of this Sargonic king. Moreover, earlier texts were sometimes copied and recopied in what eventually became later versions and imitations of the originals. Likewise, a certain antiquarian zeal resulted in some archaizing paleographic features present in a number of 1st-millennium Mesopotamian texts. Some of the late forgeries were probably triggered by utilitarian and chrematistic factors. Nonetheless, both fakes and imitations alike can be placed in a wider intellectual framework of antiquarian concerns in later Mesopotamian culture.


Raguel as Interpreter of Moses' Throne Vision: The Transcendent Identity of Raguel in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Kristine J. Ruffatto, Marquette University

Ezekiel the Tragedian's second century BCE drama about the Exodus contains one of the earliest examples of a merkabah vision. The Exagoge exalts Moses, likely in polemic with Enochic traditions. Moses not only has a vision of God's heavenly throne: he is instructed by God to sit on the throne and is given God's scepter and crown. Moses then sees the whole universe, and angels ("stars") pass in military formation before him. Moses' dream is later interpreted in the text by Raguel. The exalted and divinized Moses is the hero of the drama, yet it is Raguel who discerns the meaning of Moses' throne vision. Raguel's supernatural interpretive ability, as well as the name, titles, and characteristics attributed to him in the drama, suggest a transcendent identity. Raguel may in fact be an angel, a parallel to the angelic figures in other apocalyptic works who accompany the exalted patriarchs in their ascent and interpret their visions.


Q and the Cross Saying
Program Unit: Q
John G. Rumple, University of Edinburgh

A number of the sayings attributed to Jesus could be described as intriguing and controversial, but few convey such graphic imagery or generate such a disconcerting effect as the “cross saying” (Q 14:27). This saying is not the only instance where a teaching of Jesus associates discipleship with suffering and death, but it is perhaps the most ominous of its kind. Each Synoptic Gospel preserves the cross saying in different forms and contexts, a significant phenomenon in itself for understanding its use by Christians of the first century. In this paper, I will examine what the presence and position of the cross saying in Q tell us about how the saying functioned in early Christianity. This requires a greater focus on the immediate context of Q 14:27 than found in previous work on the saying. It is my contention that prior scholarship on Q 14:27 has tended to use only the presence of the cross saying to bolster positions about the theology of Q or its historical background, rather than examining the more revealing position of the saying in the text of Q, in order to ascertain its specific meaning. The reconstructed text of Q preserves the cross saying embedded within a cluster, necessarily requiring an analysis of the two historical influences likely responsible for this phenomenon: the oral shaping of the tradition for a primarily aural presentation; and the tendency of the wisdom genre to amalgamate similarly themed aphorisms. The results of this analysis will demonstrate that the cross saying in Q functioned in two ways for its composers: impressing upon disciples the requirement to leave family bonds and viewing Jesus’ death as paradigmatic in preparedness for their own martyrdom.


Architecture, Conflict, and Identity Formation: Jews and Christians in Capernaum from the First to the Sixth Century
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Anders Runesson, McMaster University

The limestone synagogue at Capernaum has been the object of considerable debate since the 1970s, disagreement primarily revolving around the dating of the building. While some scholars argue for a date in the third century on the basis of art historical analysis (Foerster, Avi-Yonah), other researchers point to coins and potsherds found in sealed strata, dating the building to the 4th to 5th century (Loffreda, Corbo), or even as late as the first half of the 6th century (Magness). Furthermore, the excavators claim to have identified remains of a public building beneath the limestone synagogue, dating to the 1st century. This paper will relate these buildings to the architectural history of the church located some 30 meters south of them, constructed and renovated in different phases during the first five centuries of the Common Era. Drawing on sociological theories, I will discuss the use of art and architecture as identity markers in the service of group cohesion, strengthening the meaning system of an exposed group threatened by a rival group. It will be argued that, contrary to common interpretations of monumental architecture, the construction, renovation, and enlargement of synagogues in the fourth to fifth/sixth centuries should be understood as signs of increasingly marginalized Jewish communities in a Roman society transforming itself into a mono-religious culture. By way of comparison, the same pattern can be seen in other parts of the Roman Empire, e.g., in the Ostia synagogue and its architectural development. A sociologically informed reading of archaeological remains adds to the literary sources and confirms a development in which Jewish and Christian identity is formed in a process of constant interaction marked by conflict and competition.


Rethinking the "Parting(s) of the Ways between Judaism and Christianity": Categories, Terminology, Procedure
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Anders Runesson, McMaster University

In Christian art in the Middle Ages, the church and the synagogue were often portrayed as distinct and opposite categories, the former depicted as a victorious queen, the latter as a defeated, blind woman, sometimes shown as being stabbed by one of the arms of the “living Cross” on which Jesus hangs crucified. Although the barbarism of such depictions—and their Wirkungsgeschichte—is worthy of separate analysis, what interests us here is the idea of “church” and “synagogue” as separate categories: this idea is so deeply entrenched in modern scholarship on Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity that it has mislead researchers into drawing conclusions regarding the so-called “parting(s) of the ways between Judaism and Christianity” based on anachronistic premises that do not reflect the complexities of the ancient world. Rejecting traditional (often theologically oriented) approaches to and categories used in the analysis of the “Parting(s) of the ways,” the present paper suggests a new procedure for the study of the split between Jews and Christ-believers (whether Jewish or not), introducing a set of categories that allow for a more nuanced assessment. The model, which works with three distinct aspects of the problem: type of religion, ethnic identity, and institutional belonging, aims at facilitating the identification of the nature and cause of separations between groups on local levels. It distinguishes between different types of Yahwistic religions, maps the relationship between ethnic identity and religious type, and studies group dynamics on the basis of a revised understanding of the institution(s) behind ancient synagogue terminology. After a presentation of the model, its implications for the study of Pauline religion and later forms of Christian Judaisms and non-Jewish Christianities will be discussed. Before we can produce answers to the problem of the “parting(s) of the ways” we need to discuss how the question is constructed.


The Pragmatic Effects of Semantically Redundant Discourse Anchors in Biblical Hebrew Narrative
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Steven E. Runge, University of Stellenbosch

Referring expressions (e.g., proper names such as Isaac or Eliezer) are prototypically used for semantic reasons to track participants, to know ‘who is doing what to whom’. Discourse anchors (e.g., his son, or Abraham’s servant), are used semantically to (re-)establish a thematic relation of the participant to the discourse. However, semantically redundant discourse anchors occur regularly in BH narratives in contexts where a participant’s thematic relation is already well established. What then is the function of these redundant anchors if it is not semantic? Scholars have long noted such uses of referring expressions, as where Ruth is referred to as ‘the Moabitess’ five times after being activated as such in Ruth 1. Discourse anchors are not only used as appositional modifiers (e.g., King Saul), but are also used as substitute referring expressions (e.g., king). Though selected passages or terms have been studied, a systematic linguistic description of the default and marked uses of referring expressions has not been completed. This paper will first outline the default function of discourse anchors--to ground newly (re)activated participants to the discourse--following Levinsohn’s default/marked framework (2000a, 2000b). Next, it will propose that the redundant use of discourse anchors is pragmatically motivated, and represents a marked usage to accomplish various thematic effects, based on Berlin (1983), Givo´n (1992, 2001), and Lambrecht (1994). These effects will be illustrated from an exposition of Genesis 27. Specific functions of the marked use of discourse anchors will be proposed (e.g., indicating center of attention, relative saliency of participants, shift in thematic role, etc.), and implications for further research will be presented.


Relative Saliency and Information Structure in Mark’s Account of the Parable of the Sower
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Steven E. Runge, University of Stellenbosch

Levinsohn (2003) claimed that the near and far demonstratives (??t?? and ??e???? respectively) can be used non-deictically to encode the relative thematic saliency of discourse referents, with ??t?? being used to mark the more salient constituent. In applying this concept to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower, Levinsohn’s claim would indicate that the descriptions of the three unfruitful scatterings of seed are more salient to the writer than the productive scattering that bears fruit. The other synoptic accounts do not seem to makes such a distinction in salience, using the near demonstrative ??t?? for both the unfruitful and fruitful plantings alike. Are there other means of analysis to either corroborate or overturn the view that the unfruitful plantings are more thematically salient in Mark’s account? This study proposes to apply the cognitive model of Chafe (1976, 1987) and Givo´n (1992), and the information-structure model of Lambrecht (1994) as applied by Levinsohn (2000) to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower (4:14-20). The primary objective is to identify and analyze other linguistic devices, besides demonstratives, which might clarify the apparent prominence given to the unfruitful scatterings in Mark’s account. This study will provide the necessary framework for comparing Mark’s pragmatic weighting of saliency to that found in the other synoptic accounts in order to determine whether Mark’s version is consistent or divergent with the other traditions.


Early Alexandrian Theology and the Parmenides of Plato
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Daivd Runia, Queens College

I hope to cover both Philo and Clement in this paper on Early Alexandrian theology and the Parmenides of Plato.


Refusal to Mourn, Past and Present: Prophetic Aggression and Guilt as Melancholic Symptom
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Erin Runions, St. Bonaventure University

In her recent book Precarious Life, Judith Butler points out that not more than ten days after 9.11, on September 20, 2001, George W. Bush urged the American people to put aside their grief; she suggests that such refusal to mourn leads to a kind of national melancholia. Using psychoanalytic theory on melancholia, I will diagnose causes and effects of this national melancholia by considering how prophetic and apocalyptic texts act as a kind of family history to U.S. disavowal of loss, and resultant guilt and aggression. I will explore the ways in which the latter prophets and their interpreters also exhibit a kind of melancholia, in describing Israel as an unfaithful and wicked woman whose pain should not be mourned. When taken up (consciously and unconsciously) into the discourse of what Robert Bellah calls American civil religion, in which the U.S. is the new Christian Israel, such texts may position the public both to accept the violence of war, and not to mourn it. I suggest that the trope of the unfaithful women and its related apocalyptic manifestations do two things in U.S. culture and politics: they function as symptoms, making visible a certain kind of national melancholic and narcissistic dysfunction in the U.S., and at the same time, they may also help to organize contemporary psychic responses to the war on terror.


Grounding the Hermeneutic Circle
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Michael A. Rynkiewich, E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission, Asbury Theological Seminary

The Western church expected that the modern missionary would lead Bible studies as a way to ensure the transfer of doctrinal and ethical verities to new converts. Hermeneutical hegemony was assured as the missionary worked out of the Western context to solve Western problems with a Western worldview. Recent developments in Missiology involving respect for local cultures and awareness of the activity of the Holy Spirit in local communities have generated the concepts of the critical contextualization within a hermeneutic community. This paper explores some of the early reports on how Bible study works when the community is in charge.


A Strong-willed Apostle? Reading Paul from the Perspective of New Luther Studies
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Risto Saarinen, University of Helsinki

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“These Will Be the Ways of the King Who Will Reign over You”: The Prophetic Rebuttal in 1 Samuel 8:1–22 as a Context for Addressing Social Injustice
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Rodney S. Sadler, Jr., Union-PSCE at Charlotte

In the origin story of the Israelite king in 1 Samuel 8.1-22, before there is ever a king there is a prophetic critique. Samuel responds to the people’s request for a king by predicting the problems that will arise under a monarchy. The offenses he foreshadows include such social injustices as the king taking the people’s land, conscripting their sons to military service, creating gross imbalances of wealth favoring his political supporters, imposing punitive taxes, and enslaving the population. Because the introduction of the king means that seemingly limitless power will be localized in the hands of an individual, social injustice inevitably arises. But that individual’s power is not limitless; even before the king is in place, “the prophetic rebuttal” has been uttered and the interplay between prophet and king is foreshadowed. After the advent of the monarchy the prophetic role was significant allowing YHWH’s voice to be heard in response to the king’s power, providing a counterbalance to the activity of the king, and holding him accountable to YHWH’s will. This serves to remind the king that YHWH is ultimately in control and to emphasize God’s concern for those who were vulnerable to the abuses of the monarchy. Thus, prophets function in necessary tension with kings; providing a requisite balance of power, to ensure that God’s will was done by a government that could easily be led astray by worldly concerns. In this paper we will explore the development of Israelite prophets during the period of the monarchies, noting in particular the relationship between the king and the intermediaries foreshadowed in 1 Samuel 8. Modeling the role of the divine intermediary, Israelite-Judahite prophets provide a context within which to understand the necessary role of the preacher as social activist in the African American community.


Greek Lucianic Doublets and 4QSama
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Richard J. Saley, Harvard University

It has long been recognized that doublets characterize the Greek Lucianic text of Samuel. It has also been known for some time that 4QSama has affinities with the Greek Lucianic tradition. With the final editing of 4QSama now complete for publication, this paper examines those places where Greek Lucianic doublets have been identified and 4QSama is extant. The aim is to discover what percentage of the doublets also occur in a Hebrew text close to the Vorlage of the Greek tradition, and what this may imply for understanding the work of Lucian.


Adam and Eve in Early Christian Funerary Art
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Sharon Salvadori, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

The story of Adam and Eve recounted in Genesis played a pivotal role in the elaboration of the early Christian doctrine of sin, death, redemption and immortality. It was also the mythical container of early Christian gender and sexual ideology. Indeed, gender and sexuality were inextricable from the discourse on salvation. Scholars have repeatedly emphasized that paradisiacal imagery and scenes of human deliverance dominate the early Christian funerary visual repertoire. Yet the representation of gender and of human sexuality in this soteriological repertoire has been largely ignored, even in the analysis of images of the naked Adam and Eve covering their pudenda at the Tree of Good and Evil. This paper will examine some of the ways early Christian funerary representations of Adam and Eve participated in the construction and propagation of the early Christian doctrine that linked gender and sexuality to salvation.


Towards a Methodology for Assessing Attributions to the Three
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Alison Salvesen, University of Oxford

There has been a tendency in earlier scholarship to accept without question attributions to Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion (and other anonymous versions) transmitted through marginal annotations and patristic citations, in the absence of conflicting readings or attributions. Similarly, readings transmitted without any attribution at all have often been left unassigned. Based on his wide experience of the Hexaplaric readings, Frederick Field often attempted to fill such gaps, and his judgment was generally sound. With the discovery of much more Hexaplaric and related material, however, it may be necessary to develop a more explicitly scientific approach to the process of assigning attributions to one or other reviser. This paper will discuss some procedures and possible pitfalls.


Recontextualizing Resistance: The Appropriation and Subversion of Dominant Myths: From Patmos to East Los Angeles
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
David Arthur Sanchez, Mount Saint Mary's College

The relationship between the center and its peripheries is always a complex and highly textured negotiation. Through the lens of Postcolonial criticism, this essay explores the appropriation and subversion of dominant myths as a weapon of the weak (see esp. James Scott) in the marginal’s negotiation of dominant imperial and colonial ideologies. The point of departure will be an analysis of the Christianization of the Greco-Roman Leto-Python-Apollo myth found in Revelation 12 as a product of colonized/imperialized peoples recontextualizations of the very myths used to justify dominant power structures employed in their own subjugation. The essay will then go on to argue that this process of appropriation and subversion is a process that has been repeated almost stereotypically in the constant struggle between the powerful and the powerless throughout history. To accentuate this point, this essay will explore later recontextualizations of Rev. 12 and argue that later tradents—especially in 17th century Mexico and contemporary East Los Angeles—have also appropriated and subverted imperial/colonial interpretations of Rev. 12, especially as it has related to the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe (modern scholars have noted the direct reliance of 17th century and subsequent artistic representations of the Immaculate Conception on Rev. 12). This visual presentation will share a variety of photographs taken by the essayist of murals of the Virgin of Guadalupe from contemporary East Los Angeles in an attempt to explicate how and why the Queen of Heaven in Rev. 12 has found a home in the public and religious art expressions of Los Angeles barrios.


Covenantal Nomism Revisited
Program Unit:
E. P. Sanders, Duke University

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An Evaluation and Comments on the First Fascicle of Biblia Hebraica Quinta
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
James Sanders, Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center

This first fascile of BHQ continues in the line of the BH editons to date but with significant and major differences. One of these is full valorization of the Masoretic phenomenon with its five component parts, well beyond any of the previous editions and more like the three HUB volumes so far published. In addition it follows the hermeneutic of textual criticism established by the HOTTP which focuses on the search for true variants over against pseudo-variants, and considerably curbs the subjectivity of each individual book editor. BHQ is a major advance for the whole field of textual criticism in how a Handbook edition of the text should be presented.


Isaiah in Luke
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
James Sanders, Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center

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Damascius on the Third Hypothesis of the Parmenides
Program Unit: Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic, and Patristic Reception
Sara Rappe, University of Michigan

In his discussion of the Third Hypothesis in his Commentary on the Parmenides, Damascius suggests that the human soul should be defined as a self-mover, an entity capable not of altering its nature or eidos, but rather, as he says of changing the quality of its essence. Perhaps this is a unique solution to the dilemma posed by Plotinus and criticized by Iamblichus. The soul is an eternal entity and so should not lose its nature. Nevertheless, it just so happens to be an indelible feature of the soul's very nature to alter its own qualities, depending on the objects of its contemplation. The crucial place of the Third Hypothesis in Damascius' exposition of the Parmenides is in showing how the life of the soul moves up and down the scale of being. Therefore Damascius understood this dialogue to be an illustration of the complete career of the soul, from the summit to the lowest degree of being. All the while, however, Damascius insists that the soul retains its fundamental reality and its eidos: it never irrevocably forfeits its place within the highest realms of being, however clouded its upward gaze may become. This text should be of great interest to students of the late-Neoplatonist school, for in it we glimpse Damascius' methods of exegesis, as he negotiates between Iamblichus and Proclus in coming to formulate his own very unique and subtle solution to a traditional philosophical problem.


The Persistence and Trajectories of Penitential Prayer in Rabbinic Judaism
Program Unit: Penitential Prayer: Origin, Development and Impact
Richard Sarason, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

This paper will explore the various trajectories and transformations of the penitential prayer tradition within rabbinic Judaism. The use of the penitential idiom in prayer obviously reflects a particular constellation of views about the unworthiness and sinfulness of humans vis a vis God. The paper will focus both on the occasions for use of the penitential idiom in rabbinic prayer and the theologies that deem its use to be appropriate. Some brief attention will be paid, for heuristic purposes, to comparable phenomena in the history of Christianity. Scholars of Jewish liturgy have often remarked on the relative absence of the rhetoric of penitential prayer from the Tefillah/Amidah, the major petitionary rubric of rabbinic statutory prayer (more refined accounts note its presence in an attenuated form). Rather, the full blown rhetoric of penitential prayer is reserved for the liturgy of the High Holy Days, which is viewed as the penitential season of the year par excellence. The rhetoric of penitential prayer also appears in some of the personal prayers of the Rabbis recited at the end of statutory petitionary prayer as recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Berakhot 16b-17a), and in the extended development of this liturgical moment in the so-called Tahanun rubric, the texts of which are first attested in early post-talmudic literature. Various medieval pietist movements (Hasidei Ashkenaz and Lurianic Kabbalah in particular) put a premium on penitential ideology and stance; their liturgical contributions mightily elaborate the penitential prayer tradition in medieval Judaism.


Revisiting the Temple of Bethsaida
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Carl Savage, Drew University

First uncovered in 1988 but only later fully recognized as a public structure of importance, the "temple" of Bethsaida has variously been called by the excavators a synagogue, a pagan temple, and more specifically a temple of the imperial cult. A fairly exhaustive treatment of the early findings was published in 1998. Recent work in the surrounding area of the building conducted by the author adds to the understanding of the structure. Particular attention is given to the dating of construction and use(s) that may have been made of the structure. Understanding the purpose of this buiding may enable a better understanding of the societal make-up and religious orientation of late second Temple period Bethsaida.


Crossing Galilee: Architectures of Contact in the Occupied Land of Jesus
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
Marianne Sawicki, Juniata College

A summary and retrospective overview of the book Crossing Galilee: Architectures of Contact in the Occupied Land of Jesus by Marianne Sawicki.


Charles Thomson: Philadelphia Patriot and Septuagint Translator
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Harold P. Scanlin, Allentown, PA

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New Light on an Old Reading in the Mesha Inscription: "hqr ryt lkms"
Program Unit: Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
Aaron Schade, Wilfrid Laurier University

In the course of the past few years the new reading "hqr hyt lkms" in line 12 of the Mesha Inscription has generally been accepted. The main interest concerns the proposed reading of (h) for the older reading of (r) in the second word of this clause (ryt vs. hyt). Though (hyt) simplifies the interpretaion of the sentence in question it will be demonstrated that a reading of (h) does not seem possible. Recent photographs I have taken of the stele and the original squeeze will help confirm this. After the old reading has been re-established a brief summary of the possible interpretations of the word (ryt) will then be given.


Lamentations
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Rolf Schäfer, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft

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Intertextuality, Immortality of the Soul, and Middle Platonism
Program Unit: The Texts of Wisdom in Israel, Early Judaism, and the Eastern Mediterranean World
Joachim Schaper, University of Aberdeen

The Wisdom of Solomon is characterised not least by its remarkable concept of the immortality of the soul. This paper explores key texts in Wisdom in order to locate its view of immortality in the intertextuality of the Greek Bible and to see whether and, if so, how it relates to the doctrines of (a Stoicising?) Middle Platonism. The paper tries to explore how our exegesis may provide insights into the social-historical context of the author(s) and the interpretative communities they came from.


The Concluding Sections of the Writings of the Book of the Twelve Prophets: A Form- and Source-Critical Study
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Aaron Schart, University of Duisburg, Essen

Whereas the superscriptions of the writings of the Book of the Twelve were object of scholarly studies several times, the closing sections attracted very much less attention. The source critics usually detect multiple layers in the ending passages. However, those sections were only rarely studied as a literary phenomenon as such. The end of a book should normally not be abrupt or open, but instead provide the reader with a feeling of sufficiency, solution, and rest. The paper will differentiate between different types of endings of biblical books and sections (following Gottlieb). In every case it will be asked whether the ending is related to the beginning. Since in many cases later editors added text passages at the end of their Vorlage, it will be asked, if they created new types of endings. In addition, it will be considered, if certain redactors of multi-prophets-books that predated the Book of the Twelve, used a characteristic type of endings. As especially Nogalski has shown, at least some of the endings of the individual writings reflect the fact that the writings are part of the Book of the Twelve as a whole and therefore must be viewed not only as endings of one prophets message but also as transition to the next one. His findings of Stichwortanschluesse will be put into a wider horizon.


The Archaeology of Hebrews’ Tabernacle Imagery
Program Unit: Hebrews
Kenneth Schenck, Indiana Wesleyan University

The heavenly tabernacle of Hebrews is the third element in a high priestly metaphor that pits Christ as high priest against the entirety of the “old covenant” cultus. In this metaphor, Christ’s ascension and entrance into heaven itself is metaphorically reconceived as the passage of a Melchizedekian high priest through a heavenly tabernacle to offer a one time sacrifice for sins. The “literal” base on which the author builds the tabernacle portion of the metaphor is thus an understanding of heaven itself as the tabernacle. Platonic and apocalyptic approaches to Hebrews’ tabernacle imagery not only fail a close read of the text itself, but they fail to provide an adequate starting point from which to understand all the ways Hebrews’ uses the heavenly tabernacle in its argument. In contrast, once the literal base is correctly identified as heaven itself, we see how the other metaphors are possible. The argument has no place for an outer part of the heavenly tent, for example. The first part of the tabernacle is rather allegorized as the present age (9:9). Hebrews can go even further and speak of the cleansing of the heavenly tent (9:23), something that seems incomprehensible in relation to a literal heavenly structure of any kind. Then Hebrews may even refer to Christ’s flesh as a kind of veil (10:20). These varying images are better explained if the starting point for this tabernacle imagery is metaphorical rather than a literal structure either of a Platonic or apocalyptic variety.


Hebrews and Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Hebrews
Kenneth Schenck, Indiana Wesleyan University

5 minute panel presentation of the state of Hebrews research in relation to its exegetical methods and hermeneutical perspectives.


Seeing the Text: “Playing” with Projected Passages in Intermediate Greek
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Mary H. Schertz, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

At the intermediate, or second, level of Greek language acquisition, analysis of linguistic features and literary structure can be taught along with grammar and syntax with the use of computer projection. Students in my classes bring their work on passages, what we call “contoured texts” (arranged and color coded), to class with them. Then we project them onto a screen and “play” with them as a class. We can challenge readings, suggest alternative arrangements of the text, make and mark additional observations or correct mistakes on the work in class—in lively, non-threatening and engaging ways. My students find it powerfully affirming to have the class attend to their work this way—and are often competing to present. After a class session, the presenter returns to his or her saved copy of their original work with the version amended by the classroom work and makes the final judgment about which suggestions to accept and which to reject. I propose to present a paper in which I illustrate this teaching procedure using examples of student work and providing a list of tips and suggestions garnered from experience with this method of teaching second level Greek language.


Swords and Prayer: Luke 22:31–62
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Mary H. Schertz, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

There are few texts interpreted in more diverse ways than Luke 22:35-38, the scene at the farewell table where Jesus commands his disciples to go out and buy swords if they do not have them. The passage is a genuine enigma that has been used, for instance, to support the two swords of state and church as well as the claim that Jesus prohibited any use of the sword whatsoever by Christians. Since the middle of the last century, however, most interpreters have recognized the connection between this passage and the arrest scene (22:47-53) where one of the disciples attacks the servant of the high priest with one of the two swords produced at the table. Reading these two scenes in conjunction has pulled interpretation toward a more metaphorical or ironic understanding of the two swords in 35-38. In this paper, I suggest that the wider literary context of 22:31-62 indicates that the two swords passage not only needs to be read in light of the arrest scene but also the scene in which Jesus prays on Olivet. The literary arrangement of these passages suggests that the conundrum of 35-38 may resonate with Jesus'own ambivalence in understanding and discerning the will of the Father with respect to such biblical themes as holy war and the suffering servant. Because of the way the structure pulls the reader toward the prayer, interpretations such as those proposed by Andre Trocme, John H. Yoder and, more recently, H.A.J Kruger ought to be revisited.


Boundary-Making and Laughter in the Book of Job
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Kathryn Schifferdecker, Harvard Divinity School

The interpretation of the divine speeches at the end of the book of Job has proved a conundrum for readers of the book from earliest times. As S.B. Freehof writes in his "Book of Job": "Job cries, 'I am innocent.' And God responds, 'You are ignorant.' The answer seems not only irrelevant but even unfeeling and heartless.'" Many scholars have provided insight into how the divine speeches can be said to offer an "answer" to Job's situation. This paper seeks to contribute to that conversation by focusing on two words that occur across genre divisions in the book: suk and sakhaq. The word suk ("to fence in") is used by the three key characters in the story - the Satan, Job, and God - to describe the boundary-making activity of God in creation. The word sakhaq ("to laugh," "to scorn") is used by Eliphaz and Job in the dialogue, but occurs most often in the divine speeches to describe the attitude of the non-human realm to humanity. In each instance, the use of the two words in the divine speeches challenges and corrects assumptions in the earlier parts of the book about creation, the order God places in creation, and the place of humanity therein. While the divine speeches do not directly address Job's situation, therefore, they do address underlying attitudes expressed by other characters in the book.


Laughing at Humanity: The Relationship of the Human to the Non-human in the Book of Job
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Kathryn Schifferdecker, Harvard Divinity School

Many scholars have noted the radical non-anthropocentricity of the divine speeches at the end of the book of Job. Humanity has only a peripheral place in the world described in the speeches. This paper will explore the relationship of humanity to the non-human realm in Job by focusing on the use of the word sakhaq ("to laugh," "to scorn") in the book. The word is used by Job and his companions in the dialogue to denote an attitude of human superiority over against both other humans and the non-human world. It is used most often in the book, however, in the divine speeches, where it describes again and again the wild animals' scorn for humanity and humanity's inventions. In the divine speeches, human beings have little or no voice. It is the laughter of wild and mythological animals that is heard instead.


For Three War Crimes and for Four: Amos 1:2–2:3 and the Current Human Rights Crisis
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Matthew R. Schlimm, Duke University

War crimes, broadly understood, have grabbed public attention in recent years. One thinks of the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq, the tens of thousands dead in the Darfur region of Sudan, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, and arguments within the U.S. and elsewhere that torture is an acceptable practice in the war on terror. There is also a heightened awareness about the unprecedented civilian suffering caused by today’s armed conflicts. As Lloyd Axworthy has pointed out, “In the First World War, approximately 10% of casualties of conflict were civilian. Now, 90% of these casualties are civilian.” Across the world, war crimes have given rise to a grave human rights crisis. While awareness of these crimes has increased, knowledge of how the Hebrew Bible relates to this topic has not. During the last twenty years, Amos’ oracle against the nations has received little attention in the academy and faith communities, even though it specifically concerns itself with crimes of war and the treatment of civilians in armed conflicts. This text is particularly relevant to today’s human rights crisis both because of its international concern and because of the vivid connections between the brutality of conflicts in the ancient Near East and the brutality of conflicts throughout the world today. This paper examines these connections, drawing on the work of John Barton and others to demonstrate how Amos’ message provides the underpinnings for an appreciation of international law that deters atrocities in war.


Finding Fault with the Bible: Walther Eichrodt’s Disembodied God
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Matthew R. Schlimm, Duke University

Scholarship has given insufficient attention to the grounds on which biblical theologians disapprove of elements within the Bible itself. This paper examines Walther Eichrodt’s treatment of the corporeality of God, a concept he disdains. Eichrodt not only minimizes the times that the Hebrew Bible envisions God’s embodiment, claiming such portrayals appear in only a “few places,” but also he argues that these embodied conceptions of God are “naïve and childlike,” “inadequate,” and a “deficiency.” Thus disparaging the Hebrew Bible’s portrayals, he appeals to the New Testament (John 4:24) in order to argue that the vastly superior way of perceiving of God is “as spirit.” Though he writes an OT theology whose self-described purpose is to obtain “a comprehensive picture of the realm of OT belief,” he here criticizes such belief with material outside the Hebrew Bible. This paper conducts a close reading of Eichrodt’s work, showing the assumptions, influences, and methodological underpinnings that led him to find fault with conceptions of God’s embodiment. It notes that others (e.g., Childs, Brueggemann, Goldingay) have followed Eichrodt’s example of criticizing (or at least “moving beyond”) the Hebrew Scriptures when writing their Old Testament theologies. In the course of such an examination, this paper sheds light not only on the role and authority of the Hebrew Bible in biblical theology, but also on the competing goals that most biblical theologians face. It looks at the persistent problem of defining biblical theology, describing past tensions and making constructive proposals for future work.


Demography and Domestic Space in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures
David Schloen, University of Chicago

Archaeology contributes to our understanding of family life in ancient Israel primarily through the analysis of domestic architecture. The dimensions and internal layouts of houses excavated at Iron Age sites indicate the size and composition of the families who inhabited them. Similarly, the architectural configurations of adjoining houses reflect the social and economic relationships among neighboring households. These archaeological clues must be interpreted in light of textual evidence, suitable historical analogies, and demographic reconstructions of family size and composition under ancient conditions of mortality and fertility. When this is done, we find confirmation that Israelite towns of the monarchic period were characterized by extended-family households and by enduring kinship ties that organized neighboring households into clan communities.


The First Gospel and Matthew’s Mission—Narrative, Theological, and Historical Perspectives
Program Unit: Matthew
Eckhard J. Schnabel, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

The theme of “mission” has long been recognized as being one of the fundamental interests of the author of the First Gospel. Rather than focusing on one particular question, such as the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, the role of Gentiles in Matthew’s community, or the missionary task of the church, the paper will survey and analyze three areas in which “mission” is a relevant concept in the First Gospel: Matthew’s narrative, the historical context of Matthew and his Gospel, and Matthew’s theology. An investigation of the theme of “mission” in the Gospel of Matthew, it is hermeneutically problematic to ignore either of these three areas. The Gospel of Matthew is a narrative, in the first century C.E. mission was not just a concept but a historical reality, and both Matthew’s Gospel and mission represent theological convictions. An analysis of relevant narrative, theological, and historical perspectives suggests that the author of the First Gospel wrote as a theologian who had an intense interest in the universal mission of the church, that he had perhaps personal experience of missionary activity leading people to faith in Jesus Christ and establishing churches, and that he also wrote as a historian who knew that Jesus focused his proclamation of the dawn of God’s kingdom on Israel rather than on Gentiles.


"Christs in Paradox:" The Polymorphic Christologies of the Acts of Peter and the Acts of John
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Paul G. Schneider, University of South Florida

Previous scholarship has always noted the polymorphic christology of the Acts of John, a second century account of the apostle’s exploits in Asia Minor. Throughout the Johannine acts Christ is identified as the “God of all Ages,” who appears in various human guises but never with an actual human body. One of the more famous episodes of this acts is an account of the calling of James and John (cc. 88-89), in which the two brothers see two evolving pairs of contrasting forms of the Lord. With James always seeing younger forms of the Lord, as compared to those witnessed by John, it is easy to see the two brothers representing two groups of Christians with John representing those who have a maturer christology or spirituality. In the past, scholars have seen the figure of James representing “orthodox” Christians as opposed to the community of the Johannine acts, but this observation actually overlooks the fact that James also sees the Lord in multiple forms, and therefore must represent Christians who have a polymorphic christology but one that is somehow viewed by the community of the Johannine acts as immature. How is that possible? Can we find a community with a polymorphic christology that could have been considered inferior or immature in the eyes of the community of the Johannine acts? This paper will argue that we can find this community behind the Acts of Peter and its polymorphic christology.


Bible and Archaeology: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?”
Program Unit: Future of the Past: Biblical and Cognate Studies for the Twenty-First Century
Tammi Schneider, Claremont Graduate University

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Paul: Life and Thought
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Udo Schnelle, University of Halle

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The Ages of a Rabbinic Sage: Avot 5:21 as a Selective and Synthetic Compilation
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Jonathan Schofer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The detailed mapping of a human life-span in terms of age, whether descriptively or prescriptively, is a widespread cultural practice. This paper examines conceptions of age and character development in classical rabbinic materials, centering on the numerical list of Avot 5:21. This rabbinic "ages of man" text links the construct of age with the traditional education, vocation, and virtues of a rabbinic student, and it has been immensely influential in Medieval and later Jewish reflections upon these topics. Scholars have long noted that this passage is most likely a late addition to Avot, and perhaps even a Medieval composition, but they have not thoroughly considered the relation between this list and the diverse understandings of age in other rabbinic texts. My paper examines rabbinic and proximate late ancient sources concerning four topics: the general notion of a life having distinct phases, ways of specifying stages of childhood development and education, symbolic significances of older ages, and the numbers seven and ten as organizing a life plan. Given this broad picture, I show the specific ways that the canonized list in Avot 5:21 represents a selection from and synthesis of midrashic and talmudic sources to create a distinct portrait of an ideal life-span.


Women in the Book of Genesis According to the Septuagint
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Stefan Schorch, Kirchliche Hochschule Bethel

The Septuagint to the book of Genesis attests in many instances an image of women, which is very different from that one can find in the Masoretic text. Generally speaking, women are pictured as more active persons and act more independently from man, according to the Septuagint as compared to the Masoretic text. The aim of the present paper is to describe the evidence, to compare the two different views, and to discuss the origins of these differences.


The Parables of Jesus and the Roman Empire
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Luise Schottroff, University of Kassel

The parables of the Jesus traditions in the Synoptic Gospels are an unusual important source for the history of the Roman Empire. The perspective on this history is formed by oppressed people’s experiences of economic and political violence. Many parables use fictive stories to describe not single events but structures of imperial power. There is already some relevant social historical research on the material in the “images” of the parables (such as that of W. Herzog), and this work should be continued for all parables. For example, the “outer darkness” could be brought together with the suffering of people in prisons. During Christian history various types of allegorical interpretation have prevented reading the perspective on the Roman Empire in Jesus’ parables. Through this allegorical interpretation the images of a cruel king, slave owner, or owner of a vineyard were understood as images of God and the parables as metaphorical talk about the Kingdom of God. In my paper I will argue that images like that of a king are not images or metaphors, but are counter-images of God. I call them “antithetical parables”. These parables speak indeed about the Kingdom of God but they do it speaking about this world. They offer the task to their hearers to compare the two kingdoms and to imagine how in God’s Kingdom people are invited to the messianic meal. The difference between imperial meal politics and God’s meal opens the hearer’s eyes to really see the violence they have to suffer and to know an alternative. The literary context of the parables in the gospels should be recognized as part of the structure and literary flow of the parables. Thus the literary context provides the explanation that is needed for understanding the parables.


The Other Side of the Coin: Heresy in Early Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Adiel Schremer, Bar Ilan University

The application of concepts such as “Orthodoxy” to early rabbinic Judaism is Christianizing and therefore misleading. Rather than engaging in defining correct and incorrect doxa, early rabbinic literature is troubled by the possibility of a fundamental rejection of God (and hence the Jewish community as well), which emanated from the political failure of the Jews and the destruction of the Second Temple. The heretic, for the rabbis of second century CE was one who has questioned God’s sovereignty and power, and left the confines of the Jewish people.


The Function of Imitation and Emulation in Greco-Roman Educational Praxis and its Connection to Luke 22:54–71 and Mark 14:53–15:1
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Michael Schufer, Claremont Graduate University

The purpose of this paper is to address the oft debated question, did Luke use Mark in writing the account of Jesus’ arrest, fustigation, and trial – Mark 14:53-15:1//Luke 22:54-71? By surveying the function of imitation, emulation, and the praxis of writing within education in the Hellenistic-Roman world, this paper concludes that Luke emulated the Marcan account by adjusting and adding to the narrative order and structure. The motivation for Luke to perform these adjustments is found in the theories of imitation and emulation, which were pedagogical directives in Hellenistic-Roman education; the agency driving this motivation is the Hellenistic-Roman literary praxis for creating or critiquing a narrative which seeks to produce the clearest and most plausible account of an event. The product of Luke’s efforts is an account that is clearer, more concise, and more plausible than its Marcan counterpart. The paper moves in five parts: a brief description of the variety of current theories on the composition of the Lucan Passion Narrative; second, an examination of imitation in Hellenistic-Roman educational theory; third, a survey of the rational for emulation; fourth, an address of the exercise “On Narrative” from Theon’s Progymnasmata, which emphasizes the three characteristics for narrative: conciseness, clarity, and plausibility; and fifth an analysis of the Lucan Passion narrative against the Marcan account under two of the three characteristics - clarity and plausibility. The evidence suggests that imitation, emulation, and the praxis of creating or critiquing a narrative motivated Luke to adjust the Marcan source.


The Road to Jericho and the Historical Jesus
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
Brian Schultz, Bar Ilan University

All three synoptic gospels preserve an instance of Jesus traveling through Jericho (Mt 20:29ff; Mk 10:46ff; Lk 18:35ff). The longest account is in the gospel of Luke, for it includes two additional pericopes: the encounter with Zacchaeus and Jesus telling the Parable of the Pounds. A similar version of the parable, that of the Talents, is found in Matthew (25:14-30). It is now widely accepted that these two parables emanated from a single tradition. The common suggestion is that the Lucan version is a rewrite of Matthew’s source, combined with a second teaching, or parable, on the Kingdom of God, utilizing a motif based on the rule of Archelaus (4 BCE – 6 CE). But this view introduces a problem left unanswered: why would a redactor choose the ruthless and murderous Judean Ethnarch as a type of the Messiah, especially so many years after his demise? A re-examination of the Lucan context of this parable suggests that this embarrassing motif may even go back to the time of Jesus’ own ministry.


Orthodoxy and Efficacy: “Magic,” Monks, and the Testament of Solomon
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Sarah L. Schwarz, Haverford College

This paper will explore the challenges presented by the Greek Testament of Solomon to our notions of “orthodoxy,” arguing that attraction to the power contained in such a spellbook might trump competing concerns to avoid what appear in some circles to be heterodox beliefs. The Testament of Solomon seems like an odd starting point for a consideration of the category of “orthodoxy,” containing as it does a widely diverse array of information, from complex and interlaced demonologies to ritual instructions to folktale-like elaborations on the biblical character of Solomon. While apparently pious sentiments about God’s power do appear, the text also contains references to the powers of what sound like Greek goddesses, to demons who make accurate prophecies allegedly by eavesdropping in heaven, and perhaps most strangely, to Jesus as just another thwarting angel among many, not set apart from the other angels who serve to check the activities of the array of demons presented here. So what makes this relevant for questions of “orthodoxy?” Despite its apparently heterodox character, the manuscript copies we have of this text were produced and preserved in monastic libraries. Monks, perhaps drawn to, or seeking to preserve, the efficacious power contained within such a text transmitted it largely unchanged, refraining from correcting some of these startlingly unorthodox notions. So-called “magical” texts might provide another window into the orthodox world, showing how some might have been able to go outside the boundaries of right belief in search of “what works.”


Dating Christian Papyri from Karanis: The Archaeological Context of Christian Papyri
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Gregg Schwendner, Wichita State University

The University of Michigan excavations at Karanis (Kom Aushim) 70 years ago yielded a considerable number of papyri and ostraca, only a few of which are Christian. One such text is a single page of a papyrus codex, containing remnants of the Greek text of Psalms 32 and 33 (P. Mich. inv. 5475 c). The codex format and the date militate in favor of a Christian rather than Jewish origin, although there may have been some Jews in Karanis at this time. The context in which the text was found can refine its dating in two ways. First, the text of Ps. 32-33 was found together with a number of fragments of Greek literature, all dating to the third century or earlier. Second, documentary finds and coin hoards from the same insula point to a date between 260-300 CE.


From Composition to Publication
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Bernard Brandon Scott, Phillips Theological Seminary

The process of composition in the Hellenistic world is varied and complex. This paper will discuss what we know about various compositional techniques, the technology of writing in composition and dictation, and the place of memory in composition. What a composition is complete, what constitutes publication. Here we will example what we know about public performance and the copying trade. This function of this paper is to describe what really constitutes the composition in the ancient world.


Self-Cursing in Comparative Perspective
Program Unit: Biblical Law
JoAnn Scurlock, Elmhurst College

Deuteronomy 27-30 is one of the more curious passages in the Torah. One would think it obvious that any form of cursing would be witchcraft and yet here we have curses. Frazer asserted that curses are automatic, so it would seem they were dooming themselves to immediate death and destruction. Equally curious is the self cursing of the adulterous wife in Numbers 5.11-31. By allowing this magical judicial ordeal were not the authorities tempting God? Others in the ancient Near East did the same. The key to understanding such practices is the realization that Frazer was essentially wrong. There is nothing automatic about demonic magic which cannot function without the assistance and cooperation of spirits. Moreover, there were different types of demonic magic, scaled literally to the intelligence level required of the involved spirit. Conditional magic required the assisting spirit (who could be a god and had to be at least reasonably intelligent) to punish a specified person if he did something he was not supposed to do or failed to do something he was. Nothing would actually happen unless the self-curser violated conditions of which he was aware and to which he had agreed. Moreover, obeying Yahweh as required in the Deuteronomic covenant and turning to him for judgement as in the ordeal of the adulterous woman were things which it was good to do. Also, the social usefulness of the mechanism of self cursing not only allowed persons to be trusted to make covenants, treaties and contracts but also to clear themselves of guilt when no other proof of innocence could be found.


Paul and the Jewish Dialectics of Race
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Love Sechrest, Duke University

Through an examination of Paul’s self-identity, this paper describes Paul as a member of an ancient racial group, based on a Jewish understanding of race in Second Temple Judaism. An analysis of nearly five thousand Jewish and Non-Jewish passages about identity from around the turn of the era offers insight into ancient constructions of ethnicity and race that contrast with modern conceptions of identity. The profile for Jewish race that emerges from this analysis produces dialectics that can serve as a framework for an evaluation of Paul’s self-identity.


The Distinctive Terminology of the Sectarian Texts from Qumran: A Comprehensive Survey
Program Unit:
David Seely, Brigham Young University

One of the questions raised by the non-biblical texts from Qumran is which texts are to be considered of sectarian origin and which are not. Scholars have arrived at a consensus about a corpus of Qumran texts as distinctively sectarian based on several criteria including content, theology, and paleography. One of features of sectarian texts is the occurrence of distinctive terminology. This study, using the DSSEL, will revisit the issue of distinctive terminology in the determination of sectarian origin of texts from Qumran. First, a survey will be made of the corpus of non-biblical texts of the accepted list of distinctive terminology (yhd “rule”; srkh “overseer”; mwrh htsdq “Teacher of Righteousness”; etc.) looking for occurrences and frequency. This will largely confirm scholarly studies already made on the basis of existing concordances. Second, the study will test a number of words found in a “constellation of terms” that often occurs in sectarian texts but are not distinctive of sectarian origin. This search will be conducted searching for patterns of recurring terminology and collocation of vocabulary across a wide range of texts looking for patterns that may have been missed by scholars in previous work. In particular, a search will be made to identify and quantify important vocabulary that occurs in Qumran texts but is not derived from the Bible. Finally, several specific texts that have been argued to be sectarian texts—without the distinctive vocabulary—will be tested to see if a larger study of vocabulary, or the lack thereof, can help to determine sectarian origin.


Haireseis in Josephus and Acts
Program Unit: Josephus
Chris Seeman, Coe College

While Josephus' classification of Jews according to philosophical haireseis is patently shaped by an imperative to "translate" Jewish identity into rubrics accessible to a non-Jewish audience, the presence of these same rubrics in the book of Acts suggests that Josephus himself did not invent this taxonomy. This paper examnines the historiographical function of religious taxonomy in Josephus and Acts, exploring how each author privileges certain beliefs in order to position Jewishness in relationship to something else.


Queer Mothers: Hannah and Blandina and the Gender Construction of Martyrs
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Robert Seesengood, Drew University

The correlation between the Jewish mother of Maccabees (traditionally "Hannah") and the Christian slave Blandina from Lyons and Vienne has been noted by Frend and others. In many ways these two women are similar: they are cast as mother figures, they encourage others, are the last to die, and their death's awaken amazement. While there have been studies of gender martryology, particularly of Perpetua and Felicitas (Shaw, Perkins, Burrus, Seesengood, etc.), fewer works have closely examined the gender constructions of Hannah or Blandina. One exception is and Moore ("Taking it Like a Man," 1996) who argue the power exhibited by the martyrs in 4 Maccabees is a masculine power that feminizes the villain Antiochus. Although Hannah is among the "real men" who emerge as the heroes, "masculine" qualities of strength, reason, and endurance are written over her maternal body without challenging Greco-Roman constructions of masculinity and femininity assumed (indeed, exploited by) the text. Hannah and Blandina are masculated by suffering, much as Perpetua. However, a key metaphor for their martyrdom is maternal. Gender transformation is at work in the rhetoric of the texts, but it is not simply women taking on masculine characteristics; their "masculine" strength is still exhibited in a maternal body. Dispensing with an essentialized notion of gender, Hannah and Blandina are not women who ape men; they become a third gender. This third gender is not imposed upon an essentialized body but recreates the very notion of body, particularly as it is employed in martyrologies – texts that focus on the suffering, fragmentation, and death of the body. Our paper will draw upon Butler, Garber, and Hollibaugh to argue Hannah and Blandina are transformed in their deaths into queer mother martyrs.


Religiously Altered States of Consciousness, the Afterlife, and the Construal of the Self in Ancient Judaism and Christianity
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Alan Segal, Barnard College, Columbia University

I propose a typology of how visions and revelations helped construe the self in the ancient Jewish and Christian world. The different ways in which revelation was accomplished helps us understand the religious experience of the ancients, as well as what they felt was the important part of their lives and their final reward.


Solomon's Execution Orders (1 Kings 2:13–46): Political Propaganda or Scribal Subversion?
Program Unit: Poster Session
Eric Seibert, Messiah College

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Theological Reading: The Psalms as Christian Scripture
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Christopher Seitz, University of St. Andrews

The history of interpretation—where Christian theological reading is in full throttle—is not uniform, but does handle the Old Testament theologically in ways that especially New Testament scholars misunderstand in their efforts to give the proper “Israel” perspective to theological reading of the New Testament (e.g., Wright, Fowl, Watson). Using Ps 8 as a test case, we can see that the history of interpretation shows that Christian reading of the Psalms understands there is a difference between (1) what the New Testament says about the Old Testament’s plain sense (say, Psalms as heard in Acts) as theological construction; and (2) what the Old Testament says as Christian scripture, in its sensus literalis, read theologically.


Christianity and the Cubiculum: Interpreting the Bedroom in Late Antique Rome
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Kristina Sessa, Claremont McKenna College

The cubiculum is a familiar topos in Biblical and early Christian literature, from the Lord’s chamber in the Song of Songs to the room in which a young and impressionable Thecla first heard Paul’s exhortations to chastity. It also figures prominently in numerous late antique devotional texts written for audiences within the city of Rome, like Jerome’s letter to the Roman virgin Eustochium (Ep. 22) and the anonymous fifth or sixth-century passion of the Roman matrona Caecilia. This paper will explore how the social and spiritual meaning of the cubiculum in these late antique sources refracts pre-Nicene visions of domestic piety. Specifically, it will examine the way in which the bedroom is imagined in these later sources as a gendered place of prayer and penance, and how they draw upon an archaic Christian sensibility about domestic religious practice in order to construct a new model of the late Roman household. In conjunction with a textual analysis, we shall also consider how the differentiated architecture that characterizes the late Roman domus could have catalyzed possible changes in the physical experience of intimacy in late antiquity, and how these changes may have impacted upon the place of the bedroom in monastic practice and thought in the city of Rome between the fourth and sixth centuries.


The Agony and Ecstasy of Paul’s Religious Experience
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Colleen Shantz, St. Michael's College, Toronto School of Theology

Paul’s letters contain a number of passages generally recognized as peristasis catalogues. However, what has not been recognized is the consistency with which Paul pairs these lists of hardships with reflections on religious ecstasy. That Paul should adopt a common pattern of self-commendation is not unexpected, but nothing predicts that he should regularly couple it with statements of ecstatic knowledge. This paper examines the coincidence of ecstasy and suffering in the thought of Paul and in anthropological studies of shamanism. It assesses the neurological and anthropological bases of the two bodily experiences (i.e., pain and altered states of consciousness) and the ways in which one experience is often explained in light of the other. Paul’s pairing is no mere coincidence, but rather a common pattern of interpretation of powerful experiences.


Cloaking History in Beauty: The Crucifixion in the Interpretations of Dali and Luke
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Colleen Shantz, St. Michael's College, Toronto School of Theology

Salvador Dali’s _Christ of St. John of the Cross_ and the Gospel of Luke share more than their subject matter. For one thing, both have been immensely popular in large part because of their beauty. For another, both use the work of earlier interpreters as negative inspiration for their own. In Dali’s case it was the slumped, lacerated corpus in Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece that inspired the antithetically ethereal beauty of the Christ of St. John who floats above the world. In Luke’s case it was the suffering and abandonment of Mark’s passion account that is transformed into acceptance and gracious selflessness. Finally, the creators of the later interpretations, as well as their earlier negative exemplars, were in conversation with the horrors of their own moments in history and reflect aesthetic choices on that basis. This paper ponders the efficacy of beauty as a means of dealing with horror and the pastoral role of art and gospel in the interpretation of history.


New Insights on Iron Age Chronology from Tel Dor
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Ilan Sharon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The renewed excavation and publication project at Tel Dor, a Phoenician harbor town on the northern coast of Israel, is providing new evidence for the Iron Age chronology debate. An extended sequence of radiocarbon dates from this site, as well as a possible Egyptian chronology peg, provide absolute anchors for the relative typological sequence of the Phoenician Early Iron Age. The presence of Phoenician pottery in almost every Iron Age site in the Levant, as well as in Cyprus and Greece, enables for the first time a chronological correlation of Israel, Phoenicia and the Aegean. The Tel Dor sequence and dates will be discussed vis-a-vis other data sets (from Tel Rehov and other sites) and implications for Biblical chronology and historiography will be presented.


Silencing the Syriac Tradition: Evidence and Rhetoric in the Early Versions of Bruce Metzger and Arthur Vööbus
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Robert Shedinger, Luther College

In 1977 Bruce Metzger published his influential reference work "The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations". While he is obviously deeply indebted to Arthur Vööbus’ 1954 publication "Early Versions of the New Testament: Manuscript Studies" (he cites this work repeatedly), nowhere in his preface does Metzger situate his work in relation to that of Vööbus or explain his reason for writing a new introduction to the early versions of the New Testament given that one already existed. This suggests the possibility that Metzger’s work should be read as an implicit critique of Vööbus, a possibility that is reinforced upon a closer inspection and comparison of the two books. Metzger and Vööbus tell two very different stories about the early versions. For Metzger, most of the early versions were likely translated from Greek and are of important but secondary significance in New Testament textual criticism. For Vööbus, the early Syriac Gospels constitute an eastern textual tradition of great antiquity and influence; one that was in some way a rival of the Greek tradition in the West. Vööbus believed the value of this Syriac tradition for textual criticism had been suppressed in the scholarship of his day. I will argue that despite Metzger’s obvious reliance on Vööbus, he deftly and possibly intentionally avoids giving voice to Vööbus’ main argument about the Syriac tradition. Because of the imposing but well-deserved status that Metzger enjoys in the field of textual criticism, his work has replaced that of Vööbus as the standard reference work on the early versions, effectively silencing Vööbus’ main argument without providing a substantive critique of it. Special attention will be given to the treatment of the Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic traditions in the works of Metzger and Vööbus.


Looking at Oxyrhynchus Parchment 840 through a Johannine Lens
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Pamela Shellberg, Marquette University

Archaeological and textual evidence from the Second Temple Period corroborate the witness of POxy 840 to the presence of stepped pools in Jerusalem used for purposes of purification through ritual immersion. Such evidence may justify the dating of this text to the first century. It also brings into sharper relief the details of a dispute between Jesus and a chief priest that has been considered synoptic-like in its contrast of internal and external cleanliness. The dominant water motif, concerns regarding purity regulations, and references to “living water” in POxy 840 call for an exploration of its affinities to the fourth canonical gospel. This connection has been virtually untouched in the scholarly literature. I argue that a Johannine reading of POxy 840 is warranted on the basis of archaeological evidence, textual evidence from Second Temple Judaism, and exegetical evidence from the Fourth Gospel.


The Joseph Smith Translation: What It Is and What It Isn’t
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Thomas Sherry, Brigham Young University

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Abraham in England, Marburg-Istanbul, and Israel: Between Theocracy, Democracy and 'Sacrifice', Ancient Text, and Modern State
Program Unit: Bible and Cultural Studies
Yvonne Sherwood, University of Glasgow

Abraham's journeys have extended well beyond Ur into Europe, America, and the chronological far reaches of 'modernity'. Genesis 22 has crossed the always permeable borders of 'religion' into questions of politics and ethics. This paper will explore how the story that Judaism knows as 'the binding' has become bound up with questions fundamental to the self-definition of the modern state. Three specific moments are examined: 1) the case of Godden versus Hales (England, 1686) where, in a symptomatically paradoxical proto-'modern' moment, Genesis 22 was used as a prooftext for the right of kings to transcend the law in defence of religious freedom, so reflecting the complex negotiations involved in the shift to 'constitutional monarchy' in the wake of the Civil War; 2) Erich Auer's meditations on Genesis 22 (Marburg-Istanbul, 1943-1945), pointedly exploring questions of theocracy and democracy in relation to the rise of fascism in Europe; 3) the use of the akedah as debating chamber for the self-definition of Israel as modern state. In each case, the core question is the relationship of divine monarchy/state authority to freedom; that is, of (would-be) democracy to 'theocracy'--or its modern correlates.


Iconoclash and Akedah
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Yvonne Sherwood, University of Glasgow

Bruno Latour defines ‘iconoclash’ (as distinct from ‘iconoclasm’) as an action that is undecideably destructive and constructive. ‘Iconoclasm’ as pure destruction becomes deeply problematic when we think, for example, of the decapitated pieta of the Museum of Moulins, where Protestant/Vandal vandalism exacerbates the authorised destruction-construction of the broken icon-body of Christ. Focussing on Samuel Bak’s recent works on the akedah—‘Dress Rehearsal’ ‘Isaac’s Dream’, ‘Study for the Akedah’ and ‘After Mantegna’—this paper explores how Bak exacerbates the element of destruction already integral to classic works by Mantegna and Caravaggio, who stress the violence intrinsic to Genesis 22 by freezing the text at the point of Isaac’s scream or Isaac’s head pulled back by his father. Rather than unleashing a new element of destruction as post-Shoah intruder into Genesis 22, Bak amplifies the terrifying almost-destruction intrinsic to the original. The blindfolded, closed or unseeing eyes of his Abrahams and Isaacs extend the curious (an-iconic/iconoclastic?) mutiny against visibility and transparency within this punningly eye-obsessed text. What is radical is the extension of intrinsic breaking to the point where it rips apart the necessary (causative/creative) relationship between destruction and construction by which ‘sacrifice’ distinguishes itself from damage, disaster, and catastrophe (Shoah), and so defines (and purifies) itself. In ‘After Mantegna’, Bak breaks up Mantegna’s solid monumental figures, and turns the (illusion of) solid stone back into the constituent elements of vulnerable pencil, pastel, and paper, as if the violence within the image were setting in train a process of auto-decomposition or auto-ruin. In the cross-shaped prop that holds Abraham together, he raises the question of the relation of the Jewish artist to the icons of Christian art. In these and other ways, his art raises questions of the relation of Torah to icon and iconoclasm, and probes the creative/destructive potential of iconoclash.


Deutero-Pauline Construction of Distinctive Social Identity and Community Boundaries in Ephesians
Program Unit: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament
Minna Shkul, The University of Sheffield

Ephesians reflects a complex inter-religious matrix of emerging Christianities making reference to relations with Judaism and to surrounding gentile society. Reading Ephesians against Paul and the undisputed letters highlights the peculiarity of the letter: Ephesians depicts a time when Christianness was gaining increasing confidence and began to articulate distinctive views, responding to intercultural currents and increasing inter-religious social hostility. The paper makes use of positioning theory (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999) and social identity theory (Richard Jenkins, 1996) analysing how the writer negotiates a distinctive identity for his symbolic community (Anthony P. Cohen, 1985). Having established the core features of the symbolic community ‘in Christ’, the focus will be on a negotiation of a distinctive social identity. This is achieved by resocialising the formerly pagan audience to appreciate the Jewish cultural heritage and embrace its views, while simultaneously distancing them from the pagan lifestyle. The paper argues that Christ is no ‘Jewish Messiah’ for the writer, but rather a Cosmic Saviour. Discussion will involve reworking of the Hebrew traditions in the light of the Deutero-Paulinist’s revelation and Christ event, by challenging, transcending or undermining many basic Israelite assumptions. The writer gathers believers, the ‘circumcised’ and ‘uncircumcised’ at the boundaries of conflicting intercultural relations and negotiates unique terms of belonging, abolishing and dismissing boundaries and establishing new boundary markers. When the writer renders the law as insignificant he makes the connected traditions and praxis incompatible for his community, and becomes a part of the movement that gradually separated Christianity from Judaism. Increasing intolerance is also seen in relations with the surrounding pagan society, which the writer sees as the ultimate threat that may even sabotage individual salvation. He attacks the pagan society by stereotyping and encloses the believers within the boundaries of his socially controlled sect.


Religious Identity and Power of Naming: Saints and Sinners in Ephesians
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Minna Shkul, The University of Sheffield

Ephesians reflects a complex inter-religious matrix of emerging Christianities at the late first century making reference to relations with Judaism as well as to the surrounding gentile society. The distinctive religious identity involves socio-religious categorisation and naming. Ephesians constructs a twofold comparison which functions to establish similarity and difference, constructing the in-group as well as significant others. This is achieved by naming opposing groups, prototypes and antitypes, which are manipulated to convey central values and behaviours of the community. The first level of comparison is represented by the ‘circumcised – uncircumcised’ division and negotiates continuity with Israel as well as the distinctiveness of the community defined ‘in Christ’. The second comparison contrasts the believers with the surrounding pagan society, represented in the text by naming ‘saints’ and ‘(gentile) sinners’. The religious identity is displayed in the interplay of three groups whose members have been allocated stereotypical roles. The writer uses these categories in resocialising formerly pagan audience to appreciate the Hebrew cultural heritage and embrace its views, while simultaneously distancing them from their primary social group and detested gentile lifestyle. However, the climax of naming conveys the authority and verification of the peculiar views put forth by the pseudonymous author: he represents christianness that assumes election and blessings of Israel for the church and shows intolerance toward both covenantal nomism and gentile lifestyle. This revelation is validated using two Israelite figures with contested reputations, Paul and Jesus. Both figures are less significant in evolving Jewish groups and their positions are manipulated to inaugurate gentile Christianity, which the writer envisions as existing ‘before the foundations of the world’. Christ is portrayed as a mediator in whom a new humanity is created and the social obstacles of Jewish exclusivism and covenantal nomism are abolished.


The Gospel of Mary: Mary in the Ministry of Jesus and the Early Church According to the Earliest Life of the Virgin (The Georgian Life Attributed to Maximus the Confessor)
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Stephen J. Shoemaker, University of Oregon

While the attribution of the Georgian Life of the Virgin ascribed to Maximus remains somewhat uncertain (and largely uninvestigated), this work is almost certainly the earliest complete Life of Mary, and it appears to have been composed sometime during the seventh century. The angel’s words at the Annunciation are interpreted as achieving the equality of the sexes and bringing to an end the subordination of women to men. Mary also plays an active role in Jesus’ earthly ministry: the Life emphasizes her constant involvement in her son’s ministry, where she served as leader of the many women who followed him. The leadership of other women in formative Christianity is also highlighted throughout the text, and Mary of Magdala is identified as an apostle equal in status to Peter. At the Last Supper, Mary of Nazareth serves in an almost priest-like capacity, ministering to the women present in a manner that parallels her son’s activities with his male disciples. Mary also fills the role of “Evangelist” in that she was the only disciple to witness all the events from her son’s trial to his resurrection, and the authorship of the “Passion gospel” is essentially ascribed to her authority. Mary alone sees to her son’s burial, and after maintaining a constant vigil at the tomb, she is the only one to actually witness the resurrection. Following the resurrection, Mary at first sets off for the mission field with the John, but is instructed through a vision to return to Jerusalem, where she essentially coordinates and leads the nascent church together with her step-son James. She directs the spiritual life of the apostles and is responsible for supervising their missionary work, including the approval of the content of their preaching.


An Early Dormition Narrative in Karshuni: The “Six Books” Apocryphon from a Karshuni Codex at St. Mark’s in Jerusalem
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Stephen J. Shoemaker, University of Oregon

Although the “Six Books” narrative of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption has long been known from several fifth and sixth-century Syriac manuscripts, a new version of this ancient apocryphon has recently come to light in an important Karshuni manuscript belonging to the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem. This manuscript contains over one-hundred hagiographical narratives, many of which are unique and all of which have been translated from an original Syriac manuscript in Damascus that is presently inaccessible (Dam. Patr. 12/17 & 12/18). The account of Mary’s Dormition in this collection is a version of the Six Books apocryphon that was previously known only from a single fragment in Syriac. For a long time, many experts regarded this fragmentary Syriac version as the earliest exemplar of the “Bethlehem” Dormition narratives. After studying the complete narrative in the Karshuni version, this position no longer seems tenable. There is no indication that the Karshuni narrative is any earlier than the four very closely related versions known from the Syriac manuscripts of the late fifth and sixth centuries. Even if its production somehow antedates these Syriac versions, the Karshuni narrative does not witness to a more primitive stratum of the early Bethlehem traditions. Instead, this recension quite clearly abbreviates a more extensive early tradition that is witnessed more completely in the early Syriac manuscripts, and the variants found in these Syriac versions rule out any possibility that the Karshuni narrative (in a Greek or Syriac version) could somehow be their collective source.


Chinese Literatures
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Yan ShouCheng, Nanyang Technological University, China

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Architecture as a Control on Sexual Behavior: The Four-Room House Reconsidered
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Avi Shveka, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

The classical characterization of the Four-Room House as the “Israelite” type of house, though being lately subject to increasing criticism, is well based on the strong correlation between its spread in space and time and the bounds and duration of the Israelite entity. The attempts to explain this house dominance on a purely “functional” basis fail to account for the ethnicity aspect of this phenomenon. We present a novel approach to the problem, based on the fact (showed recently by Faust and Bunimovitz) that the Four-Room House plan exhibits a very shallow “tree shape”, i.e., all the inner rooms are directly accessible from the house’s central space. The most obvious feature of the plan is that it ensures one’s privacy, and thus enables the house members to keep their sexual intimacy. This was a matter of outmost importance in this type of dwelling that usually served extended families, and was therefore home to different sexually-connected couples, the mingling of which would be breaking the severe taboo of incest. Recall that the taboo on incest had, in the Israelite mind, a quintessential ethnic character. In biblical law, for example, all incest prohibitions are described as the “obscenities” of the Canaanites and were the reason for their defeat and expulsion of their land by the Israelites; would the Israelites follow them in violating these prohibitions, they too will be “spilled out” by the land in the very same brutal way. The Israelite society considered, therefore, the observing of the incest taboo as both an ethnic identity feature and an imperative condition to Israel’s holding to his land. The architectural design of the Four-Room house served, therefore, exceptionally well the essential interest of the Israelite society in minimizing the incest danger, becoming thus an ethnic marker for this society.


Innocent Blood and the Fate of Jerusalem in the Gospel of Matthew
Program Unit: Matthew
Catherine Sider Hamilton, Toronto School of Theology

Matthew’s Passion Narrative connects the death of Jesus to the destruction of the Temple. Scholars typically see in this connection the Christian development of a deuteronomistic theodicy: Israel’s disobedience, epitomized in the killing of the prophets, results in the temple’s (indeed, the city’s) destruction. Peculiar to the Gospel of Matthew, however, is a focus on innocent blood (haima athoon/dikaion). This focus finds a parallel in the literature of early Judaism, precisely in connection with the fate of Jerusalem and the Temple. The parallel points to a concrete and thoroughly Jewish concern underlying and serving to explicate the fate of Jerusalem: innocent blood poured out, and the pollution of the land. This paper compares Matthew’s Passion Narrative to the early Jewish legend of the blood of Zechariah to argue that the treatment of Jesus’ death in Matthew reflects a theodicy – in continuity with early Judaism – concerned with problems of purity and pollution, and rooted in the Temple and the Land.


Abraham and the Politics of Christian Identity
Program Unit:
Jeffrey Siker, Loyola Marymount University

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Virtual Archaeology for Teaching the Bible
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Ronald A. Simkins, Creighton University

Archaeological and material remains can aid in the teaching of the Bible. Indeed, many courses and textbooks on the Bible make some use of archaeological materials, and new technologies have emerged that enable us to create interactive and virtual reality images of archaeological remains to make the ancient world more accessible. However, the intellectual and pedagogical use of archaeology in biblical studies is often neglected. This paper will lay the intellectual and pedagogical foundation for incorporating archaeology into biblical studies courses, and demonstrate how the Virtual World Project can be used to incorporate archaeology in biblical studies courses. The Virtual World Project (http://moses.creighton.edu/vr) consists of a series of interactive, virtual tours of ancient sites in the eastern Mediterranean that are particularly important for the study of the ancient world. The tours are constructed from a series of 360-degree, virtual reality images that are linked together to cover an entire site. Navigation through the site is linked to interactive, detailed maps of the site so that the viewers can orient themselves within the site and jump to any other location. While touring the archaeological remains, the viewers are able to look at some items more closely by selecting links to photographic images. The virtual tours are supplemented with textual descriptions of the site and its features, appropriate samples of ancient texts, and full bibliographies for further research.


What Are Human Beings That You Make So Much of Them?
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Alice M. Sinnott, University of Auckland

This paper explores ecological hermeneutical issues in Job’s angry outburst against God in Job 7:17-18, and in the related text Psalm 8:4-6. A comparison of these texts illustrates the intense anthropomorphic stance and theology of the Joban text with the portrayal of a God who relates to humanity as an overseer. Job’s God raises human beings above all other creatures and yet makes humans subject to God’s constant divine scrutiny. His bitter denunciation of this Deity is an inversion of Psalm 8. Job suggests that God is responsible for order or disorder in the created world, and initially acknowledges non-human creation in relation to humanity, yet moves on to leave non-human creation on the periphery and focuses on the Deity’s relationship with human beings. Further to the syntactical, verbal, and rhetorical features connecting Ps 8:4-6 and Job 7:17-18, this paper, proposes their distinctive divergences highlight the absence of the created world (excepting humanity) from Job 7 until verse 21 when Job mentions the earth. Psalm 8’s rhetorically condensed and balanced proclamation of the exalted status of humanity contrasts sharply with Job’s diatribe against God concluding in a cry of despair asking what humanity amount to before an overwhelmingly powerful God? Evocation of Psalm 8 suggests the inclusion of all creation under this divine scrutiny. Job 7:12 reverses the orderly perspective of Psalm 8 with a rhetorical question highlighting God’s galling attention. Job 7 transposes the royal God of Psalm 8, who sets all creatures under human supremacy, to a God who constantly examines human actions. However, Job’s “I shall lie in the earth” (v.21) suggests that in seeking refuge in the earth he is becoming earth conscious and letting go of his anthropocentricism.


Coulon, Tatam, and Shoresh: The Translator and Difficult Place Names in Joshua
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Seppo Sipilä, United Bible Societies

Handling of proper nouns during Bible translation is often seen as fairly straightforward and simply task. If the translator only knows, how to transcribe Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek names into her or his receptor language, the rest of the operation should not be too difficult. In this paper I shall discuss instances in the book of Joshua, where appropriate transcription technique is only a beginning of a complicated task (especially in Josh 15:59b). The complications with the difficult names are connected with various exegetical, linguistic, and cultural problems. The complexity of the issue will become apparent when different translations are compared with each other and with scholarly discussions about the names in question.


Paul's Death, the "Good Contest," and the "Finished Race"
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Russell B. Sisson, Union College

When Paul says in 2 Tim. 4:6, “For me, I am already being poured out as libation, and the time of my departure has come,” one hears echoes of how he describes his possible death in Phil. 2:17. Here, however, death is close at hand, and his apostolic labors are complete, as he describes by way of athletic analogies: “I have fought the good contest; I have finished the race” (4:7). Similar athletic analogies are employed in both letters, but differently. The analogies in Philippians evoke culturally-based ideas of leadership likely known from direct experience of the ancient Greek games. In 2 Timothy, the analogies are used in a manner more similar to commonplace analogies of Hellenistic moralists, particularly Stoics. Although the audience’s firsthand experience of Greek games is assumed (2 Tim, 2:5), the social and cultural intertexture of the analogies is not fundamental to the rhetoric, unlike the athletic analogies Paul develops in the undisputed letters, where Paul speaks with a more richly-textured rhetorical voice. When 2 Timothy is read as a post-Pauline composition, the athletic analogies of the undisputed letters can be seen functioning within the scribal-oral intertexture of the letter, where they are reconfigured in a manner that presents Paul as a general model of Christian perfection.


Pre-creation Discourse among the Greco-Roman Philosophers
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Russell Sisson, Union College

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Piety, Families, and "Epigraphical Rabbis" of Beth Shearim
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Alexei Sivertsev, DePaul University

This paper will discuss possible social, religious and cultural implications of Hebrew and Greek terminology used to designate “piety” in rabbinic epitaphs at Beth Shearim. It will determine the range of meanings for such terms as “kadosh” and “hosios/ hosia” by comparing their usages in contemporaneous literature and epigraphy. For example, the terms “hosios/ hosia” in Jewish burial inscriptions from the Diaspora and the Land of Israel had a variety of meanings which reflected familial piety, public involvement and benefactions, and, sometimes, observance of Jewish law. Depending on the context “hosios/ hosia” could reflect traditional virtues of the contemporaneous Roman society as well as specifically Jewish ideals of piety. In each particular case the precise range of meanings was determined ad hoc by relatives of the deceased and reflected their social, religious, and cultural tastes. The paper will argue that in most cases the precise meaning of “piety” mentioned in rabbinic epitaphs was determined by such ad hoc combinations of cultural and religious views of the immediate family of the deceased. In other words, instead of having a particular “rabbinic” notion of piety expressed in burial inscriptions, we encounter a whole range of potential meanings. Sometimes these meanings might have corresponded to the “rabbinic” ideal of piety but sometimes they did not. The family and intricate cultural allegiances of individual family members played by far the greatest role in what any particular term for “piety” meant in any given rabbinic epitaph. The paper will suggest that in order to fully appreciate the nature and complexity of the rabbinic movement, we have to appreciate the importance of family ties and the possibility of multiple religious and cultural identities within “rabbinic” families.


Sin and Impurity: Atoned or Purified? Yes!
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Jay Sklar, Covenant Theological Seminary

This paper argues that when sacrificial atonement (kpr) is required in contexts of inadvertent sin and major impurity, it has a dual function: to atone and to purify. The paper establishes this by arguing first of all that sin not only endangers (requiring atonement), it also pollutes (requiring purification). It proceeds to argue that impurity not only pollutes (requiring purification), it also endangers (requiring atonement). Indeed, though the starting points of inadvertent sin and major impurity are different, their end point is the same: both endanger and both pollute, and both of these aspects must be addressed by sacrificial atonement. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of why sacrificial atonement (kpr) is able to fulfill this dual function.


‘Under Heaven’: The Formative Place of Heaven within the Salvation-Geography of Acts
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Matthew Sleeman, King's College, London

Using two theoretical insights from the geographer Ed Soja, namely his critique of ‘historicism’ and his concept of ‘thirdspace’, this paper argues that Acts constitutes a salvation-geographical narrative. The ascension account, Acts 1:6-11 is programmatic in this spatiality. The resultant ‘ascension geography’ means that readings of Acts need to take account of the heavenly Christ as formative for spaces and places within the Acts as a whole. Acts therefore establishes Luke as the first Christian geographer, ‘writing the earth’ to influence, interpret and transform his readers’ lived experience of space, with heaven central to this vision.


Meals Inclusive and Exclusive: Earthly and Eschatological Meals in Jesus' Life
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
Peter-Ben Smit, University of Bern

That the way Jesus ate his meals (when, how, and with whom) was one of the essential and controversial ways in which he expressed his message of the kingdom: as open commensality, i.e.: sharing meals with many, if not all (cf. Mk. 2:13-17, Q 7:33-34). On the other and, there are a number of traditions, which may well originate with the historical Jesus (e.g. Q 13:29-28, Q 14:16-24), which use the imagery of the so-called eschatological meal: the kingdom envisaged as a (festive) banquet. Here, however, exclusion is as much in view as inclusion. The paper will explore this question, suggesting, that Jesus' earthly meal fellowhip is best understood as invitation to fellowship with him, which gives access to the eschatological banquet, i.e.: the kingdom. By paying attention to the dynamics of meal etiquette in Jesus' praxis and preaching, thus an apparent tension between both can be resolved.


Synoptics, Systemics, and the Sower: Developing a Linguistic Approach to the Synoptic Data
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Catherine J. Smith, University of Birmingham

Paper presents a method for the comparison of Synoptic parallels using linguistic analysis. The model used is drawn from Systemic Functional Linguistics, but modified to be applicable to the Greek of the New Testament. The potential of the method is demonstrated through the analysis of the Parable of the Sower in the Synoptic Gospels.


Reading Q after the War: Matthew’s Deployment of Q in the Apocalyptic Discourse
Program Unit: Q
Daniel A. Smith, Huron University College

An examination of the deployment of Q material (Q 13:34-35; 17:23-24,37; 17:26-27,30,34-35; 12:39-40; 12:42-46; 19 passim) in the context of Matthew’s redaction of Mark 13 highlights some significant differences in eschatological expectation. This paper examines the social and political conditions in which the differing eschatological expectations of Q and Matthew make sense, and evaluates possible scenarios of the relationship between Q and Matthew.


Acts and the Structure of the Bible
Program Unit: Book of Acts
David E. Smith, Avila College

This paper will explore the canonical context of the book of Acts and how the book's placement within the canon affects its interpretation.


"If Any Want to Become My Followers": Character and Political Formations via the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Character Ethics and Biblical Interpretation
C. Drew Smith, Ouachita Baptist University

The Gospel of Mark has often been described as a manual of discipleship in which the story is narrated not primarily as a reflection back to the time and events of Jesus and the disciples, but more as a story that is to be lived by the Christian community located in a politically hostile world. This paper examines once again the story and teaching on discipleship in Mark with a focus on how the narrative forms a community of character that stands in opposition to the political powers of the empire. Concentrating primarily on Mark 8:27-10:45, this paper argues that the Gospel of Mark was written to be read with the intent of forming Christian character in individuals and offering a political alternative for a marginalized community. The paper will also addresses how the Gospel of Mark can still serve to form an alternative political community of character in the contemporary political context.


Ethnic Identity in 4 Maccabees and Galatians
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Julien C. H. Smith, Baylor University

Fourth Maccabees and Galatians present sharply divergent perspectives concerning the value and function of ethnic identity vis-à-vis religious identity. Using a methodological approach derived from the sociology of knowledge, this paper will analyze the way in which these two texts function as reality-maintaining discourse. From this vantage point, 4 Maccabees may be seen to address the threat of Jewish assimilation into Greek culture by suppressing that culture’s competing symbolic universe. Within the functionally restrictive religious framework of 4 Maccabees, ethnic and religious identity are inextricably intertwined. ­Ethnic identity functions as the basis upon which the text urges the audience to adopt a particular vision of religious identity. Likewise, Galatians must address a potent threat to the symbolic universe of its audience. However, Paul is primarily engaged in the creation of a new symbolic universe, rather than the maintenance of one already firmly established. Thus, within this letter’s functionally creative religious framework, the antinomy of Jew and Greek as fundamental elements of the cosmos is abolished. In the emerging symbolic universe of early Christianity, ethnic identity is “unmasked” as a social construct, which may no longer serve as the basis of appeal to religious identity. This analysis supports the claim that in Galatians, Paul is not negating the existence of various types of cultural identity, but rather challenging their normative status vis-à-vis religious identity.


The Myths and Rituals in the Birth of the Goodly Gods (CAT 1.23)
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Mark S. Smith, New York University

This presentation will examine the fundamental dynamics that both link and distinguish the multiple myths and rituals in this text.


Ugaritic and Other ANE Information: Points and Counterpoints
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Mark Smith, New York University

Book review of Did God Have a Wife?


The Militarization of Miracles in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Warfare in Ancient Israel
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Loyola Marymount University

Since Yadin's massive work on "The Art of Warfare" (already an interesting title) there has been a clear line of interpretation that seeks to formally analyze many of the "battles of the Bible", particularly those which describe supernatural events during the battles, as examples of actual battle tactics and strategies of war. This paper will analyze an influential line of analysis in 20th century commentary on warfare in Ancient Israel, citing both popular and scholarly examples, and finally question the assumptions and approaches characteristic of this view.


"White Trash" Wisdom: Proverbs 9 Deconstructed
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Mark Sneed, Lubbock Christian University

Claudia Camp has already begun the task of deconstructing Prov 9, by showing how the duality of Lady Wisdom and Dame Folly breaks down under closer scrutiny. I plan to finish the job. I will demonstrate that the text folds in on itself in one particular place: verse 17. Using a Derridian form of deconstruction, I will show how Dame Folly’s appeal to young men operates quite strikingly within the expectations of traditional wisdom. In other words, her folly is “wiser,” than Lady Wisdom's. This means that the wisdom/folly dichotomy begins to blur and disintegrate. I will also demonstrate that Lady Wisdom actually needs Dame Folly, actually depends on her in order to function properly and maintain her own identity. Thus, the lines between them begin to blur again. Finally, I will reveal how social class and gender come into play in the attempt to exclude the Other. The essential point of this paper is that no matter how hard the author of chap. 9 might have tried to keep the women distinct and representing separate paths, he could only fail.


Brockelmann's Lexicon Syriacum as a Database
Program Unit:
Michael Sokoloff, Bar Ilan University

In the course of preparing the English translation and update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum, it became clear that this dictionary’s usefulness would be greatly enhanced by turning it into a database which the user could access in addition to a traditional static edition. The presentation will describe the work which has been accomplished toward this goal up until now and future plans for enhancement.


David and Jonathan in Iraq
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Nathan Solomon, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

The friendship between David and Jonathan has been analyzed from every perspective save one, that of a soldier's friendship. This paper explores the gains modern psychological work with combat veterans (Grossman, Shay) as a hermeneutical tool for understanding the friendship of David and Jonathan.


Can the Unrighteous Lament? Lament Speech and the Process of Reconciliation
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Elna K. Solvang, Concordia College, Moorhead MN

In Psalm 137, the exiles in Babylon mourn the destruction of their land and condemn the nations they feel have benefited from their reversal of fortune. The structure of the psalm directs the hearer to sympathize with the psalmist’s loss, acknowledge the psalmist’s claim of loyalty and condemn the psalmist’s enemies. Typically the biblical voice of lament is accorded to the innocent, unjustly treated and persecuted; contemporary movements protesting injustice have passionately and eloquently used laments to express their anguish and articulate their hope. Such laments have sought not only divine intervention on behalf of the oppressed, but sympathy and action from human hearers. But in Psalm 137 and in the book of Lamentations there is a different audience seeking attention - the cry is raised by those whom the text elsewhere has accused of idolatry and injustice. It is the guilty who cry out. This paper will examine the canonical voice of the unrighteous lamenter and - drawing insights from the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa - consider the role of this voice in breaking from an unjust past and anticipating a new future.


Teaching and Preaching the Books of Isaiah in a Modern Jewish Context
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Benjamin Sommer, Northwestern University

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The Doctrine of Inspiration and the Reliability of the Text in Barth
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Katherine Sonderegger, Virginia Theological Seminary

This paper explores Barth's understanding of the doctrine of inspiration.


Tribal Ethnicities in Iron I Israel: Data and Method
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Kent Sparks, Eastern University

For various reasons, contemporary studies in Israelite ethnicity have tended to focus on Israel's identity as understood in the context of its non-Israelite neighbors. This pursuit naturally accentuates the conceptual unity shared by Israel's disparate tribal groups in matters of identity, but it tends to neglect the obvious alterities that divided ancient Israel. In this paper I will explore the variety of Israelite ethnicities as these are expressed or implied in biblical sources from the early Iron period. Some attention will be given to the implications of this inquiry for the use of archaeology to study ethnicity, as well as to important methodological considerations in the study of ethnicity proper.


Cult and Cultic Activities in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
S. David Sperling, Hebrew Union College

This paper will review and discuss briefly the cult and cultic activities present in ancient Israel and its religious practices.


Lucius or the Ass and the Animal Rationality Debate
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Janet Elizabeth Spittler, University of Chicago

Lucius or the Ass, an epitome of a lost Greek original most likely composed by Lucian of Samosata, has been interpreted variously as a satire on the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, on paradoxographers and their superstitious readers, or on a real and known contemporary author. Others have read Lucius or the Ass as a literary parody of the Greek romance novel or of the prefaces to medical-magical handbooks. Still others regard the text as simply a comic tale peppered with the occasional satirical jab. In this paper I will read Lucius or the Ass against the backdrop of a group of texts not yet considered for comparison with it, that is, the literature of the debate over the rationality of animals. While Stoics categorically denied reason to animals, most other philosophical schools of late antiquity disputed this view. A wide range of authors weighed in on the issue, including Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Philo, Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom, with both Philo and Plutarch dedicating entire treatises to the subject. In these texts, evidence for intelligence, justice, affection, and even piety among animals is typically taken from stock anecdotes describing animal behavior. I will argue that the majority of episodes in Lucius or the Ass are send-ups of these stock anecdotes. Lucian incorporates these stock stories into his narrative, casting Lucius the ass in the animal’s role. When Lucius’ behavior is compared with that of the real animal in the same situation, he consistently fails to measure up. The result is a humorous narrative which satirizes all sides of the debate. The question of whether or not animals have reason is moot when the average man is dumber than an ass.


The Use of Genesis 42:18 (Not Leviticus 18:5) in Luke 10:28: Joseph and the Good Samaritan
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Preston M. Sprinkle, Aberdeen University

This article seeks to accomplish two goals: 1) to correct the common assumption that text being alluded to in Luke 10.28 (‘do this and you will live’) is Leviticus 18.5, and 2) to set forth a new proposal that the Joseph story (Gen. 37-50) lingers in the background of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This will be accomplished by briefly demonstrating that Genesis 42.18, rather than Leviticus 18.5, is the actual text being alluded to in Luke 10.28, and that this allusion to the Joseph story gives a trajectory to the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.30-37). To help support this hypothesis, a parallel story from Joseph and Aseneth will be examined, as well as a tradition concerning Joseph and the Samaritans.


Why Does Deuteronomy Legislate Cities of Refuge? Asylum in the Covenant Collection (Exodus 21:12–14) and Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 19:1–13)
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Jeffrey Stackert, Brandeis University

Recent scholarship has renewed focus upon the relationship of the biblical legal corpora, but the results of such studies have not led to appreciable consensus. With regard to asylum laws, the relationship of Ex. 21:12-14, Dt. 19:1-13, and Num. 35:9-34 remains disputed. To cite the most recent example, Pamela Barmash argues against the older view that the institution of asylum in ancient Israel developed from altar refuge to city refuge. Instead, she suggests that Ex. 21:12-14 does not serve as a source for Dt. 19:1-13 and may even envision city asylum itself. I propose here a different approach to the question of Pentateuchal asylum, asking the question, why does D legislate cities of refuge? Scholars have regularly cited cult centralization as D's motivation; however, this does not explain why D chooses city asylum (as opposed to another form of asylum). Takings its cue from the work of Bernard Levinson and others, this study suggests that Dt. 19:1-13 invents the concept of city refuge based upon its interpretation of mqwm in its source text, Ex. 21:13. Such Deuteronomic interpretation of mqwm as "city" (cf. Dt. 21:19) explains not only the origin of its concept of asylum but also its avoidance of the centralization formula in Dt. 19:1-13: because D has already assigned the technical meaning of "single cultic site" to mqwm, he omits this word as well as any reference to the larger Deuteronomic centralization program from his asylum law. Instead, by means of creative exegesis, the D author masks his legal innovation, stressing the continuity of his asylum law with that in his source text.


Better Scene than Heard; Feminist Insights into Hollywood’s Versions of the Raising of Lazarus
Program Unit:
Jeffrey Staley, Seattle University

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Women at Early Christian Meals: Discourse and Reality
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Angela Standhartinger, University of Marburg

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Paul and Scripture: Charting the Course
Program Unit: Paul and Scripture
Christopher Stanley, St. Bonaventure University

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The "Wealth of Nations": Tribute and Pilgrimage to Zion in Isaiah 60–61
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Gary Stansell, Saint Olaf College

In Isaiah 60-61, a prominent motif is the wealth and riches that shall flow to Jerusalem when foreign nations make pilgrimage or are gathered to Zion. While scholars have long pondered the significance of the “nations’” eschatological pilgrimage to Zion in these chapters and others throughout the book of Isaiah, the function and importance of the “flow of wealth” as an accompanying factor has received much less attention. Indeed, Trito Isaiah has elevated the “wealth” motif to a position of significance, not only by the multiple occurrence of the notion (60:5-13, 16-17; 61:6; 66:12), but also by the contexts in which the motif is found: pilgrimage, gathering, return of the exiles, tribute to temple, nations as slaves, etc. The essay focuses on the literary function of the wealth motif in chapters 60 and 61 and discusses it not only in light of its context in Isaiah 56-66, but also its connection to similar Isaian texts (e.g., 2:2-4; 18:7; 23; 45:14). Finally, the essay explores the connection of the wealth of nations motif in Isaiah 60-61 to Haggai 2:7-8 and Zechariah 14:14.


Maat-Imagery in Trito-Isaiah
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Thomas Staubli, University of Fribourg

Confronted with the efforts to build temples on Mt. Zion and on Mt. Garizim during the second half of the 6th century BC, Trito-Isaiah advanced an alternative to the traditional cult. Scholars have not clearly recognized that Trito-Isaiah did not simply oppose the cultic theology, rather he made use of the language and logic of the cult for his new theology. Isaiah 58 argues for a lay version of the sacrifice in the form of charity for the poor. In order to stress his argument, he associated it on a ritual level with Yom Kippur, on a cosmological level with the old ????-theology of Jerusalem, and on an anthropological level with the essential importance of ???. The pattern of his theology can be found in the monumental iconography of Egyptian temple walls from Ptolemaic times.


The Alienation of Humankind
Program Unit: Romans through History and Cultures
Ekkehard Stegemann, University of Basel, Switzerland

If one takes Krister Stendahl's pathbreaking article on "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West" as the beginning of a de-Lutherizing of Paul, the time has come to take a fresh look at Luther's Paulinism. Stendahl has rightly pointed to unbridgeable gaps between Paul and Luther. Among them is not least what Stendahl called the "introspective conscience" and the "individualistic" concept of salvation. But we must ask what Luther was confronting in his own day and whether his position was a kind of Paulinism, despite the fact that it does not accord with the historical conclusions of our exegesis. Worth examining in this respect is the revival of the Greco-Roman concept of self-mastery in 16th-century Humanism. The relationship between Humanism and the Reformation as movements of learned people was a close one, as illustrated by Erasmus and Melanchthon, and especially the Swiss Reformed movement. Yet Luther's dispute with Erasmus on the "liberum arbitrium" discloses a gap between Humanists and Reformers at one decisive point. Erasmus was influenced by the concept of self-mastery, especially that of Epicurus. He held that freedom of the will was a possibility and that one might occupy a moral middle ground guided by reason and law. Luther thought this to be presumptuous: there was no neutral, middle position; sin determines the world and human reality; sin which marks the gap between God and human beings. It is this (anthropological) radicalism of Luther's theology which, in my view, constituted his Paulinism. The paper will seek todemonstrate that Paul himself (esp. in Romans 7:7ff.) held this "tragic" anthropology, although within an apocalyptic world-view, but also in dispute with Greek and Roman concepts of self-mastery.


The Implied and the Empirical Reader and the Question of Ethnicity in Hebrews
Program Unit: Hebrews
Ekkehard W. Stegemann, University of Basel

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A Minor Character Plays a Major Role: Naaman's Servant Girl in Religious Education
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Valerie A. Stein, University of Evansville

Naaman’s Israelite servant girl in 1 Kings 5 is a minor character whose limited function in the narrative is telling the Syrian captain about the healing powers of the Israelite prophet Elisha. The girl is not named; she speaks in only one verse (5:3); and she is mentioned in only two others (5:2, 4). She is eclipsed in the story and in biblical scholarship by Elisha and Naaman. As underrepresented as female characters are in biblical narratives, there are many other biblical women who are more developed and who play more significant roles than this girl. However, in American 20th century Lutheran religious education material, this seemingly insignificant character holds a prominent place. Her story is expanded, retold, and placed alongside such well-known characters as Miriam, Ruth, and Hannah. She surprisingly emerges in this literature as one of the few female characters chosen either as an embodiment of moral truth or to be an inspiration to young girls to develop attitudes and behavior deemed appropriate to Christian living. This paper examines the unexpected prominence of Naaman’s Israelite servant girl in 20th century American Lutheran religious education material and explores how the servant girl tradition is reworked in different periods and for various age groups to meet the specific educational needs of the Church. The paper demonstrates that this character’s shifting role in children’s religious education literature reflects shifting religious and cultural values of the 20th century, especially with respect to gender roles. Furthermore, the presentation situates the servant girl’s role in this literature within the broader context of this story’s history of reception.


Food, Family, and Clothing at Passover: Ancestor Worship in Exod 12:3–13
Program Unit: Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures
Naomi Steinberg, DePaul University

The thesis of this paper is that Passover was originally a family ritual which established the reciprocity between the living and the dead by giving thanks to the ancestors of the kinship group who blessed the fertility of fields and family. My hypothesis is based on cross-cultural data on ancestor worship, which reveals contexts in which the living and the dead come together to share a meal at certain times of the year. The food consumed on such occasions consists of items distinct from those eaten on a daily basis; this change in diet is understood to reflect the changed relationship between the living and the deceased that has been brought about with the death of family members. I will argue that the unique clothing worn for the Passover meal, like the food eaten, is an indicator that the ritual both connects the living and the dead of the lineage, and yet empasizes the distinction between them.


Jerusalem in the Persian Period: The Archaeological Evidence
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Margreet Steiner, Leiden

Most ideas on if and when Jerusalem was resettled during the Persiand Period and how large is was, are based on unpublished material from Kenyon's excavations. This paper will present the evidence from Kenyon's excavations and will try to put Jerusalem in its Judean context.


Anatomy of the Pastoral Epistles: A Study in Literary Design
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Perry L. Stepp, Kentucky Christian University

David Trobisch has suggested that ancient letter collections were viewed as a narrative genre, where "a story is told through letters." He has demonstrated some of the benefits that result from approaching the Pauline collection from a literary perspective. As a subset of the Pauline collection, the Pastoral Epistles create their own narrative within the larger Pauline story. Because of their close interrelationship, and because their narrative world is self-contained and mostly closed, these letters present a rich treasure of possibilities for interpreters who approach them with an eye for plot, characterization, reader, etc. What can we learn from the intersection of characterization and plot and theology in the Pastorals? How does Timothy function in these letters’ story? How would the intended readers have understood the relationships between the characters?


Divine Wrath as Roman Historiography and Lukan Redaction
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Gerald L. Stevens, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Roman writers reflected their Greek mythological and philosophical backgrounds regarding the use of divine wrath as a literary interpretive device. In Greek and Roman myth, divine wrath was that irrational, impulsive, unpredictable component of divine relationships that caused havoc on Mount Olympus and chaos among humans. When relating divine wrath to the future, one had no idea where all this was going. In Greek and Roman philosophy, use of divine wrath as an interpretive device for life was downplayed or even satirized; the bottom line for predicting human events was still the same: one still had no idea where all this was going. One distinctive contribution, however, to using the concept of divine wrath as an interpretive literary strategy was among the Roman historians. These historians consistently used divine wrath for historical interpretive purposes in writing the history of Rome. Their interpretive strategy was to link the concept of fatum with the concept of ira deum derived from the ancient Roman cultus. As a result, when reading a Roman historian, one was given a keen idea of exactly where all this was going. Wrath was domesticated into a rational construct interpreting human or state destiny. This distinctive use of divine wrath as an interpretive motif by Roman historians will be used as the basis for a study of the use of divine wrath in the Gospel of Luke. Similarities and distinctions will be drawn on the way toward establishing part of the Gospel writer's literary strategy for interpreting the death of Jesus and the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.


Does the Priestly Purity Code (Leviticus 11–15) Domesticate Women?
Program Unit: Pentateuch
David Tabb Stewart, Southwestern University

The Priestly Purity Code (Lev. 11-15) is not usually read as a women’s text. But it does address matters of concern to women: Lev. 11 deals with the realm of food. What can be cooked and eaten? Lev. 12 with childbirth; Lev. 15 with menstruation and hypermenorrhea; Lev. 13 with scale disease and women’s recovery from the species of scalls (vv. 29-30) and tetters (vv. 38-39)—something of concern to Miriam (Num. 12); mold on cloth, yarn, and leather (Lev. 13:47-59); and in Lev. 14, mold in houses (vv. 33-53). Indeed, at Lev. 15:18, we actually have heterosexual intercourse topicalized under womanhood. Now it is true that there are matters of particular concern to men in the Purity Code—seminal emissions, gonorrheal discharges, and scale disease—but one could see these matters placed here by attraction. I do not argue that the Purity Code is fully an example of écriture féminine, but rather that here there are matters from women’s experience—pregnancy, mothering, health, menses, domestic work, and marriage. Thus it is useful to look at the purity rules in Leviticus, and thus Priestly “purity” per se, as the attempted domestication of women’s realms by men. This paper focuses on three passages asserting male control over women and women’s spaces: The laws for the niddah and zabah (Lev. 15:19-31); laws concerning mold in women’s work and workspace (Lev. 13:47-59); and the law of scalls and tetters on women (13:29-39).


Deaf and Blind in Leviticus 19:14 and the Emergence of Disability Law
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
David Tabb Stewart, Southwestern University

The biblical landscape of (dis)ability does not match our twenty-first century and North American categories. Although the morphosemantic nominal form ‘qittel’ in biblical Hebrew denotes physical (dis)abilities, and is a way of implying the larger category ‘(dis)ability’, it is not used consistently. Another evidence set for the emergence of ‘(dis)ability’ as a notion is that of concrete lists (Exod. 4:11; Lev. 21:18-20; 22:22). Such lists are found in several places in the ancient Near East—perhaps the folk-taxonomies of ancient naturalists. Abstract notions of ability and disability then develop through metonymy. That is, one list-member or species comes to substitute for its entire genus. Lev. 19:14 takes this another step: two particular species of disabilities—“blind and deaf”—stand for the abstraction ‘disabilities’ altogether, where each term of the word pair stands in for its genus. What are the two genera? 'Blind' stands for ‘mumim’ (or ‘blemishes’ that disqualify priests), and ‘deaf’ stands for all non-mumim (or non-disqualifying disabilities). What lies behind this structural division in the Priestly Literature [P]? Perhaps it is because some disabilities are “visible” at birth and some are not. But this careful distinction between blemishing and non-blemishing disability is not maintained outside of the Priestly Work, and so appears to be the invention of “P.” Within a broader ancient Near Eastern history-of-ideas, then, do P’s laws of disability represent something progressive?


Burning Bush: Or, Queering Bush's Bible
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Ken Stone, Chicago Theological Seminary

In his campaign autobiography, A Charge to Keep, George W. Bush links the call of Moses at the burning bush, in Exodus 3, to his decision to run for U.S. President. This paper uses Bush's appeal to Moses as a point of departure for reflection on the role of biblical rhetoric in—but also against—the Bush Administration. Much attention has been given to the importance of religion in Bush's re-election; and at times he is represented as something nearly like a prophet, leading his people with the help of a god whose name – or perhaps, whose "moral values" – has/have been forgotten. Yet Bush's appeal to Moses also provides openings for potentially subversive readings. For although the politics of marriage (especially as refracted through the "gay marriage" debates) played a role in Bush's re-election and his recent State of the Union address, Moses' own marriage seems to be a source of contention in the biblical text; and matters of sex and gender create moments of potential instability at several places in the Moses traditions. Thus, in dialogue with recent essays by Judith Butler, I use the traditions about Moses to suggest that, like the phrase "Burning Bush" itself, Bush's Bible remains open for resignification by those who read the Bible toward very different ends.


What Happens When Achsah Gets off Her Ass? Queer Reading, Feminist Criticism, and Judges 1:11–15
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Ken Stone, Chicago Theological Seminary

Judges 1:11-15, though brief, has often captured the attention of feminist biblical scholars due to the assertive actions of its female character, Achsah. Like other interpreters of the passage, feminist scholars necessarily engage obscure, but sometimes humorous, discussions about the nature of Achsah's actions when she arrives on an ass to see her father. My paper takes its point of departure from several such feminist literary analyses (Mieke Bal, Danna Fewell, Tammi Schneider etc.) but moves in the direction of a queer reading of the tale and its reception. Reading partly in dialogue with Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, I reflect on the possibilities for a kind of "cross-gendered" identification with Achsah by gay male readers, who may also be attracted by her assertive riposte to patriarchal gender norms. If reading can be, as Foucault suggested, an occasion for self-formation and transformation, then this sort of queer reading of Achsah may help to undermine the stability of biblical interpretations that presuppose rigid gender constructs with harmful consequences for women, gay men and others.


Whence Leonine Yahweh? Iconography and the History of Israelite Religion
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Brent A. Strawn, Emory University

The Hebrew Bible is especially fond of the lion when it comes to animal metaphors for the Deity. But what is the heritage of this image? If it is not, in fact, sui generis, then where does it come from and what meaning or significance accrues to that information? The present paper explores these questions, putting leonine Yahweh in the context of a) other leonine deities in the ancient Near East and b) the long tradition of leonine monarchs in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Special attention will be paid to prophetic instances of divine lion metaphors including the rather extended example in Ezekiel 19.


Animal Praise in Psalm 150:6
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Brent A. Strawn, Emory University

The final summons of the Psalter has long been viewed as its fitting climax. But to whom, or to what, does “everything that has breath” refer? Several scholars have posited that this phrase includes the nonhuman, animal world. Yet even those who espouse such a view are often at pains to provide evidence supporting such a perspective. Our paper builds upon previous work, which has identified music making and praising in nonhuman communities elsewhere in the Psalms (e.g., Psalms 104, 148), and marshals additional support from ancient Near Eastern iconography and musical artifacts (e.g., zoomorphic musical instruments, representations of animal orchestras, and musicians depicted with animals). This material lends further support to the oft-neglected theme of nonhuman praise in the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 150 – and v. 6 in particular – when seen in the light of this iconographical evidence, clearly supports that theme by means of the psalm’s evocation of creation language and its use of the specific idiom “everything that has breath.” Copresenter: Joel M. LeMon, Emory University


Authorship and Authority: The Acts of Paul and Thecla as a Disputed Pauline Text
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Gail P. C. Streete, Rhodes College

In his Homily on Baptism, the Latin church father Tertullian famously railed against the “impudence” of a woman who had arrogated for herself the right to teach and baptize, claiming Paul’s authority to do so. Tertullian confidently asserted that the Acta Pauli containing the example of Paul’s authorizing the female apostle Thecla to teach and baptize were “constructed” by an Asian presbyter who was removed from office after conkfessing that he had done so “out of love of Paul.” (De bapt.17) While this passage has often been cited as an example of the opposition between orthodox (canonical) views of Paul like those in the Pastoral Epistles and heterodox (apocryphal) views of Paul (for example, Dennis R. MacDonald’s The Legend and the Apostle, 1983), I wish to argue that the “Acts of Paul” referred to by Tertullian (which also contain the “Acts of Thecla” and are usually referred to by their collective title, the Acts of Paul and Thecla) should be considered (as they were by Tertullian) a wor of “disputed” Pauline authorship. As such, they may be compared to the Pastoral Epistles, other texts of “disputed” Pauline authorship, but not in the usually accepted sense that the APTh represent the work of voices “silenced” by the triumph of orthodoxy or that they even speak with one voice. If “authorship” represents a claim to authority, as it most certainly does for Tertullian, then in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Paul is represented as “authorizing” certain behaviors. But which one or ones? It is the intent of this paper to show how Paul’s authority is used for different purposes in a text that adds to the spectrum of ways in which Paul’s authority was represented and claimed in early Christian circles.


In Defense of God: Ezekiel's Oracles Against Tyre
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
John Strong, Southwest Missouri State University

Although added to by later followers, the historical Ezekiel constructed a coherent booklet, or perhaps a "tract," containing oracles against Tyre, which sought to defend the power of YHWH. In this small book, Ezekiel attacked the theological challenge posed by Tyre, a nation that appeared to stand defiantly against YHWH's tool of punishment on Jerusalem, i.e., Babylon. Well aware of the historical connections between the Jerusalem temple and Tyre, as well as common seafaring practices of his day, Ezekiel carefully crafted a tightly knit literary piece in order to defend the royal theology that he was steeped in and which he sought to preserve for a future nation. The result was an unusual piece of ancient literature, mysterious and easily misconstrued, but magnificent in its artistry.


The Transmission of the New Testament between Christian Philosophical School and Scriptoria. Some Observations Concerning the "Sitz im Leben" of Christian Textual Traditions.
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Holger Strutwolf, Institute for New Testament Textual Research

Some early witnesses , represented by the citations of second and third century church fathers, early versions and also special New Testamtent manuscripts seem to give evidence for a free floating text in the beginning of the tradition of the New Testament. Is this an argument for textcritical scepticism, revealing that the search for the „Urtext“ is a hopeless enterprise? In my paper I will argue, that we have to take into account the „Sitz im Leben“ of our witnesses. We have to dicriminate between the use made of manuscripts in the enviroment of christian schools and in scriptoria. Christian schools functioned similar to pagan philosophical schools. Biblical texts were used and reshaped in such schools for theological aims and underwent philological studies and emendation, while the goal of the normal scribal tradition was the production of reliable copies. The mainstream of the New Testament transmission appears to be the result of scribal tradition. It was certainly influenced by the free school texts, but viewing the whole process of transmission, we see that this influence was only marginal. We have good reason to bring into focus of New Testaments textual research the reconstruction of the history of the text by using the primary evidence of the manuscripts representing the scribal tradition.


To What Extent Did Philo's Treatment of Enoch and the Giants Presuppose a Knowledge of the Enoch-related Sources Preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, University of Durham

This paper examines Philo's de Gigantibus against the backdrop of apocalyptic traditions preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In particular, the paper inquires into how much themes held in common by Philo and the apocalyptic sources (e.g. biblical characters, human nature, and angelology) are to be understood as independent Jewish reception and integration of classical traditions or as interdependently shaped by debates that were taking place around the turn of the Common Era.


Just How Does One Sabbatize the Sabbath? A Reconsideration of Gospel of Thomas 27
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Henry Sturcke, University of Zurich

One of the many enigmatic statements in Thomas alleges that unless one “sabbatizes” the Sabbath, there is no possibility of seeing the father. A survey of scholarship reveals numerous proposals of what this could mean. I will suggest that an investigation of the OT background, the overall context of Thomas, as well as a careful reading of the phrase, especially in light of the parallel reference to fasting, can help us to make a good guess. The proposed solution fits well with what can otherwise be surmised about the community in which these sayings were collected, and in turn cast a light on overall developments in the early Jesus movement.


Branches on David’s Vine
Program Unit: Didache in Context
Henry Sturcke, University of Zurich

Didache contains some of the earliest clear evidence for worship on the first day of the week (ch. 14). At the same time, its instructions for the Lord’s Supper involve prayers similar to those used by Jews of the time at the weekly Sabbath meal (ch. 9) rather than the words of institution known from Paul and the Synoptics. The combination of express mention of assembling on the Lord’s day (with eucharist), while preserving a vestige of Sabbath celebration, provides a tantalizing glimpse in the early stages of central elements of Christian practice. This makes it a fruitful topic of investigation, both from a theological as well as from a history-of-religions standpoint. I propose to examine what this twin phenomenon can tell us about the cultural, social, and historical context of the Didache communities, as well as the more general question of Christian origins.


Subjecting the Johannine Letters to Postcolonial Criticism
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
R.S. Sugirtharajah, University of Birmingham

This study of the Johannine letters has three aims. One is to draw attention to colonial tendencies embedded in the text, which could well play into the hands of the present day empire-builders. Among the colonial characteristics of the text are: castigation of those who are not with us as the enemies of God, resentment of any diverse or plural thinking, and employment of the trope of the child as a way of control and domestication. The second is to unmask the hermeneutics of denial at work among some Western biblical interpreters who refuse to accept any influence outside the Hebraic and Hellenistic background, illuminating some of the ideas in the epistles for which there are no Jewish or Greek parallels. Re-invoking the now marginalized hypothesis that Buddhist ideas could have influenced early Christianity, the paper will demonstrate that some of the Johannine theological categories such as indwelling could have benefited from Eastern thinking . The third is to show how postcolonial criticism readily aligns itself with the insistence of the letters on seeking and finding truth, justice and love not in doctrinal or spiritual categories but in the tensions and conflicts of life. Here postcolonialism will concur with the writer of the epistles that ethical involvement, not theoretical or doctrinal fine-tuning, is paramount.


Surfing the scriptures after the Tsunami’
Program Unit:
R. S. Sugirtharajah, University of Birmingham

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Of Angels, Lambs, and Temples: What a Jewish Counter-Reading of Revelation May Contribute to Understanding Its Social Milieu
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Carla Sulzbach, McGill University

This paper proposes a subversive or counter-reading of the Book of Revelation and to apply to this text the reading strategies outlined in Adele Reinhartz’s “A Nice Jewish Girl Reads the Gospel of John” (Semeia 77, 1997). She distinguishes between the “compliant”, the “resistant”, and “sympathetic” reader. The first represents the believing reader who shares and validates the point of view of the implied author who declares the messiahship of Jesus and his salvivic powers for those who believe in him (180). The second reader in Reinhartz’s scheme, shifts the focus from the message of the implied author to that of the Jewish characters in the plot, who, in the fourth Gospel are generally those who operate in Jesus’ narrow circle and are sympathetic to him but display clearly Jewish characteristics and customs that are readily recognizable to any Jewish reader. However, the at the same time negative general portrayal of Judaism and the larger Jewish populace in comparison to the teachings of Jesus create a conflict within this “resistant” reader who may have to conclude that the text is wrong (187). Finally, the “sympathetic” reader is able to not being swayed by the message of the implied author and to distance herself from the negative portrayal of (her) Judaism while at the same time being able to enjoy other equally powerful aspects of the narrative (188). Sharing Reinhartz’s reader-position of “sympathetic” reader, I would thus look at this book of the Christian canon through the eyes of a modern Jewish reader and at the same time try to fathom to which extent the text might have been comprehensible to a first or second century Jewish audience. However, I would go a few steps beyond this third position and propose a fourth possible reader, the “subversive” reader.


Paul among, and as One of the, Christ-Believing Jews
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Jerry L. Sumney, Lexington Theological Seminary

This paper will argue that the categories of Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity do not work as categories to describe the opposition between Paul’s churches and those he opposes in his letters. Use of these categories has clouded our vision of the nature of differences within the early church. By looking to the issues Paul raises in Galatians and 2 Corinthians, we will see multiple types of theologies and views of Gentiles among Jews who believe in Christ. These groups among Christ-believing Jews are different enough that they differ about what constitutes their primary religious identity.


Ethical Disparity of El and Baal in the Story of Aqhat
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Chloe Sun, Logos Evangelical Seminary

The tension and intrigue between El and Baal has been a debated matter in past scholarship. This tension is also reflected in their varied points of view concerning Anat's violence in the Story of Aqhat. Part one investigates the point of view of El on Anat's violence. Part two investigates the point of view of Baal. A comparison of their points of view indicates an apparent ethical disparity: El permits Anat to kill whereas Baal protests against it. The two conflicting points of view of "divine punishment" and "unjust killing" reflect the complexity and ambiguity in the portrayal of Anat's violence. By leaving these ambiguities and tensions in the divine realm, the author of the story invites his implied audience to struggle to establish his or her own point of view of Anat's violence.


The Problem of Death in Ancient Israel: Job 19:23–27 in Light of Tomb Inscriptions and Funerary Rites
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Matthew Suriano, University of California, Los Angeles

The issue of death and the afterlife in Israelite thought is filled with difficulties due to the fact that the sparse references in the Hebrew Bible regarding the matter contain only vague descriptions. However, Job 19:23-27 offers a rare glimpse into the ancient Israelite conception of this topic along with its intricate relationship with funerary rites. The passionate declaration of Job at the end of chapter 19 is in response to his companions’ prediction of the alienation of Job’s patrimony resulting from his death, seen elsewhere in the second cycle of speeches –notably in Bildad’s (Job 18). When understood in such a manner, the passage of Job 19:23-27 can be compared with Hebrew tomb inscriptions as well as funerary customs known from ancient Syro-Palestine. The statement at the end of Job 19 begins with the description of a tomb inscription (vv.23-24) that can be compared with examples from the Iron II period, notably the inscriptions of Royal Steward’s Tomb in Jerusalem and Makkedah / Khirbet el-Qom Tomb 3. Furthermore, the passage continues in vv.26-27 using imagery reflective of secondary burial rites common in the southern Levant, such as those observed at Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem dating from the late Iron II through early Second Temple Periods. Against the cultural background of ancient Israel / Syro-Palestine, and within the literary structure of the second cycle of speeches, Job 19:23-27 evokes the protagonist’s confidence that his kinsman-redeemer (v.25) will properly bury him in the family tomb, maintaining both Job’s name and patrimony for posterity.


Conceptions of Prophecy in the Deuteronomistic History
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Susanne Otto, University of Münster

On the basis of the Elijah-Elisha Stories (1 Kings 17–2 Kings10; 13) this paper will examine different conceptions of prophecy in DtrH. This will lead to the question of the composition of DtrH. Is there a (pre-deuteronomistic) prophetic record which was inserted en bloc into a certain first edition of DtrH by a prophetic (deuteronomistic) redactor? Or should we assume—especially with regard to the Elijah-Elisha Stories—a more differentiated model for the growth of DtrH? The aim of this lecture is giving evidence for post-deuteronomistic prophetic additions within 1 Kings 17-2 Kings 10, distinguishable by their specific conception of prophecy.


Hitler’s Passion for the Christ in Oberammergau
Program Unit: Bible and Cultural Studies
Jesper Svartvik, Lund University

It is a well-known fact that the passion plays staged in 1930 and 1934 in Oberammergau were influenced by the Zeitgeist. Adolf Hitler, who saw both these performances, stated that “never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans.” This paper, examining all articles and reviews in the Swedish press of the 1930 and 1934 Oberammergau plays, presents how Swedish media related both to “the New Germany,” to the portrayal of the Gospel characters, and also to the genre of passion plays. Increasingly during the inter-war years, Swedish cultural life and scholarship oriented themselves towards Germany. This presentation is part of a multidisciplinary project, sponsored by the Swedish Research Council, which seeks to delineate to what extent and in what way the intellectual and cultural milieux in Sweden were attracted to the political and theological developments in Germany. The Swedish reception history of the Oberammergau passion play proves to be a microcosm of this phenomenon.


The Limits of Semantic Domain Lexicography
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
James A. Swanson, Logos Research Systems

Semantic Domain Lexicography is certainly useful, yet limited. It is limited because the lexicographer must use an etic system to decode the Bible languages--a modern, linguistic approach. Such an etic structure must be used because there are no native speakers (ancient Bible writers/editors) to interview--to confirm, and at times understand, the true emic structure of the language.


Reading the Text, not the Textbook: Teaching the Hebrew Bible with a New Historicist Framework
Program Unit: New Historicism and the Hebrew Bible
Kristin A. Swanson, Luther College

The majority of students in our Introduction to the Hebrew Bible course at Luther College come with some familiarity with the Hebrew Bible. These students usually also enter the course with the idea that the Hebrew Bible is a cohesive story that accurately tells the history of ancient Israel and Judah. In our previous courses, particularly those in which we used an introductory textbook along with the Bible, we would find it difficult to challenge this viewpoint. Many of the textbooks, with a book-by-book treatment of the Hebrew Bible, reinforced either the idea that the Hebrew Bible is a cohesive “story about God” in Israel’s history, or the idea that the Hebrew Bible is a “record” of Israel’s past. Students would appeal to the textbook as authoritative, thereby setting up a dynamic in which Bible AND textbook became one dominant voice. To address this issue, we abandoned the use of textbooks and redesigned our Hebrew Bible introduction around a New Historicist framework. This allows us to emphasize the issues of power in the text. Rather than seeing the Hebrew Bible as if it were simply Israel’s record of her past in which all the books represent aspects of a dominant discourse, we consider the ways the text may have participated in helping to create the history it seeks to represent. This opens up the possibility that some of the books in the Hebrew Bible represent a subversive discourse challenging the version of events found in the dominant discourse. By highlighting the issues of power in the text, the Hebrew Bible becomes for the students a source of real ethical reflection, but not in the way they thought when they entered the class.


Pre-creation Discourse in the Wisdom of Solomon
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
C. Jan Swearingen, Texas A & M University

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The Royal Oracle in Ezekiel 37:15–28: Ezekiel's Reflection on Josiah's Reform
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Marvin A. Sweeney, Claremont School of Theology

Ezekiel's oracle concerning the reunification of Ephraim and Judah, the restoration of the Davidic king, and the role of the Temple in their midst has provoked a great deal of discussion among scholars. Most consider it to be a post-exilic oracle that looks forward to the restoration of Israel following the Babylonian exile, but a few have noted its potential background in relation to King Josiah's program of religious reform and national restoration. The oracle is unique in the book of Ezkiel in that it is the only oracle to refer to a Davidic king (melek) rather than to a Davidic ruler (nasi'). The image of a reunified Ephraim and Judah around a Davidic monarch and the Temple is also striking since these were basic concerns of the Josianic reform. This paper will reexamine Ezekiel 37:15-28 in an effort to determine its settings and concerns. Based on an analysis of its contents and its place within the present form of the book of Ezekiel, this paper argues that the oracle does indeed represent the prophet's reflections on the significance of the Josianic reform and that it therefore stands as a basis for his vision of post-exilic restoration.


Earth as Maternal Matrix of Relationships in Genesis 4:1–16
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Kristin M. Swenson, Virginia Commonwealth University

In its opening chapters, the Bible shapes and defines a vision of the most fundamental relationships. This paper, focusing especially on Gen 4 vis-à-vis chapters 2-3, demonstrates how Earth not only knits relationships together but also plays an active role in the dynamic of their maintenance. By reading Gen 2-4 from the perspective of Earth, we see and hear Earth as engaged subject. Object of Cain’s attentive service, witness to the murder of Abel, and means of truth and justice, Earth is an intimate of the brothers and of God. Without preventing Cain’s murderous action, Earth takes in the life-blood of Abel and facilitates the necessary but painful conversation of Cain and God. In the process, Earth quietly communicates a powerful message of responsibility and connection.


The Authority of Abraham in Qohelet Rabbah
Program Unit: Midrash
Jaroslav Eliah Sykora, South Bohemian University

The paper is dealing with the authority of Abraham in Midrash Qohelet Rabbah. All the discourses that mention Abraham are treated by applying the following questions: Is Abraham in these drashot 1. less than others; 2. like others; 3. more than others? The summary of this paper states the results obtained by the application of this method.


Pre-creation Discourse in the Psalms
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Dennis Sylva, Saint Francis Seminary

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Searching for the Bride: Nuptial Imagery in the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Kari Syreeni, Uppsala University

While all the canonical Gospels present Jesus occasionally as a bridegroom, none of them is explicit in naming the bride. This holds true for John, too, where several threads of nuptial imagery are found. The most pertinent material belongs to the early stratum of the Gospel: the wedding in Cana (2:1-11), John the Baptist's words about the bridegroom (3:29), and the Samaritan woman (ch.4). In this early Johannine tradition Jesus is looking for a bride, however, not to marry her but to find receptive "soil" for the divine seed and God's offspring. In the end, Jesus and his disciples are united, not as bridegroom and bride, but as sower and reaper who "rejoice together" (4:33-38). In the late, passion-oriented stratum the connection between marriage and death has often been assumed, but it is uncertain whether this was intended by the author. Rather, the search for the bride has ceased, and another image for the female mediation in raising God's children is found: the mother (19:26-27). In the Book of Revelation, which is tradition-historically close to some Johannine circles, the two patriarchal archetypes for the good female appear separately: the birthing Mother (Rev 12) and the pure Bride (Rev 19). Their separation is clear enough to avoid the notion of incest, but not quite complete; the archetypal evil, the Whore, is the opposite of both of them. Moreover, the Bride is depicted metaphorically as the holy city with its holy inhabitants, which makes possible a vague inclusion of the effeminate male followers of the lamb (14:4-5) in the bridal symbolism without suggesting a same-sex marriage or a mass wedding.


Learning Not to “Fix” the Gap: A Different Way of Hearing the Prayers for Help
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Beth LaNeel Tanner, New Brunswick Theological Seminary

Scholars have long noted the “gap” or abrupt change from complaint to praise within the lament psalms. Many of the proposals offered over the years has been attempts to “explain” the gap via a cult-functional model. However, this abrupt change is simply the most flamboyant of the “gaps” between stanzas and sometimes even between lines in the prayers for help. This paper will move away from the standard “explanation” model and offer other possibilities for understanding these very frequent changes in thought. Through specific examples, two other alternatives will be suggested. First, using Psalm 55 as an example, the presentation will argue that the gaps and inconsistencies represent the emotional roller coaster that is suffering. In other words, the psalm reflects how the focus of a person in pain is not a logical progression of thought, but is the tortured thought of a soul in chaos. Second, it will be argued that these gaps serve as a method of involving the hearer in the progression of the song. In other words, the hearer (or reader) must work in order to comprehend the psalm and this act turns this receiver from a passive to an active participant in the process. The gap, it will be argued, is not a characteristic of the psalm’s performance in the liturgy of Israel, but is indeed integral to the poetic structure of prayers for help.


Exploration of a Biblical Town on the Border of Judah: Five Years of Excavation at Tel Zayit
Program Unit: Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World
Ron Tappy, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

The near 30-dunam site of Tel Zayit is located in the inner Shephelah region of Israel, in the strategic Beth Guvrin Valley and roughly half way between Lachish and Tell es-Safi. It was first recognized as an ancient tel by Conder and Kitchener during their March 1875 Survey of Western Palestine. More recent survey data have shown that at least three principal north-south and three east-west roadways through the lowlands of Judah converged or ran by this site during various phases of the Iron Age. These roads connected Egypt and the plain of Philistia with Jerusalem and the highland cultures of Judah. Because of its unique and strategic position in the Shephelah or "lowlands" district of ancient Judah (Joshua 15:33-42), the site provides an ideal location to study life in a borderland town that saw frequent opportunities for contact between people of diverse cultures. Besides highlighting the strategic location of Tel Zayit, this lecture will focus on two additional topics: (1) a large, public building (possibly constructed by the Egyptians) that dates to the Late Bronze Age and that lies smothered beneath 2.25 meters of destruction debris; (2) a later destruction level dating from the early Iron Age II and involving another building, which the Aramaeans from Damascus likely destroyed during a ninth century BCE incursion into southern Palestine. The LB II destruction is important not only because of the historical details that it will yield but also because of the sheer magnitude of the devastation. Similarly, the ninth century BCE conflagration has already yielded many pottery forms that scholars have traditionally assigned to tenth century BCE ceramic industries. Exploration of this depositional history, then, relates to current debates over the extent and character of tenth and ninth century remains in Judah and in the country as a whole.


Semitic Influence on Greek Syntax: The Greek Middle Voice
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Bernard A. Taylor, Loma Linda University

The Greek middle voice has no counterpart in Semitic syntax, yet it is common in the Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible. This paper analyzes the middle voice in the Old Greek of 1 Reigns/1 Samuel in the light of the MT to see whether Semitic influence is a factor.


The Cult of Divine Statues in Ancient Egypt
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Emily Teeter, The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

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Towards a Theory of Formation of Early Christian Identity in Ephesus
Program Unit: Construction of Christian Identities
Mikael Tellbe, Örebro Theological Seminary, Sweden

No other ancient city that can be connected with so many early Christian texts as the ancient city of Ephesus (1-2 Tim, Rev 2, IgnEph, Acts 18-20, possibly 1-3 Jh and Eph). All texts display one interesting feature in common, namely that they contain demarcations against people or groups that for some reason or the other are excluded or marked off from the ingroup of Jesus-believers. Since it seems to have been particularly the times of conflict and rivalry that were the key movements for the development of distinctive Christian identity in Ephesus, I would suggest that we draw from three distinctive social theories in developing a theory of identity formation among eraly Christians in Ephesus: social conflict theory, sociology of deviance and self-categorization theory. Drawing from these theories, I suggest the following strategy. First, in analysing the construction of early Christian identities in Ephesus, we need to pay attention to processes of status degradation, where deviant status is ascribed to certain persons and groups in order to separate “outsiders” from “insiders”, including the rhetoric devices employed to achieve this goal. Secondly, we need to pay attention to the authors’ use of contrasting models, of antitypes and prototypes. In Ephesus we can see several attempts to spell out the prototypical group-member with distinct types of identities being formed and reinforced. Thirdly, as a point of comparison, we need to elaborate on other types of identity constructions prevalent in ancient Ephesus, particularly the idea of the ideal Graeco-Roman citizen of Ephesus as being articulated in, e.g., Xenophon’s Ephesiaka, Plutarch’s Moralia, Seneca’s Epistulae morales, and in the extant inscriptional evidence from ancient Ephesus.


Editing the Hexaplaric Fragments of Genesis, the Definitive Format of the New Edition
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
R. Bas Ter Haar Romeny, Leiden University

As editors of the new edition of the Hexapla, we set ourselves the task of establishing a critical text of the Three and the other Greek translations that were alternatives to the LXX. On the basis of discussions held after the presentation of the preliminary format for the printed edition at the IOSCS meeting in Leiden, the editorial board has now been able to establish a definitive format. This format will be presented here for the first time. The focus of the paper will be on instances from the book of Genesis where new material or new insights forced us to give a reading different from the one in Field's edition.


Philo's Definitions of Israel in Relation to Historical Realities in the Greco-Roman World
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Abraham Terian, St. Nersess Armenian Seminary

This paper considers Philo's several definitions of Israel and shows how for the most part they are colored by the historical situation of the Jewish people in the Greco-Roman world. More often than not, his definitions of Israel reveal his hopes and aspirations for his people and are replete with apocalyptic sentiments of the time. Philo's definitions of Israel are existentially construed and reflect the strong affinities of Diaspora Judaism with the "core"; indeed, with more than just the fundamentals of the faith observed in the land of Israel.


Why They Wrote Gospels: The Power of the Text in Early Christian Culture
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Tom Thatcher, Cincinnati Christian University

As Graham Stanton noted almost thirty years ago, scholars have yet to explain the existence of written gospels as a phenomenon of Christian Origins. Specifically, it has been difficult to adequately formulate the motives that led early Christians to write books about Jesus. Possible answers must address 4 key elements of first-century media culture: 1) the cost and difficulty of producing books; 2) low literacy rates; 3) oral publication, meaning that the contents of gospels were essentially synonymous with other oral performances of Jesus tradition; 4) early Christian experience of the Spirit, which in some cases eliminated the need to preserve Jesus tradition in books. Together, these four factors weigh against the notion that gospels were written simply to archive and preserve traditional information about Jesus for posterity. It seems more likely that early Christians wrote gospels to appeal to the "monumental" or symbolic function of writing, exploiting the social prestige attached to texts. Three aspects of the monumental function of writing would be particularly appealing to early Christian authors: 1) canonization (fixing and limiting Jesus tradition); 2) brokerage (the fact that only literate persons would have access to the texts and their contents); 3) the "virtues of vagueness," David Lowenthal's shorthand for the rhetorical force of allusions to information that is widely accepted yet rarely investigated. Early Christians wrote gospels to canonize Jesus tradition so that they could posture themselves, and other scribal elites, as brokers of that tradition. By doing this, they could manage and control the growth of Jesus tradition, setting boundaries for discussion within their Christian communities. In this respect, the gospels could achieve their authors' rhetorical purposes whether or not their contents were ever actually read aloud in community gatherings.


Chosen City, Chosen Place: From Narrative Reference to Centralization Formula
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Rannfrid Thelle, University of Oslo

The phrase ‘the place that YHWH your God will choose’ is a salient feature that distinguishes the Book of Deuteronomy from the rest of the Pentateuch. The legal material, especially in Deuteronomy 12 and 16, plus a few more scattered references, makes clear that the authors intended that cultic activity should be restricted to one place. The concept ‘cult centralization’ has as a result become a concept that has become uncontested and has generated a large amount of scholarly output. From this biblical phrase ‘the place that YHWH your God will choose’ scholarship has coined the term ‘centralization formula’, and work to understand the history of this formula has also dominated scholarship. The Books of Kings contain a number of references to Jerusalem as the city that YHWH chose, and accounts in narrative form that ‘YHWH chose Jerusalem’. Many scholars seem to assume that these stories also carry a concept of ‘centralization’. This, however, is not the case. Rather, the meaning of election in these narratives conveys a concept of a promise of protection. Through a synchronic, comparative approach this paper will show that the ‘election-phrase’ in the Books of Kings is not a formula, and does not connote ‘centralization’, while the ‘election-phrase’ in Deuteronomy is formulaic and definitely connotes ‘centralization’. This finding opens up a series of questions about the literary-chronological relationship between these textual segments, which might turn out to cast new light on the debate about the literary history of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History.


The Abomination of Desolation in Matthew 24:15
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Michael Theophilos, University of Oxford

The primary research question that will be undertaken in this study concerns the meaning of the ‘bdelugma ths erhmwsews’ (often translated as ‘the abomination of desolation) in Matthew 24:15. The significance of this study is to propose a revised model for understanding the enigmatic Matthean phrase through a contextual exegetical approach which gives due weight to OT intertextual prophetic echoes. Weiffenbach and Weiss both argued that the phrase was employed with intentional opaqueness. Other commentators (Colani, Keim, Lohmeyer, Schlatter, Weizsacker, Wellahusen and Zahn) argued that the phrase is to be understood as a temporal heathen desecration which awaits a future restoration. The most common interpretation has consisted of understanding the phrase as some kind of idol; the statue erected by Hadrian (Baur), an Image introduced by Titus (Theophylact) or the attempted profanation of Caligula (Theissen). However Pfleidrerer, Fulford, Balabanski and Schmidt argue that the abomination consisted of the deeds of the Zealots during the siege of Jerusalem. Of these, I propose that the last option comes closest to the original context of the saying, in that it was a Jewish group who caused the abomination, yet with a significant difference. Taking into serious consideration a.) the context of ch 24 (ie 23) and b.) the inter-textual echoes in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible (especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel) which refer to Israel as the abomination and the destruction of the temple as the desolation, I intent to demonstrate that the phrase was pronounced as a prophetic oracle of doom against Israel for her apostasy. As such Matthew presents Jesus as a thoroughly Jewish figure who stands in the long line of Israel’s prophetic figures.


Ethopoiia and Creative Composition in the New Testament
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Johan Thom, University of Stellenbosch

According to the ancient progymnasmata handbooks, ethopoiia was one of the most versatile preliminary exercises, relevant to any type of speech and any part of speech. Its most direct application was to compose the type of speech a fictional or historical character would have uttered in a particular context. Such a fictional speech could be used at any point in a composition to elaborate or emphasize a particular point. However, ethopoiia trained more than just the ability to write “speech in character,” that is, to use the style appropriate to the character in question. It also taught students to create the emotional tone and ethical content of such a speech, and to use their imagination to construct the historical and social context that would have required such a speech. The study of ethopoiia is therefore directly relevant for the question of creative composition in the NT, that is, the way NT authors imaginatively created settings, characters, and contents of speeches and speech-like material, even when they made use of existing sources. Its immediate application would be the composition of speeches and sermons in the Gospels and in Acts, but also in the construction of personae such as Jesus in the gospels and of Paul in the Deutero-Pauline epistles. It may also be relevant to the epistolary self-portrayal of authors like Paul.


Map and Movement in the Urban Space of Ephesos: Static and Dynamic Registers in the Analysis of Sacred Space
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Christine M. Thomas, University of California, Santa Barbara

The primary theoretical problem I would like to address is that of the multiple registers of space, and how these interact in the lived experience of ancient religions. Space may be a unified field, but it enters our embodied existence through specific sensory or habitual modes. As much as we would like to present sacred spaces as locations on maps of ancient urban environments, a "God’s-eye" view is not the most productive model for the phenomenological analysis of religion. Humans always experience space from a perspective, either while stationary, or while moving through space. In this paper, I would like to address this problem by bringing together "map" and "motion" in the city of Ephesos. Ephesos underwent considerable restructuring as a city in the Augustan period, and again in the Flavian and Hadrianic periods. Each of these eras brought new constructions that altered the face of the city. These changes can easily be presented on a map. But was there an underlying logic to these changes that can be apprehended when one considers the movement of ancient inhabitants through the city? To explore this, I will contextualize these three periods of restructuring within the practice of ritual processions through the city as attested in the annual processions for the birthday of Artemis, and the biweekly processions instituted in the Salutaris inscription. Since these were repeated events in the Ephesian liturgical year, they represent movement that was highly charged and intended to communicate meaning on multiple levels. As repeated events, they created habitual modes of moving through urban space, and of attaching meaning to this movement.


What About the Giants?
Program Unit: Poster Session
Paul Brian Thomas, University of Missouri, Kansas City

In this poster I would like to challenge a brief statement made in a short Jewish Encyclopedia article on “Giants,” specifically: “The giants of the Bible are not monsters.” This basic statement remains unchallenged in biblical scholarship and is supported by a problematic definition of the term “monster” in ancient Near Eastern studies. The following definition, from "Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections," is replicated in many scholarly treatments: "Demon: A creature with animal head and human body, often depicted with wings, sometimes with animal paws instead of arms; usually such demons are shown act-ing like human beings. Monster: A creature composed of two or more animals but occasionally shown with human head; in general, monsters are portrayed acting like animals." One struggles to fit giants into these definitions. It is my contention that, if ancient Near Eastern giants are monsters, then a reconstruction of the category “monster” and “demon” is required in ancient Near Eastern scholarship. To redefine the monster in ancient Near Eastern myth and legend to include giants requires moving away from definitions based upon appearance to definitions based upon function. Using the examples of Goliath, Og, Ullikummi, and Humbaba, I will argue that a more useful model accounts for the fact that monsters violate taxonomic categories and threaten to reintroduce chaos into creation. On this basis I will demonstrate how giants in the ancient Near East should properly be considered monsters. This topic will be a good poster presentation because the information, particularly the definitions provided above and my counter arguments, is easily presentable in bullet-point formats. Also, easily obtainable images of ancient Near Eastern monsters, including masks of Humbaba, images of Pazuzu, and others will make this poster visually intriguing and entertaining.


John Chadwick’s Lexicographica Graeca. Contributions to the Lexicography of Ancient Greek: A Review of the Lexicographic Principles, Ten Years After
Program Unit:
Anne Thompson, University of Cambridge

John Chadwick, famous for his work on the decipherment and interpretation of the Mycenaean Linear B texts, worked in his youth as a lexicographer on the team of the Oxford Latin Dictionary, and retained a lifelong fascination with lexicography. He was a member of the British Academy Committee overseeing the Liddell & Scott Revised Supplement, and was responsible for founding the Cambridge Greek Lexicon Project. John had very forthright views on good lexicographic practice, which often attracted strong criticism. As he says in his book, “I am not unaccustomed to presenting unpopular views”. My paper will present an outline of John Chadwick’s principles, with a review in the light of our experience working on the Cambridge project. Lexicographers of ancient languages face similar challenges, and the opportunity to share principles and problems is to be welcomed.


Gods and Goddesses at Smyrna
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Leonard L. Thompson, Lawrence University, emeritus

Tracing out the sacral web in one eastern provincial city can disclose important aspects of religion in the Roman Empire. Deities at Smyrna themselves left no records, but their mortal, distant cousins recorded their messages and felt their presence in laws and customs, public-spirited liturgies, voluntary associations, communal and familial rites, temples and other civic buildings, hospitals, schools, and civic space, as well as in personal, civic, and social identity. Connections among those messages and presences can be recovered today in epigraphic, numismatic, literary, and archaeological remains from that Ionian city. This paper is a first step in sketching out the sacral web in Smyrna as it was woven during the first three Christian centuries, with special attention to the second.


Claiming Ephesus: Pauline Legacy in the Acts of John
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Trevor Thompson, University of Chicago

In the final section of the Acts of John (AJ 111-115), the Apostle John begins his prayer to Jesus with the address, “O the one having chosen us for the apostleship of the Gentiles.” Continuing, John recalls an earlier time in his life when Jesus prevented him from marrying by, among other things, causing John to become blind. John, reduced to grief and entreaty, again received his sight during the third year of his affliction (AJ 113.1-10). Near the end of the prayer, he confidently asserts, “Therefore, I have now completed the commission which was entrusted to me by you, Lord Jesus.” For the student of the New Testament, John’s sense of mission and autobiographical comments call to mind not the life of Jesus’ disciple John but that of Paul, the unmarried self-proclaimed apostle to the Gentiles who wrote, “I have been entrusted a commission” in 1 Cor 9:17. It was Paul, according to the account in the Acts of the Apostles, who was blinded on the road to Damascus for a period of three days following an encounter with the risen Jesus. What is the significance of this parallelism? Did the authors of the Acts of John intentionally portray the apocryphal John in the mold of Paul? Do these occurrences merely represent isolated phenomena at the end of the document? Should this data affect our understanding of the book’s purpose and message? With that, how does it inform our knowledge of competing Christianities and conflicting apostolic legacies in early second-century Asia Minor? Cumulatively, this paper will argue that the authors of the Acts of John, by using and reshaping Pauline material, remove Paul and his legacy in order to claim Ephesus for John and to exalt John’s message and importance.


Where Does the Fiction End and the Truth Begin? Mirrors, Windows, and Reality in 2 Thessalonians
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Trevor Thompson, University of Chicago

Little agreement exists among those who affirm the pseudepigraphical nature of 2 Thessalonians as to its purpose, its relationship to Paul and/or 1 Thessalonians, and the situation of the author and the recipients. Despite all the discussion, an important question is often overlooked. Namely, in a letter framed by fiction (2 Thess 1:1; 3:17), what is true in between (2 Thess 1:2-3:16)? Had some source reported that the Day of the Lord had come? Did genuine labor issues exist among the intended audience? Etc. At the heart of these questions lie the various horizons of the letter. On the one hand, the author is trying to pass himself/herself off as Paul. On the other, the author seeks to address relevant issues in his/her day. Furthermore, the author was literarily dependent upon 1 Thessalonians. Despite these difficulties, exegetes, without clear methodological clarification, commonly label certain parts of the text as “literary fiction” while accepting others as indicative of the “real” Sitz im Leben. Yet, this approach is problematic. For example, could not the references to hardship (2 Thess 1:4ff; 3:2) indicate mere copying from 1 Thessalonians (2:14-16) and/or an appeal to what Paul would have said? Are there firm methodological grounds for confidently assuming that these hardships were the “real” experiences of the author or the intended readers (if one can soundly speak of “intended readers” of this text)? What does the mirror really reveal and what does the window actually elucidate? Cumulatively, drawing on the work of those who are seeking greater methodological clarification in reconstructions of the situations and “opponents” of Pauline letters, this paper seeks to explore some means by which the interpreter can tease out fiction and truth in 2 Thessalonians.


1 Kings 19: What Shall We Do with a Burned Out Prophet?
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Mark A. Throntveit, Luther Seminary

Recently, the interpretation of 1 Kings 17—19 has shifted from a diachronic retrieval of underlying legends, anecdotes, and contextual reconstructions to a more synchronic approach to these dramatic chapters. This welcome emphasis on the final form of the text has resulted in a wealth of studies elucidating various structures, motifs, and literary devices that have greatly increased our understanding of the text. Within this emerging consensus, however, the nature of chapter 19 remains contested. The despondent Elijah of chapter 19 stands in stark contrast to the triumphant Elijah of chapter 18. Most continue to see Elijah re-commissioned, encouraged, and set back upon the path of obedient service that had produced such spectacular results on Mt Carmel. This paper, however, contends that close attention to the literary coherence of the narrative, its structure, and tropes, suggests that chapter 19 presents a compassionate de-commissioning of a prophet who is experiencing what we would call "burn-out," as well as a turning to Elisha to (literally) take up the prophetic mantle. Theologically speaking, the text thus draws our attention away from the prophet and toward God who, as the one truly responsible for the defeat of Ba'al, utilizes whatever human resources are available.


Unsettling Heros: Reading Identity Politics in Mark’s Gospel and Ancient Fiction
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Eric Thurman, Drew University

This paper locates the gospel of Mark within the larger context of ancient fiction in order to examine the construction and contestation of cultural identity in ancient narrative. Following Christine Thomas’ argument that early Christian literature, including the gospels, belongs to a type of popular narrative between klienliterature and hochliterature, this paper begins by situating the gospel historically within a range of ancient fiction characterized as “national hero romances” (ala Martin Braun). Noting shared thematic interests between Mark and other pagan and Jewish novels, we will describe the politics of ancient popular literature, including the gospel, as decidedly “postcolonial,” i.e., neither clearly anticolonial nor simply apologetic. Using contemporary postcolonial literary theory, the paper will describe how popular literature across religious boundaries similarly constructs local identities under conditions of political and cultural domination, giving particular attention to the novel hero as the locus of these identities. Next we will examine the literary aspects of nascent “postcolonial” narratives in order to problematize the very construct of “national heroes.” We will argue that as a literary character the “hero” is an unstable construct and is in fact no hero at all because he is altogether incapable of escaping the plot in and through which he is conscripted. We will demonstrate this instability by means of both wide-angel snapshots of the character of Jesus against the historical backdrop sketched initially and closer readings of particular Markan passages that are significant for Mark’s emergent “postcolonial” identity. Furthering the comparative thrust of the project, Mark’s Jesus will also be compared to “national heros” from other ancient narratives. By reflecting on the effects narrative characterizations in postcolonial novelistic literature on constructions of identity, our study critiques and provides an alternative to other readings of Mark's “postcolonial” politics, particularly Richard Horsley’s.


Old Testament Apocrypha in the Slavonic Tradition: New Texts, New Directions, New Approaches
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Lorenzo DiTommaso, Concordia University

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Zechariah’s Unprocessed Visionary Experience
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, University of Aberdeen

Zechariah’s vision report has the distinct quality of an unprocessed description of a visionary experience without much ideological reflection and attempts to impose ideological meanings onto a multivalent experience. This statement is suggested primarily by the often confused quality of the account, in combination with its interpretative openness. It is further supported by the existence of later textual additions (e.g. Zc. 3:8b, 10; 4:6b-10a) which serve to accredit Zechariah’s originally pristine report with religious and political significance. This unprocessed quality of Zechariah’s vision report stands in contrast to other vision reports (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos) which all are accompanied by divine oracles elucidating and giving meaning to the seen visions.


Wisdom and Apocalypticism: The Vanity of Lively Literary Labels
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Patrick Tiller, Independent Scholar

This paper seeks to assess the landscape of scholarship on wisdom and apocalypticism, in response to and on the basis of the publication of some of the work of this Group over the past ten years.


A Review of the Philosophy and Method of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This paper critically reviews the philosophy behind the BHQ edition as well as its system of annotation. Among other things, the new edition is compared with the earlier editions in the Biblia Hebraica series and other extant editions


DSSEL: Introduction and Theoretical Background
Program Unit:
Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library (DSSEL), edited by Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University, and prepared and produced by Brigham Young University (BYU), Provo, Utah, is to be published in the fall of 2005 by Brill publishers of Leiden, Netherlands. This version continues an earlier version The Dead Sea Scrolls Database (Non-Biblical Texts) (The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library, vol. 2) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999).

DSSEL consists of the following elements:

  1. All the non-biblical Qumran texts as presented in D. W. Parry and E. Tov, The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader (Parts 1–6; Leiden/Boston: E. J. Brill, 2004-5).
  2. The latest version of BYU’s WordCruncher software, a sophisticated, fully Unicode compatible search tool.
  3. A complete morphological analysis of all the words in the texts provided by M. G. Abegg’s Qumran module prepared for the Accordance computer module. All word searches within DSSEL are based on this analysis.
  4. High-resolution images of all the individual fragments of the Qumran texts prepared by S. Booras and I. Abramian and linked with each individual fragment at the click of a mouse.
The session at the SBL presents and demonstrates the background and nature of these four constituent elements.

Etymological Exegesis of the Septuagint Translators
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Septuagint translators, who had no tools at their disposal, did a remarkably good job of transferring the message of Hebrew Scripture to Greek. The linguistic identification of all words in the source language was a necessary part of their assignment, and also in that aspect the work of the translators is commendable, even if modern understanding sometimes differs from the translators’ etymological decisions. The present paper deals with some principles guiding these etymological decisions, in particular biliteral root exegesis, also known from medieval Jewish grammarians


"Come Out and Stay Out": Hermeneutics, Homosexuality, and Schism in Anglicanism
Program Unit: Bible and Cultural Studies
Richard Treloar, University of Melbourne

This paper seeks to analyse the violence of homophobia and the overlapping violence of schism, both of which threaten the worldwide Anglican Church, in terms of the reading practices which have characterised Anglicanism over the centuries. An Anglican theology of Scripture will be presented, before the homosexuality debate in the Anglican Church of Australia is used to shed light on the North American context. It will be argued that the current ecclesiological crisis within Anglicanism is, at root, a hermeneutical crisis - one that threatens to spread the fault lines far beyond the confines of this tradition or this issue. Ironically, the seeds of a lasting solution may lie within Anglicanism's own formularies and foundations. Yet there seems little cause for optimism among Anglicans of a certain view that these resources will be sufficiently well harnessed to avoid further violence being perpetrated on both the homosexual community and the delicate bonds of fellowship which have hitherto maintained an imperfect but real ecclesial communion.


Antiochus IV and the Tyrant of Isaiah 14:18–20
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Ronald L. Troxel, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The linchpin for identifying when Isaiah was translated into Greek is the assertion that passages about Assyrian and Babylonian rulers have been refracted through the image of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. In particular, Isa 14:19 is regarded as alluding to that ruler's demise by the translation of "you are cast out of your grave" with "you shall be cast in the mountains," especially since 2 Macc 9:28 places Antiochus' death "in the mountains." Despite the wide acceptance of this argument, however, examination of the role of mountains as places of warfare in contemporaneous Greek literature makes the use of en tois oresin in both Isa 14:19 and 2 Macc 9:28 less striking, thus weakening the argument that the phrase was selected in translating Isa 14:19 to find in the tyrant's demise a forecast of the death of the Seleucid ruler. And that, in turn, raises questions about how securely the Septuagint of Isaiah can be associated with the Hellenistic crisis in early second century B.C.E. Jerusalem.


“Let the Sea Roar:” Hearing the Voice of the Waters in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Peter Trudinger, Parkin-Wesley College

In Hebrew Bible scholarship, it is common to identify a class of members of the Earth community as enemies of God. The Waters, Sea, the Floods, and entities associated with them, such as Leviathan, are frequently lumped into the category of opponents of God and therefore inherently bad. Is this assessment valid? Certainly texts from Israel’s neighbors depict water beings as actively malevolent and violent in their opposition to the heroic deity. What is the witness of the Hebrew texts? The Psalter presents a varied depiction of the community of the waters, from rebuked renegades (Ps 114:3; 74:13; 104:7) to assistants of God (Ps 46:5; 65:9; 104:14-26) who offer praise to their Maker (Ps 148:4, 7; 98: 7-8). In this paper we will identify with the community of the waters as this is portrayed in the Psalter and attempt to reconstruct their story. Texts from the Psalms will be supplemented by material from the prophetic literature.


Uncelebrated Readers of the Bible: The Illustrative Case of Early Basotho
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Sam Tshehla, University of KwaZulu-Natal

This paper critiques the assumption that only celebrated critics of the Bible are agents of noble causes. The assumption, it is argued, is implicit in the extent to which scholars can be oblivious towards bible-inspired outputs from other (non-scholarly) members of Christian communities. This approach is held to be an unfortunate residue within African biblical scholarship of western individualistic paradigms. The paper does not, however, argue the case of all other African expressions of biblical interpretation. Instead it only focuses on non-academic writings of the earliest generations of Basotho Christians. These Basotho readings of the Bible are preserved in the newspaper articles that they wrote in their own language and with the help of their own cultural tools. Their epoch witnessed cannibalism, colonialism, ‘civilization’ (read ‘europeanisation’), Christianization (read ‘crusades against indigenous cultures’), competition, condescension, and caprice. In this backdrop, the ingenious ways whereby they appropriated the biblical text and tradition should be fascinating, and indeed instructive, especially when read alongside the concurrently expressed views of their contemporary expatriate missionaries.


The Ambiguity of Gender in Roman Christian Meal Scenes
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Janet H. Tulloch, Carleton University, Ottawa

For the panel: "Women and Material Religion in Late Antiquity" (organized with Nicola Denzey). The question of gender ambiguity in symbolically charged Christian meal scenes begins long before Da Vinci's *Last Supper* from the fifteenth century. This paper outlines the history of the archaeological documentation for three early Christian banquet scenes found respectively in the catacombs of Callixtus, Priscilla, and SS. Marcellino and Pietro, Rome. Past scientific methods for capturing this visual information include: drawings, watercolours and various photographic techniques. Beginning with the earliest visual records published in 1632 by Antonio Bosio in his report, *Roma Sotterranea* this paper presents the trajectory of physical changes to these frescoes, including the sex change of specific figures in the same meal scene, as represented in the archaeological record up to the end of the 20th century. In the conclusion of this paper, possible explanations for these changes, including the problematic of the record itself, will be considered along with the questions these explanations raise for scholars working in the field of early Christian art and archaeology.


The "Bridal Chamber" in the Thomasine Literature and in the Gospel of Philip
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Risto Uro, University of Helsinki

This paper investigates the different uses of the "bridal chamber" in the Gospel of Thomas and Acts of Thomas. The trope appears also in the Dialogue of the Savior, which has been seen to derive from the same cultural milieu as the writings attributed to the apostle Thomas, i.e., early Syrian Christianity. The various uses of the trope in the Thomasine literature are then compared with the Valentinian Gospel of Philip, in which the nuptial imagery has become part of the complex reflection about early Christian rituals. The latter part of the paper focuses on the ritual aspects of the trope arguing that recent theories of ritual form and ritual frequency can inform the Valentinian and early Syrian ritual theology and praxis. The paper raises the question of how the cognitive processing of religious traditions facilitated through different types of rituals affect people's ideology and behavior.


New Testament Asceticism and Alternative Families
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
Leif Vaage, University of Toronto

In this paper I will discuss three of the earliest Christian ascetical projects, namely, the tradition of the synoptic sayings source or Q, the Gospel of Mark, and the apostle Paul. In all three instances, I will suggest that in view, among other things, are alternative family arrangements; none of which, however, can be said to have succeeded in defining "the" early Christian family. After demonstrating that this is so, I will conclude by exploring two issues: 1) the significance of these socially "failed" or "volatile" early Christian families for conceptualizing "the" early Christian family; and 2) what all of these families appear to reveal as the (yet) unresolved, if not intractable, difficulty in constructing the (ancient) Christian family alternatively


Asceticism as a Sacred Marriage
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Richard Valantasis, Iliff School of Theology

Ascetical theory and theology has frequently used sacred marriage as the metaphor describing the highest degree of ascetical development. This essay explores sacred marriage in the Western Christian tradition by examining Tanquerey's "The Ascetical and Mystical Life" and the Eastern tradition by exploring Macarius the Egyptian's "Fifty Spiritual Homilies." Both traditions seek to articulate a particular ascetic subjectivity, but each with different orientations and goals.


Parodying Law in Daniel 1-6
Program Unit: Biblical Law
David M. Valeta, University of Colorado at Boulder

This paper offers a Bakhtinian reading of the law in Daniel 1-6. The stories of Daniel are replete with law. From the many decrees issued by kings to the two trials of the stories’ heroes, law abounds. The kings’ law-making and judicial power and the means by which the stories’ heroes resist that power are critical aspects of these stories. Nonetheless, commentators have done little work on the law in the book of Daniel. We believe this is because flaws exist in the portrayal of the law, which creates difficulties in its explication. We argue that the author intentionally manipulated and corrupted the law in his portrayal of it in support of the literary and social ends of the book. We argue that the stories of Dan 1-6 are pre-novelistic menippean satires that seek, through humor, to resist the oppressive political forces of their day by ridiculing foreign kings and empires. Bakhtin maintains that one of the key elements of menippean satire is its parody of known literary genres. This paper seeks to identify and study the legal genres of the ancient Near East found within the stories of Daniel. It then examines how the author parodies these genres in order to confront the tyrannical regime of Antiochus IV. Copresenter: F. Rachel Magdalene, Appalachian State University


Ebionite Tendencies in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas Interpreted from the Perspective of Ethnic Identity
Program Unit: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament
Andries Van Aarde, University of Pretoria

In the paper two so-called Tischendorf Greek manuscripts of the second-century Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT) are compared, focusing on selected passages. The paper aims (1) to argue that the more authentic manuscript is characterized by “Ebionite” tendencies because of the role of Jesus’ biological family in the narrative while the other manuscript presents “Gnostic” antipathy against the family and Israelites in general, (2) to demonstrate how our knowledge of societal expectations of children in the first-century Mediterranean world contributes to our understanding of the “mighty deeds” of the child-god Jesus narrated in this infancy gospel, and (2) to explore how an “ethnic identity” theory helps to explain the Ebionite tendencies.


Jesus' Mission to All of Israel Emplotted in Matthew's Story
Program Unit: Matthew
Andries Van Aarde, University of Pretoria

Matthew' story is read as consisting of two narrative lines as subplots. The one is the (pre-Easter) Jesus commission and the other the (post-Easter) disciples' commission. The shift ("Wende der Zeit") between these two narrative sequences takes place at Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. However, this "Wende der Zeit" does not have the consequence that the story of Israel is replaced by the story of the church. The "history" of Jesus and the "history" of the church are included in Israel's history. Jesus' mission is about saving "all of Israel". It is directed to the Israelite crowds and the non-Israelites as the "lost sheep of Israel". This Jesus commission is a continuation of that of the prophets and is continued by that of the disciples. The nations realized what God's mission is all about at Jesus' death when God revealed him as the cosmic "Son of Man" and the Roman centurion called him and not the Emperor "God's son". This acknowledgment follows the apocalyptic sigmals that the old cultic order ended and a new dispensation has dawned - an anticipation of the plot's open-end when the disciples are commissioned to include the "panta ta ethne" into the "new Israel".


Pre-creation Discourse in the Gospel of John
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Gerhard van den Heever, University of South Africa

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Making Religion out of Nothing at All: Doing Religionsgeschichte through Theory of Religion and History through Historiography
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Gerhard van den Heever, University of South Africa

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Diogenes of Oenoanda on the Jews
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Pieter W. van der Horst, University of Utrecht

Sometime during Hadrian’s reign, a wealthy inhabitant of the Lycian city of Oenoanda called Diogenes had the huge wall of the local Stoa (ca. 80 x 4 meter) inscribed with a gigantic inscription. His intention was to instruct his fellow-citizens, probably shortly before his death, in Epicurus’ philosophy in order to dispel their fear of death and of the gods. In 1884 the first fragments of this inscription were discovered in the city, and the complete 1967 Teubner edition by C. W. Chilton included 88 fragments. The 1968 - 1983 British investigations at Oenoanda more than doubled the number of known fragments (increasing them from 88 to no less than 212), and in 1993 Martin F. Smith published a new edition of all them. Ten years later, in 2003, Smith published a supplement presenting eleven new pieces, including the largest piece found so far, New Fragment 126. This new fragment, the most substantial and best preserved of all, has 5 columns of text, and discusses matters of Epicurean theology and religion, much of which is well-known. But one of the more novel aspects of fragment 126 is that Diogenes here attacks the Jews and Egyptians. It is on the background of his attack on the Jews that the paper will focus.


The Megilloth Fascicle
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Arie van der Kooij, Leiden University-The Netherlands

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The Greek Pentateuch and 2 Maccabees
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Arie van der Kooij, Leiden University

2 Maccabees contains some explicit quotations from the Greek Pentateuch (from Exod 15; 19; Deut 32). The purpose is twofold, (a) to discuss the way the passages have been quoted and interpreted in 2 Maccabees, and (b) to deal with the question why 2 Maccabees only offers explicit quotations from the Greek Pentateuch,and not from other LXX books.


The Formal Expression of Topic and Focus in Classical Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Pierre J.P. Van Hecke, Tilburg University

The last decade has witnessed an increasing scholarly interest in the pragmatic functions of Topic and Focus in Classical Hebrew (Buth, Revell, Groß, Rosenbaum, a.o.). Discerning the Topic (that about which something is said in the clause) from the Focus (that which is said about the Topic) is crucial for a correct understanding of clauses, and hence also for the interpretation of texts. Critics of this new interest in pragmatic functions argue that those functions are ultimately irrecoverable since there are no native speakers to inform us on them. While this remark has some validity, it should stimulate functionally oriented linguists to analyse as fully as possible the formal linguistic markers for those pragmatic functions. In this paper, I will, on the basis of general linguistic insights, present an overview of the different possible formal markers, while, at the same time, providing a number of new insights on the relation between formal linguistic expression and pragmatic functions in Classical Hebrew. Special attention will be paid to focus constructions and to the constituent order of a number of clause types (nominal clauses with predicators of existence & verbal clauses with a comparative adjunct).


Dispositio: Towards a Rhetorical Analysis of GPhil
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Bas van Os, Groningen University

This paper contains a partial review of Painchaud's rhetorical analysis of the Gospel of Philip presented at the SBL conference of 1996. The focus is on textual markers and structuring techniques in order to identify sub-compositions in the text. The analysis reveals that the Gospel of Philip consists of twelve reasonably well structured subcompositions. These subcompositions may well be notes for a three-part baptism instruction: Introduction and Persuasion (2 and 5 parts), Mystagogy (3 parts), and Exhortation (2 parts).


Mary and Joseph in the Gospel of Philip
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Bas van Os, Groningen University

Dan Brown made famous the kiss between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in GPhil, which he reads with historical intent. But references to Joseph and Mary in GPhil are allegorical in nature, in the way that Valentinian commentaries interpreted Gospel and apocryphal stories. In this paper I will investigate (1) from which stories these references are derived, and (2) which Gnostic teaching they are to support. I will conclude with the relationship between Achamoth (Mary) and the Demiurg (Joseph) that is painted by these references in GPhil.


Corresponding Phrase Patterns in the Masoretic Text and the Peshitta and Their Significance for Syriac Lexicography
Program Unit:
Wido van Peursen, Leiden University-The Netherlands

In the lexicography of the Ancient Versions, the question of how one should deal with corresponding words in the source text plays an important role. Think, for example, of the much-debated question of whether the meaning of Hebrew sedeq has coloured the meaning of its Greek translation equivalent dikaiosune in the Septuagint. In the Peshitta, correspondences with the Hebrew text occur often at phrase level rather than word level. Some of these correspondences have attracted the attention of scholars because of their ‘targumic’ character (e.g. Syriac kwrsy’ dmlkwt’ corresponding with Hebrew ks’), but a more comprehensive analysis is needed. This paper will discuss the following questions: What patterns of correspondence at phrase level can be established? What does a formal computer-assisted registration of these patterns add to traditional philological analyses? Can the registration of these patterns contribute to the lexicography of classical Syriac?


The Recent Report of the Yahwist’s Demise is Greatly Exaggerated!
Program Unit: Pentateuch
John Van Seters, University of North Carolina

There has been a tendency in European Pentateuchal studies to dismiss the Yahwist as an outmoded carryover from the Documentary Hypothesis and to replace it with the method of redaction criticism, in which most of the non-P material is assigned to various late post-Priestly editors. This extends the work of Rendtorff who replaced von Rad’s Yahwist with a long editorial process of combining independent blocks of traditional material to produce the Pentateuch. Against this tendency I continue to support von Rad’s understanding of the Yahwist as an author and historian. In order to defend von Rad’s Yahwist I will challenge some specific examples that have been given in support of this “redactor” hypothesis.


The English Translation of The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
William Varner, Master's College and Seminary

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Connections in Creation: An Intertextual Reading of Psalm 107 and Genesis 1:1–2
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
John S. Vassar, Louisiana State University in Shreveport

This presentation explores an intertextual reading of Psalm 107 and Genesis 1:1-2. Several words of significance appear in both Psalm 107 and Genesis 1:1-2. These common words can direct the reader of the Psalm from 107 back to the initial chapter of Genesis. Each of these terms depicts the reality of the existence of chaos. The four common words are chaos; darkness; the deep; and waters. Each of these four words is a term typically associated with the creation account of Genesis 1. They refer generally to various elements of creation, but specifically to chaos. Psalm 107 and Genesis 1 are the only two chapters in the Hebrew Bible in which all of these terms appear. Psalms often use terms significant in the faith tradition of ancient Israel. Focusing on these meaningful terms might provides insight into the formal connections between these two texts. Because of its important role as the initial psalm of Book V of the Psalter, Psalm 107 might serve to introduce the theme of creation to the final book of the Psalter. This initial emphasis on creation might affect how we read through the balance of Book V. The importance of the theme of creation in Psalm 107 also conflicts with the popular understanding that the function of Book V is to bring to Israel the idea of establishing Yahweh as king.


The Impact of Psalms in Times of War
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
John S. Vassar, Louisiana State University in Shreveport

Throughout the history of Western Civilization, the Book of Psalms has been embraced by communities of faith as an important record of peace, life, and hope. It has a centrality in the worship practices of Judaism and Christianity that is unmatched by any other religious text. The Psalter is the longest text in the Hebrew Bible and the most frequently quoted text in the New Testament. Consequently, it comes as some surprise that this biblical text has a parallel history of use outside communities of faith. The book of Psalms has been used for centuries to prepare for, legitimate, and engage in the craft of war. This paper explores the history of interpretation of the book of Psalms in the context of military conflict. It will trace how several disparate psalms texts have been used to legitimate war in numerous geographical and historical contexts. The book of Psalms has been used within numerous contexts of warfare including the Crusades, the American Civil War, Vietnam, and even the current American action in Iraq. This paper will incorporate examples of its use by soldiers, military officials, and civilian leaders. Following these sections, I will posit some reasons why this particular biblical book has proven so flexible outside of traditional worship settings. Specifically, I will offer some suggestions on why this religious text has found particular utility in military contexts.


Web-Based Tools for Teaching Biblical Hebrew Verbs
Program Unit: Best Practices in Teaching
Andrew Vaughn, Gustavus Adolphus College

This presentation reviews drills and web-based tools that are used to teach Biblical Hebrew verbs by “sense and tense” rather than paradigm. While it is important to remember that Biblical Hebrew verb inflections convey the aspect of how action takes place and not tense, an argument can be made for teaching the most common usages of Hebrew verb inflections first and saving the less frequent usages for later in the introductory course. In other words, tense exists in Biblical Hebrew, but it not found solely in paradigms of verb inflections. The presenter will review web-based teaching tools and audio aids that assist the beginning student to gain a “feel” and “ear” for Biblical Hebrew verbs. The focus of this approach is to concentrate on the most common usages rather than all the possible orthographic inflections. The presenter will show how this method can enable beginning students to read large selections of Hebrew within the first six weeks of a semester-long, introductory course.


Syntactic Structures and Semantic Effects in the Psalms
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Luis Vegas-Montaner, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

The verb syntax of the biblical prose has been the object of relevant studies, whereas poetry has been mostly neglected, no doubt by its inherent difficulties and previsible lack of consistency. Nevertheless, it also deserves a careful attention, and in the present paper we will show three examples from the book of Psalms, in which the variation of some syntactic structures have semantic effects. It is a grammatical study, basically syntactical, of some uses of yiqtol and wayyiqtol in relation with other finite verbal forms in parallelism. We take into account some important aspects, such as the opposition syndesis / asyndesis, the position of the x constituent in related clauses, and the verse structure. In this supraorational analysis we arrive at the following conclusions: a) the conjunction waw can be a decisive factor to discriminate between synonymous and synthetic parallelisms in the case of wayyiqtol + yiqtol and wayyiqtol + qatal; b) the position of the x element in two contiguous yiqtol + weyiqtol clauses is a syntactical recourse to mean synonymity or sequence; c) the accentual structure of the text (reflecting a different structure of the verse) can indicate different functions of identical sequences of verbs (qatal + wayyiqtol): simultaneous or consecutive, depending on the fact that both clauses are separated by a major disjunctive accent or not. All of this has nothing to do with a temporal or aspectual value of the individual verbal forms.


Imaging the Afterlife: Decoration as Eschatology in the Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Marjorie Susan Venit, University of Maryland

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Rethinking 2 Corinthians: The Literary Relationship between Chapters 10–13 and the Rest of the Letter
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Zondervan and Reformed Bible College

A sharp change in tone occurs between 2 Corinthians 9:15 and 10:1, as scholars have long recognized. This paper begins by reviewing briefly the major theories that account for this change. It goes on to argue for the “severe letter” thesis by presenting evidence that most scholars have not noticed, namely, a significant number of identical words and phrases occurring in both 2:14–7:4 and chapters 10–13 that link the two sectionstogether: for example, usages as synistemi in 3:1; 5:12; 10:12, 18 and katenanti theou en Christo laloumen in 2:17 and 12:19, along with numerous phrases in 6:4–6 and chapters 11–12. Moreover, scholars have not taken sufficient account of the palin in 3:1 and 5:12 or the use of the perfect tense in 6:11. The tone with which Paul uses these words and phrases, however, is significantly reduced in 2:14–7:4, most likely because his anger had subsided after the report of Titus. Nevertheless, the content of what he had tried to communicate in chapters 10–13 is still valid, so Paul reasserts it in a calmer, more positive framework. In fact, these verbal parallels are so consistent that it suggests that Paul had a copy of his earlier “severe” letter to refer to while writing chapters 1–8. The paper then discusses the evidence in the classics for ancient authors keeping copies of their letters. Fascinating here is David Trobisch’s contention that Paul himself probably arranged for publication of his letters (at least Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians). Such a thesis may explain why there is no reference in chapters 10–13 to the specific individual whom Paul attacked in the so-called severe letter (cf. 2:5–11), for ancient authors often excised local references, when they published their letters.


The Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling: A New Dutch-Language Bible Translation
Program Unit: Bible Translation
Arian Verheij, University of Amsterdam

On October 27th, 2004, a new Bible translation in Dutch was published. The importance of the Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling (NBV)was demonstrated by its presentation to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The present paper introduces the NBV to the international scholarly community. The stated aim of the NBV translation project has been, first, to produce a text in the modern usage of the target language, Dutch, while remaining fully loyal to the source texts. Second, the NBV envisages as its audience the entire Dutch language community -- Jewish and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, religious and secular -- in the Netherlands and Belgium. Accordingly, it was produced by a consortium of four Bible Societies from both countries. The translation process, which took some ten years to complete, featured a close cooperation between experts in Biblical Studies, Dutch Language, and Translation Studies from both countries. Their work was supervized by a large number of professional and lay readers, as well as literary authors and critics. Three preliminary publications of selected biblical books with explanatory articles proved extremely useful in eliciting responses from the general public. The resulting text has been published by several presses in many editions, each with its own look-and-feel, and on CD-ROM, so as to attract as many readers as possible. Indeed, the NBV has been unexpectedly successful so far. Sales targets for 2005 were met by the end of 2004. The paper briefly discusses the history of the NBV, explains the translation procedures that were followed, and focuses on how the distinction between `textual' and `linguistic' features of the source texts was defined and implemented.


On Explaining the Gospel of Jesus for the Non-academician: A Response to James Robinson
Program Unit: Q
Joseph Verheyden, University of Leuven

In his latest book James Robinson presents the message of Jesus as it can be recovered through the sayings that have been collected and transmitted in Q. In the response special attention will be given to what Robinson regards as the core issues of Jesus' gospel in Q and to the way he explains the (relative) lack of interest of Q for certain other issues that have come to be all-important in Christian theology after Q (the passion, the concern for the future, judgement).


Demonax and Jesus: Lucian and the Gospels
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Joseph Verheyden, University of Leuven

The paper offers a critical survey of the way the biographical writings of Lucian have been used in gospel studies since H.D. Betz' seminal work on Lucian and the NT. Special attention will be given to the function, form, and content of the chreiae collection that constitutes the major part of the Life of Demonax and to what can be gained from it for defining the genre of the chreia as it occurs in the Sayings Source Q and in the gospels that depend on it.


The Hexapla Project and the Main Text of the Syro-Hexapla of Amos 1–2
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Petra Verwijs, Claremont Graduate University

The Syro-Hexapla is a translation of Origen's Hexapla into Syriac. It includes the translation of Origen's own revision of the Septuagint as well as marginal notes about the readings of the "Three." To date, the study of the main text of the Syro-Hexapla and its characteristics has been limited. This paper summarizes the findings about the Syro-Hexapla's translation techniques as found in Amos 1-2. The conclusions confirm the commonly accepted assertion that the Syro-Hexapla is a faithful translation of its Greek Vorlage. A detail-oriented reading of the main text reveals some elements about the translation that have a direct impact on the reconstruction of Origen's revision. Some of these details were noted by Field/Ziegler, others were not. The new edition of the fragments of Origen's Hexapla should include such details about the main text of the Syro-Hexapla. Although not yet produced, a critical edition of the Syro-Hexapla and concordance would be helpful tools to accomplish this goal.


The New Excavations near the Pool of Siloam and Some Preliminary Observations on Their Significance for the Gospel of John and for Second Temple Judaism
Program Unit: John, Jesus, and History
Urban C. von Wahlde, Loyola University of Chicago

In December, 2004, it was announced that a pool south of the traditional Pool of Silaom had been uncovered -- in the area knwon as the Birkat el Hamra. This paper will describe (with slides) the finds encountered there and make some preliminary observations about their significance.


The Destructive Power of Atonement Theology
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Johan S. Vos, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

In the the Praeger 4-volume set, "The Destructive Power of Religion," the editor, J. Harold Ellens, argues that the crucifixion of Christ understood as substitutionary atonement “is an image and a metaphor right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2000 years, which radically contradicts the grace ethic it purports to express and cuts its taproot by the dominant model of solving ultimate problems through resort to the worst kind of violence.” At the unconscious level “it is a metaphor of the worst kind of violence, infanticide or child sacrifice.” According to Ellens this image is based on an ancient pagan notion exactly opposite to the Hebrew tradition of the covenant of grace. In theological systems God’s crucifixion of his Son is designed as an act of grace to disarm the violent evil inherent to persons and society. The case, however, is that the disarming has failed. In psychoanalytical models ‘constructive violence’ or scapegoating is meant to end destructive violence in society. Even a superficial look at the sweep of history, however, informs us of the fact that “violence breeds violence and does not quell it.” (I, 261-271). In this paper I will dilate on four aspects of Ellens’ argument: 1) evidence from the history of religions: the pagan and Hebrew roots of the image of substitutionary atonement, 2) theological perspectives: traditional and radical critical views of atonement theology, 3) psycho-analytical perspectives: the psychodynamics of violence, 4) historical evidence: the effects of the image of the crucified Christ in the history of the Western world. Whereas it was J. Harold Ellens’ function to put forward a forceful, clear and streamlined thesis, I regard it as my function to dwell upon the complexity of the material.


Socio-rhetorical Interpretation and the Epistle of James
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Wesley Hiram Wachob, Candler School of Theology

From a socio-rhetorical perspective, the Epistle of James is a written instance of deliberative rhetoric, a text that seeks to modify the social thought and behavior of its addressees in particular ways. The values, convictions, and beliefs in James’ performance of language are not merely threads in the tapestry of this early Christian discourse, but clues to the historical and cultural situations addressed by this letter. This paper will seek to show the impact of socio-rhetorical criticism by (1) briefly probing several of the various textures of James' text, focusing on the ways in which its social rhetoric (2) exploits the language of "household" and "kingdom," and (3) blends this with the topics of prophetic and wisdom discourse. The goal is to disclose the persuasive artistry of this early Christian letter by showing how it addresses communities of Christian Jews as belonging to law-abiding Israel and justifies a particular appropriation of Jesus’ interpretation of the Torah as the cultural script for their thought and action.


Early Variants in the Byzantine Text of the Gospels
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
Klaus Wachtel, Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung

Variation within the Middle Byzantine tradition can be observed at places where the UBS/GNT apparatus shows the Byzantine witness as split into two, sometimes three branches. As a rule such variants are inconspicuous, but they show that in spite of all efforts to avoid them variants kept being transmitted along with the mainstream of the tradition. Moreover, the diverging branches often get support from early witnesses. This evidence can hardly be brought into agreement with the theory that the Byzantine text goes back to an early recension and was consequently enforced on the church. On the other hand it should strengthen our respect for this tradition as being deeply rooted in the early stages of the textual history of the New Testament. Thus this study of variant passages in the Gospels with split Byzantine witness contributes to a re-valuation of the mainstream of the New Testament manuscript tradition.


Working Out Salvation in Philippians
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
J. Ross Wagner, Princeton Theological Seminary

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The Temple in Mark and Contested Authority
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Clinton Wahlen, Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies

It has often been observed that the temple plays an important role in the closing scenes of Mark’s Gospel. However, no agreement exists on exactly what that role is. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Mark’s portrayal of Jesus’ temple action reinforces a larger narrative aim: to show that the time of messianic fulfillment for both Jews and Gentiles has come. The organization of Mark 11:1-12:12 in a double sandwich structure reinforces Mark’s Christological interest in presenting Jesus as the Son who exercises divine authority and who opens the way for Gentiles to join with Israel in worshipping God, a theme which fits into the larger Markan concern to show that Gentiles have a rightful place within a “greater Israel."


Healing Ointment / Healing Bodies: The Challenge of Identification
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Elaine Wainwright, University of Auckland

Over recent years I have been developing and using what I have called a multi-dimensional hermeneutic for the reading of healing and gender in the gospels and in their worlds. This hermeneutic seeks to integrate an ecological hermeneutic with feminist and post-colonial perspectives for reading. Such a multi-dimensional hermeneutic is necessary, I believe, in order that movements and readings toward liberation are not pitted against one another. The danger, however, is that each perspective becomes diffused. The challenge of identification afforded by the focus of the Ecological Hermeneutics Consultation for 2005 provides me with an opportunity to do two things in this paper. First, I will turn the lens of the challenge of identification onto my three-pronged hermeneutic in order to ask if the potentiality and actuality for identification with Earth is enhanced or decreased within such a hermeneutic. Second, I will focus on the story of healing ointment in Mark 14:3-9 using the lens of identification in order to explore its challenge to my reading of this text [and by implication other gospel texts and their focus on Jesus]. Muron or healing ointment is an active agent in Mark 14:3-9. It is introduced in the opening verse of the pericope with the two key human actors in the story: Jesus and the healing woman. The verbal form from the same root occurs in the penultimate verse evoking again the healing ointment. The second part of this paper will explore how the fragrance of this healing ointment might permeate this gospel story and our reading of this story and the implications of such a permeation for our identification with Earth.


"God, My Rock": Biblical Laments and the Social Construction of Nature
Program Unit: Lament in Sacred Texts and Cultures
Arthur Walker-Jones, University of Winnipeg

How have the Psalms influenced the social construction of nature in Western culture? What gives certain metaphors a mythic or paradigmatic power? William Brown’s Seeing the Psalms made a significant contribution to Psalm studies by showing the importance of metaphors and imagery in the poetry of the Psalms. This paper uses the example of nature imagery in laments to show, among other things, the way that image and metaphor are connected to genre, narrative, and canonical shape. These relationships, especially the relationship between image and narrative (mythos), are the basis of Northrop Frye’s myth criticism. “The greatness of Frye,” according to Fredric Jameson, “lies in his willingness to raise the issue of community and to draw basic, essentially social interpretive consequences from the nature of religion as collective representation” (Political Unconscious, 69). Frye’s myth criticism offers to Psalms studies a way of relating genre criticism to newer literary critical methods and understanding and analyzing the contemporary cultural influence of biblical myths. For example, natural images and metaphors in the laments are social, symbolic meditations on the relationship between humanity and nature.


East Meets West: Royal Iconography in Seleucid Babylonia
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Ronald Wallenfels, New York University

During its three millennia long history Mesopotamia endured numerous incursions by foreigners, several of whom, most notably the Amorites, Persians, and Macedonians, seized power outright. With the exception of the Macedonians and their successors most conquerors became rapidly, and for the most part, fully assimilation to Mesopotamia’s literate urban culture and its associated traditions. The Macedonians, on the other hand, through their prior acculturation to the quite different literate urban traditions of the Greek city-states, brought with them a fully formed royal program fully capable of administering an empire. This paper will examine through relevant texts, seal impressions and coins, how the Seleucid dynasty, the sole fruit of the Macedonian-Persian hybrid originally envisioned by Alexander, sought to accommodate to each other eastern and western traditions of the displaying of royal power.


Live from Golgotha: Barabbas Rewrites the Cross
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Richard Walsh, Methodist College

The Gospel Barabbas makes a cameo appearance at Jesus’ Roman trial. He makes the crowd’s self-identifying choice for or against Jesus possible. Intriguingly, no Gospel actually states that Jesus died in Barabbas’ place, although Christian readings hasten to supply that theological lacuna. In fact, the Gospels do not narrate what happened to Barabbas after his election. The Gospel Barabbas simply incarnates the crowds’ “choice.” Fleischer’s 1962 film, Barabbas, based on Lagerkvist’s novel by the same name, imagines Barabbas “live” at Golgotha. While this Barabbas knows, as the Gospel Barabbas does not, that Jesus died in his place, he never manages to live from Golgotha, to take Jesus’ cross as the mythic foundation of his life. His election makes his life a hell on earth. He would gladly trade his life for Jesus’ fate, but he cannot, for Jesus “stole his death” (a terrible parody of Mark 8:35?). Despite his reputation for immortality, Barabbas finally dies on his own cross, but there he gives himself up to the “dark” (a parody of Luke 25:46?). In fact, although he often comes up to the light in the film, Barabbas never sees clearly. He lives in the dark. Some veil conceals the Christian message. Watching Barabbas, we too stand outside looking in at Christian discourse. Denied the spiritual significance of the cross, we see the one for whom the Gospels might have said that Jesus died (but did not). They do not, so they may write a spiritual or mythic message over the cross (and Barabbas) (Mark 10:45). As it does with Barabbas, that myth steals our death. Barabbas suggests another way, a way in which we can recover our death, life, and humanity. That way leaves myth behind for the choices – that Barabbas did not have – of politics.


Temple Treasury Plundering in Antiquity
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Robyn Faith Walsh, Harvard University

Chronicles of temple plundering have served as milestones throughout the narrative history of the ancient Mediterranean world. The Second Temple Period in particular witnessed the sack and destruction of numerous temple complexes across what would later be known as the Roman Empire. While literary and archaeological evidence has managed to shed some light on the practical and political ramifications of temple treasury plundering in Antiquity, scholarship has not yet thoroughly examined the integral socio-economic and imperial significance of these acts to various (religious) communities in Greece, Roman, Asia Minor and Israel. Thus, this paper proposes to examine the question of temple plunder in antiquity, specifically the Jerusalem and Delphic Temples. The task of the paper is threefold. First, I will consider the meaning of “plunder” and offer some options for how one might conceptualize such activity in its particular historical milieu—namely, through the lenses of conquest, suppression and/or banditry. Through this (re)constructive project, I aim to identify commonalities in the methods and means of these programs—with particular attention given to the religious and imperial dimensions therein. Second, I will examine the sackof these temples at the hands of the Roman imperial forces. In doing so, I will illuminate the purpose of this activity as one not only military and political domination/suppression, but also cultural censure. In the case of the Jerusalem temple, the Romans stripped all the Jewish people of the Empire of their central cultural and religious symbol, which fostered an age of further upheaval and exile. Similarly, Sulla's plundering of the temple at Delphi also took place within a larger context of imperial domination that—in subjugating its people under political rule and heavy taxation—bred resistance, specifically in the form of (social) banditry. Simply stated, plunder led to plunder in the Second Temple epoch.


The Tapestry of Story in 1 Corinthians
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Charles Wanamaker, University of Cape Town

This paper explores four story lines that Paul invokes in 1 Corinthians with a view to determining the roles that these story lines play in the argumentative structure of the letter and in Paul’s ideological goals. The foundational story line for Paul concerns Jesus, with the death of Jesus in chapters 1 and 2 and his resurrection and lordship in chapter 15, functioning like an extended inclusio around the main body of the letter. In beginning the letter with the story line of the cross of Christ, Paul is actually invoking his own story line as the founding proclaimer of the gospel to the Corinthian Christian community in order to re-establish his ideological claim to authority in a situation in which he appears to have come under serious criticism. He does this through the connection between his own story line and the story line of Christ crucified. The paper will then turn to explore the ways in which a troubling story line emerges in the letter regarding the Christian community in Corinth, a community characterized by divisiveness and ethical compromise. It will be shown that Paul’s goal is actually to alter the trajectory of the Corinthians’ story line. Finally the paper will look at an instance in 1 Corinthians 10 in which Paul reconfigures a story line from Hebrew Scriptures in order to address one of the major issues facing the community, namely, the problem of separation from pagan society. In concluding the paper it will be argued that the various story lines that have been examined in the paper are in reality inextricably woven together by Paul in order to achieve his rhetorical purposes in 1 Corinthians.


A Visual Exegesis of Mary Magdalene in John 20
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Susan Ward, Rhode Island School of Design

After a brief discussion of representations of the Magdalene coming to the tomb, (John 20:1), the paper will concentrate on images of the interaction between the Risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene described in John 20:11-16, an episode called the noli me tangere, or touch me not. While earlier versions of the noli me tangere have minimal props and simply show two figures interacting, later medieval and Renaissance representations include elaborate details. Some are related to gardening and other recall Mary Magdalene’s perceived status as a reformed prostitute as described in the Golden Legend (ca. 1275). Fifteenth- through seventeenth-century versions of the noli me tangere concentrate on the psychological nature of the interaction as the mimesis of human expression becomes a more important factor in visual representation. The final section of the paper will examine other iconographies of the Magdalene, which suggest alternative interpretations of her role. Even in the Middle Ages and Renaissance there are rare appearances of the Magdalene telling of the Apostles of Christ’s resurrection. After 1700 the visual tradition of the Magdalene becomes less important as artists reinterpret John 20 in light of direct reinterpretations of the text and their personal ideas about the meaning of the story.


Eupsycheo in Philippians 2:19
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
James P. Ware, University of Evansville

The importance of close lexical and syntactic analysis for serious exegesis is richly illustrated by Philippians 2:19. Misrepresentation in the standard lexica of the meaning of the verb eupsycheo, a hapax legomenon in the New Testament but widely used in hellenistic moral philosophy, has misled scholars regarding the purpose of Timothy's mission envisioned in Philippians 2:19-24. Moreover, through failure to grasp Paul's delicate syntax, interpreters have generally been unable to appreciate the pivotal function of Philippians 2:19, which close analysis reveals as Paul's only express statement within the letter regarding his purpose in writing to the Philippians. This paper will show how syntactic and lexical precision in the study of Philippians 2:19 illumines the entire letter.


Akolasia, Akrasia, and Self-Contradiction in Romans 7
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Emma Wasserman, Yale University

This paper uses Hellenistic moral discourse about incurable immorality to shed light on the relationship between law and sin in Romans 7. I argue that once we appreciate Platonic presentations of akolasia or moral failure we can we can identify the basic problem in 7:7–25 as that of acute self-contradiction such that a person does precisely the opposite of what they want to do at all times. Though scholars such as Stanley Stowers and Troels Engberg-Pedersen have identified 7:7–25 with philosophical discussions of moral weakness or akrasia, I show that problem is better understood as something considerably more severe, that of moral failure or akolasia.


Honor Among Christians: On the Absence of a Messianic Secret in Mark
Program Unit: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament
David F. Watson, Southern Methodist University

This paper deals with particular Markan passages that have generally been associated with the “messianic secret.” I argue that most scholars who have written on these passages have allowed William Wrede to define the terms of the argument: they accept that there is a “secrecy” motif in Mark and that the object of secrecy is Jesus’ messiahship. I disagree with the terms that Wrede established and propose an alternative understanding of some of these passages. After offering a model of ancient Mediterranean honor, I argue that Jesus’ concealing behavior is part of a larger theme in which Mark redefines common criteria for establishing honor. Jesus’ teaching in many ways contradicts traditional honor-related conventions. Likewise, when Jesus attempts to keep his great deeds or honorific titles from becoming widely known, he rejects some of the ways in which honor was normally reckoned. However, in many passages Jesus does not seem concerned to conceal his deeds or authority. I propose two reasons for this. First, at times there are Markan themes that supersede the theme of concealment. Second, in the oral-aural environment of the ancient Mediterranean world, one would convey an idea in a narrative not necessarily by presenting that idea consistently and coherently, but by presenting it repetitively. Mark repetitively (though inconsistently) portrays Jesus as rejecting common markers of honor. The understanding of honor that Mark develops would have been appropriate given the dishonor that many Christians experienced in the wider culture. Mark offers evidence that Christians experienced rejtion as a result of their faith. They would have no hope of achieving honor in the wider public, but they could and did achieve honor according to the standards of the Christian community, standards exemplified by Jesus.


The Influence of George Kennedy on Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Duane Watson, Malone College

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A Reassessment of the Rhetoric of the Epistle of James and Its Implications for Christian Origins
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Duane F. Watson, Malone College

This paper will reassess current understandings of the rhetoric of the Epistle of James and its place in early Christian history. The rhetoric of the Epistle of James will be explored in light of Jewish, Greco-Roman, and emerging early Christian rhetorical strategies that have been identified as playing a role in the epistle. Also explored are the implications that this interplay of rhetorics has for our reconstruction of the audience addressed by the epistle and for broader issues of Christian origins.


The Epistle to the Galatians
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Francis Watson, University of Aberdeen

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Socio-cultural Domains and the Parable of the Sower
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Jonathan Watt, Geneva College

The subject of domains in the context of sociolinguistic research involves investigation into the configuration of “major clusters of socio-ecological co-occurrences” (Joshua Fishman) and their effect upon language choices in multilingual communities. Suzanne Romaine claims that “domains [such as family, friendship and employment] served as anchor points for distinct value systems embodied in the use of” one language code rather than another for particular verbal exchanges. This paper evaluates the implications of sociolinguistic domain theory in connection with the Parable of the Sower (Matt.13:1-23; Mk.4:1-20; Lk.8:4-15) with respect to the following issues: a) the choice of the gospel writers to use Greek as the language of their accounts; b) the potential of using Greek as Jesus himself addressed public crowds in Galilee; c) Jesus’ use of certain conventions and discourse markers having OT/Semitic overtones, especially in the first two gospels’ accounts of the Parable of the Sower (e.g. “Behold,” “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” Jesus’ citation of Isa.6:9-10, and “Hear then the parable”). Whereas the theory of diglossia has tended to imply complementary distribution of codes based on sociological setting – thereby implying that Jesus’ public ministry to Jews in Palestine would ‘normally’ involve Aramaic rather than Greek – more recent studies are demonstrating that a code used in one domain may appear in other, unexpected domains. Hence, embedded within the Parable of the Sower are cues to the possibility that Greek was ‘transgressing’ into situations which once called for Aramaic speech.


The Rhetoric of Sin, Guilt, and Sacrifice in Leviticus 4–7
Program Unit: Biblical Law
James W. Watts, Syracuse University

The hatta’t and ’ašam offerings have been the subject of considerable interpretive debate over their ritual function and the meaning and correct translation of their names. This paper adopts a rhetorical perspective on the regulations of Leviticus 4-7 to uncover the persuasive purpose in naming these offerings with the common Hebrew terms for “sin” and “guilt.” The rhetorical analysis includes consideration of the double list of offerings, in two different sequences, in Lev 1-7 and has consequences for understanding P’s agenda in promulgating these sacrificial regulations in the context of its wider legislation.


Balaam's Hobby Horse: The Animal Motif in the Balaam Traditions
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Kenneth C. Way, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

The Deir Alla plaster texts and Numbers 22-24 are the most substantial textual witnesses regarding the Balaam traditions. The fact that both of these sources exhibit the prominent use of animals indicates that a distinctive feature of the Trans-Jordanian Balaam traditions is the attention given to animal activity/imagery. Not only do both of these texts feature common animals (e.g., birds and donkeys), they both also depict animals using the conventions of role reversal and the attribution of personality. Balaam's preoccupation with the animal world is explained by the likelihood that Balaam was an expert in the interpretation of omens.


The Epistle of Jude
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Robert Webb, McMaster Divinity College

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Shape Shifters and Blame Shifters: Susanna Exposed
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Jane S. Webster, Barton College

Visual art can be used effectively to teach undergraduate students basic principles of interpretation and genre. When students physically engage in the story of Susanna through spontaneous drama, they can easily identify the moral of the story. They can answer the question, "Who is to blame?" They can also appreciate the soap-opera quality of the Jewish novel. When they are confronted with the same story in art, they immediately see how some artists shift the blame from the elders to Susanna. Students can then identify similar strategies in the biblical text, improving their ability to interpret the text. One discipline informs the other.


Two Jesuses, Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus of Jerusalem: Provocative Parallels, Imaginative Imitation
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Theodore J. Weeden, Sr., Rochester, NY

The paper proposes the thesis that Mark was directly dependent upon the story of Jesus son Ananias, cited by Josephus (_Jewish War_, VI. 300-309), for creating de novo the Jewish and Roman trials of Jesus, along with Jesus’death cry (15:37)and the symbolic destruction of the Temple in Mk. 15:38. Evidence in support of this thesis is the following: (1) 23 parallels between the Markan presentation of Jesus and Jesus son of Ananias, (2) almost exact sequencing of order in which 21 of the parallels are presented in Mark’s story of Jesus and the story of Jesus son of Ananias, (3) the parallel between the genre of the passion narrative of Mark’s Jesus and the passion story of Jesus son of Ananias, (4) Mark’s identification of Jesus as “Jesus of Nazareth” or “the Nazarene” at significant points in his narrative in order to distinguish him from Jesus son of Ananias, and (5) the portrayal of Jesus son of Ananias as a latter-day Jeremiah, which was an attraction to Mark for his presentation of Jesus.


Bailey's Theory of Oral Tradition: A Theory Repudiated by Its Evidence
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
Theodore J. Weeden, Sr., Fairport, NY

This paper is a critique of Kenneth Bailey’s theory of “informal controlled oral tradition,” a methodology Bailey contends Middle East village communities, including the earliest Jesus communities in Palestine, practiced throughout history in order to preserve and transmit faithfully their oral tradition in its authentic integrity from generation to generation. However, as the paper will show, close examination of the evidence Bailey presents for his theory reveals that not only does the evidence not support Bailey’s theory, but, rather, it either repudiates the theory or fails to provide cogent support. The paper will reveal that Bailey (1) misrepresents a primary and only extant source upon which he builds his argument, (2) fails to disclose information in that extant source, which devastatingly undermines his theory, (3) offers nine personal anecdotal Middle East experiences which in several cases witness against his theory, and (4) fails to provide independent, empirical and authoritative verification to corroborate the claims he extrapolates from those anecdotal experiences. The paper concludes by submitting that Bailey provides no indisputable evidence that his model of informal controlled oral tradition was ever practiced in the Middle East, past or present. Consequently, until such evidence is forthcoming, it is neither warranted nor reasonable to presume, as Bailey avers, that the Palestinian Jesus communities of the first century CE would have practiced Bailey’s version of informal controlled oral tradition in order to ensure that the Jesus oral tradition was authentically preserved and faithfully transmitted from generation to generation until the Roman-Jewish War.


Hilary of Poitiers and the Pro– Nicene Abandonment of Logos– Sarx Christology
Program Unit: Christian Late Antiquity and Its Reception
Mark Weedman, Crossroads College

In this paper, I will show that crucial moment in the development of Pro – Nicene Christology was its abandonment of the classic “logos – sarx” model of the Incarnation in favor of a “forma servi – forma dei” model governed by a particular exegesis of Philippians 2.6 – 7. I will make my case by examining the thought of Hilary of Poitiers (d. 363). In his early writings, Hilary draws on the Latin version of logos – sarx (i.e. sermo – carne) that he takes from his master Tertullian. After becoming fully engaged in the Homoian controversy and exiled to the East, however, Hilary begins to rely heavily on the forma servi – forma dei model. The reason for this change is Hilary’s conviction that the old model cannot adequately account for the union between the Son’s divinity and humanity and so plays directly into his Homoian opponents’ hands. Hilary believes that forma servi – form dei does allow for the unity between divinity and humanity, which makes it a potent anti – Homoian theological formulation. The example of Hilary is important for two reasons. First, he represents the turning point in Latin Pro – Nicene Christology. His influence in the west is well attested, and it is his exile and subsequent development that helps bring Latin Pro – Nicene thought up to date. Second, the same influences that worked on Hilary, especially Basil of Ancyra, also played a role in the development of Cappdocian Christology, which makes Hilary a witness to a formative period in both the East and the West.


I.O. Lehman, HUC MSS 951–981 and the Jews of Kai Feng
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
David Weisberg, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

This paper contains three parts: (1) a description of the manuscript work of the late I. O. Lehman, Curator of MSS at HUC’s Rare Book Room in Cincinnati; (2) a review of some work by Dr. Lehman and the present author on the biblical manuscripts of the Chinese Jews of Kai Feng; (3) a brief report on the author’s visit to Kai Feng and discussion with a few surviving members of the Jewish community.


Teaching the Preaching of Isaiah
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Andrea Weiss, Hebrew Union College

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Examining a Masoretic Note: Eighty-Letter Verses Starting with Vechol
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Judy Weiss, Jewish Theological Seminary of America

A strange masoretic note appears in our oldest biblical manuscripts and masoretic lists including the Aleppo Codex, the Leningrad Codex and Ochlah W'ochlah. The note lists three verses beginning with the word vechol and composed of exactly eighty letters. This paper will explore a variety of questions related to the note including: why does it list verses beginning with vechol, is there significance to the number eighty, are there other similar notes? In addition, the paper will seek to explain why the note has omitted a fourth verse, Esther 9:3, which also meets the conditions of the note.


Ancient Philosophical-Medical Texts and Eating and Drinking Judgment in 1 Cor 11:29–30
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Annette Weissenrieder, University of Heidelberg

This paper proposes that conceptions of both nutrition and the body in the ancient philosophical-medical texts offer an explanation of the causality in Paul's statement of eating and drinking judgment that results in weakness, sickness, and death in 1 Cor 11:29-30. According to these texts, consuming foods and beverages inappropriate for a particular body causes either depletion resulting in weakness or repletion (excess) resulting in sickness or a bodily imbalance. Death then results from extreme weakness or sickness. This paper proposes that according to ancient body conceptions, Paul's statement appropriately warns the Eucharistic participants in Corinth to avoid these negative judgments by examining their bodily constitution and condition before partaking of the spiritually powerful Eucharistic foods.


Philo on How to Befriend an Emperor
Program Unit: Religion in Roman Egypt
Steven Weitzman, Indiana University at Bloomington

After several decades of imperial rule, Jews in Alexandria were well aware of how dangerous a foe the Roman emperor could be. Like other imperial subjects, however, they could also turn to the emperor as a patron and protector of their civic status and religious institutions. This paper will use Philo's Embassy to Gaius to explore what it took for the Jewish community of Alexandria to secure the friendship of the emperor, how it aligned his interests and perspective with its own. One challenge for those seeking to win over the emperor in this way was how to create the like-mindedness considered essential to friendship as conceptualized in the Greco-Roman period--how to play down the cultural and religious differences between the Jews and the emperor and magnify their affinities. Another was how to differentiate oneself from that slippery figure notorious for disguising himself as a friend, the flatterer, who feigned friendship but was really an enemy. Philo found ways to overcome both rhetorical challenges, this paper will argue, and his efforts illumine the survival of Jewish religious life in Roman Alexandria.


Law, Magic, Miracles, and the Trial of Jesus
Program Unit: Biblical Law
John W. Welch, Brigham Young University

Popular reports of Jesus’s miracles may well have laid him open, under both Jewish and Roman law, to allegations of illegal wonderworking. His conduct could warrant the death penalty under Ex 22:17, Lev 20:27, or Dt 13:5. Deuteronomy 13 outlaws the use of miracles, signs or wonders by purported prophets to mislead the people. Members of the Sanhedrin were required to have sufficient knowledge to distinguish permissible uses of wonderworking from impermissible uses of magic. Similarly, Roman law held that magic (maleficium, kakon) and certain forms of spell casting or divination were also capital crimes. Allegations of magic were often combined with legal charges of treason or sedition (maiestas) in criminal trials in Rome during the latter years of the reign of Tiberius. The legal meanings of such terms as planos in Matt 27:62 (see also John 7:12, Rev 12:9; 19:20) and kakon or kakopoios (maleficus) in John 18:30 subject Jesus to judicial concerns that his words and deeds left him culpable as an unlawful magician. While many factors propelled his arrest and execution, behind these scenes were deep-seated fears. People in positions of established authority feared robbers, blasphemers, and revolutionaries, and these charges were elements in the trial of Jesus (see Mark 14:48, 64; 15:26). But more than that, ancient people were deeply ambivalent about the tapping of supernatural powers. Some observers found miracles impressive, but others found them worrisome and fearful (Mark 5:15). Jesus’s widespread reputation as a miracle worker would have been unsettling to the chief priests, as well as to Pontius Pilate. More threatening than political or economic powers, with which Jesus was not armed, his miraculous powers would have been seen as a serious threat to the Temple in Jerusalem and to Roman interests in Judea.


Theoretical Mysteries, Lived Identities: Redescribing Voluntary Cults in Graeco-Roman Antiquity
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Tennyson J. Wellman, University of Pennsylvania

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Messiah for All: Encounters with the Spirit in Acts 2 and 10
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Susan Wendel, McMaster University

Scholars of Christian origins frequently interpret Luke-Acts as a straightforward story of supersession, a tale of the birth of the church and the end of God’s patience with Israel. Other specialist studies of the book, however, note the complexity of Luke’s depiction of the ultimate fate of the Jewish people. In some instances, Luke indicts the Jews for their unbelief and obduracy. Yet, elsewhere, he appears to reaffirm Israel’s place in God’s plan. Are the Jewish people rejected in the account, or does this story of the church’s incipience emerge as an apology for the consummation of Israel’s hopes? Drawing upon literary approaches to the Hebrew Bible and Greco-Roman texts, this paper will focus on the narrative analogy between the action of the Spirit in Acts 2 and 10. I will propose that attentiveness to the parallels in the two passages is essential for understanding Luke’s representation of both Israel’s fate and the salvation of the Gentiles. Narratological analysis will suggest that the links between these two eschatologically oriented passages are so marked as to provoke the reader to explore the connections between the salvation of the first Gentile and the initial descent of the Spirit. Even as the similarity of the two episodes demonstrates God’s equal treatment of Jews and Gentiles, the analogy that Luke draws between Acts 2 and 10 elicits a more complex interpretation of their import, especially as it relates to the destiny of Israel and the salvation of the nations. The repetition of key words, themes, and motifs generates a fusion between these two Spirit episodes; taken together, they portray the fulfillment of God’s promises to restore Israel and bring “light to the nations.”


Contested Temple Space and Visionary Kingdom Space in Mark’s Gospel
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Karen Wenell, Open Theological College

In light of Mark’s position as the earliest gospel, there is good reason for investigating the spaces of the temple and the kingdom in the text in order to better understand Jesus’ interaction with and understanding of them. In chapters 11-12, Jesus not only undertakes the particular action of overturning tables in the temple, but he also teaches in the temple and engages in debate and discussion with religious and political authorities (scribes, chief priests, elders, Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees). These actions, located in a sacred place, draw attention to the contested nature of temple. According to Setha Low and Denise Lawrence– Lawrence-Zúñiga, contested spaces “give material expression to and act as loci for creating and promulgating, countering and negotiating dominant cultural themes that find expression in myriad aspects of social life” (p 245). In Mark, the temple is such a place. Issues important to social life are raised through protest, teaching and questions. Even the scribe’s agreement with Jesus over the greatest commandments makes relative the importance of sacrifice at the very place it is carried out. The contestation of values present in chapters 11-12 leads up to the statement at the beginning of chapter 13 where Jesus declares that the temple will be torn down, stone by stone. Having looked at particular actions in the temple in Mark’s gospel, the paper sets them in the wider context of the kingdom, which is the major spatial image employed by Jesus. As a millenarian prophet, he offers the space of the kingdom as an alternative to a temple-centred arrangement, and I will demonstrate that alternative values (including ones encountered in chapters 11-12) accompany this visionary space. S. M. Low and D. Lawrence-Zúñiga, eds., The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).


“The Kingdom” as Sacred and Social Space of the Future
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Karen Wenell, Open Theological College

Because it is not fully realised in the present, physical world, the concept of ‘the kingdom’ utilised by the Historical Jesus (and characteristic of his message) has defied definition as a space even though it is interpreted in later contexts (whether labelled apocalyptic, chiliastic, or millenarian) as an expected future reality. Recently, Halvor Moxnes has understood the kingdom as an “imagined place,” visualised as a household. His work constitutes an important application of spatial theory to ancient texts, focussing on the transformation of the present for Jesus and his followers through the articulation of a new space. However, the kingdom is also part of future expectations, and may be examined for its sacred and social character in millenarian context. Utilising insights from social anthropology and spatial theory, the paper will define the kingdom as sacred and social space. Anthropological perspectives on space illuminate ways that meaning is given to place, and are helpful for defining the kingdom spatially. As religiously significant space, the kingdom is connected to beliefs and to the presence of God. It is not a place of human origin or creation. And yet, religious individuals, namely followers of Jesus, must behave in certain ways and accept certain values in order to enter the kingdom. Thus, the kingdom is constructed and defined in social ways even as its sacred character is revealed. Lefebvre’s rhetorical question might well be applied to the kingdom: “Are there myths and symbols outside of a mythic and symbolic place which is also determined as practical? Doubtless not.” Defining the kingdom as sacred and social space, I will demonstrate practical ways that the expectation of the kingdom determines social behaviour in the present for Jesus and his followers in early tradition. H. Lefebvre, la production de la espace (Paris: editions anthropos, 1974), 140.


A Reconsideration of the Septuagint Version of 1 Samuel 17
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Jan-Wim Wesselius, Theological University Kampen

It has often been noted that the MT and LXX versions of the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 exhibit enormous differences, and a lot of energy has been spent on attempting to demonstrate which one of the two versions is the original one. In this paper, I will attempt to show that the MT version shows chapters 16 and 17 as a coherent pair of two parallel and contrasting versions of the account of how David came to be at the court of king Saul, and that this literary picture shows that the LXX version is secondary to the MT in any case, though it can be argued that its literary merits are greater.


The Hermopolis Aramaic Correspondence Revisited
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Jan-Wim Wesselius, Theological University Kampen

The Aramaic letters found in Hermopolis in 1945 and published by Edda Bresciani and Murad Kamil in 1966 have been commented upon many times, but one aspect has not yet received the attention which it deserves. As the letters never arrived at their various destinations, but were nearly all written by one scribe, they allow us to sketch a literary profile of this scribe which in turn makes it possible to improve on reading and interpretation of the letters in a number of places.


Legal Responses to Witchcraft in Cuneiform Literature
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Raymond Westbrook, Johns Hopkins University

The legal responses to witchcraft found in the cuneiform sources vary considerably. Sometimes the law is extremely harsh and at other times remarkably lenient. The explanation may lie in two factors that determined the quality of the offence. First, witchcraft could be regarded as an offence against an individual or one against the gods. Second, the sorcerer could be an amateur or a professional.


Blessed Be the Ties That Bind: Semantic Domains and Chains in Hebrews 1:1–4:16
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Cynthia Long Westfall, McMaster Divinity College

Semantic domains can be utilized to answer certain questions and solve certain interpretive problems. The book of Hebrews has been incongruously characterized as both a literary masterpiece and a discourse riddled by digressions, indicating a perceived lack of cohesion and coherence. The identification of semantic domains and the related interaction of semantic chains in Hebrews 1:1-4:16 is essential in the recognition of cohesion, coherence, unit topics and one of the primary discourse themes. The overlapping semantic domains of PROFHTHS, AGGELOS and APOSTOLOS provide explicit cohesive links in 1:1-2:4 and 3:1. The interaction between prophets, angels and Jesus as apostle with the semantic chains of speech assist in identifying discourse topics and theme in Hebrews 1:1-4:16.


Signs of the Times: Present and Future Theological Faculty
Program Unit: Graduate Biblical Studies: Ethos and Discipline
Barbara Wheeler, Auburn Theological Seminary

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Arab Prophets Outside of the Quran
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Brannon Wheeler, University of Washington

Examination of literary, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Arab prophets Hud, Salih, and Shuayb.


A Tale of Two Paradigms: The "Tiberian Accents" as Analyzed by the Masoretes and by Suzanne Haik-Vantoura
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
John H. Wheeler, King David's Harp, Inc.

It is generally conceded that the "Tiberian" accents (te`amim) of our present Masoretic Text have three functions. They indicate the melodic rendition of the biblical text; they indicate the interrelationship of words within the text and thus act as an exegetical aid; and they mark the positions of the word stresses within the text. Most of the debate over the original meaning (and therefore the origin, age and state of preservation) of the te`amim has revolved around this question: are the te`amim primarily musical, or primarily exegetical? In 1976, Suzanne Haik-Vantoura first proposed a radically new interpretation of the te`amim. Her “deciphering key” was derived from an analysis of the accentuation vis-à-vis the Hebrew verbal syntax, as based on the premise that the te`amim are primarily musical. Her “key” still stands as the first and only complete explanation of the physical features of the accentuation and its relationship to the verbal text. Haik-Vantoura pointed out in passing what few have yet considered. The Masoretic interpretation of (and nomenclature for) the te`amim may likewise be explained as a “deciphering key” derived from an analysis of the accentuation vis-à-vis the Hebrew verbal syntax, this time as based on the premise that the te`amim are primarily exegetical. Yet analysis from this premise has never led to a complete explanation of the physical features of the accentuation or of its relationship to the verbal text. In effect, Haik-Vantoura’s paradigm and that of the Masoretes are mirror-images of each other. Far from supporting the idea that the Masoretes invented the “Tiberian” accentuation, a comparison of these paradigms indirectly supports the Masorete Moshe ben Asher’s claims of an ancient age and priestly origin for the accentuation – which was then misunderstood, reinterpreted and even text-criticized by the Masoretes and later grammarians.


Negotiating Sacred Space: Social Integrationin the Synagogue and Other Religious Associations at Ostia Antica
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
L. Michael White, University of Texas at Austin

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The War Herem as Sacrifice
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in its Ancient Context
Henrietta L. Wiley, Denison University

The cultic imperative of the herem, the irreversible devotion of offerings to the deity, can be seen in a number of biblical texts, but especially in war narratives where human lives as well as property are destroyed on account of this command. Although the herem is clearly considered a part of cultic law, debate continues over whether the war herem may accurately be categorized as sacrifice. In this paper I will suggest criteria for an Israelite category of sacrifice, show how the war herem conforms to them, and discuss why it matters.


"He Alone of All My Kin": Kinship Theory, Roman Kinship, and Perpetua
Program Unit: Early Christian Families
David Wilhite, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

Using kinship theories of social anthropology coupled with the recent studies on Roman kinship by ancient historians, I will explore the numerous references to Perpetua's kinship in "The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas." Kinship theory in social anthropology has taken a drastic turn in the last few decades in which the western bias towards 'biological kin' or consanguinity has been demystified. Now, kinship identity is an embodied, engendered, ethnicized element of a socio-political context. Bringing this understanding to Roman studies compliments recent work that has sought to overcome the bias towards legal texts which do not reflect the social dynamic recorded in the literary and epigraphic sources. When Perpetua's martyrdom is read with these understandings, her kinship networks can be better appreciated and interpreted, insights which have been hindered by the inappropriate distinctions of 'kinship,' 'class,' 'ethnicity,' 'religion' and 'politics' in the past.


Ethnicity and the Archaeological Record: The Case of Early Israel
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
William Dever, University of Arizona

The question of whether "ethnicity" can be determined on the basis of the archaeological record is one of the most hotly contested issues in worldwide archaeology today. Yet the current "politically correct" view is basically negative -- indeed, the very concept of "ethnicity" is rejected as "racist." This paper will use the emergence of the highland peoples of Canaan in the early Iron Age as a case study. It will marshal recent archaeological evidence to characterize these peoples as of indigenous Canaanite origins, yet on their way to becoming "Proto-Israelites." All of the cultural "trait-lists" that are reflected in the archaeological record show the continuity of these peoples from the 13th/12th centuries BCE into the 10th - early 6th centuries BCE. By that time, the Hebrew Bible, as well as Aramean, Moabite, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian records demonstrate without question the existence of an "Israelite" state and national self-identity. The result of our analysis will support consensus scholarship, in contradistinction to the radical skepticism of biblical and some archaeological "revisionists," who either ignore or distort the pertinent archaeological data.


A Re-evaluation of the Role of the Early Versions in New Testament Textual Criticism
Program Unit: New Testament Textual Criticism
P. J. Williams, University of Aberdeen

Although Metzger tells us that it is hard to overestimate the importance of the early versions, recent research shows that such an overestimation has frequently occurred in their use as witnesses to the Greek original. Due to the discovery of early Greek papyri and to the recognition that some versional variants are merely translational, the role played by the versions within the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (27th edition) is considerably smaller than the role they played in editions of the 19th century. However, versions are still being overconfidently assigned as support to variant Greek readings. Illustration of this will be given by considering the citation of Coptic, Latin and Syriac within the Nestle-Aland edition, showing high error rates, including a rate of 28% in the citation of the Peshitta in Romans. It may be estimated that the number of versional citations in such a manual edition needs to shrink by between one fifth and one quarter if overconfident citation is to be avoided. Re-evaluation of the versions also necessitates re-evaluation of the estimations of Greek manuscripts made upon assumptions of the level of versional support they have.


Rhetorical Finesse in a Block of Lament Psalms: Psalms 54–57
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
John T. Willis, Abilene Christian University

The poets of Psalms 54-57 struggle because of threats, fears, oppressions of enemies. Recurring themes and terms in the present order of these psalms give them unique rhetorical power for oral persuasion, including: (1)pleas for God to hear the author's prayers (54:2; 55:1-2; 56:1; 57:1); (2) description of ways enemies afflict the composer (54:3; 55:2-15, 20-21; 56:1-2, 5-6; 57:4, 6); (3) affirmations that God is the psalmist's helper (54:4; 55:22; 56:3-4, 8-11), deliverer (54:7; 56:13; 57:1-3), savior (55:16-19), etc.; (4) request that God curse the psalmist's enemies (54:5; 55:9,15, 23; 56:7; 57:3); (5) proclamation that the poet will offer vows, sacrifices, and thanksgivings he promised (54:6; 56:12; 57:7-11); (6) choruses (56:4 and 11; 57:5 and 11). Rhetorical goals are to persuade God to protect the victimized, to unleash divine energy to defeat enemies, and to bolster courage within the psalmist and his faith community. [Note: versification follows the NRSV].


Reflections on "Genre," the Parables of Enoch, and the Epistle of Enoch
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Lawrence M. Wills, Episcopal Divinity School

For ten years the Wisdom and Apocalypticism Group has tried to bring together categories that are too often kept separate in the Society of Biblical Literature: wisdom and apocalypticism, ancient Judaism and early Christianity, historical studies, literary studies, and sociological analysis, analysis on the objects of study (ancient texts) and reflection on the subjects who study them (scholars). In that spirit, the present contribution attempts to step back from the debates on the genre of sapiential and apocalyptic texts and reflect on the presuppositions of genre analysis, and also to discuss the Parables of Enoch and the Epistle of Enoch with this reflection in mind. The goal is not to provide a comprehensive guide to the concept of genre, nor to present a detailed analysis of these two parts of 1 Enoch, but to explore whether the reflective phase and the analytical phase can be mutually illuminating. One thesis of this presentation is that we often ask the wrong questions of genre analysis, and another thesis is that the problems of genre concerning sapiential and apocalyptic texts are nearly universal to literary analysis.


Formulas of Response and the Unification of the Book of Job
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Gerald H. Wilson, Azusa Pacific University

The question of the unity of the Book of Job has a long history with varied and conflicting responses. How one understands the relationships between the clearly distinguished constituent elements of the book—prose prologue and epilogue; the dialogue between Job and the three friends; the wisdom poem of chapter 28; the Elihu monologues; the divine theophany and Job’s submission—affects the way one arranges these elements and ultimately determines how one reads the book and its intended message. There have been radical readings that eliminate the Elihu speeches altogether as a late intrusion. Others, including David Clines, have suggested a reordering of elements to place Elihu immediately after the three friends with chapter 28 serving as Elihu’s conclusion. This allows Job’s concluding affidavit of innocence and call for his day in court to be immediately matched by God’s response in theophanic appearance. This paper considers the evidence offered by the formulas employed throughout the book to introduce the speech of newcomers or to continue the discourse of a current speaker. These formulas exhibit several different shapes associated with distinctive purposes. The investigation discovers that although the distribution of the various formulas may confirm the late intrusion of the Elihu speeches, they also indicate an editorial attempt to incorporate those materials into a unified vision of the whole book in its final form. This editorial vision extends beyond the poetic discourses at the core of the book to stitch all together with the outer prose framework, and suggest in addition a particular significance to the concluding interaction between God and Job.


Are the Prophetic Stories in Kings Deuteronomistic?
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Robert R. Wilson, Yale University

Since the beginning of critical biblical scholarship in the nineteenth century, scholars have noted that the prophetic stories in Kings lie somewhat uneasily within their present literary and theological contexts. Wellhausen already noted that the stories reflect religious practices that do not seem to be in harmony with the theology of Deuteronomy, and he used that fact to argue that the stories pre-dated the later Deuteronomistic reform. A similar position was held by Gunkel, who pointed to the oral features of the stories and argued that they were earlier than their present context in Kings. A similar position was held by Noth, who also argued for the traditional character of the stories but who thought that some of them had been shaped, at least in part, by a Deuteronomistic hand. More recent scholarship has been divided on the issue, with some agreeing with Wellhausen and Gunkel and others allowing for various types of Deuteronomistic influence, ranging from the use of Deuteronomistic frameworks to the use of more thorough Deuteronomistic editing. This paper reexamines the question of Deuteronomistic editing in the prophetic stories and argues that Deuteronomistic editing is both more pervasive and more subtle than previously thought.


Issues of Interpretation in Philo’s De Virtutibus
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Walter Wilson, Emory University

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History of ISS; Sketch of Proposed Research Projects
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Vincent Wimbush, Claremont Graduate University

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Inaugurating a Conversation and Research Agenda
Program Unit: Signifying (on) Scriptures
Vincent Wimbush, Claremont Graduate University

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The Elijah-Elisha Narrative at Work in Luke-Acts: A Review of 'The Birthing'
Program Unit: Formation of Luke and Acts
Mikael Winninge, Umea University

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Moses' Sexual Renunciation among Jewish and Christian Sages
Program Unit: Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
Karen Strand Winslow, Azusa Pacific University

A survey of early Jewish and Christian interpretive literature indicates that Christian sages adapted the Jewish tradition that Moses renounced sex. The writings of Aphrahat, Ephrem, Jerome, and other Christian sages of late antiquity demonstrate that influential Christians inherited the Jewish and pagan view that contact with God precluded sexual contact with humans. This perspective needed to be explained to Jews and Christians, given that their Scriptures begin with God commanding humankind to “be fruitful and multiply.” Jewish commentary (the Qumran scrolls, Philo, and rabbinic Midrashim) appealed to passages in which Moses forbade sex to men preparing to meet God (Exod 19.15-17; see also 1 Sam 21.4).In this paper, I explore transmission of the notion of Moses’ sexual renunciation in these texts and discuss its relationship to the promotion of sexual continence among Christians.


Joining for Judges: Developing Tools for Hebrew RRG
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
Nicolai Winther-Nielsen, Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology (DBI)

Nicolai Winther-Nielsen, member of the Amsterdam WIVU team, will present results from joining forces with programmers in order to develop software and test it on the Book of Judges The paper will show how linguistic tools can stimulate research within a sophisticated linguistic framework such as Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). Developers and programs are: Ulrik Petersen: a tool to build tree analyses in RRG. Linguistic Tree Constructor (LTC) is a Windows software tool for drawing syntax trees using point-and-click. Greek, Hebrew, and many other languages are supported, as well as a variety of linguistic theories. LTC is useful for both teaching-purposes and linguistic research. Interlinear text is well supported. Chris Wilson: a tool to build a Logical Structure lexicon. Logical Structure Constructor (LSC) is a web-based application for RRG parsing of Hebrew assisted by annotated text and a lexicon. Annotation can be provided in any format supported by the Emdros database, or inferred using grammatical rules (templates) stored in the lexicon. The application allows browsing and modifying the text, annotations and lexicon. Elizabeth Guest: tools to parse and display Hebrew. A new parser based on Role and Reference Grammar consists of two parts. RRGDraw allows the user to specify parsing templates in the form of trees. RRGParse uses these templates to parse sentences, and it easily handles languages with varying word order flexibility. Steve Bartram and Christopher Samuel: a specialized research and display program. The Biblical Analysis and Research Tool (BART) can present the Hebrew text by marking with tags or proposition divisions. The project explores how a new BART OT version might interact with the Emdros database and with ongoing analysis of Judges and work in RRG. Other programs are used as well, especially SESB for which the reader is the super user in Denmark.


The Historical Glutton and Drunkard: On the Purpose and Function of Q 7:34
Program Unit: Q
Stephan Witetschek, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

There seems to be widespread consensus among scholars that Q 7:34 contains historically reliable information about an insult directed against Jesus, since Christians are hardly likely to have invented that naming. One may wonder, however, why then such an abusive coinage was worth transmitting and how it is to be interpreted in the wider context of Q 7:18-35, where the focus is primarily on John the Baptist.


Ecclesiastes as a Model for Feminist Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Lisa M. Wolfe, United Theological Seminary

Qohelet (the “author” of the biblical book Ecclesiastes) and feminists have in common a suspicious approach to their texts and traditions. Qohelet sees that reality does not always reflect his ideology that God will enforce retribution, and so he encounters a severe challenge to his view of divine justice. He concludes therefore that “everything is absurdity,” illustrating this with a rhetorical strategy that places “the way things should be” and “the way things are” in stark contrast. He repeatedly points out the chasm between tradition and experience in the area of divine justice, provoking his audience to a hermeneutic of suspicion, and offering only the diversion of “seizing the day” as recourse. Feminists have similarly found that their experiences raise questions about tradition and text, and therefore also read with a hermeneutic of suspicion. As a canonical expression of such skeptical reading, Qohelet’s writing functions as a model for the project of feminist hermeneutics. This paper illustrates that point by describing a fruitful dialogue between Qohelet and contemporary feminist theologian Wendy Farley on the topic of divine justice.


That’s My Line: Historiography and the Control of the Prophetic Word in Samuel-Kings
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Lissa Wray Beal, Providence Theological Seminary

In the final form of Samuel-Kings, kings are evaluated by two primary criteria: their adherence to Deuteronomistically-prescribed worship, and their obedience to the prophetic word. Beginning with the Jehu narrative (2 Kings 9 and 10), in which these criteria stand in tension, this paper presents a third evaluative criterion, one that not only succeeds in denying Jehu’s legitimacy as king, but also suggests an embedded historiographic commitment. This criterion concerns the control of the prophetic word, that is, who may both validly proclaim it, and assert its fulfillment. Examination shows that this new criterion for kingly legitimation extends beyond the Jehu narrative, is consistent throughout Samuel-Kings, and key kings such as David, Solomon, and Josiah (who are paradigmatically linked to Jehu) demonstrate it. Compiling and assessing the instances in which (1) the prophetic word is proclaimed and then (2) asserted fulfilled, this paper shows that the Deuteronomist’s narrator is given primary control of the prophetic word. Kings may legitimately use the prophetic word if they stand in agreement with the Deuteronomistic worldview. Kings in opposition to this worldview who attempt to control the prophetic word (and only Jehu stands in this category) are considered usurpers of that word and are disapproved. In this, the Deuteronomist exhibits a historiographic control of the prophetic word that governs the writings in Samuel-Kings, drawing them together as a thematic and historiographic unity.


Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism and Christianity: How Far Have We Gotten in Ten Years?
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Benjamin G. Wright, Lehigh University

This paper seeks to assess the landscape of scholarship on wisdom and apocalypticism, in response to and on the basis of the publication of some of the work of this Group over the past ten years.


The Motif of “Seeking-and-Finding” in Ezra-Nehemiah
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Jacob Wright, University of Heidelberg

The book of Ezra-Neh presents the Persian rulers “searching” in their royal archives and “discovering” documents which directly inform their policies regarding the construction of Jerusalem (Ezra 4:15, 19; 5:17; 6:1-2). Similarly, the Judeans themselves “seek” and “find” in their writings the proper way to proceed with the re-establishment of Judah (Ezra 2:62; Neh 7:5, 64; 8:14; 13:1). The present paper investigates this motif of “seeking-and-finding” in EN with the aim of better understanding the intention of its authors in employing the motif to draw analogies between the Persian and Judean method of policy-making. Specifically, the paper examines (1) the origins of this motif, (2) the different literary and conceptual levels on which it functions in EN, and (3) the unity which it imparts to the overarching narrative of the book.


Animal Allegories and Animal Worship in the Literature of Alexandrian Judaism
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Jed Wyrick, California State University, Chico

This paper will examine the ways Alexandrian Jewish authors describe Jewish and Egyptian cultural valuations of animals. I will attempt to ascertain why discussions of the prohibition against eating unclean animals stand among the first examples of allegory preserved in Jewish Alexandrian writings. What connection did such allegorization have to Egyptian religious practices, and how can it help explain the development of allegory in Jewish Alexandria? Next, I will explore positive valuations of the ibis and Moses’ role in the consecration of Egypt’s sacred animals as found in the fragments of Artapanus, as well as positive treatments of the crocodile and the merits of reptiles in Philo’s “On Providence.” Part of this discussion will involve a new theory about the enmity of the ibis and the serpent found in Artapanus and Josephus’ histories of Moses in Ethiopia. This analysis is crucial in interpreting the history of the Alexandrian Jewish treatment of animal worship in Egypt. Rather than interpret Artapanus’ Moses as an example of Jewish syncretism, I will argue that it represents both a refutation of the anti-Jewish slander of Manetho and a dispassionate theory of the origin of Egyptian religion based in the interpretation of biblical passages. Other questions to be addressed include the following: how and why did the Jewish perspective on animal worship evolve, from Artapanus to Wisdom of Solomon and Philo? In contrast to the polemic against animal worship, which reaches a peak with Philo, the polemic against idol worship is greatest in the Wisdom of Solomon, but receives considerably less censure in many statements of Philo. Why was Philo sometimes more tolerant of idolatry than animal worship?


Morph Unicode Hebrew Database Integration for a Layered Clause Parser
Program Unit: Computer Assisted Research
George W. Yaeger, Aster Institute

The previous pesentations of the ASTER Layered Hebrew Clause Parser used an non Unicode font which did not incoporate cantillation marks in the surface forms. Recently the Westminster Hebrew Institute has develop the first Unicode version of their Morph database. This database will be incorporated seamlessly into the ASTER parser and allow the user to select either Unicode or non-Unicode Hebrew data via a simple radio button selection. The impact of the new data on the analysis of cantillation marks will also be address as well as its impact on translation assistance for exegesis or field translation.


Constructing Hybridity and Heterogeneity in Asian American Biblical Interpretation
Program Unit: Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics
Frank M. Yamada, Seabury Theological Seminary

In this paper, I will propose trajectories for a later-generation Asian American hermeneutic. I contend that Asian American interpretation and theology must move beyond essentialist notions of culture and the binary opposition assumed between what is Asian and American. I will show that prominent themes in Asian American theologies such as marginality and liminality are best viewed within the dislocations of an immigrant ethos. While this is an important context within which Asian American theological discourse can emerge, it is not the only context. I will argue that later generation Asian American biblical interpretation should stress hybridity and heterogeneity in its constructions of identity and in its interpretation of texts. The paper will explore some possible avenues for later generation Asian American biblical interpretation, providing some examples of a hybridous or heterogeneous approach to reading the biblical material.


Recent Reconstructions of James' Reception History: A Critical Review and Assessment
Program Unit: Methodological Reassessments of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Jonathan P. Yates, Katholieke Universteit Leuven

Recently, several scholars have reinvigorated the discussion surrounding the circumstances of the Epistle of James’ reception into the various Christian communities in both the East and the West. One such example is L.T. Johnson and his Brother of Jesus, Friend of God Studies in the Letter of James (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2004). My paper will focus on Johnson’s chapter entitled “How James Won the West: A Chapter in the History of Canonization” (cf. pp.84-100). I will contend that Johnson’s reconstruction, which both overuses doubtful evidence and overlooks or omits more certain data, is, at best, very questionable and, at worst, wholly untenable—especially when viewed from an historical standpoint. By doing so, I hope to move toward re-introducing the proper degree of complexity into the status quaestionis regarding James’ reception in the Latin church prior to the last quarter of the 4th-centuy. Obviously, this is relevant to research on James in that it (re-)places the burden on those (like Johnson) who would argue for knowledge of James in Rome and the West of the 1st- and 2nd-centuries and asks them to explain how James, if it ever was in fact accepted as authoritative, could have fallen out of use and have remained (apparently) unknown to all western authors between the time of the Canon Muratori (ca. 170-200; which, by the way, in spite of being accepted by Johnson as Roman (cf., p.90), is not integrated into his argument) and the so-called Cheltenham List (ca. 360).


The Battle of Qarqar in Light of Recent Research
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Trinity International University

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and evaluate recent developments in the understanding of the battle of Qarqar through the use of intertextual and quantitative study. Nine different Neo-Assyrian exemplars attest to the battle of Qarqar in Shalmaneser III’s inscriptions. Recent publications of “Horse Lists” enable closer analysis of the Assyrian army’s fighting capacity. Three particular problems will be addressed: (1) the number of participants in the coalition at the battle, (2) the identification of the allies participating (including, of course, Ahab the Israelite), and (3) the numbers of chariots, cavalry and troops ascribed to the coalition kings.


New Readings in the Second Column of the Hexapla Palimpsest from Ambrosiana Library in Milan
Program Unit: Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
Alexey (Eliyahu) Yuditsky, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel

The tradition of the Second Column of the "Hexapla" which is a Greek transliteration of the biblical text is important for the history of Biblical Hebrew. Most of the material has been preserved in the palimpsest that was discovered at 1894 in Ambrosiana library in Milan by Cardinal Mercati. He published scientific edition of the manuscript year after its discovery. A second edition containing new readings was published at 1959 after his death. All the scholars that dealt with the Hebrew Tradition of the "Hexapla" relied on Mercati readings without examining the original manuscript. Therefore a checkout of the palimpsest was in order. Thanks to the aid of Ben-Gurion University and the assistance of vice-director of Ambrosiana Mons. Dr. Cesare Pasini at September 2004 I checked the palimpsest using magnifying glass. It was find out that number of Mercati's readings needs to be corrected. For example Mercati's astounding word ?s?ßß???? should be read ?s?ßß???? that fits properly phonology and morphology of Biblical Hebrew. Nonetheless substantial number of the letters in the palimpsest is covered by the new text and only new techniques of the photography can allow a full and certain edition of Ambrosiana manuscript.


Beyond the Etnach: Using Cantillation Marks in the Teaching of Biblical Hebrew
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Naama Zahavi-Ely, College of William and Mary

Any teacher who guides beginning students in the art of reading Biblical texts in Hebrew knows that, even when each word had been identified and analyzed correctly, one can still get nonsense translations if one groups words incorrectly. The lack of punctuation such as commas contributes to the difficulty students face. The Biblical text comes with its own set of markings that break each verse into segments -- the cantillation marks (te'amim). But the cantillation marks cannot be used as the simple equivalents of modern punctuation marks – they have their own, different logic. Over the last several years, I have developed a simplified system of using cantillation marks to break the Biblical text into sense-segments. I don’t require my students to master fully yet another set of overwhelmingly strange symbols, or the terminology of emperors, kings, princes, ministers and servents. I have found that one or two very simple directions can guide my students in using the te’amim to achieve sensible breakdowns of the vast majority of texts; this method has proved to be very helpful indeed in my first- and secone-year Biblical Hebrew classes. I would like to introduce this simple system and the logic behind it to my colleagues, with examples.


Multiple Speaking Voices in the Book of Jeremiah: A Survey of a Poetic Convention and Its Effects
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Naama Zahavi-Ely, College of William and Mary

I suggest that multiplicity and ambiguity of speaking voices is a poetic convention in Biblical Hebrew poetry. This convention can be found in all genres of Biblical Hebrew poetry and achieves a variety of effects. The multiplicity of speaking voices is particularly well suited to the presentation of ongoing relationships from several viewpoints at the same time. This paper will survey the use of multiple speaking voices in the poetic portions of the Book of Jeremiah. The paper will contrast the heavy use of multiple voices in prophecies directed to Israel/Judaea/Jerusalem with the paucity of such usage in prophecies addressed to the nations. It will then investigate the use of multiple and changing speakers in expressions of anger, sorrow, lamentation, comfort and promise.


Archaeology of Roman Palestine
Program Unit: Social-Scientific Studies of the Second Temple Period
Juergen Zangenberg, Universiteit van Tilburg

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Rabbinic Play with Ethics, Words, and Worlds
Program Unit: Midrash
Holger M. Zellentin, Princeton University

All Rabbis considered their Bible a holy text. Most Rabbis considered the transmitted words of some other Rabbis as equally holy. We know that the Rabbis’ main exegetical focus was set not on what these holy writings originally meant to their authors, but what they really mean to those reading them. The structuralists and post-structuralists have illuminated the Rabbinic reading strategies and have tried to uncover the hermeneutic rules at work. The open-endedness of rabbinic interpretation has been firmly established. I propose to focus on play as determining factor of both freedom and restraint in exegesis as well as in the Aggadah. Play can be described as a juggling of alternate worlds. It necessitates a certain detachment from one’s immediate reality. In the case of the Rabbis, play can mean play with words, with meaning, and with the ideological limits of their culture, and thus a minimal objective distance from their holy texts. Without thinking in terms of play, Daniel Boyarin, David Stern and others have shown us how the meaning of the Bible can be the subject of extensive rabbinic play. Jonah Frenkel presented rabbinic word plays and Barry Wimpfheimer and others have made us aware of how the limits of the permissible in rabbinic culture are explored in a playful way—equally without using the term. My work has shown, through several examples, how ethical discussions were staged as plays in rabbinic narrative. In the present talk, I will bundle these hitherto only loosely connected strings of the paradigm of playfulness, name and describe it, and try to evaluate how prominently it figu res in the development of the rabbinic literature.


Jewish Antiquity in Contemporary Israeli Memory: A Cultural Perspective
Program Unit: Mapping Memory: Tradition, Texts, and Identity
Yael Zerubavel, Rutgers University

An analysis of the appropriation of the ancient Jewish past in Israeli national memory


Rabbinic Interpretations of Elijah as a Reflection of a Conflict over Authority
Program Unit: History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
Karin Hedner-Zetterholm, Lund University

In the attempt to establish for themselves the religious authority that had previously belonged to others, the early rabbinic movement ”rabbinized” biblical figures as well as contemporary charismatics, since individuals such as charismatics, miracle-workers or prophets claiming access to God outside of the rabbinic structure presented a challenge to the rabbis’ claims to authority. This paper explores the rabbinic interpretations of Elijah as a means to deal with the challenge posed by non-rabbinic groups. Since Elijah was both a prophet and a model for charismatic figures of the first century, the rabbis may have felt a need to rescue him from the charismatics and incorporate him into the rabbinic system. He gradually develops from prophet to rabbi, thus reflecting the self-perception of the rabbis. In addition, the rabbinic interpretations of Elijah reflect an intra-rabbinic debate between those who wanted to attribute a greater importance to the supra-human authority in matters of halakhah and those who were in favor of settling halakhic issues by way of reason. The rabbis’ attempt to establish their religious authority is thus reflected in a variety of ways in their interpretations of Elijah. This is revealed in a chronological study of the interpretations of Elijah, an aspect that is not evident from previous non-chronological studies.


Jews, Christians, and Gentiles: Rethinking the Categorization within the Early Jesus Movement
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Magnus Zetterholm, Lund University

The increasing awareness during the last decades, of the complexity of the early Jesus movement has not led to a corresponding problematization of the terminology used in contemporary studies. The fact that the early Jesus movement was made up of Jews and Gentiles is often eclipsed by the use of the designations ”Christian,” and “Christianity” which rather implies one religiously homogeneous group. ”Jewish Christianity” is still used to denote a more or less heretic, and marginalized faction within the ”Christian” movement that still (erroneously) considered Torah obedience to be fully compatible with being ”Christian”. However, according to an increasing stream within New Testament scholarship, the relation to the Torah was not the decisive factor that distinguished Jews who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, from those who did not. The main problem within the predominantly Jewish Jesus movement and its relation to other Jewish groups was rather the status of the Gentile adherents to the movement. Should they become Jews or were they considered to be embraced by the final salvation while remaining Gentiles? A vital part of the movement’s theological struggle seems to have been dedicated to overcoming the ethnic gap between Jews and Gentiles. Such a perspective calls for an analytical terminology beyond confessional agendas that helps us understand more of what was going on within the early Jesus movement. This paper will discuss the usage of the prevalent terminology and suggest the use of a new set of concepts that corresponds to the recent development in the study of the early Jesus movement.


Tuning the Archaeological Machine with a Philological Wrench: Counting Israelites in the Eighth Century
Program Unit: Future of the Past: Biblical and Cognate Studies for the Twenty-First Century
Ziony Zevit, University of Judaism

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What a Difference a Year Makes: Introductory Remarks
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Ziony Zevit, University of Judaism

Last year's presentations on the question of whether or not Biblical texts can be dated linguistically proved to be both informative and stimulated. The extended, civil discussion and Q & A session that followed proved fruitful in that (at least) some scholars engaged in the linguistic discourse indicated openness to reconsider their positions and back away from polarizing expressions of positions printed in Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology, 2003, edited by Ian Young. In my introductory remarks to this year's session, I will summarize the discussions from 2004, factoring in some new publication bearing on the topic.


From Bible to Bible? Josephus’s Reconstruction of Solomon as a Military Conqueror
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Zhou Ping , University of Reading

Solomon is cited as one of the great Jewish kings (with David) by Josephus as a champion of military conquest to counterattack the charge that Israel did not have great empire in history. But how could Josephus cope with the Biblical materials about Solomon, in which there is limited evidence of Solomon’s military exploits? There is no doubt that the starting point of Josephus’s argument is from the Bible, in which Josephus follows the Chronicler more closely than the Deuteronomist. Through the editorial effort of Josephus, Solomon’s image as a conqueror emerges although Solomon’s image as a military conqueror is still far from being convincing. Further questions arise at the same time. Why should Josephus have made all the effort to build Solomon’s image as a great military conqueror? What does he base his editorial work on? The research shows that the expectation for the greatness of kingship in expansionism is typical in Hellenistic Jewish writings. Evidence is found in Eupolemus’s surprising record of the military successes for King David, which “departs drastically from the biblical narrative”, in the narratives of the Hasmonaean heroes 1 Maccabees, in Josephus’s own portrayal of Moses as a great king of conquest in the Antiquities and some other materials of the similar nature found in the midrashic traditions. This also throws light on the material used by Josephus for his Biblical interpretation, which, as we understand, is a synthesis of a Bible understood in his time most probably in three different languages — Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and which readily accommodates biblical materials in written as well as in oral traditions accepted by the Jewish people on both private and public occasions. All these, in turn, serve for Josephus’s purpose to produce his own version of Bible in the Antiquities.


Does Hellenistic Jewish Identity Lead to an Emphasis on Conquest? Josephus's Reconstruction of Solomon as a Military Conqueror
Program Unit: Josephus
Zhou Ping, University of Reading

Solomon is cited as one of the great Jewish kings (with David) by Josephus as a champion of military conquest to counterattack the charge that Israel did not have great empire in history. But how could Josephus cope with the Biblical materials about Solomon, in which there is limited evidence of Solomon’s military exploits? There is no doubt that the starting point of Josephus’s argument is from the Bible, in which Josephus follows the Chronicler more closely than the Deuteronomist. Through his editorial effort, Solomon’s image as a conqueror emerges. First Josephus makes clear that Solomon not only successfully kept the territories that his father David had conquered, but also made further expansion, then he demonstrates his great power over foreign nations with emphasis on the alien nationalities of the workmen for building the Temple and those who supply his daily tables. Nevertheless Solomon’s image as a military conqueror is still far from being convincing. Questions arise at the same time. Why should Josephus have made all the effort to build Solomon’s image as a great military conqueror? Is it within the framework of Hellenistic Judaism on which the Jewish identity rests? The research shows that the expectation for the greatness of kingship in expansionism is typical in Hellenistic Jewish writings. Evidence is found in Eupolemus’s surprising record of the military successes for King David, which “departs drastically from the biblical narrative”, in the narratives of the Hasmonaean heroes 1 Maccabees, in Josephus’s own portrayal of Moses as a great king of conquest in the Antiquities and some other materials of the similar nature found in the midrashic traditions. To associate this theme with another one—Solomon’s famous “intellectual conquest” of the world in Josephus’s interpretation, further question arises—does the Hellenistic Jewish identity lead to an emphasis on conquest?


Daily Temple Ritual in Ancient Egypt and Israel
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
William Zimmerle, University of Pennsylvania

The current data for reconstructing daily temple ritual in ancient Egypt are mostly confined to particular cases like the chapels at Abydos, Karnak, Medinet Habu, and the Ptolemaic temples of Philae and Edfu. This paper will present the iconographic and textual evidence (temple reliefs, stelae, and papyri) from these temples for the daily ritual of the ancient Egyptian cult, comparing it with the ritual activities of the ancient Israelite cult as found in Leviticus 1-16 and Numbers 28. The overall analysis will center on the differences and similarities of the mechanics of temple ritual in both ancient Egypt and Israel, and will demonstrate how Akhenaten, by erasing particular religious conventions, altered the daily temple ritual in Egypt.


The Dismembering and Re-membering of Rhetoric: A Brief History
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Margaret D. Zulick, Wake Forest University

In honoring George Kennedy’s contribution to rhetoric and biblical studies, this paper will trace the downturn in fortunes of rhetoric after the biblical period, as its province was divided amongst the other arts and displaced by scientism. In retrospect it seems difficult to imagine that by the twentieth century it was hardly possible to speak of rhetoric as a whole field of knowledge in its own right. One exception to this trend was the early twentieth century revival of rhetoric in American speech criticism. Yet in many ways it was George Kennedy’s work in bringing together for the first time this century a complete general history of rhetoric that enabled us to bridge the disciplines of communication, English, classics and religion and put the pieces of rhetoric back together again. This in turn has come back to biblical studies as scholars in a great many disciplines re-evaluate the role of rhetoric. In addition to the triumph of rhetorical criticism as the new center of New Testament criticism, a more global approach to the relationship between rhetorical theory, history and criticism enables new questions to be asked about the contributions of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to rhetorical theory; and raises new questions about the interactions among Judaism and Hellenism that shaped the modern world.

 
 


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