Panel discussion

The allusion to Aristophanes’ Birds 1432 in Lk 16:3 has already been noticed by several biblical scholars. In fact, the linguistic and thematic proximity between the two texts is close enough to postulate the existence of an allusion. However, notable linguistic and thematic differences can also here be observed. The paper will offer an adequate explanation of both the similarities and the differences between the analysed texts. Moreover, it will present an adequate reason for Luke’s conscious allusive use of Aristophanes’ comedy in the wider context of the parable of the unjust manager (Lk 16:1-8).

The practice of going to the mountain top for prayers has its origin in the Zionist and Christ Apostolic Churches in Nigeria, today, the practice is fast becoming commonplace even among the neo-Pentecostal churches in Nigeria. Although in contemporary Christianity, the use of mountain top for prayer has been said to be the contribution of African Christianity to world Christianity, it has to be stated that the use of mountain tops for prayer or as worship centers predates African Christianity. The Old Testament records severally the use of mountain tops as both prayer and worship centers. For example, Abraham was asked to offer burnt offering on the top of Mount Moriah, Moses went up to meet the Lord on the top of Mount Sinai, Mount Zion is seen as God’s holy mountain and it was on the top of Mount Carmel that Elijah contented against the prophets of Ba’al. The New Testament too is not without reference to this phenomenon. For example, Jesus Christ was pictured by the four Gospels to have gone up the mountain to pray. The aim of this paper therefore is to evaluate the contemporary practice of mountain top prayers among neo-Pentecostal churches in Nigeria against the backdrop of biblical presentation of such practices. It will then compare and contrast these expressions of worship and prayer with the aim of determining the departure of contemporary exercise from biblical records.

The young men’s unexpected appearance in the story of Hananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:6, 10) has not yet received a compelling explanation. Considering the collegia in a Greco-Roman city, however, it can be shown that organisations for young men had specific duties which concerned the burial of civic benefactors. Against this socio-economic backdrop, Hananias needs to be regarded as a landowner who wants to abandon his obligations as a benefactor towards his civic ekklesia. By pretending to hand over his complete fortune to the Christians, Hananias tries to escape from the dynamics of civic euergetism and at the same time keep money for himself and his wife. By recounting the couple’s respective sudden deaths the story serves as a warning not to abuse the new community for money laundery.

There are three blocks of Old Russian parabiblical texts connected in their origin with Hebrew sources: 1) Alexander the Great’s visit to Jerusalem and the story of 3 captures of Jerusalem, based on Yosippon; 2) Vita of Moses and Oration of the blessed Zerubbabel based on the Jerahmeel Chronicle; 3) 15 apocryphal stories about Solomon taken from Talmudic literature. In addition, there are some direct translations from synagogue sources (liturgy): the Book of Esther, Song of Songs, Ketuvim in Vilnius Ms 262, the Machzor, and Aramaic glosses in Old Slavonic Pentateuch MSS. All these are witnesses to the Jewish role in cultural processes in Eastern Europe of the Middle Ages. Some other parabiblical texts need more investigation, such as The story of Noah’s Ark and Christological additions of the Slavonic version of Josephus’ Jewish War.

This paper explores the ways in which the paratextual features of Revelation's transmission provide insight into the works reception history. It explores in general the paratexts of Greek biblical manuscripts, their use in modern research, and their significance for interdisciplinary dialogue. As examples, the paper analyzes Revelation's titular tradition and the paratexts of the Andrew of Caesarea commentary.

The Matthean logion about those who have “…made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:11–12) has proven fertile ground for exegetical debate, with scholars such as Dupont, Blinzler, Quesnell, Moloney – and many others – analyzing and debating the intricacies of the passage. However, previous studies have not adequately attended the issue of what it means to be a eunuch dia ten basileian twn ouranwn. My paper, accordingly, addresses this matter with special attention given to the related traditions found in the early Christian document The Shepherd of Hermas 29:4–8, respectively in a saying attributed to the first-century Tanna R. Eleazar b. Azariah in the Tannaitic midrash Sifra Qedoshim 9. The latter has previously never been inferred in this discussion. Based on the close linguistic and thematic links between the three passages – they all deal with sexual abstention against ones own inclinations, and do so by means of reciprocal vocabulary – I argue, not only that “eunuch” here functions as a metaphor for life in sexual abstention after divorce, but also that he basileia twn ouranwn is not a reference to the eschatological rule of God in this context, but rather an allusion particularly to Jesus’ teaching regarding divorce and re-marriage. In conclusion, by close examination of the related traditions in The Shepherd of Hermas and in Sifra Qedoshim, this paper sheds new light on the rarely acknowledged issue of the meaning of he basileia twn ouranwn in Matt. 19:11–12.

Several medical recipes in the Babylonian Talmud are enhanced with a story about a successful application of the particular recipe. Interestingly the recipes under question are often changed or, rather, adapted in the stories. This paper will therefore address the question of the authority of these recipes as well as their connection to the respective indications while widening the focus unto other Late Antique medical compilations. Furthermore, the style of the stories, the protagonists as well as the literary co-texts will be analysed in order to disclose patterns and/or originality.

For some time now, scholars have been discussing the relationship between the Song of Songs and wisdom. In the Song of Songs, wisdom is given by appealing to both the mind and the heart, which are central for the internalization and implementation of its wisdom concerning love. This paper will look at the role of the mind and heart in internalizing wisdom in the Song, and the importance of this cognitive and emotional internalization for its implementation. The Song instructs, yet it also inspires. It appeals to the mind, instructing one to pursue a particular type of love in the refrains in 2:7, 3:5 and 8:4, the proverb in 8:6-7 and throughout the book. Yet, it also appeals to the heart by giving a vicarious experience of the love displayed throughout the Song, and by awakening desire for this type of relationship. People act on that which they perceive as meaningful, both cognitively and emotionally. The Song cultivates a cognitive and emotional attachment to the type of love it depicts and the wisdom it offers, so that as one becomes aware of its value, both cognitively and emotionally, it is internalized as meaningful and one begins to act based on these values in various new contexts and situations. In the Song, the mind and heart are not pitted against each other, but rather, work in conjunction as parts of the same system that determines how one makes judgments based on what is important to them both cognitively and emotionally. The Song teaches, cognitively, what characterizes wise love but it is one’s emotional attachment to it that drives them to actually pursue it.

Since the 1990s there has been increasing interest in the new paradigm set by cognitive linguistics that pertains to the field of eco-linguistics. It has challenged linguists to investigate the social and cultural context in which language was embedded. This socio-cultural turn in linguistics has inevitably affected many other forms of hermeneutical approaches in other fields. Biblical studies has been in an ongoing dialogue with linguistics, and as a result, eco-linguistics could provide a –probable- solid ground for the exegetical process. According to Michael Halliday: “countless texts repeated daily all around the world contain a simple message: growth is good. Many is better than few, more is better than less, big is better than small, grow is better than shrink,” which eventually leads to ecologically destructive consequences. The main question posed by this paper is whether Mk 4:26-32 can be read using an eco-linguistic approach. The potential consequences of reading the two separate passages that comprise the story from an environmental perspective will be examined, in order to assess the future potential of environmental readings of biblical texts more generally.

This paper focuses on the difficulties that the Bulgarian reception of the Bible encountered in the 19th century – the lack of an older canonical translation and the opposition of the Ecumenical Patriarchate against new translations associated with Protestantism. Some instances that illustrate the ideas of the Bulgarians from that period are presented. One of them is from Two Brothers (1888-1889) by Iliya Bluskov – a semi-documentary novel dealing with the author’s family. It appears that even among pious teachers, the image of Holy Scriptures was vague and closer to folklore than to modern notions.

In Numbers 5:11-31 a rite of crisis is described for the resolution of a marital impasse. A husband may accuse his wife of a breach in their relationship due to her unsubstantiated marital infidelity. Using a world view theoretical model, this paper analyzes the ritual by addressing research questions associated with the seven universal categories of world view. The first category considered, CAUSALITY, explores the issue of cultural order by asking: What is the type and nature of this ritual behavior? Discussion centers around whether the rite creates a new order, reinforces an existing order, or ensures order is restored. The category of CLASSIFICATION researches the issue of symbolic order. What symbolic expressions of belief animate this ritual behavior? The investigation determines whether symbolic ritual forms and meanings are identical or separate realities and the extent symbols provide community identity and represent important values. The third world view category of RELATIONSHIP is concerned with the issue of cosmic moral order, answering: What notions of ritual behavior are toward relations with the divine? OTHER is the fourth world view category and considers the issue of social order. The research question here explores the nature of the ritual as a social instrument by identifying socially prescribed ritual speech, ritual roles, ritual statuses. The issue of personal order in the SELF category ponders the nature of self motivation toward ritual behavior in the rite of crisis. Of most concern are the definitions and expressions of personal identity, self-purpose, and hopeful outcome. Finally, the world view categories of TIME and SPACE are combined to investigate the issue of enacting order. What are the notions of ritual enactment that reinforce, renew, or transform reality? The analysis concludes with the type of resolution resulting from the ritual and the degree to which the ritual succeeds.

Early Jewish attitudes towards physicians and medicine are usually understood to be largely negative, with few exceptions. This paper argues that we must reassess Second Temple Jewish medical knowledge and attitudes towards medicine in two ways. First, this study offers a new interpretation of Ben Sira's physician poem (Sir 38) as advice towards the ungrateful and impious ill-person who does not acknowledge the Divine origins of healing, not towards a reader who is mistrustful of medicine. Ben Sira suggests that physicians and their patients must be pious, and follows similar attitudes in the Hebrew Bible (Hezekiah, Asa). Secondly, this paper considers the varied economic and domestic uses of Judean ‘medical’ products such as perfume, luxury uses, and cultic worship as evidence of positive societal knowledge of and dependence upon medicine in Second Temple Judea. The high economic costs of these Judean medical exports must play a significant role in shaping our understanding of early Jewish medical knowledge and attitudes towards physicians and medicine. Particular examples of Judean plants examined throughout this paper will be balsam, bitumen, and the soap-plant atriplex halimus, all grown or harvested from the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea basin from at least the late Hasmonean period.

The narrative in Daniel 4 details the apparent metamorphosis which king Nebuchadnezzar undergoes as part of his punishment by God. Due to the nature of these events, this text threatens the definition of what it is to be human. Many commentators have since found the narrative in Daniel 4 to be problematic. When confronted with the idea that a human could metamorphose into an animal in the Bible, they either decide that Nebuchadnezzar was bodily transformed or that it was a bout of madness. When John Calvin tackled this passage he resisted stating that Nebuchadnezzar became an animal and concluded that the king lost his reason. However, when this is compared with his acceptance of other biblical metamorphoses (Genesis 19 and Exodus 7) it is apparent that Calvin’s interpretation of Daniel 4 seems out of character. This paper will examine the theological rationale behind Calvin’s commentary to uncover why he may want to deny a physical metamorphosis in Daniel. Then, it will examine the significant theological implications of Calvin’s interpretation, especially with regard to how it affects Nebuchadnezzar’s place as a human being in the image of God.

King Solomon, the wisest of men, proves his wisdom twice in the book of Kings. The first display is before two harlot women who approach him to resolve a jolting, painful personal matter. The second is before an exotic queen who has come all the way from Sheba to witness his legendary wisdom with her own eyes. Each story has been the subject of endless interpretation and study, appearing in ancient traditions again and again, in various forms, as testimony of the importance and the mystery that envelopes them. I wish to discuss why the character of Solomon is illuminated through stories of female characters. One story revolves around the weakest, most vulnerable women in society, while the other is about an exceptionally powerful woman, the queen of a fabulously rich, faraway land. I will explore the style and language of each narrative; what each contains; what each is missing; and how the pair of stories function as bookends of King Solomon’s golden age.

The Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers describes how Bata spends time in the Lebanese Valley of the Aš-tree. This account differs in certain aspects from the remainder of the text, also employing foreign motifs—such as the creation of a woman to ease Bata’s loneliness, the removal of his beating heart from his body and its resuscitation while still separate from it, and the Egyptian gods’ wandering through the Lebanese valley. While several attempts have been made to identify the origin of this episode, none have been convincing. This paper examines the non-Egyptian motifs in the light of Babylonian and biblical texts, suggesting that an ancient Levantine tradition that left its traces on these lies behind this section of the Tale.

This article seeks to demonstrate how parallel narratives are used by the Synoptic Gospel writers to affirm the universality of the Apostolic Kerygma. The Gospel of Luke shows this literary style since the Infancy Narratives, yet the reader has to wait until the commencement of Jesus’ cycle in Galilee to find twin narratives with universal message. Such are the Nazareth-Capernaum pericopes in 4:16-37 or the Capernaum-Nain miracles in 7:1-17. This pattern is also frequently present in Matthew, particularly in the Miracle Narratives as of chapter 8. Mark proposes some examples, being the most evident one the insertion of the bleeding woman narrative within the raising of Jairus’ daughter (5:21-43). Based on structural analysis, this macronarrative approach proposes common semantic and pragmatic lines in the Synoptic Gospels.

By utilizing Harvey Whitehouse's theory of modes of religiosity, this paper seeks to soften and to some extent challenge the traditional genres assigned to 1QS and 4QInstruction by proposing that the concept of ritual can be applied to both texts. In Qumran research, 1QS is generally considered a sectarian text specifically describing ritual sections that possibly were practiced. In contrast, 4QInstruction is not considered a sectarian text, and it is a part of wisdom literature. An overall reading of these texts gives the impression that the dualistic eschatological worldview could be the driving force behind their messages. Despite the two substantially different approaches, it still seems relevant to discuss the idea that both texts are directed toward the same purpose. This purpose may involve providing the reader with the right knowledge of good versus evil so that he may have a place in the righteous community. Whitehouse's theory suggests that cognitive limitations in semantic and episodic memory require an extensive and broader variation of the concept of ritual. The doctrinal mode seems to favor high-frequency and low-arousal rituals, and allows a large part of religious teaching to be stored in semantic memory. The imagistic mode seems to favor low-frequency and high-arousal rituals that print the religious content into episodic memory by causing strong emotions. This process is necessary to activate the memory for maintenance of an ideology and to motivate others to repeat and pass on the content. Taken together, the current paper tentatively demonstrates that 1QS as well as 4QInstruction operate and essentially communicate the same ideology and worldview, and that the concept of ritual can be meaningfully applied to both texts.

Spain in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was not a favorable place for Islam. The Reconquest, the Fall of Granada, and expulsions begun in 1502 were only a few of the challenges which Islam faced. There were some attempts to establish bridges between Spanish Christians and Muslims, such as the trilingual translation of the Quran by Juan de Segovia (d. 1458) and the tolerant policies of Archbishop Hernán de Talavera (1428-1507). However, even these efforts were focused on converting Muslims to the Christian faith rather than on peaceful exchange between the religions. It is no surprise, therefore, that the early evangelizers of Latin America --- those Christians who first went to the “New World” to preach the Gospel --- would occasionally make negative references to Muslims when constrained to draw comparisons between their native Spain and the “New World.” Often such negative references came from the Bible: e.g. Muslims were the wolves of Jn 10: 7-14. This much has often been noted by scholars. There is, however, something scholars have not noted. After some time, evangelizers began to take more positive images from the Bible to refer to Muslims, as well as make allusions to the Quran and penetrate the Bible more deeply. The cause seems to be their experience with the indigenous in the New World. Their experience with one oppressed group (the indigenous) allowed them to understand both another oppressed group (Muslims) and their own sacred writings. In our paper we will investigate this notable change as found in the writings of Toribio de Benavente (1482-1568), Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), (Gerónimo de Mendieta 1525-1604), and others; and we will draw conclusions for relations between Muslims and Christians today.

The Jews in the Middle-Ages used to adopt Biblical terms and titles and to use them for social and political purposes. The original Biblical term had a certain meaning, but throughout the generations its meanings have changed, as manifested already in the historical layers of the Bible itself, and later on in the Oral Torah, in the Geonim Literature and in the social life of the Jews in Islamic countries during the Middle-Ages, as can be seen in the Genizah documents. I will hereby examine three Biblical terms and their meanings in the Bible, and their changes through the generations: Haver (member), am ha-arets (People of the Land, and alluf (duke). These three terms or titles are used in the Bible in one meaning or more, and go through changes of perception according to the changing needs of the Jewish society of the time.

The detailed descriptions of the desert tabernacle’s construction in Ex25-40 remain an obstacle: What we read is the dramatisation of an extremely detailed process of making – never a description of the finished object. The desert tabernacle is a space which falls into place only through reading and listening, it is „ein Denkraum, kein Sehraum“ (B.Jacob). Yet this portable space for the translocal presence of God is, precisely because it isn’t imaginable, open for transcendence, for an encounter through the text and independent of actual circumstances. The paper discusses qualities and functions of the tabernacle in the text and beyond it. It contextualizes the ohel mo’ed within a Biblical tradition of ephemeral architectures which could all be read as hybrid spaces of belonging.

An examination of the rabbinic sources that mention the traklin reveals that the term has several different meanings. This paper will examine the significance of the word traklin in rabbinic literature, and clarify the extent to which it is identical, in both the physical and the conceptual sense, to the triclinium in Roman culture. The archaeological finds indicate that the Roman triclinium was not common in private houses in the Land of Israel during the Roman period. However, the examination of the ritual meal as it is reflected in rabbinic literature reveals that there are significant similarities between the ceremonial meal described in the tannaitic sources and the meal in the triclinium. These similarities extend to several elements, especially the hierarchical nature of the meal, and the tannaitic sages even use terminology that is taken from Roman vocabulary in describing these seating arrangements. How is this to be explained? Why did the sages adopt the ideological aspect of the Roman ceremony almost in toto, while rejecting the secondary attributes that accompanied it, that is, all of the external framework, including the architecture of the Roman house and the triclinium, which served as a suitable setting for the ceremony? It seems to me that we may see this as an adaptation of the Roman ceremony and its adjustment to the needs of Jewish society. The display of wealth was not accepted among the majority of Jewish society, and there was therefore no need for magnificent houses or elaborate hosting rooms such as the Roman triclinium. However, the social and the hierarchical components of the Roman ceremonial meal were appropriate for Jewish society and were adapted by the sages for use in Jewish ceremonies meals.

In contrast to much of western scholarship on biblical translation, the issues dividing students of the modern Russian Bible have more often than not been fought over authority—the authority of source texts and notably the authority to translate and publish sacred texts. Even in the case of the authority of the linguistic medium—a question also posed in western scholarship on biblical translation—the issue of whether modern Russian can function as an authoritative sacred language in liturgical worship has tended to politicize the debate far beyond typical discussions of the linguistic medium in western scholarship on biblical translation. As I have argued in Russian Bible Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2013), these issues became particularly fraught in the case of the Russian Bible because modern Russian biblical translation raised a fundamental historical problem over the arbitration of authority in modern Russian religious culture. To illustrate this defining politicization of the Russian Bible, and with it the problem of authority in modern Russian religious culture, this paper looks at three touchstone moments in the history of modern Russian biblical translation—the controversies attending early Russian Bible translation in the era of the imperial Russian Bible Society (1812-1826); the debate over modern Russian biblical translation that accompanied the resumption of translation efforts in the 1850s, and the abortive debate over Russian Bible translation in the emigration associated with the immediate post-World War II translation efforts of Bishop Kassian (Bezobrazov). A concluding epilogue addresses the importance of the so-called Nikodimovtsy (followers of the late Metropolitan Nikodim [Rotov]) and the late Father Aleksandr Men’ for modern Russian biblical studies at the end of the Soviet era.

An important part of Christian mission is to preach the gospel to all nations (Mt 28:19). From the very beginning this has included the translation of the Bible into all existing languages. Today a very large number of translations exist in all kind of languages. People in Germany have the luxury of choosing from not just one but an abundance of different translations of the Bible. There is a translation for almost every target group, e.g. Church-authorized translations for the respective denominations, Bibles for children and youth, translations in easily comprehensible language and so on. From 2009 when the “UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities” was ratified in Germany disabled persons increasingly moved into the focus of public attention. Especially those with learning disabilities cannot read and understand the Bible if no translations in simple language exist. That is why the project “Gospel in Simple Language” wants to gradually transfer essential biblical texts into accessible language to be used in worship, teaching, education, and other fields of public life. The translations of the Bible texts are publicly available on a barrier-free accessible website: www.evangelium-in-leichter-sprache.de It goes without saying that such a translation of the biblical text is challenging in many ways. In order to make the biblical message truly comprehensible to people with learning disabilities the texts must be altered substantially. Thus the problems of a “simple” translation are much larger than those of an “ordinary” one. Nonetheless if we really want the message of the gospel to be heard and understood by everybody it is worth the effort.

At least part of John’s Gospel was written in antithesis to a certain form of Judaism or group of Jews (?? ???da???). John was in conversation with other 'Judaisms' of his time, and Moses was a constant subject in these conversations. Drawing upon Hindy Najman’s work on ‘Mosaic discourses’ and ‘traditionary processes,’ this essay shows that the figure of Moses in John is portrayed in polemical relief to other traditionary conceptions of Moses current within first-century Judaism. Since Wayne Meeks’ influential 1965 dissertation—even since Bultmann’s work before—scholars have recognized the centrality of Moses in Johannine Christology and the polyvalence of Moses traditions present in late ancient Judaism. Najman’s work helps explain that diversity by showing that when a text adopts a tradition, in the process it reifies said tradition, which “would not exist if not for its latest exemplar.” That is, texts like John create their own Moses traditions when they employ or allude to Moses in particular ways for context-specific purposes in their narratives. Moses as he appears in John’s Gospel is not a generic figure present in so many texts of ancient Judaism and early Christianity, but is a unique discursive character custom-tailored to John’s Christological and polemical purposes. By exploring Moses as he appears in John 1, 3, 7 and 9, this essay traces the polemical contours of John’s traditionary configuration of Moses and identifies contradictory ancient Mosaic discourses targeted by such rhetoric. In particular, this essay measures Moses as understood in the philosophical-theological constructions of John’s Gospel vis-à-vis those of Philo’s corpus—in an effort to subjugate the esteemed historical figurehead to a more prominent Messiah (Jesus), John’s Gospel constructs a Moses who is specifically less accomplished, capable, and idealized than Philo’s, while at the same time retaining Moses as an important and positive figure within cultural-religious tradition.

Scholars tend to assume the primary purpose of a tour of hell is to warn readers of the post-mortem consequences of their sin, thus spurring them toward adherence to a particular ethic. However, the tour of hell genre functions with far more diversity than is often recognised. The Apocalypse of Peter, as both an early contender for canonicity and the oldest extant Christian tour of hell, is a text of particular importance. Unfortunately, scholarship has largely misinterpreted the text by assuming its primary purpose is to serve as a warning against sinful deeds. By examining how the introduction and conclusion to the tour of hell, chapters 3 and 14, influence the interpretation of the tour itself, this paper argues that the Apocalypse of Peter does not primarily serve as a warning against sinful deeds but rather as a text which encourages compassion and trust in God’s mercy.

This paper deals with the socio-religious approach to supernatural healing in SST from the standpoint of biblical reception history. The work, whose subheading endorses it as ‘seemingly edited during the period of the Geonim’, presents a series of permutations and reinterpretations based on Torah verses that will become well known in later Jewish magical literature for their healing properties. Starting with a prologue about Moses’ ascension into heaven to receive the Torah and together with it, the secret knowledge about its magico-medical use, SST indirectly presents the common source of both religious and medical practices as rooted in the covenant between God and the people of Israel. The first part of the paper addresses Jewish magico-medical manuscripts as a genre and the interplay between biblical concepts and concise scientific language. The discussion is narrowed down to SST’s transmission history and its edited form in manuscripts around the world. Several examples illustrate the medical validity of the Bible in different contexts, from 13th century Italy to 17th century Poland. The second part focuses on the content itself, describing how the Bible was recontextualised in SST and how medical knowledge was represented practically in associations between biblical verses, names of God and magico-medical amulets. Using discourse analysis and new insights into reception theory (largely based on Brennan Breed’s work), the final aim is to illustrate how SST conceptualises cure and divine intervention as connected. Through the secret knowledge given in SST, ethnic continuity is ensured in a most practical way that translates religion into science.

Some of the alumbrados of the first generation, like Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz or Maria de Cazalla, were arrested for propagating their ideas, a persecution which began in 1519. These ideas were listed and condemned in an edict of faith signed by the inquisitor general Alonso Manrique, archbishop of Seville, in 1525. This document contains forty-eight propositions, mainly statements or fragments of conversations overheard by hostile witnesses. Some characteristics of these statements are the lack of precision in the grammatical form as well as the presentation, which proceeds through a disjointed and isolated form. Nevertheless, some of the propositions are theological assertions that imply very controversial conceptions concerning, for instance, the relationship between God and humanity. The aim of my paper is to elucidate the theological implications of the first part of proposition nine: 'that the love of God in man is God Himself'. The objections that this proposition evoked were manifested with an acute ferocity even against authors who had not been arrested by the Inquisition. This impels us to look at the only work of particular interest about the matter published in the same decade, Juan de Cazalla's Lumbre del alma, first printed in Valladolid in 1528.

The supposed doctrine of Zion’s inviolability is a hypothesis that is frequently invoked in order to articulate the distinctive features of prophetic theologies of divine presence. For example, Isaiah is often understood as a proponent of the view that Jerusalem will benefit from YHWH’s eternal protection (Isa. 31.4–9), whereas Jeremiah’s temple sermon is typically regarded as a classic example of polemic against an overconfident belief in the unconditional security of the city and temple (Jer. 7.1–15; cf. 26.1–24). Marvin Sweeney has gone so far as to suggest that Jeremiah regarded Isaiah as a false prophet due to their divergent understandings of the future security of Jerusalem (Sweeney, 2005; 2016). In this essay, I argue that the notion of a doctrine of Zion’s inviolability constitutes an implausible traditio-historical hypothesis, and is a problematic frame of reference for understanding theologies of divine presence in prophetic literature. In support of this thesis I will first draw attention to weaknesses in the reasoning of scholars who have postulated the existence of a belief in inviolability as a feature of the Zion tradition in ancient Israel. I will then focus upon two prophetic texts that are usually understood respectively to promote (Isa. 31.4–5) and to challenge (Jer. 7.1–15) the doctrine, and propose alternative readings. Finally, I will suggest that the confidence expressed in numerous texts associated with this putative belief may be understood to articulate a legitimate trust in divine protection without being reduced to convictions of an absolute guarantee.

Deuteronomy is occupied with agriculture and the local (villages), e.g., 14:22, 28; 15:14, 19; 19:14; 21:1ff; 22:1-4, 9-10; 23:24-25; 24:19-21; 26:2. There is a center in the land, but it is remarkably “abstract.” One possible explanation is an idea of de-urbanism. This paper investigates another. It regards this interest in terms of “democratized royal ideology.” I read the interest in local agricultural activity as a utopian application of royal propaganda for occupying land. My alternative understanding draws on the aspect of royal and imperial ideology, present in Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian inscriptions or iconography, that emphasizes cultivation of the land as evidence of creating order and civilization out of former chaos. In terms of Deuteronomy’s Torah piety and the covenant relationship of the envisioned “Israel” with Yahweh, this element of royal propaganda (populated and irrigated land and villages, controlled by the monarch’s cosmic role in assuring the fertility of the land as a whole) assures the blessings of the divine in this Torah relationship. In an ideal society, even when based on the heavenly king, there needs to be a center that creates fertility through order. This ideology “from below” is approached via the spatial theories of Lefebvre and Soja. Humans are continuously engaged in the collective activity of producing spaces and places, territories, and regions. All social relations remain abstract until they are specifically spatialized. By focusing on the experiential side of space, I describe how this agricultural/local in Deuteronomy’s ideology of the divine-human covenant might have corroborated the book’s Torah piety.

Jesus’s remark “Lift up your eyes and see the fields, that they are already white for harvest” spurred an early exegetical debate between Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185–254 CE) and Heracleon (second century CE), allegedly a disciple of Valentinus (second century CE) and a leader of the “Valentinian” Christian heresy. Origen eloquently denies that the “harvest” in question could refer to the Samaritans, or any other people, being ready to come to faith in Christ, since such an interpretation would exclude any believing Jew from the time before Jesus, including Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, from the community of believers. Instead, he argues, the fields are the writings of the Old Testament, which are now readily available for interpretation, clarified and illuminated by the presence of God’s Word. Discerning Heracleon’s view is more challenging. His hypomnemata to the Fourth Gospel, the earliest known commentary to a writing in the emerging New Testament, is only extant via the intermediation of Origen, who frequently refers to Heracleon’s interpretations in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, in order to discuss and refute them. The difficulty of evaluating to which extent Origen’s attributions accurately reflect Heracleon’s views has frequently been underestimated. Among the forty-eight instances where Origen refers to his predecessor are not only verbatim quotations, but also summaries, paraphrases, and assertions that may be more influenced by the arguments of “Valentinians” contemporary to Origen than by Heracleon’s actual words. Discerning between these four modes of attribution would put scholarship on Heracleon on a more secure footing, and allow us to distinguish Heracleon’s views from those of his later followers. This paper will therefore discuss criteria for discerning between verbatim quotations, summaries, interpretative paraphrases and pure assertions in Origen’s attributions to Heracleon, and apply these criteria to Heracleon’s interpretation John 4:35–38.

In early Jewish texts about the imagined meal in the world to come, the theme of agricultural abundance that results in the provision of plenty of nourishment to those who will enter the otherworld is ever present. The proposed paper will investigate this theme, focusing on the human body in the world to come that either starves or is satisfied, depending on the way people behaved in this world. The paper will use Victor Turner’s theories of ritual process in order to illuminate the differences between this world and the world to come, and between the emaciated and the fed human body in this context. It will also turn to examples from biblical texts to illuminate the topic.

In his seminal work on the “apocalypse” as a genre John Collins has pointed to the importance of the motif of revelation: An “apocalypse” can be defined as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.” With regards to the fragments and texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the motif of revelation represents a significant expansion and extension of revelatory forms and techniques when compared to other ancient Jewish “apocalypses.” The aim of this paper is to analyze these forms and techniques of revelation within the sources from the Dead Sea and to ask whether they can be related to a definition of the genre “apocalypse.”

According to Jer 1:5, Jeremiah is appointed as a “prophet to the nations”. One of the best explanations of this enigmatic, probably literary secondary designation understands it as referring to the oracles concerning the foreign nations that are situated in the second half of the book, both in its MT- and LXX-version. The paper wants to address the question at which stage in the diachronic development of the book Jeremiah finally became what he is: a prophet to the nations.

Emotions form a peculiar part of human experience: emotions such as anger, fear, and joy are all considered basic and shared by all, yet how they are expressed depends on social and cultural contexts. The study of emotions in their historical and social contexts is a fairly recent topic of investigation, and the research on the expression of emotions in material culture forms one of its latest aspects. It is perhaps easier to explore emotions in art depicting the human form: in ancient Greek and Roman art, pottery, sculpture, and terracottas all functioned as vehicles of stories depicting emotions, and were used for provoking emotions. Yet, architecture too could be used for conveying and causing emotions (gardens, grottoes, arches). For most of these expressions of emotions in material culture we have no direct testimonies to give us a measure of their impact and success as vehicles of emotions. The continuation of forms and the popularity of particular types serve as testament to the success of conveying emotions to their audience.

Texts from the Second Temple period display an increasing interest in and importance of the confession of sins. Scholars have put much emphasis on form criticism and tradition criticism (e.g. the Penitential Prayer Consultations of SBL), but little research has been done on the social settings and circumstances under which confessions of sins are envisaged, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls. My theoretical framework of reconstructed social settings of confessions therefore provides a fresh approach for understanding these texts. By confession of sins, I refer to speech acts in which an individual or a group, either for themselves or on behalf of a group, expresses responsibility for an act that is disregarded in their religious group and seen as disturbing the relationship to their deity in an attempt to restore the relationship or prevent punishment. Such confessions appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls in spite of the often-attested determinism. I investigated texts mentioning confessions (from the Septuagint, Pseudepigrapha, NT, reconciliation inscriptions et al.) along the parameters e.g. of the confessing subject, the inducement to, the frequency of and the publicness of the confession. Grouping these texts according to the corresponding or diverging information on these parameters, I reconstructed different types of social settings of confessions. A number of these different types of social settings can also be recognized in texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, e.g. both “Confessions on the occasion of a recurring cultic event” and “Confessions as part of initiation” in 1QS I-III, which are merged there, the former type also in 4Q504, or “Confessions following an oath-curse” in CD A IX 8-12 - although no confession is directly reported there. This paper will show that the theoretical framework of these types of confessional settings makes a critical contribution to the interpretation of these texts.

In his 2008 commentary on 2 Maccabees, Daniel Schwartz remarks that: "The first two chapters of our book are not really part of it." He refers, of course, to the two letters appearing in 2 Macc 1:1-10 and 1:10-2:18, and to the preface, appearing in 2 Macc 2:18-32. In doing so he relegates these writings to a secondary, even subordinate status with respect to the rest of 2 Maccabees, which continues from 2 Macc 3:1, and is purported by the preface (2:18-32) to be a epitome of a much longer work by Jason of Cyrene. He does so despite every manuscript witness containing these letters, and every edition including them. Yet, Schwartz is not alone in separating the letters from the book. Indeed the letters are traditionally referred to as "the letters prefixed to 2 Maccabees". A similar issue arises when one looks at the publication history of the prologue of the book of Sirach (which is often marked as chapter zero), or the placement and treatment of the so-called Greek additions to Daniel (sometimes placed in the order of one or the other of the manuscripts, sometimes collected into a separate section). Even as such texts are included in modern editions and analyses, they are somehow deemed to fall outside a given "book". This paper argues that the treatment of these texts arises out of a particularly modern concept of not only the "book", but the relationship that concept has to the idea of the "author". It goes on to question the usefulness of such concepts for studying ancient writings, instead arguing that when studying ancient writings, native concepts of the nature and relationship of writings should inform our modern categories.

Hossfeld and Zenger have interpreted Psalm 4 as an integral part of the composition of Pss 3-??7. In their view, Ps 4 exemplifies the poverty of the suppliant which, together with problems ?such as political persecution (Pss 3 and 7), unfounded accusations (Ps 5) and illness (Ps 6) ?paradigmatically represent aspects of the sorrowful existence of worshippers at the time when ?the collection was made. Johannes Bremer has recently argued in support of their ?interpretation that Ps 4 concerns aspects of Persian period poverty despite the absence of ?specific terms for poverty or the poor in the psalm. This paper attempts to use a literary as well ?as a social-critical investigation to attempt to define more clearly what the social plight of the ?implied author (and thus of the editor or editors) was. In opposition to the position of David ?Willgren, the notion that the individual psalms were meant to be read together as a book ?rather than an anthology of independent poems is re-affirmed.?

When Jesus stood trial before the Sanhedrin, Mark informs us, a group of witness brought “false testimony” against him. “We heard him say,” they charged, “‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands’” (14:58). Despite the evangelist’s labeling of this testimony as “false,” it appears to set forth an ironic truth: somehow, mysteriously, Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection instantiates a new temple order. The predominant interpretation of this deeper truth is that Mark envisages communities of Christ followers as the “temple built without hands.” While not wanting to minimalize the possibility that Mark views Christ followers as a temple of the Spirit, this paper explores another interpretative option. Specifically, I argue that the naos acheiropoietos (“sanctuary not made with hands”) primarily evokes not a people but a place—the heavenly sanctuary—depicted in a number of early Jewish and Christian texts. Once we shift this one point, new possibilities emerge with regards to the logic of Mark’s trial account. In particular, Jesus’s ascension and heavenly enthronement, interpreted through the lenses of Dan 7:13–14 and Ps 110, may suggest that the resurrected Son of Man is a priest of an order that directly threatens the high priest’s authority (14:61–62). This, in turn, would imply that the “blasphemy” charger is not simply a piece of abstract Christology, but a grander christological and socio-political drawing out of the implications of the resurrected Christ’s session at God’s right hand.

The “Apocrypha” have been an integral part of the Christian Bible since its origins - as used in form of the Septuagint or the Vulgate. But already the early fathers marked them with the lable “deutero-canonical” claiming a difference this way. Luther went one step further, accentuating such a ranking in twofold respect: he introduced the new term “Apocrypha”, and he collected them together in a special group placed now between both testaments. This was the beginning of a progressive expatriation of these texts from the Bible, culminating in the middle of 19th century. Being back again in the standard version of Luther 2017 the “Apocrypha” call now for a new discussion. What is their position in church and theology today? Is there a Bible of first and second class? The paper reflects these questions in light of the new revision (or in that case better new “translation”) of the “Apocrypha”.

In this paper, I will look specifically at objects of desire and will seek to show (1) that these objects are often specified only as pleasures. (2) In other instances, these pleasures are mentioned in the text, followed by objects of desire, most commonly for money, food, drink, sex, popularity, and/or rule. (3) Finally, there are numerous instances where pleasures are not mentioned, yet the objects of desire are discussed. Sometimes, the authors focus on one precise object of desire. I will consider three authors—Dio Chrysostom, Philo, and the Epistle of James. I will first consider several passages in Dio Chrysostom and Philo, which speak of a desire for pleasure; these texts then go into more detail about the pleasures. Dio Chrysostom, for example, names the objects of epithymia as “luxury, money, sensual indulgence, fame, or any other pleasure” (Lib. myth. 5.17). At other times, however, Dio Chrysostom and Philo only mention one object of desire and sometimes do not mention pleasure. I will argue that pleasure is semantically the overarching word for desirable objects, under which numerous specific lexemes often come. I will then look at James 4:1-4 where I will argue that, although the author of James does not go any deeper than mentioning epithymia and hedone, the surrounding text of James allows the reader to imagine what some of the pleasures consisted of.

One of the common categorizations of the precepts in Judaism divides them into the precepts “between Man and God” and those “between Man and his fellow.” This distinction is rooted in the talmudic literature, though attempts have been made to identify its biblical roots. Philo wrote that the Ten Commandments were divided into two sets, one on each of the two tablets: the first five apply between Man and God, and the second five between Man and his fellow. This division has a basis in Scripture, as traditional commentators (e.g., Nahmanides and Abravanel) and modern scholars (including Moshe Weinfeld and Ed Greenstein) have pointed out. Early Christianity—St. Paul and later Augustine—accepted it. Unexpectedly, though, the five-on-each-tablet notion is not recorded in the talmudic literature. The Sages’ standard position is that all ten commandments were written on both Tablets of the Law. Only one opinion holds that there were five on each tablet. Even in this view, however, they are to be read “horizontally” as well: the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shalt not murder,” is to be read as the sequel of the First Commandment, “I am the Lord your God”; the Seventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” as the continuation of Second Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods...”; and so on. This approach is no accident. The talmudic sages rejected the division of the precepts into those “between Man and God” and those “between Man and his fellow.” They believed that social responsibilities derive from a religious principle, namely, that human beings were created in the divine image. As we will see in the lecture, on this point the talmudic sages were engaged in an intense debate with early Christianity.

This paper explores Lukan eschatology through Derrida's distinction between (an open) "eschatology" and (an inherited) "teleology." Initially we will survey the heilsgeschichtliche Schule, the Bultmannian school (bifurcation of faith and history), and Conzelmann's "sidestepp[ing] the historical question" (Brawley). Resisting ontological stabilizations in these historicizations, logocentrically stabilized by "faith," we argue for a haunting revenant, one that haunts even the text's (Luke-Acts, author's) own attempts at stabilizing the semiotics of the future (Christ, Kingdom of God, "the ends of the earth"). It is well known that both the endings to the Gospel and Acts are open-ended, so I consider that Luke-Acts does not simply offer hope through dogmatic (onto-theological) stabilized futures. So often biblical scholarship attempts to interpret fulfillment in (Kristevan) symbolic terms, denoting how the predictions are fulfilled, betraying its bias for metaphysical presence. Rather, in the (Kristevan semiotic) space that Luke's cross creates, fulfillment proclamations ought to be interpreted affectively and performatively, unless the fulfillment is symbolically represented within the physical bounds of the narrative. The narrative space between death and ascension, the space of the revenant, is precisely the ruptured opening in which Luke rememorializes the future, or where the past injustice of the crucifixion of Jesus insists upon possible futures. Thus, for Luke (and for us), Eschatology has never been the end of time/space or history (or even of an aeon), but eschatology is the end of a certain suffering for a certain people.

The “Neuere Psalmen- und Psalterexegese” first pushed by Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger (cf. the English Hermeneia commentary series e.a.) does not negate the theology of single psalms but witnesses further theological insights by focussing the theological messages of psalms within its closer literary contexts. These contexts provide groups of psalms affected not only by formal arguments like their superscriptions e.a. but also by specific theological emphases. Taking a look at the Psalter as a whole, we can witness central themes and topics, e.g. the shift from lament to praise, the Zion theology, and also the theology of the poor. About one third of the entire Psalter mentions the poor in its different Hebrew terms or kinds of poverty. These mentions are not all the same, rather they reveal several shifts and dynamics both within different groups of psalms and books. – E.g., we witness (1) that the theology of the poor of Davidic psalms anyway reflect a close affinity to the poor (“in groups”, self-descriptions, e.a.), but “psalms of the poor” at the beginnings of the first and second Davidic composition cannot be compared with psalms of its latter parts; (2) the Asaph psalms also reveal a high affinity but in opposition to the Davidic psalms neither implicitly nor explicitly claim any action in favour of the poor; (3) the fifth book starts with a very programmatic “psalm of the poor” (107) and witnesses motifs of rescue and revolution which are on the one hand typical for the fifth book and the final Hallel, but on the other hand comparable to less psalms of the first three books only and to even no psalm within the fourth book...

On some accounts, the final form of the Isaiah scroll is understood to provide support for the reforms of Ezra in the late fifth century BCE. By implication, Ezra’s program and the prophetic teaching of Isaiah are complimentary, and they both provide possibilities for a communitarian existence under the shadow of the Persian Empire. In contrast, this paper will find more ambivalence in Isaiah towards Persian power, and a vision that is more focussed on reconciliation. The discussion will suggest that the later chapters of Isaiah seek to reconcile the repatriate and the remainee groups within Yhwh’s empire, rather than set them apart. Instead of endowing the ‘children of the golah’ with an exclusive holiness, Yhwh’s faithful servants in Isaiah are exhorted to lift their eyes beyond the torah that constitutes Israel’s unique identity, and acknowledge as well a torah that could even embrace the goyim, as the Holiness School also suggests.

Can an author protect his text from interpreters that might tamper with it? The integrity formula at the end of the book of Revelation is often seen as an example of authorial control over a text. In this paper, it is used as an example to show that authority is always already "deferred" in the sense of Derrida's "différance". Authority is thus not regarded as a quality of the text, but as one of its effects. This authoritative effect that contains non-authority at the same time is analyzed in an overview of the integrity formula's reception history. Exegetical analyses are juxtaposed with examples from reception history to answer the following questions: How do authorship and authority interact in Rev 22:18-19 from the angle of its reception? Did the passage have an actual authoritative effect?

Personal reading in the book of Psalms has become an observable and significant phenomenon in the daily Jewish life even in contemporary secularist Israel. It would seem that the importance attached to the reading is not only liturgical and religious but more of a personal experience, spiritual inspiration and enlightenment, even a sort of ritual. The Book itself is considered to have the qualities of a sacred talisman: therefore carrying, holding, and touching it is believed to bring divine blessing and protection. Psalms reading is not an esoteric practice but rather a wide spread phenomenon in Israel’s traditional and traditionalist communities (about 50% of the Jewish population), not just religiously ultra-orthodox communities, in the domestic as well as in public sphere. Psalm 121, “I raise mine eyes towards the mountains”, one of the 15 Songs of Ascent collection, is very popular for personal readings. It has a universal context that can be adapted and applied by individuals and communities directly to their own life’s context. Studying, examining and interpreting Psalm 121 through a contextual lenses helps to understand the current fascination with the book of Psalms in general, with psalm 121 in particular, and with their Sitz in Leben in contemporary Jewish Israeli culture.

Recent work by Alexis-Baker has framed the temple incident in the gospel of John as an altogether nonviolent account, which “undercut[s] any notion that Jesus’ action could provide a model for Christian violence.” In this paper, I take the position that Alexis-Baker’s appraisal represents a reactionary shift for critical examinations of the temple incident, a shift which grants extreme privilege to the discourse of nonviolence. Employing post-colonial biblical criticism as a framework, this paper will draw from the insights of Johan Galtung’s typology of violence to argue that the Fourth Gospel’s account of the temple incident bears explicit marks of Jesus’ engagement in “violence.” Further, that Jesus’ “cleansing” acts of violence in the temple may be understood as acts of resistance to a ruling Jewish religious elite captured by the ideology of Empire. This reading will be supported by analysis of the cultural and socio-economic conditions of first-century CE Palestinians, analysis of the Gospel of John’s textual allusion to Zechariah in the Hebrew scriptures, as well as by reference to the Testament of Moses, which exemplifies first-century CE objection, not merely to a ruling class, or to imperial rule generally, but specifically to the priestly ruling class of Judea. I suggest that the Fourth Gospel’s depiction of the temple incident does not serve primarily as a justification for Christian violence, rather, the gospel writer is concerned with figuring in Jesus a humanity that does not eschew aggressive acts of resistance against systems of injustice, particularly those systems presided over by cultural elites who act ostensibly in service to God or in service to corrupted concepts of faith. It is the justice inherent to Jesus' character, more than Jesus' nonviolence, that is at stake in our reading of this text.

In 1 Samuel 2:11b–18 we find both the installation of Samuel as temple personnel in Shilo and the apparent disparaging of Eli’s sons, which would eventually lead to their death in chapter 4. This short passage is especially difficult to understand with regard to the language of the text itself and to its relationship with Deuteronomic (and Pentateuchal) law. What is more, these very tensions are highlighted by the variant readings presented in the manuscript traditions. Through a careful accounting of the variation in the textual record, I hope to demonstrate a general trajectory for the textual development of this passage and its interactions with various intellectual trends and (concomitant) interpretational techniques.

The dogs are snapping at his heels. Suddenly one of them jumps on him. With his hands on the dog’s jaws, he demonstrates how, in his dream, the dog caught hold of his shoulder with its teeth: close to his throat. Then a strong, white light appeared, which made the dog lose its grip. Together with the pack of hounds, it disappeared. A voice now issued forth from the light: “Come to me!” In their call-stories, asylum-seekers often refer to revelatory experiences. Frequently, they use Matt 11:28 to word their encounter with Christ. Yet, they do not – advised by their lawyers – share these stories with the refugee-boards. In this paper, we explain why we deplore this omission. Since 2014, we have followed a group of asylum-seekers, primarily from Afghanistan and Iran, who have converted from Islam to Christianity. Typically, they convert after having received a “negative” from the refugee-board. An interviewee likened his conversion to Russian roulette: the conversion may open a reassessment of one’s case, but if the initiative fails, then as a converted Muslim: “PUFFF!” Because of this incorporated risk, the authenticity of conversions by asylum-seekers is questioned. Any strategic element involved in their process throws suspicion on their choice. By aid of an analysis in which we compare the interpretation (in words and dreams) of Matt 11:28 by asylum-seekers with the exegesis of the phrase by Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, we demonstrate how culturally specific (Pietistic) the concept of religion is when involved in the demand for authenticity. Comparing the slave-metaphor in Kierkegaard’s exegesis with the social reality of childhood slavery, which is part of our dreaming asylum-seeker’s story, we show how this concept of religion is incapable of, first, capturing the social complexity involved in conversion-processes and, second, grasping the messages communicated through the asylum-seekers’ dreams.

This paper examines four Northern Renaissance paintings associated with the holy family’s flight into Egypt. These paintings draw features and motifs from Matthew 2:13-23 and the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Three of the four paintings are located in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie. Both Lucas Cranach the Elder and Albrecht Altdorfer painted scenes of the holy family identified as The Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Cranach’s 1504 painting portrays a happy family seated in a dark forest and accompanied by playful, child-like angels. By contrast, Altdorfer’s 1510 painting locates the family next to a lakeside village. Like Cranach, however, Altdorfer includes many child-like angels, who clamber over a large fountain that takes up much of the painting’s foreground and nearly pushes Joseph out of the scene. Joachim Patinir painted multiple versions of this subject. In the 1520 painting in Berlin Mary is seated with the Christ child in the center foreground. Behind them a panoramic landscape includes miniature scenes illustrating elements of the story found in Pseudo-Matthew. In the background, Joseph is barely visible leading the donkey along a road. Finally, the paper examines Adam Elsheimer’s 1609 interpretation of this subject in which the holy family is barely visible against a vast nocturnal forest scene that includes a brilliant full moon (its reflection mirrored in the lake below), a dark forest, and a night sky in which the Milky Way is clearly displayed. Drawing upon the work of Reindert L. Falkenburg (1988), Rüdiger Klessmann (2006), and Martin O’Kane (2007), the paper focuses on ways in which these four paintings, although quite different in composition, can be seen to function as devotional images that aid viewers in their contemplation of life as a journey through a dangerous and challenging world.

In this paper, I revisit and question contemporary accounts of the history of interpretation of the command to ‘render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’. In recent years, a number of scholars have provided analyses of this history of interpretation both in brief form (Bori 1986; Luz 2007) and in lengthier monographs (Rizzi 2009; Förster 2012). Pervading these works is the assumption that interpreters both ancient and modern have operated with a ‘jurisdictional’ or ‘political’ understanding of the command. That is, the scholars above assume that the ‘render’ saying has dictated to previous interpreters the duties one owes to God (or the church) and to Caesar (or the empire, or the state). In this paper, I challenge this monochromatic understanding of the history of interpretation through a brief examination of pre-Constantinian applications of the command. I argue that these readings demonstrate the co-existence of ‘political’ and ‘spiritual’ applications. In other words, I seek to revise contemporary accounts of the history of interpretation by drawing attention to the pre-modern, patristic hermeneutical tendency to apply the command to a multiplicity of situations, both political (cf. Justin Martyr) as well as non-political (e.g. the soul in Origen and Clement and Christology in Tertullian, Origen and Irenaeus). To this end, my paper is split into two parts. In Part 1, I detail the move from the initial co-existence of political and non-political applications to the eventual rise of ‘jurisdictional’ applications of the command in the late modern period. In Part 2, I chart a number of neglected ‘non-political’ applications of the saying in the pre-Constantinian period. I conclude by briefly demonstrating the persistence of these ‘non-political’ readings in the late antique, medieval and early modern periods.

The Arabic Infancy Gospel (Arab. Gos. Inf.) was first published by Henry Sike in 1697, long before many of the apocryphal texts that now dominate the study of Christian Apocrypha. Only one other edition of the text has appeared in the intervening centuries: from a much-different and likely-superior manuscript at the Biblioteca Laurenziana. Additional manuscripts exist but no one, as yet, has evaluated these witnesses. Nor has there been much effort to integrate into the study of this text the East Syriac History of the Virgin, which shares a large portion of material with Arab. Gos. Inf. This paper presents the results of careful analysis of the manuscript sources for both texts and offers some preliminary observations about how best to present the evidence in a new critical edition. As with many other apocryphal texts, scholars are burdened with and restricted by Arab. Gos. Inf.’s editio princeps, which bestowed upon the text an inadequate title that marginalizes the text in Christian Apocrypha scholarship as a product of a community far beyond the traditional centres of Christianity in the Latin West and the Greek East (though this core is increasingly broadening to include Syriac and Coptic Christianity). The influence of the editio princeps is felt also in determinations of the earliest recoverable form of the text, for the parallel material in the Syriac History of the Virgin certainly preceded the Arabic version, but the Arabic perhaps reflects better the original extent of the text. What must be avoided, however, is the reconstruction of a “Syriac Infancy Gospel” that no longer exists, nor may have ever existed.

The colossal basalt statue of an Iron Age king discovered near the Amman Roman Theatre in 2010 (Burnett and Gharib forthcoming) finds its most abundant parallels of scale, material, style, and representation among the standing male statues from early Iron II Neo-Hittite and Aramean kingdoms of north Syria, southeast Anatolia, and the upper Habur region (Orthmann 1971; Moortgat 1955). This extended north Syrian tradition of stone sculpture, along with occasional accompanying epigraphic evidence and related archaeological data (e.g., Schloen and Fink 2009; Herrmann 2014), reveals the broader cultural context and function of the Amman Theatre statue. Complementing the conclusions of preliminary iconographic analysis (Burnett 2016), this comparative art-historical discussion will demonstrate that the Amman Theatre statue portrays a deceased Ammonite king and that furthermore it was integral to a public royal mortuary establishment on a monumental scale, as attested among Aramean and neo-Hittite kingdoms yielding comparable basalt statuary (Hawkins 1980; 1989; Bonatz 2000; Niehr 2006; 2010). Key examples of this north Syrian statuary tradition and of related relief sculpture belong to the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum, including the Hadad statue bearing the inscription of King Panamuwa I of Sam’al from Gercin near Zinjirli (inv. VA 2882), fragments of the inscribed statue of Panamuwa II of Sam’al (inv. VA 3012), the orthostat relief of Barrakib of Sam’al (inv. 2817), mortuary stele reliefs depicting kings and other notables of Sam’al (inv. VA 2995, VA S.6580), and reconstructed basalt statuary from Tell Halaf (Moortgat 1955; Cholidis and Martin 2010; 2011). In this presentation, I will discuss these items along with other exemplars of this broader sculptural tradition shedding light on the iconography, representation, and function of the Amman Theatre statue.

Since the work of Robert Alter, it has become a commonplace to see the book of Ruth as alluding to, and playing with, the conventional betrothal type-scene found in the patriarchal narratives. Yet while conventional motifs are widely assumed, the presence in the book of Ruth of the conventional structure belonging to a betrothal type-scene is generally dismissed out of hand, since in Alter’s own words, ‘where the whole story is a betrothal narrative, one segment could not very easily be a betrothal type-scene’ (Art of Biblical Narrative, 58). The widespread failure to consider the type-scene as a structuring principle in the book of Ruth is particularly surprising given the frequency with which the tale is recognised as grounded in the same storytelling tradition as the Torah. This paper will explore the structure of Ruth from the perspective of convention, contending not only that the betrothal type-scene itself is actually present (as opposed to merely alluded to), but that another type-scene, characterised by supplication, is fundamental to the structure of the book. Drawing comparisons with texts from Joshua and 1 Samuel, it will propose that a supplication type-scene has the greatest explanatory power for the structural parallels regularly perceived between Ruth 2 and 3, and that reading Ruth in light of conventional structuring allows us to see the depth of the author’s artistry and has profound implications for exegesis.

So-called confession inscriptions have gained increased attention amongst epigraphers since the publication of Georg Petzl’s Die Beichtinschriften Westkleinasiens (1994). The rural sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos has made a significant contribution to this classification. The natural setting in relation to the temple architecture, the admission memorialized in stone and on public display, the performative function of writing, and the catechetical witness to the power of the gods in human transactions have all begun to gain heuristic attention in the interpretation of these inscriptions (Nicole Belayche). This paper seeks to build on this work in the light of several recently published confession texts from Apollo Lairbenos. These texts and a small number from elsewhere in Asia Minor refer to punishments inflicted on the buttocks. Some of these inscriptions were directly related to a relief or small statue that visually presented the penitent’s body parts as the site of divine focus, human punishment and penitentiary appeal. Stylistically these representations are little different from honorific dedications at healing sanctuaries (for which Apollo Lairbenos is not renowned). The body thus joins with the inscribed stone, the sacred setting, the pilgrimage (often across some distance) in witness to the behaviours and experience of the offender and the “grace action” of the god. A spectrum of human emotions connected with sorrow and shame to liberation and belief is found to be embedded in a complex of material realia. Just as the spiritual demands a physical locus (from temple to body) in the ancient world, so also are human emotions given public, sacral authentication in a material exchange that, apparently, brought personal relief and communal integration. Also, apparently, a god is to be recognized by a most surprising body part put on display.

It is indisputable that converts to Paul's "Jesus movement" did not structure their lives ethically in strict relation to the Jewish Torah. It is was this position that gave rise--at least in part--to much of the controversy surrounding Paul in the early church. Contrary to much current suggestion, a conventional account of Justification cannot account for this position in Paul, which is to say that it cannot account for Paul's signature issue. A careful analysis of the argumentative options presented by the conventional account suggests a nasty conundrum of either outright libertinism or full Torah-observance, neither of which explains Paul's obvious position. This realization entails a reconsideration of justification language and argumentation in Paul so that they align more closely with the powerful and deeply orthodox arguments he makes elsewhere for the freedom of the Christian life in ethical terms--arguments rooted in eschatological participation, as (inter alia) Schweitzer, and now Tatum, correctly suggest. This move is, somewhat ironically, a recovery of some of Luther's key concerns.

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Paper is about “the formation … of ritual structures in the Hebrew Bible.” We do not need to trace the strange actions and features of biblical rituals to a remote past whose magical ideas and gestures are no longer intelligible to us. The contents of rituals can instead be understood as linked to wrongdoing recounted in the Book of Genesis. Legendary ancestral transgressions are transformed via ritual into good. For example, each of the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7 is a response to a transgression occurring in Joseph’s dealings with his family. The ritual for šelamim (wellbeing offering) in Lev 7:11-18 well illustrates. Three kinds of offerings are cited together: one, a thanksgiving offering on a joyous occasion stands in contrast to the fraught banquet when the brothers reunited in Egypt; two, a votive offering, which focuses on Judah’s vow to Jacob to bring Benjamin safely back to him; and, three, the linked voluntary offering, which reflects the fact that before Judah’s vow could be fulfilled, Judah’s problem of guaranteeing Benjamin’s safety took a major turn for the worse when Joseph moved to enslave Benjamin in Egypt. To counter this potential catastrophe Judah volunteered to substitute himself for Benjamin, an offer that, in the end, successfully turned the grim situation around (Genesis 43-44). The reality behind the ritual laws in Leviticus is not some actual life setting but scribal assessment of wrongs in the Joseph story. Ordinarily, earthly authorities look away from offenses within a family. “Moses,” however, anticipates the time when Jacob-Israel’s founding family becomes a nation and he sketches a cultic set-up that addresses potential issues within this larger “family.”

The biblical passages read at Shabbat Zakhor, the Sabbath before Purim, locate the festival within the story of the Amalekites. Exodus 17:8-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19 are read in order to remember the Amalekites’ unfair attack upon the weakest of the Israelites on their exodus from Egypt. By identifying the Amalekite attack as exemplary of unfair dealing, the Deuteronomy passage explains the reason for God’s command to obliterate the Amalekites. Yet the passage also places discussion on fairness within a national framework: of the right way to treat the foreigner. One of the founding texts for Purim therefore embodies a contradiction of sorts: it advocates dual principles of obliteration of the enemy and fairness to the enemy. In many ways this text foregrounds issues of in/hospitality as both necessity and ideal, as theorized by Derrida, and as such resembles the paradox at the heart of the nation-State’s own conflicted relation to the enemy. The paper will explore this knotty relation between ideals of hospitality and the security of the nation and bring it to bear on Purim’s treatment of the enemy Haman. The discussion will extend to consider how Purim’s activities configure the enemy, the nation-State, and treatment of the foreigner.

With more comprehensive resources available today such as the Editio Critica Maior, scholars of the New Testament text have easier access to a plethora of minor and seemingly insignificant readings across the broad stream of the Greek manuscript tradition. In times past, variant readings in apparati critici were mostly noted to indicate how the "original" or "initial" text should be established and read. More and more, scholars of the text today recognize the exegetical insights and significant nuances provided by thousands of seemingly insignificant and "unoriginal" readings created by scribes who were native speakers of the Greek language. This paper will consider such exegetical insights and nuances found in the opening chapters of the Apocalypse of John. For example, in the epistolary openings of the individual letters to the seven churches of Asia [Minor] (Rev 2-3), a thin collection of sporadic manuscripts make the simple addition of *kurios* to the phrase *tade legei* which occurs rarely in the NT outside of the Apocalypse. Greek scribes, however, had written the phrase as they were familiar with it from its frequency in the LXX. Exegetically, this seemingly insignificant variant informs us today how Greek scribes understood the prophetic authority of those individual letters addressing the churches and rebuking false teachers. In Rev 2:13, nineteen medieval manuscripts include a comment, "and every martyr is faithful." This minor and late addition indicates exegetically how Greek scribes interpreted the word *martus* as "martyr" or "witness who dies" in the Apocalypse, unlike the rest of the NT where the term is almost always more generic as "witness." Others examples in this paper will consider seemingly minor variants with exegetical insights in Rev 1:3, 6, 14; 2:7, 11 inter alia.

This paper is fully convinced that social psychology has much to contribute in trying to understand the Bible through the biblical characters in their interpretations of life situations and in effecting change. The paper thus examines the dynamics of changing socio-economic relations for the Judeans who returned from the Babylonian exile in Nehemiah 5. It scrutinises the adjustment of the Judean social borders and thus identity on the one hand and the relevance thereof for the quality of life for this community on the other hand. To carry out this task, the paper employs the Social Identity approach of Henri Tajfel and John Turner to interpret the identity formation process unfolding in Nehemiah 5 and the changes that take place as a consequence. Social Identity approach refers to two intertwined, but distinct, social psychological theories, namely, Henri Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (SIT) and John Turner’s Self-Categorisation Theory (SCT). While the paper is interested in what takes place within the Judean community itself, what takes place between the Judean community and other communities, the so-called goim (nations), should provide a befitting background to the intended investigation of the internal Judean social identity processes. Focusing attention on the ways identity operates at different levels advances a more thorough treatment of processes between and within groups. Lastly, this paper is not disinterested in present contextual issues of its own context. Thus, it adopts an analogous reading of Nehemiah 5. This kind of reading recognises the continuities and discontinuities between the Nehemiah 5 narrative and the twenty-first century South Africa. At the same time, it recognises that there are certain biblical aspects that are comparable in a way that clarifies their nature for the benefit of the present context.

The text of Exodus 1:15-21 has been an excellent passage for the feminist and gender studies. Together with the rest of chapter 1 and chapter 2, it introduces various male and female characters. Previous studies have focused on ‘gender’ element especially by feminist scholars. The male Pharaoh is stupid and the female midwives are wise. This dichotomy is mainly based on ‘gender.’ The Hebrew midwives made a fool out of Pharaoh (Dennis); analogy between ruling but incompetent male, subordinate but competent female (Brenner); Pharaoh is a Fool (Jackson); he is foolish enough to be tricked by women (Scholz). Although gender studies are important for the passage of Exodus 1:15-21, the contrast between the male Pharaoh and the female midwives is not the only aspect to deal with. The narrative flow guides us to use other aspect of ‘gender’ element in the passage. The Pharaoh seems to get rid of Israel’s future male leader at his birth by the midwives. The contrast between the male infants and the female infants should be emphasized. Instead of ‘gender’ of the Pharaoh and the midwives, the gender of the infants is crucial in Exodus 1:15-21. Furthermore, the foolishness of the Pharaoh and the smartness of the midwives cannot be decided by their gender, but by their role in the narrative. The Pharaoh as a ruler of the great nation Egypt initiates the most effective measures and the midwives as life saviors act accordingly. This paper tries to analyze the narrative of the passage (Exodus 1:15-21) and utilize the different gender element other than the one in previous studies and role of the characters in the text in order to evaluate the Pharaoh and the midwives.

The importance of the early Jewish documents categorized as “Slavonic Pseudepigrapha” has not drawn scholarly attention as much as the Greek Pseudepigrapha. Why? We shall explore why. Is it because too few biblical scholars know Old Church Slavonic or Slavonic? Is it because of a failure to perceive what I call “The Pseudepigrapha Crescent”? How were these writings transmitted from ancient Palestine to eastern Europe? I will list the works in the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha and argue that they are fundamental in comprehending the rich creativity of Early Judaism (c. 300 BCE to 200 CE).

The association of lytrosis and apolytrosis with death of Christ in the NT writings is disputed in the scholarly circles. Some scholars insist that the thought of a ransom paid (cf. lytron) is present in these words (Warfield, 1916; Morris, 1965), whereas some others argue that they reflect a broader biblical notion of ‘liberation’ or ‘deliverance’ often expressed with the verb lytro (Hill, 1967; Käsemann, 1980). This paper examines the two uses of lytrosis and apolytrosis in Heb 9:12, 15 and contend that this examination can shed light in the dispute. Against the literal sense of ransom (cf. lytron), which sees lytrosis and apolytrosis as a business transaction, this paper proposes that as metaphors these terms refer to a general concept of ‘redemption’. A close examination shows that there are a number of biblical and extra-biblical uses without any nuance of ransom payment. Based on this observation, I argue that the author of Hebrews stands in an important phase in the development of the meaning of these terms by applying them to an eschatological setting. The paper also examines the immediate context of the text in order to show that the first redemption metaphor relates to a cultic sacrifice of the Day of Atonement by associating it to the blood of Christ (9:12) and the second relate to a new covenant by associating it with the death (9:15). These associations, particularly with the priesthood of Jesus, are unique in the NT writings. In this way Christ becomes the great high priest who is the “source of eternal salvation” (Heb 5:9), the one who offers himself for our eternal redemption (9:12) and the mediator who redeems eternal inheritance (9:15).

Among New Testament writers the Hebrews writer explicitly lays out the work of reconciliation between God and his people through the high priestly ministry of Christ, especially in chapters 5-10. As a result of this achievement by Christ, the writer gives the readers an exhortation in a summary fashion to live according to the way of faith, hope, and love. These triadic exhortations are repeated in a similar way in the two other New Testament passages (Gospel of John chapters 13-17 and Romans chapter 8) that seem to culminate in Christ’s high priestly intercession. In these two other passages, greater stress is placed on identifying these three virtues as resources from the Holy Spirit. When believers are seeking resources for reconciliation and peace, however, the first two virtues, namely faith and love, are particularly highlighted as resources and motives for actions that make for peace. This is most evident in Philemon as well as in Romans 14.

This paper aims to reconstruct the changing usage of the term “spirit” during the literary history of the Community Rule from Qumran. The Community Rule has been transmitted in various versions and underwent a complex development. The notion of two opposing “spirits” plays a major role in the “Treatise of the Two Spirits” (1QS III,12-IV,26), which was probably added to the composition at a late stage. But apart from this passage, “spirits” are also mentioned a few times in different contexts and this paper concentrates on the passages that describe how members of the community are examined and classified. Therefore, the analysis is concentrated on 1QS V,20-24, VI,13-22 and IX,14-16 with due regard to the parallel versions in the manuscripts from cave four. The three descriptions share some characteristic features, but at the same time each passage lays a different focus. Furthermore, the different versions indicate that all passages have been reworked. The literary-critical analysis shows signs of mutual influence and an increasing prominence of the term “spirit” in younger additions. This tendency can be confirmed in comparison with other parts of the Community Rule. This way, it can be reconstructed how the term “spirit” developed into a central anthropological category.

Communal leader (chief Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation), zionist, collector and intellectual, ‘the Very Reverend Dr.’ Moses Gaster (1856-1939) is not in the first place thought of as a biblical scholar. He was however well-aware of biblical scholarship of his time. The lists of books in his possession (now at the John Rylands Library in Manchester) show that Gaster had works by scholars such as Delitsch, Wellhausen, Kautsch and Dillmann. The twelve lots he bought from the sale at Hodgson’s on 18 November 1920 included biblical (OT and NT) commentaries by Nowack, Holtzmann, Selin, and Gunkel, with 9 unspecified ‘others’ and 4 parcels of ‘modern German theology’. Among the hundreds of bookreviews he wrote, a significant portion relates to biblical studies. This paper will first critically examine these reviews, focussing on Gaster’s attitude to ‘Higher Criticism,’ which he perceived as ‘complete destruction of the biblical tradition’. Gaster’s own work related to the Bible, which will be briefly examined next, might be perceived as an attempt to recover and preserve biblical traditions. Although many of his ‘findings’ can be disputed, Gaster does foreshadow current scholarly praxis in at least two ways. One is his emphasis on what can be learned from the actual surviving manuscripts (and with that, the current focus on manuscripts as artefacts and interest in scribal praxis), rather than speculating about a hypothetical ‘Urtext’. Another way is illustrated by his critical question ‘Is one justified in applying a Western modern standard of book writing to old times and notably to the East?’ By examining the case of Moses Gaster, this paper relates to wider issues of the contributions of intellectuals ‘on the margins’ (outside of universities and seminaries) to biblical scholarship in the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries, and of ‘traditional’ alternatives to (source-)‘critical’ biblical scholarship.

The early Church owed much of her success to the contribution made to her ranks by ardent female devotees of Christ. As members of a patriarchal society, their lives were rarely expounded upon within the pages of the New Testament, and their wisdom as female sages has been by and large left unexplored. One such woman, Junia, who is greeted by St. Paul in Romans 16:7 as "outstanding among the apostles," has not only been undervalued, but her very gender has been in question throughout the centuries, despite the fact that the venerable St. John Chrysostom lauded Junia publicly in the following affirmation, "To be an apostle is something great. But to be outstanding among the apostles—just think what a wonderful song of praise that is! They were outstanding on the basis of their works and virtuous actions. Indeed, how great the wisdom of this woman must have been that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle." Junia is revered as one of the saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is recognized as such throughout Orthodoxy. However, she does not hold this honor universally within the Church. Retrieving the mysterious voice of Junia, one of the most disenfranchised female sages of the New Testament, along with a historical study of how her gender came to be maligned, through the linguistic wresting of her name from the feminine, will be explored. The purpose of this presentation will continue to contribute to the efforts that have been made in restoring Junia to her rightful place among the women sages of the Church, thus shedding additional light on the mysterious voice of Junia, outstanding among the apostles.

Everyone is familiar with pairs (or groups) of Hebrew words, known as byforms, that look alike and mean the same thing but that are distinct words with their own entries in our lexica. Well-known examples are tsedeq and tsedaqâ ‘righteousness’ and ya?ad and ya?daw ‘together’. But no one apparently has attempted to collect all attested examples, and people are surprised to learn that my list runs to 2,600+ cases. That total means that 1 in 4 of Hebrew words is a byform of some other word, a fact not previously recognized. Now, byforms of nouns and of verbs are somewhat different. Noun byforms may be defined as two or more words that come from the same root and mean the same thing (more or less). They exhibit a wide variety of Hebrew noun formations; ‘reward’, for example, can be gemûl, gemûlâ, gemîlût or tagmûl; and ‘pit’ can be ša?at, šî?â, šû?â, šûa?, še?ît or še?ût. Verb byforms, on the other hand, do not come from the same ‘root’ for they display different roots; however, they look somewhat alike, usually having two letters in common, and they have the same meaning. For example, qšh, qš? I, and qšš III all mean ‘be hard’, ‘wr III, ‘rh and ‘rr ‘be bare’, and ‘lz I, ‘ls I, and ‘l? I ‘rejoice’. Byforms show that there is a great deal of variation in Hebrew spelling, making it possible to draw up a rich table of consonantal interchanges (every letter of the alphabet can interchange with up to four others). Users of Hebrew dictionaries would benefit from seeing the byforms attested for each word stated at the beginning of articles, and The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised, currently in preparation, undertakes to give such information. Implications for lexicography and textual criticism are another matter.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is central to the Wisdom Literature, a corpus centered around the idea that the world is based on laws that may be revealed using wisdom. According to the Sages, one who adapts himself to the order of the world is granted a long and happy life with material abundance and honor, while one who does not, will not succeed. In my lecture, I will analyze the structure and meaning of the first unit of the Book (1:3 – 3:22), consisting of two lyrical sections and two autobiographical sequences. Through formal analysis, I seek to expose the text’s systematic and structured undermining of two paradigms about the functioning of regularity. Ecclesiastes questions the pragmatic paradigm, according to which human existence is an integral part of a system of laws based on the notion of a close affinity between cause and effect, labor and output, action and result. He also casts doubt on the theocentric paradigm, according to which man is responsible for his actions and they determine his achievements, but God is in charge of the relationship between cause and effect, action, and recompense. As a result of the unit’s complex structure, the author leads the reader, stage by stage, through his convoluted meditations, while at the same time presenting a coherent philosophy concerning these two paradigms regarding regularity. This understanding offers a key to identifying the organizing principle behind the consolidation of the Book as we know it today.

Since Noth and von Rad, many scholars have discussed if and to what extent 2 Kgs 25,27-30 means a new hope for exilic Israel. This question also has consequences for the theology of the canon. Is TNK "right" in situating Isaiah immediately after 2 Kings? Is the Christian Old Testament "right" in placing 1 Chronicles as the immediate sequel to 2 Kings? Or, should another book be set there? To answer some of these questions, my talk will investigate three issues: 1) What have scholars argued concerning implied authorial intent in 2 Kgs 25,27-30? 2) How can intertextual references, esp. Genesis 4, help provide a key to understanding this text? 3) Does Genesis 41 help build a "canonical bridge" within the O.T.?

Using primarily insights from a narrative reading of Paul with special reference to the function of the story of Jesus Christ for community formation, for the shaping of identity, values and practices of the community, this paper offer an exegetical and theological analysis of reconciliation in Romans and argues that reconciliation was an integral part of the gospel Paul preached, and that reconciliation is presented as a complex, multifaceted reality encompassing a vertical reconciliation with God as well as a horizontal, social dimension of reconciliation between people. It is shown that for Paul, the believers’ reconciliation with God is inseparable from their reconciliation with others. In the light of Paul’s argument for the complex dynamic of the incorporation of the believers “in Christ” through baptism, signifying a real sharing and participation in the same story of Christ, this study shows how Paul included his readers into the larger story of God’s decisive reconciliation in Christ whereby they become themselves an integral part of the ongoing story of God’s reconciliation of the world. The reality of believers’ reconciliation with God, and their new identity and status “in Christ,” carry with them the responsibility of engaging in reconciling practices grounded in, and modelled by, Christ’s work of reconciliation. It highlights how Paul’s ultimate vision of the reconciliation of all things in Christ gives assurance and hope, and an irresistible impetus to the believer’s ministry of reconciliation in all its forms and manifestations. Finally, it is my contention that such a reading is conducive to a dynamic public engagement that fosters common good and human flourishing.

The book of Jonah is one of only two biblical books which end with a question in most English translations. Arguably, the most sophisticated theology in the book is also expressed in the form of a question (“Who knows? God may turn and relent …”). But do the translators interpret the concluding verse correctly? As the phrase lacks the usual interrogative markers some scholars have challenged this common reading and have argued that it is declarative. This paper looks at the function of questions in the book of Jonah, and examines whether the conclusion is best read as interrogative or declarative within this context. It has been argued that a declarative reading of this phrase would reverse its meaning and the theology of the book of Jonah and that this alone would invalidate an affirmative reading. However, the use of irony in a work frequently acknowledged to be replete with irony, satire and comic elements should influence our reading of the conclusion. If the conclusion to the book is an affirmation, rather than a question, could God’s lack of concern for Nineveh be read as a further irony? This paper looks at the use of irony, satire and comic elements in the book and how an affirmative conclusion works in this context, and offers an interpretation of the theology and message of the book which is consistent with an affirmative conclusion.

The widespread legacy of the apocryphal stories written or preserved in the Slavonic languages is evidenced by their incorporation into local iconography. Motifs like for instance the contract between Adam and Satan from the apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve, as well as various details stemming from the Apocalypse of Paul, the Ladder of Jacob and other eschatological texts represent an important part of the cycles of creation as well as the imagery of the Last Judgment and the Resurrection of the Dead. This paper will discuss the iconographic representations of these apocryphal writings, with a particular interest in the less known churches and monasteries from the area of the Carpathian Mountains. Although the state of some of these monuments is rapidly deteriorating, the preserved fragments represent an important clue regarding which passages of apocryphal literature had the most visual impact.

The Son of Man in the Gospel of John has not been studied properly as the study of the Son of Man in the Synoptic Gospel. Probably, one of the reason is that the lack of interest and the authenticity on the saying of the Son Man issue in John. R. Bultmann and the others scholars do not consider them as an authentic saying. On the other hand, there is not consensus on this issue and more and more recent scholarship accepted them as authentic.

Numbers 22-24 presents us with four oracles which are supposedly uttered by the prophet Balaam. This paper focuses on Numbers 23:23 which is part of the second oracle. Modern Bible translations offer two possibilities for understanding this verse. According to one possibility, the Israelites have no use for divination and magic since their close relationship to God provides them with direct insights into future events (NJPS; JPS). The alternative understanding of this verse implies that magic and divination are ineffective against the Israelites because they are under divine protection (KJV; RSV; ESV). Is Israelite religion radically opposed to divination and magic or does Israel’s special relationship to Yahweh protect them from the evil machinations of other nations? This paper will explore these two possibilities by taking into account the immediate context of Balaam’s prophecy. Simultaneously, Numbers 23:23 is analyzed against the backdrop of divination and magic elsewhere in the Bible and the ancient Near East. Rather than searching for any one universally correct translation of this verse, my paper highlights how our changing perceptions of ancient Israelite Religion impacts contemporary understandings of the biblical text.

Habakkuk encoded musical information in both the first verse and the last verse of his prophecy’s third chapter. When a musically literate cryptanalyst examines the first and last verses of Psalm 119, he will ask himself two questions. First, has the Psalmist played a similar compositional trick? Secondly, is the Psalmist Habakkuk himself? Suppose that the cryptanalyst (we’ll call him Mr X) gives a positive answer to his own two questions, and theorizes that Habakkuk is the creator of Psalm 119. Mr X must try to destroy his own theory by approaching the psalm’s Hebrew text as a literary critic. Writers tend to talk about the things in which they are interested. Suppose we theorize that the author of short sacred poem A is also the author of long sacred poem B. We analyze each sacred poem at the vocabular level. If none of the things which are mentioned in poem A appear in poem B, we should set our theory aside. Anyway! In Berlin we shall consider the vocabular links which exist between Habakkuk chapter 3 and Psalm 119. We shall also consider the encoded musical notation of Psalm 119, bearing in mind the simple fact that every psalm is 50% music and 50% text.

Over the last century, our grasp on Israel’s origins and history has progressively deteriorated, leaving a disjointed multiplicity of biblical Israels whose unifying thread and historical counterpart(s) continue to elude. Recent work in the social sciences offers several useful heuristic models for understanding the variety of Israels preserved by the biblical texts and, in particular, for understanding the ways in which ideas about Israel changed or were contested in response to social, political, and economic stimuli. Especially productive are discussions of ethnic identity and its formation in response to exposure to outsiders; research on the social and psychological effects of involuntary migration; and analyses of the short-, medium-, and long-term consequences of colonial domination on subject populations. This paper is an exploration of some of these issues from the perspective of the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Though generally considered to speak to a similar historical moment, the conceptualisations of Israel in these books reflect notable differences, in addition to their significant similarities. Ezekiel, for example, has a much stronger interest in Israel’s past history and a much more sustained focus on the homeland. The paper argues that these differences may be accounted for in terms of the experience of involuntary migration, which especially characterises the experience of the author and audience of the book of Ezekiel.

In his auto-bibliographical “Risala”, written in 9th century Baghdad, Hunayn ibn Ishaq criticized the technique and quality of the Greek-to-Syriac medical translations of Galen’s works made by Sergius of Raš ‘Ayna in the 6th century. This paper outlines their translation techniques, by taking into account the historical and cultural context of both authors. Sergius’ and Hunayn’s translation methods will be illustrated by a selection of parallel passages translated from Books VI-VIII of Galen’s treatise On Simple Drugs.

This paper develops five features that describe the conceptualizations of the event of communication grammaticalized by New Testament verbs and uses these features to formulate a model of the observed New Testament usages of communication. The discussion resolves all NT occurrences of verbs that designate communication into one of twenty-one usages with distinct feature descriptions, offers guidelines for interpreting and translating verbs with each usage, and clarifies elements of the conceptualization of communication in relation to specific examples.

Various scholars, such as Rolf Rendtorff and Baruch Levine, have compared the Priestly regulations in the Pentateuch to ancient Near Eastern descriptive/prescriptive ritual texts. However, rather than being belong to the genre of ritual texts, the Priestly legal material more generally corresponds in form to the ancient Near Eastern casuistic law collections. On the other hand, ancient Near Eastern law collections do not contain any ritual or religious ordinances, relating instead primarily to civil and financial affairs or social law and order. This paper thus examines some of the formal, genre, and substantive affinities the biblical Priestly passages exhibit with some of the casuistic Greek “sacred laws” inscribed on stone and other materials across the eastern Mediterranean basin from the sixth century B.C.E. onwards. While formulated in the same casuistic style as the ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, like the Priestly material these focus principally on purifications norms. Discovered in the precincts of sacred places or temples, one of their central goals was to instruct worshipers how to observe purity laws. Analysis of these and related Northwest-Semitic and Punic texts, as well as Mesopotamian and Hittite precedents, contributes to our understanding of the evolution and Sitz im Leben of the casuistic Priestly law.

The destruction of the Second Temple and the heavy losses of the Jewish war against the Romans acceletared the extension and multiplication of Jewish diaspora. Besides the already existing main diaspora centers (e.g. Egypt, Asia Minor, Rome), Jews settled down at new, even farther areas, such as e.g. in provinces along the river Danube. A very important question of the research on the history of Jewish diasporas is the way of self-identification of Jewish people living among different religions in a multi-ethnic environment, as the Roman Empire was. The most important sources of diaspora-studies are the inscriptions (on tombstones, religious buildings, etc.), which are the most representative sources for the self-identifications as well. The origo of the deceased is marked in almost all cases, often also the religion is indicated. In one of the inscriptions from Roman Pannonia the term "Domo Iudaeus" can be read. This paper aims to examine if this term can be interpreted as an marker of Jewish religious origin, or (as the publishers of the inscriptions identified) only refers to a geographic area.

This paper will examine the ideological choices three different professional organisations make in creating visuals of Bible verses. Faithlife/Logos Bible Software creates free videos and still images, which are arguably the best-known visuals in the English language. They are intended for sharing online and viewing on digital devices. The Dutch Bible Society creates free still images in order to ‘make the Bible available’ and to ‘let others experience the relevance of the Bible.’ Graceway Media, a subscription service, creates visual media for worship services to ‘bring the Bible to life visually.’ All three organisations influence digital Bible culture. The three organisations have similar goals, yet their selection and presentation of Bible verses are markedly different. Naturally, any attempt to share small parts of the Bible will be selective. The differences in selection and presentation from one organisation to the next elucidates underlying hermeneutical assumptions and theological interests. Furthermore, the accompanying visuals, generally chosen to elicit a certain emotional response to the biblical passage, intentionally influence the reader and predispose them towards a certain interpretation. Through a quantitative overview, as well as several close readings, I will demonstrate how the theological background of these organisations drives both the passage choice and visual interpretation of the passage.

If one considers the proto-Christian literary phenomenon, it is particularly interesting to note that right from his first text (First Letter to the Thessalonians) Paul exhorts his audience to undertake a public reading of it. Therefore, this paper offers a reflection on the value of public reading in early Christian communities, starting from a critical analysis of the use of the semantic area of the predicate ANAGINOSKO in the Pauline correspondence. Following this analytical route, I will draw attention to: 1) the incompatibility of public reading of the Letters of the Apostle and the liturgical reading of the Scripture; 2) the relationship between a public reading and the literary genre of letter writing (cfr. A. DEISSMANN, Licht vom Osten. Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der hellenistisch-römischen Welt, Tübingen 1923, 118 [note 4]: «Diese technischen Ausdruck [die Epistel] gebrauche ich zur Unterscheidung des Kunstbriefes vom wirklichen Brief»); 3) the interaction between the practice of public reading in the early Christian communities and the liturgical memory of the First Testament (2 Cor 3:14-15); 4) the progressive acquisition of the corpus paulinum as Holy Scripture (Eph 3:4); 5) the possibility of considering the reading as “textual execution” (cfr. H.G. SNYDER, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and Christians, London-New York 2000) and therefore alphabetization as ratio seminalis in the management of the first hierarchical architecture in the Pauline Churches (1 Tim 4:13). The aim of this paper is to consider the reading practice in the Christian origins in close connection with the peculiarity of the development, both historic and literary, of these communities.

In my synchronic reading of Zephaniah, whose final form is from a date similar to Trito-Isaiah, the central theological theme which emerges is the importance of Judah’s identity as God’s people. Recognising this central theme helps to both read the book as a coherent whole and interpret difficult passages in which the identity of Judah and the nations is blurred or merged together. These are often explained diachronically as later universalistic additions which stand in tension with the “authentic” sections of the book. Within the book of Zephaniah there are a number of intertextual echoes and allusions to texts which are key to Israel/Judah’s identity, including creation, exodus, Sinai, and conquest texts. Zephaniah develops the identity of God’s representative people by making the fate of all nations, and even all creation, dependent upon Judah. In different parts of Zephaniah, the nations, and even the entire world, suffer judgment because of Judah’s failure. In other parts the opposite is true as the nations return to God in pilgrimage because Judah is restored to what it should be. The book of Zephaniah concludes with God bringing about the fulfilment of God’s original intention for his people, exalted above the nations in faithfulness to God. This reading agrees with Marvin Sweeney’s identification of Zeph 2.1-3 (for Sweeney, 2.1-4) as the rhetorical centre of the book. This central pericope identifies Judah as the nation (goy) – an intertextually charged word in Zephaniah – which does not desire God or God’s ways, and calls upon them to adopt the attitudes and behaviour appropriate for the people of God.

The present contribution critically evaluates the potential of computational stylistics for the study of Classical Hebrew literature (in particular the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls). After an accessible introduction to the concepts and usefulness of the study of text similarity, also called stylometrics or computational stylistics, we present a methodological framework for the literary study of text similarity. In simple terms, we study the stylistic relationship between the different Classical Hebrew compositions (Biblical books and Dead Sea Scrolls) with the aim of identifying a) which texts are similar, b) what makes them similar, and c) how to evaluate the significance of their similarity. The study of stylistic properties of texts and relations between texts provides solid, quantitative evidence for clustering texts with similar literary backgrounds, and for recognizing different ‘hands’ within a single composition, topics central to biblical and Qumran studies. Our framework depends on machine learning and corpus linguistics. An integrated text similarity processing pipeline includes the following steps: feature extraction, feature engineering, computation of pairwise distances, clustering, and plotting, where features are, for instance, character n-grams, lexis, phraseology, or lexical richness. In light of the innovativeness of our approach for Biblical studies, we address the difficulties inherent to the comparison of relatively small, diachronic, heterogeneous, multigenre corpora which differ in terms of text completeness, situatedness, and orthography. Pioneering computational stylistics in Classical Hebrew in line with Van Hecke (2016, congress paper Jerusalem), we set an agenda for the field and we suggest future lines of research including chronostylometry, the automated extraction of stylistics inconsistencies, and the effect of imitation attacks. This presentation intends to be accessible to novices in the machine learning domain. It presents both simple and complex examples in Hebrew and English.

Philo in De opificio mundi interprets the Septuagint (Gen 1,1-2,3) allegorically with reference to the Timaeus by Plato. He considers God as demiourgos (lit. ‘one who works for the people’) in an allegorical way and describes divine activity using the verb demiourgeo (‘to work for the people’), highlighting the artisanal nature of God’s work and God's imposition of order. As in the Timeaus, Philo in De opificio uses the noun demiourgos and the verb demiourgeo referring to the sensible cosmos. We do not find a demiurgic lexis in Philonic descriptions of the noetic cosmos (and of the ideas contained in it). This is curious because God, according to Philo, is creator of all things - both sensible and intelligible. Therefore, we would expect to find in De opificio demiurgic lexis also in reference to the noetic world and not only to that which is sensible. Philo, with his use of the noun demiourgos and the verb demiourgeo, distances himself from the Septuagint, where demiurgic lexis is rare. In the Septuagint we find demiurgic lexis above all in connection with a pagan context and with reference to idolatry, as for example in 2 Mac 10, 2 where the verb demiourgeo is used regarding the altars built by allophyles. Philonic use of demiurgic lexis is original with respect to the Septuagint. It reflects a Greek context, but is not considered in a negative way: God himself is compared allegorically to a demiourgos.

My attention was drawn to Psalm 58 when a bomb had just exploded in a church in Cairo last December. Is this a psalm that victims can sing/pray to express their ‘darker’ feelings before God when suffering from violence? Or does verse 10 [11] (“The righteous one will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked”) rather endorse such religiously inspired violence? In this paper I’ll highlight some problematic and inspiring moments of the history of reception of the psalm, in order to stimulate a more informed and enriched usage of the psalm today. The Septuagint reads “he will wash his hands in the blood of the sinner”, which may suggest an active role of the ‘righteous one’ in taking vengeance. However, the church fathers have consistently emphasized that this is not how the verse should be understood, and they have come up with a variety of alternative (eschatological and non-eschatological) interpretations. But Martin Luther was blamed in the Edict of Worms (1521) for “provoking the seculars to wash their hands in the blood of the priests.” Had he taken the psalm verse (too) literally or had he been misunderstood? In the twentieth century some churches decided to omit Psalm 58 as whole from liturgy. However, there is also a new appreciation for the psalm: in Germany, the first part of the psalm has been rediscovered as a powerful protest song; in Africa, the references to the practice of charming snakes (vv. 4-6 [5-7]) have received new attention; and the value of verse 10 as expressing rather than suppressing an inner desire for revenge has been acknowledged. But the Christian history of reception invites readers today to take even a next step, beyond appreciating verse 10 only as an expression of dark feelings that still need to be purified: in this verse, readers before us have heard the voice of Jesus Christ (e.g., Dietrich Bonhoeffer) and of the Holy Spirit (e.g., John Calvin). How to respond to such an invitation?

I suggest that the text of Mishnah Avot 1:1 preserves a suppressed biblical tradition. This mishnah originally referred to the transmission of a written torah, rather than the rabbinic concept of Oral Torah, as has typically been understood. In its original context, this Tannaic source reflected a pre-canonical tradition, according to which Moses transferred his torah to Joshua—not to the Priests and elders, as recorded in all extant versions of Deuteronomy 31:9. The biblical text underwent a process of Fortschreibung, while the rabbinic passage was suffused with new significance.

Aleksandr Men was the pioneer of biblical studies in the Soviet Union long before they became legal and popular in post-Soviet Russia, so it would be appropriate to recall his name while mentioning any existing project. Still, I would like to present a project which has some special connection with his heritage. This is a new Russian translation of the Epistles, with the perspective of the entire New Testament translated into Russian (currently, it is displayed at http://www.bogoslov.ru/projects/epistles_translation/). Why start with the Epistles? Simply because this is the least known part of the New Testament in Russia, partly because it is largely incomprehensible in the traditional Synodal version (the complete Bible was published in 1876, the New Testament was at first published in 1820 and then revised). There are several existing new Russian versions of the Bible, and even more of the New Testament alone. Among them, the Bible of the Bible Society in Russia (2011, slightly revised in 2015) and the Zaokskaya Bible of the Adventist Institute for Bible Translation (2015) are to be mentioned in particular. They have their strong sides, but there is at least one niche which remains unoccupied so far. That is, a Russian translation that would maintain the traditional terminology (which the BSR version refused to do) and express the concise and energetic Pauline style (which can hardly be said about the Zaokskaya Bible). One of the main problems is that the Russian language is structurally rather similar to ancient Greek, so a literal translation usually looks grammatically correct and meaningful. Nevertheless, the rhetorical impact is almost completely lost, as well as the logical links between phrases.

I would like to present a few roots from the book of Ben Sira that are defined as homonymic or as polysemic and to re-examine their classification. The re-examination will be carried out in light of the method suggested by Prof. Chaim Cohen in his article in the Shalom Paul Festschrift Birkat Shalom (2008) concerning homonymic and polysemic roots in the Bible. The examination of the roots in Ben Sira will include a comparison with Biblical evidence. According to the suggested method, a root with two (or more) different meanings with no apparent semantic connection between them is assumed to constitute not one polysemic root, but rather two homonymic roots (the default position). Only in those cases where a precedent for the possible semantic development between the two meanings can be found (with no need to explain it logically), that is to say, another root with the same two meanings, then the root under discussion is defined as polysemic (i.e. one dictionary entry), rather than homonymic (i.e. two semantically unrelated dictionary entries). This determination is based on the statistic assumption, according to which it seems implausible that two different homonymic roots should have the same two meanings according to the two respective sets of homonyms. The possibility of the existence of two different homonymic roots, when the two sets of homonyms have the same two meanings, is statistically negligible. In this lecture, I intend to re-examine the roots, zhr (= to caution; to lighten up), zkr (=to mention; to burn incense), z?m (=to be angry; to shake), ?br (=joining; to perform magic), and rkl (=to trade; to slander), according to the aforementioned method, and to re-investigate whether they should be defined as homonymic or polysemic roots.

Most of the apocalyptic visionary revelations recorded in the Qumran manuscripts concern history, while these documents lack cosmic travels. The Throne visions, usually associated with such travels, stem from a distinct, independent tradition, not necessarily apocalyptic. The presentation will investigate why this is so and how such a selection of themes fits into the broader picture of the Qumran library.

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Exodus 32-34 contains one of Israel’s most embarrassing mistakes as well as one of her most comforting promises. In Exodus 32, Israel worships the Golden Calf at the exact time the Lord is ratifying her covenant with Moses. In Exodus 33–34, however, God renews the covenant and reaffirms his relationship with the people. Since then, authors have tended to stress one of these events over the other, or to go so far as to omit one of them altogether. For example, in its triumphalist revision of Israel’s history, the Wisdom of Solomon underscores the renewal in Exodus 33-34 but conveniently leaves out the debacle in Exodus 32. The Epistle of Barnabas, on the other hand, emphasizes Exodus 32 with no mention of the renewal of the covenant in Exodus 33–34. The First Gospel, in comparison, does not overlook either account. Rather, in Matthew 17, the author flips the accounts and recontextualizes them. This paper will place these three works in dialogue to investigate how the reworking of Exodus 32-34 play into Matthew’s struggle regarding the relationship between God’s purposes for the Jews and the non-Jews.

As a reaction to Luther’s positive dictum on drama or play, shown in his prologues to the books of Judith and Tobit, theater in schools became an important medium for the staging and therefore visualizing of religious and moral attitudes and opinions during the time of confessionalization. In schools, offering the study of Latin or Greek language, the staging of Latin (or also German) plays was required to improve rhetorical, social, or language skills. Performances also represented a means to visualize concepts of reformation and counter-reformation. In Ensisheim, the capital of Anterior Austria (today in Alsace in France), Johann Rasser was a prominent preacher, consultant and advisor for the catholic government. Moreover, he wrote German school plays, sermons, and translated Latin religious literature. As a catholic parish priest and protector of the city’s Latin school he was convinced by the importance of education and regarded plays in schools as useful for moral and religious instruction. His play, “Vom König, der seinem Sohn Hochzeit machte (Mt 21 and 22)”, was performed by pupils of the Latin school in Ensisheim (1574) and printed in Basel (1575). Although engaged in Counterreformation Rasser is appraised to be tolerant in his attitude towards Protestant Reformation. Considering the presentation of the biblical parable, the paper will explore this thesis of tolerance, and analyze the confessional discussion reflected in his play (staging 1574).

My paper focuses on issues relating to the history of ideas and cultural transfer in the Bible’s reception in modern culture. I will examine the repetition or development of biblical themes in 20th century Bulgarian literature as expressions of modern biblical paraphrases in a Balkan context. I am viewing literature as a cultural product that testifies to cultural changes and philosophical enquiry, making it a material with great research potential. My Bulgarian example can help answer some crucial questions: How are biblical texts paraphrased in modernity? What is the source and the aim of modern biblical paraphrase? What is its intellectual status? What is the relationship between the modern reception of the Bible and issues of cultural transfer?

The paper aims to examine how we understand the unfolding of (popular) nationalism in the register of the everyday by using South Africa as case study. It considers the recognition and use of Afrikaner popular religion’s foregrounding of the Bible and its interpretative discourses by the architects, and subsequent defenders, of apartheid. They used Bible – and particular Bible stories - to create a sense of moral purpose and hence successfully enlisted the general populace in justifying Christian Nationalism and its culmination in the apartheid state. The purpose of this study is to reposition the historical and interpretive discourse on emergent late nineteenth and early twentieth century Christian Nationalism. It aims to reconsider the rise of the apartheid state by giving less consideration to existing histories’ pre-occupation with the Afrikaner elite and its intellectual moorings in Europe. This builds on a burgeoning scholarship and interest in understanding the apartheid state not in terms of the broader institutional structures, but in the everyday. Thus connecting ideology with everyday life in ways that are not solely functionalist or economically driven. The paper relies on identifying the presence and use of certain narratives in the religious lives of “simple folk.” By tracing the diffusion of text and interpretation (in the burgeoning Afrikaans literary output of the early twentieth century; in sermons; church magazines and newspapers; religious pamphlets; etc.) it aims to illustrate and trace the layers of textual development and its “history of consequences” (Leong Seow). To show how these provided the raw material (based on Bible) for the labours of developing understandable, everyday ideologies of nation, belonging, of family, and of the future.

This paper highlights the medical and healing aspects of two outstanding rites described in the Hebrew Bible in Numbers 5 and 19 as they have been interpreted in Talmudic literature. Numbers 5 describes a rite which aims to prove whether or not a woman who is under suspicion of adultery has indeed committed it. Numbers 19 outlines the preparation of the red heifer's ashes for the purification rite of those who became impure through contact with a dead body. In contrast to their literal interpretation as a divinely ordained ritual procedure in the Hebrew Bible, some Talmudic sources associate these rites with healing knowledge and medical science that also involve the practice of magic and sorcery. This paper emphasizes the medical and healing knowledge that underlie the practice of both rites as transmitted and controversially discussed by the Rabbis in the Talmudic sources and in rabbinic commentaries of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In order to examine this apparent dichotomy, I shall examine relevant rabbinic texts in reference to the purpose of these medical and healing procedures. The discussion of these texts includes questions of sacred fictional or factual practices (Sitz im Leben), the exegetical and hermeneutical rabbinic discourse on framing this knowledge, as well as the interrelation of magical and medical skills. In conclusion, I will explore the process in which rabbinic medical knowledge on healing skills and folk medicine derive from the legal ritual traditions in the Bible. Thus, using these two biblical rites as examples, the paper demonstrates the relevance of medical science and healing knowledge within rabbinic ritual Halakhah, its framing, development, and trajectories within rabbinic sources.

Despite the fact that the Manichaean remains in Turfan (China) are from the 8th - 10th cent. AD they contain a few objects that go back to the origins of that religion in the 3th c. AD. And some are even older, such as the Book of Giants and a Manichaean version of the 'Shepherd of Hermas'. We will survey the material.

The cities named and not named in Mark’s narrative have often been cited as evidence for the author's misguided geography and a Roman provenance for the first gospel. If the named locations are mapped against the known archaeological remains of the Herodian era, different possibilities emerge that are consistent with Mark’s critique of political and religious power. The significance of place (topos) near central Temples in Greco-Roman cities, and in Jerusalem, is subverted by the Markan account of the journeys of Jesus and his followers, and alternative sacred spaces are affirmed. These places provide room for an alternative basileia to be imagined and embodied by Jesus, beyond the city walls. The palaces and fortresses of the Herodian appointees of Rome lurk unmentioned in the background. Those that are alluded to more directly (the villages of Caesarea Philippi; Jericho; Jerusalem and its Temple) do not receive the narrative focus we (or they) might expect, again revealing the implied critique of the abuse of power in Mark. I argue that this combination of archaeological evidence for monumental material culture contemporaneous with Mark’s narrative world, and the hidden transcripts in the Markan text itself, provide a powerful narrative of liberation for the hoi polloi, the crowds, who respond so positively to Jesus outside of Jerusalem.

With several commentaries, the book of Zechariah has seen growing interest during the last several years. The book is indubitably the result of a longer history of literary development. Whereas literary criticism tends to emphasize the differences of the various parts, we can recognize several theological themes connecting those parts. One major theme is the Temple of Jerusalem. Some of the traditions that build the foundations of the theology for the Second Temple are dating back to pre-exilic times, e.g. the traditions connected to Zion. But the theological groundwork for the Second Temple and its cult is arguably the Priestly Code in conjunction with the related ideas of Ezekiel. But we must not confound the persuasive presentation of the material in the Pentateuch with how this theology actually worked out or with the theology that was actually in place and which probably hadn’t been spelled out as concisely as the priestly writings. That there were other traditions and influences apart from the ideas of atonement can be shown in the writings of the Chronicler or also by Haggai and Proto-Zechariah who were involved in the reconstruction process of the temple. The development of Zechariah also shows us how the Temple fares in changing theological assumptions. While the first part of Zechariah is concerned with demonstrating the legitimacy and the necessity of the rebuilding, the latter chapters see the emergence of apocalyptical thinking. Apocalyptical ideas are absent from the Priestly Code but show up clearly in Zech 12 and 14. Zechariah is an example of the evolution of traditional concepts as well as the incorporation of new concepts with and without apocalyptic expectations. This paper will outline key features of the Temple theology of Zechariah and contrast them with inner and extra biblical concepts.

The paper focuses on the relationship between health and the construction of Israel’s collective identity. In Deuteronomy, the people’s and the individual’s wellbeing is linked with everyone’s fulfilling of law. The authority of the growing book bases on the acceptance of these fundamental rules and Yhwh himself threatens the You with diseases. An obedient Israel will be a healthy Israel and sicknesses belong – in several aspects, as will be shown – to the foreigners.

It has become fashionable in certain circles to bemoan the state of diachronic biblical criticism since the application of its method involves subjective judgments. Critics of the method point to the fact that scholars who supposedly work with a similar set of criteria and presumptions nevertheless fail to replicate each other’s results, and instead produce alternate analyses and reconstructions. Is it indeed time to proclaim the death of diachronic criticism? Or is it preferable to reexamine what comprises scientific method in the field of the humanities, and reconsider our expectations from the application of methods. My paper will engage Popper’s view of scientific propositions as falsifiable hypotheses, and reevaluate the importance of alternate hypotheses. I will also discuss the role of rhetoric and practice of logic in argumentation as well as the way the different purposes of groups of scholars inform their practice of method and their evaluation of opposing hypotheses and explanations.

The Pentateuch tells two different stories of the creation of the human race. The first (Genesis 1:1–2:3) emphasizes the parity of men and women and their equal share in the image of God, which is their essential attribute (1:27; 5:1b–2). The conventional view is that the second creation story (Genesis 2:4–3:24), the “Eden Narrative”, presents the sexes as unequal. In the standard reading, here the man is the important figure, while the woman is only his subordinate “helper” (2:18–20). She is fashioned from his rib (2:21–23), meaning that he is the whole and she only a part. And, at the end of the story, God himself stipulates that the woman’s destiny is to be controlled by the man (3:16). I will argue that this perception of the story is mistaken and that a philologically rigorous reading uncovers a view of the sexes that would have been radically egalitarian and anti-patriarchal in its original context.

This paper will demonstrate how a large number of fragments that appeared on the market after 2002 reflect copying of modern text editions: DJD, BHK, BHS, and Milik’s 1976 edition of the Enoch texts. Many of the new fragments display a line-for-line alignment with a published text edition. Also textual emendations suggested by editors of BHK and BHS editors (suggestions without any manuscript support) appear “confirmed” by new fragmentary biblical texts. We also encounter first time appearance of Septuagintic variants in Hebrew. Many “new texts” appear to have been written by modern scribes with high scholarly insight. Examples will be taken from The Schøyen Collection and the three private American collections (Southwestern, Azuza, MOTB).

This paper is an inquiry into understanding context as method. Kuan-Hsing Chen suggests shifting the postcolonial ground from criticism of the West, in order to open up a deimperialising mode of analysis, that takes ‘Asia as Method’. In affirming a (post)colonised context – its knowledges and modes of analysis – as method, this shift suggests a starting point for critical readings from other (post)colonised contexts, including contemporary Australia – marked by both ongoing colonial violence toward, and dispossession of, Indigenous peoples and their enduring claims to sovereign connection to Country. Indigenous poet and critic, Peter Minter writes of a ‘decolonising geopoethics’ which is informed by, and oriented toward, ‘a vision of a decolonised Australia, a place where settler and Indigenous cultures have begun to find an existential common ground that is beyond postcolonial’. Graham Paulson and Mark Brett describe ‘five smooth stones’ – family; land; law; language; ceremony – as touchpoints for an Australian Indigenous biblical reading practice. In Decolonising God, Brett performs a non-Indigenous reading of key biblical texts in service of a deimperialising ethics with an ear to land; law; ancestry; hybridity; and forced migration. My paper suggests adopting the Indigenous concept of Country – which brings together land and relationalities with land suggested by kin, law, language, and ceremony, and as site of colonial violence and erasure – as a methodological starting point for non-Indigenous biblical studies in Australia. In the mode of Minter’s ‘decolonising geopoethics’, this deimperialising reading ethic acknowledges the inseparability of ecological hermeneutics and Country. What might this mean? Can Country speak to text? I offer by way of example a reading of the Magnificat on Bunurong Country where I live in bayside suburban Melbourne.

Daniel Bar-Tal, an Israeli social psychologist, and his colleagues tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Oren, N., Nets-Zehngut, R., & Bar-Tal, D., 2015) by focusing especially on conflict-supportive narratives. They argue that intractable conflict requires conflict-supportive narratives that often de-legitimize rivals and justify the in-group. Their conclusions are similar to the work of Arthur Ponsonby (Falsehood in Wartime, 1928/2016), a British statesman who analysed wartime propaganda. He claimed that authorities had to lie in order to “justify themselves by depicting the enemy as an undiluted criminal” and to “inflame popular passion sufficiently to secure recruits for the continuance of the struggle” (pp. 13-14). In line with Ponsonby’s work, I will examine wartime propaganda in Japan and Germany. The anti- propaganda Haiku of Akira Tsuru served as a counter-narrative to official propaganda. One example is: “Be fruitful and multiply, and let your son be a shield (on the battlefield). If he dies, I (government) will confer a decoration” (my trans.) Integrating the aforementioned sources, I will crystallize the functions and power of conflict-supportive narratives as well as counter-narratives and then apply the sources as a hermeneutical framework to interpret Judg 19:22-30, focusing especially on the meaning of the concubine’s dismemberment.

This paper will discuss the various Old Testament topics which appear at the core of creating political and visual identities in the (visual) culture of polities in Slavia Orthodoxa in the Middle Ages. Among them, the topic of God-chosen and God-protected status of Jerusalem assumes fundamental significance as one of the major topoi underlying the construction of such identities of the Chris¬tian capitals in the Middle Ages. The biblical theme of Jerusalem, the city which triumphs in eternity and suffers in temporal history (i.e. antinomic biblical motifs of triumph and fall), constitutes the cornerstone of self-determination of capital cities; Jerusalem acts as locus of presence and effect of the shekinah and, as a result, as a key point on the eschato¬logical path of history striving toward universal power. This paper will present the history, process and literary and visual means/media of formulating this idea and its pertaining spatial-visual matrix and, ultimately, on the transfer of this matrix and its fundamental (theological, ideological and visual) implications in the process of constructing the status of a God-chosen place of capital cities of the Orthodox world. In particular, it will focus on presenting the cases of capitals of Slavia Orthodoxa in the later Middle Ages and the practice of translation of Jerusalem and Holy Land imagery through the transfer of components of sacral space in the case of Turnovo, Belgrade and Moscow.

Text-Fabric (TF) is a promising new framework for the Eep Talstra Center for Bible and Computer corpus plus (linguistic) annotations. TF is a Python 3.x software package that provides scientific, accessible and reproducible ways of processing Biblical Hebrew text data. It also allows sharing the generated data with others worldwide. TF enables Old Testament scholars with an interest in digital analysis methods to contribute to TF with their own modules. The TF data is organized as an annotated directed graph with, for example, text objects from words, phrases and clauses up to the level of bible books with many features operating on those objects containing morphological, lexical information, among others. The TF data is therefore a collection of richly annotated data sources that are stored in compact and plain text format called .tf. After this introduction of what TF is, two examples are presented as to how TF can be applied in everyday Biblical studies research. First, PhD candidate C. Erwich demonstrates how patterns of participant shifts, i.e. shifts in person, number and gender, in the Psalms can be generated and analysed within the framework of TF. Second, Master student C. Kingham demonstrates time-span tracking in the Hebrew Bible, also with the aid of TF. It is important to the ETCBC that the community of TF users grows beyond those who are affiliated to the ETCBC. We show that TF provides a platform for researchers to produce the fruits of their work as data. It is our hope that the TF data becomes diverse, contributed to by many, and evolves over time through user-created modules.

The paper will discuss the use of the Syriac adverb mekkel in the Bible and its employment in mainly two different functions, viz., the temporal and the inferential. A closer look at the exact passages helps isolate subfunctions and procure a basis for a rough estimate the proportion of these tow main functions.

Biblical narratives are often (re-)told in film either in form of adaptations – recently Aronofsky’s "Noah"(2014) and Scott’s "Exodus: Gods and Kings"(2014) – or a little less obvious as abstracted, (re-)occurring scenes in film. I will focus on the latter, when considering biblical narratives in Terrence Malick’s movies "The Tree of Life"(2011) and "Knight of Cups"(2015). The focus, however, shall not so much be placed on how many, what kind of, nor why biblical passages found their way into these films, but rather on how they are transmitted in and constructed by the multimodal medium of film, i.e. by the discursive interplay of music and moving images. The aim of this paper is, then, to show (i) how biblical narratives are multimodally constructed in Malick’s films and (ii) how they are multimodally perceived by the viewers/audience. In this I follow scholars like Michel Chion(1994), Charles Forceville(2009), and Kathrin Fahlenbrach(2005; 2008) that music does not only accompany a film’s scene, but it constitutes a necessary factor in construing narrative discourse and meaning. I will address these issues by making use of a cognitive semantic approach to multimodal metaphor, which has its roots within the original sense of metaphor as real transfer ('translatio' cf. Luther[1521]; Nietzsche[1873]) that occurs not only as a metaphorical projection between two conceptual domains, but also on and between the ontological levels of material reality and human per- and conception: i.e. the conceptual system of the director, the film screen, and the conceptual system of the viewer. In relation the auditive and visual mode underlie and yield themselves transferential – metaphorical – processes, which form the actual discourse and provide the scenes with the ability to express the biblical narrative in a non-verbal way, and, thus, open the way for another, multimodal mode of biblical reception.

In this paper, I return to the well-worn topic of false prophecy in the Hebrew Bible with a fresh perspective. Several recent studies of biblical traditions about false prophecy (Moberly 2006; Epp-Tiessen 2012) have shifted the conversation from a socio-historical to a literary-critical approach. Continuing in a literary vein, I suggest that false prophecy texts must now be examined as scribal artefacts. In particular, the focus of this paper is on scribal textual reuse evident in the phenomenon of inner-biblical interpretation. Ezekiel 12:21-14:11, a much neglected text in the study of false prophecy, and its literary relationship to the book of Jeremiah, serves as a case study. After critiquing previous scholarship on the extent, direction, and purpose of literary borrowing between Jeremiah and Ezekiel on false prophecy (discussed in the classic works of, e.g., Holladay 1986-89, Zimmerli 1979, and in more recent proposals, e.g., Leene 2001), I will re-evaluate the complex web of inner-biblical allusions using the latest methodology (Lyons 2009) and identify two significant developments in the scribal perceptions of prophecy. First, Jeremianic influence in Ezek 12:21-14:11 emerges as a late redactional intervention that redefines the original pericope (13:10, 22). Ezekiel originally stressed the futility of the false prophets’ visions rather than their falsity (unfulfilled visions discredit prophetic ministry). The Jeremianic redactor recast the false prophets as more specifically the Heilsnabi — the contents of whose message hindered repentance — and harmonised the pericope with Jeremianic traditions. This shift away from prophetic temporality coheres with what Hibbard (2011) has observed elsewhere (Jer 26:17-19; cf. Deut 18:21-22). The second development, I will argue, involves more properly the use of Ezekielian traditions in Jeremiah. Whereas the book of Ezekiel is not opposed to prophetic divination en soi, the inner-biblical reception of Ezekiel in Jeremiah (Jer 14:14) proscribes all divination.

Although the classical Muslim philologists were already aware that the two Babylonian fallen angels Harut and Marut were not of Arabic origins, it remains the historical merit of the German orientalist and scholar of biblical studies PAUL DE LAGARDE (1827-1891), who discovered that the origins of the Qur?anic angles go back to Iranian respectively Zoroastrian roots, representing the two of the Avestan Am?sha Sp?ntas, Hauruuatat and Am?r?tat, the guardians of waters and plants. This paper aims at (re)evaluating some considerations regarding their Zoroastrian origin, myth and the features both pairs shared and differed in the context of the Near Eastern traditions, which help us to better understand Islamic and Zoroastrian angelology from a comparative perspective.

This paper deals with the biblical text of Habakkuk 3* and its religious and historical background. Usually, the song is said to be a theophany and indeed, there are some common motifs like the so-called chaoskampf or the weather phenomena. However, there are some aspects which don’t go together with biblical theophanies, but can be explained by a well-known Mesopotamian ritual. It is likely that the oldest part of the song is a reflection of the Babylonian akitu-procession of the first millennium BCE. The akitu-procession was a high ostentatious and theatric event and texts like Isaiah 46* demonstrate that Judeans participated in the ritual. While the akitu-procession deals with the possibility of divine presence in the immanent world, the author of Habakkuk 3 uses this concept to find his own answer to the question, if Yhwh is still present after the destruction of the temple. Hence, Habakkuk 3* is akin to other prophets like Isaiah or Ezekiel, who also discuss this theological issue. In this case, the song of Habakkuk is an interpretation of a Babylonian event which shows the possibilities of adaption and distinction and the creative transmission of foreign ideas into one’s own religious thoughts in a historical moment of crisis.

This paper will offer an analysis of the Six-Day War within the wider context of U.S. hegemony and the Middle East, and argues that the reasons for the close U.S.-Israeli ties, and U.S. foreign policy decisions in the region, is to be found within an ideology of Christian discourse and the central role that Israel and the Jewish people play there.

This essay will examine how Mishnah perceived the status and role of the destitute in its world. I will explore Mishnah’s stance toward the poor and the means Mishnah redactors instituted to guarantee their position while assuring the solidarity of the society. To achieve this goal in addition to analyzing the Mishnah text and any other tannaic sources that compliment Mishnah I will apply different socio-anthropological theory that can shed light upon the understanding the destitute in the world of the Mishnah. Therefore, what this paper will be seeking is “1) the reconstruction of major aspects of the sociology and culture of the early rabbinic movement itself; and 2) the better understanding of the sociology and culture of the “world” defined by and in Mishnah’s substance, even if that world does not mirror any contemporary, historical Palestinian Jewish world”.

Scholarship is increasingly affirmative about the significance of the influences of second Temple Jewish literature on Paul’s worldview and theology. This paper will illustrate one of the exegetical encounter of Paul with his Jewish predecessors on the effects of the primeval transgression on humanity which Paul relied on to put forth the corresponding effects of Christ’s righteous act for salvation. Paul’s familiarity with the wide range of early Jewish perspectives would be evident from his varied engagement with these concepts in the different epistolary contexts. Romans 5.12–21 being an explanatory section about mankind's state of being enemies who have been reconciled to God. This explanatory section opens with the cryptic reference through one man (di’ henos anthropou), through whom sin (hamartia) and consequently death (thanatos) entered the world (kosmos). It becomes clearer in verse 14 that this ‘one man’ was indeed a reference to Adam. While it may not be immediately apparent that such a reference should be problematic, it does beg the question of why Adam rather than Eve is foregrounded for the origin of sin, when compared with other early Jewish as well as Pauline writings. In a bid to reconsider the traditional understanding of Adam as a type of Christ, this paper proposes that Paul’s Tendenz rationalised his preference of Adam over Eve to achieve the purpose of his argument. To the extent that his recipients were able to appreciate the Adamic reference as a type (typos) of all humanity, Paul’s gospel concerning the one man Jesus Christ (tou henos anthropou Iesou Christou) would then have relevance for the entire human race, whether Jews or Greek.

In the West the Bible is often viewed as a depository of information, much like an ‘instruction manual’ (Beal, 2011), and this has resulted in it being read ‘efferently,’ that is, for information (Rosenblatt, 1994; 1995; 2005). The growing use of digital Bibles (Hutchings, 2015) is likely to further cement this view and practice. Some digital Bibles are principally set up to be accessed through a search bar, many have prominent and easily accessible search facilities and popular Bible reading plans are often chosen by their subject. Additionally the digital technology involved (a smartphone or laptop) is used in a similar way with other texts, such as a Facebook page or newsfeeds. These various factors indirectly affirm to a user that the Bible is a depository of information. Recent surveys corroborate this hypothesis (Barna, 2016; ComRes 2017) for they show that people are as likely to use a digital Bible to search for a Bible verse as they are to read a passage. To principally engage with the Bible efferently minimises the opportunity to read it aesthetically, runs against certain genres found within it (such as poetry) and ignores Christian teachings which promote alternative views of the Bible (such as it being a meeting place with God). Nonetheless this is the direction in which popular Christian Bible engagement may go. If so, I suggest there is a need for digital Bibles that are principally dedicated to the experiential, and if paper Bibles continue to be produced then readerly Bibles would also counter this shift (Bertrand, 2016).

A difficult question in New Testament studies is how to understand early Christianity’s relationship with contemporaneous ethnic groups: Does it see itself as a part of one of them or not? Some recent scholars concluded that Christianity is somewhere in the middle where it can either be “multi-ethnic” (e.g., Balch 2016) or “trans-ethnic” (e.g., Horrell 2016), refusing to be categorized exclusively into one ethnic grouping. However, it is the thesis of this paper that in the Fourth Gospel, something beyond multi/trans-ethnicity is laid out by the evangelist. The Johannine Jesus is presented as not content in the stereotypical ethnic order, but as someone who constantly challenged ethnic groups to redefine their identities. What puts the Johannine Jesus in a powerful position to do so is his unique hybrid identification in the narrative. At one point, he is referred to as a “Jew” by the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:9); at another, he is tagged as a “Samaritan” by the Jews (Jn 8:48). In both occasions Jesus did not negate nor accede to the appellations, yet contested his interlocutors with a re-appropriation of themselves. This activity resonates with Homi K. Bhabha’s postcolonial theory of hybridization, i.e., the subaltern’s self-enunciation against the hegemony of the (neo-) colonial or (neo-) imperial power. In hybridization, it is only in the position of a hybrid that one can instigate a redefinition of ethnic identities that would respect cultural differences and denounce any form of marginalization. This paper discerns a parallel phenomenon in Jn 4:1-42 and Jn 8:12-59 and proposes to understand the Johannine Jesus as consciously leading both the Jews and Samaritans into a “third space” of open encounter and redefinition of their ethnicities.

In recent years, historians of religion have considered the many ways “mental acts impact . . . our object-laden world,” in the words of David Shulman. Emotions are no exception. This paper examines sermons delivered to candidates for baptism and new converts in the Greek-speaking East during the fourth through sixth centuries. Often, preachers called on initiands to imagine themselves as paintings, statues, and buildings. Focusing on mental images and affective cues found in sermons to new converts (e.g., by Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia), this paper suggests these tropes were part of a larger imaginative praxis of reeducating the emotions among lay Christians.

The University of Hartford archaeological projects in Nazareth began in 2003 and continued until a major rediscovery of an ancient mosaic in the back plaza of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation [GOCoA] in the summer of 2015 and 2016. Our work has revealed that there was a settlement near and adjacent to the ancient well from the Middle Bronze Age and through the Byzantine period [and beyond] when the Church of the Annunciation was built near the area known as “Mary’s Well.” The GOCoA was destroyed multiple times in the pre-medieval and medieval periods and rebuilt in the modern period. The work of our project has centered on Mary’s Well, a nearby bathhouse structure, a cistern, the water resources in the area, and GOCoA. Our work in 2015 and 2016 centered on an open trench with a metal roof behind the church. Our use of Ground Penetrating Radar and Electrical Resistivity Tomography on the back court and in the present church revealed that there were indeed structures below the surface of the present church which were excavatable without disturbing the modern church. This paper will detail what we now know the Greater Mary’s Well area and the Church of the Annunciation (Greek Orthodox) from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods onward thanks to dating of pottery finds, C14, coins, glass, and stone finds.

The narratives of the kingship of Josiah in Kings and Chronicles depict Josiah as a great king and temple reformer. As both texts portray, Josiah was the architect of dramatic change to the land of Israel, and more specifically to the Temple in Jerusalem. A closer inspection of these two narratives, however, reveals that there are key differences in the order, magnitude, and impetus for such Josianic reforms, particularly his cultic reforms. In Kings, the temple reforms begin with the discovery of a scroll in the Temple of Jerusalem. In Chronicles, Josiah’s reforms begin after he seeks the “God of his father, David”. Thus, for the Chronicler, the narrative sequence of reforms to the land stress the necessity for a restored Israel before the Temple reforms begin (in contrast to Kings). In this paper, I will discuss Josiah’s reforms, triggered by his “Seeking the God of his father”. This “seeking” allows for his large-scale cultic reform of the land of Israel, and is not just a reform of Judah. This “seeking” also leads Josiah to reform the land into a holy Israel so that he may later create a holy Jerusalem. Hence, it appears that for the Chronicler, a holy Israel is necessary so that there may be a holy Jerusalem.

As Rabbinic jurisprudence evolved after the Torah was written and collated in an attempt to interpret the laws laid down, Islamic law (shari‘ah) also evolved after the Qur’an. With all the Rabbinic deliberations in Rabbinic Law, one might question whether or not Moses was the lawgiver, or if it were more accurately attributed to the Rabbis. Similarly, is Islamic law, which is deliberated throughout the centuries by jurists (mujtahidin), attributed to the Qur’an or best attributed to a post-Qur’anic environment? In the past decades, many revisionists in Qur’anic Studies emerged questioning the reliability of Muslim tradition. The very basis of how Islamic law evolved is tradition. To traditionalists, it is how Mu?ammad, his companions, or the imams (in the case of Shi‘i jurisprudence) acted upon the laws of the Qur’an that allows jurists to interpret, deduce, interpolate, and extrapolate laws. However, if the authenticity of the tradition is disputed, then so would Islamic law. This is not only because of contemporary revisionists, but also due to how different Muslim traditions have interpreted law differently, from those who solely took the exoteric to those who solely took the esoteric, and all who are in between. If Muslim tradition is put aside, how does the Qur’an view itself? Is it a book of law? Is it exoteric or esoteric? Is it influenced by existing laws and/or jurisprudence of its milieu within pre-Islamic Arabia? This paper highlights a concise review of various understandings of Islamic law. The Qur’an requires people to use the Arabic language to interpret it. However, Arabic is full of polysemy with evolving meanings from the time of the Qur’an to the time Islamic jurisprudence developed. Therefore, Islamic law may have taken a different trajectory than what Qur’anic law initially intended.

A typological view of the History of Salvation shows that at its center is the Covenant between God and his people. If Israel is loyal to God´s Covenant then they can actualize their royal and priestly qualities which, according to some Jewish and Christians traditions, reflect God's Glory. On the contrary, if Israel is disobedient, then they must suffer exile and become a dull reflection of their real identity. The human being becomes like a beast of the field. In the process of recovering one’s real being, according to various texts, food plays an important role. In this paper, we will analyze briefly some texts where food is a way of doing penance to return to God’s favor. The worldly food as an expression of repentance for human disobedience, eventually moves God to compassion. But this is only the part of the way. To recover the royal and priestly qualities that reflect God´s Glory, the human person must be nourished by celestial food. Only with this kind of food one recovers one’s real identity in the image of God. The texts analyzed here are The Life of Adam and Eve, The Apocalypse of Abraham, 2Enoch, and various texts concerning Moses.

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Although scholarly work on Paul regularly makes reference to his interest in the "God of Israel," the phrase nowhere appears in Paul's letters. Neither does he use similar language such as the "God of our fathers" or the "God of Abraham." The closest Paul comes is his question in Rom 3:29, "Is God of the Jews only?" His near contemporaries did use such expressions, which makes his silence all the more interesting. This paper will suggest that the title's omission, whether intentional or otherwise, coheres with Paul's understanding of God's action in Jesus Christ, an action that identifies God as "the one who raised Jesus from the dead." Paul continues to identify the connection between God and Israel, but he does so with the phrase "the Israel of God," i.e., the people God created and sustains, rather than with "the God of Israel."

The Book of Psalms attests to the individual and collective struggle with manifold crises: The speakers have to cope with poverty, illness and enemies. At the same time, the Psalms provide resources for coping with adverse conditions. They articulate overwhelming emotions, provide images of protection and shape an emotional process from distress to relief. The messengers of Yhwh play a part in this process. In contrast to those in pre-exilic narrations (Gen 16* or Judg 6*), the messengers of Yhwh do not deliver messages in the Psalms but protect the God-fearing (Ps 34:8), Israel (Ps 78:49) or the individual from situational (enemies; Ps 35:5f) and fundamental vulnerability (Ps 91:11f). The respective Psalms transform the volatile presence of the Mal’ak Yhwh into an accessible transitional space (Winnicott; Stubbe) between self and world. As I will show in my presentation, the idea of continuous angelic protection evolves from the concept of the Exodus-angel (cf. Exod 23:20). In a second strategy, the imagination of angels in Ps 103:20 and Ps 148:2 (cf. Ps 104:4) enhances resilience by appealing to positive emotions. The respective Psalms summon the Mal’akim to praise God along with other creatures and thus reveal the social and cosmic cohesion of creation. They invite the reader to at least momentarily overcome his or her isolation and join in the sphere of joy. Both strategies do not present the Mal’ak Yhwh as an autonomous figure but along with other divine forces or with God himself and thus avoid getting in conflict with monotheism.

In the interwar period, new religious movements emerged in Eastern Europe. Their spiritual leaders were considered — like Enoch, Elijah, and John the Theologian — to have experienced celestial journeys and visited heaven. One such “living saint” was the illiterate prophetess Bona Velinova (1885-1960); she was the most prominent visionary in the Bulgarian religious landscape of the first half of the 20th century, whose divinatory gift was believed to have been bestowed upon her by the Holy Spirit. She was the informal leader of The Holy Orthodox Society for Spiritual Renaissance of Bulgarian People (1922–1924), and its offspring “The Good Samaritan” Orthodox Society (1925–1945), while her “visions” / “translations” (cf. Gn 5:24) and “revelations” (=apocalypses) were published in pamphlets of the book series, Blessed Times Literature, as well as in the periodicals The Voice of the Heavenly Trumpet and Solace. Significantly, the testimonies of each of her “translations” / “visions” / “revelations” employs a thesaurus similar to that of the apocryphal apocalypses of Enoch, Abraham, Baruch, the Virgin Mary, etc. Like her heavenly counterparts, the prophetess is escorted by divine messengers (in her case angels/ Archangels, Old and New Testament prophets, as well as saints and the Virgin Mary) to heaven, where she is granted prophetic revelations concerning the pending changes in the sociopolitical landscape of the world between the First and the Second World Wars and the looming approach of Judgment Day. The focal point of her prophesies is the Messianic claim that the Bulgarians are the “New Chosen People”, who will become the “New Israel”. The aim of the present paper is analyse the thesaurus and the imagery of the Judaeo–Christian apocapypses in contemporary popular religious narratives, such as that of Bona Velinova.

The lecture shall compare the Epic of Gilgamesh and the so-called primordial history of Genesis (Gen 1-11) regarding their positions on the meaning of life in light of the unavoidability of death and on the meaning of human civilisation. Gilgamesh has to learn that the purpose of his life as a king is not the search for physical immortality, but the establishment and protection of civilisation symbolised by the great wall of Uruk described at the beginning and the original end of the Standard Version of the epic. On his deathbed Enkidu is reminded by the Sun-God that it had been worthwhile to live his soon-ending mortal life because of the blessings of civilisation he had enjoyed. While in the Gilgamesh-Epic living in civilisation means to experience fulfillment of life in Gen 1-11 civilisation is considered ambivalent: On the one hand, the civilisatory progress is appreciated; but on the other hand, it is understood as the root of alienation between God and man, of interpersonal alienation and violence, and, therefore, as the root of a major loss of quality of life. According to the book of Genesis fulfillment of life cannot be granted by human civilisation, but it can be gained in a renewed relationship between God and man symbolised in the figure and the life journey of Abraham (from Gen 12 onwards).

The church "St. George" is the oldest preserved building in the Bulgarian capital – Sofia. Under the floor of the hall of the architectural complex, part of which is the church, was found a coin of Emperor Valentinian (364-378). The initial structure functioned, probably, as a bath, but it undergoes over the centuries many architectural changes. In Medieval Ages the central part serves as a church and in the period of Ottoman rule was converted into a mosque. The building was decorated on several occasions, but big importance has three layers – those from 11th, 12th, and 14th centuries. This paper will analyze the images of the Old Testament prophets written around the medallion, with the image of Christ Pantocrator, supported by angels. This ensemble appears as a result of the recovery of the cupola after an earthquake in the 14th century and before the conquest of the town by the Ottoman Turks. The sequence of prophets is unusually numerous (22). At the same time the large number of images is a testimony to knowledge of the Old Testament. The study will focus on the identification of the persons represented and on the texts of the scrolls in their hands.

“Only in the German temperament can be found in the same perfection the living complex of conditions and factors – of philosophical thought, critical acumen, historical insight, and religious feeling – without which no deep theology is possible. And the greatest achievement of German theology is the critical investigation of the life of Jesus” (Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1). In Albert Schweitzer’s historiographical perception, the Quest for the Historical Jesus was unambiguously a triumph of the German national spirit. It is this same judgment that led Marie-Joseph Lagrange, a French priest and exegete, writing contemporaneously, during the heat of the Modernist controversy, to accept and extend Schweitzer’s thesis and plot the Quest within a yet broader history of specifically German exegesis, ultimately reaching back to Martin Luther. The present paper will expose Lagrange’s reframing of the history of Jesus research in Le sens du christianisme d’après l’exégèse allemande (1917), itself a highly contextualized Catholic viewpoint on the project, in order to pose two fundamental questions. How did the ideology of national identity inform the origins of the Quest and its conceptualization at the time of Schweitzer and Lagrange? What role did the Reformation play in catalyzing this mode of Gospel study?

In Rom 11:1-2 Paul emphatically states that God has not rejected his people. The wording of this statement alludes to Ps 94:14 and 1 Sam 12:22. However, these texts are only two examples of a vivid discussion within the Old Testament of whether or not God did/will reject his people respectively under which circumstances God might do so. A first overview already shows, that the people’s experience or fear of being abandoned by their deity is expressed more frequently than the conviction, that God will not reject them. Especially the interpretative context of guilt and punishment includes the possibility that God might abandon his people. The primary context of justice is also apparent in texts confidently expecting that God will not reject them. This applies in particular when the texts describe situations of existential threats. In such a case, the people are frequently shown to adhere to the confidence that they will be saved because God will not abandon them — be it due to divine mercy, God’s great name or his commitment to the people’s progenitors, to name just a few explanatory statements. However, this hope does not necessarily include all people, some texts further differentiate between the fate of the righteous and the wicked. Furthermore, divine punishment and (everlasting) divine care are not necessarily regarded as exclusive. In my paper, I will explore the different interpretative contexts in which Old Testament texts address the issue whether or not God rejects his people before I focus more closely on the specific discourse in Ps 94 and 1 Sam 12:22.

Informed by the flowering of critical men’s studies in religion (Krondorfer), I examine in this paper the intersection of gender ideologies of the mid-Roman imperial period and reception of the figure of Joseph of Nazareth in The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (IGT). Without dismissing the importance of prior reception critiques of Jesus in IGT (Frillingos; Chartrand-Burke; Davis; Litwa; Cousland), I offer here an aligned study concerned with other questions related to some of IGT’s secondary (more implicit) gendered concerns. Joseph makes a substantial and significant appearance in this work as well, and, as has rarely been acknowledged or put to critical (feminist-allied) reflection, Joseph is never far from the narrative center. Similar to his showing in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 1-2), every single one of IGT’s tales that feature Joseph (IGT 2-7; 12-17) are narrated from his point of view. As suggested by James H. Liu and János László with regards to prototypical in-group characters in ‘historical’ narratives, Joseph’s point-of-view characterization in IGT feasibly plays a key role in mediating collective memory and putative in-group identity, intimately bound up with the processes of male self-fashioning. Like many of the other discourses of colonized Roman subjects in this period, early representations of Joseph exhibit a range of ambivalent and disruptive engagements with imperial idealized or hegemonic masculinity (Connell), and also offer clear examples of the intersection of gender and other markers of identity and structurings of power in the ancient world, such as ethnicity, race, and class (Kimber Buell; Nasrallah and Schüssler Fiorenza). My findings expose the political mechanics behind Joseph’s colorful, yet somehow everyday, reception in IGT and open interpretive possibilities for rethinking normative views of manliness in early Christianity and beyond.

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This paper will focus on how practitioners of Jewish rituals in the late Second Temple period contextualized these practices as part of the religion of ancient Israel. This paper will examine this issue by focusing on the Book of Jubilees. This book consistently portrays the patriarchs as founders of major Jewish rituals. One reason for this is exegetical. In some cases a patriarch is connected to a ritual in order to present the early history of Israel in a more flattering light than the book of Genesis does. In Jubilees 7, for example, the embarrassing account of Noah’s drunkenness (Gen 9:20-27) is transformed into a ritual at which his whole family drinks wine, and he offers a sacrifice that is related to that of Numbers 29. Another major goal of Jubilees is to encourage the practice of major Jewish rituals by providing etiologies for them that are rooted in the form of religion practiced by the patriarchs. Jubilees 6, for example, presents Noah’s sacrifice (Gen 8:20) and God’s covenant in Genesis 9 as the origins of the Festival of Weeks. Jubilees also asserts (6:18) that since the creation of the world up to this point this ritual was practiced by angels. So understood, Shevuot did not originate in the revelation to Moses on Sinai. Rather the Sinai event renewed a religious practice that was practiced long before Moses which mimics the liturgical practices of angels. Jubilees is not content to assert that major rituals of Judaism should be carried out because they are mandated in the Torah. The text wants practitioners of these rites to understand their origins and know that they are consistent with the nature of the cosmos and the religion of ancient Israel.

The list of David’s heroes, in its two occurrences (2 Samuel 23:8-39 and 1 Chronicles 11:11-47), is a prime case study for textual and literary criticisms going hand in hand. These two, mostly-parallel pericopes differ in several aspects: details of their shared material; additional material, mostly found at the end of the list; and their respective literary contexts, as part of the ‘appendix to the book of Samuel’ (2 Samuel 21-24) or an assemblage of warrior lists (1 Chronicles 11-12), respectively. This paper offers a fresh look at the two occurrences of the list of David’s warriors, in their array of textual witnesses, focusing on issues that have bearing to understanding the development – not necessarily growth – of this text: the differences pertaining to the internal structure, and each occurrence’s interrelations with its context. These variances will be shown to reflect the stages of development of the list of warriors and its perception and literary function, as well as contributing to the scholarly discussion of the existence of (independent) collections of lists, from which these lists may have been taken.

Abraham Bar Hiyya (ca. 1065-ca. 1140)—a Jewish scientist, philosopher and biblical exegete—is the author of a book entitled The Meditation of the Sad Soul, dealing with ethical and philosophical problems supported by homiletic exegesis of some Biblical passages. The third chapter of the book is based on some sections of the Prophetical Books, and deals with the problem of redemption of sinners through contrition and repentance. Part of the chapter is dedicated to the question of repentance in the Book of Jonah. According to Bar Hiyya this book reflects the three categories of repentants: the completely righteous, the not completely righteous, and the wicked. The first category is represented by the prophet himself; the second category is represented by the sailors, who were saved from punishment by their prayers and repentance; the third category is represented by the people of Niniveh, who repented so that the evil decree on them was cancelled. In this paper I will analyse how Bar Hiyya constructs a theology of repentance basing on his explanations on the Book of Jonah. I will also contrast Bar Hiyya’s exegesis with that of other medieval Jewish exegetes—such as Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra and Eliezer of Beaugency—, in order to place Bar Hiyya’s theology of repentance in the context of the development of medieval Jewish exegesis on this biblical book.

In this paper, I will approach Gen. 4:1-16 as an undocumented migrant by adopting insights from Giorgio Agamben’s political hermeneutics. Furthermore, I will delineate the contours of a political interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel and seek to relate them to the current situation of migrants fleeing from violence. This political reading will reveal the conflicting character of the other who is perceived precisely as the other inasmuch as she or he does not relate to the in-group by blood, citizenship, or any other kind of traditional bond or socially accepted identity. Therefore, migrants are commonly perceived as a threat to the social order of nation-states that are reluctant to receive them. Through this reading of Gen. 4:1-16, I will challenge the political domestication of biblical texts that continues to dominate biblical studies despite the challenges posed against this trend in the discipline in recent years. The first part of my analysis will focus on the figure of God as the ultimate Agambenian father, the one with absolute power to kill or spare his child solely from the father-son relation. In the story, this concept is explicit in the arbitrary divine selection of Cain as a son of sorts, and the equally arbitrary rejection of his sacrifice. Second, through a close reading of Gen. 4:7, and using Slavoj Žižek’s conceptualization of violence, I will uncover the systemic and symbolic violence that the deity uses to prepare the murder of Abel. Third, I will examine God’s possible motivations in deploying this violence as well as those in haranguing Cain into admitting his guilt by using the concepts of homo sacer, foundational murder, and sacred executioner.

Torah is a dominant theme in 4 Ezra, a Jewish pseudepigraphon written three decades after 70 CE as a response to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans. The discussion of Torah in 4 Ezra takes place against the wider issue of the relationship between Wisdom and Law in ancient Judaism in all its complexities, especially during the Second Temple period. By using the term Torah, the author expresses a wide range of meanings, from the Law of Moses to Scripture generally, even to revelations written and unwritten beyond Scripture, as well as to divine wisdom and judgment. Although Torah is polysemic and the Pentateuch is only one of many meanings, it upholds the priority of Sinai by presenting Ezra’s reception of the Torah as an encore of the revelations received by Moses, both the common and the secret. Finally, Torah in 4 Ezra is deliberately represented as a book; its recipient, indeed, sees apocalyptic visions and speaks prophetic words, but the title attributed to him is “the Scribe of the knowledge of the Most High” (14:50). 4 Ezra’s understanding of Torah as both Wisdom and Scripture testifies to the growing influence of a book religion in the Second Temple period. What our apocalyptic author is concerned with, however, is Torah piety in sapiential style, not juridical or cultic matters. His eschatological scheme hinges upon his understanding of the salvific force of the Torah.

In some parts of the Psalter, with clear connections to Exodus and Deuteronomy, Moses appears like a substitution for David, after the disappearance of the monarchy at the return from the exile. This issue appears also in the Pentateuch. But in the line of the Asaphite Levite group we can see in some texts of the Psalter and the Pentateuch a rehabilitation of David. In other passages this rehabilitation is contested by the Korachite Levite group. These points enable us to understand the role of David in the post-exilic time, in relation to the conflicts between the different groups of Levite personnel. The redaction of the Book of Jeremiah with the rehabilitation of David, and the “two families”, appears in the Asaphite line, and the Book of Isaiah, with the disappearance of the Davidic dynasty appears in the Korachite line. The part of the Ezrahite group that proclaimed the end of the dynasty with the Korachite group in Psalms 84-89, and then joined with the Asaphite group in 1 Ch 15-16, enables us to understand some aspects of the redaction of the Bible.

Adolf von Harnack was professor in Berlin from 1888 to 1921 and was, arguably, the leading church historian of his day. In 1897 (Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur) he dated the synoptic gospels as follows: Mark, 65-70; Matthew, 70-75 apart from some later additions; Luke-Acts, 78-93. By 1908 (Die Apostelgeschichte), he had raised questions about the dating of Luke-Acts: “St. Luke wrote at the time of Titus or in the earlier years of Domitian, but perhaps even so early as the beginning of the seventh decade of the first century. The political rule ‘quieta non movere’ does not hold good for science. She must therefore determine also to submit this question to fresh investigation or—if convincing arguments are wanting—leave it open.” Finally, in 1911 (Neue Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte und zur Abfassungszeit der synoptischen Evangelien), he developed a full argument for dating Acts before the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of Paul and, by extension, early dates for at least the gospels of Luke and Mark. On the difficulties of dating the books of the NT, Andrew Gregory has recently noted: “…the arguments are often circular and dependent on very little evidence that can be tested in a way that will command assent…. Unless new evidence may be adduced, the only way forward may be to bring new questions or fresh approaches to the evidence that we have.” (JSNT 39 [2016] 97-8). Although more than a century separates Gregory and Harnack, their call for fresh investigation/approaches is almost identical. I propose to unpack the assumptions, criteria, and approaches that led Harnack to a “fresh investigation” and what he took to be “convincing arguments.” Why he moved away from what was, and still is, the commonly held view of the dates of the synoptic gospels is worth examination.

Many biblical characters pray to and meet God and God’s emissaries in elevated spaces. Often the formulaic expression of looking up (va-yisa einav) and seeing (va-ya'ar) in combination with behold (ve-hinei) is part of this experience. This paper starts with the premise that the physical lifting up of one's eyes by an individual (or a group) is a search for assistance and comfort. The phrase "I lift my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come?" (Ps 121:1) indicates that height or elevation augments the search for faith or answers. There are many instances of the combination of “lifting up one’s eyes,” “seeing,” and “beholding” scattered throughout the bible (e.g. Gen 18, 22, 24, 33, 37; 2 Sam 15,18; 2 Kgs 6; Ez 8; Zech 2; Dan 8; 1 Chr 21). The more common expression is va-ya’ar ve-hinei (e.g. Gen 40:6). What is the point of the redundancy of both lifting up eyes and seeing? Surely seeing would be enough? The physicality of va-yisah is also interesting because many times the word goes together with voice and crying: he and she raise voice and cried (va-yisah kol va-yevch). This paper argues that “lifting eyes and beholding” are the expressions of the interior thinking of mostly males. The notable gap is the case of Rebecca (Gen 24:64), where hinei does not appear (and instead she falls off her camel). The outcome of the formula is not always the desired one, but there is both resolution and/or closure (e.g. Gen 33:1 and 2 Sam 18:24). This paper will examine what this formula’s place is in the individual texts and as part of an inter-related corpus of texts. Using the methodology of intertextuality it will be argued that this kind of reading both shapes and produces new interpretations.

Many ANE temples seem to have been thought of as the “houses” of the deities dwelling in them. As far as the Temple of YHW in Elephantine is concerned, this is reflected at least two of the words used to describe it: byt yhw and ?gwr? zy yhw. The terminology evokes the idea of a divine immanence. Correspondingly, the Elephantine Judaeans could attribute the epithet “the god who dwells in Elephantine” to YHW. However, in other contexts YHW was referred to as “the god of heaven,” both by the Elephantine Judaeans themselves and by others. Thus, the terminology for the temple and its deity—“the Elephantine Judaean temple theology”—encompasses movements in two opposite directions: towards immanence and transcendence. ¶ Moreover, besides these two loci of divine presence (“house” vs. “heaven”), the Judaeans were apparently aware of other manifestations of YHW(H)—in locations outside of Elephantine: in Jerusalem and probably also in Samaria. ¶ Furthermore, the Elephantine Judaeans were exposed to other ANE pantheons. The epithet “god of heaven” is especially intriguing. It was used for YHW. However, it may also have evoked the claims made in royal Achaemenid inscriptions (inscriptions that evidently were promulgated), namely that Ahuramazda is creator of earth and heaven. ¶ What was the Elephantine Judaeans’ conception of YHW? The paper will attempt to address the research question from three perspectives: ¶ • In light of the destruction of the temple of YHW, “the god dwelling in Elephantine,” and “the god of heaven,” in year 410 BCE and the attempt(s) to rebuild it (at least) in 407 BCE (cf. TADAE A4.7–10), ¶ • in light of the multiple manifestations of YHW(H)  in the Achaemenid period (“YHWH of Elephantine,” “YHWH of Jerusalem,” and perhaps “YHWH of Samaria”), and ¶ • in light of the role of the deity Ahuramazda in the royal Achaemenid inscriptions.

John Berger famously wrote, “Men act and women appear.” But what happens when a man, or a male body, appears, and a woman is the one who acts? The question is further complicated when this action is the action of scholarly inquiry, and the woman is not simply a woman (already a fraught category), but a feminist. Taking as a starting provocation Berger's reflections on the gendered politics of representation, as well as his analysis of female self-surveillance (“From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually,” “she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision”), this paper sketches the constituent elements of a feminist approach to the male body in the biblical text and to masculinity studies more broadly.. The prophet Ezekiel and the many bodies that populate the book of Ezekiel serve as a case study.. I argue that the study of the male body can, and must, be informed by feminist hermeneutics.. I also consider the ambivalent status of the scholar who undertakes this scholarly work, as well as the politics of the feminist gaze.

In this paper the field of trauma and disaster studies, a new interdisciplinary conversation, will be used to investigate the book of Isaiah. Insights from this field of inquiry point to passages that anticipate disaster, speak about disaster and offer ways of surviving the dreadful consequences of disaster. The book of Isaiah draws its readers into the darkest valleys of destruction. The first part is full of oracles hammering its audience with images of corruption and warnings of imminent doom. The prophet’s oracles offered a reality check for the Isaianic interpretative community who reflected on the significance of his words for subsequent generations. Divine presence is implied in the call narrative in Isaiah 6 as the prophet witnesses God’s holiness. However, the last verses of the call narrative suggests that the people will not escape a terrible destiny (6:9-12): the cities will lie waste without inhabitant (6:11). This claim though was not left uncommented by the interpretative community. A theologically concerned hand opens a new prospect by claiming that a small remnant will survive and will constitute the seed of hope (6:13). In spite of elements of disaster and trauma, this text in the book of Isaiah is a work of hope and resilience, one that shows its audience a way forward in the midst of troubling times.

Jewish participation in the cult of Roman emperors was a highly sensitive question in the imperial period. We are aware that there was a strict prohibition on setting up altars, shrines, statues or any images in honour of the rulers. But was this ban expanded to honorific inscriptions as well? We are informed by Philo of Alexandria how the Jews of Jerusalem protested against a ‘shield of virtue’ (clipeus virtutis) made by the governor Pontius Pilate, because its text contained religiously forbidden expressions. On the other hand, Philo also has stated that synagogues all over the Roman Empire were intended to show reverence for benefactors of the Augustan house. Synagogue dedications to the Ptolemaic rulers have been preserved in Egypt already. We are also aware from epigraphic sources that synagogues in Rome were named after Herod, Agrippa, Augustus, and the Severuses. The so-called Mindius Faustus-inscription of the synagogue of Ostia was dedicated “for the welfare of our Augustus”, viz. an unnamed emperor. A synagogue at Intercisa (Dunaújváros, Hungary), was ded-icated to the “Eternal God and to the Lord Emperors”; and the synagogue at Mursa (Osijek, Croatia) was dedicated to Septimius Severus and his two sons Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) and Septimius Geta, as well as their mother Julia Domna. The names of two Severan emperors turned up on an en-igmatic Greek inscription even at Qasyun (Israel).

Is it legitimate to study Deuteronomy 12–26 in isolation from Deuteronomy 1–11 and 27–34? Much scholarly attention has been devoted to the analysis of the similarities between the ‘laws’ of Deuteronomy 12–26 and the laws in Exodus 21–23 and Leviticus 17–27. The aim was to date each legal collection more than identifying the purpose of each collection. To place purpose before date, this paper presents a number of traits in Deuteronomy: - Worship as yearly banquets of all Israelite families in front of YHWH at a unnamed location - Yearly tithes entirely consumed by the tithe-payers at the banquets - Administration of triennial tithes by the Levites at the local level - Edomite brotherhood - Sons of Edomites and Egyptians admitted in the assembly of the Lord These unique traits invent an Israel that differs significantly from Carly Crouch’s view that Deuteronomy constructs a distinctive Israelite identity in avoidance of non-Israelites. Rather, Deuteronomy’s core imagines an Israelite identity distinct from the Israel of the other parts of the Pentateuch. After an overview of the characteristics of the Deuteronomistic Israel, this presentation will focus on a selection of passages that align Deuteronomy’s core with Moses’ Torah. The upshot is that the original core is narrower than Deuteronomy 12–26 and that reading this core independently from its reworkings is both necessary and legitimate.

Most scholars readily acknowledge that the Syriac text of Second Baruch in Codex Ambrosianus (ms 7a1) is translated from a Greek Vorlage. Nevertheless, very little work has been done on translational features of the text. While the absence of substantial Greek witness to the book poses limitations, the existence of a single Greek fragment affords the opportunity to gain access to a small window into the larger phenomenon. This paper examines this 4th/5th century fragment, P. Oxy. III 403 (12:1 – 13:2 recto; 13:11 – 14:3 verso), to consider what light it may shed upon the translation of its corresponding verses in the Syriac and what this may indicate about the transmission of Second Baruch.

Joel Itzkowitz devoted a paper to St. Jerome's attitude to phylacteries - “Jews, Christians, Phylacteries: Jerome on Matthew 23:5”, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 15, Number 4, (Winter 2007) - charging Jerome with using the term and the ritual to problematize Jewish practise. I propose to argue that there was a considerable body of opinion within Judaism both before the advent of Christianity and after which associated phylacteries with idol worship and disputed the rabbinic interpretation of the practise as a post-facto monotheistic regularisation of a practise which can be clearly seen in Maccabees I and other sources to be considered idolatrous. Jerome can be viewed then as not a friendly witness but as following a tradition of Jewish critique.

It is not known whether William Tyndale had access to the 1525 Biblia Rabbinica in preparing his 1530 Old Testament. The Translators of the Authorised Version of 1611 used the Biblia Rabbinica as their Hebrew source text however. In 1884 Reverend Mombert's critical commentary claimed that 280 changes were made to Tyndale’s translation of the Pentateuch in the Matthew's Bible. My research appears to be the first attempt since then to list and analyse the changes. I've found many more than 280 and while concentrating on Deuteronomy will seek to draw conclusions about the kind of changes that were made to the translation and the extent to which they can be seen to rely on one of the Jewish commentators in the Biblia Rabbinica.In this paper I wish to present five different types of revision or kind of evidence that has been thrown up by an examination of the different editions from 1530 to 1611 and to discuss what the different cases might suggest regarding the extent of commentator influence on the English translation of Deuteronomy.

From a biblical perspective, the characters of Eve Adam is mostly associated with the story of Paradise – the creation of humanity, temptation, transgression and expulsion, which particularly in the Christian context is perceived as the Original Sin. In Islam, however, Adam (and sometimes Eve, too) are regarded as a prophet, whose misdeed (which was not a grave sin) has been forgiven by God, and according to some commentators, even pre-destined by the Creator. The Islamic sources contain multiple narratives about the biography of Eve and Adam and their various experiences during their earthly lives. Shi‘ite tradition, in particular, tends to connect many aspects of Eve, and particularly Adam’s, lives to legal practices of Islam, from the five pillars to issues of marriage and inheritance. This talk will examine the roll of Eve and Adam in validating Islamic law in particular, and Islam in general, as evolving from the very beginning of human existence, hence preceding all other legal and religious systems.

Who Built the Galilee Boat? Thirty-one years after a Late Hellenistic – Early Roman Period boat was discovered on the northwestern Galilean shoreline, what do we really know about it? Was it a sailed fishing vessel, as is often told modern tourists? And what of the man who built her? If archaeology is the study of people through material culture, then who built the Galilee Boat? Where did he live? Was he a Galilean? What was the quality of his craftsmanship? And what of his personal life? Historical sources and archaeological evidence offer insights into the man who envisioned and realized Galilee’s most enigmatic and famous artifact.

The Masoretic Text of the book of Job ends with the death of the protagonist. Besides the final narrative (Job 42:7-17), however, also the divine speeches, followed by Job’s short answers (Job 38:1-42:6), function as a conclusive part of the book. In my paper, therefore, I will analyze to what extent the two endings of Job appear to contradict each other and in which sense instead they might be seen as complementary. For that purpose, I will evidence in what way the two endings are linked among each other and how they refer back to the beginning of the book, marking in this way its conclusion. The Greek version of Job instead points beyond Job’s life resp. beyond his death, looking ahead to his resurrection. Additionally, the appendix in the Greek text also links the Joban narrative to Gen 36. Consequently, as I will show in my paper, the appendix reflects the need to situate to book of Job in the (growing) biblical canon, a phenomenon that in a different way can be observed also in the beginnings of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.

It is well known that the very common nouns leb and lebab, usually translated “heart” or “mind,” are frequently used in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible to represent the locus of the acquisition of wisdom and insight. Elsewhere they are used to represent the locus of devotion to the deity and obedience to Torah. The Jewish literature of the late Second Temple period continues these usages, but we begin to see an important new development in texts concerned with prayer. In the Greek text of 2 Macc. 1:4, for example, the deity is to “open your heart(s) (kardia) to his Law," which finds a strong echo in the Hebrew of the Qeduššâ deSidrâ, as well as in the Qumran Hodayot and Luke-Acts (e.g. Luke 24:44-45), and also much later in traditions found in the Hekhalot literature. This paper will trace the background and evolution of this development, which depends on the confluence in the late Second Temple period of three ideas: (1) leb/lebab as the bodily locus of wisdom, piety, and obedience, particularly as attested in the so-called Torah psalms (esp. Ps 119); (2) the kind of identity between Torah and Wisdom that we find in Sirach; and (3) Torah as a hidden source of wisdom, akin to the divinely revealed wisdom that we find in the apocalyptic literature. The “heart” or “mind” has become a human faculty that must be opened up by the deity in order for the hidden Torah to be understood and obeyed.

In his 2006 book Jesus and the Eyewitness: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony", Richard Bauckham contends that the Gospels present themselves as eyewitness testimonies of what Jesus said and did and, rather than being the end product of layers of redaction by subsequent communities of Jesus believers, the Gospels are closer in their form to the interpretive recounting (or remembering) of Jesus' life by eyewitnesses. This paper will critique Bauckham's modeling of the transmitting of Jesus traditions orally via the memory of eyewitnesses. It will summarize the current scholarship on the use of eyewitness memory by authors producing "Lives". Finally, the paper will explore the credibility of this approach by evaluating what several of Jesus' parables in the Synoptic double and triple tradition provide as evidence for eyewitness testimony that is remembered.

Revelation 11 describes the testimony of two witnesses who are martyred and whose bodies remain unburied for three-and-a-half days. A 2008 essay discussed the probable influence of this text upon the Martyrs of Lyons 5.1. (Bingham, “The Apocalypse, Christ, and the Martyrs of Gaul”). A 2016 essay further developed the parallels (Hartog, “The Devil’s in the Details”). Neither study, however, considered the underlying echoes from Psalm 79. The psalmist references both “the flesh of your saints” and “the dead bodies of your servants.” Because the corpses of deceased saints remain unburied, the entire community is disparaged. “We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those who are around us” (v. 4). This status of shared humiliation motivates the psalmist to reinforce the community’s identity as the people of God (v. 13). He calls upon the LORD, to avenge “the blood of Your servants” (v. 10), “and return to our neighbors … their reproach with which they have reproached You” (v. 12). Psalm 79 probably influenced Revelation 11, and similar sentiments later resonated within the Martyrdom of Polycarp and the Martyrs of Lyons. This understanding of intertextual imagery brings to light new insights into the martyrological materials. In particular, the prohibition of Polycarp’s burial “at the instigation of the Jews” in the Mart.Pol. heightens the identity formation of the Christian community as the “race of the righteous” (14.1). The Jews are lumped together with the pagans (a reversal of Psalm 79), as enemies who disdained Polycarp and his corpse. The Christian community eventually buried the bishop’s body, thus overturning their corporate reproach. Therefore, the foundational referent in Mart.Pol. 18 is not a cult of the martyr’s relics (as some have argued), but the community’s reverence for the scorned body by burial “in a suitable place.”

According to 2 Kgs 3:2b, King Joram of Israel removed the pillar of Baal that his father had made. This behaviour apparently forms the backdrop to the preceding mitigation of the evaluation of his reign in 3:2aß, “he did what was evil in the sight of Yhwh, though not like his father and mother.” Scholars have often regarded this information as derived from archival source and concluded that Joram conducted a petit cult reform. Yet, the same pillar is removed in the story of Jehu’s eradication of the Baal cult in 2 Kgs 10:26–27 (MT), creating inconsistency within the Book of Kings. The LXXL and OL offer different accounts on Jehu’s story in 2 Kgs 10:26–27, which will bring light to the textual history of the verses. This paper, by examining the different versions of 2 Kgs 10:26–27, attempts to reconstruct the textual history of 2 Kgs 10:26–27. Then in light of the result, this paper also aims at elucidating the technique employed by the editor who is responsible for 2 Kgs 3:2aß–b.

Sanctification is the process of transition from the realm of unclean and defiled to that of purity and holiness. These two domains are so distant that blood of ??s?a needs to be shed in order to advance. In my presentation, drawing on the conclusions from my dissertation, I shall focus on the five cases of the verb “?????e??” in the Epistle of Hebrews (2:11; 9:13; 10:10, 14; 13:12) and will suggest four Christological conclusions, proving that the sanctification here is not an achievement expected from believers, but is rather an accomplishment of the Heavenly High Priest. In Hebrews, the Father is the agent and the sender of Jesus, who earns sanctification through his holy blood. This provides ritual purity (red heifer//baptism) and even cleanses s??e?d?s??. Second, the Heavenly Priest Jesus sacrifices himself, enters the heavenly Holy of Holies on the Heavenly Yom Kippur bringing efficient atonement. Third, Jesus is “???????”, the one who leads the way, bridging the gap between the realms of unclean and holy, granting the access to those who have not deserved it. Finally, he follows Azazel’s fate of suffering in the place of unholy wilderness (13:12). Even though the author develops two parallel, mutually explanatory, notions of the earthly and heavenly sanctuary, they share a common base: sacrifice is a means by which God invites his people to meet him. The sanctification and perfection in the epistle to Hebrews is therefore a gift of Jesus who made the way for all the others who want to embrace it.

Nehemiah 10 presents a covenant and the corresponding document that deal mainly with the supply of the Jerusalem temple by a present community. It was integrated into the Ezra-Nehemiah-Composition by the quotation of Ezr 2 in Neh 7 and by the story of the presentation of the Torah in Neh 8. That way the covenant becomes a commitment of the entire people of Israel on the basis of the Torah. This contextualization presupposes the basic authority of the Torah, but raises the question why it was still necessary to present Neh 10 as a partially different law document. While research usually deals with this problem through literary historical considerations, the paper will focus on the very specific content of Neh 10. Thus, we can see it as a halakhic source that develops the general outline of the Torah with partially different concepts which depend on the necessities of the post-exilic cult and the capabilities of the postexilic community.

The celebrated call of Micah “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8), strikes a fierce blow against the nation of Judah which has, according to the prophet, comprehensively failed in its obligation to walk in the ways of YHWH. At the heart of this accusation is the evidence of oppression, corruption, and false prophecy which demonstrates a rejection of God’s justice ('mishpat') and thus a betrayal of YHWH’s covenant with His chosen people. This much is well attested, and many scholars have noted significant parallels between the details of Micah’s complaint and the covenant requirements as laid out in Exodus 20:1-17, Leviticus 19:9-18 and 25:1-55 in particular. In his 1988 commentary, Bruce Waltke made a similar comparison between Micah’s understanding of 'mishpat' and the Covenant Code as recorded in Exodus 21:1-23:19, although he did not explore the connection in specific detail. Others have also noted isolated points of crossover between these texts, but Waltke’s suggestion that the parallel is more comprehensive, as well as his implication that this may be deliberate, has yet to be closely investigated. The thesis of this paper is that there is indeed a profitable comparison to be made between these two texts, both of which begin with confrontations of idolatry before setting out to define YHWH’s 'mishpat', according to closely corresponding themes. This paper will present the results of this comparative study and offer reflections on the extent to which this indicates a conscious interaction between the texts and whether this provides evidence of a sophisticated covenant ideology in the Book of Micah.

In October 2016, Shmuel Ahituv et al. published the so-called Jerusalem Papyrus, celebrated as one of the oldest inscriptions with mention of the name Jerusalem in Pre-Exilic Hebrew. This lecture will discuss the papyrus as well as various readings and interpretations.

The paper investigates reflections on reading practices in the letters of Paul within the broader context of reading practices in the Greco-Roman world on the one hand and against the background of reading terminology in ancient Greek on the other hand. The paper will raise the following questions: Which modes of reception did Paul himself envision for his letters? Is there evidence for an institution in the Pauline communities which scholars commonly refer to as “performative reading” in the communities’ worships? Do we have to assume differences concerning the modes of reception between the generally accepted Pauline letters and the so-called Deutero-Pauline letters? Moreover, does the formation of collections of Paul’s letters imply changes in the Early Christian practice of reading?

Abraham Geiger’s Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel (1857) performs a triple function. It uncovers the ideological motives for textual change in the postexilic period; it rehabilitates this period as one of religious vitality rather than the ossification of Judaism into a “dead work”; and it provides a rationale for the modern reform of Judaism as a continuation of its “inner life.” The impact of Geiger’s scholarship was blocked due to institutional and intellectual antisemitism, but was recovered in the wake of the discoveries at Qumran; his religious renewal found new life in America.

Feminist biblical studies continues to offer insight and challenge to biblical scholarship, particularly when radically engaging with gender and queer theory beyond the dominant disciplinary paradigm. Such an approach has been championed by Deryn Guest (2011, 2012, 2016) in work which integrates trans*, queer and gender methodologies developed outside biblical studies form hermeneutical strategies in light of lesbian, genderqueer and trans* experiences. In this paper I will build on her cri de coeur, in the presentation of a hermeneutics of cispicion; namely a reading strategy which does not assume characters or readers start from a position where their gender identity, ontology and presentation necessarily remain fixed or in alignment with assignation of sex at birth. This concept is grounded in the feminist hermeneutics of suspicion, and owes a huge debt to the feminist scholars who devised and refined the concept. Yet in moving the discipline of gender-critical biblical studies forwards, it is necessary to engage with the emerging work exploring the experiences of trans* and non-binary people. To assume the Bible says nothing about or to such experiences is to approach the text from a cisnormative position, i.e. one which assumes it is normal to be cisgendered, or in other words not trans*. Just as an androcentric patriarchal normative position has rightly been critiqued by feminists, and queer scholars are challenging latent heteronormativity, I will argue for the need to acknowledge and confront cisnormativity which is both timely and necessary. The hermeneutics of cispicion encourages investigation of female masculinities, male femininities and gender non-conformity in multiple forms. I will consider the case studies of Sarah (Genesis 12-24) and Jacob (Genesis 25-49) through both feminist and cispicious methodologies, and contrast their stories with biblical discourses of gender (Thiem 2007, 2014) as experienced in contemporary society.

Regarding the early post-exilic Period the theological innovations and the literary work of the Judean Gola groups is believed to have the most meaningful impact on the theological-history and literary-history of the Old Testament in the so called formative period. However, as research and finds of the past few years show, there seems to be another “Israelite” group, that was of decisive importance for the literary and theological formation processes of Judaism: the Samaritan Yhwh-worshippers from Mt. Gerizim. There had not been yet to much attention on the Samaritans in this regard, as recent scholarship (referring mainly to the narration of Josephus) mainly sees the Samaritan-Judean relations from the 6th to the 2nd centuries BCE as disrupted by deep conflicts. However, the paper will show, that this view has to modified: a) there existed two comparable (predominantly) monotheistic Yahwism in both, Juda and Samaria in post-exilic times. b) The Samaritan-Judean relations from the 6th to the 2nd centuries BCE were predominantly shaped by a coexistence of both communities. c) In addition, there were certainly also contacts and interactions on the most diverse levels (though especially among religious elites) between both cult-communities on Mt. Gerizim and in Jerusalem. d) , the “Samaritans” were certainly no marginal religio-historical phenomenon in the post-exilic period (a “Jewish sect”), but instead the most theological-historically significant form of Yahwism in the Levant heartland, beside that of Judah These fields will be surveyed in the paper, and the impact of these finds on the formative period will be explored. Materially the creative cooperation between both denominations of “Israel” is tangible in the “Common Pentateuch,” that is in the compromise-document of the cult-communities of Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Zion, as will be shown in the paper.

The Hebrew Bible, specifically the sources of the Pentateuch, present wildly contrasting views concerning the legitimacy and efficacy of child sacrifice. The Aqedah is deemed by some interpreters to be an anti-child-sacrifice polemic. Yet, other interpreters, especially some source critics, view the angelic intervention as a later interpolation, claiming that the original version of the text ended with the death of Isaac instead of a substitutive ram taking his place. Further, some legal texts in the Pentateuch describing child sacrifice provide for the substitution of an animal in lieu of a child (Exod 34:19-20) while others offer no such clause (Exod 22:29-30). While ancient Israel and Judah (along with Phoenician Carthage) are thought to alone in their sacrifice of children in both the Levant and the larger milieu of the Ancient Near East, child sacrifice occurs quite frequently in Greek literature as well. Though there is no regulation of the act via an extended, unified Hellenistic Law Code (as no such code is presently known), it is commonly attested in both Greek epic and historical writing. As in Pentateuchal law, the theme of animal substitution for human sacrifice is of great import; the most prominent example of differing representations of a single human sacrifice would be the depictions of the daughter of Agamemnon, Iphigenia. While some texts describe her death due to her father’s insult of the goddess Artemis, others show various forms of substitution. This exploratory essay will seek to draw connections between these two and attempt to identify similar ideological shifts from the acceptance of human sacrifice in the ancient world to substitutive measures allowing for said human’s place to be taken.

Over the last thirty years, “vulnerability“ has become a key concept in academic research with great social relevance. In medicine and ecology, as well as in studies on poverty, migration and religio-political violence, vulnerability is a decisive topic. Thus, interdisciplinary network is needed. Wounds and vulnerabilities are a central theme in the bible, too. This opens up the chance to transform biblical studies on non-theological academic “vulnerability discourse”. What perspectives does theology bring to this problem area? In vulnerability discourse, one normally finds an opposition of “vulnerable, week, attackable” versus “resilient, strong, safe”. But in the bible, the practice of voluntary vulnerability is very important. It can respond to the requirement to protect others and to serve up justice. Which correlations between vulnerability, trauma and resilience can one find here? Can resilience grow out of vulnerability? To find answers in biblical studies, it may be helpful to distinguish “victim” (to suffer with wounds) from “sacrifice” (someone risks vulnerability for a higher purpose, for example humanity or justice).

In the beginning of the public career of Jesus, Mark and Matthew both narrate how Jesus “calls” four fishermen to follow him which results in an immediate positive response (Mark 1:16–20/Matt 4:18–22). How is the reader to understand Jesus’ calling of disciples? Is Jesus making an authoritative command or does he merely invites the fishermen? What is Jesus doing when he “calls” his disciples? These questions are important since they have implications for the understanding of the characterization of Jesus in the narratives. The most common view among scholars is to understand the calling of Jesus as a command. The response of the fishermen is thus obedience to the command of Jesus. Scott Spencer even argues in an article that Jesus is portrayed as an alternative imperial ruler who is summoning people with an “imperious” call. The used Greek terms, however, suggest that Jesus is inviting the fishermen and not commanding them. It seems also unlikely that Jesus gives a command to follow him and at the same time gives a reason why they should follow and a promise of empowerment. But if the calling is understood as an invitation to apprentice, the promise of equipment makes sense. A final reason against the proposal that Jesus is commanding the disciples to follow him is the idea in antiquity that a good leader has willing followers. It is thus more likely that Jesus’ calling of his disciples should be understood as an invitation, and not as a command. Probably the charismatic authority of Jesus is underlined in these narratives. This is also what Luke emphasizes in his different narration of the calling of the first disciples (Luke 5:1–11). Subsequently, Jesus is not characterized as an authoritarian ruler, but rather as an attractive leader with willing followers.

The “Judahite-Aramaic” community on Elephantine was not isolated from its Egyptian neighbors. What has already been seen in the Aramaic papyri is underlined by material culture. This paper focuses on Egyptian-Aramaic Funerary Stelae which show an Egyptianizing style with Aramaic inscriptions. A detailed analysis will demonstrate that the stelae contain motifs from different traditions. When comparing these stelae with funerary stelae from the necropolis of Elephantine in Qubbet el-Hawa, it can be seen that these stelae differ from recent Egyptian funerary stelae which were used by Egyptians. In sum, the Egyptian-Aramaic stelae give insight into a multicultural society where Aramaic people adopted the Egyptian funerary cult and presented themselves in an Egyptian style.

This paper explores the imagery of eating and drinking, hunger/thirst versus bodily satisfaction, drunkenness versus soberity, as it is used in the Hebrew Bible, to express notions of exile, destruction, and the loss of the land on the one hand, and with restoration, return, and blessing on the other. Prophetic texts employ such imagery in the context of threats (Isa 22:12-14; 28:1-22): The destruction of the people and the land is described in terms of their being swallowed up by death, or by their enemies. The disobedience and lack of attention of the people or the ruling elites are depicted in terms of drunkenness and luxury in several prophetic texts (Isa 5:11-17; Am 4:1-3; 6:1-7). However, images of consumption are also used in the context of eschatological promises (Isa 25:6-9). Here the imagery points to God’s life-giving activity, which aims at the restoration of his chosen people to glory. This paper attempts to trace metaphors of eating and drinking through other parts of the prophetic literature and beyond. In particular the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 contain several striking images connected with consumption of food and beverages, expressing both the gifts of the land, and the fatal consequences of disobeying God’s commands. Metaphors of eating and drinking seem to be suited to express both doom and salvation, because they draw on basic notions of human existence, and also possess a certain complexity of meaning: Eating and drinking is fundamentally tied to the idea of life, but also connote mortality and the fragile quality of humans. Furthermore, at a literary level, images of eating and drinking are associated with central metaphors like that of God as a shepherd, and as a giver of fertility and plentitude.

Spaces associated with healing in Christian church and monastic constructions in late antiquity typically frame their medical messaging through fluidities of religious imagery rooted in constructed power dynamics. They do this through both textual accounts of social dynamics and through material culture in architecture and archaeological remains. Such healing texts, both figural and written, narrate medical treatment by connecting therapeutic dynamics of social economics (e.g., the impoverishment of illness; sanctuary funding; rich vs. poor; refugee relief) with theology (from “heresy” to the “medicine of immortality”) and physical substances (food, water, art). Healing implies a kinetics of change, and the location of such healing nurture in a church site typically strengthens clerical claims to discursive power. This paper will consider these fluid dynamics by considering the visual presence of healers in sacred space accessible to the laity, and the related extension of sanctuary spatiality to therapeutic public works beyond the church or monastery walls. The paper will focus on a group of seventh-century paintings of medical healers uncovered in the khurus (choir) of the Church of the Holy Virgin at the monastery now known as Dayr al-Suryan, and published in detail by Karel C. Innémee. These heavily restored images evoke the material substances of Christian healing in a context known for its theological emphasis on incarnation. The paper will include comparisons from other Christian healing sites between the fourth and seventh centuries, and will invite further discussion about the materiality of theological cure.

Since John Van Seters and Rolf Rendtorff have directed attention to a disjunction between the ancestral and Exodus tradition that thesis has enjoyed a steady increase of reception. The purported independence of the two origin stories demands their connection to be late. Naturally, scholarly attention has centered on apparent cross references between the two bodies of traditions, such as the apparent reference on the Patriarchs in Exodus-Deuteronomy and transitional passages at the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus. Other prominent bridge works include the cross-references, anticipating forward and reminiscing back, from both sides of tradition. These bridgeworks often appear in a pair, in non-P and P, which traditionally had constituted major source-critical doublets; for instance, Exodus 3-4/6 and Genesis 15/17. By reshuffling the traditional framework of dating and rigorously reassigning the traditional non-P pair as post-P additions, P the latest source in the Wellhausenian scheme has reinvented as the first and base source of the current literary scheme of the Torah. The way in which these critics pulled out this unlikely scenario is remarkable, but the validity of the claim requires a scrutiny. In an attempt to assess this thesis, this paper proposes another pair of P/non-P bridge texts as a test case, the passages where Jacob receives the new name Israel, in Gen 32:29 (non-P) and 35:9-10 (P). If the thesis of the pre-P hiatus were to stand, one may suggest, the present identification of “Jacob” (of the ancestral tradition) with “Israel” (of the Exodus/Moses tradition) might not be original but a late construction as a part of the process that combined the ancestral and Exodus traditions. I will demonstrate how this proposal carries double-edged implications to the thesis and use it as one way of critically assessing the current movement in the Pentateuch.

The ideological Concept of the Torah-Centred Community stood at the core of the self-understanding of the literati of Persian-Period in Yehud/Judea. But when and why did this concept become prevalent among people who identified (and were identified by others) as Ioudaioi elsewhere? This paper will first show how the documentary and literary evidence from Babylon and Egypt in Persian and Hellenistic times may be used to explore this issue, and then explore how and why a Torah-centred community emerged in Ptolemaic Egypt. The potential implications of this observation for the study of the spread of the ideological concept of a Torah-Centred Israel beyond Yehud/Judea will then be explored.

Panel discussion

The Solomon judgement story in 1 Kings 3:16-28 has been interpreted by a variety of scholars from medieval ages to modern times. It is generally viewed as a story demonstrating Solomon’s judicial wisdom. In the story the judicial scene of two women who contend for possession of a child is quite familiar to the Chinese readers because there are more than four stories of the same type in ancient Chinese literature. It is clearly proved that the Chinese versions were translated and adapted from Indian sources. In the Biblical tale, Solomon’s response is to order the child be cut in half. However, in the Chinese versions, the two women were asked to draw the child in a tug of war. The outcome of the story is the same. The true mother shows herself by refusing to hurt the child. This paper will then analyze the different details in which the identical theme has been recorded in the two traditions. Through a cross-textual reading of the story, the aim of the paper is to discuss the concept of biblical wisdom in Solomon’s story. On the other hand, the paper will offer the Chinese reader a new version of a similar story.

In relevant literature, the female drummer figurines of the southern Levant have been discussed many times. Apart from the proposition to interpret their instrument as a food offering, these figurines are often considered as being the effigy of a goddess. In the present article, the main interest is focused on the function of the frame drum. On some modified figurines from both sides of the River Jordan the drum has secondarily been replaced by a baby or a baby has been applied on the drum. This feature indicates a direct connection between the drum and women’s fertility. Incantations against infertility from Ugarit as well as Old Testament texts dealing with vows in the context of conception, pregnancy and childbirth refer to a probable function of the drummers in the framework of ancient incantation practices.

2 Kings 16 and 2 Chronicles 28 are the two Ahaz narratives in the historical books of the Old Testament. When we compare them, there seem to be contradictions in the two parallel passages. For instance, after the introduction of Ahaz in 2 Kings 16:1-4 and 2 Chronicles 28:1-4, the two parallel passages record different results of the war between Ahaz and his opponents, the kings of Aram and Israel. Whereas Rezin, king of Aram and Pekah, king of Israel failed to conquer Ahaz in 2 Kings 16:5, the two kings of Aram and Israel defeated Ahaz in 2 Chronicles 28:5. Likewise, upon the request of Ahaz, the king of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser III, went up to Damascus and captured Rezin in 2 Kings 16:9, but Tiglath-pileser III oppressed Ahaz and did not support him though Ahaz sent to Tiglath-pileser III to help him in 2 Chronicles 28:20. In addition, there are other minor discrepancies in the two texts. In this paper, I will attempt to propose the implication of the seemingly contradictions of the two parallels in light of the Chronicler’s emphasis on the theme of immediate retribution and how to harmonize the two different descriptions of Ahaz in Kings and Chronicles.

The main focus of the report is to demonstrate how the Gospel quotations function in a commentary of the Old Testament and how they were translated, comparing with other Slavonic translation of early Gospels, such as Codex Marianus, Codex Assemanianus, Evangelium Dobromiri, etc. The idea is to point out what the translator’s technique is and in which cases he was familiar with certain quotes. The question is whether he used them directly, or he made a different approach towards the translation. The translation technique is also important when a certain quotation is used more than once in the commentary, such as Matthew 24:14, or it is repeated in the Gospel such as Matthew 7:2 and Luke 6:38.

In the arresting and yet obscure words of David (that he “hates the lame and the blind”) lies the possibility of perceiving a swift decimation of the Jebusites in the Jerusalem-takeover narrative. The larger literary context, however, complicates the picture in which the Israel-Jebusite relation is marked by ambivalent tendencies. Whereas a dominant voice depicts the Jebusites as Israel’s “other,” other textual traces undercut that dominant tone, which can be highlighted through New Historical insights. The larger story as well as the chosen text bespeak tendencies that draw close as well as distance the “other.” As a result, in the ambivalent discourse of Israel, the Jebusites are cast as the “proximate other” which in turn accentuates Israel’s attempt at identity delineation in the context of its nearest neighbor. Drawing from my current cultural milieu where some instances of dominant religio-political rhetoric have endeavored to cast the “marginal” communities (the Christians and the Muslims) as the “other,” the proposed “proximate other”-reading of the chosen biblical text has the promise of shifting the spotlight on the identity-delineating tendencies in the discourses of the dominant groups which are, at the same, undercut by other subversive voices and traces. The suggested inter(con)textual reading (biblical and India) of the chosen text has the merit of reciprocal illumination, leading to a mutual enrichment.

Interpreters are rightly concerned with the early reception of the letter to the Romans. Scholars hypothesize how the first audience(s) would have understood Paul's use of words or treatment of a theme. Amid these discussions, actual documentary evidence of the early interpretation of Paul's letters is usually overlooked. It is well known that 1 Peter shows signs of the influence of Romans. But the bearing of this on the exegesis of Romans is generally disregarded. In this paper, I consider the insights of 1 Peter on certain elements of Romans. The study highlights the discussion of politics in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2; the use of thysia in Rom 12:1 and 1 Peter 2:5; and the eschatological language of Romans and 1 Peter. I then consider the implications of the preceding analysis for assessing recent interpretive proposals about the letter to the Romans.

In the letters of Paul one can find only very few explicit quotations of Jesus’ words (1Cor 7:10-11; 9:14; 11:23b-25). In addition, there are some parallels to Gospel tradition that occur anonymously within Paul’s argumentation (Romans 12:14-21; 14:14; 1 Thess 5:2). Scholars used to reconstruct the history of such traditions on the basis of their Synoptic parallels alone, in light of a picture of Jesus as an authoritative teacher who was highly appreciated in early Christianity. Historical Criticism has assumed that the historical Jesus is to be found behind the sources, when tradition has been liberated from its textual framework. However, one should analyze non-Synoptic texts and their so-called Jesus tradition for their own sake. The letters of Paul show that both the so-called Jesus tradition and the person of Jesus were interpreted in multiple different ways in early Christianity. Therefore, the Gospels are not a neutral repository of memorized sayings traditions from which the New Testament letters can be distinguished as representing “application” of Jesus’ words. The paper will examine carefully the final form of the traditions as they appear in extant texts like 1Corinthians, 1Thessalonians and Romans, extrapolating tentatively from there into the realm of oral tradition. It turns out to be a particular feature of the Synoptic Gospels, including Mark, to present such traditions as words of the earthly Jesus. Bultmann’s model of distinguishing between a historical foundation and its kerygmatic shaping does not do justice to the textual evidence, nor does the understanding that the Gospels represent eye-witness testimony.

When 4Q209 is reconstructed by taking Fragment 7, col. iii as the eighth to tenth days of the tenth lunar month (Milik, 1976), the first day of the first month (1 Nisan) coincides with the Spring Equinox and the tenth day of the seventh month (the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur) coincides with the Autumn Equinox in the same year. The first day of the first month is mentioned as the beginning of the first month of the year in the Temple Scroll at Qumran and the tenth day of the seventh month is a biblically proscribed festival. Interestingly, in the Metonic Cycle in the previous year the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, the festival of Lights/ Rededication of the Temple on 25 “Kislev” (1 Macc 4:36, 52-59; 2 Macc 1:18, and Jos. Ant. xii.7.7. (323) lines up with 24/25 December, the Roman Winter Solstice, in the Julian calendar. In that same year the Summer Solstice coincides with the full moon on 15 Sivan. This date is the festival of Shavuot in the Hebrew calendars at Qumran and in the Book of Jubilees. These alignments of festivals in the lunar calendar on the 1st, 10th, 15th, 25th on the equinoxes and solstices respectively occur once every 19 years in the Metonic Cycle. Although 4Q209 does not list festivals (or the Sabbaths) I shall argue that that it contains data on a calendar that aligns with both Maccabean (25 Kislev) and “sectarian” festivals (1 Nisan, 15 Sivan), and 10 Tishri (biblical). It is proposed that 4Q209 may show that some Jewish groups in Second Temple Judaism were developing a unique equinoctial and solstitial festival calendar.

The inhabitants of the first two heavens of 3 Baruch are identified as those who attempted to build the Tower of Babel. In the first heaven Baruch is shown by his guiding angel Phanuel the Builders of the Tower, in the second he sees the planners of the project. Both groups are zoomorphic creatures. There have been plenty of suggestions regarding the role and function of those two groups. Are they the Watcher’s offspring, the giants? Or are they a polemical equivalent of the two groups of fallen angels in 2 Enoch? Some scholars have assumed that it is the latter. Indeed, the Builders of the Tower, being a symbol of man’s vain attempts to reach God, fit very well a pattern of anti-Enochic symbolism in 3 Baruch. Certainly, the Adamic perspective of this apocalypse is a good argument for the assumption that the inhabitants of the first two heavens in 3 Baruch constitute a polemical reference to 2 Enoch. On the other hand, there is also evidence that those two groups might have been indeed associated with the Watcher’s offspring, the giants. According to a tradition known to Pseudo-Eupolemus cited by Alexander Polyhistor the Tower of Babel was built by giants who escaped the flood. Those giants are now punished in the first two celestial plains. Their zoomorphic appearance suggests that they are the demonic spirits of the giants, which survived the Flood. Thus, the zoomorphic elements of their bodies seem to be explained; they fit very well into the paradigm of the Watchers/giants story.

The common assumption in Chronicles scholarship is that it derives mainly from Samuel-Kings. Seen in this light as a post-exilic writing serving the interests of the newly returned priestly Judaic exiles, the textual omissions are viewed suspiciously, and additions are seen as unreliable, polemical, or outright tendentious. The low view of Chronicles’ historicity impacts onto the regard in which the repeating formulaic citations in Chronicles are held, which, while similar in form to those in Kings, in fact differ from those in Kings in every instance. In this, far from showing tendentiousness, lies the key to a possible understanding of the way in which scribal selections of narrative in Chronicles were made. The approach used here, using some specific examples, aims for an evidence-based methodology using tools of investigation which would be acceptable in a forensic investigation, including calling in expert witnesses from other fields (such as comparative ancient Near East, archaeology, epigraphy, linguistics, textual exegesis, etc.). This gives broader scope to search for answers denied by the shackles of nineteenth century theoretical constructions, such as Hegelian and evolutionary methodologies, into which Chronicles was required to fit for ideological ends, and where it has perforce languished ever since. When these assumptions are removed and the Chronicles’ formulae are ranged alongside those in Kings, sense can be made of the citation sources, which results in the possibility of demonstrating that Chronicles' relationship to Samuel is different from that in Kings. The omissions and additions stem from a different background, so need to be assessed differently. When seen in this “forensic” framework, both Chronicles and Kings’ formulaic citations may be seen as helpful for explaining textual choices, both with omissions and additions.

In the current Pentateuch scholarship, an increasing number of critics agree on the idea that the Priestly source (Pg) ends in the Sinai pericope. In spite of the disagreement about the final chapter of Pg, such as Exodus 29 (E. Otto); 40 (e.g., M. Bauks, R. G. Kratz, T. Pola), Leviticus 9 (E. Zenger); 16 (e.g., M. Köckert, C. Nihan, T. Römer), those critics concur in regarding the post-Sinaitic narratives so far considered as Pg as post-Priestly. Against this backdrop, this paper will endeavor to approve the current trend through a redaction-critical analysis and comparison of two texts, the Priestly commissioning of Moses (Exodus 6) and the “priestly” version of the Scouts narrative (Numbers 13-14). The two texts are pivotal in their narrative contexts, as the former initiates and frames the Priestly Exodus narrative, while the latter does the same for the Wilderness stories. This paper will present that there is a sharp contradiction between the two texts especially concerning the key notion such as the Promised Land, in addition to the differences in language, narrative elements, and theological concepts. The paper will conclude that the two texts hardly belong to a same literary layer or source but represent different phases of composition/redaction in the formation process of the Pentateuch.

Paul uses the metaphor of “solid food” to speak about some content of the Christian teaching which in his perspective had proved to be too hard to digest for the Christ-believers of Corinth (see 1 Cor 3:1-3). The result of eating solid food too early was envy, strife, and divisions, which is a theme throughout the letter. In depicting the specific teaching as solid food, Paul indicates that the content was an unchallenged part of Christian belief though difficult to incorporate in an appropriate way. Paul even calls the Corinthians “babes in Christ,” an insulting or at least strongly exhortatory address. Then, what was the theological content which the Corinthian Christ-believers were incapable to handle according to Paul? This question is the theme of the present paper, and a suggestion will be offered based on theological, rhetorical, and psychological considerations.

From the 1870s, missionary efforts to Christianise the Aawambo (the peoples of the Owambo region, North-central Namibia) and to assert the supremacy of the Bible involved the denigration and marginalisation of indigenous worldviews and practices. Problematising beliefs in spirits and ancestors, and forbidding 'traditional' approaches to healing and weddings, the introduction of the biblical text has arguably caused irrevocable damage to the cultural 'text' of the Aawambo. In this paper, I will explore (using the example of Owambo weddings/the Parable of the Wedding Banquet) the interactions and engagements between these texts, and suggest that such a hybridised religio-cultural landscape may actually contribute positively to contemporary biblical interpretation. I will give an insight into data collected during a year spent living in and exploring the religio-cultural context, as well as reading biblical texts with a rural village community in Owamboland. My aim in this paper is to suggest that indigenous culture and biblical/Christian traditions might, as 'brother and sister' (as several participants in the study termed them), forge a promising and cooperative future. Our understanding of biblical texts might be enhanced by engaging indigenous worldviews as interpretative lenses, and their communities as valuable repositories of expertise. As a result, the lamentable down-trodden status of indigenous traditions would be challenged and the problematic impacts of the Bible somewhat negated.

This paper focuses on the various presentations of the sage in the Qumran Hodayot, Ben Sira, and the book of Psalms. In particular, it considers the way in which the presentation of the sage in each of these corpora is itself a kind of allegory for a sapiential ideal. It takes the Qumran Hodayot as a starting point, comparing the presentation of the Teacher there to inspired sages and righteous persons in Ben Sira and the Psalter. One image in particular that connects the presentation of the ideal sage in these corpora is the image of the flourishing tree (e.g., 1QH xiv 17-20, xvi 5-12; Sir 24, Ps 1; cf. 1QH xviii 24-28; Ps 37. Both comparison and contrast of the sage and/as the tree in these works illumines a particular sapiential ideal that informs each corpus.

In Gen 37-50, the so-called Joseph cycle, an abrupt shift is made in chapter 38 away from Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph’s other brothers to Judah and Tamar. Furthermore, two motifs –sexual incontinence and deception – are central to the narrative. Regarding the interpretive problems of Gen 38, scholars have raised two major questions: What inner logic and theology of Gen 38 do those motifs constitute? How does Gen 38 relate to its surrounding chapters? A number of scholars argue that Gen 38 is an individually contained narrative, and that, as a result, this chapter creates discontinuity within the sequence of the Joseph cycle. Others, on the opposite extreme, assert that Gen 38 exhibits clear cohesion and unity in its literary and theological context. Thus they argue that there is considerably impressive thematic, linguistic, literary, and theological connection of Gen 38 to its surrounding chapters. Consequently, in their view, the story of Judah and Tamar as part of the “family history of Jacob” may not be excluded as irrelevant. In my paper, agreeing in part with their argument that the story of Judah and Tamar is essential to well interpret the larger narrative sequence of Gen 37-50, I will inquire into Gen 38’s literary inner logic (plot and theme) and canonical relationship to its context and functions as well as interpretive problems of the current text. To this end, I will first examine Gen 38’ source critical, textual, and literary problems to determine what gives readers difficultly in interpreting the story of Judah and Tamar. After this diachronic examination, plausible and even convincing answers to our current questions will be explored synchronically.

The Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP) as well as others have digitized a large number of Ethiopic Old Testament manuscripts. Although creating critical editions is not currently within the scope of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) project, we have developed computer tools that analyze the texts to help tell the story of the textual history of the Ethiopic Old Testament. In this paper I describe the two areas of these programs: 1) computer scripts to extract data and generate various reports and visual representations of the data, and 2) a website that presents the Ethiopic texts and serves up various metadata such as linguistic information, with a feature to compare manuscripts. Our method follows the classic approach of presenting lists of shared variants that characterize various groups and subgroups of manuscripts. I developed several computer scripts to help tell the story of the textual history of these manuscripts. The computer scripts process the data to create dendrograms, which show the relationships among manuscripts. The clusters of manuscripts are correlated to the forms of the text expressed in THEOT’s conceptual model of the development of this textual history. The scripts also identify the best representative manuscripts for each of the clusters, and describe precisely the distinctive readings for the clusters, which are the shared variants that characterize those clusters in contrast to other clusters. The website presents the manuscript evidence. Hovering the mouse over words gives a tooltip with an optional transliteration, a modern language gloss, and parse information. A separate window displays lexical information: a brief definition of the lemma, and page number references to Leslau’s lexica. These computer tools provide significant insight into the textual history of the Ethiopic Old Testament, and move us along the road to the eventual creation of critical editions.

This presentation will examine the Byzantine biblical tradition which the first Slavic translations adopted, adapted, and advanced. The translation project of the Thessalonian brothers is placed in the context of a Byzantine theology, which by the 9th century had matured and been distilled through seven ecumenical synods, and the Photian intellectual and missionary project. The Slavonic biblical texts that emerged from the translation activity of Cyril and Methodius and their followers represent a certain form of Byzantine text-type. The focus will be on the translation lore and the translation type as deliberated in the “Macedonian Leaflet" (11-12th century). The questions of canonicity were marginal because the Christian East did not anticipate what we call Scripture and Tradition as separate entities. It was preoccupied instead with delineating orthodoxy from heresy, i.e. establishing the true teachings, and was not concerned specifically with establishing a biblical canon.

In the last fifteen years, more than 70 new Dead Sea scrolls fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market. Some of them come with epic stories of origin, but are of uncertain provenance. All of them have a recent past that is often not available for the scholarly community. This paper will present the main actors of this story - the dealers and the owners - in a comprehensive timeline. The role of these actors is an essential, but often neglected part of the story about the new "Dead Sea scrolls fragments".

The book of Jeremiah reflects more ambivalent attitudes towards the Babylonian exile than many other prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. It views the Babylonian conquest as the disastrous event that threatens to put Judahite history and religion to an end. But it also emphasizes that the devastation wreaked by Nebuchadnezzar is God’s means to establish a new basis for life in the Judahite community. Perhaps the most prominent text for an optimistic interpretation of exile is the letter to the Golah, where Jeremiah exhorts the exiled Judahites to “seek the welfare of the city” and to “pray for it” (Jer 29:7). This paper examines the following questions: What image of the Judahite community is evoked in this command? And how is the relationship to the ruling Babylonian environment portrayed? It will be shown that the letter is an attempt to reinterpret the loss of land and autonomy as the opportunity for a new life without the false security of traditional institutions like temple and kingdom. In this view, the exile brought about ethical and religious changes that should have occurred a long time before but were prevented by the social structures in Judah. The letter to the Golah has often been read primarily as an order to accept that the exile will last. In contrast to that, this paper will demonstrate how the text exceeds the idea of accepting the inevitable. Instead, a positive group identity is shaped, viewing exile as leading Israel to a new purpose in history. An aspect of the paper will therefore be the intertextual reading of the verbs “building” and “planting” (Jer 29:5; 1:10; Dtn 20:5-7). Thus, the letter moves the focus from the past to the future and from the self perception of victimization to considering oneself to have an active part in building society.

Judges is quite an eventful book. It is full of comings and goings, the verb yts' being one of the most frequently used terms to express motion in the book. In many cases these movements appear to be symbolic and even connected with ritual behaviour. Warriors - led by YHWH or opposed by him - go out to fight (e.g. Judg. 2.15; 4.14; 11.3; cf. 1Sam. 8.20; 17.20); moreover, it seems that one hero of YHWH has to be in constant motion (13.25-16.3). Women come out to greet returning victors with timbrels and dancing (11.34; cf. Exod. 15.20; 1Sam. 18.6-7). Sometimes women meet their fate when coming out of the house (Judg. 11.30, 34; 19.22-28; cf. Gen. 19.4-11; Exod. 12.22-23; and Josh. 2.19). It is stressed that certain female rites are performed outside in the open (Judg. 11.37-40; 21.19-21). Inside and outside locations and transition from one position/state to the other seem to be significant and meaningful in these biblical passages. Obviously, gender related aspects too can be revealed in the above depictions. These texts may be better understood by applying the idea of liminality (V. Turner) and the theory of rites of passage (A. van Gennep), and this investigation may also shed some light on the general dynamics and structure of the book of Judges.

Who is an insider? What does it mean to change status or position? How to conceptualize that one religious character is traded so differently by various traditions? Hagar is indeed a good case to rethink these issues (Gen 16 and 21; Gal 4:21-31 and a whole set of other Jewish and Christian texts). She is a vulnerable or marginal character in some texts, while a noble daughter or celebrated convert in other. What role do intersecting patterns related to gender, class, and race play in conversion stories? Conversion is to various degrees complex, it is always negotiated, and it is often a question of life and death. It involves bodies, power, and can generate conflict, dialogue or revitalization of traditions. There are significant links between recent debates about conversion and ancient texts. In this paper, I am focusing on one particular biblical character, the Egyptian slave girl Hagar, to see how the memory of her has traveled. Her story did not end in the wilderness.

When considering the topic of violence and Judah in the Persian period, the majority of ink has been spilled on books and essays devoted to Ezra and Nehemiah. Yet I will argue that the leadership of the early restoration community was just as violent, if not more, given its covert nature. Subsequent to the exile in 587/6, the Judeans who remained in Judah inevitably had to move on with their lives and created a new ritualized societal form. This new way of life, however, would be drastically disturbed when the Persian sanctioned Judeans returned to Jerusalem, as the returnees would seek to exert their authority over those already living in the land. Yet, since the returnees were very small in number (Lipschits), they had to be careful in their implementation of their religious and political program, lest they risk revolt and failure. This paper explores how the leaders of the returning exiled Judeans, in an effort to establish their regime, had to resort to tactics that can be considered covert forms of violence. Exploring Haggai and Zechariah 1-8—with attention to the text’s development when relevant—I will consider, among other things, how the leadership: (1) used religion via ancient forms of media (i.e. oracles and visions) for self-legitimation; (2) financially exploited those in the land; (3) exploited traumatic experiences of the past, threatening that if they did not acquiesce, the Judeans who remained in the land would themselves be exiled.

I consider the significance of agricultural imagery for understanding how wisdom was acquired in ancient Israel and the Near East. Tree imagery in the Books of Job, Psalms, and Proverbs exposes the role of listening and teaching in becoming wise. References related to water, such as in Ps 1:3 and Prov 21:1, indicate that acquiring wisdom required knowledge not only of Palestinian agricultural practices but also those of Egypt and Mesopotamia. In view of references to irrigation practices in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and inscriptions, this paper carries implications for the social setting of wisdom acquisition, especially the familial and courtly contexts. Its attention to imagery also supplements this year’s invited session on allegory.

Israelite identity is defined by genealogy. Therefore, it is surprising that the tribes Ephraim and Manasseh derive from Joseph's wife Asenat, the daughter of an Egyptian priest residing at On (Heliopolis). The threefold mention in Genesis (41:45,50 and 46:20) excludes random information and lacks an explanatory comment or an intention to conceal an irritating information that is not mentioned in the other genealogies. What is the intention of these texts – in case they are late, and in case they are pre-exilic? This paper examines possible relations between Ephraimitic and Egyptian traditions.

It is commonly held that the religion of ancient Israel, based largely on the accounts proffered by the Hebrew Bible, was quite distinct from that of the adjacent « Canaanite » cultures, such as « Phoenicia ». Although some substratal influence is often, be it reluctantly, conceded, this is customarily marginalised. To some extent this is due to an apparent lack of relevant contemporary evidence from neighbouring societies. On the other hand, much of the evidence which can be brought to bear is usually viewed through the anachronistic and polemical lens of the Hebrew Bible. The question then is just how distinct was the religion of pre-exilic Israel from that of its environs? Nonetheless, it is immediately obvious that Israel shared a common theological Weltanschauung with those societies with which it shared common roots, which is for example evident in the shared sacrificial practice, and vocabulary. Furthermore, those factors to which Israel was exposed which led to a transfiguration from polytheism to monolatrism can only also have been operative throughout the region. A close look at the Phoenician and Punic epigraphical records shows many parallels with pre-exilic Israelite religion, especially in the employment of divine epithets and the avoidance of divine proper nouns. In many cases, the epithets employed are but the names of older deities from a distant past — i.e. divine names were recycled as titles (which in turn were by all accounts treated as names) for a specific deity. Once one discounts the anachronistic view of applying the linguistic terms « Phoenician » and « Punic » to denote a historical and cultural amalgamation which never was, it becomes quickly apparent that the various Phoenician polities show a similar influence of the then prevalent monolatristic movement, as did Ancient Israel.

This paper reinterprets the story of Ahab’s inquiry and YHWH’s deceit in 1 Kings 22:1-38 in light of both comparisons with the stories of Saul and the juxtaposition of the narratives in 1 Kings 20, 21, and 22:1-38. There are similarities between the stories of Ahab in the Book of Kings and those of Saul in the Book of Samuel when examining the repetition of phrases, similar motifs, and parallel plots. The linguistic links between 1 Kings 20, 21, and 22:1-38 indicate that the stories of Ahab are juxtaposed. These similarities and juxtaposition have an effect on the interpretation of 1 Kgs 22:1-38; it is reinterpreted that Ahab’s death in 1 Kings 22:1-38 represents YHWH’s judgment (“measure for measure”) on Ahab’s two sins illustrated in 1 Kings 20 and 21, which draw a considerable parallel to Saul’s two sins. Furthermore, the parallelism between Ahab’s inquiry in 1 Kgs 22:1-38 and Saul’s necromancy in 1 Sam 28:3-25 reveals that Ahab’s inquiry is condemned as syncretistic Yahwism whereas the importance of YHWH’s words is highlighted.

In this study I will undertake a comparative examination of three aspects of two historical events that resulted in exile: the conversion of Judah to a Neo-Babylonian province (597-539 BCE) and Korea under Japanese occupation (1910-1945 CE). I will focus on the Korean example, for which there is abundant evidence, and then assess whether any of the changes that ensued in that particular historical setting might be useful in helping us interpret the much more poorly documented case of Judah in its particular historical setting. The first aspect involves circumstances relating to population change: what percentage of people were forcefully displaced, what percentage fled voluntarily, and what percentage remained under occupation in their homelands? The second aspect is the economic impact of the occupation of the homeland that, in the case of Korea, involved colonization. What changes came about in terms of taxation, forced labor, and land use? The third aspect involves the impact of the occupation on political parties: what political and ideological parties were formed and competed against or collaborated with one another? While acknowledging that the time periods are quite divergent, both cases involved absorption into an empire, the imposition of new imperial rule, population displacement, and policies for the extraction of resources from the new incorporated regions. There are insights that seem to be derivable from the Korean example for understanding potential policies and changes implemented in Neo-Babylonian Yehud.

Last year, I presented the paper about “The Journey Motif in the Gospel of John” in Seoul, Korea. At that time, I tried to examine in brief the journey motif from a Biblical Theological Perspective and its transformation process in the Johannine Literature, specially in the fourth Gospel: »A ‘journey’ in the Gospel of John functions much more than a metaphor. In the Gospel of John contributes the ‘journey’ motif to establish the immanent Structure. Reading the Gospel of John associate listeners or readers the ‘journey’ motif with a lot of journeys in the Old Testament. As a traveler, they follow the journey in the narrative world of the Gospel of John.« This time, I try to propose, that the ‘journey’ motif can be found not only in the Johannine church in the biblical world,(including the Old Testament and Apocalyptic Literature) but also in the East Asian Thoughts such as Taoism etc. This study is not just a comparison between the biblical theological thoughts and the East Asian Thoughts. I’d like to suggest that a common motif like ‘journey’ can contribute to the preaching the gospel.

A. Vanhoye detected Heb 5:11-10:30 as a center of his five chiastic structure of Hebrews. Vanhoye’s proposal is criticized as sacrificing content instead of formal factors, e.g., failing to consider the parallel of 4:14-16 and 10:19-23. Dussaut developed his idea further in his “form-oriented analysis.” The analysis supports Vanhoye’s division: 5:11-6:20; 7:1-28; 8:1-9:28; 10:1-18; 10:19-39. However, two problems are raised: First, Vanhoye with Dussaut did not recognize how five clusters are made as of parallel cohesion. Second, they succeeded in finding the formal posture of the structure but failed in detecting the semantic relationships among the units, as Griffiths, Attridge, and Ellingworth criticized. 5:11-10:39, the third section following the first (1:1-24) and the second (2:5-5:10), consists of fivefold clusters, creating a chiastic structure (A. 5:11-6:20; B. 7:1-28; X. 8:1-9:28; B’. 10:1-18; A’. 10:19-39). Moreover, each cluster of the five is constructed as a unit composed with its own parallels. First, 4:14-16 and 10:19-23 are similar in function in that both are located in the ending units of each sections: 4:14-5:10 of 2:5-5:10; 10:19-39 of 5:11-10:39, encouraging to remain in the confidence of Jesus, the heavenly priest. Moreover, 4:14-16, emphasizing the sympathy of Jesus the high priest, is deeply related to 2:17-18, where the terms of ‘help,’ ‘being tempted,’ ‘sin,’ and ‘high priest’ are shared. Second, the issue of ‘backsliding’ appears twice in 6:1-8 and 10:26-31. 6:1-18 belong to the cluster 5:11-6:20 (A), while 10:26-31 does to 10:19-39 (A’), which share the issue of ‘warning against apostasy’ as well as that of ‘the reward toward the faithful.’ Third, this pairing writing needs to be considered as a significant factor regarding the structure and style in Hebrews.

Exploring the concept of exile in biblical literature, this study aims to interpret three peculiar features in the book of Ezekiel. This well-known exilic literature is indeed filled with the past memories of life in Jerusalem and the future agenda of restoration in the land of Israel, rather than the present encounters with Babylonian officials or other exiles in Chaldea. This absence of ‘here and now’ sense in the temporal, spatial and communicative matter is indeed the active literary expression of the author as well as the reflection of exilic community’s uniquely adjusted culture from their painful dislocation. Moreover, it suggests to us to understand exile as an indeterminate and liminal status and as a practice of making their space a heterotopia. From beginning to endure the heterotopia of avoidance and estrangement, the exiles in the book of Ezekiel finally produce the heterotopia of transformation and resistance in the visions. This is the rhetoric of indeterminacy which invites its audiences in the place of the character Ben Adam to let them overcome the temporal, spatial, and theological distances between the vision and the reality. Exile is to situate one’s life in nowhere. But, it does not necessary end up in total desperation although it started that way. In this liminality and indeterminacy, ‘here and now’ communication is ironically meaningless and even awkward, but the vision language would fit better. Making a heterotopia is, therefore, a way of expanding one’s space, of dreaming the future based on the past, and of resisting the dominant foreignness. It is an effort to plan a new concept of their exile, i.e., therefore, their Babylonian town is transformed as the wilderness-like liminal space rather than the land of firm bondage. The book of Ezekiel is the product of this endurance of liminality.

In this session, I shall present a small selection of lexical items which will be appearing in the future ‘Lexicon of Syriac Philosophy’, chosen to demonstrate some of the special issues that pertain to the lexicographic study of the corpus of Syriac philosophical texts. Some of these will show how words in common use in ‘regular’ literary Syriac came to have specialised usages in the philosophical literature; others will show, for example, how a single Syriac term had to do duty for a number of rather specific philosophical concepts. I shall also be seeking ideas and advice from other participants as to how the Lexicon ought to be constructed and what information could most usefully be included.

The Chronicler’s genealogies comprise a significant part of Chronicles, but relatively few studies have dealt with their literary, artistic, and stylistic aspects. In this paper, I present a literary analysis of two genealogies of King David (1 Chr 2:10-17; 3:1-9). In the first list – the list of David’s ancestors and brothers – I demonstrate how the Chronicler used literary devices such as typological numbers, name derivations, and structure in order to underscore his unique view of God’s choice of David and his house, as presented also in 1 Chr 28:4-5. The second list has a concentric structure, and contains similar literary devices. This list also contains an interesting analogy between David and his ancestor Judah. A comparison between the Chronicler’s list of David’s sons who were born in Jerusalem and its parallel accounts, alongside a similar comparison between the list of Judah’s sons (1 Chr 2:3-5) and its parallel accounts, demonstrates that the Chronicler made the same unique editorial changes in both lists in order to highlight the similarity between them. Finally, I will offer some interpretations of this analogy.

The books of Kings display a significant interest in the topic of cult centralization which is crucial to the Deuteronomic law code. This interest is lacking within the books of Joshua to 2 Samuel where numerous places of worship are mentioned (Shechem, Gilgal etc.). This observation combined with the search for the inner tie between the Israelite tribes lead Martin Noth to his famous amphictyony hypothesis as part of which he stated that there had been alternating places of central worship in Israel’s past. That way he avoided the question, as to why this main issue of Deuteronomy is not treated within large parts of his Deuteronomistic History. I argue that the sanctuary of Shiloh (1 Sam 1–4; Judg 18:31; 21:15–23 and more often), which was the last of the amphictyonic sanctuaries, is deliberately presented as a central sanctuary to all Israel prior to Jerusalem (here I will focus on Judg 18:31). However, that the narrative from Joshua to 2 Samuel does not consistently conform to this picture is best explained by literary growth of the books and by the divergent materials that were integrated. My analysis therefore leads to results similar to other recent approaches to the development of the Deuteronomistic History, which find the core of it within the books of (Samuel and) Kings from which Joshua remained independent for a long time. Thus, the portrayal of Shiloh within Joshua also gives the most comprehensive picture of Shiloh as the central sanctuary, explicitly discussed within Josh 22:9–34.

As the apostle to the nations, it was Paul’s task to convey his particular message of the risen Christ into a predominantly pagan world. In order to do so, Paul crossed boarders and cultures. He travelled through the Mediterranean world, spoke to people in person, and kept in touch with his communities through letters. These letters were possibly written not by Paul alone but with the aid of a secretary, and very likely they were read aloud at the receiving end. In the undisputed letters of Paul we can trace how Paul took concepts well known in a Jewish thought world and adapted them to his particular audiences all over the Mediterranean world. This paper will take the concept of “sin” as an example, explore how Paul shaped his message for his audiences, and discuss the language and media that he employed for his goal.

Because Jewish women have traditionally been barred from studying their tradition’s sacred texts, they have been forced to find covert ways to read and interpret them. Much of Jewish feminism has been devoted to gaining access to the Jewish canon, in an enterprise Adrienne Rich has called Re-vision. In Genesis Leah, Jacob's wife, rarely speaks, and when she does, her feelings towards her situation as the "hated woman" are only hinted at. In my paper, I shall focus on what may be called feminine “midrashic poems” dealing with Leah that give voice to a feminine protagonist whose voice we hardly hear in the original text. Steven P. Schneider observes that, “As a mode of writing, postmodern Jewish American poetry by women delights in creating ‘midrashic commentaries.’” Daniel Boyarin defines Midrash as “a model of the relation between text and interpretation between the present and the past.” Midrash thus realizes its goal by means of a “hermeneutic of recombining pieces of the canonized exemplar into a new discourse.” However, while the early midrashists regard Scripture as a sacred text and its interpretation a form of divine revelation, modern poets use the biblical texts as a springboard for their own ideas. The divergent approaches are elegantly summed up in Ari Elon’s distinction between the rabbani and the ribboni—the rabbinic exegete and the independent thinker/writer. The leeway afforded by the latter position enables poets to engage with tradition in more radical and explicitly fictive ways. I shall analyse some poems by Jewish American women poets following Alicia Ostriker, who tries to outline different forms of biblical revisionism by women poets who can be considered ribboni midrashists.

A comparison of the Annunciation scenes in the Gospel of Luke (1:26-38) and the second century apocryphal infancy gospel, the Protevangelium of James (ch. 11) reveals the far more visual nature of the account in the Protevangelium. In this paper, I focus on a particularly vivid detail of this account, namely the color (porphura) of the cloth Mary is spinning when she is interrupted by the angel Gabriel (11.2). The context for Mary’s textile activity is provided by the previous scene (10.1-2), in which the Jerusalem priests gather together the undefiled virgins from the tribe of David to make a new curtain for the Temple, casting lots to determine “who will spin the gold (krusos), the fine linen, the silk, the sapphire blue (hyakinthinos), the scarlet (kokkinos), and the true purple (alethina porphura).” Mary draws lots for both the scarlet and the purple, but it is the latter that features in the Annunciation. By assessing the Protevangelium’s description of the Temple curtain and its craftsmanship in light of relevant Old Testament texts, Second Temple and rabbinic Jewish literature, and early Christian sources, this paper seeks to understand the colorful visuality of the curtain as envisaged by this second century text. More particularly, I hope to ascertain the potential significance the colors scarlet and (especially) purple might hold for this text in connection with its characterization of Mary or its interpretation of the Annunciation. An attempt will also be made to relate the results of this analysis to later reception of the Protevangelium both in later apocryphal literature and in art.

The tradition of the most important hand edition of the Greek New Testament, Nestle-Aland, now in its 28th edition, began in 1898 with an anonymous edition produced by Eberhard Nestle. The history of this book as it went from edition to edition (and from printing to printing) has not yet been written. This paper presents the most important developments that have taken place, be it in editorial techniques, aims, or underlying textual theory.

From the earliest periods in the study of the War Scroll (1QM), scholars have noted clear liturgical elements. Subsequent generic discussion has revolved around whether this long and well-preserved text was intended as a liturgical handbook or a manual for an eschatological battle with the enemies of the Qumran Movement. But why must we choose one or the other, even at the level of individual passages? This text not only evinces direct adjuration practices (e.g., curses in column XIII) and non-prophylactic elements such as ritual choreography, it conceived of its ritual space in a way that corresponds with what we find in other rites of affliction from Qumran. Elements such as proclamation of divine victory and martial formations are very much at home in these boundary-marking rituals. This movement already believed that its liturgical life found its performative context in the apocalyptically-defined presence of angels and the divine, so liturgical warfare at their sides should be at least considered. Using critical spatial theory and rhetorical critical methods, I will argue that the War Scroll could have functioned as a liturgy of adjuration meant to expel unwanted evil and to purify the performing community socially, morally, spatially, and ritually. Such performative goals make sense for a community that is not so much waiting for the eschaton as living with one foot in the real world of Roman Judaea and one foot in the apocalyptic reign of YHWH. Thus, battling with spiritual and political forces through prayer and liturgy was not merely a future goal and activity, but rather something to be enacted regularly and in a manner that is congruent with what is known of the movement’s apotropaic practices. Such designation will also help to clarify the means and methods of Qumran apotropaic practice, in other rites of affliction.

The scope of the presentation will be to demonstrate contributions of Polish scholars in the arena of application of the theory of intertextuality to biblical studies. First, a very concise sketch on origins and contemporary usage of intertextuality in the field of linguistics will be given. Then, few words will be said on its employment in the biblical studies worldwide. The last and essential part of the presentation will expose key achievements of Polish scholars in application of the intertextual theory in biblical studies of the Old and New Testament.

Each reading of a text starts with a set of presuppositions and expectations about the integrity of that text. These expectations are rarely made explicit. While U. Eco set up criteria for the possible range of interpretations of a single text (of which the integrity is not disputed), exegetes reading the texts of the Hebrew Bible will think about redaction criticism as soon as a text does not fit with the presupposed expectations of coherence. In many cases this is a sound procedure but in some instances it might open up for an over-confident reconstruction of a multi-layered text, which might well be a coherent text anyway. Actually, most of the textual signals used as criteria for source criticism could as well be used in a compositional analysis of a single-layered text. The paper will use a section from the sentence collections in the Book of Proverbs as an example on how compositional lines can help to understand these texts, which for a long time were taken to form a non-coherent aggregation of single proverbs. The attempt to reconstruct a meaningful text from what seems to be just a bunch of sayings needs to reflect the question about how any combination of some proverbs could fail to be read as a meaningful unity and how we can distinguish between the reader’s construction of meaning and the deliberate composition of a biblical “author”.

The cryptic Qur’anic reference to the two fallen angels Harut and Marut (Q 2:102) is linked with the moral degeneration that destroyed the kingdom of Solomon (Sulayman) after his death. According to scriptural lore, the angels were chosen to descend to earth to do better than humans, who were sinners. After the emissary angels became embodied in the material world, they were enticed by sensual pleasure and fell into temptation with a beautiful woman. In order to obtain her sexual favour, they taught her the Ineffable Name of God (ism allah al-a‘zam). She pronounced it and ascended to heaven where God transformed her into a star. Having lost the use of this Most Powerful Name of God which would have allowed them to return to heaven, the angels became earthbound. For their sins they were punished and suspended by their feet in a dark pit in Babylon, where they teach people magic, until the final Day of Judgement. They seek both angelic and human intercessors but God will not forgive them. This paper explores a little explored twist to the tale of the two embodied angels, the theme of their release from imprisonment in a Sufi context. In his Ascension Narrative the sixteenth-century South Asian Sufi master Muhammad Ghawth (d. 1562) of the Shattari order relates that when he passed through the third heaven he heard the imprisoned angels Harut and Marut asking for deliverance. His immediate request for their release from bodily materiality was granted. The paper investigates the textual and visual sources to elucidate implied perils of the angelic embodiment in the flesh, their allegory of earlier gnostic conceptions of the spirit being imprisoned in matter (as alluded to by Jalal al-Din Rumi), the associated danger and concomitant wonder of angelic knowledge, as well as the location of their dungeon (said to be located at the summit of a mountain). It, moreover, ponders the use of the Ineffable Name of God as means for human beings to ascend.

In Rom 3:10–18, the catena consisting of six scriptural quotations poses a complex textual problem that is also intriguing from the perspective of early Christian textual transmission of the Septuagint. Most of the catena can be found as an addition to Ps 13:3 LXX (14:3 MT) in numerous textual witnesses. While Rahlfs regarded this as an example of the New Testament influencing the textual transmission of Psalms, recently several scholars have called for re-evaluation of the case and argued for the pre-Pauline origin of the catena. In this paper, I will carefully examine different explanations for the origin and transmission of both the catena and the addition to Ps 13 LXX. I will argue that none of the recent arguments for the pre-Pauline origin of the catena is convincing. In all probability, Ps 13:3 LXX represents the most extensive case of a reading of the Septuagint being harmonized with a scriptural quotation in a New Testament writing. The case takes us to the second century CE: to a time of which little is known concerning scribal activity and textual transmission. The crucial questions are, first, whether it is plausible that Christian scribes partly harmonized Psalm manuscripts with the wording of Paul’s catena in Romans, second, why they would have done so, and third, whether there was enough time for the addition to spread out before its first attestations. Thus, the catena in Rom 3 poses important questions concerning early Christian transmission of the Septuagint and the priorities of Christian scribes – as well as valid text-critical argumentation.

Orientalist and biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen has long been accused of historiographic sins, ones broadly conceived as “theory,” although it has appeared under many guises. While his proponents have expended goodly efforts to release him from the evidently imperiling debts to the non-empirical—be it positivism, idealism, or evolutionism—opponents seem to relish in insisting on dependency, a weapon apparently as powerful for undermining research on the Bible as it was for challenging claims from the Bible itself amidst the Babel-Bibel-Streit. These debates might easily imply the value and legitimacy of his conclusions, his methods, or his legacy stand or fall based on the amount of “theory” in them. Against the background of the German historiographic tradition, this paper provides a brief survey of the underlying, if inexplicit, logic in Wellhausen’s venture of retrieving past phenomena. If his conception of textual development directed his accounts of the past, a still more basic understanding of historical progression guided the narrative and even criticism of that textual development itself. Whatever the subject of study—no matter the language, tradition, or time—the same conceptual substructure, with its attendant operations, supported all his ventures of correlating history and texts: neither theory nor method was data-specific. Nor was this machinery specific to him, for they prevailed across germanophone human science up to the fin de siècle. Though often buried deeply, these intellectual foundations sustained all his efforts in past religion: they thus require excavation.

In the last 25 years ideas commonly linked with ancient Gnosticism have been noticed in many Hollywood films. Narrative structure and visual style of works such as “The Matrix” (1999), “The Truman Show” (1998), “The Thirteenth Floor” (1999) or “Dark City” (1998) can be viewed in the light of various ancient Gnostic ideas. In this paper I will offer a close reading of “The Others” (2001) by Alejandro Amenábar in the light of Valentinian thought. I will base my inquiry on the comparative approach by showing striking similarities between certain ideas depicted in Valentinian writings (particularly the “Gospel of Truth” and the “Gospel of Philip”) and the narrative structure of the film, supplemented by a discussion of how its visual style can be referred to Valentinian imagery. Next, I will point out several differences between the original Valentinian thought and its pessimistic reinterpretation in “The Others.” In the last part of my presentation I shall make few remarks on the possible reasons of this change and provide some suggestions in order to better understand what cultural functions it might serve for contemporary Western viewers.

The book of Tobit which is dated to the Hellenistic period is often compared with the model of the pious and the innocent sufferer in the book of Job that is assumed to be the product of the late Persian scribal idea. It has been argued that in many ways, the author of Tobit directly alluded to Job’s texts and reused literary framework and themes in Job into a new historical context, the Assyrian Diaspora. Because of these affinities and historical relationships, one might call the book of Tobit a fan fiction of the book of Job. However, both literary works are quite dissimilar in how they used Jewish canonical materials such as Torah, wisdom texts, prophetic and apocalyptic texts, and they substantially reflect different scribal thoughts and interests compared to early Jewish writings. For instance, Tobit is loosely tied up to significant ideas of Judaism such as Deuteronomistic covenant, while Job is strongly undermining the Deuteronomic covenant and does not mention the priestly sacrificial system at all. In this paper, I indicate how each book understands Jewish literary tradition in the Hebrew Bible and suggest that the books reflect their own intellectual background, rather than Tobit borrowing, or at least being influenced by, Job’s materials.

This paper explores a postcolonial reading of the Johannine rhetorical strategies especially indicated in John 4.3-9 and 8.48-58. These passages include rhetorical characteristics and features suggested by such distinctive expressions as ?de? a?t?? d????es?a? d?? t?? Saµa?e?a? (‘He/Jesus had to go through Samaria’) in 4.3; ?? ??? s??????ta? ???da??? Saµa??ta?? (‘For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans’) in 4.9; ?? ?a??? ????µe? ?µe?? ?t? Saµa??t?? e? s?…; (‘Are we/Jews right in saying that you/Jesus are a Samaritan?’) in 8.48b; and p??? ?ß?a?µ ?e??s?a? ??? e?µ? (‘before Abraham was I/Jesus am’) in 8.58c. A postcolonial reading of such expressions suggests that the author deliberately employed them in order to present Jesus as an Abraham like figure. He was Christ/Messiah of ‘multi-nations’ – not only Jews but also Samaritans, just as Abraham is seen as Father of ‘multi-nations’. This postcolonial reading further highlights Jesus’ act of passing through Samaria as a Messianic act of challenging and decolonizing the (pre)dominant claim of Jewish religious and political power over Samaritans within the universal colonizing power of Roman imperialism in the Roman Empire. Furthermore, such an interpretation leads us to go beyond a religious and ritual reading of the Johannine texts and claim more emphasis on a political and ideological reading of Jesus’ interactions with Samaritans and Jews in the texts.

Isaiah 6 is a prophetic initiation: Isaiah, in sacred space and liminal time, experiences an overwhelming and potentially fatal vision, is transformed through fiery contact with a divine being, and is commissioned to speak enigmatically, so as to prevent healing. It is also clearly a shamanic initiation: a passage through symbolic death to ontological estrangement from this world, under the tutelage of a hybrid visionary creature. The prophet is clairvoyant, and accordingly imparts knowledge that occludes normal vision and renders the legible illegible, as in the parable of the book (29.11-12). As a spiritual therapist, the prophet crosses time and space, and transmits ultimate messages from the deity; as with shamans cross-culturally, rebirth during the initiatory experience complements the prophet’s common humanity. My concern in this paper will be with the effect of the shamanic experience on prophetic poetry. Cross-culturally, shamanic ritual specialists are characterized by ecstatic speech, often using archaic and arcane language. Isaiah’s wilful, and divine mandated, miscommunication may challenge the audience to perceive a mystery in apparently everyday words, but it also draws attention to the strangeness of the language, the complexity of the metaphors, the prevalence of alliteration, wordplays, and attention to the corporeal experience of the poetry. What I hope to do is to challenge the idea of prophetic poetry as purely a scribal institution, edited by elite circles for its own propagandistic purposes. I would propose an interaction between poetry, shamanic trance, the solicitation of revelation and the questioning of received values, and the poetics of Temple and kingdom. It is also an interaction with history, historiography and memory, the traumatic disruption of exile and death, and the attempt to reconstitute an old/new utopian world.

Sixty years after its publication in 1957, and twenty years after its learned author’s death, Brunner’s Ancient Egyptian Education remains a monument of scholarship. It has not been supplanted by any similar study. The present paper comments on (1) the book’s hitherto unnoticed cultural background and message, and (2) how Hellmut Brunner (1913–1997) came to modify some of its interpretations. (1) The book reflects the conservative mind of a scholar who believed in the contemporary cultural and political relevance of ancient learning in the spirit of Third Humanism. This movement was inspired by the classical philologist Werner Jaeger (1888–1961), perhaps best remembered for his monumental opus Paideia. Many aspects of Brunner’s presentation and interpretation of ancient Egypt’s educational system can only be understood properly when viewed in the light of Jaeger’s ideas and Brunner’s project of supplementing Jaeger’s Greek humanism with a corresponding Egyptian one. (2) Although Brunner never retracted the interpretations put forward in Ancient Egyptian Education, he subsequently modified some of them following his research on ancient Egyptian “personal religion” that gained increasing importance for him from the 1960s on. In 1988, Brunner published a German translation the entire sapiential corpus of ancient Egypt. When Ancient Egyptian Education was reprinted in 1991 without modification, it no longer represented the author’s complete thinking on the subject. Accordingly, both deciphering of the contemporary message implied in Brunner’s book, and considering his later work will enable us to better understand and appreciate the unique merit of Ancient Egyptian Education as a scholarly work of lasting significance.

The paper offers a solution to the problem of how the didactic parts of Hebrews relate to the exhortatory parts. The main objective is analysis of the letter’s outline. The first step is a survey of various solutions found in recent commentaries, etc. This will give an overview of the main problems of interpretation. An analysis of the contents will focus upon the main caesuras. The didactic part (7:1–10:18) forms the center, dealing with Jesus as high priest in the heavenly sanctuary. The sections before and after should each be divided. Two main parts – 3:1–6:20 and 10:19–12:29 –contain exhortations framing Old Testament references (Ps 95 in 3:7–4:13 and the “cloud of witnesses” in 11:1-40). The first main part (1:1–2:28) contains the didactic basis, the last one (13:1-21) general exhortations. Thus the letter consists of five main parts and a short epistolary conclusion (13:22-25). This analysis is corroborated by means of stichometry. Remarkable proportions between the main parts must be explained. For this purpose the stichos is introduced, the standard measure of 15 syllables employed for ancient Greek prose. In Hebrews for instance, the first two main parts have a size of 84 and 168 stichoi, i.e., a ratio of 1 to 2. Their sum (252 stichoi) is a third of the whole letter (without conclusion). Thesis: The author of Hebrews elaborated the letter’s disposition very carefully. Its topics are arranged in a concentric way and its structure may resemble a Greek temple.

Excavations at Maresha have yielded hundreds of new Aramaic ostraca. This paper presents this corpus and the issues raised by its unique features.

The location of the first altar Israel built after crossing the Jordan was a point of disagreement between Judeans and Samarians. In Deut 27:4, MT and almost all Greek manuscripts read “Mount Ebal,” whereas Smr reads “Mount Gerizim,” supported by Papyrus Giessen, Old Latin, and a Qumran manuscript published in 2009. While some experts have long favored “Gerizim” (e.g., BHS), it was only in the last two decades that this reading received broad scholarly support. The most significant argument in favor is the apparent agreement between Greek Papyrus Giessen and Latin Codex Lugdunensis. A recently published Qumran fragment of Deut 27:4 with the reading bhrgrzym further strengthened this position. Rather than vindicate a specific reading, this paper seeks primarily to demonstrate the complexity of the problem and avert an undue consensus. Treatments presupposing MT superiority out of principle are unhelpful to the text-critical discussion, but the confidence with which recent scholars prefer the alternative reading “Mount Gerizim,” sometimes without discussion, is equally problematic. While future manuscript discoveries may resolve the issue, for now it is best to acknowledge the uncertainty, merely indicating a careful preference for one reading or the other. This paper evaluates the witnesses in turn without privileging one tradition. Upon closer inspection, each of the witnesses reading “Mount Gerizim” is questionable, and even their cumulative force does not establish this as the earliest reading. Neither does internal evidence favor this variant, as is sometimes argued. Conversely, the reading “Mount Ebal” (MT) fares better than its reputation and is more likely the earliest reading. To be sure, more than two answers have been proposed. Several scholars have argued that both mountains are secondary in Deut 27:4, but this solution is unwarranted by the reception history of Josh 8:30–35 (in Josephus, Pseudo-Philo, and Qumran).

To better understand the growth and development of early Christianity in Greece, we must first understand Greco-Roman society and especially Greco-Roman associations, which were central to various social, political and religious interactions in the ancient world. Associations were connected to every side of peoples’ lives, from birth, through work and socializing, to death. If one had the means, some associations also performed appropriate rituals a year after one’s death. The encroachment on different aspects of life is reason to explore anew the influence of associations on the Corinthian Christ-group. Their gatherings, common meals and network of benefactions can be better understood when using associations as reference. In this way early Pauline Christ-groups can be seen as voluntary religious associations. Christ-groups had, for example, members from different socioeconomic classes, as did many associations. Just as associations, they gathered together to have a meal laced with ritual. This paper asks how these similarities with associations facilitated the development of the earliest Christ-groups.

In the historiography of feminist scholarship, it is sometimes stated that third-wave feminism means a revolution to increase diversity, but it has also amounted to a fragmentation of the field. The question of how these new branches relate to each other or to the feminist trunk has recently emerged more persistently. In this paper, I reflect on the intersections between feminism and CSM (Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities) within biblical studies, based on a close-reading of four works (Creanga 2010 and 2014, Guest 2012, and Camp 2013). The paper identifies where the conflict lies (if it exists) and how it can be understood differently from various positions. The analysis also addresses the possible effects of these interpretative negotiations. My own position is that of a male feminist approaching CSM from the outside, being enthusiastic about the issues raised, yet also slightly cautious about the tendency to work in separate enclaves.

Using the text of 2 Sam 22, this presentation demonstrates the close association of the three categories body, space and identity. With reference to M. Löw’s thesis that spaces are generated through actions, the connection between (acting) body and space is highlighted. An attempt is made to show how tightly interlocked these categories are using in-depth analyses of both space and body in 2 Sam 22. It becomes apparent that spatial and body metaphors are often used in order to depict either power or powerlessness (cf. B.C. Han). Thus the plight of the praying one is described using oppressive spatial imagery (V5–6), whereas the description of powerful divine intervention (narration of theophany V8–17) makes use of spatial metaphors on the grandest scale possible. The last part of the psalm (V34–43) focuses on the movement of the praying one within space. Body metaphors are used to show power and powerlessness, likewise (e.g. “in the hand of all his enemies”, “[the enemies] are fallen under my feet”, “head of the nations” etc.). The results of this analysis are used to further examine the concept of identity and the way the narrator’s character develops. This hearkens back to R Gugutzer, whose study regarding body and identity shows the importance of body history („Körpergeschichte“) for finding identity. The psalm in 2 Sam 22 can be used to show that the literary devices of spatial and body metaphors are used heavily (though not exclusively) to illustrate the development of the identity.

This paper is dedicated to discussing an art exhibition, entitled Biblia Pauperum, which took place in Warsaw, Poland, in September 2016. The event was organised by the magazine Kontakt (Contact), published by young Polish intellectuals self-identifying as members of the Catholic Left. A group of artists – illustrators, collaborating with the magazine, were commissioned to create 19 visual interpretations of a number of scriptural passages pertaining to issues of social justice, poverty and exclusion. In my paper, I discuss the title, and the social, historical and intellectual context of this exhibition. Then, I engage with individual illustrations to demonstrate the ways in which they interpret and contextualize the social message of the Bible, and their place within the Catholic visual tradition. Finally, I pose some questions about the ways in which contemporary religious art, including abstract art, can be helpful in conveying this message in the present-day world of visual culture.

The paper examines Ignatius of Antioch’s warning statements in Eph. 16.1–18.1 to determine whether they indicate that Ignatius believed a Christian could be led away from genuine faith by what he considered to be excessively divergent beliefs. At first glance, Ignatius’s wording in this section appears to support such a conclusion: ‘Do not be anointed with the stench of the teaching of the ruler of this age, lest he take you captive and rob you of the life set before you’ (17.1). After examining the letter in its context, and in light of the entire middle recension, this paper questions the idea that Ignatius held to such a view. Several contextual factors support this thesis. Theological conclusions that do not recognize the potentially variegated nature of Ignatius’s audience run the risk of misinterpreting his statements. The fact that he warned of those who professed to be Christ’s but were not genuine suggest that the warnings may not have been referring to a loss of salvation. In addition, in the letter to the Ephesians, Ignatius details how the Ephesians were to differentiate between genuine and false faith. The letter, and this section in particular, is heavily dependent upon Paul’s 1 Corinthians. When the close verbal and contextual ties between Ign. Eph. 17.2–18.1 and 1 Cor 1:18–23 are examined, it becomes evident that Ignatius was warning against the possibility that at least a portion of professing Christianity was in danger of foolishly perishing because they were still unbelievers, who, despite their professions of faith and their association with the church, had yet to view the basic message of the cross as anything but an object of foolishness. Ignatius was warning the church that tares had begun to spring up among God’s wheat.

It seems that sound values of plosives and affricates in Hellenistic Greek were not reconstructed by the linguistic processes. Although some notable scholars such as W. B. Stanford, W. S. Allen, and C. C. Caragounis have tried to reconstruct the consonants in Hellenistic Greek, their reconstructed sound values are not persuasive from the linguistic perspective. As a result, some rules of grammar in Hellenistic Greek have still been regarded as grammatical exceptions despite the fact that they could be explained as regular changes according to their phonological rules. Linguistically speaking, to reconstruct the sound values, scholars have used two methods, internal reconstruction and comparative reconstruction. This paper applies the internal method to reconstruction of plosives and affricates in Hellenistic Greek. The reconstructed plosives and affricates will show that some morphological and syntactic rules in Hellenistic Greek are not exceptional but regular.

There are two characteristics of location in the Samson narrative. One is geographical and altitudinal: rising and descending; the other is spatial: open and enclosed. The former is represented in various settings such as field, valley, hill etc. The action of story shifts repeatedly from coastal plain to Shepelah area and vice versa. This rising and descending structure reflected in geographic location and altitude serves as a metaphor of narrative plot- climax, crisis and denouement and manifests the ups and downs of Samson’s fortune. The upward and downward movement is implied in the burnt offering scene(ch. 13) and the sacrificial scene(ch. 16) too: an image of ascent from the altar(flame, angel) and contrasting facing down(Manoah and his wife); the Philistines' higher position looking down Samson and the subsequent subversion as their temple collapses. The latter is represented in Samson’s and Philistines’ sphere of action. Wondrous events or exploits take place in the open space(field, vineyard, top of the hill): mother’s(or parents’) encounter with the divine, Samson’s killing a lion, his victory against Philistines using torches bound to foxes, the fight with jawbones of donkey, the miracle spring water and his carrying up the doors of the town gate and gateposts. On the contrary, Philistines’ conspiracy to subdue Samson is plotted in the closed space(city, house, room, prison, temple) where human action is confined within certain boundaries. Therefore, it is reasonable that Delilah keeps asking how to bind Samson and the narrative is full of references to the tools for binding(cords, rope, fetter), i.e., the restraining device. Significantly, Samson meets his downfall in the lowest enclosed place, the enemy’s temple. Samson, going up and down constantly and passing through the geographic boundary, removes the restricting materials such as rope, gate, gateposts and pillars for his (or the Israelites') freedom after all.

A recently found new early alphabetic inscribed jar handle and other fragments recently found in controlled excavations in Israel will be presented for the first time to the public. A comparison with formerly known early alphabetic inscriptions and conclusions on calligraphic and palaeographic method will follow.

Talmudic traditions, deeply interwoven with its religious and legal content, also transfer and convey technical, scientific and social knowledge through complex hermeneutical, rhetorical and cognitive techniques. Thus, the Talmudic corpus, containing Jewish lore and law for almost all aspects or realms of daily life, lends itself to be studied with respect to its encyclopaedic dimensions. Focusing on some dense clusters about medicine and healing, the paper will explore the character of Talmudic texts as handbooks, compendia or encyclopedia. Furthermore, I will ask how the rabbinic strategies of appropriation facilitated the transfer of late antique (medical) knowledge of the body into authoritative, or even holy, traditions.

This paper is an attempt to better understand the rationale and ethical implications of the notion of the imitation of Christ in the First Letter of John. It will examine this notion in light of the OT or Jewish belief that God's people should conform their lives in accordance with his character and deeds. Closely related to our arguments is the predominant use of familial language in First John to describe the relationship between God and believers. Without denying the insights of the sociological approach concerning family relationship in the Greco-Roman world, this paper will treat the Johannine description of the believers as God's children as evidence in support of their identity as his people. After surveying the relevant references to the imitation of God in the OT and early Judaism, the theme of the father-son relationship between God and Israel in the canonical and extra-canonical Jewish literature will be discussed. Special attention will be paid to the OT or Jewish texts in which this theme is connected with the idea of the imitation of God or the future hope of Israel's restoration as God's people. The remainder of this paper will then examine the selected passages in First John in light of the findings in the prior analysis. Just as in the OT Israel is obliged to reflect God's nature in everyday life, in Johannine thinking the believers as God's people must take on Jesus' character as their character and follow in his footsteps to surrender one's own life for the benefits of others. The imitation of Christ does not mean a mimesis of his earthly life or copying of his deeds. Rather, the result of this paper will support the view that the ethical thought in First John is developed primarily along the lines of relationship.

It has frequently been observed that the record of the so-called cultic reformation of King Josiah is a text of highly compositional nature. From this follows the challenge to describe the unfolding of the literary-historical process which brought about the growth of the present form of the text and to uncover the size of the original source -- provided there is one. Otherwise this text could not be used as a source for the religious history of Judah.

This paper begins by examining why English translations consistently translate some Greek aorists with a present perfect (e.g., ?????se? as “has spoken”—Heb 1:2), while simple past tense always translates some Greek perfects (e.g., p??se?????e? as “offered”—Heb 11:17). One reason is that English is a tense-prominent language, which motivates the existence of a verb form that indicates that a past event has current (present) relevance. In contrast, because Greek is an aspect-prominent language, its concern is more with how the event is portrayed. In particular, the Greek aorist has perfective aspect, which portrays the event as a whole and, because there is no distinct present perfective verb form, the aorist is used to refer not only to actions that took place in the past, but also to current events. So the need of a verb form that “underlines the actuality that the speaker ascribes to the past [State of Affairs] within the context of the present communicative situation” (Orriens 2009) is reduced. This suggests in turn that the Greek perfect is a more marked way of indicating current relevance than the English equivalent. In particular, the perfect often has the effect of “clinching the argument”. When the perfect alternates with the aorist, Runge (2016) correctly asserts, “Based on the principle that choice implies meaning, the choice to render only one Greek verb a perfect suggests a prioritization of the information”. However, he fails to bring out the significance of this observation when discussing the perfects in Heb 11:5, 17 and 28. In all three instances, the event in the perfect is “out of order”. More significantly, the perfect introduces the final assertion about the character concerned. (Another motivation for using the perfect is to background the event concerned—see “The Perfect as a Rhetorical Device in NT Greek” ISBL paper.)

This paper will discuss curse formulas inscribed on the monuments of Zinçirli housed in the Vorderasiatisches Museum. The paper will focus specifically on curses against intentional damage to the monuments themselves (Kilamuwa inscription, Essarhaddon victory stele) and will consist of two parts. The first part of the paper will locate these curses within a cursing tradition that extends from the earliest Sumerian inscribed artifacts to late strata of biblical literature. It will describe how curses in the Zinçirli inscriptions adhere to, and diverge from, this remarkably consistent and enduring curse formula protecting West Asian monumental inscriptions. The second part of the paper will identify how these curses signify and blend the social, semantic, material, and temporal dimensions of Zinçirli’s inscribed iconography. It will describe how this cursing tradition, in its alphabetic and cuneiform attestations in Zinçirli, actualized and perpetuated material representations of Levantine kingdoms and Mesopotamian empires, for those who ritually interacted with these monuments in their ancient settings.

In last year’s paper (for EABS 2016), I argued that the pervasive literary and rhetorical traits of Mishnah reflected and/or engendered modalities of reader engagement that served to define and promote specific professional skills among the members of the early rabbinic guild. These skills, I stated, would have constituted core elements of group identity and social cohesion for the nascent rabbinic movement. My paper for EABS 2017 proposes to take up the question articulated at the end of last year’s presentation. Namely, to what degree does the evidence from immediately post-mishnaic rabbinic documents confirm our previous findings based solely on mishnaic evidence. Again for methodological reasons, I propose to pay special attention to evidence of some of the pervasive rhetorical and literary traits of documents such as Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud. As in last year’s paper, I contend that these traits likely constitute more indirect and therefore less biased, tendentious or anachronistic witnesses to the modalities of reader engagement engendered by Mishnah, this in contrast to overt claims or stories in post-mishnaic rabbinic literature about the nature of the early rabbinic social formation at the time of the production of Mishnah. The paper will argue, among other things, that some standard literary-rhetorical constructs of the Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud likely arose as a direct response to the forms of logico-analytic reader engagement that Mishnah’s literary-rhetorical traits demanded of the rabbinic novice and master.

Paul was an astute reader of Jewish scriptures and in his letters he cites but half of one verse from the prophecy of Habakkuk, 4b of chapter 2, “the one who is righteous will live by faith” (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11). What is so significant about this verse in the prophecy of Habakkuk and how is Paul's citation of the verse consistent with and different from other contemporary Jewish interpretations? In this paper, I will contextualize Paul's interpretation of Hab 2:4 within the early reception history of Hab 2:4 by discussing how the verse was understood in Jewish literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, paying special attention to the Masoretic Text, the LXX, 1QpHab and Hebrews. I will show that in keeping with contemporary exegesis Paul understood 2:1-4 to be central to the prophecy of Habakkuk. He nonetheless cited his own version of just half a verse (2:4b) because he needed a biblical proof-text that associates what he believes to be the non-contingent concept of “righteousness” with “faith”.

When interpreting artifacts from the Aramean realm certain methodological aspects have to be taken into account. Of course, this general demand is also a necessity for other archaeological sites revealing material culture throughout the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. However, a certain number of the Aramean City States (such as Bit-Gabbari or Bit-Bahiani) offer complex scenarios of iconographic presentation which can be used as a testing case for certain methodological instruments. Quality criticism, constellation/composition analyses, questions of genre/form and finally redaction criticism can be exemplarily discussed in respect to given archaeological scenarios from the 1st Mill. BCE. Questions of iconography and space will be addressed as a side line.

Review

The historical road of understanding the relationship between archaeology and Bible texts is a long and winding one. It stretches from no interest at all in this relationship to assigning one or the other a dominant role and from there to reconstructing a dialogical or mutually-interpretative interaction between text and archaeology, which then varies from instance to instance. In this contribution, the latter approach is explored in an experimental fashion, by viewing details in the patriarchal narratives against the backdrop of three broad archaeological periods, each of which has been proposed to reflect the historical setting of the "patriarchal age." Setting aside the issue of whether the relationship between Abraham, Isaac and Jacob reflects direct familial lineage or is to be construed as an artificial expression of tribal identity, the three broad periods s are: 1800, 1200 and 600 BCE. Possible correspondences and divergences between the three "test cases" will be observed, leading to conclusions concerning the usefulness of bringing archaeology and the patriarchal narratives into discussion with one another.

This investigation focuses on social dynamics in the third epistle of John. In the context of 3 John, hospitality and patronage seem to be opposed as two non-compatible models of behavior. How are these factors different and what makes them non-compatible in a church setting is the main focus of this paper. Cultural anthropology is used in this investigation for the purpose of understanding the social system, values, and circumstances that shaped the events of 3 John. I first collect evidence to explain the ancient customs of hospitality and patronage in order to create a model for each. In the final step I contrast the two models. This exercise helps to visualize the differences and non-compatibility between the two models.

A number of Christian compilation works in Slavonic, either translated (but lost in the original language(s)) or original, remain so far a too little explored mine of Second Temple pseudepigrapha. Here I will explore the origins of the mysterious prophecy of Nahum known from the Slavonic Words of Holy Prophets (a South Slavic translation of a lost 13th-cent. Byzantine work) and some parts of the little-known Palaea composition that I would call The Testament of Jacob (completely different from the Coptic Testament of Jacob), which is cited by the Slavists under the title The Blessings of Jacob. The Testament of Jacob is known only from the Palaea and only within the transmission of the Slavonic version of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; according to Grishchenko 2o15, it was absorbed by the Palaea together with the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Second Temple period Sitz im Leben of several prophecies within both Testament of Jacob and Words of Holy Prophets is to be established in the light of the parallel material in the early Jerusalem preaching preserved only in Georgian, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.

The presentation focuses on what masculinity studies brings to the textual interchange in Numbers 12 between Miriam, Aaron, and Moses regarding his Cushite wife. Levels of “acceptable” masculine performance between Moses and Aaron intersect with the ethnicity and identity of the Cushite woman and a feminist analysis regarding Miriam’s punishment. Overwhelmingly, feminist biblical exegetes treat Numbers 12 as a classic case of the marginalization of female leadership since only Miriam receives punishment. Another line of thought is that the Cushite woman is racially black and Miriam is therefore a racist. But these theo-political conclusions ignore the dynamics of ethnicity, masculinity, and prophetic authority also present in the text. The paper examines less of the supposed hatred of a foreign tribe and more about Moses’ masculinity and his prophetic authority. The later development of his sexual celibacy in Jewish tradition is an example of this focus. Masculinity studies as a methodological consideration in the paper highlight the negotiations regarding masculine performance in light of power dynamics that exist between God, Moses, and Aaron and, in doing so, relate those negotiations to a broader critical framework for feminist biblical interpretation. Finally, the men are not the only ones who remain subject to a masculinity studies analysis. The paper includes the Cushite wife on the spectrum of masculine performance to demonstrate ways in which masculinity studies can contribute to feminist biblical studies in its focus on biblical women.

M.M. Barkhtin’s carnivalesque was developed in stages from his “Epic and Novel” to its fullest explication in “Rabelais and His World.” Carnivalesque has its origin in the festive carnivals of the common folks and the transposition of the carnival into the language of literature is what Barkthin called the carnivalization of literature. Carnivalesque - in its wider sense - is manifested in three distinct forms: (1) Ritual spectacles, (2) Comic verbal compositions, and (3) Various genres of billingsgate. This broader meaning of carnivalesque provides the potential of extending its border beyond the feasts and festivals to the reading of literatures. Barkhtin placed the carnivalesque between the binary lives of the people, the serious, official stratum and the comic, unofficial stratum. The banishment of the carnivalistic act by the official stratum to the margin did not obliterate its influence and effects. It offers an alternative to the official word by suspending/inverting the social order and creates a new potential for alternative social relations. This is often act out through the carnivalistic acts of mock crowning and decrowning, eccentricity, carnival laughter, and hybridity/travesty. These four elements can be detected in the reading of the Gospel of Judas, both in its style and presentation of teh centre character (Judas), and if this is established, will provide us a possible alternative reading of the text. It might not be just a purely gnostic text but function as a subversive text that aimed to mock the institutionalised (“orthodox”) church and a rebel to the official (“orthodox”) word.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) states that in 2015, the world saw 21.3 million people classified as refugees, with just 107,100 of these being resettled into a new home. With such a low (0.5%) percentage of refugees being granted asylum and resettled, it seems that there is little hope for refugees in the contemporary world. A postcolonial reading of apocalyptic literature describes it as “resistant discourse that unthinks the logic of empire and asserts in its place an alternative vision of reality”—in other words, apocalyptic literature presents a vision designed to bring hope to those facing hardship. When it was written, the Book of Revelation brought much-needed comfort to the early Christians, who faced many challenges and difficulties, including what many of them perceived as religious persecution, from a variety of sources. This paper explores a postcolonial reading of the Book of Revelation in order to ask the question, “Can a postcolonial reading of the Book of Revelation speak to refugees or refugee policy in the contemporary world?”

Let the Aquatic Beast Identify Itself The oracles of Ezekiel to the Egyptians depict Pharaoh, the ruler of the Nile territories as an aquatic beast (Ezek 29:3, 32:2) named tnym. Driver and Briggs render it tnyn, suggesting that tnym is erroneous. They define it as a serpent; dragon; sea monster. The Anchor Bible equates the form tnym with tnyn. Walter Zimmerli even proposes that the prophet did not have a specific Egyptian creature in his mind. Yoder maintains that it is a Mesopotamian regal title for a ferocious animal. The lack of consensus begs for a definitive explanation. This paper attempts to introduce an alternative view, based on unnoticed linguistic and content aspects embedded in the verses. Moreover, it will offer a picture of the aquatic beast found on an iconic inscribed seal recently described by Deutsch and Heltzer. Accordingly, this paper will solve a biblical crux by providing a thorough explanation of the extra biblical seal. This is a case where a pictorial representation is really worth a thousand words.

While modern scholarship has produced a rich deposit of literature on the stories of the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the bleeding woman (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43 and 5:23–34 respectively), much of the treatment of these episodes privileges the account of the woman. The story of the bleeding woman is commonly taken up as the main frame of reference for reading the whole of 5:21–43, often controlling how the account of Jairus’ daughter is interpreted. Detailed analyses that focus primarily on the story of Jairus’ daughter are rare. At the same time, when examining both stories together, secondary literature often identifies body-related themes in both episodes, although little of this considers the depictions of children’s and females’ bodies that were part of the cultural landscape of the first century CE. This paper seeks to expand the frame of reference by which the story of Jairus’ daughter may be read. Locating the account in its first-century milieu, the paper offers an examination of the raising of Jairus’ daughter in light of Jewish and Greco-Roman depictions of children’s and females’ bodies in written and visual texts in the first century CE, particularly those of dying and dead bodies. The analysis yields a reading in which Mark appears to reconfigure notions of the household for those who identified with Jesus, while at the same time duplicating some of the conventional images of family and children that populated the first-century landscape. The paper illustrates how a change in the vantage point from which the account of Jairus’ daughter is read expands the vision of the story and contributes further to how Mark represents the family in the broader narrative

Among second temple period Jewish texts written in Aramaic, Daniel 4 and Tobit have been considered to stress the role of charity, or almsgiving (tzidqah), as an activity linked to one’s merit with God. This paper will explore the concept of tzidqah in relation to some other Aramaic texts from Qumran, most notably the Aramaic Levi Document and Testament of Qahat. In addition, the Testament of Qahat will be examined as an early witness to the related notion of ‘the merit of the ancestors’ (zekhut avot), known from Ben Sira and later rabbinic literature. It will be argued that the distinctive use of tzidqah shared among a number of the Aramaic texts stored and copied at Qumran suggests a higher level of literary affiliation than is often assumed.

John 20:11 says that Mary Magdalene stands at the tomb of Jesus and weeps. Mary’s weeping in this verse, which expresses her disappointment or mourning due to the loss of Jesus’ mortal body, has often been under consideration. In this presentation, we will focus on an overlooked point: the meanings in the description of the “standing” of Mary. Several scholars believe that, originally, John 20:11 has been directly connected to John 20:1 (20:2–10 is an insertion). That is, Mary is standing and weeping as she sees the tomb from which the closing stone had been removed. Thus, this action must be related with the empty tomb or resurrection of Jesus. Furthermore, are there any connections between the standing of Mary and the appearance of Jesus? Here are some suggestions: 1) In the Gospel of John, there is another scene regarding the standing of Mary: at the cross of Jesus (19:25). Mary accepted the death of Jesus in standing. Moreover, Mary received his resurrection in standing. The “standing” posture stresses the continuity between death and resurrection of Jesus. Interestingly, the resurrected Jesus appears in standing in this Gospel (20:14, 19, 26; 21:4). Therefore, the “standing” posture symbolizes the resurrection from the death. 2) We know that “standing” was a posture of praying in Judaism during the time of Jesus (Matt. 6:5; Luke 18:11). Thus, we can possibly evaluate the description of the standing of Mary in John 20:11 as a posture of praying, rather than a coincidental position. However, we cannot find the content of her prayer: it seems that Mary’s prayerful attitude is more important than its content in connection with the resurrection of Jesus. Thus, we can conclude that the standing of Mary in John 20:11 is certainly used in relation with the resurrection of Jesus.

Among all the biblical prophets, Jeremiah is the “prophet to the nations” par excellence. In exegesis, one normally connects the international dimension of his prophetic office with the proclamation of destruction. This occurs in the oracles of judgment against Judah, in which the nations act as executors of divine punishment, and in the prophecies concerning foreign nations, in which they, themselves, are judged and punished. As a result, one tends to overlook the fact that the Book of Jeremiah also contains an announcement of salvation for the non-Israelitic nations. Indeed, only in the prophecies concerning their conversion and peaceful coming to Zion does Jeremiah become a prophet for the nations (Jer 1:5), and not only against the nations (Jer 46:1). This presentation examines the form in which the Book of Jeremiah casts the typical Isaian motif of the pilgrimage of the nations (“Völkerwallfahrt”). To this end, we will analyze two principle texts, Jer 3:14-18 and 16:19-21, examining first their place in redaction history and their function in the current context, and then their intertextual relations inside and outside the book. In this way, we will draw attention to a seldom-observed theologoumenon in Jeremiah research, a theological concept that can orient current efforts to define the proper relationship between Israel and the goyim.

Numerous recent readings of the episode of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark have emphasized that the woman’s logic is used by Mark (and perhaps by a surprised Jesus) as a gateway to a Gentile-inclusive mission, such that Gentile ‘dogs’ are given new space in a mission that was hitherto directed to Jewish ‘children.’ I wish to draw attention to a number of exegetical observations: some new, some old. First, I suggest that the woman’s specific location in the region of Tyre (and Sidon) needs to receive greater attention. In this regard, echoes of the Elijah-Elisha narratives should be reconsidered. Second, I suggest that the role of the disciples as representative ‘children’ of Israel needs to be acknowledged. Third, I suggest that the role of this passage in marking the opening of a Gentile-inclusive mission has sometimes been overplayed: Jesus has already engaged in Gentile mission in Mark. Fourth, I argue that the broader use of the motif of ‘bread’ in Mark needs to be given greater attention. Drawing together these elements, we can nuance our reading of the passage as follows: the disciples have been authorized to take the ‘Bread of the Presence,’ but have not had time to eat bread, and have failed to understand the first bread miracle. It would not be good to take the bread of these ‘children’ and throw it to Tyre and Sidon – the proverbial epitome of Gentile ‘outsideness’! And yet – as in a series of other examples – it is the unlikely outsider who surpasses the disciples in perceiving and understanding the miraculous provider. The focus of the pericope is therefore not on an unexpected change of mission by Jesus, but on the way in which a persistent Gentile outsider shows up the disciples’ ongoing hardness of heart, by gaining ‘bread’ from Jesus.

The presentation focuses on researches undertaken recently by Polish Biblical scholars that can make an impact on New Testament studies. Their results are discussed in the annual conferences, organized by the Association of Polish Biblical Scholars and the Institutes of Biblical Sciences of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw and the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, and published in the open-access journals. Among them there are some research projects rated excellent and innovative by the international experts of the National Science Centre in Poland.

The “Armenian Gospel of the Infancy” is a rare apocryphon for which there is historical evidence of when and by whom it was introduced into Armenia. This information is known due to the “Chronology” of the twelfth-century historian Samuel Anetsi. He reports that a group of Syrians had penetrated into Armenia trying to preach here the Nestorianism. Although the aforementioned preachers had been soon ejected, their “false” books, including the “Gospel of the Infancy”, managed to be translated into Armenian. After being translated by the end of the VI century, however, this apocryphon had lurked in the background of the Armenian cultural and ecclesiastical life for centuries and experienced revival only roughly a millennium later. The main aim of this paper is to reveal the ambiguous attitude towards this book in the later Middle Ages.

Most people walking through the monumental gateways of Iron Age cities would have engaged with their visual design elements and architectonic contexts. Gateways spoke to the power of those erecting or renovating them. They were the entryways into urban spaces, but also represented movement into a political jurisdiction. These hubs of commerce, ritual, and gossip were also spaces of cultural cross-fertilization. This paper will examine the use of writing in the gateways at Tel Dan and Karatepe as type of visual propaganda that was embedded into architectural displays of royal power and prestige. An emphasis upon the multimodality of these inscriptions best reflects how they communicated in fluid and changing modes as a person walked through the space of the text. Indeed, the linguistic content of these inscriptions was subsumed by the other more immediate visual modes of these constructed spaces (i.e., size, scale, material, iconicity, and visual aesthetic). The “reading” of such inscriptions was determined by a person’s physical engagement with the space around the text and its visual characteristics.

Although much has been published about the Maccabean (Hasmonean) expansion in recent years, the focus of scholars has usually been placed more on the Maccabees than on their non-Judean opponents; the regional context of Maccabean conquests in particular has not always attracted enough attention. Therefore, the aim of this paper will be to discuss one such regional context: the origin of the Maccabean-Idumean conflict in the second century BCE, which finally led to the Hasmonean conquest of Idumea and conversion of the Idumeans to Judaism. Special attention will be given to the discussion of all of the passages from the First and Second Books of Maccabees that refer to the Maccabean-Idumean conflict (1 Macc. 3:41; 1 Macc. 4:15; 1 Macc. 4:29; 1 Macc. 4:61; 1 Macc. 5:3; 1 Macc. 5:65; 2 Macc. 10:15-16; 2 Macc. 12:32). As a matter of supplement, I will also briefly present and discuss possible allusions to this conflict in Josephus and the Pseudepigrapha (esp. Jub. 37:1-38:14; T. Jud. 9:1; Hen. 89:72, 90:16). As a result, it will be argued that – in contrast to widely held views – many passages in 1-2 Macc. speak only about Seleucid military activities conducted in Idumea and not about Judean-Idumean ethnic conflict. Furthermore, 1-2 Macc. report no specific military actions of the Idumeans against the Judeans. Thus, it appears that Maccabean expansion towards Idumea was neither religiously motivated nor a Judean response to prior Idumean hostility. To the contrary, it resulted from a vital need to control strategic strongholds and cities guarding approaches to Judea from the south that were used by the Seleucids and would have been used by any other Judean enemies. It was in fact a Judean push towards the south that may have led to hostile Idumean reactions in some regions.

The Book of the Covenant, presented in the second major divine speech at Mount Sinai (Exod 20:22-23:33), is an especially apt example for redactional analysis, mainly because of the presence of two types of evidence. First, comparison with extra-biblical collections of laws from the ancient Near East suggests that some of the casuistic laws found in Exod 21:2-22:16 had most likely been collected independently from their present context. Second, literary features that link the Book of the Covenant with its literary context, such as the address in the second person, content that identifies God as the speaker (e.g., 20:22-21:1), and links with the exodus narrative (e.g., 22:20-23:9), suggest that the casuistic laws were redactionally integrated into their narrative framework. Moreover, comparative analysis with other law collections and traditions in the Pentateuch (cf., e.g., the cluster of deuteronomistic motifs in Exod 23:27-33) encourages the formation of hypotheses on the relative chronology of several passages within the Book of the Covenant. The presentation will re-evaluate the criteriologies applied in previous studies on the Book of the Covenant, e.g., by Eckart Otto, Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ralph Rothenbusch, John Van Seters, David Wright, and Bernard Levinson, in order to assess the strengh of criteria and to show that the strongest arguments are based on the coincidence of more than one strong criterion.

This paper argues that punctuation (cf. the compositio of the rhetorical tradition) in Paul’s letters is intrinsically linked to an aural logic. By punctuation I do not mean here the graphic signs, but rather the different kinds of breaks, silences, and breathings that structure a text when it is read aloud. Taking 2 Corinthians 10:8–11 as an example and using the notions of cola and periods as described in the stylistic treatises of the Greco-Roman world (in particular, Demetrios, On Style, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Literary Composition, and Quintillian, Institutes of Oratory), I will show both the methods and the extent to which it is possible to reconstituate the different breaks that punctuated this passage when it was read aloud by a lector in Paul’s day. This will allow me to shed new light on the structure of the passage and, especially, on the much debated question of the place of verse 9 (hína me dóxo hos àn ekphobein humãs dià ton epistolon), namely the extend to which it is linked with either verse 8 or verses 10–11, or to which it is independent. This paper will also consider the broader implications of the punctuation of this passage for how we understand Paul’s rhetorical intent.

Vigorous scholarly debate continues over the date, venue, and nature of Jesus’ last meal. The introduction to this paper draws on the work of Stéphane Saulnier to defend the theory that the occasion was held on the evening of 1 April 33 C.E., at the beginning of 15 Nisan according to the Essenes’ calendar. It also upholds the hypothesis that Jesus and his disciples were guests of an Essenian community and that all ate the paschal meal together in the household’s dining hall. Whereas most treatments of the subject are based on Mark’s account, the discussion that follows will consider primarily the issues and insights arising from Luke’s narrative. Topics discussed include the likelihood that Jesus’ wish to eat the Passover was unfulfilled, the possibility that there was no paschal lamb, and the theological inferences of Jesus’ subsequent death. Particular attention will be given to the wine–bread–wine order of Jesus’ sayings, and how his words and actions may have correlated with those of the Essene host as described in 1QSa II, 11–21. The first cup saying will be viewed with the Essenes’ eschatological expectations in mind. In addition, Jesus’ bread-word will be compared with the biblical text concerning the “bread of affliction” in Deut 16:3, and with the traditional interpretative words in the Haggadah. The second cup saying in Luke, with its focus on the inauguration of the new covenant, is considered authentic, over against those of Mark and Matthew, and will be discussed in relation to the Essenes’ own spiritual commitment (as described in 1QS I, 1–20; III, 11–12). To conclude, the proposed setting of the Last Supper will be evaluated in light of the tradition that one of the earliest Christian communities was in the south-west quarter of Jerusalem.

Welcome on behalf of the museum and introduction to the history of the collection.

The Bible has been extensively mined for passages that support creation care. (See, e.g. Toly and Block, 2010). The hermeneutic potential of such passages as Genesis 3:17, Isaiah 5:8, Romans 8:19-21, and Revelations 11:18 have been explored by many authors. However, the persuasive qualities of literary metaphor would be enhanced by combination with concrete mathematical exposition demonstrating the stark reality of the global situation. For example, the full impact of the imagery of Isaiah 5:8 might better be appreciated when the magnitude of destructive consumption is made manifest by means of climate models. Two climate models are particularly useful for this purpose. They can be found at climatemodels.uchicago.edu/isam/ and climatemodels.uchicago.edu/kaya/. The Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM) is a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere-terrestrial biogeochemistry model with current development taking place regarding the interactions between the carbon, nitrogen and hydrological cycles. The Kaya Identity is a simple formula to project future carbon emissions based on hoped-for changes in Population, economic activity as GDP per capita, Energy Intensity in Watt years / dollar, and the Carbon Intensity of the energy sources as GigatonC as CO2 per TeraWatt year. The ability of both of these models to corporate any of a range of initial assumptions changes the dynamic of reader reception of scriptural authority. For example, if it is assumed that there will be 12 billion people on the planet by the year 2100, reasonable assumptions for the other parameters results in the conclusion that, if there is to be any chance of keeping the levels of CO2 below 500 ppm (and global warming below 2°C), the amount of Carbon Free Energy that must be brought on line worldwide by 2100 is more than five times the current level. This serves to motivate the reader and minimize the tendency to reject the hermeneutic.

The Emendatio Ope Ingenii (emendation based on subjective criteria), although widely used in the past centuries by scholars such as Louis Cappel (1585-1658), Brian Walton (1600-1661), Richard Simon (1638-1712), Charles François Houbigant (1686-1783), is infrequently used in current textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. The Dead Sea discoveries mark a turning point in the way that we comprehend the making of the Hebrew Bible since these texts are a first-hand witness to a period for which there was virtually no manuscript evidence. From this perspective, the present paper analyzes a few of the conjectures on the Biblical text, put forward in the past by different scholars, in order to determine whether the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls can confirm them or not. Moreover, it shall be explored whether the Dead Sea Scrolls may somehow play the role the papyri played (and play) in classical literature where a number of speculations have been confirmed by the emergence of papyri or other new sources.

The Account of King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26 is a heavily reworked and expanded episode of 2 Kings 15. In the perspective of a typical contrasting narration the Chronicler creates a distinct extent of a dramatic hero’s fall. Initially he presents Uzziah, who seeks JHWH, as an antitype to King Saul. Seeking JHWH gives him success in warfare and strength. Out of this strength the Chronicler creates a certain moment of peripeteia and invents a transgression of King Uzziah which seems to be an appropriate crime for the reported retribution in 2 Kings 15. The King becomes supercilious and tries to burn incense in the temple. In the Chronicler’s narration this undertaking has clearly to be interpreted as violation of sacred law. The Chronicler directs this violation in a paradigmatic scene rather than quoting legislative material. Nevertheless the Chronicler relates indirectly but heavily to the priestly layers of the Pentateuch, especially the late layers that R. Achenbach and others call 'Theokratische Bearbeitung'. A close reading of 2 Chr 26:16-23 will bring to light how the Chronicler quotes, reworks and pursues these layers. The Paper will investigate in two directions: On the one hand it will shed light on the most important intertextual references to Exod 30; Lev 10 and Num 16, on the other hand it will illustrate how the hierocratic perspective of a 'Kingdom of Priests' (Exod 19:6), which reaches its destination in the utterly supremacy of a High Priest conflicts with the reformulation of the Judahite Kingdom.

Job 27 is ostensibly attributed to Job himself (v. 1). Yet, while vv. 2-11 may easily be seen as coming from him, scholars are skeptical that vv. 12-23 have been properly placed. Indeed, modern critics have more often than not judged that these words are uncharacteristic for someone who has spent the better part of the poetic narrative questioning God’s judgment and justice. Yet all extant textual witnesses, without exception, attest to the text being in order. The desire to restructure the speeches of the third cycle is based on the assumption that it must be as symmetrical as the first and second. However, despite being symmetrical in their presentations, with each friend and Job speaking in turn, the first two cycles already display deterioration from genuine dialogue. The friends have already begun to talk past one another, except in the last of Job’s speeches, where he addresses each of the three friends in turn. A close inspection of Job 27:12-23 will reveal that Job is in fact the speaker, revealing to both his friends and to God that he has been treated as a wicked person despite being innocent.

The outbreak of war in August 1914 saw a spate of patriotic publication by academics on both sides. Biblical scholars were no exception to this rule, and the national and martial focus of the Old Testament gave it fresh relevance to the crisis of a world at war. Famous names like Rudolf Kittel, Hermann Gunkel and Friedrich Delitzsch wrote lectures and articles to support the war effort. They were joined not only by Christian professors and pastors, but also a number of prominent Jewish voices, who saw the common use of the Bible in wartime as a source of national and religious unity. In this paper I will examine this wartime biblical literature and focus on the following questions: What biblical texts and issues are prominent and seen as especially helpful or problematic? How far does this reflection on the Bible mirror or contradict the typical themes of the propaganda of the time? How does biblical Israel become a model for modern Germany, and the Jewish ‘God of the Old Testament’ a God fit for German heroes?

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The biblical narrative of the Aqedah and the Chinese tale “Guo Ju Buries His Son” (to piously support his mother), both of which are widely circulated in their respective cultures, always remain controversial, anyhow. The two stories share many similarities and raise complicated questions involving human relationship with supreme principles, namely (filial) piety, along with man’s relationship with son and wife. While praising the tales and insisting that they are always good to promote (filial) piety, both ancient biblical scholars and Confucian literati have made effort to interpret the texts so as to reduce the tensions of the narratives and respond to the many critiques raised to the conducts of Abraham and Guo Ju. A cross-textual reading of the two tales and their ancient interpretations may enrich the understanding of both texts and their reception history and exhibit how the “mainstream” ideas from different cultures are conveyed.

The Mesopotamian myth of Anzu tells how this birdlike deity absconds with the Tablet of Destinies. Heroic Ninurta advances to pursue Anzu in a chariot pulled by evil winds that serve as horses. When Ninurta shoots arrows at the thief, Anzu deflects them not with a shield but with his words. He names each part of the weapon and commands it to return to its place of origin, thereby dismantling the dangerous object. In the Song of Songs, the first metaphor used to describe the female occurs in 1:9, “I compare you, my darling, to a mare among the chariots of Pharaoh.” Considering that these chariots would have been harnessed to stallions, a mare let loose among them would result in chaotic upheaval. As such, the female is a weapon so powerful she can dismantle an entire army by her presence. But this powerful female is also taken apart in the Song; the lover is deconstructed through a poetic detailing of her parts and charms. Does such praise make the object of one’s desire even stronger, or does poetic deconstruction temper her power by giving words and form to desire so that one is not entirely overwhelmed by its force? Perhaps adulation constitutes a defense against love’s arrows and chariots. In Job 39:19–25 there is another horse, imagined on the eve of battle. It is apparently indestructible, resistant to weapons—a figure of beauty, desire, and pathos. The words tumble out, each parallelism neatly configured with the next, a verbal horse panting with the energy and frustration of real one. But who sets this horse in motion? The horse laughs, and in the previous section, the ostrich laughs at it, and God and the poet laugh at the tumbledown images, each quivering on the edge of dissolution.

Hebrews 6.4-6 states that there is no possibility of repentance for Christians who fall away. Many commentators, unhappy with the author’s apparently extreme rigorist stance, have attempted to soften what appears to be a fairly unambiguous statement. In this paper, it will be argued that not only should this hard line interpretation be accepted for Hebrews, but that a similar view is more widespread through the New Testament than generally noted. I will argue that one way of accounting for this uncompromising position is that the so-called ‘sacrifice test’ was not, as commonly held, an innovation by Pliny (Ep. 10.96), but that similar practices were being deployed in order to identify Christians throughout the first century. This is not to say there was any official action being taken against Christians, but that an informal ad hoc test become relatively widely practised, calling for strong action in response to maintain the boundaries of early Christian communities.

The Polish biblical institutes cannot claim such vast engagement in the Septuagint studies like some West European centres. However, for the last few decades quite a few scholars at different Polish theological faculties issued some interesting monographs and articles that have to do with this biblical field. Moreover, just four years ago (2013) the first Polish translation of the LXX came into being (prepared by R. Popowski) and in 2017 a special interuniversity project has been established at the Card. Wyszynski University in Warsaw (UKSW) to study Codex Alexandrinus with the biannual journal named Studia Biblica Graeca.

In order to explain the foundation of the Church one needs to look back at the foundation of the world itself, as the groundwork and initium of Creation. Thus, the Luke shaped his story of the first days of the Church in Acts 1-5 as a new Genesis. My paper explores the cosmological interpretation of the beginnings or origins of the Church as a return to the Garden of Creation. Analysing early Patristic exegeses shows how the cosmogenesis is inextricably linked with ecclesiology through the Logos, and thus the ideal state is restored after the fall by the same Creator. The resurrection enables the believer within the Church to ‘return to the first life’ (Gregory of Nyssa) and enjoy the promised Paradise. Therefore, protology is linked with eschatology, and the interpretation of the story of Genesis leads to an understanding of what the Church is.

It is unsurprising to find agricultural imagery in the Book of Proverbs: proverbs of every society use metaphors drawn from the everyday life of their people. But it is perhaps more surprising to find these images used to depict the King. In this paper, I will consider five such examples. In two proverbs, the King is depicted metaphorically as participating in agriculture. In 20:8, he ‘winnows all evil’, and 20:26 adds that he ‘drives the wheel’ (possibly the threshing wheel) over them. This is a particularly graphic way to depict two aspects of his judgment: discerning the wicked, and punishing them accordingly. In addition, three proverbs connect the King with the water essential for effective agriculture. He is like ‘a cloud of spring rain’ (16:15), ‘dew on the grass’ (19:12), and ‘streams of water’ (21:1). These evocative pictures open up a world to be explored imaginatively. Their primary associations are positive. The King, when he bestows his favour, brings refreshing, abundance, and life. However, there may be darker undertones. Is his favour unpredictable and uncontrollable like spring rain? Ephemeral and fleeting like dew? Reserved for the upper echelons like artificial ‘streams’? The compact form of the proverbs offers no answers. While appearing to support the King, these metaphors – drawn from the imagery of the everyday people, and perhaps reflecting their opinion as well – may in fact offer covert criticism.

Blessings and deaths, changes of the acting persons and locations, beginning of new times – all these are typical elements within the transition of stories and books. The paper tries to present a thesis of the end of Genesis that reads different stories of Genesis as a closing of the first book of the Tora and therefor Genesis as an opening of the Tora and further biblical books.

This paper explores the functionality of the scroll in two prophetic texts, Jer. 36 and Ez. 2-3. The scroll operates as an artefact which is symbiotic with the voice of the prophet and deity. It is in that sense a 'body' which performs meaning. The scroll produces the emotions of fear and anxiety into the scenes in which it appears. It also moves through spatial locations, both public and private as well as cosmic. The paper analyses the plot dynamism of the prophetic texts by exploring the links between scrolling emotions of arrogance/fear as well as metaphors such as sweetness/ bitterness. It explores emotive language via a reading lens drawn from affective theory and the significance of all agencies in a social setting, animate and non-animate.

The collection of questions and answers of St. John the Theologian to Abraham “about the righteous souls” (BHG et Auctarium 922k) is not cited in CANT and CAVT, nor in other reference books, because neither the Byzantine tradition nor the Slavonic tend to be much investigated. Greek copies of Apocalypsis Johannis apocrypha (BHG 921-922h) are very different from one another, proffering many variant texts. Some would not normally be classified as examples of the apocalyptic genre. Moreover, these Greek texts’ shape and provenance haves been much debated. Slavonic translations offer significant evidence concerning the reception, function, and collection into miscellanies of these texts, as well as their usage of biblical citation. The research work will shed light on translations of Byzantine literature in medieval Bulgaria.

The Gospels present at least three distinctive modes in communication, to speak in clear (plain or public), metaphoric (parabolic or proverbial), and secret (hidden or private) message in public or private communication. For examples, the texts in John 16:25–29 and John 18:20 present clearly three modes in communication. The discourse in John 10:1–18 begins with a figure of speech (parable, proverb, or riddle) in John 10:1–5. The passage in Matthew 11:25–27 presents a challenge in this multimodal framework in the biblical communication and revelation. In this light, the passages in John 6:45–46, 65 present an interesting parallel, worthy to be investigated. Further the Gospels present a richer multimodal system of communication and revelation. For example, a secure communication is noted in the case of the biblical dream-vision (cf. Matthew 1:20), used as a secure means of transmission of a hidden message to a particular person who may or may not know its concealed message at the time of conception. A similar argument for the parables (cf. Matthew 13:10-17) is also applicable to the case of the paradoxes (cf. Matthew 22:15–46) in the biblical law and legal reasoning. The disciples clearly understood the two-level or three-level of communication in clarity, metaphor, or secrecy as expressed in John 16:29 and John 18:20.

Both the representation of biblical women and those who were not genealogically part of biblical Israel gave the rabbis from Late Antiquity cause for reflection. Their perception of “the other” largely depended on how the episodes in which these others appeared took place, and especially how these characters were related to outstanding figures among the people of Israel. One example that combines both circumstances is the case of the Egyptian princess that Solomon took as his wife, mentioned in the Bible on only six occasions (1 Kgs 3:1; 7:8; 9:16; 9:24; 11:1-2; 2 Chr 8:11). From those references, the rabbis elaborated a set of traditions related to Pharaoh’s daughter. Accounts of this particular wife of Solomon have mainly been transmitted in the narrative sections of the Talmud and the midrashim. This study examines the “rabbinization” process that this character underwent from her position as “the other” in a double sense: the other as foreigner, an Egyptian who intervened in the fate of Israel, and the other as woman, linked to an Israelite King.

In a recent article, Tito Orlandi has noted that hagiographic and patristic texts written in Coptic “reveal many traces of reworking…. The scholarly clerics who copied them, generally for public (liturgical) use, did not feel obliged to respect the form of their model, except for the Bible and special cases like Shenoute. Rather, they were free to adapt them to the needs and the circumstances of the present occasion.” In my paper, I would like to demonstrate that one could also encounter this phenomenon (known as “textual fluidity”) in the Coptic “orthodox” apocrypha, i.e. those texts that do not propagate the views in some way opposing to those of the “official” church, but rather merely fill in the gaps in the sacred history known from the Bible. I will focus on two texts I am currently editing: the Acts of Andrew and Philemon (a “sequel” to Acts of Andrew and Matthias) and the Coptic version of the Fourth Book of Maccabees—as I will demonstrate, the Copts understood the Forth Maccabees as a hagiographical text (i.e. not a biblical one) and treated it accordingly. I will argue that the phenomenon of textual fluidity makes it impossible to produce a “critical” edition of a Coptic apocryphon. Rather, each textual witness should be understood as an idiosyncratic performance of the source text.

Scholars have long noted Philo's extensive citation of The Iliad and The Odyssey. Attitudes toward the significance of such appropriation, however, have been generally dismissive. Erkki Koskenniemi, for example, insists that when Philo cites Homer "the only reason for quoting seems to be that Philo liked to quote Homer." Just so Robert Lamberton states that "most citations of Homer [in Philo] are purely rhetorical and decorative." To the extent that scholars are willing to ascribe any intellectual significance to Philo's use of Homer, they tend only to admit, in line with the influence of Alexandrian hermeneutics upon Philo, that a limited subset of his Homeric allusions are allegorical. Indeed, given the widespread assumption that Philo's use of Homer can only be significant when allegorical, it is hardly surprising that scholars have dismissed so much of Philo's Homeric citations as merely decorative. By turning away from this narrow focus on such Alexandrian-style allegory in Philo, however, a consideration instead of Philo's literary use of Homer--the way in which Philo calls upon the Homeric narrative to import themes, concepts, or even emotions into his own writing--will allow us to see a more consistently meaningful use of Homer in Philo's work and, furthermore, to extract Philo's own implicit vision of the Homeric pericopes in question. My presentation will undertake such a project by seeking to demonstrate, through five examples in which Philo cites the Apologoi (Books 9-12 of The Odyssey) that Philo consistently calls upon this section to import from it themes and concepts concerning ethical failure, divine punishment, and the afterlife. Philo's use of the Apologoi, then, is neither allegorical nor decorative, but rather rich in literary meaning and consistent in its use of the Homeric material.

The Judahite garrison in Upper Egypt is perhaps the best-known example of an ethnic-religious community in the Persian Empire. This paper builds on my earlier work that examined the religious group from the perspective of Persian control of the religion rather than the usual perspective of an expansion of the influence of the Jerusalem authorities. Alongside the Judahite community was a large temple complex and community of the Egyptian deity Khnum; the two communities seem to have been in dispute. The evidence is examined for how the Persian authorities attempted to control the relationships between the two communities, in part by the control of both religious communities.

The research project primarily concentrates on examining and analyzing the references to Jerusalem in the Arabic versions of the book of Isaiah, especially the Jewish translations. The project primarily focuses on the Genizah collections, Qaraite translations, and the Tafisr of Saadiah Gaon. Regarding Christian translations, the West and East Syriac and the Coptic translations will be examined and analyzed. The research at its core deals with certain pivotal and interrelated questions. The questions can be articulated as the following: -What are the theological, social, cultural, and political perspectives which influenced these Arabic translations? -How did Jewish and Christian translators living under an Islamic rule grapple with the theological significance of Jerusalem which was under Islamic domination? -How was Jerusalem’s transformation and deliverance expressed in Arabic versions considering the fact that the holy city was under an Islamic power not Yahweh’s rule? -Can one deduce any Islamic/Quranic influences on these Arabic translations? -Can one discern any signs of theological conflict and religious disputes between Jews, Christians, and Muslims on the definition and articulation of the legitimate authority over Jerusalem? In dealing with the Jewish translations of and commentaries on Isaiah (especially the ones by Saadiah Gaon and the Qaraite translations), the attention is going to be paid to the understanding and analyzing of the theological and political perspective of Jewish communities on Jerusalem; the dwelling city of Yahweh on earth, which was under a non-Jewish rule. Entering the realms of the exegetical works shall give more insights into the pivotal position of Jerusalem in the book of Isaiah and its reception history...

This paper aims to highlight how the internal dynamics of ideas within the Gospel of Thomas could be contingent on the wealth of the cultural Egyptian environment. The cultural innovations perceptible within the Gospel of Thomas demonstrate the rich and stimulating environment of the Hellenistic period which has dissipated all over the Mediterranean area. The Gospel of Thomas resonates with Egypt through the complex blend of religious and philosophical ideas, not to mention the Coptic language. However, until now every scholarly analysis constructed theories constantly excluding the Egyptian revolutionary worldview. Such a characteristic raises key questions regarding the scholarly puzzle which the scholars on the Thomasine research put forward. The present paper claims that the Gospel of Thomas stands for a perfect example of how one can grasp the manifold cultural aspects that Egypt has held within the Greco-Roman world. This paper focuses on the analysis of the Egyptian milieu, and aims to situate the Gospel of Thomas in a clearer place within the religious philosophical dialogue of the Greco-Roman world.

The different types of discursive strategies expressing authority in talks or texts are specifically studied by Critical Discourse Analysis, which was developed in the 1980s as part of the so-called Critical Discourse Studies within the field of linguistics and sociolinguistic research. CDA understands discourse as a large unit, focusing also on context and language use, social-cognitive dynamics and mental models. In particular, it investigates the relationships between discourse and society, and discourse and power. According to this approach, which will be adopted in this paper, authority – understood as the legitimate power which one person or a group holds over another – can be expressed by several discursive strategies (populism, generalization, comparison, hyperbole, dramatization, etc.). One of the most commonly occurring of them within Biblical writings is "actor description", that is to say the positive representation of in-group leaders (sometimes) in opposition to negative out-group leaders. The category of actor description belongs to the broader field of characterization, which, with its rules and conventions, plays a fundamental role in the production of ideology and authority, especially in biblical narrative. Descriptions indeed are never neutral, but have semantic, rhetorical and argumentative functions in the expression of opinions and standpoints; through descriptions therefore we are able to understand how authority was judged and handled in the respective contexts. Accordingly, the present paper will analyse selected descriptions of "opposing leaders" drawn from the Book of Judges, in order to reveal and describe the main discursive elements and characterization strategies, which contributed to creating the construction of authority in the time(s) of composition of the Judges. Among them not only adjectives and nouns, but also related specific actions, objects, resources, places and events characterizing these leaders will be focused on.

Since the Reformation James 2:24, “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone,” has been the source of special controversy within an already controversial epistle. There have been no shortage of counter-Reformation apologists, even as early as the first decade of the Reformation, citing this verse as the ultimate refutation of sola fide, and no shortage of Protestant responses. But when we roll back the centuries of debate to patristic and medieval period, we are struck by the relative insignificance of James 2:24. Origen and Augustine offer just one weak, disputable allusion each, and Aquinas never cites it once. Although James is indisputably canonical by the 4th century and frequently cited by Jerome and Augustine, James 2:24 does not appear in the West until 6th century commentaries, and not independently until the 7th century. Although the authority of James is never questioned, from Augustine on it is given a distinctly Pauline interpretation that posits an almost total inequality between the initial justification by faith and a strictly subsequent justification by works. Moreover, I suggest that a difference in Latin between sola fide and the Vulgate’s fide tantum for James 2:24 partially explains the two expressions’ historical coexistence. Lastly, we see that in the Scholastic period the meaning of justification first evolves to include not just the manifestation of faith’s righteousness, but also growth in righteousness by works.

The story of Ahiqar is one of, if not the most, disseminated works in antiquity, and the only natively ancient Mesopotamian source to be continuously copied and read from antiquity to the present. It was adopted by ancient Jews and propagated by early Christians, especially in the Church of the East. It appears in dozens of manuscripts and in nearly a dozen languages. Most strikingly, there is not one composition of "Ahiqar" but many. Some manuscripts contain an autobiographical narrative with a single collection of maxims, others an expanded narrative with two collections of maxims, while some editions have completely recast the narrative into a different period and setting or have changed the narrative style from autobiography to biography. The only unifying factor among the different editions is that they were all attributed to a Ahiqar in some way. Many manuscripts remain unpublished, but due to the publication history of some of the manuscripts at the turn of the twentieth century, an uncritical scholarly convention arose whereby one can refer to "Aramaic Ahiqar," "Syriac Ahiqar," and so forth. This proved, in my view, devastating for Ahiqar studies because in fact there are four, perhaps even six, unique recensions of the tale in Syriac and the Karshuni and Arabic evidence is even more convoluted. By collapsing these distinctions into one linguistic title, e.g. "Syriac Ahiqar," scholars ignored all but one Syriac recension, which skewed a century of scholarship. And now, many conclusions and notions about the text need serious reconsideration on all critical levels, from text critical observations to literary-historical assessments. This paper argues that scholars should take a functional approach to titling compositions by which they clearly distinguish the object of their study by its recension or its specific manuscript when referring to a particular datum.

Traces of collective traumata in the psalms confront recipients with the phenomenon that violent and destructive experiences of the remote past can serve as reference points for the formation and stabilization of collective identities. The quest for the historical core of paradigmatic narratives of a collective, as well as the focus on their broader interpretative horizon and reception history in the mirror of the collective memory has led to new hermeneutic approaches in the biblical studies, relating to the psychological research on the transgenerational effects of traumata (cf. for Volkan, Vamik, Großgruppenidentität und auserwähltes Trauma, in: Psyche 9 (2000) 10, 931-953; Alexander, Jeffrey, et al., Cultural Trauma und Collective Identity, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2004). Ps 107 addresses the following narrative contexts - redemption from the desert (v. 4-9); from the darkness (v. 10-16); from the Sheol (v. 17-20) and from the sea (v. 23-30) -, in poetic form, respectively in the pragmatics of a prayer. These „foundational traumata” are arranged around the tropes of JHWH’s „wonderful works” (nipla’ôt) in v. 8; 15; 21; 24; 31. This paper pays particular attention to the fragmentary narrative structures and figurative language of Ps 107 that through the lens of ”Rezeptionsästhetik” (reader-response criticism) and psychological analysis can reflect and pre-figure the plausible relations among vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity tendencies of a literary text within its different social and cultural settings.

Changed presuppositions shift the possibilities of which sources laid before the author of the Gospel of Luke came into being. Thus, today there is a movement in scholarship towards a late dating of the Luke-Acts, which make it a reasonable assumption that its author besides the Gospel of Mark also knew of the Gospel of Matthew. Further, clear affinities between Luke-Acts and the Gospel of John give rise to the question, if the latter also should be reckoned among the many, who according to Luke 1.1 had tried to give an account of the Jesus-story. Moreover, it has been argued that a series of historical details especially in Acts invites for the assumption that the author had access to the works of Josephus. All this makes the attraction of the two sources hypothesis fainting away and therefore raises anew the question of the degree of creativeness on behalf of the author behind Luke-Acts. In this connection, the genre or interpretation strategy of “rewritten Bible” as known from the Old Testament and a series of other writings from Early Judaism, offers us a new possibility of perceiving the Gospel of Luke as a rewriting of its predecessors where we have to seek the origin for the material special for this author, not in lost sources, but in his theological thinking and interpretation of his predecessors and the Old Testament.

Nehemiah 6 tells that, after Nehemiah completed the rebuilding of the Jerusalemite city walls and just before he set up the doors in the gates, rumors spread according to which he had ordered prophets to proclaim himself “king in Judah” (6:7) in order to start a rebellion against his Persian overlords (cf. 6:6). The literary Nehemiah presented by Neh 6 strongly repudiates such claims, thus implicitly asserting his loyalty to the Persians. Although Neh 6, far from being a neutral report, is a highly polemic literary text, it may shed indirect light on real quarrels about restorative aspirations that took place in mid-fifth-century Judah. The paper investigates the structure and makeup of Neh 6, paying special attention to its ideological dimensions, and focuses on the included reports on prophetic activities that allegedly aimed at compromising Nehemiah’s loyalty and endangering his life (Neh 6:7, 14).

The story of the Gadarene/Gerasene demoniac that appears in all three synoptic gospels has been analyzed at length, specifically with reference to its portrayal of the Roman empire in the time of Jesus. Along those lines, much has been written concerning the identity of the legion as well as the demoniac. This paper examines the socio-political location of the demoniac on some level, but focuses primarily on the identity and somewhat surprising reaction of the townspeople to Jesus. In particular, it explores the question of why they were troubled by Jesus’ act of liberating the individual—and the town—by exorcising his demons. The paper employs postcolonial concepts such as colonial nostalgia and examines how the twin and seemingly paradoxical motifs of desire and resistance can explain the unexpected reaction of the townspeople, who seemed to grieve the legion’s departure. I argue that the people’s reaction in this story illustrates, at least to an extent, the complex relationships people—Jews or Gentiles—share with the Roman empire in much of Luke’s gospel.

Slavonic Writing (including a new alphabet) was created in the 9th century, and the first translated texts were Biblical ones. However, the Bible as an entire volume (like Septuagint, Vulgata, etc.) appeared in Slavonic in the very end of the 15th century (1499)--the so-called Gennady’s Bible. Before that, Biblical texts circulated in Slavonic either separately (like Psalter, the Acts of the Apostles, Gospels) or in volumes that contained several Books (for example, collections of Old Testament texts). Biblical texts were also included in chronographs and collections of texts of a different nature (for example, eschatological texts), or they might be part of Palaia, etc., which placed pseudepigrapha next to canonical books. Most of the Biblical texts were translated more than once during the Medieval Period (most translations were made from Greek, but some of them were made from other languages, for instance, Latin or Hebrew). Different translations of the same book sometimes “interacted” in the process of copying the texts. All this makes the history of the Slavonic Bible quite unique. This paper comments on these and some other features that make the Slavonic Biblical tradition so special.

In recent years, notions on space in biblical texts have been analyzed by means of sociological concepts of spatiality, primarily based on the works of Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja. The three categories of space they introduced have been described as perceived space, conceptual space and lived space. The spatial concept provides an impulse for the interpretation of Psalm 73 and the much debated understanding of the "sanctuaries of God" (miqdešê 'el) in v. 17. A metaphorical understanding of the phrase is likely to refer to the theological concept of the temple in Jerusalem (Jerusalemer Tempeltheologie) which can be regarded as conceptual space. In Psalm 73, the order of the world as it is represented in the temple is distorted because the wicked "set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth" (v. 9). Through this spatial practice they constitute a new and dominating conceptual space. Thus, the psalmist loses his standing in space: his feet stumble (v. 2). However, he creates his own lived space to challenge the dominant discourse of the wicked. We can see that the actions described in this psalm take place in a texture of social space that is constituted, endangered and renewed by the spatial practice of the different protagonists in the psalm.

In the so called Paradise narrative (Gen 2-3) man’s “first world” is the Garden of Eden. What does this particular place mean for the conception of man? What is man to do in the Garden of Eden? Scholars discuss especially Gen 2:15 controversially: Is man to be a worksman for God or a protector of creation? This lecture focuses on ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian gardens and their conceptions and wants to figure out whether this perspective gives hints for Old Testament anthropology.

Building on earlier work (particularly A. C. Wire’s work on women in Corinth) and using methodological tools borrowed both from an intersectional approach and from the thought of Judith Butler, I am showing that Paul’s discussion about the veiling of women (1 Cor 11) is not only a theological dispute. It is rather the discursive traces of a conflict in a community that struggles about which norms one should follow to produce various bodies, and to materialize sex and gender. The way women wear their hair in Corinth challenges Paul’s authority and the organization of a community centered around men. When the women in Corinth repeatedly call the patriarchal norms in question, they are in fact creating a new sex. If, as Butler claims, the body is constructed through a ritualized repetition of norms, the challenging of these norms, the practices of deviant bodily behaviors, modifies the conception one would have of women’s bodies. For the Greco-Roman world, women’s bodies were only women’s bodies if they were at the disposition of the males surrounding them. If, upon their conversion, these bodies become visible and loud bodies, in prophesying publicly for example, they no longer fit the traditional description of women. They are a liminal category that the ancient world cannot grasp: neither male, nor female. In Paul’s case, the norms for sex are too tightly drawn to allow for an embodying of this in-between gender, that would perform some of the prerogatives of the male sex while biologically being female. For Paul, these women who are not materializing their sex in the proper manner need to be put back in the correct category. In his world, this happens by veiling and silencing them.

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Elijah and Elisha are the principal characters of a saga outlining the history of the Ba’al cult in the textual world that constitutes Biblical Israel. In my view, these two men of God may be compared to the kind of religious specialists that are often called shamans, and their saga is only loosely integrated into the overall structure of the Books of Kings. Another text focusing on the Ba’al cult, though a very different one, is the Book of Hosea that does not at all evoke associations with shamanism. In addition to their joint obsession with the Ba’al cult and the idea of monolatrous Yahwism, the two text corpora share the motif of Yahweh’s word. In Hosea, this word is essentially a book (Hos 1:1), and the contents of this book may be characterized as a kind of preaching that the reader is instructed to consider carefully (Hos 14:10), even though the prophet complains that Yahweh’s written word was treated as something alien by his audience (Hos 8:12). In the saga of Elijah and Elisha, Yahweh’s word instigates immediate action (1 Kgs 18:1); scripture as such is not presented as a literary motif since nothing is said to be written down. On the contrary, orally transmitted stories about Elisha are told to an attentive king (2 Kgs 8:4). Nevertheless, we only know about Elijah and Elisha from literature, and the kind of shamanism represented in their saga may therefore be called literary shamanism. I intend to explore those two ways of combatting Ba’al and agitating for monolatrous Yahwism in the Hebrew Bible. Hosea’s preaching and sign actions are alternatives to the shamanism in Elijah’s and Elisha’s saga, and scripture—originally considered to be something alien—is promoted as a medium of religious instruction.

Based on the Greek prosodic signs of Late Antiquity, Syrian-Aramaic grammarians began to deal with the manner of the recitation through accents from the fifth century onwards. Following Jåuse? ?uzzåjå (d. 530), who taught at the School of Nisibis, Jacob of Edessa developed a system of accents, which ended up becoming even more important in the tradition than the work of Bar Hebräus (d. 1286). The grammarians who followed Jacob of Edessa's lead, namely Elias von ?irhan (d. 1049), Elias Bar Šinaja (d. after 1049), Joseph Bar Malkon (12th), Jo?annån Bar Zoxbi (13th), did not intend to introduce new accents. Rather, they aimed only to produce a further systematization of the existing ones. In his important grammar ktåbå d-?em?e, Bar Hebräus offers a detailed analysis of accents and their realization. He revealed that although they were not longer noted down in writing, they continued to exist in the oral tradition.

The time of the initial translation of the Old and New Testaments in the first literary Slavonic language, formed by the creators of the first Slavonic alphabet - the brothers Cyril and Methodius - in the middle of the 9th century, on the basis of the speech of the Bulgarian Slavs in Thessaloniki area, is accurately documented in authoritative sources. The Gospel of John, the Apostle and the Psalter were translated in Byzantium, before the Moravian mission of Cyril and Methodius, which started in 862, while the Old Testament was translated (without the Maccabees books) between 882 and 884 in Great Moravia. The names of the first translators are well known. These are Cyril himself (as regards the first translations), possibly in cooperation with Methodius, and Methodius with the assistance of his students (of the Old Testament). These translations are the first written texts where the oldest Slavonic literary language, formed by Cyril and Methodius, is used. The Slavonic medieval manuscripts, in which they are preserved until today, have been much studied (in greatest detail the texts of the Gospel, the Apostle and the Psalter) and published since the 19th century. As a result, a fairly accurate picture can be created of the state of transmission of the texts of these first translations during the Middle Ages, including the characteristic features of their development within medieval Slavonic manuscript tradition and the specific features of the corpora before 1499 AD. At this time, as a result of the development of these translated texts and their editing during the centuries in different geographical regions of Europe populated by Slavs, as well as the emergence of new translations (mainly in the 14th cent.), the first comprehensive corpus of the Bible appeared among the Orthodox Slavs. This paper will discuss the following points: 1) The formation of the biblical corpora texts and the dependence of this process on the use of the individual books of the Bible in the liturgy or their purpose for non-liturgical use; 2) the transmission of the biblical books as a process that takes place separately for each book, or in a group of biblical books, or was dependent upon the general trends of literary output of the respective epoch; 3) the transmission of the biblical texts according to the respective writing system (Glagolitic and Cyrillic); 4) the influence of biblical texts in the original languages on the transmission of the first and subsequent Slavonic translations and revisions; 5) future research on the translations and transmission of the Slavonic corpora of the texts of the Old and New Testaments.

This paper tries to understand the story of Elisha in the literary and historical context of the war between Israel and Aram. The marvelous vision and deeds of Elisha in 2K 6, so as the miraculous deliverance of Samaria in 2K 7, are read as an apology of Samaria. It will be suggested that such narratives are probably reflecting a literary reworking of the Elisha Story from a samarian milieu of the persian period.

The second chapter of the book of Isaiah is heavily loaded with imagery of height and haughtiness. This is contrasted by the strong theological thesis of the humiliation of humans, condemnation of idolatry and other phenomena. Firstly, the paper will discuss the synchronic and complex diachronic relation of the heart of the chapter in verses 12-17 to its neighboring verses, especially to verses 2-5. Secondly, the discussion focuses on the imagery of height, the rich word-play and poetic techniques applied in the chapter. Thirdly, the paper tries to explain the difficulties of the text through a complicated network of connotations of chapter 2 to other texts in the Proto-Isaianic collection of prophecies. Among them, particularly the famous oracle against Babel in Isaiah 13-14 and the so-called Apocalypse of Isaiah 24-27 are worth of discussing. As a criterion, the vertical dimension that has a meaning in theological framework of the book is used. An intensive and creative play with the imagery of going up and falling down has helped the authors of Isaianic collections to insert the Zion theology. At the end, the literary process resulted in the figurative excelling of the mountain of Zion over all other mountains. The poetic technique of strong contrast and sudden turn particularly regarding the vertical dimension is the key to Isaiah 2. The reader is left but a decision between two extremes, to go up the hill or to fall into dust.

This paper raises the question, Where is the Biblical Mount Sinai? Historically, researchers have tried to answer this question with different approaches and still more localizations. Florian Oepping tries to enumerate all locations for the Biblical Mount Sinai and classifies them according to the approach taken. His conclusion leads to the modification and extension of the question: Where are the mountains of God?

The prophet Huldah's prophecy has been in the midst of various arguments from a historical issue of her existence, the role of the prophecy, and even to the authenticity of the prophecy itself. In this study, I carry out a quest on Huldah's prophecy, composed of two parts referring to the fate of Judah and the future of Josiah. For the role and content of the prophecy this research questions whether the gender of the prophet would be an essential element in Dtr’s literary strategy. In addition, this research deals with the second part of the prophecy which foretells the personal future of Josiah. A question arises; why did not Dtr discard the unfulfilled prophecy which had predicted Josiah's peaceful death arousing doubt about Huldah's identity. To resolve these issues, I will investigate literary interconnections in the text of Josiah's reform and the surrounding narratives in S-K. In this process, a surprising similarity is demonstrated in the account of Ahab, in which the reader encounters the remission given to Ahab that was not accomplished in reality. As far as the female character is concerned it seems that Dtr employs several female characters in order to emphasize the unavoidable fate of Kingdoms. Considering the macro structure of DtrH, Huldah's account is located at the concluding part of an ongoing strain of prophetic announcements starting from Hannah, Eli's daughter in law along with medium of En-Dor. Without Huldah's prophecy, the sudden death of Josiah would have been a simple tragedy. However, by putting this prophecy in DtrH it conveys the fact that the dominance of the Davidic covenant is in the hands of Yahweh. In the end, this study suggests that Huldah's prophecy is parallel to the Davidic covenant which had also been unachieved, led to the annihilation of the Davidic kingdom.

This paper reexamines the rape narratives of Genesis 19 and Judges 19 in the light of ancient Near Eastern laws on hospitality, particularly of the Old Testament, and in view of some contemporary Human Rights Law on terror. It argues that though the laws were formulated to protect the human rights and human dignity of terrorists, they overlook the interests of some of the victims of terrorism. The paper therefore calls for a revision of such laws which protect the rights of certain individuals but contravene those of another.

This study suggests that symbolic number systems, focusing on the names used for the deity, played a central role in the construction of consecutive sets of patriarch names and ages in the Genesis text, with the elaborate construction that is found in the Masoretic Text developing relatively late in the post-exilic period. Other symbolic number systems, deduced on the basis of the names and ages as found in the other important textual witnesses (Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch), are proposed as earlier stages in the development of the chronological-genealogical sections of the Genesis text (with the Septuagint as witness to a variant chronological system once existing in a Hebrew text form). The proposed historical development as well as textual observations conform to the idea that one of the original components in the formation of the Genesis text was a Northern Israelite text complex, which focused on the names Sjaddai and Elyon as names for the divinity, while at the same time not knowing or using the name Yahweh. This would be in line with Exodus 6:2-3 where Yahweh informs Moses that he was unknown to the patriarchs by his name Yahweh, whereas, in contrast to this statement, the patriarchs freely use the name Yahweh to address God in all known Genesis text versions.

The Words of the Luminaries (4Q504, 4Q506) is a liturgical collection of communal petitions, one for each day of the week. The prayers deal with themes central in salvation history, and are thematically connected with historical reminiscences. As prayers apparently meant for regular use they could have served an important role in reinforcing particular interpretations of events and ideologies. This paper investigates the ways in which one particular set of traditions, dealing with creation, features in the collection, and particularly in the prayer probably meant for the first day of the week. By further contextualizing the discovered usage of creation traditions within the wider context of late Second Temple period psalms and prayers (e.g., late “biblical” psalms, 4QNon-Canonical Psalms B, and Festival Prayers), it will be ascertained what are the particular points of emphasis and novelties concerning the interpretation of creation traditions in these prayers. This will in turn aid in evaluating the possible aims of the prayer’s author in utilizing creation traditions in the chosen way.

Despite modern scholars' efforts, no consensus about Amon in Prov. 8:30 has been reached. This paper will suggest that the term Amon might have its origin in Mesopotamian mythology.

The narrative Jer 36 is one of the much-discussed texts of the Hebrew Bible, since this texts is generally regarded to provide an insight into the formation of the book of Jeremiah. However, Jer 36 has several more aspects of interest, for example the question which of the social groups of post-monarchic Judah are positively evaluated: the descendants/successors of Shaphan, Persian period patricians or writing prophets. One aspect, proposed years ago by Klaus Seybold lead onla a shadowy existence: Jes 36 suggests and constitutes the public reading of the book of Jeremiah. More recently, Joachim Schaper brought Jer 36 into connection with Hab 2:2 and Deut 1:5 and furthermore laid stress on the public legal character of such an open court reading. This paper draws upon these suggestions and continues in their lines. First, some features of Jer 36 shall be scrutinized which show the legitimatory and paradigmatic character of the narrative. Particular attention is given to the injunction to read aloud Jeremiah’s scroll and its execution by Baruch (Jer 36:5–10). It shall be demonstrated that this command does not aim at a one-time event in the times of Jehoiakim but rather at a periodic practice, probably as part of a regular ceremony on the premises of the destroyed Jerusalem temple. A brief glance at other text dating to the reign of Jehoiakim (Jer 25, 26, 35, 45) shall complete the picture. The historical-theological horizons (Konrad Schmid) of these texts point to the beginning of the Babylonian dominion over Judah. What these chapters inaugurate is cons-dered to be generally valid for the time of the Babylonian sovereignty.

Tolkien fanfiction is specific in the canon with which it deals. Not only is it multi-layered, but the canonical status of its different parts is unclear. This gives the writers and readers more freedom in engaging it, and results in some unique strategies of doing so. That is especially apparent when it comes to social issues, since Tolkien’s own conservatism is often in contrast with his fans’ personal convictions. While this sometimes results in outright ignoring canon, in other cases it leads to more interesting and original strategies. These also come to light when their authors are confronted with more conservative fans, or those who have more inflexible view of canon. There are strong parallels between this behavior and religious practitioners relating to their sacred texts, which frequently espouse more conservative views. This paper will analyze the strategies employed in some fanfictions and related discussions to navigate the layers of canon to the best advantage of the author’s worldviews, and show the parallels to the behavior of modern religious practitioners.

Archaeological excavations have been taking place at the site of ancient Corinth for over 100 years, yet we are no closer to discerning where the first century Corinthian ekklesiai met for worship. Some worship could have taken place in domestic settings, such as living spaces above workshops or in insulae, but none of these types of spaces have been uncovered in Corinth. The only domestic architecture excavated has been two villas. Due to the probable socio-economic status of the typical first century Corinthian believer, it seems unlikely that these domestic spaces were available as a meeting space. It seems more probable that early Christians met for worship in non-domestic settings, such as rented spaces or out-of-doors. It also seems likely that these worship spaces were public spaces: places where outsiders could have at least witnessed the act of worship, if not participated in this worship (1 Cor 14:23-24). This paper considers the physical spaces available to first century Corinthian Christians by delving into the archaeological records. Along with identifying specific locations, this paper contemplates what worship would have looked like when the early Christians interacted with these various spaces: how could baptisms have been performed at the public fountains? How could the agape meal and the Eucharist have been celebrated in a grove of trees along the cardo maximus? This paper also considers how these profane, public spaces could have become sacred during the act of worship. By engaging Philip Sheldrake’s theory that place has three essential characteristics (identities, behaviours and history), I contend that the Apostle Paul sets forth these characteristics in his Corinthian correspondence in order to enable the early Christians to create sacred space, no matter where they met.

In an earlier publication I proposed that Did 15.4 closed the third and final major compositional stage of the Didache (Pardee, The Genre and Development of the Didache). Briefly I speculated that the statement regarding “prayers, alms, and all your practices,” while bringing to a close chs. 1–15 on the text level, might also betray the hand of a later redactor on the compositional level, who added the Lord’s Prayer in ch 8 (=“prayers”) and instruction for the support of travelers in chs. 11–12 and the poor in 13.4 (=“alms”). Though left unstated at the time, I also wondered whether “alms” was intended to include also the “firstfruits” designated for the support of the prophets (and teachers) in ch. 13. Technically within Judaism, however, the firstfruits were given for the support of the priests while it was tithse that at times were directed to the poor. There are indications, however, that in practice the offerings designated “firstfruits” and “tithes” could overlap/be conflated (Grant, 137; Del Verme, Didache and Judaism, 2004, 195–96). Therefore, after presenting evidence that this more extensive semantic significance was the understanding and intention of the editor/author of the Didache, this paper will go on to discuss the implications such an interpretation holds for our understanding of the social and cultural character of the community or communities addressed by the text, their ongoing organizational development and the problems this entailed as evidenced by the decision to add 11.3–15.4 at some point of time, the relationship between the prophets and teachers and the bishops and deacons, the relationship between the Jewish Christian senders of the Didache and the gentile recipients, and the status of the “gospel” for the communities, among other things.

One of the most shocking news headlines in 2016 in the Korean society was the Gangnam murder case on May 17. A 34-year-old man named Kim randomly stabbed to death a 23-year woman whom he never met before. He let six men pass by him before he targeted on the woman. Kim hated women. He claimed that women usually ignored him and humiliated his life. Later, the police reported this case was not driven by hate crime against women, but by mental illness, schizophrenia. However, his mental illness was based on persecutory delusions from women. In some of the Korean cultures, misogyny runs rampant. The tacit approval of misogyny indwells in his mind as well as in the Deteronomistic history (hereafter DtrH). The queen leadership of the DtrH has unconsciously been the cause of the apostasy of the Israelites. The gender based evaluation of the DtrH made Athaliah as the illegitimate queen of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The DtrH highlighted that Athaliah destroyed the royal descendent of her family line in order to secure her position. Athaliah faced the harsh evaluation when she showed her leadership which is the same as male leadership of the Davidic dynasty. The negative evaluation came from the atmosphere of misogyny in the DtrH. The misogyny of the DtrH was not interested in writing her works for six years, but in announcing the treason against her and her violent death two times. I would like to argue the misogyny in the DtrH through the contextual reading of 2 Kings 10-11. By doing so, the text will be examined using the tool of form criticism in four sections: structure, genre, setting, and intention. I examine misogyny in the DtrH and compare it within the Korean contexts.

The Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece has enjoyed a prominent position in biblical studies. Its text is often used as the base text for exegesis, but has it ever been in danger of becoming another “Textus Receptus”? In this paper, I will give a brief history of the Nestle-Aland and describe its role in overthrowing the Textus Receptus. Then I will discuss what it means for something to be a “Textus Receptus” in juxtaposition to the term “standard text” used by Kurt Aland when describing the prominence of his own edition. The paper will focus on the time period from the inception of Nestle’s Novum Testamentum Graece through the time of Kurt Aland, which encompasses the first 27 editions of the Nestle-Aland.

In this paper I show how law can contribute to our understanding of Biblical, I demonstrate the contribution of Ancient Near Eastern literature to the journeys of Abram within the Promised Land, and to finding the motive for the story of Abram's journeys within the Land. Specifically, I show how Mesopotamian law helps us to understand God's words to Abraham: "Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee" (Gen.13:17). A "close reading" of the story of Abram entering the Promised Land in Genesis 12 shows that he has not settled down, but rather has wandered from one place to another. In the beginning of the following chapter we read that: "And he went on his journeys [in plural] from the south even to Bethel" (Gen. 13:1). It seems that from the time that God said to Abraham in Genesis 12: "Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee …], unto a land that I will shew thee," Abram kept on journeying. Therefore one may ask: What was the motive for Abraham's journeys in the Promised Land? Legal documents of Ancient Near Eastern literature teach us that walking and setting foot on a piece of land has a legal meaning as to possession of it. In addition, even the verb "???" (Arise) has a legal connotation in transferring ownership. In the light of this information, when we read the words of God to Abram in Genesis 13:17 we realize that God's words are not only His will, but also include a legal meaning that gives legitimacy to owning the land.

This presentation will show Japanese publishing models of objects belonging to pop culture —manga and anime— with a focus on the importance of the public in these creations. It is difficult to distance oneself from the concept of author and its contemporary meaning when one is interested in the processes of canonization. Researchers readily speak of "redactors," in the plural, and authority is nowadays thought to be collegial. Still, it is for example difficult to estimate the importance of the ancient public in the canonization of the Hebrew Bible. Our cultural references remain mainly those of the Western productions of which we are precisely the public. Now, in a culture marked by individualism, the first canonizing authority seems to be that of the author, far ahead of the public. In order to rethink the processes of ancient canonization, the detour through a cultural area where the group clearly prevails on the individual must be profitable. Thus, unlike Hergé, who was the "master" of The Adventures of Tintin, Akira Toriyama, author of the famous Dragon Ball, was the "employee" of his audience. Indeed, in the Japanese prepublication system, if the readers vote weekly for the continuation of the series, they also elect the characters to appear or can propose the development of the plot. Thus, the authors of manga know only a relative freedom in their creation, just as their authority is restricted. The important influence of readers turns Japanese pop culture productions into objects made by a multiple authority. In this context, the importance of fan creations is obvious. The so-cold "dojin" ("circle" works) sometimes impose their ideas on the productions that the industry would like to call official...

The present paper introduces an Aramaic fragment from the Qumran collection, 4Q548, which is being prepared in a new transcription and fresh translation for the open-access SBL initiative, “The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha.” The online publication of this text presents a unique set of obstacles and opportunities in light of digital humanities approaches and tools. The paper will present a penultimate draft of the digital edition of 4Q548 and describe a selection of the project’s technological research methods and outcomes for end users including: new readings made possible with digital reconstructions and palaeographical analysis; optimization of open-access image sets (e.g., the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library) for evaluating texts in the research process and for user experiences; presentation of the text in view of its potential associations with other compositions (i.e., “Visions of Amram” [4Q543-547], “4QHoroscope” [4Q561], “4QTestament(?)” [4Q580]); and methodical reflections on the essential contribution of open-access text editions and digitized manuscripts for cultivating biblical culture online.

The theme of the stranger occurs in two poignant examples in Psalms: “I am a stranger with You, a sojourner as were all my fathers” (Ps 39:13). “I am a stranger in the land; do not hide Your commandments from me” (Ps 119:19). In both texts the condition of ger is grounded in the everyday world. The first literally alludes to Gen 23:4, evoking Abraham’s uprootedness, powerless and stateless like today’s refugees. Gen 15:13 also stresses the landless state of the ger as alluding to Abraham, thus to “all my fathers” in the ‘aretz or literal land. This social and economic condition is generalized through metaphorical extensions: a ger with You, and typical of an entire people, “all my fathers.” And, further: “I am a stranger on this earth. Thanks to the doublet ‘aretz, both land and earth must be read. From these bi-valent examples of estrangement we note the trope of exile and redemption in a variant form. Usually, exile is in response to sin. Here, Abraham’s exile, while commanded, was voluntary. Here, too, the exile status of strangers becomes a condition of recovery and betterment: “Do not hide Your commandments from me.” I propose a neglected application of the trope of estrangement. Qohelet son of David starts out his autobiography from the perspective of radical alienation: “I was king.” For his opening identity is that of a typical potentate, one who experiences the vanity of kingly pleasure and power, and ends up – oh vanity of vanities!– as a school principal and collector of wisdom bits. Could one imagine a more radical form of estrangement? The wisdom interest here is, again, that the exile is self-imposed, the Collector’s personal renunciation and transformation from pursuing things of power to words (the double meaning of debarim).

The literary idea which relate YHWH with colors in Ancient Israel is not simple to see. In the Hebrew Bible, the God of Israel is presented as a bright sunrise, a light, the sun and the connection could be made and see YHWH as a colorful dawn. The biblical colorful images of a bright rising God, YHWH who shines like the dawn (Isaiah 60:1), the God of Israel as a shining sun (Malachi 4:2), and YHWH shining upon Israel (Numbers 6:25) are just some of many examples which reflect this concept. Nevertheless this idea is not only present in the biblical literary texts, but it can be seen in the extra biblical sources. Even though there is not much material from the extra biblical sources, names could be a suitable alternative for the study from the biblical world. A lot of information can be gotten from naming and onomastic if we studied their meanings and etymology. Names analyzed as a simple sentence reflect the same idea with the very same Hebrew roots used in the biblical text. This is important because a large amount of names from biblical times were recovered in inscriptions from different archaeological sites in Israel. This biblical motif is reflected in Ancient Hebrew names from the biblical text (Zerahiah - 1 Chronicles 5:32; 'Uriah - Jeremiah 26:20) and in names from the extra biblical onomastics (yhwzrh - Hebron; 'wryhw - Arad). The analysis of Israelites onomastic as a complete sentence with a focus in the names with a theophoric particle will be the main focus of this paper. The study of this motif in the Hebrew Bible and comparing it to the onomasticon from ancient Israelite epigraphic material will bring light to this colorful image of YHWH from the biblical text and Israel’s biblical times.

Scholarly interest in the social aspects of the ancient Israelites (and Judeans) has been present in Old Testament studies since the late 19th century. However, ‘social history’, as a specific historiographical genre, gained acceptance only in the 1960s and 1970s in the context of a reconfiguration of approaches in general history writing in Europe and the United States; its formal integration in historical studies of the Old Testament is relatively recent. In a parallel development, the ubiquitous notion of ‘biblical world/s’ (both of the Old and New Testaments) has appeared as the perfect match for the social history of the biblical peoples since—it is assumed—social aspects evoked in biblical stories refer more or less directly to Iron Age Palestine’s social realities. Now, after the criticism raised towards the historicity of biblical images, events and periods, especially since the 1990s onwards, a key question arises: what is the referent of the historiographically created biblical worlds? Even more, is ‘biblical world’ a valid term for defining the cultural and historical boundaries and features of first-millennium BCE Palestine? In this paper I try to answer this question while discussing themes of politics, economics and cultic practices from the perspective of social history and other sociological and anthropological insights.

The region of the Kalykadnos valley in today's southern Turkey encompasses the ancient territories of Cilicia and Isauria. Epigraphical, archaeological and literary sources originating from this mountainous and hardly accessible area bear witness to a striking concentration of local christian martyr cults, even surpassing the other parts of Asia Minor. Thekla from Seleukeia, one of the most famous martyrs of antiquity, is connected to this region. Less known are the many local martyrs, which were often venerated in a single place only. This paper aims to pinpoint some phenomena of the transformation processes conntected to Christianisation, using the example of local martyr cults. For a long time the conversion of temples to churches has been discussed in this context, but meanwhile it is obvious that these conversions happened rather late. Local martyrs were particularly important for the construction of local Christian identities: The local bishops were aware of that and stimulated the martyr's veneration at all cost. For Charitine of Korykos a club was founded, which backed her cult and possesed an own burial place. In several cases the martyr cult grew into a place of pilgrimage, which was a benefical development for the local community. The example of Konon from Bidana clearly shows that some of these cults became significant for a whole region, as several archaeological findings, inscriptions and even a legislative text indicate. The continuity between Christian and pagan cults are astounding in one respect: The pagan gods as well as the Christian saints of this region are often connected to caves. Most interesting are cases like Charitine or Konon, where the literary tradition can be linked to epigraphical testimonies. This way it is possible to construct a more reliable picture of their veneration in late antiquity.

Michael Rosenzweig, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, first articulated the strategy of reconciliation ecology in his book, Win-Win Ecology (Oxford University Press. 2003). Rosenzweig’s thesis is that, contrary to conservation ecology and reservation ecology, and while these may still have their place, reconciliation ecology proposes that humanity can live, work, and thrive within the environment but also, most decisively to the reconciliation ecology thesis, the environment and the ecosystems themselves can also thrive, and biodiversity can be sustained. Rosenzweig further suggests that such a strategy, which allows for all species to grow and thrive for the benefit of all, is a way in which the world might be ‘made over’ and might ultimately lead to a redesigning of the world. In this paper I will be seeking to dialogue with Rosenzweig’s salvific vision for the world, and I will be asking how his concept of reconciliation ecology parallels, contrasts, and critiques the Apostle Paul’s articulation of the reconciliation of the world. But further, I will also be engaging with the question as to how the concerns of ecology and reconciliation can be answered amidst concerns about environmental justice, whether “justice for people must come before justice for the environment” (plenary debate at 2013 World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences), and what that might mean for a post-colonial world, which increasingly faces the invasive challenge of unbridled global consumerism.

The ritual in Dt 21:1-9 is ostensibly the only ritual in Deuteronomy that relates to purity and expiation (cf. kpr in Dtr 21:8), in contrast to many of such rituals in the P/H tradition in Exodus-Numbers (keeping in mind the linkage between purity and expiation e.g. in Num 35:33-34). In the P/H corpus, these rituals are typically performed at the tent of meeting by priestly personnel, whereas the ritual in Dtr 21:1-9 is performed by nonpriestly personnel and outside the tent of meeting. However, notably, the ritual in Num 19 in the P/H corpus seems to allow the use of the water of purification by anyone pure, also outside the tent of meeting, even if that water has to be prepared by a priest (vv. 1-9). But, priests are also mentioned in Dt 21:5, and in more precision (hakkohanim beney lewi) than typically otherwise in Deuteronomy (hakkohanim halewiyyim), even when this verse is often seen as a later addition. Another interesting similarity is that the animals are both heifers, even if the Numbers passage specifies a red heifer and uses different terminology from Dtr 21:1-9. The purpose of the paper is then to compare the two rituals, analysing similarities and differences between them, at both performative and conceptual levels. The paper will particularly focus on the role of priests and laity in the rituals from the perspective of implied social hierarchy and lay participation (cf. e.g. Bell 1997, passim), keeping in mind in particular that P/H is often seen as focusing on priests and Deuteronomy on laity (cf. e.g. Otto 2012). A question of to what extent, if any, there is a difference between the worldviews of P/H and D in respect of the roles of priests and laity in these rituals will be asked.

The Greek construction E?I TO AYTO was not unknown in Late Antiquity, but its semantics are unclear. That is why it is important to define its meaning in Acts 1:15; 2:1,44,47; 4:26 and in 1Cor 7:5; 11:20; 14:23, where it appears in the context of the religious life of the post-Easter followers of Jesus. In these passages it seems to play the role of a special term that would be well understood by the readers (or hearers of a reading) whom the author of the Book of Acts was writing for or by the addressees of the Pauline letters. The method used in this investigation is to analyse the semantics of this construction in the context of its occurrences mentioned above (and in the earliest post-canonical Christian literature), in Old Testament occurrences in the Septuagint and in the corresponding Masoretic Text, and also in occurrences in the non-biblical literature of Late Antiquity. The conclusion reached is that in the Book of Acts and in 1 Corinthians the construction E?I TO AYTO denoted predominantly the liturgical meetings of the EKKLESIA which, unlike the civic EKKLESIAI of that time, included women and slaves. In all the N.T. occurrences E?I TO AYTO means a meeting or a coexistence of two or more different counterparts.

Hos 6:11 is a good example of the importance of the traditional scriptural unit divisions, especially for inherently ambiguous texts. Discoveries from Qumran have proven the antiquity of at least some of them and the fact that they belong to the essence of the traditional text, not less than the consonants. Nevertheless, virtually all contemporary biblical commentaries still follow instead the divisions suggested by the last edition of BHS. Hos 6:11 is nowadays usually split in two and partially read with 7:1. Another common solution is to cut the first part of 7:1 and join it to 6:11. The new text thus created follows neither the MT nor the LXX text divisions. In consequence, the interpretative problem is not so much solved as hidden. Hos 6:10LXX presents a difficult text where the parallel stich suggests that Judah also belongs to Ephraim. Indeed, from the diachronic perspective, Judah could have appeared here as a gloss to parallel the fate of the Northern Kingdom. On the other hand, the MT separates Judah from v. 11 and thus corrects this inconvenience. Additionally, the petuhah before 7:1 (found also in Qumran; 4QXIIg frg. 11) distinguishes again between what happens to Judah in 6:11 and the fate of Israel in 7:1. This time it is to create the vision where the people of YHWH (‘ammi) will be unified in the eschatological perspective. The Qumran and MT unit division opens the text of Hosea to the meta-history. This could explain also why 19th century exegetes, while concentrating mostly on history of the 8th century BC, neglected this aspect. Study of the LXX helps not only to recover a presumed original text or some forgotten element of the reception history of the Greek Bible. Paradoxically, it also aides the rediscovery of a theology proper to the MT.

This contribution aims to give a new historical weight and impulse to the already intuitive connection between the name “Hebrew” and the province of “Beyond the River” (‘Eber ha-Nahar), due to their common root ‘br, “to pass”. Although evoked among the possible etymologies of the word “Hebrew” by J. Bottero (Le problème des Hapiru, Paris 1954), this possibility has been accepted only rarely. On the contrary, a major consensus accepts the derivation of the word “Hebrew” from the social class of hapiru, known from Late Bronze Age documents. Through an updated reappraisal of the biblical passages involved (TM: Gn 14,13; 39,14.17; 40,15; 41,12; 43,32; Ex 1,15.16.19; 2,6.7.11.13; 3,18; 5,3; 7,16; 10,3; 21,2; Dt 15,12; 1Sam 4,6.9; 13,3.7.19; 14,11.21; 29,3; Jer 34,9.14; Jon 1,9; LXX: Judith 10,12; 12,11; 14,18; 2 Mac 7,31; 11,13; 15,37), this contribution will show that at the origin of the name Hebrew there is no connection to hapiru but rather to the return of Exiles and therefor to ‘Eber ha-Nahar. Beyond a discussion of the etymology, new insights will be shared regarding the Persian period, which is when the people started to use the name “Yehud/Yehudim” as an alternative to the biblical name “Israel”, and probably when they also created the term “Hebrews.” The appearance and diffusion of two new ethnonyms for the people of Israel (Judaeans and Hebrews) should oblige historians to consider how and why, at this point in time, they rethought their own identity. In particular, from a historiographical point of view, the multiplication of names for the people of Israel through the centuries should challenge the temptation to consider the history of “ancient Israel” as a monolithic entity since the transition from Late Bronze to Iron Age.

The Book of Isaiah contains a series of images that depict the state of exile: captivity, slavery, worldwide scattering, and nakedness. In addition to these is the metaphor of spiritual blindness, that is, the inability to see and acknowledge YHWH’s activity in the world. The prophet regards the lack of attention to YHWH to have caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile (5:11-13; 6:9-10; 22:11). Yet ignorance of God does not only result in banishment, but continues to be an important characteristic of the people in exile, that is, a cognitive inability to orient oneself in the world. The people are blind and deaf (42:18-20) and obstinate (48:1-11), unable to follow the way of YHWH. They have turned to their own ways (53:6). They are led astray by idols and their minds are like a dry desert (41:17-20). The paper will analyze these images and discuss their nature and function in the Book of Isaiah.

It is difficult to overestimate the impact of Abraham Geiger (d. 1874) on the development of western approaches to the Qur’an, though his legacy is a problematic one. On the one hand, Geiger’s characterization of Muhammad not as a charlatan but rather as a genuine religious ‘enthusiast’ (Schwärmer) moved the study of Islam’s origins out of the realm of religious polemic. On the other, traces of derogatory claims about Islam persist in Geiger’s emphasis on Muhammad’s debt to his Jewish informants as the primary channels of biblical tradition into Arabia, and thus as the main sources of the formative Jewish “influence” on the Qur’an. Many aspects of Geiger’s argument seem to us today to be irredeemably flawed, as more contemporary research has shown that the intertextual relationships between Bible, midrash, Qur’an, and tafsir are far more complex than he was able to surmise given his limited resources at the time. Although Geiger’s conclusions about the nature of Jewish “influence” on the Qur’an must be substantially revised, we will argue that a judicious reconsideration of the cases he cites show that his work still has probative value for inquiry into the literary and historical background to the Qur’an. Some of the cases of the Qur’an’s apparent connections to the Bible and midrash he cites indicate a skilled and often subversive engagement with the doctrines and claims of other communities of revelation of its time. Further, we are now in a better position to appreciate that many of the Jewish traditions Geiger saw as shaping the Qur’an are actually later than previously assumed, and so represent midrashic responses to the Arab conquests and the religious and ideological implications of the Islamic imperial project – that is, they present evidence of Islamic “influence” on Judaism.

This paper deals with 1 Cor. 10:1–22 where Paul alludes to historical psalms (Pss. 78[77], 105[104] and 106[105]) in portraying Israel’s idolatrous acts regardless of God’s miracles in the wilderness. This incident serves as a negative example in Paul’s handling of dietary regulations and table fellowship (1 Cor. 8; 10:25–33) as well as Eucharist (1 Cor. 10:16–19) in the Corinthian congregation. In addition, Paul quotes explicitly from Ex. 32:6 which relates the idolatrous act of the nation to eating: “and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play” (NAS). Nevertheless, Paul does not use this quotation as a prohibition to eat idol-food. In contrast, his conclusion in verse 25 is striking: “Eat anything that is sold in the meat market, without asking questions for conscience’ sake.” (NAS) After this follows an explicit quotation from Ps. 24(23):1: “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains” (NAS). This quotation mirrors the alluded narration in 1 Cor. 10:1–3: God offered food to consume in the wilderness but the nation put him to test by “asking food according to their desire” (Ps. 78[77]:18 NAS). The arrogant testing of the nation is mentioned in 1 Cor. 10:9, though Paul refers to Christ as the object of testing. I argue that by echoing the wilderness narration, Paul implies that—as precedent from the history of Israel shows—asking for “special diet” might lead to idolatry.

Review

As the most arcane of three languages one ought to master while delving into Christian theology, Biblical Hebrew and its study was exceptionally predisposed to become the object of educated and sometimes mythic speculation. Clothed in utter difference from any regularly used language, it would fascinate intellectuals and the broad public alike. This can be observed paradigmatically in inaugural addresses of Hebrew lecturers in medieval and early modern German universities or by the widespread notion that the so called "Ursprache" is somewhat preserved or even identical with the idiom of the Tanakh. With this historic overestimation in mind, one wonders reading recent scholarship. Biblical Hebrew is either treated just as any other language or its status as a language of its own is questioned after all. The aim of this paper is to retrace this development and to argue that this profaning of a sacred language is primarily a product of changing grammatical methodology. To do so, the origin and development of some selected methods, which are nowadays the foundation of the study of Hebrew, will be presented by discussing groundbreaking studies on Biblical Hebrew in German speaking Scholarship of the 19th and 20th centuries. Additionally, the impact of the discoveries and study of extra biblical documents in Classical Hebrew or cognate languages will be treated.

Johann Herder's work is seminal both for the literary study of the Bible and for the development of the politics of identity as summed up in the enduring notion of the 'Volk' and the conception of nationhood that implies. What is less often recognised is how these two aspects of his work relate to each other. Revisiting this question not only illuminates aspects of the political history of biblical scholarship but also has consequences for our understanding of how the Bible shapes political discourse around national identity in ways that are becoming increasingly important to the debates about European migration. By clarifying Herder's legacy, we may find ways to understand and unsettled the rhetoric of purity that is heard in many nationalist movements in Europe, often bolstered by appeals to the Christian and biblical basis of European civilisation.

Redaction-critical accounts of the composition of the book of Deuteronomy have tended to situate texts of a largely legal or ritual nature in a core of early material, thus encompassing parts of the Deuteronomic law code found in chapters 12-26. The particular sociological setting for this early core is often associated with scribes working at the court of Hezekiah and Josiah in the late Monarchic period. These scribes were informed by and appropriated earlier textual traditions such as the Covenant Code (Exodus 20-22) and the ancient Near Eastern treaty and curse tradition as found in various inscriptions in Akkadian and Old Aramaic, creating a highly literary text. Yet as a law code, this text aimed at affecting change in the legal and political reality of its ancient audience. Though it was a literate class of scribes, conversant with traditions both native and foreign, who composed the code, it was only in recitation and ritual renewal that the laws of Deuteronomy could have performed their social-functional task within the largely oral world of ancient Judah. This paper will explore the writing and reading culture of late monarchic Judah in order to explore how the ancient audience of the Deuteronomic law code encountered this text. This will include consideration of literacy and scribal culture, as well as the oral dimension inherent to the treaty and curse inscriptions that provide parallels to the Deuteronomic code. There is a dimension of public recitation, display and ritual renewal in these texts that also seems to underpin Deuteronomy: in recitation and in the carrying out of various ritual practices, these written texts are re-oralized. The interplay of literacy and orality in the Deuteronomic law code is essential for understanding how this code functioned in ancient context.

According to the polemical biblical texts, the Host of Heaven were worshipped in the temple (2 Kgs 21:3; 23:4), at the high places (2 Kgs 23:5), on the rooftops of Jerusalem (Zeph 1:5; Jer 19:13), and by a wide range of people (Jer 8:1-2; Deut 17:3; 4:19). The rituals involved are somewhat vague, but making offerings, bowing down, and pouring libations are mentioned. The image created by these texts is one of widespread astral practices in the 7th-6th centuries, and possibly earlier (cf. 2 Kgs 17:16), yet this polemic against the Host of Heaven only begins - at the very earliest – in the late pre-exilic period, and it clearly develops during the exile. Apart from 2 Kgs 17:16, the Host of Heaven are never explicitly connected with the northern kingdom of Israel, so it seems that the Host of Heaven rituals were mainly practiced in Judah and it is therefore evident that there is a correlation between the emergence of the polemic and the downfall of Judah. As the Host of Heaven were a popular part of the Yahwistic state cult prior to 586, this paper argues that the political failure of Judah contributed to the view that the Host of Heaven rituals had failed, and therefore, were to be regarded as illegitimate. Subsequent emphasis on the illegitimacy of the rituals served to explain why they had failed.

This paper addresses the role of material analysis in the current discussion on the authenticity of unprovenanced fragments. It will show that material analysis alone, especially its non-destructive variety, cannot prove that the object is genuine. The best material analysis can do, after all appropriate tests have been conducted, is to announce that nothing has been found that contradicts the assumption of genuineness. Moreover, the results of the material analysis can never be used as the only justification of authentication in cases of composite objects such as manuscripts or epigraphs. The most effective approach for testing suspicious artifacts has been established by forensic science. Not limited to non-invasive analysis, this approach relies on validated techniques that usually require the extraction of samples and comparison with reference materials and are capable of delivering unambiguous results. In contrast, the analysis of suspicious manuscripts has to overcome additional obstacles such as the heterogeneity of historical material, the scarcity of suitable reference standards, and restriction to strictly non-invasive techniques. We discuss the reliability of the testing protocol based on the non-destructive multi-instrumental approach developed by the BAM for the investigation of writing materials. In the case of the DSS, it relies on comparison with the genuine DSS fragments studied over the last 10 years.

Among many fabrics in the Masoretic Text and the LXX there are two examples that are able to say something important about those two versions of the Bible. Analysis of Hebrew terms describing byssus (snow-white, delicate fabric) and crimson (deep red, produced from insects called Coccus) reveals how the language of Bible changed over centuries, influenced by different factors, including changing of trade routes, wars, culture, relations with neighbors of ancient Israel etc. This can be seen by comparison between terminology of Exodus and Chronicles, where terms describing dyed and white textiles, most of all crimson and byssus, are surprisingly different. The reason of those differences lay on historical context in which these holy scriptures were written. Following the classical hypothesis (eg. J.-L. Ska), Torah can be most reliably dated on time of Babylonian exile, while for Chronicles – on Persian period. Even a quick glance at the etymology of Hebrew shesh and buts for byssus, shani and karmil for crimson and meager archeological data provides with evidence that this dating is correct. Moreover, examining fabric’s terminology in their Hebrew and Greek wording, two translating strategies can be seen, both used by authors of the LXX – either they tried to translate word for word (formal equivalence) or sense for sense (dynamic equivalence), creating a link between Hebrew terminology and actual context of Alexandrian market. Therefore, analyzing the language of dyed and undyed textiles it is possible, in some dimension, to indicate terminus post quem for Hebrew holy scriptures; describe relations between Hebrew and Greek textile/colour terminology of the Bible and their dependency on the cultural and historical context; define strategies of the Greek translators and recognize them; characterize mysterious Vorlage of the LXX etc. Language of colours/textiles can reveal surprisingly large amount of information about the biblical texts.

“Foreigner” and “Foreignness” Through Time and Space Ilona Rashkow, Professor Emerita, SUNY at Stony Brook As a recent AAR newsletter pointed out, for months the US has been exposed to actions relatively rare in our national life: deeply offensive language aimed at anyone perceived as “other”; overt discrimination against racial and ethnic minority groups; threats to aliens both documented and undocumented; and the marginalization of many religious groups with whom we as professors and scholars have daily contact. But dealing with “foreigners” and “foreignness” is not a new topic: immigration issues; refugee status; aliens (legal and illegal); and religious wars have been of concern since antiquity as reflected by Leviticus 19 which mandates laws relating to equal justice. Significantly, the ???? (ger – resident alien) was to be treated as a citizen with regard to all civil and criminal laws as well as financial dealings. Psychologically and politically, this must have been difficult since ancient Israel was under a constant threat of war. Using the Hebrew Bible as a model, this paper focuses on biblical and Talmudic discussions of the “foreigner” and “foreignness” as a starting point to discuss our opportunities and responsibilities as scholars and professors of religion to deal with this problem. What did it mean to be the “foreigner” in ancient Israel compared to “foreigners” now in this country? How can the biblical prescriptions and proscriptions be applied today?

The priestly legend about the tabernacle in the desert (Exod 25 – Lev 9*) provides the frame for the narrative about the origins of the sacred law according to the Holiness-School. However, the acount dealing with the Tent of Meeting (Ohael Mo‘ed) in Exod 33:7-11 seems to represent its own own tradition. My paper wishes to demonstrate that the identification of Mishkan and Ohael Mo‘ed was established at a later stage of formation, perhaps parallel to the priestly adoption of prophetic literature during the later post-exilic period.

The aim of this paper is to move a first step towards a systematic reading of the synoptic ‘miracle stories’ in the light of documentary papyri, along the lines of the ‘Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament – Papyrological Commentaries on the New Testament’ (PKNT) international series published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Göttingen, 2003–). The analysis will focus on a healing story transmitted by Mark, concerning the case of a deaf-mute cured by Jesus during his trip across the Decapolis region (Mk 7:31-37). The story, which also presents strong parallels with that of the blind man in Bethsaida (Mk 8:22-26), is particularly interesting because of the detailed description of the healing method used by Jesus, who is portrayed as (a) touching the organs affected (ears and tongue), (b) spitting, (c) looking up to the heaven and (d) sighing. One aspect of the inquiry, therefore, will consist of isolating the semantic area relating to deafness and speech impairment in documentary papyri as well as semi-literary texts (such as medical treatises, prescriptions, amulets, and magical papyri): What do these sources tell us about speech and hearing disabilities, and how can they help us to interpret the gospel account? Was the author of Mark’s Gospel influenced by or aware of the Greco-Roman medical terminology? Or, rather, do the actions of Jesus described by the text imply ‘magical’ manipulation? And then, what kind of relationship did Mark intend to suggest between Jesus and the healing practitioners of the time? As we know, the account of the deaf-mute is one of the very few episodes of Mark that do not (re)appear in either Matthew or Luke. Can this be seen as a sign of the other two Synoptics’ discomfort with the Markan portrait of Jesus?

The Story of Joseph of Arimathea (CANT 77) is a little-known fifth/sixth century Christian apocryphon that recounts the role of Joseph of Arimathea in constructing the Church of Mary at Lydda. The text tells us that after encountering the risen Jesus and escaping from prison, Joseph went to the town of Lydda, near Arimathea, to proclaim the gospel and support the believers there. However, a dispute between Jews and Christians erupts when it is discovered that Joseph and his companions are converting the local synagogue into a church. The governor intervenes and seals the building doors, which are reopened after forty days. To everyone’s astonishment, an image of the Virgin Mary is seen inside, and the building is given to the Christians. While most Christian Apocrypha feature the activities of Jesus and/or the apostles, the Story of Joseph belongs to another category of apocrypha that has been called the “inventio” or “invention of Christian tradition.” Texts in this category typically recount the invention of relics, such as John the Baptist’s head or the cross on which Jesus was crucified. But some apocrypha within this genre concern rather the discovery (or “invention”) of images and icons, such as the mandylion in the Doctrine of Addai, Veronica’s sudarium in the Vengeance of the Savior, or in this case the image of Mary in the Story of Joseph. Texts recounting the invention of icons played an important, though often overlooked, role in the politics of sacred space in late antiquity. In my paper, I will explore how such texts entered the fray of ecclesiastical politics, focusing on the Story of Joseph. As we shall see, this important apocryphon functioned not only to legitimate the autonomy of the Lydda church, but also to justify the Christian appropriation of synagogues in a post-Theodosian era.

When Jan Hus was burned at the stake in 1415 during the Council of Constance, it was primarily for the theology of his work De ecclesia (1413). He was condemned for three statements: that Peter was never the head of the church, that the church has never had only one head, and that popes were an invention of emperors, not scripture. All three of these charges deny theological positions held by the eastern church then and now. Martin Luther viewed Hus as a forerunner of his own ideas, chiefly those regarding the church. In fact, it was this aspect of Hus’ writings that Luther referred to when he famously wrote in early 1520 ‘We are all Hussites’. Hus challenged the structure and authority of the medieval church and denounced abuses, although his theology in other ways differed from Luther’s. Where most investigations of Luther’s famous statement focus on Luther’s theological differences with Hus, this paper will focus on the eastern resonances found in Hus’ ecclesiology. Hus’ views, influenced by eastern Christendom, reflect a universal theology of the church that pre-dated the Reformation, demonstrating that historic Christian understanding of the authority of the Church was not invented by Luther nor by Hus. Indeed, when Eck accused Luther of holding Hussite views, he was referring to the De ecclesia. This paper will argue that Hus interacts extensively with Boniface VIII’s 1302 papal bull Unam sanctam; in that bull, the Greek view of the church universal is explicitly denounced, yet Hus clearly signals his disagreement with Boniface and his agreement with eastern ecclesiology.

The debates on "Deuteronomistic History" have become confusing in recent years and many scholars currently deny the existence of the Deuteronomistic History articulated by Martin Noth. Is there a future for Deuteronomistic History? This paper argues that Noth's "Deuteronomistic History" should be revised through an approach which makes better use of all available data. The Former Prophets do not indicate a unified deuteronomistic theology or ideology, but various deuteronomistic dialogues which took place between Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets as well as between one Former Prophet and another. In other words, the Former Prophets are not one Deuteronomistic History, but Deuteronomistic Histories. The positions of the pre-exilic as well as post-exilic Levitical scribes are characterized by competitiveness between scribes. In the theological spectrum, the Levitical scribes were divided into many subgroups. The mutual influences and reciprocal criticisms between Levitical scribes were the dialectic dynamics which formed and shaped the Deuteronomistic Histories.

In identifying who cannot be admitted permissibly to the religious assembly of Yhwh in Deuteronomy 23, one stumbles over the name of Balaam. This religious figure, familiar from Numbers 22–24, serves exemplarily for two groups that should not be admitted to the assembly of Yhwh, the Ammonites and the Moabites. The proscription of Ammonite and Moabite admission thus appears historically rooted. However, the context and content of this reference remain curious, perhaps even spurious: Why does Balaam appear in this legislative context, particularly when Deuteronomy 23 hardly proffers any other historical criteria for determining who can and cannot join the assembly? In what ways does this recounting of Balaam’s tale differ from the lengthier account in Numbers 22–24 and the other references to Balaam scattered throughout Bible and to what end? How did this reflection on the figure of Balaam impact other biblical material about him? Can distinctions in the text history of these interrelated passage aid our understanding of this development? This paper will focus on these questions and attempt to reconstruct redaction-historical and narratological reasons for the placement of the Balaam story in the assembly legislation in Deuteronomy 23 and briefly discuss their impact on the development of the Bible.

In 1770, Lt James Cook declared Australia to be terra nullius, or land belonging to no one. When the First Fleet landed on Australian shores in 1788 it is estimated that there were more than 750,000 Aboriginal people living on the continent (ABS 2008) organized into around 700 nations, with approximately 330 languages being spoken. The British Empire devastated Aboriginality in Australia through colonization, ‘civilization’ and the impress of Anglicized Christianity. Aboriginal culture was actively sterilized: through poisoning, through linguicide (language killing) and through enforced Christianity. Sterilization killed many cultural elements, people and languages (only 4% of Aboriginal languages are living and active, i.e. spoken by all the tribe's children). This was endorsed by the interpretation and use of the Bible as a tool of the Empire. For Aboriginal people, the Bible, as an English text, was filled with foreign words and practices but not with ideas foreign to Aboriginal people. Contemporary Aboriginal Elders, some of whom are ordained clergy in the Uniting Church in Australia, insist that Jesus was not ‘brought over on the tall ships’ but was already familiar to them in their pre-Christian spirituality. These beliefs have proven difficult for Anglo-Australian Christians to reconcile. In many cases, non-Aboriginal Australians continue to view Australia as fides nullius before the control of the Empire. Australia may appear to be a first world, postcolonial success. However, through political motifs like ‘values’, ‘civilization’ and ‘lifestyle choices’, politicians are re-colonizing, ‘post’-colonial Australia through reference to the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Worldwide refugee politicking shares a narrative of resentment and xenophobia which Australian politics has leveraged rhetorically into a retro-colonization of Aboriginal people. In this paper, we analyze the use of the Bible in the process of colonization, and contemporary recolonization, of Australia.

Lev 9 tells the story of Aaron´s first sacrifices, with which the regular cult at the “tent of meeting” begins. The activities at the sanctuary are answered and acknowledged by Yahwe with the appearance of his glory (????). Neither the appearance of the glory of Yahwe, nor the offering of first sacrifices does in Lev 9 occur for the first time. Already Ex 40 tells us about first sacrifices - the ones that Moses offered after erecting the tent of meeting (Ex 40; see esp. 40:29) - and a consequent theophany. Thus, Ex 40 and Lev 9 share the same general plot: The sanctuary is put into operation, which is immediately acknowledged by Yahwe´s glory filling the sanctuary - so that the attentive reader has to ask the question: When did the cult at the sanctuary in the desert actually begin? Based on these basic observations, it shall be shown how Lev 9 connects to other texts of the OT with which the chapter is related topic-wise and and/or through a concrete intertextual relationship. As a result, Lev 9 will be identified as a case of Innerbiblical Interpretation. The chapter does, in a relecture of Ex 40 and Ex 29:43-46 (containing the divine promise that Yahwe will appear to the Israelites in his glory and sanctify them, the sanctuary, and the altar), establish a version of the beginning of the cult at the tent of meeting that strengthens the position of the Aaronides. On the question, when the cult at the desert sanctuary actually began, Lev 9 answers: properly only with the Aaronides leading that cult - and not yet with the first offerings of Moses when he erected the tabernacle.

After Vatican II several translations of the Bible appeared in Poland. Each of them is characterized by its specificity, which reflects the assumptions used by the translators. In recent decades, also several biblical commentaries were published in Polish. Some of them are strictly scientific, other may be counted as pastoral aids. Both translations of the Bible and biblical commentaries are shortly presented in this paper.

While lexical cross-references between Jer and Deut are well known and investigated, little attention has been paid to similar pragmatic strategies at work in these two books. Indeed, both phenomena are clearly connected, since they cooperate in setting up a dialogue with a Vorlage as well as in triggering readers’ response. One of the pragmatic strategies displayed in Deut is the metatextual reference to a “book” (Deut 28,5.61; 29,19.20.26; 30,10). Through the interplay of discourse and personal indexicals, as well as by means of shifts in temporal reference, the book to which Moses refers is not only perceived by Moses’ intradiegetical addressees, but it is also accessible to extradiegetical readers. They are able to identify the sefer with the book they are about to read. Comparable metatextual references to a book occur within the Hebrew Bible only in Jer. Against this background, the paper aims to focus on Jer 30,1-3.4 in order to highlight a) how the addition of vv. 1-3 builds up the metatextual reference of the sefer committed to writing in v. 2; b) what is the pragmatic goal achieved; c) the interplay between this pragmatic strategy and lexical cross-references interwoven in Jer 30,1-3.4. The analysis will show that Jer, while employing a prominent strategy of Deut, challenges the authority of Moses and of ‘his’ book.

In connection with the cognitive turn in narratology the question how the interaction of character perspectives generates meaning in narratives, has received new attention. In this context, character perspective is understood as an individual and thus limited experience of reality. To analyze character perspectives other characteristics and personal features have to be taken into account (knowledge, perception etc.). With regard to the question of coherence in terms of Mark’s Jesus, the application of cognitive narratology offers various refinements in comparison to a mere study of the composition. Thus, cognitive narratology raises awareness for the fact that coherence is not an exclusively text-immanent phenomenon, but forces attention on the insight that the concept of coherence can also be applied on more complex contents. With the help of schemes that lie outside of the text and by means of his knowledge about the narrated world, the recipient combines various pieces of textual information to form a coherent model of a character. The harmony of such ideas is only achieved through the integration of both explicit and implicit character features. Ultimately, it is only the clear differentiation of narrator perspective and character perspective that allows to satisfyingly describe the multifarious processes of a strategic hierarchization of perspectives and the content-related correspondences and contrasts. How carefully Mark formed and developed the perspectives of his characters can be demonstrated by the example of Mark 15. It is here, at the end, that six major character perspectives are taken up again and combined in a way that they remain perceivable as independent viewpoints which are – by means of different narrative devices like the “Informationsverdoppelung” (Vette) or implicit judgment – disavowed or confirmed. In the midst of this perspectival interaction, Mark’s christological conviction shines through.

There are two different approaches for analysing space in biblical texts. Recently, the majority of exegetical works have used the theory of Critical Spatiality. A few approaches apply literary theory. H. Lefebvre’s trialectic theory of space and language can be used as a basis for combining different approaches. This paper joins cultural, literary and linguistic theories of space. Its purpose is to elaborate on how space is constructed in and by the text. In the text, space is not only described by depicting the spatial practice, the conceptions and above all the experience and imagination of space of the lyrical self. The descriptions themselves construct space. Finally, the text itself is space. Space constructed in the text, as well as the text itself can influence the reader’s spatial concepts. Thus, texts do not only describe, they also have a poietic power. This will be illustrated using Psalm 55 as an example.

Judges 14 presents a violent encounter between Samson and a lion. The literary analysis of this narrative reveals several intriguing motifs, such as killing of a lion with bare hands, a connection between lion and enemies and a peculiar image of bees and a beehive inside the corpse of a lion. The narration of the encounter provokes many visual images to its reader, but how were these images treated in actual visual media in the ancient Near East? In other words what kind of iconographic data is there about an encounter between a man and a lion? The spectrum of images is wide, and therefore in this paper I focus only on the concept of the lion hunt, which was known throughout the ancient Near East but finds its most elaborate expression in the royal Assyrian Lion Hunt. In the Assyrian Empire this artistic motif was particularly bound with the royal institution and propaganda. The iconographic examples in this paper consist of the hunting reliefs from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (Nineveh, 645–635 B.C.E). These large detailed reliefs tell pictorial narratives, but are also often accompanied with inscriptions. What kind of similarities and differences are there between the royal Lion Hunt reliefs and Samson’s encounter with a lion in Judges 14, and what kind of conclusions can be drawn when comparing the material? Even though the temporal and geographical gap between Judges 14 and the Assyrian palace reliefs is considered wide, finds in Levantine miniature art show that the motif was also known in Israel/Palestine. This paper aims to combine the resources of literary studies with an iconographic approach, treating Biblical narratives as coherent entities and concurrently exploring the iconographic background of them, in order to perceive a deeper understanding of the cultural context that lies behind the text.

The textbook Iconographic Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. An Introduction to Its Method and Practice (2015) contains a theoretical introduction to and 19 case studies on the usage of iconographical material in the exegesis. The case studies naturally contain many images from the neighboring cultures of Israel / Juda. My paper focuses on the comparative approach, which usually is as unknown for the students as the iconographical approach. I will first discuss the short theoretical discussions in the book. In the main part of my paper, I will describe the usage of the comparative approach in some exemplary case studies. Do the authors explicitly name the choice of the discussed sources? With how many different cultures do they compare the Biblical text? What conclusions do they make based on the used media?

As a biblical figure that features in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the story of Ishmael is of great significance. In my talk I will focus on Genesis 16 and the drama that unfolds while Ishmael is in utero. Using a psychological lens and an embodied approach, I will analyse the naming and identity of Ishmael within the wider family structure, from the perspective of his being the firstborn but not of the covenant/promise. Drawing on several streams of psychological and philosophical thought (Psychodynamic, Gestalt, Phenomenology, Intersectionality, etc.), I will touch on general themes such as the place of narrative in the constitution of selfhood, family dynamics, self-other, illegitimacy/shame, validation, the invisible presence of the unborn child in the narrative, the significance of names and their connection with one’s construal of identity. More specifically, I will consider the implications of divine intervention in the narrative that radically alters a predictable story into something quite unpredictable, as seen through multiple aspects of the process of naming of Ishmael.

The study of color terms allows us to make assumptions whether or not there is some correlation between psychological, social and symbolic elements of language itself. These words provide information and clarify other terms, while some of them are subordinated to others in the hierarchy of a semantic field. We will analyze the terms taking into account their discursive context. The meaning of a word in the sentence depends on its context, its extratextual context and other data. Once this is determined, it is necessary to take into account the extratextual context that will allow us to determine the real coloration of the object, or at least, approach it as much as possible. Considering the above, this presentation will focus on the use of both SHR and SHRHR in Song of Songs. These terms appears in the description of the skin of the bride (Songs 1: 5-6), and also when describing the hair of her beloved (Songs 5: 11). In these verses SHR and SHRHR are usually translated as "black", "dark" or "brownish". We will rethink such translations of these color terms in order to obtain a more concrete meaning. Regarding the skin of the bride, the color of the tents of Qedar are the extratextual context. Which nuances they had? Black or brown? Perhaps we can obtain certain answers the habits of this tribe. We will also compare SHR with SHRHR, hapax used to describe once again the color of the bride. Both terms may seem similar but they denote different hues. Last but not least, the hair of the husband is described as cluster of dates with a black color like the crow's. Such comparison brings the image of a black and intense color, but it also contains a symbolic dimension present through the Near East literature.

The Gospel of John has been also called the “Gospel of Love.” On one level, the contents of this Gospel are aiming for “love” and “peace.” However, through the academic interpretation according to the historical-critical method, the biases of this “love” and “peace” (anti-Semitic or sectarianist) may become problematic. One of the most important findings of the heated methodological discussions in the latter half of the last century is that the objective historical-critical investigations of the Bible revealed the fact that we, the self-same researchers, are necessarily involved in our own subjective situations, making our investigations inherently self-reflexive. But it is not that this (maybe) correct finding can encompass all of the directions biblical research takes. We, researchers = readers, span an immense geographical and cultural area, which changes endlessly according to the time period. In turn, interpretations become even more diverse. Therefore it is difficult to tell what kind of disciplines they share, or how to distinguish academic interpretations from other ones (for example, those of the church). In my experience, the fundamental discipline for academic interpretations (including text criticism) is a detailed and repeated reading of the original Greek text. Linguistic academic arguments (of Greek) are always evolving. The task of combining them with the special characteristics of the Greek of the Gospel of John still remains. Through my research, I have continually attempted to systematically comprehend these characteristics, which are not simply unsophisticated. They are undeniably self-reflexive expressions of the text (according to the French linguist E. Benveniste it is of “discours”) and, as much as the Gospel of John is a biblical text, “transcendence” is their counterpart. It is precisely this “transcendence” that lends “love” and “peace,” ideas that might be constricted by time periods, their ability to go beyond the limits of their constructs.

Karl Weidel, a teacher from Magdeburg, and student of the famous Wilhelm Wrede, in 1909 published a 49 page personality study of Jesus which experienced various editions and by 1921 grew to 120 pages. The study was positively acclaimed by Albert Schweitzer in his Geschichte der Leben Forschung as an example (contra to Rudolf Bultmann later) that psychology has a place in historical Jesus studies. The paper introduces Weidel’s views (especially with regard to the equilibrium between polar traits in Jesus character), asking the question whether his views can still be accounted for in terms of present-day historical Jesus research.

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No-one can ignore A. Schweitzer’s brilliant blast against the liberal Jesus scholarship of the 19th century (1906): In his eyes, any allegedly „historical“ Jesus scholar was really a dogmatist „in the suspicious meaning of the word“, and guilty of severe projection mechanisms. But has a valid alternative been found? Schweitzer’s own proposal of „consequential eschatology“ has been described as equally projective, only in reversed perspective. Bultmann’s attempt to bypass historical relativity has been questioned for its alleged dependence on existential philosophy and subjectivism. Käsemann’s attempt of the „New Quest“ has been criticized of lack of consistency and latent antisemitism. But how about the Third Quest or the mnemonic branch in Jesus research? The paper proposed will (1) review Jesus scholars of the past and present (!) in the context of their thinking – the latter must obviously be on a tentative base due to the limited time that has lapsed since their writings –, (2) give a brief overview in the scientific debate on the relationship of the scholar to his scholarship (e.g. P. Feyerabend), and (3) come to the conclusion: There is indeed reason to still presume agendas behind Jesus scholarship, just as there is reason to presume agendas behind those identifying those agendas: but we need not to worry about them.

An important concept underlying the “Song of Moses” is the analogy of divine and human behaviour. God’s children are expected to behave righteously just as He is righteous (cf. Deut 32:4). But when Israel angers YHWH, He surprisingly mirrors their misbehaviour and likewise angers them (cf. Deut 32:21). What can be learned from a God who treats humans in such an eminently human way?

The lexeme -kitz- appears quite often in biblical texts and is usually translated with “create”. But does the lexeme -kitz- really denote “to create” as it is claimed for Gen 14:19.22? The use of the lexeme -kitz- in the LXX and its implications from the Greek-Hellenistic context will be the focus of this paper.

The field of biblical criticism was a theological minefield which the founders of Wissenschaft des Judentums discreetly avoided. Heinrich Graetz, who died in 1891, was a notable and fearless exception. During the last 20 years of his life he devoted himself to a wide-ranging study of the Hebrew Bible, producing a corpus of scholarship that dwarfed the collective efforts of all his Jewish peers and predecessors. Working at a furious pace, Graetz completed his multi-volume Geschichte der Juden with two dense but majestic surveys of biblical history and literature down to the early years of the Hasmonean monarchy. He also wrote individual commentaries on Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Psalms with extensive introductions, as well as a meticulous commentary on Proverbs plus a historical essay on the dating, context and genre of Esther. For most of these two decades Graetz was the editor of the respected Monatsschrift fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, a post that gave him the platform to publish innumerable other studies on subjects that bracingly spanned both lower and higher criticism. In an era dominated by Wellhausen, the scholarship on Graetz has dealt with this prodigious corpus briefly, if at all. The purpose of my in-depth study is to rectify this unwarranted distortion. A scholar deserves to be understood on his own terms. My intention is four-fold: to delineate the parameters of Graetz’s biblical criticism, to evaluate his interpretations and constructions, to identify the motivations that informed his agenda and, finally, to assess the significance of his overall achievement.

4Q84 is a Psalms scroll with stichometric layout in rather narrow columns. Each column contains one hemistich (3-4 words) per line and measures only 2.5-3.5 cm. But two columns diverge from that scheme. Halfway down the column, the first of them changes to a layout with two hemistiches per line and, thus, lines twice as long. The appearance of wider lines coincides with the beginning of a composition known from the Masoretic psalter as Ps 118. The second column—immediately following the aforementioned—has also parts of Psalm 118. But here the change back to the layout with more-narrow columns appears not only within one column but within one composition, namely Ps 118. In this paper, I analyze the relation between text and layout in 4Q84—focused on but not limited to the two peculiar columns mentioned—taking account of a) the other Dead Sea scrolls with stichometric layout; b) other scrolls with narrow columns and c) the other attestations of Ps 118 within the scrolls. Thereby, it can be shown, that the layout of 4Q84 complies with the poetic structure of the psalm compositions. Thus, the layout of this scroll supports its readability.

To what extent is the evidence for the textual history of 1Samuel – 2Kings consistent with what our Program Unit’s chair called “the striking inconsistent application of Deuteronomy’s law“? Rather than first venturing into literary criticism of the textual evidence, our work considers evidence from biblical manuscripts and biblical quotations in patristic commentaries.. The use of „tora/nomos/lex“ differs in the textual tradition of Samuel-Kings. The reading of these sources distinguishes the masoretic conceptualization of “tora“ from greek testimony. The oldest Septuagint tradition of „nomos“ raises the question, What kind of system of legal provisions once existed? This issue is aggravated by the Old Latin testimony of “lex“ and associated legal terminology. Through our textual tradition we can assume that Deuteronomy had not received it current textual form until the period when 1-2Sam and 1-2Kings had been composed.

The most illustrious source for the written communication of Persian officials with their subordinates in Persian Period Egypt is the so called Arsames correspondence, a group of Aramaic letters written on behalf of Arshama, the satrap of Egypt in the second half of the fifth century BC. Although the documents were found in Egypt, they were sent from the eastern part of the Persian Empire, most probably from Babylon where the satrap probably resided when he was issuing these letters. They do not refer to official duties of the satrap but to his private domains in Egypt managed by Egyptian officials. Several of these letters contain subscripts mentioning different officials and scribes in charge of the translation, transmission and enforcement of the satrap’s orders. Interestingly, similar subscripts are also to be found in the recently published Aramaic letters from ancient Bactria, an Aramaic letter from Elephantine as well as an official letter from Egypt written in (Egyptian) demotic script. In this paper, I will discuss how these documents give insights into the procedures of transmission of official orders to subordinates in the provinces. I will show which mechanisms were employed to solve principal-agent problems occurring while high officials like the satrap of Egypt were not present. Especially, the letter from Elephantine and the demotic document illustrate how these procedures in use in all over the Persian empire were adapted the local practices in Egyptian chancelleries.

The Latin text of the Book of Ruth begins with the letter “I” (In diebus unius judicis). Due to the long and narrow shape of this letter, frequently the illuminators represented several scenes, each one on a different register. This paper will focus on the variety of visual readings of this iconographical cycle depending on the chosen scenes.

Hearing plays an important role in the learning process. As such, most of the learning was done in oral tradition and knowledge was passed from generation to generation. This is the reason why hearing was perceived as an important means of acquiring knowledge both in the world of Hebrew and Egyptian education. In Israel, as in Egypt, hearing is a quality of the wise man (Proverbs 1,5;15,31; Ptahhotep 30-31;41-42). The ability to listen is considered a virtue equal to honesty accompanied by moral integrity. This concept of hearing as a sublime virtue was preserved during all periods of ancient Egypt. The requirement “to hear” is accompanied by the promise of reward for the obedient and punishment for the disobedient. Likewise, in Biblical wisdom one is endowed with the treasures of life, longevity, health and riches (Proverbs 4,10,22) However, whoever rejects wisdom, the disobedient, may expect a beating and destruction. In the ancient Israelite society, teaching was done on the basis of what the parent or the teacher has seen or experienced or the knowledge that he has received from his own father. Then he exhorts the learner to listen to his counsel, which is considered a reliable knowledge. However, the main question to consider here is whether these traditional teachings are useful in today’s context? The society and the context are such that it has become such a cut throat competitive world with less room for moral virtues. In other words, in today’s context, a successful or wise person is one without moral virtues. Whereas Biblical wisdom considers a person wise if he is humble, understanding, righteous which is such a contrast to the world one lives in. In such a context where does the Biblical instruction on wisdom stands?

The OG version of Isaiah 58 contains distinctive renderings aimed at facilitating the acceptance of the old prophecy within the Ptolemaic society. The “thongs of the yoke” to be undone are “knots of contracts made by force” (v. 6); the release of the oppressed, the presence of “ancient deserts” and the mentions of “foundations everlasting”, “fences” and “paths” (vv. 6.12) are especially evocative of well known situations in times of financial straights. The Greek translator suggests that those who listen to the commandments of the God of the fathers also take heed to the repeated injunctions of their Egyptian sovereigns. The Alexandrinian court is indeed in the process of seeking to raise up the country after the Seleucid invasion, civil war and famine have caused a widespread neglect of the lands. Contemporary papyri contain in this regard quite remarkable information concerning contracts, with the interest rates therein required and the procedures followed in the event of unpaid debts. Such documents well illustrate dynamics of solidarity or ruthlessness within a family and show what happens in situations of quarrels and strives. In order to reconstruct the Greek audience of OG Isaiah, these texts are especially taken into consideration: P.Hib. 96 (= C.Pap.Jud. 18), C.Pap.Jud. 20 (from P.Tebt. 3.1 815), P.Tebt. 3.1 817 (= C.Pap.Jud. 23), P.Tebt. 3.1 818 (= C.Pap.Jud. 24) e P.Freib. 3 12b (= C.Pap.Jud. 26), all from 259 and 163 B.C.E. Different collections are then studied in order to gain a precise notion of words such as synallagma, syngraphe, aphesis, oikeios, eremos, oikodomos, themelion. The troubled epoch of the translator is mainly explored through two amnesty decrees (C.Ord.Ptol. 35; P.Tebt. 1 5) and a prostagma urging the cultivation of empty lands (UPZ 1 110), from 164/163 B.C.E. and 118 B.C.E. respectively.

(The lecture is expansion of a chapter from my book: Jewish Religious 'Anarchism' (Does the Jewish Religion Sanctify State Rule? ) Ariel University, Israel 2015) An examination of the Hebrew Bible shows that from its beginning, through the Prophets and beyond, there is a gradual heavenly withdrawal and an empowering of the earth. God's presence "contracts" as we progress through the HB (in its canonical order) to allow humankind's greater activity and autonomy. This theory was developed by a number of researchers (most of them Orthodox): Yitz Greenberg (USA, 1981), Jonathan Sacks (UK, 1992), Richard Friedman (US, 1995), David Feuchtwanger (Israel, 2012) and Ayelet Libson (Israel, 2013). It also occurs in connection with the covenant mentioned in the Bible: God began with a covenant with Noah, and then with the Jewish people at Sinai. The covenants which came after (such as with Ezra) show a progression of God's initiative giving way to human initiative. Furthermore, this theological modification did not occur only in the Bible, but also from the Biblical era to the era of the Sages. During this period God's presence was more obscured than during the Prophets' time (though it was experienced more). The Sages replaced the priests, commentary and discussion replaced prophesy, and the synagogue replaced the destroyed Temple (indeed, the destruction was an unimaginable catastrophe for the Jews but, paradoxically, also enabled their surprising spiritual development). God's "withdrawal" from history enhanced the value of human activity: greater human responsibility for the covenant, a more active human role in creation, and greater religious significance in daily life (due to expansion of learning and religious ritual). Finally, this idea present in 20th century philosophy was already mentioned in the Lurianiac Kaballah of the 16th century, as well as earlier.

I propose simply to look briefly at the lives and contributions of two jews of 2d temple period to indicate some (not all) of the complex of belief, legalities, and salvifics they seem —if not to have generated themselves— to have been mantled with influencing strong the directions of. Saul of Tarsus and Akiva ben Joseph. Their historically overlapping lives, formative legal, biographic, and spiritual contributions to their times and subsequent groups, and their deaths, all seem to signify a type of LAW & FAITH conditions which still mark contemporary Judaisms and Christianities of the Western World. In both men’s composite contribution — text and mythology— perhaps even hagiography— seem at times alien to each other, and at other times hauntingly similar. Perhaps as much a result of their overlapping duration as of their allegedly common pharisaic educations and commitments. I begin and end circularly, of course, suggesting that how communities enlegal themselves corresponds to how they mythologize their legality into the stars, the heavens, the ‘law of the universe’… or at least ‘their’ law of such universes as they care or are able to recognize as relevant to themselves. So the Torah by which the Lord creates the universe, so the Talmud by means of studying which humans ‘understand’ Gd’s Torah pattern in Israel, so the Halachah the specific mundane and spiritual behaviors commanded, prescribed, and proscribed. So the Church the new and spiritual Israel replacing the Old (Jewish) one, so the Canon Laws OR those of divers Prot Synods, and so the combination of belief, custom, ritual, and necessity for accepting Jesus as one’s Personal Savior & model for behavior.

In recent years, historians of medicine, drawing on medical anthropology, have argued that an individual’s experience of illness is not solely shaped by the biological and physiological realities underlying their condition. Rather, the experience is mediated by models of illness: the patterns of belief, symbolic systems, and medical knowledge that are constructed within particular communities and historical contexts. By studying local medical discourses, historians may access how individuals in a particular period experienced illnesses. Thus, this paper explores Jewish models of illness and the etiology of disease in late antiquity as represented in rabbinic literature. Focusing on a series of texts from the Palestinian Talmud mesechet Terumah and mesechet Yoma, it examines the rabbinic discussion of snakes, snake bites, and snake poison. These texts include stories of people being bitten by snakes, and previous scholarship has assumed that these texts merely attest to a proliferation of poisonous snakes in the region. However, these texts also describe people becoming suddenly ill and their condition is then attributed to an unseen snake poisoning food or water. Furthermore, the language used to describe these unseen snakes draws both on Biblical literature and Greco-Roman healing traditions that see the snake as a divine agent. This paper argues that in rabbinic literature, snakes were understood as the agents of sudden and severe illnesses. Understanding this fear of unseen snakes along with the symbolic import of the snake as a divine agent, sheds light on rabbinic illness models and thus how some individuals experienced and understood illness in late antiquity.

Reports on dreams and dream-omina are common in ancient Egyptian literature, forming part of a tradition commencing in the second millennium B.C.E. whose traces continue through Greek and Arabic literature. The proposed paper examines whether the Egyptian legacy is also evident in dreams reported in the Bible, in particular those attributed to Pharaoh and his officials in the story of Joseph (Genesis 40–41). Comparison of these dreams with the Egyptian dream pattern evinces a number of common features relating to dream types, structure, formulation, and interpretation. Egyptian influence is also evident in the setting in which the dreams are presented. Both these factors demonstrate that the biblical text cannot be properly understood without recognition of its Egyptian background.

ANE temples varied greatly in size, function, and importance. Some institutions lasted millennia, while others were more ephemeral. Yet theoretically, the king was the ultimate guarantor and protector of the cults. How did this work out in practice when a temple came under imperial rule? Did all sorts of temples have the same kind of relation with the Great King? This paper analyzes the issues of royal relations, provincial importance, and temple size to nuance these questions, then applies them to the problem of the cults in Elephantine, Jerusalem, and Gerizim, with specific reference to the events of Darius I's rise.

Building upon my previous study of the legal material from Persian Egypt (Simonson 2016) and using data from my ongoing research project, ‘An Aramaic Onomasticon of Syro-Mesopotamian Texts and Inscriptions’, this paper surveys the personal names of individuals belonging to minority populations in multi-cultural communities as they are recorded in legal contracts, placing the lives of these individuals in the larger socio-economic context of their communities. Two corpora from multi-cultural communities are primarily consulted: the documents of the Judean exiles and West Semites in Babylonia (Pearce and Wunsch 2014) and the Aramaic documents from ancient Egypt (Porten and Yardeni 1986). Ultimately, a survey of these personal names serves to provide a clearer delineation of the cultural boundaries of each community, offering insight into the everyday lives, living conditions, and economic impact of the minority populations. Additionally, these data are compared across regions, providing a cross-cultural look at the role of minority populations in each society in the first millennium BCE.

The troubling motif of sinful and defiled Daughter Zion dominates much of Ezekiel. Responding to a time of great political crisis and upheaval, Daughter Zion acts as a referred metaphor, a figure who like Jerusalem’s punished population is assaulted and stigmatised. She is punished for the transgressions of Israel with her body being continually used as a narrative device. In chapter 24, Jerusalem is envisaged not only as someone who has violated the covenantal code of YHWH but also as a menstruating body. The result of her menstrual blood deliberately locates her in the domain of defilement and the association with breaking the covenant makes her actively complicit in the punishment she experiences. This paper will explore persistent associations that align Ezekiel 24 with contemporary depictions in advertising. It will demonstrate how Daughter Zion’s menstruating body, especially in its shaming exposure of menstrual blood has resonance with contemporary advertising for sanitary products and its concealment of bleeding. The enforced invisibility of a woman’s period, the motion of menstrual management, and ideas surrounding menstrual suppression by contraception reinforce the complexities of this taboo that is so often erased from public discourse. The humiliation that Daughter Zion exemplifies as her menstrual status and blood enters the public discourse as affinity with how menstrual advertising companies construct feelings of fear, humiliation, and shame surrounding the prospect of public disclosure of a woman’s menstrual blood. The culture of body watching and menstrual management is rooted in this understanding of exposure to which Daughter Zion falls victim. Thus, the treatment of Daughter Zion can further inform psychological constructions of how menstrual stigma features in contemporary advertising.

Masculinities Studies is a relative newcomer to biblical studies, whereas feminist approaches and a feminist agenda has a much longer pedigree. The coexistence of the two approaches gives rise to questions: are the two approaches compatible, can the claim frequently made by masculinities scholars that their work is politically in line with feminist agenda’s be substantiated? This paper argues that, yes, fundamentally the two approaches share common concerns, such as attention for the constructedness of gender, emphasis on (unequal) power relations involved, and highlighting gender diversity. Simultaneously, the two disciplines taken together also challenge terminology used in biblical studies, does not the use of the terms “masculinities” and “feminist” reinforce (binary) notions of gender that both approaches seek to problematize? Would it not make sense to look for a synthesis in terms of gender studies in biblical studies that is more emphatically “queer” in its epistemology and research agenda? In this manner, the paper seeks to challenge both current research in masculinities and feminist biblical studies.

The biblical book of Job (2:3) clearly states that Job suffered??? “for no reason; in vain.” The biblical book of Lamentations ends with the petition “Restore us to yourself, O LORD . . . unless you have utterly rejected us . . .” The Psalmist, in 89:40(39e), accuses God of renouncing the covenant with David post- destruction of Jerusalem. Daniel’s last words, as recorded in the canonical book that is his namesake ?? ????? ??? are typically translated “What shall be the outcome of these things“, but could be translated “Why these things?“. Daniel understands the content of the visions that have been interpreted for him by the angel Gabriel, but he cannot understand “Why?” the Jews must suffer in this way. These biblical quotes stand in sharp contrast to the Deuteronomistic Historian’s analysis that Judah’s experience of exile was God’s discipline for unfaithfulness to the covenant as well as the Daniel 1–6 emphasis on the prosperity of faithful Jews in diaspora. Similarly Eli Wiesel’s The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, Day, in which he refuses to grant the sufferings of the Holocaust a redemptive status, stands in contrast to several other authors that have referred to holocaust victims as messiahs, atoning sacrifices offered upon an altar. This paper will investigate the significance of these varied responses to severe traumas perpetrated by political powers and systems in hopes of gaining insight into human faith response(s) to political trauma, then and now.

It is common knowledge that in the Kings narrative Manasseh receives no redemption, whereas the Chronicler provides redemption in the form of his building projects and religious reforms. The question is on what basis do the latter happen. I will argue that Manasseh receives redemption because he rendered himself vulnerable. As with Cain, vulnerability only comes when being confronted with calamity. Manasseh faced a bleak life by becoming a prisoner of the Assyrians, publicly humiliated by being caught by hooks and chained in bronze fetters and deported to Babylon. As a white male South African biblical scholar, the current socio-political context requires me to openly acknowledge my racist and patriarchal upbringing and subsequent privileges. The critique of white patriarchy is very public, its effects no longer masked because of the decolonial project. Thus, in any reading of the biblical text, I am publicly obliged to render myself vulnerable in order to face those aspects of oppression that would previously have been masked. Manasseh’s hooks and fetters have become my silence and introspection in a process of embarrassment and internalizing the critique. What good comes from a reading as/with a perpetrator? Usually, once indicated, a perpetrator is removed from the scene, sometimes very publicly. But I have found that reading the biblical text as/with a perpetrator renders one extremely vulnerable. To make it beneficial it needs to be turned into an instance from which change can occur—a redemptive moment. This paper will explore Manasseh’s vulnerability in both narratives in terms of the current reader’s own vulnerability. The paper will start by defining vulnerability before briefly exploring the reader’s own perpetrator context in order to focus on the issue of perpetrator vulnerability in the character portrayal of Manasseh in Kings and Chronicles.

Gregory-Aland manuscripts 0150 and 2110 appear to be directly related both visually and textually. It has been suggested that these MSS are exemplar and copy. In this paper, I will demonstrate the exact interrelatedness between these two MSS with an eye toward determining whether they are exemplar and copy, whether they share a common exemplar copied by two different copyists, or whether they are copied by the same copyist from a common exemplar. Examination of nearly identical paratextual features indicates a common copying process for both 0150 and 2110. Further scrutiny of handwriting, though, points toward two different copyists. In this paper, I will explore which MS was composed first, paying special attention to scribal habits and textual changes. Initial examination of the texts of the MSS indicates a special relationship between the two. The texts of Philemon are nearly identical. Only two major differences exist between the MSS in Philemon: (1) in verse one, 0150 reads ???st?? ??s?? whereas 2110 reads ??s?? ???st?? and (2) in verse six, 0150 reads e? ep????se? whereas 2110 omits the preposition e?. The remaining differences are 3 minor spelling differences. In addition to the near identical nature of the texts of Philemon, some variants point toward a unique relationship. For example, in verse 17, 0150 and 2110 read µa? instead of µe, the only two Greek MSS of Philemon to do so of the 570+ that contain the letter. Also, 0150 and 2110 read d?a????a instead of ???????a, which is only found in 9 other MSS of the 570+ in the entire Greek tradition. Collations of other books in the MSS, though, reveal that their texts might not be as close as the texts of Philemon. So, full collations of the MSS will be presented and analyzed in this paper.

In his book The Destruction of Memory, Robert Bevan argues that the destruction of cultural monuments in modern warfare is related to genocide. A strategy of erasure, it attempts to annihilate a people by eliminating the monuments that commemorate their history. In this paper, I explore this phenomenon in the Hebrew Bible and its surrounding cultures through an analysis of biblical and epigraphic evidence from Israel, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Focusing on textual depictions of tomb violation and the destruction of cities, I argue that these episodes are best contextualized in view of cultural principles underlying care for the dead and their burial sites. Vivid depictions of conquered cities draw heavily upon idioms of corpse abuse, tomb disturbance, and neglect. By situating the destruction of cities in terms of discourses about treatment of the dead, we better understand the cultural and religious implications of what it meant for a city to “die” in the ancient world. These texts bear witness to the close relationship between space and cultural identity and suggest that this strategy of destroying a people through attacks on their monuments was pervasive throughout ancient West Asia and the Mediterranean. Relevant texts include Psalm 137, the depiction of Sennacherib’s destruction of Babylon, 2 Kings 23:1-20, Nehemiah 2, Assurbanipal’s retribution against the Elamites, and several curse formulae from tomb inscriptions in first-millennium Syria.

The significant influx of refugees from the Middle East is creating a unique situation in the history of post-war Germany in terms of numbers and challenges for integration and communal living. In addition to state agencies and secular organisations, also churches have been stepping up to help with shelter, food, non-food items, education, advocacy and integration efforts. This paper makes a suggestion how to deepen biblical reflection on the Christian response to the refugee crisis. It proposes a hermeneutic informed by recent research in the area of contextual theology. Based on Middle-Eastern readings of selected New Testament texts, it suggests a hermeneutic for serving Middle-Eastern refugees that does justice to some of the most central cultural themes of their home region, which are simultaneously potent tools for New Testament hermeneutics. The three starting points for this endeavour are the themes of mediation, collectivism and shame orientation. Pertinent examples in current literature on the topic are presented and reviewed in light of a Christian response to the refugee influx. The paper concludes with a brief project outline for further research: borrowing from the methodology of Action Research (and its adaptation for practical theology), the usefulness of the suggested hermeneutical input can be assessed in real-life situations where churches or faith-based agencies are working with Middle Eastern refugees. Action Research does not merely assess the validity and applicability of the theoretical findings but, through its participatory and transformative approach, helps institutions to apply and modify them for their own needs in the process.

This paper will review the question of the integrity of the various fragments generally associated with the Acts of John, paying special attention to sections extracted from the Acts of John of Ps. Prochorus.

An increase of cross-cultural learning as a consequence of increased travel and migration between Egypt and the Levant during the Iron Age occurred after millennia of migration in earlier times. The result was an Egyptian-Levantine koine, often not recognized as relevant by historians due to an uncritical reproduction of ancient myths of separation. However, the cultural exchange between Egypt and the Levant, triggered by migration, is attested in the language, in the iconography of the region, in the history of the alphabet, in literary motifs, in the characterization of central characters of the Hebrew Bible and, last but not least, at the start of the Hebrew Bible. I will demonstrate, that the Levantine writer of Gen 1 shared his views about light and creation with theologians in Egypt.

The Hebrew Bible assumes that a woman is abled bodied when she has a childbearing body. Based on this ideology, I will argue that when a woman was past childbearing age, she was understood to be found wanting as she departed from the gendered norm attached to being a woman. Her body was viewed as disabled, i.e., devalued and marginalized, because it did not conform to the biblical view of womanhood. It was not the physical changes themselves in a woman’s body that occurred past childbearing age that led to her being understood as disabled, but the meaning ancient Israel gave to these changes. This distinction in biblical representations of the female body meant that menopause (and infertility as well as having never borne a child) marked women’s bodies as falling short of cultural perfection because they did not conform to the childbearing norm. The ideology that a menopausal woman in the biblical text is no longer a woman finds support in the Hebrew language itself. The noun for old age, zaqen, is etymologically from the noun zaqan, “beard” and refers to a man with a beard. The term is used in Gen 18:13; 24:36 (Sarah), and Ruth 1:12 (Ruth) to refer to these menopausal women. They are literally “men with a beard” because they do not fit the norm for abled bodied women. My paper will begin with these two examples and ultimately I will connect them with the differences between the gendering of disability of women and men in the Hebrew Bible. I will contribute to feminist disability studies of the Hebrew Bible through methodology that stands at the disciplinary juncture of biblical studies, feminism, and disability studies.

A redactor created a Zion trilogy by combining the pre-exilic Pss 46*;48* with the exilic Ps 47 (redactional layers: Pss 46:10; 48:8,10-12,14b). Remembering Zion, this trilogy announces hope for the restoration of the City of God (Ps 47:5). By looking at the past, hope for the future is created: hope is given as an answer to the escalating lament contained in Ps 42 to Ps 44 about being far away from the temple and from God (see e.g. Ps 42:3,10; 43:3 - Ps 44:24-27 - Ps 46:2). The songs (??? as subscription in Ps 45:1; 46:1; 48:1) about the king (Ps 45) and about the City of God (Pss 46; 48) are memories that create a “counter reality” (“Gegenwelt”) for the praying person in Ps 42, helping him / her to survive the night / crisis (see ???? in Ps 42:8). By remembering, hope arises and the teaching of the first Korahite collection culminates in Ps 49. The paper will deal with the function of the Theology of Zion in the first Korahite collection within its diachronic and synchronic dimensions. Based on Pss 42-44, remembering is the fundamental category to understand the Korahite Theology of Zion. Special focus will be given to the connection of the Royal Psalm 45 and the Wisdom Psalm 49 to the Zion trilogy Pss 46-48.

This paper will discuss leadership in the story of exodus from the Hebrew Bible. It is generally accepted that Moses was the leader of the Israelites leaving Egypt. However, on closer reading of the text we find that rarely was Moses the sole authority and leader in the story. Often throughout the exodus, Moses shared his leadership role with other human agents. This paper analyses three other leaders of the community with whom Moses shared his leadership role at different times: his brother Aaron, his sister Miriam, and his successor Joshua. The paper will analyse shared leadership models of the exodus story using concepts from social sciences’ analysis of leadership. Focusing on three stories: coming out of Egypt (Moses-Aaron, Ex.12), the Song of the Sea (Moses-Miriam, Ex.15), and the war with Amalek (Moses-Joshua, Ex.17), the paper will sketch the development of these shared leadership models in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael and Origen’s homilies on Exodus. These two commentaries of the text by early Jewish and Christian writers will give an insight into how later generations of Bible readers interpreted Moses’ sharing of his leadership for their own purposes.

The continuing study of the earlier redactional layers of the Old Slavonic pseudepigrapha have assumed wider significance (beyond the cultural spheres of medieval Slavia Orthodoxa) in wider areas of Jewish and Christian religious history after recent research has indicated their importance for the investigation of early Jewish and Christian apocalypticism, Gnosticism and the Jewish Merkabah (‘Divine Chariot’) tradition. Since their texts have been periodically edited in various cultural and religious (including medieval Byzantine and Slavonic) milieu, the separation and dating of the original material and secondary interpolations remain a scholarly desideratum and major focus of debate. Debate has also focused on the relationship between medieval Eastern Christian dualist heresy and pseudepigrapha in Slavia Orthodoxa and the possible dualist editorial interventions in their Slavonic versions. ?he relationship between Old Slavonic pseudepigraphical literature and Eastern Christian dualism has also major implications for another area of ongoing debate: the question of the doctrinal orientation of early Western Christian groups identified as “Cathars” and their links with Eastern Christian dualism. The paper will present the state of evidence and (as yet only preliminary) research of the influx of early Jewish and Christian parabiblical narratives and notions in western medieval heretical milieux (via the transmission and adoption of Slavonic apocryphal traditions through Eastern dualist channels). The parabiblical narratives or elements and (discernible or potential) echoes of earlier pseudepigraphic texts in the sources for Catharism have been largely downplayed or ignored in the current debates on medieval Western heresy. However, they should be reintegrated in the central ground of these debates, as they provide vital clues to medieval dualist stances on Scripture and the related exegetical and compilatory techniques in recasting biblical and parabiblical material in medieval theological and literary environments

For anyone who is looking, it is clear that ‘biblical poetics’ is a ubiquitous if diffuse phenomenon in culture. In other words, biblical poetics is not confined ‘inside’ the Bible. But how we make sense of such a roaming poetics is less clear, although ‘reception history’ of the Bible is no new invention. Is the study of biblical poetics ‘outside’ the Bible an activity set aside from the ‘internal’ mechanisms of the text? Is it about understanding the relationship between the ‘off-shoots’ and the ‘root’ of the original text? And if the answer to these questions is ‘no’, as has been suggested, what are the consequences? What is at stake in such questions, I suggest, is the very enterprise of biblical studies, its scope and its purpose. In this paper I explore ways of understanding biblical poetics, following Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, as rhizomatic. By drawing on their notions of assemblage and multiplicity I argue it is possible to rethink the way reception history is situated as either enclosed ‘within’ or as a marginal ‘outside’ to biblical studies proper. In doing so, biblical poetics might be appreciated more fruitfully in its pluriform potentials and its rhizomatic relations.

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In 1 Samuel 8, the Israelites make a definitive choice to imitate other nations, demanding a king meant to protect them from civil disturbances and foreign predations. The establishment of a human institution of kingship seems to encourage the rejection of the rulership of Yahweh, facilitating idolatry (treating kings as idols), and ultimately oppression by the kings’ hegemony. Consequently, Yahweh demands that kings do the right thing in His eyes and do not rebel against His commandments. According to the Deuteronomic Law for kingship (Deut 17:14-20), Yahweh sets the boundaries that kings are not allowed to transgress and the rules for how they are to behave themselves, decisively transferring the concepts of “good and evil” from the purely human, familial, and tribal realms to the political realm of kingship. I borrow from classic Chinese texts on kingship, principally Confucius’ Lun Yu (Analects), to reexamine the importance of right (or moral) kingship for individual subjects and nations as a whole, hoping to illuminate along the way the case for the moralization of politics beyond the provision of goods and obedience to rituals. In both sets of texts – the Hebrew Bible and the Analects – we can see a process of education from basic awareness of good and evil to a tenuous but all-important knowledge that parallels the historical development of society toward monarchical rule. Knowledge of morality is shown to be a process far more than a conclusion, one that involves a delicate balance between human experience and memory and trust in divine or heavenly righteousness.

In studies on the roles played by women in the Book of Jubilees the matriarch Leah has received scant attention. This may be due, in part, to the fact that the limited role played by Leah in Genesis is further reduced in Jubilees. Yet, in spite of her limited visibility, in Jubilees Leah receives praise that none of the other matriarchs do; she is the good wife, who was beloved by Jacob because she was quiet, peaceful, and honourable. This study examines the portrayals of the matriarchs in Jubilees and asks why the author of this text singled Leah out for such high praise. The study also aims to position the author’s ideas about what makes an ideal wife within the context of early Jewish thought on marital roles.

The majority of Hittite texts uncovered from the royal archives of Hattusa are ritual texts. That shows the absolute importance that rituals held for those collecting them and preserving them in the libraries. The ritual texts are all of a prescriptive character, and only a few are embedded in a narrative, in contrast to rituals in the Hebrew Bible where the rituals are in discourse with the narrative. It is therefore quite rare to find in the Hittite texts reference to failure in a ritual performance. Looking at the story of Num 10:1, an example of a crucial failure in a ritual performance in the biblical text, in which Nadab and Abihu the priests present incense to the divine, the failure was identified as “they offered before the Lord alien fire, that he did not command them.” The failure here derives from not following the commandment of god, who prescribes the rules for his worship. The Hittite texts presented in this paper will suggest the background for understanding when rituals can be regarded as failure. These texts also reveal to us how the cult personnel systematically checked whether the divine world was satisfied with the ritual activities. In that regard, they also show how there was a counter balance in case of failure.

The distinctive rhetoric style of the prophecies of Isaiah 40-66, their textual peculiarity and the character of the rhetoric structures that convey the messages of their speaker, leave no doubt as to the deliberate application of each component thereof. These prophecies demonstrate the rule that rather than an affluent wording, it is the way that leads the message (contrary to the argument that the Prophet's vocabulary is but a limited one). One of the rhetoric devices of Deutero- Isaiah makes use of an assembly or verse consisting of elements that are being dispersed within a short literary unit by allocation to the respective components of that unit. Condensing these elements and repeating them (or part of them) within a short unit makes for a resounding rhetoric measure, which allows readers-listeners to keep track of the message and "reacquaints" them with familiar elements that help them absorb that message. Thus these elements, adjoined and disjoined as the text unfolds, serve as "stepping stones" along which the message is driven. The discussion of this phenomenon is launched from the standpoint of acknowledgment of the great importance ascribed by the Prophet to the power of the single word and to the artistic devices that have word repetition as an underlying feature. The lecture will address the character of the words that have been chosen to serve as the repetitive element within the literary unit, their syntactic function, there position within the unit and the notion that they convey in accordance with the nature of the message as intended by the Prophet.

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One of the promises of machine-actionable linguistic data linked to biblical texts is the enablement of new types of language learning tools. At their simplest, such tools might involve adding the necessary scaffolding to enable students to read more text than they otherwise might by providing glosses for rarer words or help on idioms, irregular morphology, and unusual syntactic constructions. Such tools, however, are hardly novel and have long been manually produced in printed form. Equivalent electronic versions don't really take advantage of what's possible. In this paper I discuss an online reading environment for Ancient Greek, and the Greek New Testament in particular, that takes advantage of the availability of open, machine-actionable resources such as treebanks and morphological analyses for more automated and consistent generation of scaffolding but which goes a step further by being adaptive to an individual student's knowledge at a given point. Such knowledge need not be explicitly provided (although it can be: to align with a particular textbook, for example). It can also be built up implicitly from what the reader is requesting more information or help on: What words are they having trouble remembering the meaning of? What forms are they having trouble parsing? The model of student knowledge is then integrated with learning tools such as spaced-repetition flash cards and parsing drills with the results of these tools then feeding back into better adapting scaffolding for reading. The online reading environment will be open source and potentially applicable to a wide range of other language and texts provided the necessary linguistic data is available.

The Old Latin witness Codex Vindobonensis (La115) has been recently shown to contain many Old Greek readings, both in 1 and 2 Kings. Because of the kaige revision in 2 Kings, the Old Latin witnesses are especially important to the textual criticism of Septuagint, since they have often escaped the Hebraizing corrections that have been taken over to the whole Greek manuscript tradition. Often these Old Latin witnesses go hand in hand with the so-called Antiochian/Lucianic text (L), which has also often, albeit not always, escaped the kaige revision. However, La115 has a highly peculiar trait in 2 Kings 17: it has a transposition that is not found in any other witnesses of the Septuagint. The verses 15-19 are found before verse 9 and the verse 8 is completely lacking. Are these strange phenomena due to simply accidental mistakes in the transmission? Or does La115 alone preserve the Old Greek composition of the chapter? If so, what would be the repercussions of such an edition to the literary and redaction criticism of the chapter?

The oracle against Moab in Jeremiah 48 contains motifs and pronouncements that echo divine judgments made against Judah earlier in the book. These include threats of depopulation, exile, destruction (sheber), shaming of their deity, being made a laughingstock, and being shattered. Other motifs occur also in oracles against other nations, both in Jeremiah and in Isaiah, including the personification of specific cities as degraded women. This paper will explore the effects that these recurring phrases and motifs may have on the reader who identifies with Judah. Perhaps this approach can cast light on our understanding of the function of the OAN in the book of Jeremiah.

The use of typology in biblical literature is widespread, and its application to Jesus in the Gospels has long been a staple of Gospel interpretation. By alluding to correspondences between Jesus and an authoritative figure of the past, the evangelists are understood to be making specific christological claims. However, there are texts in which the typological identification of Jesus is explicit and direct—the public answers to the question of Jesus’ identity (Matt 16:13–20; Mark 8:27–30; Luke 9:18–21), and reports of Herod’s and others’ musings on the same question (Matt 14:1–2; Mark 6:14–16; Luke 9:7–9). In these texts, Jesus is not simply said to be like certain named figures, but to be those figures. The responses may reflect the far extent to which typological identification was applied in ancient Judaism, where the leader in question is thought to take on the very identity of the dead historical figure, rather than merely being identified as part of a larger classification, such as “prophet,” as one might expect in modern discourse. I propose that the reason for this has much to do with ancient Jewish perceptions of prophetic or revelatory authority. A strong typological identification functioned to bestow upon a given leader a derivative authority of the past figure. Some Jewish apocalyptic pseudepigrapha current in the first century might be understood as reflecting this very kind of authority. The questions regarding Jesus’ identity in the Gospels may thus be understood as questions regarding whose authoritative mantle Jesus bore. By rejecting other proposals in favor of identifying Jesus as the Messiah, the Petrine confession implies that Jesus’ authority is not dependent on that of an earlier figure but stands rather on direct divine sanction.

I published with Thomas Drew-Bear for the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara a catalogue of 605 votive offerings from two sanctuaries of Zeus in central Anatolia dating to the late Antonine period. As lithic expressions of gratitude to the gods, this large collection is a promising database for the investigation of the relationship between emotions and material objects. Since they were inscribed by rural inhabitants of quite modest means on scraps of waste marble from nearby quarries, these offerings also pertain to the socioeconomic classes that arguably formed the basis for the growth of the early Christian movement, at a time and place in which Christian groups were also increasing in visibility. Thus this corpus provides valuable insights into the affective world of the early Christians, in addition to the equally precious information they offer about the followers of ancient Mediterranean religions. I will use insights from cognitive archaeology, such as the concepts of agency and the chaîne opératoire, to explore elements of these votive offerings that evince expressive content: for the inscriptions, their addresses to the gods and their characterizations of human worshipers; for the iconograpy, items that show special investment of time, resources or skill, such as repetition of motifs, unexpected or unusual depictions, particularly intricate or detailed representations, and exceptional size. In order to give a diachronic context to these individual votive offerings, to show how they would have functioned in the affective life of worshippers over the courses of their lifetimes, I will turn to the well-known corpus of Beichtinschriften (“confessional inscriptions”), also from central Anatolia and dating to about the same time.

Paul’s claim, “I waged battle with beasts” (1 Cor 15:32; theriomachein), has long been a crux interpretum. Interpreters align themselves as supporters of either a literal or a figurative reading of “beasts,” the latter approach having strong recent support (e.g., beasts as worshippers of the goddess Artemis of Ephesus according to Morna D. Hooker, “Artemis of Ephesus,” JTS 2/64 [2013], and Daniel Frayer-Griggs, “The Beasts at Ephesus and the Cult of Artemis,” HTR 106 [2013]). Ancient Greek and Roman medical literature, neglected in the discussion of this text, offers new insights. In an important essay first published in 1990 (“La maladie comme agression dans la Collection hippocratique et la tragédie grecque: la maladie sauvage et dévorante;” translated into English: “Disease as Aggression in the Hippocratic Corpus and Greek Tragedy: Wild and Devouring Disease” [2012]), Jacques Jouanna demonstrates that The Hippocratic Corpus’s vocabulary of pathology preserves, in what is usually called its metaphorical expression, traces of an older representation of disease, similar to that used in tragedy. This depiction of disease describes an aggressive force that attacks the individual from the outside, penetrates the person, takes possession and, like a wild animal, can feed on the flesh. Drawing upon the observations of Jouanna, this paper argues that in 1 Cor 15:32 Paul neither refers to battles with actual animals or devotees of Artemis. Rather, Paul here employs common language to describe a terrible bout with a disease-illness, also mentioned in 2 Cor 1:8-10.

Moses is primarily thought of as the central Biblical character of the Jewish people and through his relationship with God and his role as the giver of Jewish law it is indeed difficult to separate him from this Jewish identity. However, during the time of the composition of the Qur’an Moses, or now Musa, achieves a great status within a new religious text, his stories being the most repeated from the Bible in the Qur’an. Yet, the depictions of Moses are not entirely the same between the Bible and the Qur’an and within the Qur’an itself as the Qur’an chooses to represent some stories over others, elaborating, editing and repeating. At this time relatively little work has been done in discovering the Qur’anic Moses, comparing him to the Biblical Moses and seeking why he experiences this revival of popularity within a new tradition; though there are suggestions Moses is used as a model for Muhammad or perhaps to gain legitimacy through the use of a previous tradition. I will use Biblical, Qur’anic and Midrashic sources focusing around the case study of the encounter of Moses with Pharaoh and his Magicians (Ex. 7:8-13 and ayas from suras 7, 20, 26, 27 and 28) to expose the differences in interpretation surrounding his character. The presentation will, due to time constraints, focus on a few elements such as making Moses a stronger and more active character, reducing the role of his brother Aaron and expanding the role of Pharaoh to make him more negative. It will also include connecting these changes to wider theological and cultural phenomena as well as historical events occurring up until the composition of the Qur’an. Through this I will explore how his character has changed and the reasons why this may have occurred.

Writing in his 1978 work The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem, Emil Fackenheim recalled ‘the Six-Day War, when biblical language suddenly came to life’. For Fackenheim and a range of other North American Jewish thinkers, the short conflict of 1967 stirred up new considerations of the Holocaust and the State of Israel that were often deeply intertwined with biblical interpretation. This paper will reflect on how their responses to the war balanced new political evaluations with ongoing religious anxieties, and appealed to the biblical as a means of linking modern European and Middle Eastern events with broader narratives of Jewish history. Drawing on Fackenheim, Eliezer Berkovits, Richard Rubenstein and Elie Wiesel, I will ultimately consider the relevance of their writings from this era for ongoing discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This paper is a selected survey of the philological research methods used in the biblical criticism in 19th and 20th century and developed by the scholars such as J. Wellhausen, H. Gunkel, D. Strauss, and R. Bultmann. While these biblical scholars were engaged in contemporary academic discourse of their own discipline with the main emphasis either on the Hebrew or Greek language, they realized the need of having expertise in the language(s) and the culture of the Slavic people. Despite the fact that their primary objective was outside the concerns of the Slavs, their work made a disproportional projection onto Slavic self perception. This presentation will examine the influence of biblical interpretations on the construction of the imagery of the Slavs.

First Thessalonians, as Paul’s first extant letter, presents our earliest insight into Paul’s teaching. A particularly apparent aspect of this message in 1 Thessalonians is Paul’s extensive eschatological teaching. One question that arises from these eschatological passages is: Did Paul distinguish between the parousia and the day of the Lord? In chapter 4, Paul informs the Thessalonians about details pertaining to the parousia of Jesus, while in chapter 5 he writes of how the day of the Lord “will come like a thief in the night.” John Barclay, in his 1993 article, ‘Conflict in Thessalonica’, argued that the Thessalonians misinterpreted the first epistle as teaching that the parousia and the day of the Lord were separate events. This misunderstanding, according to Barclay, was part of what prompted Paul to write 2 Thessalonians, in which he clarifies that the parousia and the day of the Lord are, in fact, the same event. While Barclay’s concern was mainly to provide a Sitz im Leben for 2 Thessalonians, his argument does require further consideration. Putting aside any evidence from 2 Thessalonians – as its authenticity is uncertain and beyond the scope of the current question – this paper will examine the possibility of the Thessalonians’ misinterpretation, and whether it is indeed a misinterpretation (as per Barclay) or instead a correct understanding of Paul’s eschatological teaching in 1 Thessalonians. Did Paul intend to present the parousia and day of the Lord as separate events? This paper primarily focuses on evidence from 1 Thessalonians, such as the differences in the descriptions of the parousia in chapter 4 and the day of the Lord in chapter 5. It will also consider Paul’s treatment of both parousia and the day of the Lord in his other epistles, particularly 1 and 2 Corinthians.

The text of 2 Kgs 23:4-16 offers a good testing ground for the practice of a joint analysis of both textual and literary criticism. The present paper will develop a comparative analysis of the readings of the Antioquean text (L), reflected also by OL and Arm versions, and those of the majority text (B) that transmits the text of the kaige-Theodotion recension. The main purpose of this analysis is to establish the OG text. As the Kaige text corresponds to a proto-MT Hebrew text, this comparative analysis already supposes a comparison between the LXX Vorlage and the MT. Special attention will be given to the Lucianic and OL reading in v. 11, as well as to the variants related to repetitions present both in LXX and MT. These repetitions reveal an intense editorial activity that gave origin to the two textual forms of LXX and MT. Finally, the results of this analysis will be compared with other proposals that deal with the literary formulation of this passage.

The history of the East European Orthodox community of the Byzantine Commonwealth — known as Slavia Orthodoxa — started with the creation of a new lingua sacra based on the linguistic features of the Bulgarian Slavonic dialect of Thessaloniki where the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius were born. The translation of the Gospels and (parts of) the Old Testament needed for liturgical purposes marked the next step in this groundbreaking undertaking. After the end of the Moravian mission (863-886) the Cyrillo-Methodian language resurrected on Bulgarian soil as official liturgical language and very soon spread out among the Eastern and Southern Slavs who converted into Christianity between the 9th and the 12th cc. In the next centuries Old Bulgarian (known as OCS) functioned as a common literary language of all Orthodox Slavs and of Romanian populations in Medieval Walachia and Moldova up to modern times, developing two regional revisions – Russian and Serbian. This is the language of OCS Bibles that served as a model for the entire literary production in the Middle Ages. The paper describes the opportunities which a unique electronic system provides for digitally processing Old Bulgarian (OCS) Bible-related texts. The system was designed for producing a web-based Historical Dictionary of Bulgarian. It includes a Diachronic Corpus of Bulgarian Language and the respective electronic tools. The Corpus contains more than 130 texts of proven Bulgarian origin from different genres of the 10-18th cc. and has its own specific software. The system includes three dictionaries: the digitized version of the Old Church Slavonic Dictionary, the Graeco-OCS dictionary and the software for the Historical Dictionary of Bulgarian. A search engine and a morphological annotator (tagger) allow every kind of digital processing of the OCS medieval texts included in the corpus. The work on the Historical Dictionary began with processing the Christian terms in OCS literature.

The paper focuses on some specific features of the chronographic recension of the Slavonic translation of 1-4 Kingdoms, included in the Chronohgraph of the Archive (Jewish Chronicle) and in Letopisets Elinskij I recension, making parallels with the concise paraphrase of the biblical books, part of the Slavonic Version of the Chronicle of George Synkellos. The various metaphrastic decisions of the early Slavonic translators in rendering the names of some Middle Eastern deities are discussed, and the process of translation is seen as a process of cultural code transfer. The quoted examples are a good illustration of the efforts of the medieval Slavonic men of letters in making their newly-Christianized audience familiar with the text of the Holy Scriptures on one hand, and on the other, in giving them clear points of reference regarding the ungodly practices mentioned in the Old Testament.

The paper will explore the reception history of The Story of Aphroditian about the Miracle that Happened in the Persian Land (NARRATIO APHRODITIANI, BHG 806, CANT 55) in the Slavonic cultural landscape. This work belongs to the voluminous corpus of medieval parabiblical literature circulating in the Byzantine Commonwealth. Translated for the first time from Greek into Church Slavonic probably in the 10th or 11th cent. Bulgaria, it is known from three Slavonic recensions. All three versions are based on a Greek Vorlage. The first recension, which dates back to the 10-11th cent. protograph made in Bulgaria, is preserved in three basic versions, which are important in the reconstruction of the literary history of the text. The second recension stems from the same Greek original, and was probably made in Constantinople or Athos from the mid-14th century. The third recension is also likely to come from mid-14th cent. Mount Athos, but independently of the other two recensions. It is a part of the Word of Nativity, attributed to John of Damascus and known through Greek copies from the 10th century, and represents a revised version of the Greek text of the work. The research is designed to track and present the history of the text from its origins, its translation into Slavonic and how it spread among Orthodox Slavs, offering a rich and meaningful comparison of these three recensions.

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The Old Testament personages in the dome of the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilyina Street in Novgorod painted by Theophanes the Greek in 1378 compose a specific (and best preserved) part of the decorative program of this fresco ensemble, significant for understanding of the hole ideological plan and describing the great Byzantine painter as an outstanding thinker of his time. Instead of the traditional figures of apostles or prophets, there can be seen a particular set of representatives of Old Testament humanity, including, along with the prophets, the patriarchs and the righteous – i.e. a row of those persons, who prepared a way for the Lord in His earthly Ministry (ISA. 40, 3). Special attention deserves the fact that Theophanes represented their monumental figures in laconic, but for the most part, non-standard gestures. As a means of expression of spatial and semantic relations, they are formed in a certain system, – a sort of optical code, by which the ideological intent of the fresco-decoration becomes more clear. This study intends to show that the motif chosen by the painter-philosopher for such a significant part of the fresco ensemble is obviously based on the question of how to express different aspects of God’s Divinity. Preference is given to those representatives of the Old Testament humanity which bear a special, individual stamp of the Divine likeness.

The presentation focuses on some visual-optical assumptions underlying biblical God-talk. Specifically, I will argue that the biblical notion of vision is an essentially reciprocal (if not always symmetric) relationship. “A sees B” means (when the most common term for seeing in Biblical Hebrew [???] is used) what we would describe – using an abstract term – as “A is in the presence of B” and vice versa. Post-biblical sources and Hebrew usage will be utilized to shed light on a classical problem of Biblical theology. Early rabbinic sources characterize God as “who sees but is not seen” – a Hellenized, speculative summary of the complex biblical legacy of God sighting. The change of the active verb ??? in the construct ??? ?? ??? ... to a passive form in the cultic terminology of the Bible in many places is probably predicated upon a similar thesis. Yet the Bible and early rabbinic sources preserved traditions conveying a pristine “optical” model which takes, even in the context of God sighting, seeing and being seen as two sides of the same coin. This optical reciprocity can, of course, be disturbed or broken by special circumstances such as the “cleft of the rock” (Ex. 33.22) or artificial devices such as the “lattice” (Cant. 2.9). As ancient Hebrew sources attest, the same essential optical reciprocity is implied not only between humans, but even between two inanimate objects in the presence of each other – using the same simple verb: ???. This partly metaphorical use of the verb is frequent in sources related to the Temple cult and cultic presence. The presentation surveys this ancient (Jewish) “theory of vision,” by a synoptic reading of relevant Biblical and early rabbinic sources, and explores its theological implications.

The New Finds of 1975 at St. Catherine’s at Sinai uncovered a family of three codices which are interesting both historically and textually. Hikmat Kashouh classified this as ‘Family B’. The oldest (c. 8th century) and most complete manuscript of this family is in two parts (Sinai ar. NF Perg. 8 and 28) and was dubbed Codex Sinaiticus Arabicus. The remaining two manuscripts are dated from the 9th or 10th centuries (Sinai ar. NF Perg. 24 and 44). His study of the text in Luke showed that this family contained many non-Byzantine readings. Kashouh suggested that the archetype of this family may possibly have been translated in pre-Islamic times. This study builds on Kashouh’s work and demonstrates that several other manuscripts from Sinai were originally part of these three codices. These disiecta membra add a great deal to our understanding of the history of these manuscripts. New software was developed for placing into a database extensive transcriptions of these manuscripts and comparing the texts across related families of Arabic Gospel manuscripts. It is shown that various parts of these codices represent a mixing of Family B with families which Kashouh designated A, C and D. The lectionary headings reveal a pre-‘Byzantine’ Jerusalemite liturgy similar to yet distinct from the liturgical calendar of Borg. Ar. 95 and Berlin Or. Oct. 1108 discussed by Baumstark. A preliminary study of the translation technique shows that Family B appears to be fairly literally translated from Greek but in a Syriac milieu and exhibits many ‘Middle Arabic’ features. A study of the text of John 1-10 is undertaken using data from Text und Textwert and it is shown that Family B agrees with many non-Byzantine variants, particularly with an ‘Alexandrian’ flavour.

In this paper I will argue that Paul and John – independently of one another – developed a theology of life from pre-Pauline traditions of faith. These pre-Pauline traditions are still identifiable in summaria of faith (and not in formula of faith as Kramer assumed). Paul and John independently refined the pre-Pauline kerygma of Jesus’ death and resurrection by interpreting it with life terminology. The results are the Pauline and Johannine summaria of faith, which are characteristic for each of them and in which they both communicate the value of Jesus’ death and resurrection for one’s own existence. Within these summaria it can be seen that both Paul and John argue for a theocentric theology of life which they both justify Christologically, i.e., in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The report presents some major features of the Slavonic manuscript collections, containing biblical texts from the 11th to 19th century, with special attention to the largest collection of Bulgarian manuscript heritage stored at the National Library "St. Cyril and Methodius". This paper provides an overview of the main types of scientific literature and bibliographical references, reflecting the literary heritage. The electronic catalog of the Bulgarian National Library -- COBISS -- and the activities involved in creating the bibliographic descriptions of the Slavonic manuscripts in it will be presented.

Final apocalypse in the book of Daniel is mostly perceived as a uniform text that has been through relatively limited editorial processes. The text seems very uniform and the composition is controlled and even sophisticated. The evolution of this composition is far more complex than often perceived. The text has gone through several stages of revision and rewriting. During this process the whole literary genre of the text has changed from prophetic literature to apocalypse. - In which the prediction of the nations has become the key content of the composition. The existing composition shows only clues of the different stages and layers of the composition. The aim of this presentation is to investigate these stages or layers of the final apocalypse in the Book of Daniel and to make some proposals of the focal points of the text in the different stages of the composition. The second question is the role of the prophecy of the nations and its origin. This part of the text is obviously similar to the Mesopotamian counterparts but the nature of the connection has been characterized in different ways. The hypothesis of these texts being the source material for this part of the composition does not seem probable. There are other reasons for these textual similarities and these similarities play a significant role in the process of the development of the literary genre apocalypse and therefore are essential part for this presentation as well.

The analysis of the oracular language used by the different authors who wrote the Sibylline Oracles has been the subject of several studies that have highlighted, as its main feature, the frequent reference to dramatic historical events due to the will of God as a direct consequence of human behavior. It is a composite and heterogeneous work attributed to Jewish and Christian authors who used the authority of the pagan Sibyl to express, especially for propaganda, their theological positions with particular reference to issues related to the messianic hope and to the eschatological renewal. The work consists of twelve books written over a period between the second century B.C. and the seventh century A.D., nevertheless it appears, in its present form, as a corpus - entirely written in Greek hexameters – that imitates a Pagan literary genre in order to present as Jewish and Christian prophecies some historical events that have already happened. Starting from this peculiarity, although each book has its own autonomy that must be always taken into consideration in analysing the language and the figurative lexicon, this paper will examine the entire terminology referred to colors in the Sibylline Oracles to determine its specific function in the economy of each single narrative. The presence of colors, although it is not particularly abundant, is attested in almost all the books of the corpus and in most cases it has a symbolic value, while more rarely performs a mere descriptive function...

The Masoretic accents of the Hebrew Bible are a very intriguing feature. While the matter has been subject to some extensive studies (Wickes 1881; 1887; Price 1990) and their importance as prosodic markers has recently become evident (Dresher 1994; 2013; Lode 1994), they are not widely used in interpreting the Hebrew Bible. And even when they are used, a broader framework for interpreting the accents and their positioning is mostly lacking. One of the reasons for this may be the fact that the rules governing the placement of these accents are very elaborate. In a field thus complicated, an extensive database-oriented analysis may well provide the much needed framework. The Masoretic accents do not only connect or disconnect individual words, by doing so they also create prosodic units which in turn constitute the verse. These units are delimited by the so called ‘stronger’ accents silluq, atnah, zaqeph, segolta and rebia. In order to better understand the Masoretic accentual system, one needs to first assess the interrelations between these units and find out what constructions are theoretically possible, unlikely or impossible. Only then one has the proper framework to go one step down to the individual accents on every word and analyse these subsequently, thus enabling a sound foundation for any exegetical interpretation of these accents. This presentation will present the results of the data-analysis of these intermediate accent units (between the verse and the word level) and some implications of these constructions will be shown. These units will eventually be incorporated into the SHEBANQ database for public access.

In the wake of the Syrian war and the destruction of historical sites in Syria and Iraq by Islamic State, numerous institutions in Europe and the United States hosted exhibitions about the ancient city of Palmyra. Sometimes explicitly coined as a protest against the destruction of cultural heritage by ‘barbarian’ religious fanatics, these exhibitions tend to focus on the history of the Palmyra from its flouring in the Roman period to its rediscovery by Europeans in the 17th century, using drawings and pictures from the pre- and postcolonial period. Such exhibitions inevitably raise questions about the postcolonial legacy and the role of Western powers in the current conflict, and involve choices concerning the balance between, on the one hand, attention for history and monuments and, on other hand, human suffering in an ongoing war. This paper focuses on the exhibition ‘Journeys to Tadmor: history and cultural heritage in Palmyra and the Middle East’ at Bryggens Museum in Bergen, Norway (30 June - 17 September). The exhibition aims to communicate the outcomes of a historical research project and to tell the history of Palmyra up to the destructions of its monuments in 2015 and 2017. I discuss some of the choices made in the presentation of the historical material, the potential of modern art to address destruction of historical heritage in a different manner, and present a first analysis of vistor responses.

In AD 213/14 the emperor Caracalla travelled to the city of Pergamum in order to seek healing from the god Asclepius. Two sources, Cassius Dio and Herodian, describe this event and state that the reason why the emperor undertook this sacred travel was because he was sick not only in body but also in mind. Caracalla dreamt that he was being pursued by his father and brother who were intent on killing him in revenge for the fact that he had had them murdered. He turned to Asclepius whom he hoped could cure him of both his physical and spiritual maladies. The emperor’s movements in Pergamum are well documented on a series of medallions which were struck to commemorate the event. This paper will examine how these various sources, both literary and numismatic, present the search for healing undertaken by Caracalla. It will explore how in the literary sources there is a moral element involved, namely the repercussions for the murder of both Caracalla’s brother and father, but that the numismatic sources have a different focus, showing the various steps a supplicant should undertake and illustrating how this imperial visit brought honour and prestige to the city. This paper will lastly show how the imperial supplication of Asclepius had lasting effects upon the various cults of Asclepius in Asia Minor as various cities decided to revive or recreate cults to this god.

One of the largely untapped sources on the background of the Aramean and Jewish colonies in Syene and Elephantine is the Amherst papyrus. Written in the Demotic script, it contains a rich collection of religious and historical texts brought to Egypt by migrant communities from Babylonia, Syria, and Samaria. They lived in close vicinity to each other in the deep south of Egypt. Their temples symbolized their distinct identities: Nabu and Banit (=Nanay); Bethel and the Queen of Heaven (=Anat); and Yaho (plus various subordinate deities). The Amherst papyrus attests both to their distinct religious heritage, as well as to the way in which their traditions impacted on one another. The paper will demonstrate the significance of the papyrus for the understanding of the origins and beliefs of the Arameans and Jews in Persian Egypt.

The oeuvre of the American film writer, director and producer, Terrance Malick has consistently traced themes related to creation and natural phenomena. Nowhere is it quite as spectacularly clear as in the critically acclaimed and 2011 Palme d'Or winner The Tree of Life. The film explores human pain and suffering in the microcosm as it is set against the grand notions of the meaning of life and the creation of the world. The paper traces the reception of Biblical creation themes and the movement of the Job narrative within the film, as it sets the stage for a complex coming of age story and a dramatic negotiation of masculinity construction. Malick sets up a grand canvas in order to engage with the fragile beauty of human fragility and natural wonder. The paper aims at exploring alternative imaginings of what it means to be a man when the ‘way of nature’ is delicately juxtaposed ‘with the way of grace’.

Arthur Winnington Ingram, bishop of London and chaplain of the London Rifle Brigade and the London Royal Naval Volunteers during World War 1 is very explicit in a speech in 1914 for the bereaved families of fallen soldiers by characterizing the victims as martyrs and linking them to Stephen, the proto-martyr of the Church (Acts 7): “You have lost your boys, but what are they? Martyrs–martyrs as really as St Stephen was a martyr …” This paper will discuss a few case studies concerning the commemoration of German and British WW1 soldiers and argue that these soldiers were commemorated more indirectly than explicitly as martyrs by connecting them to biblical passages that were reinterpreted through the lens of martyrdom.

In Genesis 28: 10-22 the noun sullam is commonly understood as a ladder (“Jacob’s ladder”) that is a piece of equipment set up—or according to v. 12, set down from heaven— to be used for the messengers of God for climbing up and down. This word is a hapax logoumenon, morphologically built from the root s-l-l combined with the final consonant m that possibly denotes an ancient accusative form. The very same root s-l-l occurs in three other lexemes: the verb salal and the nouns mesilla and solela. A cognitive semantic study of these terms is the topic of this paper, which stretches from lexicography to metaphor theory and archaeology, and ends up in a study of the cognitive domains in which these spatial terms figure in the Hebrew Bible. Eventually this will lead allow to develop a completely different view of what Jacob might have seen at night in Bethel, at least according to Genesis 28: 12.

After a description of the son and his position above the angels, the homilist concludes the opening section of his sermon with the enigmatic phrase in Heb 1:14 “are not angels just ministering spirits for those about to receive salvation?” In 9:28 the homilist suggests that Jesus bore the sins of many (not all) and that Jesus will return for those who eagerly await him. It is clear from these two statements that at least two groups exist: those who are to receive salvation and those who are not. Yet it is not simply these two statements by which in-group status is created. Throughout the argument the homilist highlights specific actions which create social identity within the audience. Likewise, within the exhortations creating in-group social identity, the homilist intersperses warnings against falling away from the in-group. These warning passages are generally interpreted as apostasy or a return to Judaism, with the ramifications being eschatological in nature. I propose, however, a new interpretation of the warnings.To that end, I will suggest that the warnings are directed at losing social identity, and the eschatological references within the epistle should be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally. If the group has faced persecutions, and may face them in the form of shedding blood (Heb 12:4), then social identity as a form of hegemonic resistance is appropriate. This presents an interpretation which suggests that social identity was paramount in the face of imperial hegemony. Therefore, I will argue the salient points of the epistle which establish in-group social identity, highlight the hegemonic factors possibly at play in the homilist’s argument which show the importance of in-group social identity, and finally propose the way in which the warning passages present punishment in the form of loss of in-group status.

The aim of this paper is to offer a reflection upon the techniques of the early Christian literarization of Jesus' sayings, that is of the transfer of an orally elaborated religious memory into a literary form trying to highlight a possible Sitz im Leben of this process. The first aspect of my analysis is trying to overcome two major obstacles: the lack of documents at our disposal and the fact that Jesus' teaching in first-century Palestine was probably carried on in Aramaic, while the sources that we have – in particular the synoptic gospels – are written in Greek. It is now necessary to contextualize the passage from an oral to a written form, especially if we take the specificity of the New Testament literature into account. I then consider a synopsis to Mk 4:21-32, where there is a decontextualized section of loghia. Here the Matthean and Lucan redactions make use of the same modalities they employ to transpose the tradition of Q. In this section it would be possible to document an early stage of literary transcription of the Lord's sayings. Should this hypothesis appear to be well founded, the complete fixing of those Jesus' loghia should be placed between Mark's redaction and those of Matthew and Luke. While illustrating the importance of this synoptic core, particular attention is given to the linguistic and stylistic elements that are useful in determining the matrix of these written sections. Themes: 1 or 2.

The Hebrew Bible features numerous animals: some of them are just animals (e.g., the sheep and oxen that Abimelech gives to Abraham in Genesis 20), others can talk (e.g., Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22), and still others are used metaphorically (e.g., the roaring lion God in Hosea 11:10). All of these animals have habitats, which are typically situated outside human dwellings and are located in the chaotic nature surrounding the city or town. Despite this generally accepted narratological and conceptual division, the realms of human and animal space sometimes intertwine in the Hebrew Bible. In this paper, I will focus in particular on the presence of animals in biblical cityscapes. Relying on insights from stylistic and critical-spatial research, this paper aims to unravel the position of animals in biblical cities, in terms of their literal, metaphorical, and functional contribution to the cityscapes in which they appear. Starting with an overview of animals appearing in biblical cities, I will indicate when and how the text shifts between animals as Firstspace entities (Soja 1996), originating and residing in the physical world of the biblical tales, and animals as Secondspace creatures, representing things and ideas other than beasts. The paper will examine the role of these animals in the Bible’s storytelling, that is, their role in producing the space of the city (Thirdspace). The analysis will offer insight into the stylistic-spatial production achieved by animals in particular and into the space-producing capacities of texts and language in general, both of which will enhance our understanding of the conceptualization of cities in the Hebrew Bible.

In Matthew 15:1-20, Jesus responds to the accusation made by the Pharisees and the scribes that his disciples do not observe the tradition of hand-washing (?? ??? ??pt??ta? t?? ?e??a? ?ta? ??t?? ?s???s??), because they do not wash their hands before they eat bread. In this story of dispute, two ideas are interwoven, namely the locus of impurity (external or internal) and the manmade tradition of the elders (? pa??d?s?? t?? p?esß?t????) versus the Word of God (? ????? t?? Te??). The Pharisees are depicted as obsessed with external manmade rules to ensure purity, while Jesus is concerned with inner purity based on God’s Word. In this paper, the story is interpreted on two levels. The first level describes the dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees. The second level explores the tension the Matthean community experienced in their encounter with Pharisean Judaism of their day – the Judaism of the dual Torah. The paper considers which aspect of the Torah is challenged by Matthew’s Jesus, and what he considers to be the true meaning of the Law. It is proposed that Matthew uses this story to define and maintain the identity and values of his community over and against that of the Pharisees and their successors. Devices Matthew uses to define the identity and required morality for his community, are identified. Such devices demonstrate how a community’s values can influence the identity and ethics of a society.

In the New Testament text of James, the poor and the rich constitute pivotal socio-economic markers in a markedly political discourse (1:9–11; 2:3–7 (15–16); 5:1–6, 7–11). Suggesting that an honourable (2:7) believer in God had to be poor, the text also exhorts the Jesus followers to fulfil the royal (2:8) law of liberty (2:13) which in the text’s religious context means complete dedication to God. Being poor equates, amongst others, to be exalted, being considered pious, the insiders and the ones chosen by God (2:5); in contrast, the rich are accused of being oppressors (2:6), dishonourable (2:6) and blasphemous (2:7). In the 1st century Greek and Roman context, honour was generally not connected to poverty, but aligned rather with virtue, purity and connected to masculinity. The dangers inherent to juxtaposing poverty and honour is exacerbated, becoming deadly, when the notions of poverty and honour is viewed outside a 1st century mind-frame. What does this text communicate to millions of South Africans trapped in the violent cycle of poverty (“symbolic violence”, Bourdieu) – especially since poverty is intersected by categories such as gender, race and class, as well, reaching beyond material want, to also include numerous socially constructed positions dependent on especially gender configurations. This paper investigates James 2:1-13 by making use of Bourdieu’s notions of economic and social capital; secondly, scrutinizes the text for hidden strategies of masculine domination; and, thirdly considers the possible contribution of an ancient authoritative text for contemporary discourse of gendered poverty in South Africa.

Two much disputed examples from the Books of Kings used in the first speech of Lukan Jesus (Luke 4.18-27) need a careful study as links between their respective Old Testament contexts on the one hand, and some important situations in the later Christian story told by Luke, on the other hand. Some activities of both Elijah and Elisha referred to in the Old Testament contexts are to be taken into consideration also if they are not mentioned by Lukan Jesus explicitly. Moreover, Elisha is not only a disciple of Elijah as Paul is one of Jesus, even more important is probably the Damascene context of the OT episode alluded to in Acts 9.10-19 through the prediction in Luke 4.27. The first example seems to refer also to a pericope of Mark (7.24-30) and especially its Matthean parallel (15.21-28), which is omitted in the Gospel of Luke but is used on a more appropriate place in the Book of Acts.

During the last decade we have seen an increased interest in the Arabic versions of the Bible. Although much remains to be done, there is new wind in the field, as a number of research projects, among them the DFG-Dip Project Biblia Arabica, show. The field is rapidly changing, with a good number of critical-editions and monographs on particulars books on their way. Based on my observations that result from years of sifting through manuscript collections and as a member of Biblia Arabica, I shall in my contribution reflect on what has been achieved over the last years and future directions in research.

In his work on caesaropapism in Byzantium, the historian Gilbert Dagron wrote that one ought to read the Byzantine exegetes and historians in order to understand that the Byzantines could, without much effort, find in the Old Testament not only analogies with the current moment and the history of the Byzantine Empire, but also a narrative arc to explain and interpret contemporary events. Therefore, in Byzantine histories, events are understood, to a degree, as an extension of the Bible story. In the chronicles of Rus, composed by churchmen and monks of the Byzantinised Church of Rus, a compound logic based around a repertory of Biblical rhetorical themes and Biblical types along with a framework for understanding and representing reality, allows for a series of narrative strategies that legitimise certain types of political action while excluding others. This is certainly the case in the evolution of the rhetorical framing of succession and inauguration ritual and ceremony in Rus. What begins as a fairly banal ceremony of enthronement is increasingly endowed with a veterotestamentary and neotestamentary rhetorical framework that, to some degree, brings the Rus closer to general medieval models of successorial rites wherein each successor is both an heir and a founder of the dynasty. This paper will examine several examples from the Chronicle of Vladimir-Suzdal (one of the lesser-known chronicles of Rus) and, to a lesser degree, the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle in order to discuss the framing of succession based on Biblical parallels, the provenance and uses of these parallels, and the extension of these parallels to iconography, for example by cycles illustrating dynastic principles (King David or King Solomon and the Tree of Jesse)...

When Cyrus conquered Babylonia in 539 BC, he did not only add a huge territory to his growing empire, but also a highly multi-ethnic populace. In previous decades, especially due to Nebuchadnezzar II’s politics of deportation, the south-eastern part of Mesopotamia had become a multi-lingual region where dozens of non-native communities had been settled to live in exile under Babylonian rule. This region now assumed critical strategic importance in the formation of the Persian Empire, both as a corridor between three major centres of rule (Elam, Persia, Babylonia) and as a source of labour and agricultural income. How did the Empire control and exploit this region? This paper will look specifically at the role of cuneiform literacy in these efforts. In recent years, several exilic communities of south-eastern Mesopotamia have become known to us through the “archive of Yahudu” — an archive of c. 250 cuneiform tablets recording financial transactions by and involving communities of forced migrants bound to the state through a system of land-allotments and labour obligations. These records allow us for the first time to study the transition of these communities from Babylonian to Persian rule, and to map the changing administrative structures that were put in place by the Persian Empire better to control and exploit their productivity. On a more fundamental level, we need to ask why and by whom this documentation was produced, and why in an area where Aramaic was the principal means of oral communication among a multi-lingual population, and in an empire that used Aramaic as the language of imperial administration, Babylonian cuneiform was, and continued to be, used to record legal transactions in a politically and economically highly sensitive region.

Harmonization processes within Biblical texts appears as a transfer from a giving text to a receiving text. These transmission processes take place within redacational and texthistorical processes. Following these processes we discover the motivic and semantic relations between text. This paper will focus on semantic relations between texts. While in textcritical studies the coincidence of terms is mostly interpreted as a later development in textual history, redaction critical investigations read semantic congruence as sign of cohesion in matter of redactional layering assuming that an author or a so-called Theological school uses command a coherent linguistic usage. This paradigm of redaction criticism will be questioned by pointing to the so-called Priestly language which appears in the Book of Ezekiel and the Pentateuch source P.

The humourous Testament of Abraham (2nd-4th century CE) depicts the last days of the life of the biblical patriarch Abraham. The remarkable events described begin with a visit from the Archangel Michael to notify Abraham, as a matter of courtesy, that his life is about to end. After giving the messenger of the Most High the slip several times, Abraham agrees to be taken up to heaven, where God instructs Michael to show him “all things” and that Michael should follow Abraham’s instructions concerning the meting out of punishments for mortal beings. Abraham’s decisions do not turn out to be models of divine best practice. Abraham unleashes divine retribution upon a number of people before God notifies him that his services are no longer required: Abraham “has no compassion on sinners,” God determines. This paper will explore the modes of divine and human justice portrayed in this curious text, and consider the significance of the comedic characterization of Abraham as a vehicle for theological reflection on judgement in antiquity.

In the past, scholars associated purity practices primarily with the Temple cult since ritual purity was required of the participants. With the discovery of a large number of miqva’ot (about 70) in Galilee and the wide spread of chalkstone vessels, which were considered impermeable to impurity, this view has changed. Instead for being part of rituals in connection to temple services, purity practices is now considered part of common Judaism. across the land. About 850 miqwa’ot have been discovered in Palestine, mostly dating from the late Second Temple Period, beginning about 100 BCE. The use of miqva’ot declined in the second century CE. My paper will first give a brief survey of the findings of miqva’ot in Galilee, based particularly on the studies by Yonatan Adler and Rick Bonnie. I will examine what the archaeological material can tell us about the popularity of such water installations. Second, from a ritual studies perspective, I will analyse why the purification practices changed dramatically at this time, from purifying in “living water,” i.e., fresh, natural water, to immersing in still water in manmade structures. I will also discuss in what ways ritual studies may help explain the sudden popularity of the miqva’ot among the Jewish population towards the end of Second Temple Period. My analysis will be informed by relevant Jewish and early Christian texts, in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospels.

Biblical chronology in its complexity and frequent lack of consistency is an intriguing – and at times quite maddening – field of research. Its perplexing potential has not only been felt by modern scholars but left its traces in the history of exegesis as well as in the literary and textual history of the Hebrew Bible itself. When it comes to dates and numbers textual witnesses display a wide array of textual variants, Chronicles often transmits other figures then Samuel/Kings etc. The paper will focus on one section of chronological data, namely the synchronistic accession dates and regnal years which are recorded in the regnal formulae of the Book of Kings. In this case Hebrew and Greek textual witnesses present diverging chronological systems while it remains difficult to determine which numbers are „original“ and which result from secondary harmonizations. By looking at the way chronological data are organized in selected textual witnesses a variety approaches in dealing with chronological inconsistencies as well as some differing techniques of harmonization will be presented. In addition the paper shall discuss a test case. It will show how an attempt to straighten out a literary inconsistency – namely the alleged lack of an introductory formula for Omri – resulted in a chronological confusion that led to the development of different chronological systems in the Greek textual tradition.

The Vetus Latina, or “Old Latin Bible,” comprises a diverse collection of Latin biblical texts used by Christian churches probably from the second century on. The Old Latin Bible encompasses all unauthorized versions of the Bible translated into Latin. These Old Latin manuscripts reflect the early struggle for a ‘proper’ understanding of biblical texts, which is interesting for the healing stories of ‘female patients’ like Peter’s mother in law who suffers from high fever, the woman with the issue of blood, or the bent woman. I am going to show that in parallel with the spread of medical knowledge beyond medical circles, there arise medical designations which are similar or strikingly different from those current in the medical discourse and are taken up in the manuscripts found and related to the so-called “African” text that is close to Cyprian differently than in the so-called European text tradition. While the European text uses unusual Latin words that might be regarded as vulgarisms and are similar to other non-medical authors like Plautus or Sallust, the African text uses instead medical expressions which are similar to those in the discourses of medical authors.

The book of Job challenges the retribution principle, although the arguments of Job’s friends credit it with supreme power and authority. The beginning of the book seems to build its presentation of Job on the retribution principle (Job 1:1-5) only to assert in the following verses (Job 1:6-12) that it does not apply to the development of the subsequent story. In light of this opening the reader may engage different parts of the book by reflecting on the relevance of the retribution principle. Regardless of this reflection one aspect seems to be clearly established: the supremacy of the retribution is seriously shattered or even abandoned. In contrast, a first reading of the final chapter of the book seems to bring the story to a closure by stating “All is well that ends well”. Do the final verses simply return to a straightforward or naïve application of the retribution principle? The paper discusses various interpretations of Job 42 and its relationship to the rest of the book. In particular, it seeks to describe how Job 42:10-12 bring various threads of the book together (for example, divine initiative and power, Job’s relationship to his friends, Job’s loss of his family and fortune), take up the retribution principle and describe its assignment in Job’s world by holding various aspects and perspectives in tension.

Thirty years ago, in 1987, the South African biblical scholar Itumeleng Mosala completed his PhD work on Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa (which was published in 1989). Mosala was the first Black theologian from either the USA or South Africa to argue that the Bible was intrinsically a site of class struggle. Mosala vigorously rejected the analysis of his Black theology comrades who argued that biblical interpretation was the primary site of struggle. For Mosala it was the Bible itself. Central to Mosala's argument was a recognition of the value of redaction criticism, which he extended to include an ideological recognition of the class sectors engaged in ideological contestation. While historical-critical redaction criticism provided Mosala with an entry point into the ideological 'layeredness' of biblical text, it was Marxist sociological categories, particular notions of mode of production, that gave Mosala resources with which to assign a particular class identity to a particular redacted 'voice'. At the time Mosala's work was innovative within both Black theology and biblical scholarship. In this paper I reflect on Mosala's contribution and its significance thirty years later, particularly in the South African context. My analytical retrospective thirty years on will consider Mosala's use of Marxist concepts, particularly 'mode of production', his understanding of the relationship between biblical text and interpretive context, and his 'prophetic' warnings about working with an ideologically uncontested 'Bible'.

For two hundred years, appeals to a Pauline literary style have functioned as a rhetorical trump card in debates about the authenticity of particular Pauline texts. In the computer age, analyses of authorial style have only seemed to make this approach more secure. A meta-critique of this prevailing mode is now needed. Computer-assisted tests of authorship over the past half century have resulted in differing numbers of genuine Pauline letters: 13, 12, 11, 10, 8, 7, 6, and 4. These varied results are an indication of the limitations of the approach and expose in some cases the theological proclivities of particular scholars who begin with some idea of which texts are authentic from the get-go. This paper describes the most recent developments in computational stylistics in relation to authorship attribution and assesses which of them hold the most promise for helping to uncover Paul’s linguistic fingerprint. Developments in tests (Burrows’ Delta), tools (Juola’s GJAAP and the Computational Stylistics Group’s stylo), and protocols have only occasionally tried to account for the kinds of problems involved in analyzing short, co-authored texts that make use of amanuenses and have only come down to us in interpolated form. Several recent tools developed by the Computational Stylistics Group in Krakow, Poland, have tried to demarcate separate hands, for instance, in a multi-authored text as well as an amanuensis’ contribution to a text. These are the kinds of tests that would be required for making arguments about a Pauline literary style. Yet even these may provide little by way of convincing results inasmuch as the sample sizes from the Pauline epistles are, in general, smaller than what is needed for making these kinds of authorial assessments from ancient Greek literature.

“Idolatry” is the primary lens through which Gentile religion is interpreted in the New Testament, when used in its primary sense of misdirected worship, that is, worship of ‘other gods’. There is a secondary sense, according to which greed is idolatry. A certain understanding of greed functioning as idolatry in that it involves seeking certain existential goods (security, power, felicity) through wealth underlies the idea, frequently encountered in Christian ethics and popular literature, that such things as money, work, family, politics, and sex function as “idols” in the lives of Christians, and that biblical material on idolatry can easily be transferred to discussion of these concepts. This paper seeks to challenge this construal of “greed as idolatry”, since “idolater” and “idolatry” are terms applied predominantly to outsiders in the New Testament, as in the Septuagint and other parabiblical literature. Furthermore critique of idolatry in the biblical tradition tends to pertain to misidentification of idols as gods, and consequent moral corruption. Critique of idols as unable to deliver on their promises of security or other existential goods is a corollary of the assertion that they are not really gods, and so is subsidiary to the primary sense of wrongly-directed worship. For this reason, it will be argued that reception and application of the biblical material on idolatry is better directed in the more specific sense of misdirected worship rather than as an underlying category for all ethical critique.

Courtier tales are a popular genre in both Northwest-Semitic and Egyptian literature in the second and first millennia BCE. The paper focuses on Aramaic (primarily Ahiqar) and Demotic literature, that show certain common themes, e.g. the repeated reference to the Assyrian court. Considering the transmission history of said material, an interaction of Aramaic and Demotic literature is probable. Beyond that, the paper poses the question if those features can be interpreted as shared literary strategies or whether they reflect mere historical memories.

The Qur'an mentions a number of prophets familiar from biblical tradition, both the Jewish "Old" Testament, and the Christian "New" Testament. These qur'anic mentions range from detailed narratives to brief allusions. When discussing "prophet(s)", the Qur'an employs the singular form (nabiyy), as well as two plural forms: the broken Arabic plural (anbiya') and the common Semitic plural (nabiyyun). This paper explores the qur'anic usage of both of these plural forms, asking whether they might shed light on the biblical text known to Jewish and/or Christian communities in its milieu.

In the research on the formation of the “Book” of Psalms, one of the most fundamental aspects rec­ognized when reconstructing earlier collections is the presence of superscriptions in general, and “author” designations in particular. By observing that the Masoretic collection contain long se­quences of psalms attributed to similar “authors,” scholars have long argued that this indicates that these sequences were once independent collections. However, most scholars would, at the same time, acknowledge that Davidic “author” designations have been added over a long period of time.So put, a possible con?ict is revealed, and this is the starting point for the current paper. By revisiting the Davidic superscriptions in the earliest artifacts (the Dead Sea “psalms” scrolls) andin two major textual traditions (the MT and LXX “Books” of Psalms respectively), clear traces of continuous addition of Davidic “author” designations are to be found, and hence, I question their value in demarcating earlier collections of psalms. If correct, this does, however, open up for newpossibilities of understanding their addition. Apart from the fact that a solution could be suggested for the peculiar occurrence of a Davidic “author” designation in MT Ps 86, an interesting new light isshed upon the conceptualization of psalmody in late Second Temple times. In fact, when looking at the Dead Sea scrolls, the way psalms are attributed could indicate something of their status. Similar­ly, the way some psalms seems to deliberately avoid mentioning David in a superscription could pro­vide insight in the way they were valued. Drawing out some consequences of these observations, I suggest new ways forward in the discussion of not only the MT “Book” of Psalms and the Dead Sea“psalms” scrolls, but also the Davidic psalms attested in 11Q11 and an obscure superscription at­tached to a psalm in 4Q381 24 4.

It is hard to miss the striking parallels between Genesis 1 and Woman Wisdom’s rehearsal of creation in Proverbs 8:22-31, as she claims participation in the creative process. Both creation accounts describe water as the initial element at the beginning of creation. These connections between women and water extend beyond the biblical text as many have noted how the Bible’s creation stories resonate with the goddess Tiamat, her relatedness to water and her participation in Mesopotamian creation myths. This paper explores the potential implications for reading a conflation of women, water, and wisdom in the ancient world. In terms of the biblical wisdom texts, Proverbs 8:22-31, 5:15-20 and other select verses from the book of Proverbs and Song of Songs contain flowing water with implicit and explicit connections to women. Similar connections between water and women appear in Old Babylonian texts. Most notably, scholars have struggled with the phrase “beneath straw runs water,” arguing that it might mean “things are not what they seem” or that danger is apparent. While water relates to women’s relationship to mythic conceptions of creation and social institutions of marriage, the conflation of women and water also reveal women’s physical experiences of childbirth and orgasm. Careful attention to water imagery in the biblical texts divulges erotic and sexual undertones, thus providing potential for the celebration of women’s sexuality. However, the fusion illuminates a complicated (and dichotomous) male perspective in the ancient world, wherein women and their waters represent guidance and trickery, brides and harlotry, desire and destruction. Thus, the conflation of water, women and wisdom also sheds light on the so-called “enigmatic” phrase in the Old Babylonian texts, bringing awareness to gendered implications that scholars have failed to underscore.

At the outset of the book of Acts, Luke’s narration of Jesus’ ascension poses a pressing question for followers of his time: does Jesus’ physical departure into heaven imply his absence on earth? Hans Conzelmann famously answered this question with a resounding “yes.” Jesus is not only physically absent on earth after his ascension, but he is also inactive. The Holy Spirit now takes Jesus’ place, for Acts as a whole is dominated by an absentee Christology. Since Conzelmann, however, an increasing number of New Testament scholars have problematized this widely influential view. Jesus may be primarily located in heaven after his ascension, but his activity and presence on earth can still be discerned throughout the pages of Acts. My paper follows in the footsteps of such approaches, but maintains that an analysis of Jewish scriptural representations of space and divine embodiment reveals an otherwise overlooked element of the ascended Jesus’ earthly activity. As Hebrew Bible scholars such as Benjamin Sommers and Mark Smith have shown, Jewish scriptural texts testify to the multiplicity of God’s “bodies” that are located both on earth and in heaven. Yet even though some scriptural texts primarily locate this embodied God in heaven, this does not mean that God’s presence is absent on earth. A similar principle, I argue, applies in Luke’s depiction of the ascended Jesus. Luke depicts the ascended Jesus as a physical being who is primarily located in heaven, but his physicality extends to and influences the earthly realm. Indeed, Jesus’ heavenly presence has a materiality that exists in—and has effects on—the spaces people inhabit in Acts.

Bible Online Learner is a learning technology developed to drive Hebrew language learning through the corpus of the Eep Talstra Center for Bible and Computer. We are developing a web-application that can persuade learners to practice Hebrew grammar more effectively, with more fun and sufficient efficiency. Powerful flow in learning requires instant feedback and continuous assessment as well as adaption to the appropriate context of content, users, institutions and work-spaces. To achieve this, Bible OL is designed to enhance learner-tailored practice and self-monitored assessment. Delivering the teacher with the text, the interface offers learning from, with and in a corpus: 1. LEARNING FROM: At the outset learners are driven by the text display of Bible OL into exploring the text. This triggers their curiosity into being able to parse the forms of the text and understand the syntactic basis for an interpretation. 2. LEARNING WITH: As learners observe the forms, they are eventually persuaded to want to maser the morphology and vocabulary. Bible OL enhances unlimited practice with instant feedback, self-monitoring and grading. 3. LEARNING IN: We now design online resources on morphological, lexical and syntactic information in order to scaffold the learning process. Ultimately, we want learners to be able to immerse themselves into the cultural and contextual world of the texts. The project is now scaling-up to global use by offering an interface localized into English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Danish. During 2017, we are improving on online learning processes and seeking new projects and collaboration.

The Bible nourished some hopes related to the state and to the king. It was expressed in the royal and messianic ideology. However, the political practice resulted in disappointment and criticisms, whence the prophetic condemnations of bad kings and negative interpretations of the kingship and state power (Judges 9; 1 Samuel 8-12). Pentateuch put the law above politics (Deut 17). The foreign empires ruling over Israel also provoked various responses, from submission to resistance. The New Testament accepted the Roman empire (Mark 12 on taxation, authority from God in Romans 13). On the other hand, we meet either a distance towards the Roman state and rulers, or even their condemnations (Rev 13-19). The state as institution is viewed critically. Even if it has a lawful authority, both instituted and limited by God and his law, it has also serious vices (godlessness, violence, high taxes).

“We become what we behold” is a simple phrase that conveys a host of meanings. Acclaimed media scholar, Marshall McLuhan, was a life-long, daily reader of the Bible in several languages and translations. In many chapters and verses, he found injunctions against the use and misuse of technology. In McLuhan’s terms, holding and beholding any tool or technology means hyper-extending and over-stimulating one sense while closing down and losing touch with others. As eyes gaze upon an exciting object or scene, the person becomes a spectator, no longer present to the full experience of life as an embodied soul. In his notable study, Understanding Media, (1964, p 55), McLuhan referenced the psalmist who condemned the production and worship of idols with these words: “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Ps. 115:8). In a similar vein, the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah (Jer. 10) described in detail the process of working with wood, chisel, metal and fire to fashion an image, a false god. Both the craftsman and his creation are scorned with these words: “They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand” (Isa. 44:18). McLuhan agreed with these writers that the human mind and spirit need cleansing from ‘idols’ that distort understanding. The present study examines commands against idols in Exodus 20:4 and related passages, in light of McLuhan’s thoughts about alluring media messages. McLuhan’s words offer insights into how idolatry changes human persons and social relations in fundamental ways, with implications for today’s media-saturated world.

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Moses’ mother, Jochebed in Ex 2:1-10, is hardly a known character nowadays. Hardly ever mentioned in Biblical Studies and rarely reported in visual studies she has, however, had great influence in nineteenth-century Europe. Jochebed has been an important role model in the formation of catholic and protestant women, as numerous literary and artistic representations at the time testify. Such representations emphasize aspects that are present in the biblical narrative (the moment when she leaves Moses on the water) and other features that are not mentioned. Drawing on nineteenth-century gender roles the resulting portrait of Jochebed is one of sacrificial and heroic mother. In my presentation, I will address which gender role models she embodies, how do they evolve and what is genuinely specific of such nineteenth-century representations. I will analyze the artworks by E. Jane Gardner, Simeon Solomon and other written works about biblical women that were famous at the time. I shall show the intertwining influence of literature and artwork, and how such confluence of different factors is used as a lens to interpret the biblical text, which, interestingly enough, results in interpretations where Catholicism and Protestantism converge.

This paper will examine afresh the evidence for divinities at ancient Sam'al/Yadiya/Bit-Gabbari. It will focus on the various epigraphic, iconographic and archaeological data, especially more recent discoveries.

Summer and harvest receive a metaphoric expansion through the fable-like usage of the animal imagery in the MT and LXX versions of Prov 6:6-8. In Proverbs five passages include the term harvest, namely 6:8; 10:5; 20:4; 25:13 and 26:1. In three of these (6:8; 10:5 and 26:1), the term harvest is used as a parallel of the term summer. In one case (20:4), harvest is employed alongside the other season term autumn. Furthermore, in 25:13 harvest is juxtaposed with the expression cold of snow, cherished so much in the time of harvest. Interestingly, in the admonition of 6:6-8, the relevance of industriousness in summer and in the harvest season receives an epigrammatic expression and metaphoric expansion through the metaphor of the ant (6:6). The ant is portrayed as a metaphorical model of self-discipline and systematic industry in that it retains some affinities with the genre components of fables. Additionally, in the LXX of 6:8 the relevance of industriousness in summer and in the harvest season is amplified via the metaphorical model of the bee. This metaphoric expansion alludes to the desired industriousness, as envisaged by the sages of Israel, which humans should exercise in summer and in the harvest season (i.e. at all suitable times for work). It commends the only fitting attitude, which humans should adopt if and when the wisdom teaching is internalized. Equally, in the wider context of Proverbs, the hendiadys of summer and harvest may also function as metaphors for that time period, in which humans have to prove either their sagacity or their folly through their industriousness or sluggishness. As opposed to the idea that harvest may be a lucrative period for the ant-like and bee-like diligent humans, in 10:5; 20:4, respectively 26:1 harvest may be a time of blithe for the idle.

It was the Torah with its scrupulous prescriptions that fenced the Jews off from the rest of the world in late antiquity. Its interpretation formed an important issue in the variety of Jewish movements of the Second Temple period and served as a boundary marker in their identity formation. Is it possible to trace the development of the torah concept from a manual of ritual practice (Lev., Num.) to an authoritative legal document during the Persian period of Israel’s history? The approach I am taking seeks to investigate the Jewish answers to the challenges of different cultural contexts and ideas. In this presentation I will attempt: 1. To present the development of the perceptions of the torah concept on matters concerning the separation between sacred and profane, good and evil, purity, righteousness, and justice; 2. To show the similarities between the concept of dâta in the Persian context (Ezra 7), Pericles’s citizenship law, and the presentation of the Torah of Moses as a Jewish Law in the Second Temple period and late antiquity; 3. To introduce the mythological and logical components of the biblical torah concept inherited by the later traditions of Christianity and Judaism, analyzed as a “double helix”.

In current scholarship, Gen 14 is seen as one of the younger texts in Genesis, with the episode about Melchisedek as an even younger insertion. Nonetheless, the divine designations used in these verses are part of a very ancient tradition. The paper explores this tradition, its adaptation and transformation in the context of Gen 14.

Out of the different antique literary descriptions of the end of the kingdom of Judah, the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles, the two distinct versions of the book of Jeremiah, the Greek 1Esdras, and Josephus’ Antiquities are the most reliable. Searching for empirical evidence, we see, on the one hand, creative combination of sources, realised both as extensive rewriting (Josephus, using Kings, Jeremiah, Chronicles, and knowing 1Esdras) or as short summarising (Chronicles, using Kings and Jeremiah). On the other hand, we see faithful extraction of selected parts of selected works (1Esdr 1, extracting Chronicles; Jer 52, extracting Kings). Finally, MT-Jer shows (presumably) an expanded edition of *LXX-Jer, albeit confining itself, in the vast majority of cases, to filling in details stated elsewhere in the book, without new information. Eventually, all these different accounts were transmitted side by side in Hebrew resp. Greek manuscripts to this day. Against all this, the literary relationship between 2Kings 24:18–25:26 and LXX-Jer 44–51 (// MT-Jer 37–45) is controversial since neither supposed earlier versions of these books nor their external sources are available. We cannot say with certainty if their differences arose rather by additions or by omissions. However, Reinhard Müller, Juha Pakkala and Bas ter Haar Romeny (Evidence of Editing, pp. 127–141) state continuing literary growth in the case of Gedaliah’s murder (2Kings 25:25, LXX-Jer 48:1–3, MT-Jer 41:1–3), with »gradual addition of detail«, corresponding »to the idea of a snowball or rolling corpus«. I like to challenge this conclusion and to analyse the preconceptions behind. Searching for the reality of textual production in antique Judah, we should make assumptions concerning its rules solely on grounds of unanimously accepted empirical evidence. If this is the case, literary growth, the predominant assumption in conventional redaction criticism, turns out to be at most an exception.

Suppose we would want to ‘map’ the conceptual metaphors in the Bible or one of its parts (like the Metaphor Map of English does for the English language, 2015). Apart from a rigorous application of metaphor identification methods to the textual material (Pragglejaz Group, 2007), in the light of the rich literature on biblical metaphor (Sherman, 2014), it also makes sense to consider what existing (digital) resources, specifically lexicons, have to offer. The Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (Louw & Nida, 1988) is a particularly interesting resource from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), because of its being based on semantic domains. This paper visualizes and explores the cross-domain mappings that are implicit in the polysemies of this lexicon, in order to assess the usefulness of its domains and its potential to represent mappings between them, as a step towards a comprehensive resource that could give us more direct and richer insight into the metaphors of the Greek New Testament and the Bible at large. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1988). Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains. New York, NY: United Bible Societies. Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus (2015). Metaphor Map of English. Glasgow: University of Chicago. http://mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1–39. Sherman, T. M. (2014). Biblical Metaphor Annotated Bibliography. Unpublished manuscript, Brandeis University.