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Meeting Abstracts

2018 Annual Meeting

Denver, CO

Meeting Begins11/17/2018
Meeting Ends11/21/2018

Call for Papers Opens: 12/18/2017
Call for Papers Closes: 3/6/2018

Requirements for Participation

  Meeting Abstracts


Analysis of the Introductory Material of the Andəmta Commentary of the Synoptic Gospels
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Nebeyou Alemu, Wycliffe Ethiopia

In the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahido Church tradition, the term andəmta commentary refers to an enormous corpus which contains traditional interpretations of biblical, patristic, liturgical, canonical and monastic texts. Roger Cowley notes that the andǝmta commentary (AC) corpus initially developed as an Ethiopian oral commentary on Biblical and Patristic texts, beginning from the time the texts were translated into the Geez language. The distinctive social history reflected in the commentary material suggests that the oral tradition, expanded and augmented, reached its most definitive form in the Gondӓrine period (ca. 17 century). The AC to the biblical books is characterized by a brief introduction. The introductory material to the synoptic gospels is referred as mäqdemaä wängēl. Cowley in his two articles (1774 and 1977) deals with the introductory materials to the Old Testament and New Testament andəmta. He particularly focuses on translating and discussing the introductions to selected books both from the OT and NT. In dealing with the synoptics Cowley translates and discusses the introduction to the Gospel of Mark, chosen primarily for its brevity. Building upon his work I aim to in this study translate and analyze the introductory material to all three synoptic gospels, so as to offer a more detailed understanding of the introductory material particularly as it pertains to the commentators discussion of historical and theological elements as understood from the specific this specific context.


Casting Biblical Narratives: Visible and Invisible Women
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Ingunn Aadland, IKO

Biblical texts reflect Antiquity, with its patriarchic norms and values, and we are sometimes repelled by the Bible’s violence and discrimination against people. Hence, in contemporary children’s literature we prioritize some texts over others, adjusting them according to our own norms. #MeToo has increased an awareness of an unfortunate aspect of our culture: contempt of women. Traits of such contempt are still found in biblical interpretation. Of course, the biblical text allows gender-biased interpretations, but we also read and retell with our own culture. This paper examines how ‘the woman’ is represented in contemporary Scandinavian biblical interpretations for children. I argue that authors of today, including female authors, reproduce a biblical portrayal of women, and when doing so reflect attitudes towards women found within our own culture. Presentations of the woman in Luke 7:37 illustrate how contemporary gender bias influences interpretation. In the Lukan narrativ, the woman is referred to as a “sinner.” The Norwegian Bible translation (2011) reads: “a woman who lived a sinful life.” In a Norwegian Bible presented for a young audience “Bibelfortellinger” (2011), this woman is first presented as “a prostitute.” In addition, the Pharisee’s thoughts are rendered: “she is a whore, a sinful woman.” These are artistic additions to the biblical text, which develop the narrative further. Hence, her sin is concretized and related to sex. In comparison, Luke 5 describes another human being before the feet of Jesus. This narrative also implies that the person is a sinner in need of forgiveness. I have yet to see an attempt to establish what kind of sin this might be. Many of our “cultural bibles” downplay and marginalize women, and when women’s characters are developed further, they are related to sex. This reception of the Bible is not only a reproduction (and acceptance) of biblical stereotypes; but expressions of unfortunate cultural values that either devaluate or sexualize women. Children’s Bibles often prioritize narratives where men serve as main characters. Hence, women are deemed less important. Moreover, women are often presented in associated with sex (/-ual misconduct). I do not suggest that such interpretations are meant to degrade women. Rather, they reflect a loyal attitude towards the Bible (The Bible as the culture understands it), and more importantly: a lacking awareness of one’s own culture and the role it plays in biblical interpretation.


If We Translate Psalm 23 Correctly, Does It Still Work for Funerals?
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Charles Aaron, Perkins School of Theology

Invited paper.


Ethiopia and the Book of Enoch: A Comparison of Ideals of Justice in Mäṣhafä Henok and Amharic Sayings
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Sofanit Abebe, University of Edinburgh

The Book of Enoch has left its indelible mark upon the New Testament as well as Ethiopian literary traditions. Ethiopian Orthodox theology, poetic literature, hagiographies and a number of magical texts bear clear marks of the influence of Enochic ideas, language and imagery. Given the book’s prominence then, it is hardly possible to study Ethiopia’s written and oral culture apart from 1 Enoch. Differences notwithstanding, similarities between humanity under hegemonic power structures in the narrative world of 1 Enoch as well as present day Ethiopia lend a further support to studying the oral culture of Ethiopia in light of the influential Mӓṣhafӓ Henok. To this end, this study utilises a cognitive approach to the study of Ethiopian oral culture on social justice in conversation with 1 Enoch. Precepts, adages and popular slogans in Amharic expressing local wisdom and socio-cultural values of the society regarding social injustice, judgment and suffering will be compared to visions of social justice in Enochic literature. This comparison aims to identify 1 Enoch as the ideal relative to which Amharic proverbs and maxims codify and comment on the state of the world.


Jonathan as a Capable but Not Chosen Successor: How the Narrative Sequence of 1 Samuel 13–15 Reveals the Theological Foundation of Israel’s Monarchy
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Diana Abernethy, Duke University

As commentators have noted, right after Samuel reveals that the Lord will not establish Saul’s dynasty, Jonathan emerges in 1 Samuel 13–14 as a potential successor. By examining the narrative effect of Jonathan’s introduction at this point, this paper explores how Jonathan’s character develops core theological themes in 1 Samuel, particularly how Israel’s monarchy depends on the Lord’s choice. In 1 Samuel 13:13–14 when Samuel pronounces that Saul’s descendents will not occupy the throne, he declares that the Lord “has sought a man after his own heart.” Samuel’s words prompt the reader to wonder who this man is and how to recognize such a man. While the reader looks for a man after the Lord’s own heart, the narrative focuses on Jonathan. In 1 Samuel 14, Jonathan leads a successful assault on the Philistines and shows himself to be a capable leader. On the basis of Samuel’s pronouncement, the reader knows that Jonathan cannot succeed his father on the throne, but Jonathan’s actions in 1 Samuel 14 shape the reader’s image of a man after the Lord’s own heart. As 1 Samuel continues, David becomes the next king and clarifies what Samuel means by a man after the Lord’s own heart. Yet, David and Jonathan share many positively portrayed qualities. In their military initiatives of 1 Samuel 14 and 17, Jonathan and David both demonstrate trust in the Lord’s deliverance, resounding success against the Philistines, effective exploitation of the terrain, and unconventional use of weapons. Though David displays some of these qualities to a greater degree than Jonathan does, their striking similarities show Jonathan, as well as David, exhibiting marks of a man after the Lord’s own heart. However, Jonathan is not the man after the Lord’s heart who will succeed Saul. After the narrative presents Jonathan as a capable yet passed over successor in 1 Samuel 14, it completes Saul’s rejection in 1 Samuel 15, thereby intensifying the reader’s search for Saul’s successor. In the next chapter, the reader finds the sought successor in David, but the narrative sequence invites the reader to consider Jonathan with all of his promising qualities before it reveals the next king. Thus, David enters the narrative in Jonathan’s shadow. Because Jonathan comes first, the reader asks why David becomes king with Jonathan’s portrait lingering in mind. As the reader compares them, the heart of Israel’s kingship surfaces: the Lord’s choice of David. In contrast to Saul, Jonathan and David both trust in the Lord and show themselves capable of addressing the Philistine threat, but these qualities do not earn Israel’s throne. Jonathan is excluded from the throne not for a lack of military skill or insufficient trust in the Lord: Jonathan does not become king because the Lord turns from Saul’s house to David’s. By portraying Jonathan as a capable successor in the midst of Saul’s rejection and before David’s entrance, the narrative demonstrates that the Lord’s choice—not merit—makes Israel’s kings.


The Original Form of Deuteronomy ("Urdeuteronomium") and Its Reworkings
Program Unit: Book of Deuteronomy
Reinhard Achenbach, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

The paper will hold the view that the original form of the deuteronomic law was not yet incorporated into the fictional form of a Mosaic speech. The Code comprised regulations for a social and ritual community to centralize it’s ritual activties and strengthen the social and religious unity. Part of the original form were laws of the centralization of the cultic rituals Dtn 6:4-5; 12:13-18*.21-27; (14:21b*; 26:2-3a.4-5a.10-11); [13:2–12]; 14:22-23a.24a.25-26.28-29; 15:1-3.12-14.16-17.19-23; 16:1a.2-7.8-11.13-14.16-17, together with new rules for lawsuits (Dtn 16:18a.19; 17:2a.3-12; 19:2-6*11-13.15-19) and rules for the local justice (Dtn 21-25*). The form of a historical paraenesis of Moses that comments and explains the law is of deuteronomistic origin.


What Counts as an Editio Princeps? ASOR’s Policy on Initial Place of Publication or Announcement
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Susan Ackerman, Dartmouth College

According to the ASOR Policy on Professional Conduct, Section III.E.4 (endorsed by SBL), the publications and presentation venues of ASOR — with only a few exceptions — shall not serve as the initial place of publication or announcement of any object acquired by an individual or institution through purchase or donation after April 24, 1972, which is the date of entry into force of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. But what counts as an initial place of publication or announcement of such an object? This paper describes the definition ASOR has developed of “Initial Publication or Announcement” and considers the implications that the ASOR definition of “Initial Publication or Announcement” has more generally for considering what counts as an editio princeps.


Women's Economic Roles in the Biblical World: An Overview of Past Research
Program Unit: Economics in the Biblical World
Susan Ackerman, Dartmouth College

In order to introduce the special session on women's economic roles in the biblical world, sponsored by the Economics in the Biblical World section, this paper will survey the foundational work done by Phyllis Bird, Carol Meyers, Gale Yee, and others on ancient Israelite women's roles in their households' economies.


Epiphany as Polemic: Porphyry and Iamblichus at the Iseum with Plotinus
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Grant Adamson, University of Arizona

One of the most famous literary accounts of ritual and epiphany in the ancient Mediterranean world comes from Life of Plotinus 10: a traveling Egyptian priest, in Rome, is introduced to the philosopher through a mutual friend and offers to make Plotinus’ personal daimōn appear, which, when summoned, turns out to be no daimōn at all but in fact a god. Porphyry’s account has puzzled scholars. For instance, why would Plotinus have accepted the priest’s offer, much less as readily as his biographer claims he did? In Platonic tradition, the personal daimōn, including the daimonion of Socrates, could be heard; rarely, if ever, could the tutelary spirit be seen. Philosophers like Plotinus would have found it entirely unnecessary to conjure a visible manifestation of the personal daimōn through Egyptian priestly rites. But of course, not every lover of wisdom in the Neoplatonic school was like Plotinus or even Porphyry. Indeed, the school was not unified at the time Porphyry wrote and published his Life of Plotinus as preface to the Enneads. That was 301-305 CE. Before that, the Egyptianizing Iamblichus had once studied with Porphyry, perhaps in Rome. The two men went separate ways, however. While Porphyry became the successor-executor of Plotinus, Iamblichus incorporated traditional ‘magic’ within a theurgic system that was part ritual, part ratiocination, and he went on to establish something of a rival school in Syria. The debate between Porphyry and Iamblichus is well known from Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo and the reply that Iamblichus wrote as Abamon, the head of the college of Egyptian priests to which Anebo supposedly belonged. A few scholars have noticed extensions of the debate in their other works, that is, besides the obvious places where Iamblichus names Porphyry by name in order to agree or disagree with him. I argue there is a glaring extension of the debate in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus 10, the vita being the very last or at least among the last of Porphyry’s writings. In his Letter to Anebo, Porphyry had challenged Egyptian belief and practice surrounding the personal daimōn. In response, the Egyptianizing Iamblichus told Porphyry, inter alia, that through theurgy rather than mere philosophy, it was possible not only to see the daimōn but also replace it with a god above daimonic rank. Porphyry was no doubt meant to understand that as an experienced theurgic master, ‘Abamon’ had accomplished this ritual feat following years of practice and thus had advanced well beyond his former teacher. Porphyry’s account of ritual and epiphany in Life of Plotinus 10 is in turn his response to Iamblichus’ reply to him. The traveling Egyptian priest is Abamon who is forced to recognize the superiority of Plotinus and accordingly of the Plotinian school. Iamblichus is also at the Iseum. He’s the mutual friend that introduces the priest to the philosopher and then abruptly spoils the seance out of jealousy, fear, or both. In advancing my argument and polemical reading, I build on previous scholarship by e.g. Rist, Cox, Edwards.


The Rape of Tamar as a Prefiguration for the Fate of Fair Zion (Bat Tzion)
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Rachel Adelman, Hebrew College

The unraveling of David’s kingdom begins from within his own House, with episode of the rape of Tamar, his daughter, by Amnon, his firstborn son (2 Sam. 13:1-21). In this paper, I read the desolation of Tamar as a prefiguration of the fate of “Fair Zion” or “Daughter Zion” [bat Tzion] as the metaphor is played out across the prophetic narratives. Initially the city of David [Zion] is positively likened to a daughter, protected under the aegis of God’s special regard (2 Kgs. 19:21, Isaiah 36-37). Yet the female figures, known primarily by the epithet “daughter of [bat]” in the Bible, all meet a tragic fate: the daughter of Jacob (Dena, Gen. 34), of Jephthah (Judg. 11:34-40), of Saul (Michal, 1 Sam. 18 and 2 Sam. 6), and of David (Tamar, 2 Sam. 13). The metaphor of “Fair Zion [bat Zion]” likewise hinges on the presumed status of the beautiful daughter as the most vulnerable figure, the most highly sheltered and precious treasure of their father’s regard within patriarchal society. Yet Tzion, like Tamar, is “laid waste, desolate or appalled [shmm]” (Isa. 49:19, Jer. 51:26. Ezek. 6:14, 33:28, 29, 35:3, 7, 15, Lam. 1:13, 16 and 3:11). In David’s story, the father bears the weight of the blame—the debacle the first in a series of tragedies that Nathan prophesied in his doom toll (2 Sam. 12:10-11). David is made complicit in his daughter’s debasement when he sends Tamar to attend to Amnon, who feigns ill (2 Sam. 13:6-7). While the king fails to protect her, he does nothing when he hears of the rape (like Jacob in response to Dena’s debasement), and Absalom, Tamar’s brother (like Simeon and Levi) takes matters into his own hands. Despite the vengeful fratricide of Amnon in this culture of honor/shame, there is no redemption for the daughter. Tamar remains effectively silenced and “desolate [shomemah]” in her brother Absalom's house (2 Sam. 13:20)—a term deployed for the devastation of a home, city, or land. Only here and in Deutero-Isaiah, does the term shomemah refer to a woman. She (Tzion) will one day rejoice, metaphorically conceive and bear children: “For the children of the desolate woman [shomemah] will be more than the children of her that is married” (Isa. 54:1). With regard to Tamar or Dena, however, we never hear of them again. They are merely removed from view as “abject” (Julia Kristeva’s term), neither subject nor object within the social and symbolic order. In this paper, I read with a “hermeneutics of grace”; the prophecy of consolation in Deutero-Isaiah provides us with an answer to this “text of terror.” At the same time, as a feminist, I adopt a cautionary lens, wary of reinforcing the paternalism embedded in the metaphor as a cover for the violation of the vulnerable daughter.


Jacob’s Night Vision and the Foundation Stone of the World
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Rachel Adelman, Hebrew College

As in a dream, midrash sometimes audaciously dislocates and relocates the locus of the foundational events in the collective memory of the Jewish people to accord with the mythic imagination. In retelling the story of “Jacob’s Ladder”, the midrash Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (from hereon PRE) relocates the dream-theophany from Beth El (Genesis 28:10-22) to Moriah, the scene of Isaac’s binding (the ‘Aqedah). While precedent exists in the earlier classic rabbinic sources that link the scene of Jacob’s ladder with Mount Moriah, PRE 35 is the first source to identify the stone sanctified there with the “Foundation Stone of the World”. Drawing upon the work of Jonathan Z. Smith on locative and utopian concepts of sacred space, as well as the evocative work of Gaston Bachelard, "The Poetics of Space", I explore how spatial constructs, in particular the experience of theophany, are configured similarly in the world of midrash, memory, and dreams. I suggest that PRE, written in the 8th c. C.E. in Palestine under Islamic rule, was influence by the Muslim legend surrounding the “White Stone” in Jerusalem, below the Dome of the Rock and near the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque where Mohammed ascended to the Seventh Heaven, in the “Nocturnal Journey” (Sura XVII, 1, also known as the “Miraj”). In a fascinating twist, PRE adapts the earlier Jewish tradition associating the Temple Mount with the Foundation Stone of the World, and merges it with the Jacob’s dream of ascension and the Islamic legends on Mohammed’s leap to Heaven. The midrash filters the cultural symbols surrounding this particularly fraught locus, the Temple Mount, projecting them back onto the biblical narratives in Genesis and forward towards a vision of the eschaton. In linking the beginning of time to the End of Days, the midrash exemplifies the redemptive arc of the Jewish mythic imagination.


Challenges of the Critical Edition of 1 Samuel
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Anneli Aejmelaeus, University of Helsinki

This paper deals with the challenges by which the editor has been confronted while working on the critical edition of the First Book of Samuel (Regnorum liber I) as well as with the methodological approach which has enabled her to tackle the problems. Although the critical edition of 1 Samuel for the series Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum still awaits its publication, it is already possible to reveal some of the major features of the forthcoming edition.


Me, the Septuagint, and Textual Criticism: A Lifelong Learning Process
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Anneli Aejmelaeus, University of Helsinki

I began my career as a student of the Septuagint, but soon started to look for areas of study which the results of Septuagint research could be applied to. Almost forty years ago, textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible – not to speak of the use of the Septuagint in it – was not in fashion, but I found it fascinating. My problem then and always has been that I cannot proceed by given rules of methodology or generally accepted ideas about the textual history, but I always have to look into the text myself and draw my own conclusions. The only authority I accept is the text, and to find out what has happened to the text is my only goal in textual criticism. This has meant a lifelong learning process as well as some controversies with colleagues who think they know it better.


The Berenike Cult in the Canopus Decree and the Intersection of Egyptian and Ptolemaic Divine Worlds
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Patricia Ahearne-Kroll, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

In the Canopus Decree (238 BCE), several rituals are instituted on behalf of the deceased princess Berenike, daughter of Ptolemy III Euergetes and Berenike II. These particular practices are interwoven with Egyptian cultic traditions that were to be performed at Canopus (and elsewhere in Egypt) during the months of Choiak and Tybi. The decree incorporates princess Berenike into the dynastic pantheon alongside Egyptian gods, and it describes the design of her temple statue in terms that reflect a combination of Egyptian and Greek representational elements (F. Dunand, F. Goddio, P. Stanwick). Scholarly attention to this decree has mostly focused on the political advantage it gave the Ptolemies, and even if Egyptian priests had agency in the design and creation of the Berenike cult, their involvement is viewed mostly as a politically negotiated product (Dunand, Pfeiffer). Clearly the Canopus decree was an official document meant to promote particular ideological concerns, but I argue that the Berenike Cult is a telling example of the integration of Ptolemaic and Egyptian cosmologies and religious practices. The rituals concerning Berenike do not just evoke Egyptian traditions; they also align well with Greek traditions that were cosmically significant for the Ptolemies. Likewise, this cult reinforces old Egyptian traditions, and it creates activity for wives and daughters of Egyptian priests that was unprecedented in Egyptian temples but not in Greek religious practices. Ultimately, this cultic conflation was rooted in the physical land of Egypt, what both the Ptolemies and the Egyptian priesthood believed to be a locus of transcendent power.


The Appeal of Paul's Initial Preaching in Corinth
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Among the sanctuaries of Roman Corinth and Corinthian Isthmia that dotted the civic landscape of the first recipients of Paul’s preaching, many had cult sites that included worship of more than one deity, who were connected through genealogy, mythological event, or historical tradition (local or not). There is both literary and material evidence for, at minimum, sanctuaries of Aphrodite (with Helios and Eros), Demeter and Kore (along with the Moirai), Isis and Sarapis, Dionysos (along with Artemis and Kore), Asklepios (with Hygieia and one or more deities traditionally associated with him), Poseidon (with Amphitrite along with the Tritons and Melikertes), Palaimon (with Poseidon and Leukothea), and the deities of the imperial cult. I wish to read Paul’s initial presentation of his god to his Corinthian audiences through the lens of this local religious practice. Paul’s god(s) might look quite familiar to Corinthians, in that they are a finite set (a father god, a child of the father, and a third figure of presence [spirit]), related by myth/history, genealogy, and by cultic worship. I will thus posit a context that explains an amenable reception among Paul’s audience for the initial presentation of his god and that partially accounts for his success as a missionary of Christ Jesus. I will then perform an initial inquiry into whether or not Paul tried to correct this possible misunderstanding by the Corinthians about the nature of his god by looking at 1 Corinthians 2.


The Fourth Generation, Joseph, Did Not Return: Only His Bones
Program Unit: Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature
John Ahn, Howard University

As early as 1885, William R. Harper raised concerns on the compositional history of Gen 37:2-Exo 12:51. His initial observation begins with the tolodot formula and rightly remarks on the problem of “generations.” In a recent dissertation on Gen 37 published in 2017 (FAT 2), Matthew Genung makes two cases for the Joseph material: (1) a re-actualization by the post-exilic/return migrations Persian community wishing to re-unify the “North and South” and (2) the additional redactional post-priestly material integrated the JS texts by P in the Hellenistic period. In this paper, I begin with the construct of the “fourth generation.” In a history of oral tradition, speakers can basically carry a detailed narrative down to the third generation (Jan Vansina). But by the fourth, that cultural memory story begins to fade or conversely, it must be written down to preserve that generation’s story within the holistic tradition at large. It’s no coincide that a (final?) tradent of the Pentateuch incorporated the Joseph novella into the third generation’s Jacob Cycle. Sociologically speaking, in the (diaspora) novella, like Daniel and his three friends, Joseph’s name is changed to Zaphnath-Paneah. But unlike the four who were likely made into eunuchs (Isa 56:4), he is given Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of On, to be his wife. And as a new generation begins, Ephraim and Manasseh are born through an Egyptian mother. This lineage extends down to Joshua the son of Nun, chieftain of Ephraim. This social construction of reality is seminal for the generations displaced and resettled in Egypt after the 721 and 582 BCE events, as an amalgamation of the Elephantine Jews in Egypt. Constructions of belonging, identity, and generational consciousness in Joseph, like the Book of Ruth, which is read as an anti-Ezra polemic, also reads against the “pure” lineage of Ezra’s (Ezra 9-10) Persian homogeneous solution. The practice of “inter-marriage” to move up socio-politically is projected favorably and positively dignified. The Joseph material isn’t a reconstitution of the North and South but an attempt to harmonize the East and West conflict. In other words, with the return migrations phenomena, the re-actualizing of those returning from Egypt and Persia as a response to Second Isaiah, while those like Joseph-Asenath did not return (CC Torrey); only his bones through a later generation.


Diaspora: Third and Fourth Generations
Program Unit: Korean Biblical Colloquium
John Ahn, Howard University

The Greek word, diaspora, means to "sow again." The term describes the (re)colonization and (re)population of re-established Roman territories that once belonged to the Greeks or others, like the city of Philippi. Once resettled, after a long period of establishment, that is, several generations, the cultural memory of those that first made the transplant are normally remembered; in oral tradition down to the third generation (Jan Vasina). But by the fourth generation, memory fades, and to actualize and maintain that memory, the story is normally written down. Interestingly, Hansen's law of third generation notes that what the son or daughter (second generation) wishes to forget, the grandchildren recover. The Hebrew Bible (from Abraham to Joseph, exile and return) and even select books of the New Testament are by and large framed in a fourth generation construction (Book of Ephesians - third/fourth generation Christian). This paper offers broad sociological observations on the importance of the third and fourth generations to help biblical scholars and contextual interpreters identify key features. Moreover, the implications for what this means in a Korean American Diaspora context will be explored.


Classical Allusion and the Greek of Sirach
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
James K. Aitken, University of Cambridge

Greek Sirach has been poorly served by its interpreters. Its consistent translation technique has led to its being largely ignored for the contribution it can make to translation studies and for the important place it occupies in the history of Septuagint studies. It has been shown in recent years, however, that the translator was sophisticated in aspects of his use of Greek and creative in his interpretation of his Hebrew, even while following closely his Hebrew Vorlage. This paper will consider the surprising extent of allusion to classical literature, demonstrating how Jewish theology is expressed in classical form and how much the translator reconfigures his source. Special attention will be given to the Greek of chapter 31(34) and the clear modelling upon Hellenistic readings of Homer. It will show how we need to be careful in reconstructing the Vorlage from the Greek and demonstrate the important place of Sirach in the history of the Septuagint.


Three Prayers in Ephesians: Christological Craftsmanship and Ecclesiological Expectations
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Adesola Akala, Durham University

The presence of three long, grammatically complex prayers in Ephesians is an unusual phenomenon. Covering almost a fifth of the entire epistle, the prayer texts comprise a protracted benediction (1:3-14), which transitions into a lengthy intercession (1:15-23) capped by a third prayer (3:14-21). Scholars have recognized and discussed the creative reinvention of the ancient convention of epistolary prayers in both the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline epistles (Gordon Wiles, 1974; Peter O’Brien, 1977; John Polhill, 1999; Luther Stirewalt, 2003; Hans-Josef Klauck, 2006; Patrick Gray, 2012). This paper argues that the writer of Ephesians has carried this adaptation of epistolary conventions to an extraordinary level in order to accommodate his theological agenda. An analysis of the structure and content of the prayers shows how they present the writer’s “mystery” of Christ,” (1:9; 3:3, 4, 9; 5:32; 6:19), which is vital for interpreting Ephesians within its Jewish-Gentile context. Cosmic Christology is ingeniously interwoven with realized eschatology to present the epistle’s ecclesiology of unity and reconciliation. Not only does this epistle contribute to our understanding of the complex phenomenon of Pauline prayers, it also substantially adds to the richness of Christology and ecclesiology in the disputed Pauline letters. Through these three theologically-crafted prayers, the writer of Ephesians compels the multicultural community of Christians in Asia Minor to flourish together within the unity of the Spirit, the love of Christ, and the fullness of God.


Wisdom-Law Meets Politics: The Holiness Code and Ezekiel as a Test Case
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible and Political Theory
Kengo Akiyama, University of California-Davis

This paper explores the intersection of law and politics in the Hebrew Bible in two ways. While the Hebrew Bible does not adumbrate a “political theory” as a way of establishing and regulating public institutions—as Michael Walzer observes in his seminal work (In God’s Shadow)—Mira Morgenstern is correct in arguing that heterogenous political thoughts are both implicit and operative in it. In view of this, the paper will first tease out some aspects of the political thought in the Holiness Code (H), particularly the priestly attempt to democratize holiness as a totalizing principle. The analysis will focus mostly on the issue of administering justice to the poor and the needy. Second, given Ezekiel’s knowledge of (dependence on?) H, I will show how H’s political force is transmitted to and/or reshaped in Ezekiel. Of particular interest here is the amplifying (or dampening) effects of the prophetic oracle on the political dimension of biblical law. The paper will shed light not only on some key differences and similarities of law and prophecy as literary genres but also on the conceptual unity of legal, ethical, and political discourses in some strands of the Hebrew Bible.


Old Greek Isaiah 13:19: Misunderstood Hebrew and Constructive Greek
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Matthew Albanese, University of Oxford

Septuagint scholarship has long recognized the deep cultural and linguistic influences upon the Greek translators of the Hebrew scriptures. One expression of this cultural-linguistic milieu rests in the influence of post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic upon translators’ knowledge of their source texts. Several papers, chapters, and monographs in Septuagint research are devoted to this topic; lists of relevant examples are plenty available. In this paper, I seek to challenge a general methodological and linguistic consensus regarding the translator of Greek Isaiah’s understanding of the term ṣby “beauty” and its supposed connection to the Greek terms doxa “glory” and endoxos “glorious.” While it appears that these two terms at times overlap in Greek Isaiah, I argue that the translator rather evidences a misunderstanding of this Hebrew term in many places and he creates stylistic translations where the context permits. The use of doxa and endoxos are not proper translations, but instead function as contextual guesses. I seek to contribute to previous discussions in the field by providing a more nuanced understanding of the translator’s lexical choice which is based upon his translation technical practice.


The New Critical Edition of the Psalms of Solomon: Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis Editum, vol. XII/3
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Felix Albrecht, Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen

The editor would like to present the new Göttingen edition of the Psalms of Solomon. This edition claims to have established the oldest attainable text of the Psalms of Solomon. ​The text is characterised by certain linguistic features which were partially lost in the textual transmission. This paper demonstrates the characteristics of the original text and shows how these features were gradually lost during the long period of textual transmission.


“Another Time and Another Place”: Apocalyptic Elements in Pan’s Labyrinth
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Isaac M. Alderman, Catholic University of America

While dystopian worlds in film are very often described with language drawn from apocalypticism, the genre of apocalyptic literature has very specific characteristics, such as fantastical imagery, an otherworldly guide, and a focus on other times and places. Many aspects of religion are utilized to keep institutions and communities in their socially accepted places, but apocalyptic literature utilizes these features in service of a subversive religious impulse, promising its readers with a reversal of the violent and oppressive social order and a new age in which the powerless are exalted above their oppressors. The account is presented in this way so as to instill hope in its audience Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno [G. del Toro, 2006]) presents a layered crisis, both familial and political. Ofelia and her mother live with a human monster who terrorizes them while also leading Franco’s soldiers in a quest to extinguish the spanish rebels. Suffering because of war, the cruelty of her stepfather and the pain of her ill and pregnant mother, Ofelia is led by a faun into the knowledge of another world. Through his guidance, as well as assistance from fairies and The Book of Crossroads, she learns that she is a princess from long ago. After the death of her mother, Ofelia seeks to save her newborn brother and eventually escapes to join her mother and father who are the king and queen of another world. The structure and generic characteristics of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature are integral to its message. When viewed through these elements, Pan’s Labyrinth is seen to be more genuinely apocalyptic than many films which present a cataclysmic end to the world, for the film looks both backward and forward in time, to another world, to provide hope in the time of crisis.


The Textual History of the Prophet Haggai in the Ethiopic Tradition
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Samuel R. Aldridge, Oregon Conference - Free Methodist Church USA

This paper will engage with the story of how the text of the prophet Haggai was transmitted within the biblical manuscripts of the Ethiopic Orthodox tradition, from the earliest extant manuscripts of the fourteenth century through to those of the last century. The paper will cover aspects such as manuscript clustering, the characteristics of manuscript clusters, analysis of key areas of variance, and comparison with current research on other texts from the Book of the Twelve in the Ethiopic Tradition.


Rabbinic Animal Affects: Deleuzian Critiques, Disruptive Politics, and the Technology of Animals
Program Unit: Animal Studies and the Bible
Alex Weisberg, New York University

In this paper, I follow Donovan Schaefer and Donna Haraway in their critique of Deluezian animality to understand the ways that the Sifra and the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, 3rd century Jewish exegetical works, read Leviticus 25 and Exodus 23 as political calls to become with animals. By focusing on actual animals and their situated embodiment within Rabbinic discourse, I argue against the specter of an ahistorical Deleuzian interpretation, which would treat the animal as an abstract radical possibility standing against humanity, in favor of an interpretation made attentive, by Haraway’s and Schaefer’s perspectives, to an emergent picture of a historically bounded Rabbinic human-animal assemblage. Schaefer’s insistence on phenomenological embodiment brings to the fore the ways in which these texts include animals in the political conversation through their migratory patterns, while Haraway’s work helps us to understand how in these texts animals are both political technology and moral subjects.


Baptism as Transformation and Promise: The Concept of Sealing in the Letter to the Ephesians
Program Unit: Contextual Biblical Interpretation
Amy Lindeman Allen, Christian Theological Seminary

Writing from the context of Lutheran ritual and liturgy surrounding baptism, this paper reads the seal of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians and 1 Corinthians as connected to the rite of water baptism and in particular the use of oil both in anointing catechumens in preparation for baptism and immediately following the water baptism itself. The term evsfragi,sqhte (“you were sealed”) as it is used in these texts indicates a mark of ownership that God places on the Christian believer as a means of protection and promise of a future inheritance. However, more than this, the seal referred to in Ephesians is an actual imparting of the Holy Spirit. For Christians who practice water baptism, this defines the role of the Holy Spirit in such ritual, acknowledges the partial realization of the eschatological promise of fullness in the Spirit, and thus draws out the eschatological implications of the baptismal rite. This reading of sealing empowers such readers to understand their baptisms as far more than a ritual act. It is the beginning and the ending of a way of life marked by the transformative power of God’s Holy Spirit, as implied by the labeling of the adult catechumenate as a “Journey with Christ” in contemporary Lutheran contexts. The power and the force of this transformation come from the way in which the believers lives with and through this spirit seal in between those two moments.


From Pageants to the Pulpit: Child Shepherds in Luke’s Gospel Account
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Amy Lindeman Allen, Christian Theological Seminary

Although “shepherd boys” have become a part of popular Christmas lore and children’s pageants, few scholars have taken seriously the age and socio-economic status of the shepherds in Luke’s gospel account. Drawing from Greco-Roman contemporaries and Hebrew Bible parallels, I will argue that for Luke’s original audience the shepherds portrayed in the nativity account would have been heard and imagined as children, either the sons and daughters of poor sheep herding families or the slaves of wealthier herd owners. From this perspective, I then re-read Luke’s nativity account with an emphasis on the participation of children as both the first to hear the good news of Jesus’ birth proclaimed by the angels (Lk. 2:10-12) and the first people to proclaim this message of good news of great joy (Lk 2:20).


Monks, Manuscripts, Muhammad, and Digital Editions of the New Testament
Program Unit:
Garrick Allen, Dublin City University

Much has been made recently in textual scholarship in a number of disciplines in the humanities about the impending change of medium in critical editions. What changes when we produce digital editions? What important functionalities of print editions are sidelined and what new avenues for research appear in a digital medium? These questions, among others, are particularly timely when it comes to the New Testament in light of the recent online publication of the Editio Critica Maior of the book of Acts. This paper argues that, because critical editions set the agenda for a field, they provide an opportunity to explore the developing relationships between textual transmission, exegesis, and reception history. In comparison to their print counterparts, “born-digital” editions are more open to experimentation and more transparent in their relationships to the manuscripts that undergird them, providing an important tool for exploring manuscripts as witnesses to interpretation and reception. To illustrate this assertion, the paper explores a selection of a medieval witnesses to the book of Revelation that contain marginal notations on the identity of the beast in Rev 13:18. These traditions offer concrete evidence for medieval interpretation, evidence that has not traditionally been prioritised in print editions. This analysis offers insight into the ways that digital editions enable analysis that is not necessarily, interested in establishing an Ausgangstext, but in understanding how manuscripts function as witnesses to traditions of biblical interpretation.


The Number of the Beast and the Value of Digital Editions
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Garrick Allen, Dublin City University

Much has been made recently in textual scholarship in a number of disciplines in the humanities about the impending change of medium in critical editions. What changes when we produce digital editions? What important functionalities of print editions are sidelined and what new avenues for research appear in a digital medium? These questions, among others, are particularly timely when it comes to the New Testament in light of the recent online publication of the Editio Critica Maior of the book of Acts. This paper argues that, because critical editions to a certain degree set the agenda for a field, they provide an opportunity to explore the developing relationships between textual transmission, exegesis, and reception history. In comparison to print editions, “born-digital” editions are more open to experimentation and more transparent in their relationships to the manuscripts that undergird them, providing an important tool for exploring manuscripts as witnesses to interpretation and reception. To illustrate this assertion, the paper explores a selection of a medieval witnesses to the book of Revelation that contain marginal notations on the identity of the beast in Rev 13:18, a text that represents an important exegetical crux for the material that follows chapter 13. These traditions offer concrete evidence for medieval interpretation, evidence that has not traditionally been prioritised in print editions. This analysis offers insight into the ways that digital editions enable analysis that is not necessarily, at the least in the first instance, interested in establishing an Ausgangstext, but in understanding how manuscripts function as witnesses to traditions of biblical interpretation.


“God Only Does Weird Baby-Stuff”: Biblical Reception and Interpretation in ABC's ‘Modern Family’
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Tobias Ålöw, Göteborgs Universitet

This paper explores and explicates the intersection of the Bible and popular culture as it comes to expression in ABC:s widely popular and critically acclaimed mockumentary/sitcom “Modern Family”. More precisely, in the episode “Fight or Flight” (S6E15) one of the show’s protagonists, Cameron Tucker, tries to convince his partner, Mitchell Pritchett, that God has deliberately orchestrated a number of otherwise apparently ordinary and quite naturally explainable events so that they would have the opportunity to adopt their friend Sal’s abandoned baby. When Mitchell questions who this God is – who first denies them a baby, then gets a party-girl like Sal pregnant, only to have her forsake the baby so they could finally get one – Cameron responds by affirming that it is: “The same God that impregnated a virgin, sent Moses down the river in a basket, and commanded Abraham to stab his own son. God only does weird baby-stuff.” Although the verbal exchange between Cameron and Mitchell is clearly intended for entertainment, the paper nevertheless treats their altercation exegetically seriously as an expression of biblical reception. Behind the humorous exterior, meaningful theological questions are raised in a way that reflect common conceptions regarding how the Bible is put together, interpreted and applied. Moreover, with reference to three different biblical traditions Cameron draws a general theological conclusion that can be subjected to exegetical scrutiny. Taking its methodological cues from the approach set out by S. Klint, the paper not only describes how the biblical presence is made manifest by identifying the biblical traditions alluded to, but also attempts to lay bare the tension between approach and deviation from the biblical material, and describe the function of these biblical texts within the pertinent work of reception. Through analysis of how the apposite biblical traditions are re-used the paper not only sheds light on biblical reception in Modern Family in particular, but at the same time also attests to the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and popular culture in general.


Surveillance and Lot-Sodom: A Hermeneutic of Watching
Program Unit: Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity
Carolyn Alsen, University of Divinity

Surveillance studies is employed in this study of Genesis 18-19 to analyse power, overreach of jurisdiction, the search for ultimate security and political violence and trauma. It specifically uses the metaphor of seeing through surveillant/souveillant means (a field of veillance) and divine omnividence. Firstly, an ideological criticism examines the tendencies of ancient Persian surveillance and how this influenced authors of biblical texts. Secondly, narrative criticism (narratology) applies these tendencies to the literary dynamics of biblical narratives through visual tropes. This reading of Genesis 18-19 presents the text as compiled for readers in a world influenced by watching powers. The struggle for surveillant knowledge and security is illustrated in the petition of Abraham, the dual locations of the divine gaze and the internal struggle between two groups in the Sodom (Ammon-Moab) Mamre (Israelite) polemic. However, Lot's wife (Ado), in Gen 19:26, conducts sousveillance to illustrate the resistance to the violence caused by struggle with colonial seeing. Ancient surveillance is often mimetically favoured by Deuteronomy and Ezra-Nehemiah for success in political dominance. However, ancient Israelite religion is also shaped by the limitations of their own nationalism by colonization itself. A narrative reading strategy utilising veillance can illustrate the links between the inner social sorting of Israelite populations and the colonizing gaze of xenophobia and androcentricity.


Edges of Space or Edges of Time: The Commandmant of Peah in Tannaitic Midrash Halakhah
Program Unit: Midrash
Aaron Amit, Bar-Ilan University

The commandment of separating peah (gleanings) is mentioned in Leviticus 19:9: "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field" (see also Leviticus 23:22). According to the Torah, a portion of the field is left to be harvested by those in need. A careful comparison of Mishnah Peah 1:3 and Tosefta Peah 1:5-6 (ed. Lieberman, pp. 42-43) reveals a fascinating difference between the two tannaitic sources on the understanding of the Rabbis interpretation of this biblical commandment. According to Mishnah Peah 1:3 the sages debated whether peah could be left unharvested at the beginning, middle or end of the field (implying that 'edges' refer to location); this could be done at any stage of the harvest. However, the Tosefta, according to the Vienna manuscript, implies that the debate relates not to the location in the field, but to the time in the harvest – the beginning, middle or end of the harvest (implying that 'edges' refer to time). Therefore, according to the halakhot in the Tosefta, peah must be left unharvested at the end of the harvest period, but it could be left in any part of the field. In my paper I will investigate in detail the source of this dichotomy between physical space and time, comparing all of the known tannaitic versions of this debate on the biblical commandment of peah on this point (including PT Peah 4:3 18b and BT Shabbat 23a). My paper demonstrates that the key to the understanding of the Rabbis' opinions lies in identifying the earliest rabbinic midrash on Leviticus 19:9: the Halakhic Midrash to the book of Leviticus – Sifra (Qedoshim, Parashah 1:10). According to the Sifra, the original tannaitic position was that the 'edges' were defined by both location and time. However, because of textual difficulties in the original midrash which will be discussed in detail – the Tosefta modified the original tannaitic Halakhic Midrash and centered the debate on time and not on location. This caused much confusion in later sources and generated debate among medieval authorities on the correct interpretation of the sources. Understanding the direction in the development from the original Halakhic midrash to the Mishnah and Tosefta is key to resolving the tension between space and time in the rabbinic interpretation of the commandment of peah.


Paul on Remuneration in 1 Corinthians 9:14-18 and Its Rabbinic Background
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
Aaron Amit, Bar-Ilan University

Paul's decision not to receive remuneration from the community in Corinth has been a point of contention from his own lifetime until today. Ronald Hock, in his book The Social Context of Paul's Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship (Philadelphia 1980) described four attitudes among philosophers towards remuneration; namely, charging fees, finding a patron, begging and manual labor. While the Sophists chose the first method, the Cynics preferred to rely on begging. Paul chose manual labor, a choice some liken to the ideal of early Jewish sages, to combine Torah study with plying a trade. However, in this and other studies, Hock warned against this understanding, claiming that any connection to rabbinic sources is problematic because the Jewish practice of combining manual labor with Torah study is “difficult to establish before the mid-second century” (JBL, 97 [1978], 557). On the other side of the spectrum, Ze'ev Safrai and Peter Tomson argue in their recent discussion of 2 Corinthians 8-9 (“Paul’s ‘Collection for the Saints’ [2 Cor 8-9] and Financial Support of Leaders in Early Christianity and Judaism”, in Second Corinthians in the Perspective of Late Second Temple Judaism [ed. Reimund Bieringer et al.], Leiden 2014), that “in the early halakha it was unambiguously ruled that one should not receive a salary for teaching Tora”, a ruling they connected with Jesus’ dictum “freely you received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8). However, they devoted little attention to 1 Corinthians 9:14-18, and their short discussion of the Jewish attitude is flawed by inaccurate dating of rabbinic material. My paper centers on Paul's refusal to take advantage of the tradition he quotes in the name of Jesus in verse 14: “those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel”. I examine the view attributed to Jesus and Paul's opinion in light of several rabbinic sources on the question of remuneration for Torah study and instruction; these include: Mishnah Avot 1:13; Sifrei Deuteronomy 42, PT Shekalim 4:2 (48a), Avot deRabbi Natan A, chapter 3, BT Ketubot 105a, BT Bekhorot 29a and BT Berakhot 35b. I examine the sources on the basis of both higher and lower critical considerations, and propose a timeline for the development of the various rabbinic attitudes towards remuneration on the basis of such considerations. My argument is that it is first necessary to identify the earliest traditions found in rabbinic literature, those which could reflect first century norms, and then compare them to Pauline material. This will lead to the conclusion that Paul's attitude towards remuneration was influenced by a late Second Temple directive, evinced also in the gospels (Matthew 10:8), which survives, as well, in the Aramaic tradition attributed to Hillel in Mishnah Avot 1:13.


Unhappy Endings: Deconstructing Hope in Jeremiah 37-43
Program Unit: Israelite Prophetic Literature
Sonja Ammann, Universität Basel

“We hope for peace, but there is no good; for a time of healing, but behold: terror!” (Jer 8:15). Compromised hope is a major topic in the book of Jeremiah. Those who raise hope for "shalom" are dismissed as false prophets, and those who hope for "shalom" are generally disappointed. In this paper, I will follow the traces of hope in the narrative of the fall of Jerusalem in Jer 37-43. Various characters in this story express hopes for peace or for a better future, but Jeremiah’s prophecies crushes their hopes (Jer 37:7-10, 17; 38:3, 21-23; 42:15-22). The best they can hope for is to save their lives (38:2, 17-18, 20; 39:16-18). I will then focus on the Gedaliah episode in Jer 40-41, which is usually interpreted as a moment of hope in the story. In this passage, the prophet Jeremiah does not appear. The rule of the governor Gedaliah is generally considered as cast in a very positive light, opening up a new opportunity for a properous life in the land. By building upon some textual observations made by W. McKane, I will show that Jer 40:7-12 also allows for a much less peaceful reading. Thus, the story dashes the hopes not only of the characters within the story, but also of the reader. By considering the hopeful reader’s role, I will turn back to Jeremiah’s hope-crushing prophecies. Like the characters in the story, readers have the option of disagreeing with Jeremiah and defending a hopeful perspective. Interestingly, the text (especially in the shorter version of the LXX) does not insist on the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecies. Moreover, the historically informed reader might question the devastating outcome Jeremiah predicts for the community in Egypt. In conclusion, I will argue that the text can be read as an exercise in balancing hopes in which the reader is invited to take part.


The Dystopian Bible: The Chrysalids, The Handmaid's Tale, and The History of the Anglican Church of Canada
Program Unit: Bible and Popular Culture
Maryann Amor, Vancouver School of Theology

In both John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale the Bible is a tool of oppression and control – in The Chrysalids, the Bible underlies the elimination of “mutants,” and, in The Handmaid’s Tale, the Bible is instrumental in the restriction of women’s freedom. Although both authors were writing in different times and places, they use the Bible in similar ways. This observation raises the question: why have the authors used the Bible as the source of oppression in their respective novels? In this paper I suggest that the authors use the Bible as an oppressive tool because they are writing dystopias. In dystopias, authors create worlds where they take aspects of their context and exaggerate them to warn of what could happen should social trends continue. In both Wyndham’s and Atwood’s contexts the Bible was used to suppress people’s freedom and their novels demonstrate the horror of what could happen if those in power continue to use the Bible in this way. However, while this use of the Bible is shaped by the authors’ contexts, it also gives their novels a timeless quality – because history repeats itself, their novels’ dystopic warning can speak to many historical and contemporary situations. For me, as a Canadian Anglican, Wyndham’s and Atwood’s novels touch on the history of my faith tradition, where the Bible informed the suppression of Indigenous people and women. The dystopic genre is, then, key to understanding both how Wyndham and Atwood used the Bible in their novels and how their novels continue to terrify readers.


Isaac’s Death and Resurrection Remembered: The Reception of the Akedah in Jewish Tradition
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Bradford Anderson, Dublin City University

This paper will explore the reception of the Akedah in Jewish tradition (Gen 22), namely those streams of the tradition which claim that Isaac died and was resurrected. Along with analysis of interpretive moves made in these readings, focus will be placed on why this particular text became a focal point for reflection on resurrection. Attention will also be given to the ancestral narratives and cultural memory, as well as the relationship between reception history and memory studies.


“When Earth’s Curse Shall Be Removed”: Interpretations of the Genesis Creation/Fall Narrative in Mormon Women’s Suffrage Rhetoric
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Carli Anderson, Arizona State University

During the national fight for women’s suffrage in America, the biblical text was often used as evidence both to promote and obstruct women’s access to the vote. This was accomplished frequently through disparate interpretations of the creation/fall narrative of Genesis 1-3. This paper examines the ways in which 19th-century Mormon women utilized the narrative of Genesis as justification for their right to vote. Thy refer to the themes of creation, Eve, and the equality of the sexes in strategic and original ways. Mormon women were a unique voice in the national movement for women’s suffrage.The vote came to Utah women early (1870) and they held the right to suffrage for seventeen years, when, under the Edmunds-Tucker anti-polygamy act, they lost their vote. It would not be restored until 1895. Mormon women in Utah were familiar with the interpretative work of Angela Grimké and Lucretia Mott, likely feeling aligned with their interpretations of the biblical text in support of equal suffrage. In some ways, Mormon women’s biblical rhetoric followed a similar pattern. In other ways, however, Mormon women’s use of the Genesis narrative was rooted in their unique theology of the Fall, which Helen Mar Whitney (1828-1896) described as “a blessing in disguise.” In their rhetoric, Eve’s culpability is not dismissed, rather her act is contextualized as somewhat heroic but also in terms of bringing a curse that needs reversing. The equality of the sexes is always read into the Genesis account. The women’s interpretations, however, don’t always correspond regarding the reasons for the “curse” of Genesis 3:16, whether it was needed for women’s penance or as a shackle imposed on them by fallen men. Several writers suggest that the women’s suffrage movement was itself part of a reversing of the effects of the “curse” preparatory to an anticipated Utopian age. As well, in parallel to their own experience, bringing the vote back to Utah women symbolically brought back the original equality of Eden.


John's Story of Jesus: A Historicized Drama, or a Dramatized History; Does Burridge's Contribution Offer a Critical Way Forward?
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Paul Anderson, George Fox University

Burridge panel


The Eden Narrative, Self-Awareness, and Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) in Human Development: A Psychological Biblical Critical Approach
Program Unit: Psychology and Biblical Studies
Royce Anderson, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

In birth and early childhood, a child faces their first challenges as they develop their cognitive, emotional, and social capabilities and grow toward their full human potential. A critical point in this development is the emergence of self-awareness in early childhood (18-24 months) as part of a continuing process of psychological development that continues throughout life. This paper examines the concept of “self-awareness” as defined and analyzed in the psychological literature, and applies it to the Garden of Eden narrative. It explores the parallels between and relationships among: 1. the Eden narrative (Genesis 2:4b – 3:24), 2. the emergence of self-awareness in young children, specifically, Gordon Gallup and others’ concept of Mirror Self Recognition, (MSR), 3. the development of language and culture in early Homo sapiens societies. A review of the PsyBibs literature describing the Eden narrative as the birth of self-consciousness, in tandem with the psychological literature on self-awareness, leads to a definition of self-awareness as “the ability to reflect on one’s own mental state and the capacity to regard the self as a different entity from others”. The impact of self-awareness on the development of human cognition, emotion, language, and civilization is explored in the context of childhood development and also within the context of the socio-cultural development of early human communities. The literature suggests that being “human” doesn’t mean just being Homo sapiens, but also means being self-aware: “Homo sapiens + self-awareness = human.” A more focused discussion of self-awareness follows, emphasizing “Mirror Self-Recognition” (MSR) as a crucial and measurable step in a multi-stage process of self-awareness development. MSR methodology is described, and several views are offered of how MSR fits into the stages of self-awareness development. MSR leads not only to cognitive changes, but also to changes in the kinds of emotions and social relationships that emerge with a more developed sense of self-awareness. For example, awareness of others (Theory of Mind) cannot precede awareness of self (MSR). Finally, the differences between “self-conscious-emotions” and “non-self-conscious emotions”, and also between “socialization” and “enculturation”, are discussed in the context of self-awareness development. Implications for future research and methodological considerations are discussed. Responding to Wayne Rollins’ call for “re-visioning biblical origins, focusing less on dates, places, and historical events, but emphasizing the ‘psychic events’ that lie at the base of the text”; this presentation uses “self-awareness” to re-vision the Eden narrative in a psychological context; allowing for deeper insights into how the story may offer an important ancient perspective on “becoming human” that can be brought into dialogue with current social-scientific perspectives.


The Food Laws of the Pentateuch: Textual and Archaeological Perspectives
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Anna Angelini, University of Lausanne

(no abstract)


“Like a Lion from the Thickets of the Jordan”: The Lexicon of Feline Carnivores in Biblical Traditions
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Anna Angelini, University of Lausanne

The nomenclature of large predators is quite rich in ancient Hebrew, especially in that which concerns the names for «lion» (‘aryeh ; laby ; šaḥal ; layš, kepyr ; gûr). In Hebrew poetry, where references to large predators are concentrated, the lion is often mentioned together with the leopard (namer) or with the bear (dob). Such a rich vocabulary allows us to reconstruct patterns of behaviors associated with these animals, their relationship with specific environments, and, to a certain extent, a relative taxonomy (for example, gender and age distinctions seem to be present in the lion nomenclature). Translations of these names in the ancient versions show a variety of tendencies. Although ancient renderings are for the most part quite consistent, the employed lexicon nonetheless reveals a certain degree of interpretation. While some interpretations can be justified by textual difficulties, they might also reflect different zoological patterns or a variation in landscape. This paper will reconstruct the history of identification of some “biblical” predators in antiquity. It will analyze the lexicon of feline carnivores in ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible, with a focus on the renderings witnessed by the Septuagint, which will be examined against the background of Greco-Roman zoology. Readings from Peshitta, Targum and Vulgate will also be included to enlarge the comparative perspective. This survey will also help in evaluating to what extent ancient interpretations have contributed to the understanding of biblical species in modern times.


“It’s the Economy, Stupid”: Economic Concerns in the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Polemic against the Wicked Priest
Program Unit: Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World
Giancarlo Angulo, Florida State University

The Wicked Priest has been the subject of conversation in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls both as he relates to the movement’s critique of standard Jewish forms of practice and to the sect’s rhetorical process of self-definition. Most scholars suggest that the Scrolls’ rejection of the Wicked Priest falls along three major issues: (1) ritual impurity; (2) calendrical observance; and (3) hereditary illegitimacy. The first two find strong corroboration in extant manuscripts but the latter derives perhaps more specifically from modern analytical expectations and, as such, has been rightly contested. Yet, we suggest that scholarship has largely overlooked another important aspect to the Scrolls’ condemnation of Hasmonean rule. The primary indictment of the Wicked Priest in the Dead Sea Scrolls pertains directly to improper or nefarious economic administration in at least four of the seven passages in which the character appears. This paper will offer a close reading of each passage relating to the figure’s involvement with economic practices and situate the critique of the Wicked Priest into a broader polemic against royalty – specifically Greek royalty – based on the allegation of exploitative economic activity and insatiable avarice. In so doing, we show that the diatribe against the priest in the Dead Sea Scrolls follows and builds on a longstanding polemic against imperial agents who are perceived to have done financial harm to the populace. We posit that the authors of the pesharim, then, interpreted the economic system of the Wicked Priest in light of previous policies of plunder and exploitation and their discontents. As such, the development and perpetuation of such parallels contributed to the group’s vehement rejection of the Hasmonean leadership. This conclusion bears significance on at least two important matters. On the one hand, a reading of the pesharim’s rejection of the Wicked Priest along economic lines allows us to illumine the Qumran movement’s perspective on Hasmonean modes of economic administration. This functions both on an historical level - as it sheds light on the foundation and on-the-ground reality of the movement - and on a rhetorical point - as it better develops some of the other economic language in manuscripts like CD and 4QInstruction. On the other hand, an economic emphasis may also color the kinds of social conditions that both fostered and sustained sectarian motivations in second- and first-century Judea. Following a model proposed by Baumgarten, an economic critique of the Wicked Priest in the Dead Sea Scrolls further demonstrates a process of popular disillusionment with the Hasmonean dynasty following the second-century Maccabean revolt. Altogether, we argue that the vociferous antagonism against the Wicked Priest in the Dead Sea Scrolls carries considerable economic considerations that function to place the Wicked Priest in relation to illegitimate foreign rulers. This sort of language works to establish a view of the Hasmonean royalty as Greek-like imperialists who must be resisted and unequivocally rejected.


From Theories of Truth to Epistemic Etiquette: Revisiting the Epistemology of the Book of Proverbs
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Christopher Ansberry, Oak Hill College

While the book of Proverbs does not present an explicit epistemology, many contend or simply assume that modern philosophical concepts and theories provide a heuristic guide for encapsulating the implicit epistemology of the sages. To varying degrees, a correspondence theory of truth, a coherence theory of truth, and embodied realism seem to capture aspects of Proverbs’ latent epistemology. When these theories are held up against the diverse materials in the book, however, each exhibits certain weaknesses. In the light of these shortcomings, this paper moves beyond theories of truth that may orient one to Proverbs’ implicit epistemology and explores the explicit epistemic etiquette outlined by the materials in the anthology.


Are Biblical Hebrew Construct Noun Phrases Bicephalic?
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Matthew Anstey, Alphacrucis College

In the Latin tradition of grammatical analysis of Biblical Hebrew Construct Noun Phrases (CNPs), the construct noun is termed regens ‘ruler’ and the absolute noun rectum ‘ruled’. Yet in the Hebrew grammatical tradition, it is viewed the other way round: the construct noun is nismak ‘bound’ and the absolute is somek ‘unbound’. Sperber noted this contrast in perspectives: “According to the Hebrew way of thinking it is exactly vice versa [to the non-Hebrew way]: the second noun remains unchanged and even gets the article if determined, and causes the first noun to undergo certain changes”. At the external clausal level, the Latin view makes sense, because the construct noun fills a participant role in the clausal structure. At the internal phrase level, the Hebrew view makes sense, because the absolute form is a fully-fledged noun phrase and, moreover, the construct noun cannot appear independently, which is unexpected. Contemporary linguistic analyses of the CNP strongly favor the Latin tradition, arguing that the absolute form is a syntactic complement to the construct head. But could there be an alternative analysis, according to which CNPs are bicephalic, ‘double-headed’—the absolute noun heading the CNP internally and the construct noun the CNP externally? Arguments for such an account will be examined.


“May Your Allies Be Like the Sun, Rising in Its Strength": Female Collusion in the Context of the Song of Deborah, Slavery, and the #metoo Movement
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Deborah A Appler, Moravian College & Theological Seminary

The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) is among the oldest and most celebrated texts in the Hebrew Bible. This ballad recounts Deborah and Barak’s triumph over King Jabin and his army led by General Sisera. As Deborah sings about overcoming these oppressive forces and celebrates Jael’s murder of Sisera, this prophet and judge and “mother of all Israel” ends her tune with a shocking refrain about another powerful mother. Deborah envisions Sisera’s mother, peering out her window waiting for her son to return home, whom she assumes won the battle. Sisera’s mother blames his tardiness on his army’s booty collecting that includes taking “a womb or two for every soldier”--or the mass rape of Israelite women. Deborah’s song (whether in her own words or placed in her mouth by male writers) intimates that sexual assault and rape are the inevitable cost of war. Neither Deborah nor Sisera’s mother appear to use their power to challenge the sexual violence that their sons inflict on the enemy’s women. They, seemingly, normalize this behavior. The reader is left to wonder whether Deborah and Barak’s troops, as victors, are raping their own booty. Are Deborah and Sisera’s mother colluding with the established powers that for generations have allowed these injustices to persist against vulnerable women, girls, and men? Slave narratives recount instances where wives of slave owners collude with their husbands as their men rape their female slaves instead of using their privilege to protect them. Likewise, the #metoo movement has exposed examples of women who have turned a blind eye or, even worse, placed unsuspecting women in harm’s way. How do we break this cycle of sexual violence and abuse that is deeply rooted in generations from Deborah’s culture to even now? This paper converses with Deborah’s song to explore more fully how women, especially those with authority and power, can use these positions to break cycles of sexual violence by becoming allies rather than colluders. Reading sexual violence through an intersectional lens, we explore how women’s complicity and desire to protect privilege has at times perpetuated this culture of sexual misconduct that soars out of control when left unchecked. Deborah’s song can serve as a cautionary tale. By the end of the book of Judges (chapters 19-21), the concubine is gang-raped and possibly vivisected, and the women of Shiloh are taken as wives against their will. What if Deborah and Sisera’s mother, like many of today’s women, sing out and interrupt the cycles of sexual violence against all women, especially those more vulnerable. How can today’s women serve as more effective allies rather than colluders and, instead, “be like the sun, rising in its strength” (Judges 5:31)?


The Growing Mustard Seed: Can Growth Be Eco-sustainably Translated?
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Paraskevi Arapoglou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The emergence of ecolinguistics could be considered partly a result of the advances in human ecology where interdependencies between all different systems (including economic systems, social systems, religious systems, cultural systems, linguistic systems and ecosystems) are being highlighted and explored rather than being ignored. Even more importantly, ecolinguistics has been drawing great interest because the consequences of ignoring the ecological embedding of humans in general, are becoming all the more clear, since climate change, resource depletion, and ecosystems degradation reduce the ability of Earth to support not only humans –the main concern of anthropocentric line of thought- but also many, if not every, other species. Linguistics inevitably affected many other forms of hermeneutical approaches in diverse fields such as Biblical studies. Language ecology may be defined in the words of its “founding father” Einar Haugen as “the study of interactions between any given language and its environment” that is determined primarily by the people who learn it, use it, and transmit it to others. This paper aims to investigate the connection of language to “growthism” and how this notion functions in biblical narrative. The parables of the New Testament, stories quite commonly considered as challenging –not only for their modern readers but also for their original ones- provide an excellent case study. Mk 4:26-32 will be examined under an eco-linguistic lens in search of a more “eco-friendly” understanding as well as its potential translational implications.


Continuity and Change at Gezer: Ancient City Walls and Modern Excavations
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Gary P. Arbino, Gateway Seminary (Fremont)

Each of the three cities noted in 1 Kings 9 as having received special attention in the Solomonic building program – Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer – occupied strategic locations in the region. Gezer’s position as guardian of a main route from the coast into the southern hill country required defensive architecture and planning that both enabled exchange and protected the interests of the Bronze Age city-state and the Iron Age regional polities. Thus it is important to consider the design, engineering, and construction of the various iterations of the city wall systems as they evolved throughout the second and first millennia, and the role they played in the occupational development of the site. With an eye to both the geo-political issues that necessitated their construction and the topographical situation which influenced their design, this paper provides an overview of these changing fortification systems. The research examines materials from the Macalister and the Hebrew Union College excavations in the light of the Middle Bronze and Iron Age structures recently unearthed by the Tandy.


Transforming Space, Transcending Time: Luke 3:1–6
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Elizabeth Arnold, Emory University

In Die Mitte Der Zeit, Hans Conzelmann wrote the groundbreaking analysis of Luke’s use of geography as theologically symbolic. He argued that Luke’s emphasis on various areas corresponding with different characters represented Luke’s redactional method of structuring salvation history. While Luke’s author incontrovertibly sees geography as a tool with which to shape his history and thereby his theology, it will be argued that the symbolic aspect of his geography is not as clearly delineated and the wilderness is not relegated to a certain time in the history of salvation. On the contrary, Luke consistently returns to certain landscapes to demonstrate certain aspects of his theology, the wilderness being a recurring scene that first appears in the appearance of John the Baptist. It is this initial “wilderness scene” found in Luke 3:1-6 that will be the focus of this paper followed by an engagement with how the wilderness opposes and then infiltrates the inhabited world. In regards to time, I argue that Luke inherits Mark’s story of John’s wilderness preaching and adds 1) the temporal aspect of the historical reign of rulers and 2) Septuagintal archaism and scriptural prophecy, the combination of which render the desert a timeless space. Thus transformed, the wilderness space functions then 1) as a mirror for Luke’s other major themes, 2) as a means of characterization for many of Luke’s actors, and 3) as a symbol of both the Israelite wilderness tradition and the eschatological opposition to the wilderness. Respecting Luke’s careful order, this paper investigates how Luke applies his own temporal and spatial material to Mark’s story of John the Baptist. In a way, Luke himself enacts the prophecy of Isa 40:4-6 by transforming space of the desert into a timeless place. And indeed, he takes it on himself to transform space and write the story of how salvation came to “all flesh.”


Numbers 32 and Transjordan in the Context of the Post-priestly Composition of the Book of Numbers
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Olivier Artus, Institut Catholique de Paris

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Breaking Away from Social Memory: Paul's Reinvention of Maccabean Ideology
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
A. Asano, Kwansei Gakuin University

This paper seeks to show how some of the events that formed and characterized the apostle Paul —— namely persecution of the church, the revelatory experience, and the apostolic activities including his Gentile mission and theological formation —— are better grasped with the background of the Maccabean ideology as a social memory that helps to maintain the social identity of the first century Judean community. An attempt has been made by S.A. Cummins to interpret Gal chs. 1–2 with the Maccabean Martyrdom as a key to unlock the events, particularly the conflict between Paul and his opponents. Thus Cummins suggests that Paul regarded himself as an 'ironic Maccabean', resisting the opponents' pressure upon the Gentile Christ-followers, just like the Maccabees fought against the forces of Antiochus IV and his Judean allies (2001:119–20, 231–32). The distinct vocabulary shared by Galatians and II Maccabees arguably suggests that Paul had in mind the martyrdom literature. However, it appears that the opposing 'Judaizers' were the ones to resist Paul's 'Hellenizing' pressure to ban circumcision and food laws. Furthermore, what Cummins means by 'ironic Maccabean' remains unclear. I suggest, therefore, that the themes of the Maccabean martyrdom were used rather by the opponents to criticize Paul, who then responded by introducing a redefined form of the martyrdom ideology and presented himself as a follower of the new form of martyr, Christ crucified. To support and strengthen this argument, the concept of social memory is employed, which will illumine the dynamic relationship between the Judean collective memory and Paul's personal conviction. In order for social memory to function as constructing and maintaining social identity, some actual events are remembered and others filtered out as inadequate for the coherence of the community (Connerton 1989:6–71; Bloch 1998:361–63). The paper will, thus, make note that II Maccabees was designed to build a particular social memory among the community for which it was written. Then it will be compared with IV Maccabees to show how further filtering process may have taken place. A suggestion is made that Paul retrieved the filtered-out features of the Maccabean martyrdom to redefined the social memory. One of the key features for redefining the social memory is the idea of 'zeal' or zealotic violence, which made a strong impression upon Paul during his persecution, perhaps culminating in the violent attack on Stephen (Acts 7.54–8.1). It will be suggested that the motivation to break away (or distance himself) from the social memory and to redefine it was drawn from Paul's very experience of persecuting activity. This view will be supported by the recent psychological (and historical) analyses on effects of traumatic experiences (Swank & Marchand 1946; Marshall 1947; Grossman 2009; Meineck & Konstan 2014). A further suggestion will be made as to how this redefined memory of martyrdom affected Paul's peculiar presentation of Jesus' heroic death for sinners in opposition to God as a means to bring reconciliation (Rom 5.6–10).


Eating on the Way and the Way of Eating
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Richard S. Ascough, Queen's University

Much research has been done on the banquet/triclinium setting for meals in antiquity and the impact that setting would have on the form and function of the early Christian ritual meal commemorating the death of Jesus. But not every meal would have followed this format, and at many other times, perhaps the majority of times, less formal eating would be necessary. In this paper I will survey the setting of such meals, exploring what we know about their location, format, and menu. I am particularly interested in the breadth of options available to Paul and his companions and how Judean dietary restrictions would impact their choices while on the road and at sea, as well as eating in the towns and cities with new Christ adherents.


Enkai in the Supernatural World View of Ndorobo: A Reading of Acts 17:22-31
Program Unit: Contextual Biblical Interpretation
Shelley Ashdown, Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics

The reality of the existence of Enkai as supreme Creator is a key understanding in Ndorobo world view, a small ethnic group in the southern Mau Escarpment of Kenya. Ndorobo reading of the Acts 17:22-31 narrative gives insight into an African world view with a rich category of the Supernatural. Reading Acts 17 from a Ndorobo perspective reveals eleven fundamental assumptions about the nature of Enkai, his role in the cosmos, his relationship with people, and his relationship with other spirit entities which differ from traditional exegesis. We begin with Enkai as Creator, “The God who made the world and everything in it…” (Acts 17:24). Enkai is recognized as the Creator of all things. Emphasis is given to using divine power for personal benefit. Next is Enkai as Lord, “the Lord of heaven and earth…” (Acts 17:24). Enkai is all powerful yet has limited control in the spirit world. Thirdly is Enkai as Incorporeal, “does not live in temples built by hands” (Acts 17:24). Enkai is a spiritual being from which nothing can be hidden but relationship is impossible. A fourth reading is Enkai as Self-Sustaining, “And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything…” (Acts 17:25). It is unnecessary for Enkai to have human relationships because he does not profit from humanity. Following is Enkai as Good, “because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:25). No life exists outside the purposeful action of Enkai including creation of both good and evil spirits. Thus is Enkai as Sovereign, “From one man he made every nation of men… where they should live” (Acts 17:26). Ndorobo believe differing peoples are by divine design. Community is a divine creation to serve as moral enforcer. A seventh reading is Enkai as Love, “God did this so that men would seek him… and find him…” (Acts 17:27). Ndorobo world view offers no avenue for fellowship with Creator God in an intimate, individual relationship. Subsequently, Enkai as Intimate Companion, “’For in him we live and move and have our being.’…‘We are his children’” (Acts 17:28), is an understanding that life given by Enkai is to be the children of their community. The reading reveals Enkai as Merciful, “we are God’s children…he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:29-30). Ndorobo concept of divine mercy is a lack of negative consequences for behavior. There is the notion of Enkai as Judge, “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed” (Acts 17:31). In Ndorobo world view judgment is earth bound because each person ceases to exist at death. The final reading is Enkai as Omnipotent, “He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). Ndorobo world view cannot reconcile the divine-man, Christ, could actually die if he is truly God. Enkai is incapable of death. If he died, all creation would die in that instant with him.


Economic Growth and Religious Materiality in Christian Galilee in Late Antiquity
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Jacob Ashkenazi, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee

The substantial economic growth in the Levant during Late Antiquity is readily apparent from the contemporaneous upsurge in new rural settlements. An integral part of this development was the marked transformation of the religious built environment (cultural landscape), as private churches, martyria, and monasteries were erected throughout the East Mediterranean countryside in addition to lavish community churches that were built within the villages perimeters. Barring a few exceptions, scholars have ignored the correlation between economic prosperity and ecclesiastical construction. In the proposed study, we will suggest a phenomenology of this building boom with the objective of shedding light on the flourishing of monasticism during the period under review. We will show that this wave of construction derived from local, bottom-up economic processes, no less than top-down imperial or Church initiatives. Interpreting some new finds from our recent archaeological excavations in Upper-Western Galilee and using comparative of other rural landscapes in the Roman east, we will show that there was a strong link between material well-being and ecclesiastical activities in early Christian rural societies by introducing local and regional factors into the discourse. In our estimation, local wealth is reflected in church buildings both within and adjacent to villages. Besides commemorating the area’s martyrs, monastic compounds buoyed the community’s agricultural production. Owing to these compounds’ agricultural arms, such as wine presses, the monks had a strong impact on both the faith and economic fortunes of the rural Christian masses. By cultivating arable land and joining forces with tillers, monks significantly improved the village’s agricultural output and prosperity.


Reflections of Empire in Isaiah 11:1–10
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Shawn Zelig Aster, Bar-Ilan University

In my recent book, Reflections of Empire in Isaiah 1-39: Responses to Assyrian Imperialism (SBL ANEM 19, 2017), I argued that many passages in Isaiah 1-39 respond to Assyrian claims of empire. These claims became known in Judah in the late eighth century, and posed theological challenges for the author of Isaiah and other Judahites. In response to these challenges, many passages in Isaiah integrate specific motifs, terms, and narrative elements we know from Assyrian inscriptions, while subverting the ideology that these intended to support. Thus, motifs and terms that are used in their original context to support Assyrian ideologies of universal dominion and royal invincibility are re-worked in Isaiah 1-39 to describe the universal dominion of YHWH and His transcendent power. In this presentation, I will explore how Isaiah 11:1-10 re-works motifs we know from Assyrian royal ideology in order to present an image of a king whose power rivals that of Assyria, but whose royal ideology is diametrically opposed to that of Assyria. The passage operates within the larger context of the unit Isaiah 10:5-12:6, in the first part of which Assyria's claims of universal dominion are taken as an obstinate refusal to submit to YHWH and an illicit repudiation of His universal rule. Isa 11:1-10 desist from the attack on Assyria found through much of Isa 10* in favour of a more subtle approach. The passage describes how a local Judahite king will replace Assyria's king as the one on whom Judah relies politically. But unlike Assyria, this Judahite king will recognize Divine Sovereignty and revel in it. By Isa 11:10, this relationship has developed into a mutually-supportive relationship with YHWH, which mirrors the relationship that the Assyrian texts describe between the king of Assyria and the god Assur. Several examples of the use of Assyrian motifs in this passage follow. Isa 11:2-4 emphasize that the new king will rule not by force but by virtue and Divine inspiration. This is emphasized in 11:5, in which righteousness and truth replace weapons. The absence of weapons here is striking, and may respond to the Assyrian texts' emphasis of same as a royal attribute, and to their mention of "the weapon of Assur" (on which see Steven Holloway, Assur is King! Assur is King! [2002]). Isa 11:5-8 deploy animal imagery to highlight the recognition of a sovereign who does not permit anyone to harm others. The correlation between the threatening animals and recognizing a sovereign subverts the Assyrian literary trope of the animal hunt, in which the Assyrian king was required to subdue lions and other beasts in order to demonstrate his kingliness. Here, the new king achieves obedience without fighting any beasts. Isa. 10:10c demonstrates close correspondence to the Akkadian expression "$ubat nehti" used to describe the Assyrian king's care for his people. This phrase is here applied to the universal appeal of the new king, whose rise is described in 11:1-10.


Empire, Power, and Politics in the Twelve: Setting the Scene
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
George Athas, Moore Theological College

Empire, Power, and Politics in the Twelve: Setting the Scene


The Spoken and the Written: Oral Influences on Exegetical Practice and Writing in Late Islamic Classical Period
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism (IQSA)
Sheza Alqera Atiq, Harvard University

The selected manuscript, Maḥakamāt bayn Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī wa Ibn ʻAṭīyah wa-l Zamakhsharī presents the criticisms and judgments of scholar Abū Ḥayyān with respect to the tafsirs and exegetical writings of Ibn ʻAṭīyah and al- Zamakhsharī. The work provides a fascinating – and important –inter-textual dialogue between three prominent Islamic scholars, a conversation that is especially unique to the field of Quranic tafsir or exegesis. In looking closely at Abū Ḥayyān’s close reading of select Quranic verses and his contemporaries’ commentaries upon them, this proposal hopes to shed light on trends in, and evolution of, exegetical practices in the classical and early medieval period circa 11th to 14th century. In addition to providing insights into literary and grammatical interpretive approaches used in studying and explaining the Quran by prominent mufassirun, the manuscript also provides an opportunity to look at tafisr as a written and textual practice unto itself. Thus, in addition to exploring the commentaries and super-commentaries of Quranic revelation vis a vis grammar rules and poetic references, this proposal will focus on the implicit – and at times explicit - oral features underlying the text. Abu Abū Ḥayyān’s critique draws directly upon originally oral works – that is, Quranic revelation and poetry – subjecting them to a rigorous written and textual analysis. The relation between the oral and the written, the transition thereof, and implicit oral assumptions contained in exegesis and interpretations, are some of the questions this project intends to address. In doing so, it will consult prevailing scholarship on oral theory including the pioneering writings of Albert Lord on the oral tradition as a theory of literary composition, but also extend the discussion to consider ways in which the oral is a critical lens through which to analyze manuscripts and specifically, textual prose relating to interpretation of oral scripture.


On the Relation between the Peshiṭta and Old Greek of Isaiah: A Case Study on Isaiah 1–5
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Preston L. Atwood, University of Wisconsin-Madison

One recent debate in Peshiṭta (S) and Old Greek (G) studies centers on the question of how knowledge of a specific translator’s translation strategies aids in: 1) adjudicating between shared variants in the Vorlagen of the earliest translations of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., S and G) and the Masoretic Text (M); 2) identifying shared tactics employed by both translators in rendering a source text close to M; and 3) determining influence from one translation (G) on another (S). To a certain degree, these questions are beset with inescapable methodological circularity: The assumption that cases of S-G agreement betray a specific relation between S and G influences scholars to evaluate other cases on this basis, whereas the assessment that S-G agreements do not indicate any such relation suggests the assumption that they are the result of common translation technique. Complicating this situation are other possibilities for why S agrees with G (against M and Targum [T]). Similarities might also be attributable to: 1) a common translation tradition (i.e., usage of a similar tradition of a certain word or expression); 2) a common Jewish exegetical or liturgical tradition; and 3) the possibility that S secondarily revised toward G or one of its hexaplaric recensions. In light of these interpretive options, scholars have established criteria by which to identify possible G influence on S, but scholars’ different presuppositions about the translation process have impeded a consensus on criteria. In this paper I attempt to refine the methodological criteria for evaluating S-G agreements and apply them to alleged cases of S’s dependence on G in Isa 1-5. I argue that nearly all these agreements can be explained by both translators’ recourse to similar translational problem-solving strategies (some default, emerging, and ad hoc). The single exceptional S-G agreement where an explanation in translation technique does not suffice (1:22) finds a more convincing explanation in both S’s and G’s recourse to a common exegetical or reading tradition.


Compounding and Cogntive Processes in Word Formation with ὑδροποτέω and Its Relatives: Was Anyone Ever a "Water Drinker"?
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Michael Aubrey, Koine-Greek.com

Discussions of lexical semantics often make assumptions about how meaning works: that the meaning of a word is compositional, the sum-total of its parts. Sometimes this assumption is intentional (structuralist semantics). Other times, it is merely a result of a folk understanding of semantics. And yet, several decades of research exist challenging that assumption (Fillmore 1976, Lakoff 1987, Langacker 1987, Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor 1988, Sweetser 1991, Goldberg 2006, Evans 2009). Meaning is emergent, meaning is embodied, meaning is social, and meaning is constructional. Meaning formation in compounds presents an interesting example of this, one that often seems to be lost on both translations and lexicons. Consider the verb ὑδροποτέω, which Paul uses in 1 Timothy 5:23, exhorting Timothy to change his diet. Both lexicons and translations, intentionally or otherwise, consistently adopt a componential view of this words meaning, glossing Paul’s instruction with some form of: “Do not drink only water.” BDAG includes “only” as a mere parenthetical for its gloss, suggesting that the meaning of the verb is simply transparent to its components: ὕδωρ (water), πίνω (drink). Translations across the spectrum from the highly formal to highly functional continue in the same pattern. Indeed, the NASB italicize their use of “exclusively” to signal to the reader that the translators added the word for clarity, making a strong claim about the compositionality of the compound. Even the highly functional NLT translation simply states, “Don’t drink only water.” But if we take seriously cognitive linguistics claims about the nature of meaning, then the lexicographical evidence can only be read one way: ὑδροποτέω refers to the behavior “to live in abstinence regarding alcohol” and a better gloss for 1 Timothy 5:23 would be “Stop being a teetotaler.” In this paper, I suggest a path of lexicalization for this verb and its related forms that begins a cultural desire for a euphemism for teetotalism which was then later extended additionally into ascetic lifestyle decisions generally. I conclude that the component pieces of this compound were never used for the purpose of actually drinking water, but that their combination here is the result of a emergent phenomenon motivated by empirically established cognitive processes in meaning formation.


How Healing People Can Traumatize Environments: Health Care, Economics, and Ecology in the Biblical World
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Hector Avalos, Iowa State University

The interrelationship of economics, health care, and ecology has received little attention in explanations for the vitality or demise of ancient Near Eastern civilizations. By applying theories derived from medical anthropology, which views health care as a system of options and resources for maintaining or restoring health in any community, this paper will provide some examples of how health care impacts both ecology and economics in ancient Near Eastern societies. In particular, it will focus on data from lists of animals, plants, and minerals needed to conduct certain magical healing rituals in Hittite Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and ancient Hebrew texts. Some of those rituals may have impacted the availability of food resources because they re-directed those food resources to health care needs and to temples. Other rituals may have traumatized the environment by requiring the killing of animals for components in healing rituals. An analogy today is the hunting of bears for their gall bladders, which are believed to have healing properties. Such killings, when done on larger scales, may have disrupted ecological balances. The paper explores the methodological problems such issues raise, and also the possible future directions for detecting links among health care, economics, and ecology.


Biblical Violence and Exegesis in Late Antiquity: A Muslim View
Program Unit: Qur'an and Biblical Literature
Hector Avalos, Iowa State University

One of the earliest Christian polemical works mentioning Islam is found in the seventh century in the Doctrina Jacobi ("Teachings of Jacob"). Although focusing on Judaism, this Greek Christian work accuses Islam of using violence to spread its message. Such polemics had a counterpart among Muslim writers, including 'Abd al-Jabbar (d. 415/1025). 'Abd al-Jabbar was born in the 320s/930s in Asadabad, a town in western Iran, but he spent much of his life in Rayy (Iran). Rayy had the bishopric of the East Syrian/Nestorian Church, and it was an important city for Jews and Zoroastrians, as well. This paper will concentrate on 'Abd al-Jabbar's Tathbit dala'il al-nubuwwa ("Confirmation of the Proofs of Prophethood"), a polemic work that was published in an Arabic-English edition (under the title, Critique of Christian Origins) in 2010 by Gabriel Said Reynolds and Samir Khalil Samir. In particular, the paper will explore the various exegetical and theological instruments by which Abd al-Jabbar countered Christian polemics. In one instance he alludes to Deuteronomy 7 and 20, and then shows how Trinitarian assumptions would mean that Christ sent Moses repeatedly to kill those who opposed him. Therefore, Christianity was perhaps even more violent than Christian polemicists assumed. The presentation also will explore broader theological and exegetical issues confronting Christians and Muslims in their efforts to evaluate the proper role of violence in spreading Christianity and Islam.


Crucial Features of Sin Offering Atonement in Leviticus 4–5 and 16
Program Unit: Ritual in the Biblical World
Richard E. Averbeck, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

In Lev 4:2-12, the sin offering unit for the anointed priest, the regular outcome statement running through the section as a whole is conspicuous for its absence. There is nothing like the priest “will make atonement for” the person or group, and they “will be forgiven” (cf. Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:[6], 10, 13). In my view, the absence of atonement and forgiveness in Lev 4:10-12 is crucial for understanding the mechanism of atonement. The priest could not atone for himself. He could manipulate the sacrificial blood to purge the tabernacle, but he could not “make atonement” for himself to obtain forgiveness because he still “bore the culpability” (nāśāʼ āwōn) for the original violation he had committed. Therefore, he could not eat the meat of his own sin offering (v. 12; cf. Lev 6:23). It was by means of the scapegoat ritual on the Day of Atonement that the priest(s) could unload the culpabilities for himself and the Israelites, for whom he had mediated throughout the year and so bore their culpabilities for them (cf., e.g., Exod 28:38; Lev 10:17; Num 18:1), On that day, the High Priest would lay both his hands on the head of the goat and confess over it “all the culpabilities (awônōt) of the Israelites – (from) all their transgressions (pišʻêhem) to all their sins (ḥaṭṭōʼtām) – and put them on the head of the goat” (v. 21). The next verse reduces the list to one word, “culpabilities”: “The goat will carry on itself all their culpabilities (awônōtām) to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness” (v. 22). The “culpabilities” were produced by transgressions and sins and born by the priests until the scapegoat ritual on the Day of Atonement. There are some similarities to this pattern also in the slain goat sin offering ritual in Lev 16:16. The High Priest offered the sin offering goat to “make atonement upon the Most Holy Place from the impurities (ṭumʼōt) of the Israelites – and from all their transgressions (pišʻêhem) to all their sins (ḥaṭṭōʼtām) – and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which dwells with them in the midst of their impurities (ṭumʼōtām)” (cf. also v. 19). In this case, the end of the verse reduces the list to “impurities.” This is because the slain sin offering was concerned with “impurities,” as opposed to the scapegoat later in the chapter where the issue was “culpabilities.” Transgressions and sins (paired in vv. 16 and 21) could produce either impurities (vv. 16, 19) or culpabilities (vv. 21-22). The priests carried the later through the year as the mediators for the Israelites before the Lord. Impurities normally did not create culpabilities (awônōt), but they could if they were not attended to properly according to the normal purity regulations as, for example, when a person did not know they had contracted impurity until it was too late to follow the regulations (Lev 5:2-3 with 5-6; cf., e.g., Lev 15:5-11).


Review of J. Walton's Old Testament Theology for Christians, and R. Gane's Old Testament Law for Christians
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Richard Averbeck, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Review of J. Walton's Old Testament Theology for Christians, and R. Gane's Old Testament Law for Christians


Galilean Economy before and after the Roman Invasion in 67 CE
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Mordechai Aviam, Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee

For more than one year, from 66 to the autumn 67, the Galilee was under heavy stress. It started with clashes between Jews and non-Jews around the Galilee, it continued with the arrival of a young Jewish governor from the social elite in Jerusalem, but mainly from June to October 67, sixty thousand Roman soldiers violently swept the region leaving behind them robbed land, two destroyed towns, and many dead and wounded citizens. In this paper I will use the archaeological data that was gained in a few archaeological excavations and surveys to understand the impact of the first part of the Great Revolt – the Galilean campaign – on the land and on the people. I will start with the evidence of first century sites: Magdala, Yodefat, and Gamla of daily life and economy. I will continue with the understanding of Josephus’s activity as a governor of the region, investing in large operation of fortifications, and into the actual battles of the north. I will end the paper with an attempt to assess the economic consequences of the revolt.


John’s Revelation and Patterns of Theosis
Program Unit: Biblical Exegesis from Eastern Orthodox Perspectives
Michael Azar, University of Scranton

This paper examines the connection between John’s Revelation and patterns of deification in second temple and patristic thought. Considering, for example, Jewish descriptions of the children of Abraham transforming into the likeness of stars or attaining the glory lost by Adam as well as patristic notions of Christ’s incarnation allowing for humankind’s transformation into the likeness of God, this paper asks: To what extent does John’s portrayal of the interceding saints and crowned victors stem from and give rise to concepts of deification elsewhere? Does the distinct early Christian continuation of apocalyptic worldviews, especially vis-à-vis Jewish counterparts, provide a fitting framework in which to understand the soteriological emphasis on theosis as the chief achievement of God’s work in history?


The Triune Sibyl: Greek, Jewish, and Christian Manifestations of a Mutable Muse
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Ashley L. Bacchi, Starr King School for the Ministry

The Greek Sibyl resonated as a powerful prophetess throughout the centuries across the Mediterranean in Jewish and Christian traditions. The pseudepigraphal texts of the Sibylline Oracles inspired many visual representations of Sibyls, especially among Late Medieval and Renaissance artists. For example, Michelangelo and Pietro Perigio painted the Sibyls to add a feminine counter-balance to the Hebrew prophets while Domenico Ghirandalo announced the coming of Jesus in the Basilica of Santa Trinita through a Sibyl. Both elements came together in the Sala delle Sibille in the Vatican’s Borgia Tower. This paper will highlight how the Greek, Jewish, and Christian aspects of the Sibyl are uniquely integrated in each of the visual manifestations, demonstrating the mutable, alluring and triune nature of the Sibyl.


When the Subaltern Speaks: Conquest, Liminality, and the Voice of Resistance in the Book of Lamentations
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Nazeer Bacchus, Yale Divinity School

In this paper, I examine Lam 1-2 along the intersectional lines of postcolonial and feminist theories to interrogate how Daughter Zion is en(gendered) as a national metaphor for social death in the wake of imperial conquest. Reading the surviving Judahite community as a peripheral subaltern community, this paper locates the precarity and liminality reflected in the text vis-à-vis the embodied nation as a rape-victim, abandoned widow, and grieving mother. In viewing Daughter Zion as a representation of the subaltern, I argue that her agency and vocality offer precisely a voice and identity for a fractured community on the margins; thus, through this metaphoric identification, I contend that Daughter Zion ultimately offer a re-inscription of power and agency to a vulnerable populace against the hegemonic master narrative of imperial domination, conquest, and exile.


"Oh Gods, the Surrounding Lands Have Become Arrogant and They Have Violated Their Oaths!" Hittite Arkuwar Prayers and Sitz im Leben of the Biblical Divine Covenant
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Mary R. Bachvarova, Willamette University

Adding Hittite arkuwar prayers to the pool of Near Eastern material shedding light on the significance of the Biblical covenant allows us to explore from a new angle how the Israelites reshaped locally available ways to interact with the divine to define themselves as a people in a unique relationship with the only God. For the Hittite kings occupying Late Bronze Age Anatolia and north Syria, arkuwar ("legal case") prayers, and sworn contracts (ishiul), including international treaties (also called taksul), were complementary genres. Indeed, two early Hittite royal prayers (ca. 1500-1400 BCE) present themselves as contracts between the king and the gods (CTH 389.2, 414.1). With this background information, we can take a new approach to explaining, 1) the parallels between Hittite arkuwar prayers and Biblical arguments with, and complaints to, Yahweh (e.g., Josh 7: 7-9); and 2) the presence of concepts found in Hittite vassal treaties in the way the covenant between Yahweh and his chosen people was framed. The prayers would have travelled in the same way as the treaty formulas, not through population movements, but by means of public oral performances before a copy of a treaty, edict, or diplomatic letter displayed beside the statue of the relevant divinity in his/her temple. That is, the contractual process itself provided the means of geographic transfer of region-specific practices attached to the Near Eastern treaty tradition. Hittite secundogenitures at Carchemish and Aleppo would have engaged in the full gamut of activities surrounding treaties and other sworn agreements, including arkuwars expiating their own actions in violation of ishiuls with humans or gods (e.g., CTH 382, §4) and complaining about the gods' evident anger, which was demonstrated by defeats at the hands of "arrogant" treaty-violators and other misfortunes affecting the state. Neo-Hittite states in Syria chose to retain some Hittite ways of justifying hegemony, as shown by the continued use of Hittite dynastic names and Hieroglyphic Luwian script on stone monuments bearing Hittite-style reliefs, suggesting the relevant practices could have continued well into the Iron Age, before the area was subjugated by the Assyrians, who imposed the Assyrian-style treaty practices that so obviously influenced, e.g., Deuteronomy 28. The Late Bronze Age Hittite evidence gives us a unique glimpse of orally transmitted practices that could have been witnessed by people other than literate scribes. Thus, a specific, occasion-bound means of oral transmission to the Israelites can be postulated not only from Anatolia, but also from the Near East more broadly, for motifs drawn from prayers and incantations that helped to describe and enforce the quasi-contractual relationship between humans and gods. Moreover, the Hittite royal arkuwar prayers put a new focus on the innovative role taken by non-royal Israelite leaders as privileged intermediaries with God, which went hand in hand with eliminating the king as the responsible partner in the contractual relationship between a nation and God.


Patterns and Function of Alliteration in the Prosaic and Poetic Accounts of the Deborah Cycle
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Elizabeth H.P. Backfish, William Jessup University

Alliteration is a device typically identified with poetry. However, its use in Hebrew prose has become increasingly appreciated, as scholars like Gary Rendsburg have shown with his analysis of alliteration in Genesis. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the use of alliteration in the narrative text of the Deborah cycle (Judges 4) and in the poetic text of the same cycle (Judges 5). Specifically, this paper shows how the rhetorical function of alliteration in each account is quite distinctive and an important aspect of the message of each account. Most scholars define poetry by its use of lineation and parallelism, the density of its poetic devices, and its lack of prosaic elements. The fact that there is roughly four times the amount of alliteration in the poetic account of Judges 5 as in the prose account of Judges 4 is therefore neither surprising nor particularly illuminating. However, the comparative use of alliteration in each account is very illuminating. In the prose account, alliteration serves the plot and irony of the narrative, often playing on proper nouns and spanning multiple verses. In the poetic account, alliteration is limited primarily to parallel cola or adjacent words and serves to underscore the structure and lineation of the poem. This study contributes to our understanding of biblical Hebrew poetry in several ways. First, it illustrates the broad usage of an important trope in a given text. Second, it speaks into the conversation of the prose-poetry continuum or distinction in that it illustrates how alliteration is not only used with greater density in poetry but also with markedly different function. Third, this study lays important methodological groundwork for identification and analysis of alliteration.


Nameless in the Nevi’im: An Exploration of Structural Patterning in the Book of Judges Based on Female Characterization
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Elizabeth H.P. Backfish, William Jessup University

Anonymity and identity are powerful rhetorical devices in literature. The named and unnamed females in the book of Judges have been analyzed from various angles and perspectives. Some of the most ground-breaking approaches have those of Mieke Bal, Athalya Brennen, Adele Reinhartz, and Lillian Klein, on whose academic trail this paper gratefully follows. Some trails that await exploration include the relationship between the anonymous and identified characters, as well as how these characters relate in the overall structure and message of the book as a whole. Thus, this paper first seeks to analyze the textual effect of named and unnamed female characters in the book of Judges and how these characterizations contribute to the overall rhetorical and theological message of the book in its final form. Specifically, this paper argues that the four named female characters represent what Israel should have been doing (assertively fighting for Israel, understanding Torah), and the unnamed characters represent what Israel should not have been doing (idolatry, complacency under foreign oppression, misunderstanding Torah) or the consequences of doing what should not have been done (unprotected and discarded victims of injustice and chaos). The second task involves the relationship between these exemplary named characters and non-exemplary anonymous characters. Some pairings have been identified, such as the connections between Achsah and the Levite’s concubine and the connections between Jael and Delilah, but additional pairings that span the entirely of the book and include the male characters who share the narrative space of the females can also be identified. This patterning showcases the literary artistry of the redactor and underscores the contrast between anonymity and identity, ultimately inviting readers to mimetically identify with the exemplary, identified characters, who serve as foils for the anonymous characters. This interplay between anonymity and identity and the rhetorical patterning of these characters contribute to the many and complementary layers of rhetorical patterning in the book of Judges.


Remembering Resurrection at Qumran
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Kyung Baek, Trinity Western University

Scriptures or authoritative traditions from the past and visions of the future formed the foundation of many of the writings of the Qumran movement. Although not all the Dead Sea Scrolls are strictly sectarian, they may be considered as a cache of memories for this movement which identifies and describes its various concepts and practices. Moreover, in light of Social Memory Theory, these concepts should not be distilled into a single and simple recollection of the past but remain a fluid and complex matrix of memories to help reconstruct the present. Given these considerations, this paper attempts to formulate concepts of resurrection and the afterlife at Qumran by integrating Social Memory Theory as it examines (1) authoritative texts that articulate concepts of resurrection (esp. Dan 12:1-3 and 1 En. 22, 90, 104); (2) sectarian (1QS; 1QHa) and possible sectarian writings (4Q385; 4Q521; 4Q542; 4Q548) that uses these authoritative texts to remember the resurrection; and (3) burial and banquet practices at Qumran that recognizes a community living the "Last Days" in the present.


Use of Daniel in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Book of Daniel
Kyung Baek, Trinity Western University

At Qumran, there is a polyphonic use of Daniel which includes and combines the various manuscripts of the book of Daniel, pseudo Daniel material, and quotations and allusions of Daniel in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This paper is a preliminary step to identifying and describing this hermeneutical polyphony as it examines the quotations and allusions of Daniel in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Building on previous work on the use of Daniel in 1QHa, 1QM, 4Q174, and 11Q13, this paper expands this list of scrolls, delineates the various ways that Daniel is used, and attempts to situate the quotations and allusions of Daniel within this hermeneutical polyphony at Qumran. Furthermore, two caveats underscore the examination of this use of Daniel: (1) use is not limited to the book of Daniel but includes traditions as well as the figure of Daniel; and (2) use does not necessarily imply that it is unidirectional or fixed but fluid at the time of these writings.


Lessons on Manhood from Lady Ekklesia: Hermas's Characterization in Visions 1–4
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Jeremiah Bailey, Baylor University

This paper examines the rhetorical and sociological background of the Shepherd of Hermas to explicate the (self-)characterization of Hermas which occurs in Visions 1-4. While the text itself indicates that Hermas comes from humble origins, there is some evidence that Hermas may have at least passing familiarity with Greco-Roman rhetorical techniques. This essay argues that there are potential uses of stock rhetorical forms in Hermas, exploring in detail how examples of fable, ekphrasis, and synkrisis contribute to the characterization of Hermas across Visions 1-4. The paper then explores a common thread in these examples to provide a social context for the characterization of Hermas. Specifically, this paper, building on the work of other scholars on Hermas and gender, demonstrates that the common conceptions of masculinity which serve as an important foil for the portrayal of Hermas in the apocalypse are mediated in part through rhetorical techniques. For example, there is a running synkrisis between Hermas and the feminine personification of the Church which ironically serves as the rubric for Hermas’s masculinity. Understanding Hermas’s rhetorical framing extends our understanding of the role of gender in Visions 1-4 in two ways: 1) It demonstrates that the arc of Hermas from unmanly to manly is completed within the Visions itself and not only later in the Similitudes as some have suggested. 2) Given the association of rhetorical ability and masculinity within Greco-Roman society, the use of rhetorical forms may serve as a meta-narratival confirmation that Hermas has completed the arc to full manhood.


Bathing the Body and Performing Purification? Women’s Roles in Roman Funerary Ritual
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Danielle Baillargeon, University of Toronto

This paper will investigate the roles of women in Roman funerary rituals from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE. There is no extant description of the full complex of Roman funerary rituals; scholarly discussions rely on composite reconstructions drawn from varied, fragmentary evidence. Scholars often examine the role of women within a framework based on the reconstruction of the elite funeral and incorporates an analysis based on dichotomous gender distinctions where men take on the public role of mourning on behalf of the familia and women take on private rituals associated with the preparation of the body and lamentation and mourning. However, a close reading of literary, epigraphic, and artistic sources suggests such a bifurcated interpretive framework may occlude other roles and identities for women constituted within the communicative arena of funerary rituals. This paper seeks to problematize the traditional interpretive framework, suggesting that using status, rather than gender, as an analytical locus highlights the communicative potential of delineations by role. By gathering together and interrogating diverse evidence, such literary and consolatory, legal and testament, epigraphic, and visual evidence for the preparatory rituals, the treatment of the corpse, and the funeral proper, I argue women’s roles in the funereal context were varied and highly differentiated by status. I will interrogate the evidence upon which the composite understanding of the Roman funeral is based, drawing out indications of status distinctions. I argue that performances of mourning by women of the upper classes were often rhetorical and politically motivated and functioned to delineate a multitude of intersectional identities, including philosophical allegiance and ethnicity. Physical performances of gestures associated with mourning such as beating the breast and tearing the hair, could be appropriate as spontaneous articulations of grief; however, physical performances of grief manifesting in gestures of self-degradation were the purview of the lower classes, both men and women, in the formalized and systematic rituals associated with the funeral. Finally, I will suggest that later Christian authors manipulated these performances of grief to create new paradigms of the ideal mourner. Grief performances associated with the funerary ritual, properly directed, purified the mourner of sin, providing the impetus for them to take up an ascetic lifestyle in the letters of Jerome, attesting to the importance that writers placed in the communicative potential of the funerary ritual and the need to control and manipulate female models of proper behavior.


“Have You Allowed All the Women to Live?” A Study of Mosaic Masculinities
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Cynthia M. Baker, Bates College

The title of this paper comes from Numbers 31:15, where we encounter an angry Moses chastising his tribal soldiers for having spared the Midianite women and children after having wiped out all the men of Midian. Moses then orders that all the boy children and mature women be slaughtered and the young Midianite girls be left to the soldiers. God’s order to Moses to “execute the LORD’s vengeance on Midian” in this fashion is framed as Moses’ final task and, hence, serves as a kind of bookend to the career that began when Hebrew and Egyptian women conspired together to save him from Pharaoh’s edict of death for boy children – or, in another sense, when his Midianite wife saved his life, as his own God sought to kill him, on the eve of his return to Egypt. These bookending narratives of Moses’ life provide a rich body of material through which to investigate the paradoxes, ironies, and violence of “Mosaic masculinities.”


Uploading Hebrew: The Transformation of the Language Classroom
Program Unit: Global Education and Research Technology
Sarah Lynn Baker, The University of Texas at Austin

The discussion surrounding best practices for teaching Biblical Hebrew has grown in promising directions through recent years. Along with increased attention to modern pedagogical methods, there has also been an exponential growth of interest in online language education as technological advances make web-based instruction more versatile. My perspective on this discussion is informed by over a decade of experience in Biblical Hebrew (BH) curriculum development for contexts ranging from in-person to online, from grammar-translation to communicative methodologies, from private organizations to the university level, and varying combinations of all these factors. The particulars of each learning environment (timeframe, institutionally-mandated outcomes, student demographics, etc.) have required me to constantly revisit what I see as the driving questions behind any BH course design project: What are the learning goals for this institution and/or student group? Within the given parameters, how can we maximize the students’ immersion in the most authentic possible form of BH, and how can we most effectively leverage modern research on language acquisition with regard to focused instruction, comprehensible input, etc.? In the present session, I will share how I have addressed such questions in two particular contexts: 1) An undergraduate university setting which combines a living-language style classroom (using methods such as Total Physical Response and Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling), a grammar-translation textbook, and an innovative online homework program that gives students real-time feedback; and 2) An exclusively online (asynchronous) BH course designed on the open-source Moodle platform and geared toward BMin/BTh/MDiv students who also need to be trained to incorporate their Hebrew skills with the language resources available to them on the Logos software. The latter project is modeled in part after the former, and it engages a number of technological tools (audio, video, auto-correct exercises, etc.) in an effort to translate the pedagogical advantages of a face-to-face communicative classroom into the online environment. During this presentation, I will use Jonah 1 as an example text through which to demonstrate the various types of online exercises and resources that I have found to carry the strongest pedagogical value in each situation. As the demand for online coursework continues to grow, I expect that using these two teaching contexts as test cases could provide worthwhile insights for others who are also presented with the challenge and the opportunity of guiding biblical language acquisition in an online world.


Cycles of Reading and Praise: Isaiah, Enoch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Qumran
Arjen Bakker, Oxford University

In this paper I will examine how the reading of Isaiah generated new texts in the Second Temple Period. I will look for new models to understand early interpretation. Can we speak of an interpretive tradition that stands on its own, or is an interpretive tradition always entangled with the interpreted text and its process of literary growth? I will demonstrate how a peculiar reading of Isaiah 40 can be traced through LXX-Isaiah, Ben Sira, 4QInstruction and the Similitudes of Enoch. On the basis of Isaiah 40, the eternal movements of the luminaries are presented as examples of continuous activity. Although each of these texts participate in a shared interpretive tradition, they all go back to the text of Isaiah and generate new and distinctive readings. This can be understood as a cyclical process that is set into motion through specific reading practices. Some of these reading practices can be traced in the texts themselves. For example, 4QInstruction incites students of wisdom to chase after knowledge continuously, and the Similitudes of Enoch attest to an ideal of continuous thanksgiving and praise. These practices of study and prayer can be seen as generative for the intricate interpretive traditions we encounter in these texts. In both cases these practices are modeled on the eternal movements of the heavenly bodies and rooted in readings of Isaiah 40.


Galileo Reading Qohelet: In Defense of Theologically Informed Intellectual Optimism
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Samuel E. Balentine, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Biblical scholars continue to wrestle with the translation of Eccl 3:11b: “[God] has put hā`ôlām in their [people’s] minds.” Should `ôlām be rendered conventionally as “eternity,” “distant time,” or perhaps even “infinity?” Or should the MT be emended to something like “toil” (he`āmāl) or “darkness”/“ignorance” (from the verb `ālam, “hide”)? The differences are consequential and produce significantly different interpretations. But perhaps no reading of Eccl 3:11 was as consequential as Galileo’s. On the eve of his indictment by the Church as a Copernican heretic, Galileo wrote a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615) setting forth a biblical rational for his pursuit of forbidden understanding: “Who wants the human mind put to death? Who is going to claim that everything in the world which is observable and knowable has already been seen and discovered? Perhaps those who on other occasions admit, quite correctly, that the things we know are a very small part of the things we do not know? Indeed, we also have it from the very mouth of the Holy Spirit that God `hath delivered the world [mundum, Douay Version] to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work which God hath made from beginning to the end’.” Galileo took inspiration from the first half of the verse (Eccl 3:11a), for one must not “block the way of freedom of philosophizing about things of the world and of nature, as if they had already been discovered and disclosed with certainty,” and proceeded to search the heavens with the “spyglass devised by me, through God’s grace first enlightening my mind.” The second half of the verse guided those who would condemn his inquiries as heresy in accord with the imperatives of post-Trent theology; precisely because “petulant spirits” like Galileo can never comprehend the infinity of divine wisdom, they should subordinate personal speculation to the universal authority of the Church Fathers. Thus began the “Galileo Affair,” which provided the foundation for the Church’s seventeenth century decreed divide between science and religion. It is ironic that Galileo turned to Qohelet, whose quest for understanding the mysteries of the world led him to conclude that intellectual inquiry is “perfectly pointless” (hebel), to argue for a theologically informed intellectual optimism because “the human mind is a work of God and one of the most excellent.” This paper will examine Galileo’s exegesis of the epistemological presuppositions and moral strictures related to intellectual inquiry in Qohelet’s world and in his own.


Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: Retrospective and Prospective
Program Unit: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Samuel E. Balentine, Union Presbyterian Seminary

This paper will overview and assess research on prayer in the Hebrew Bible, with attention to its development in the Second Temple period. The paper will also project possible areas for future research.


The Mesopotamian Mis-Pi Ceremony & Clifford Geertz’s “Thick Description”: A Case Study in the Symbolic Webs of the Deceased
Program Unit: Ritual in the Biblical World
Amy L. Balogh, University of Denver

The life’s work of 20th-century ethnographer Clifford Geertz is characterized by what he called “Thick Description” (TD), the practice of developing rich, nuanced understandings of culture using thorough, complex, and contextualized descriptions of narrowly defined phenomenon rather than large-scale surveys. The goals of TD are: 1) to analyze a single phenomenon in a way that illuminates the culture at large, 2) to trace the “symbolic web of meaning” that a culture spins in order to understand and express its lived experience, and 3) to bridge the gap between the culture under investigation and the ethnographer’s audience. But can ethnographic method be applied ethically and effectively in the study of the deceased? This paper argues that the narrow focus of TD renders it particularly appropriate for working with ancient cultures because it enables one to connect objects and texts to their larger cultural environment, even in the absence of living members. Here, I present a case study of the Mesopotamian Mis-Pi (Washing, Purification of the Mouth) ceremony, a 2-day ritual for the induction of idols, for which we have little information outside of extant ritual and incantation texts from the 7th-6th centuries BCE. TD not only allows me to unpack the nature, meaning, and function of this ritual, but it also enables me do so in way that speaks to the values, paradoxes, inner-lives, and daily workings of the community for whom the ritual expresses a “symbolic web of meaning,” a web we may continue to study through tools like TD.


Deconstructing the Masculinity of the Levite in Judges 19–20: A Hidden Polemic Against Saulide Kingship
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Ji Min Bang, Brandeis University

Aside from an increasing number of feminist studies that discuss the pilegesh’s relationship with the Levite of Judges 19–20, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the Levite as a character, particularly as a masculine persona. A close reading of the text discloses to the reader that the Levite is depicted as a complex and even dishonorable figure. He escapes from gang rape at the expense of his pilegesh, whom he is obliged to protect as a husband (Judg 19:16–30), and deceives the gathering of the Israelites as he recounts the events that have brought them together (Judges 20:1–11). With a guiding assumption that the nuanced character of the Levite has been deliberately designed by the author(s) of the text, this paper looks at the Levite through the lens of masculinity. Drawing on the works of Ken Stone (1996) and David Clines (2010), the paper examines Judges 19:1–20:7 and identifies within this text four aspects on masculinity: (1) violence, especially as expressed through killing, (2) persuasive speech, (3) honor, and (4) detachment from women. It offers a close literary analysis of these chapters with particular attention to the subtle uses of language (e.g., a linguistic tension between the Levite’s wayyaḥǎzēq in v. 25 and the father-in-law’s wayyeḥĕzaq in v. 4) and intertextual references to male figures (e.g., Abraham, Saul) for the development of the Levite’s deconstructed character. I will argue that in the characterization of the Levite, the narrator utilizes these assumptions about masculinity to depict him as a failed man. The Levite presents himself as a powerful and persuasive leader in Israel, while the narrator simultaneously employs masculine assumptions to impugn his character, to portray him as dependent upon women, and to dismantle the Levite’s power. As a final point, I will suggest that the negative portrayal of the Levite discloses a broader polemic against Saulide kingship.


The Biblical Conflict Myth and Ecological Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Ki-Min Bang, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

The conflict myth, also known as Chaoskampf and the combat myth motif, in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has been perceived as dangerous for the environment (e.g., Habel-Avent, Trudinger, 2001) and animals. This motif describes God as a strong warrior, and God’s enemies are the sea, river, Earth, and chaos monsters (Leviathan, Behemoth, and Rahab). The battle between God and the enemy always ends with God’s victory and the desolation of earth and sea (e.g., Ps 46) in these conflict passages. The danger of this motif is also evident in some animal species, formerly equated with Leviathan and Behemoth. Western Christian interpreters of the biblical conflict myth (Calvin, Bochart, Melville, Couroyer, and Clines, etc.) have equated Leviathan and Behemoth with whales, crocodiles, hippopotamus, buffalo, and many other endangered animals. Implied narratives of the conflict myth can justify the hunting of currently endangered animal species. This paper will explore problems of the biblical Conflict Myth from past research in terms of environmental issues and try to find a green interpretation for the motif; (1) through a re-contextualization of the motif for us today (e.g., raging sea in ancient time versus increasing sea level and global warming in this age), and (2) in light of the myth theoretical approaches (e.g., the climatic pattern of the Ugaritic Baʻlu cycle in Johannes de Moor, and Gaster; Ballentine). Core messages of the conflict myth for environmental readings may include (1) the image of God as the creator and protector/sustainer of the cosmos and the regularity of the climate (Gen 8:22[J]; Gen 9:8-17[P]; Ps 89:10-11), and (2) God who commissions human political and religious leaders to prevent them from making the chaos monster great again (Ps 89:26; ET 89:25). These two suggestions enable a green interpretation of the conflict myth here and can contribute “rescuing the Bible from misinterpretation and recovering its ecological wisdom” (Horrell, Hunt, and Southgate, 2010).


The Paschal Nature of the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians and the Implications for Understanding the Antioch Incident
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
Michael Patrick Barber, Augustine Institute

As P. Fredriksen recently pointed out (2017), explanations of the incident at Antioch described in Galatians 2 are often unpersuasive. For example, the supposition that the controversy involved purity concerns relating to proximity to Gentiles ignores the fact that non-Jews were included in the life of the Jerusalem temple and the synagogue (cf. also Zetterholm, 2009). Nevertheless, Fredriksen's conclusion, namely, that there was anxiety about what was consumed and/or the meal's context is also somewhat unsatisfying. Peter is not condemned for what he eats but for his choice of table companions and purity is never explicitly in view (Nanos, 2002). Moreover, as Fredriksen admits, our evidence suggests that Jews practiced a greater degree of flexibility regarding purity issues when among Gentiles (cf. E. Sanders, 2015). Fredriksen's account also minimizes the significance of Gal 2:13, which describes Peter's critics as "the circumcision." Given the broader question of the need for Gentiles to undergo the Jewish rite, an issue that clearly drives much of the argument in the epistle, the appearance of this specific label seems significant. This paper will argue that Peter's detractors should be taken more seriously as theologians and should not be viewed as merely scandalized puritans. Picking up on the insight that eating together constituted a major aspect of those who opposed Peter, this paper offers an account of their view that builds upon suggestions made previously by D. Hare and B. Chilton. First, as we know from the Corinthian correspondence, in this early period the eucharist had yet to be separated from the celebration of the communal meal, making it likely that it was part of the meal at Antioch (I. Elmer, 2009; cf. also Schlier, 1989; Jewett, 1994). Second, as many have noted, the Last Supper account in 1 Corinthians 11 includes a number of details suggestive of an awareness of the meal's paschal setting (Pitre, 2015). Moreover, that Jesus' death was linked to Passover is clearly attested in 1 Corinthians 5. Thus, as J. Patterson (2015) has argued, there are good reasons to think the Lord's Supper itself was understood as paschal in character. Third, Paul indicates that he "received" the tradition of the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:23), a comment that many have read as indicating a source for the practice in the Jerusalem church. Together these observations paint a picture that help redraw the incident at Antioch. While Gentiles were allowed to enter the temple and participate in Jewish life in general, the Torah explicitly bars the uncircumcised from eating the Passover meal (cf. Exod 12:48), even if this prohibition was not always enforced (cf. Ezek. Trag. 152-92). Application of this principle on the part of Jerusalem Christians to participation in the Lord's Supper would make the most sense of the data found in Galatians, which indicate that the controversy about Peter impinged on both the question of communal eating and on the question of circumcision.


Transmitting the Victory: The Lord’s Prayer in Luke as a Summary of the Temptations
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
Michael Patrick Barber, Augustine Institute

It is widely known that the Gospel of Luke records a shorter version of the Lord's Prayer than that of Matthew, but surprisingly little has been done to determine the author's particular selection criteria. This paper offers a possible explanation for the specific petitions from within the narrative itself. Recent scholarship frequently presents Luke's text as an interwoven account, drawing connections between many passages within the Gospel, such as the miracle in 9:12-17 and the meal in 24:28-32 (cf. M. Wolter [2017]). However, apart from scholars who highlight the repetitions of thematic words like "temptation" (peirasmon) or "kingdom" (basileia), commentators generally neglect the more substantial intertextual echoes between the temptation narrative in Luke 4 and the prayer given by Jesus in Luke 11 (e.g. D. Allison [1999]; H. Betz [1995]). From the prayer's initial address ("Father"), the reader finds the answer to the central question of the temptations: "if you are the son of God" (Luke 4:3, 9; 11:2 NRSV). The subsequent petition ("hallowed be your name") reflects the biblical association of God's name and the Temple, summarizing both Jesus' disposition and location in the third temptation (Luke 4:9; 11:2). The next petition ("your kingdom come") calls to mind Jesus' refusal of "all the kingdoms of the world" in the second temptation, highlighting the same deference to God exhibited there (Luke 4:5; 11:2). The third petition ("give us each day our daily bread") echoes the first temptation, in which Jesus refuses to provide bread for himself and refers instead to God's authority (Luke 4:4; 11:3). In the fourth petition, the author diverges momentarily from the pattern developed thus far with a petition for forgiveness that finds no direct parallel in the temptation account, but a close examination of the narrative reveals several potential reasons for this departure (Luke 11:4). Finally, the Lord's Prayer concludes with an idea reflected three times in the temptation scene: that of being "led" into "temptation" (peirasmon) (Luke 4:1, 5, 9; cf. 11:4). Given the extensive and highly structured parallels between these passages, it would be hard to argue that the author of Luke's Gospel did not intend to convey a direct relationship between them, such that the Lord's Prayer acts as a reflective summary of Jesus' response to temptation, delivering his success in the desert to his disciples by petition.


The Late Bronze Age-Iron Age I Transition at Gezer
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Marcella Barbosa, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

The transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age is still a bit of a mystery, as events and changes took place which modern scholars have difficulty explaining. It thus provides an enticing period rich with research possibilities. In the past several years, the Tandy excavations at Gezer have uncovered a robust Iron Age I occupation, as well as the last Late Bronze stratum immediately preceding it, providing primary data in which to study this transitional period. This paper will discuss this last Late Bronze city plan, its associated destruction, and how life at Gezer resumed afterwards, as well as how this fits into the overall picture of the Late Bronze- Iron I transition.


Jewish Jesus-Narratives in Seventeenth Century Italy: Reading Toledot Yeshu in Context
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Daniel Barbu, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

The Jewish life of Jesus, or Toledot Yeshu, provides a polemical account of the origins of Christianity, mocking Jesus as an illegitimate child, a false prophet and a charlatan, and describing his disciples as a bunch of violent rogues. In various forms, the narrative circulated among Jews (and read by Christians), as early as the ninth century CE (if not earlier) and at least until the mid-twentieth century. The story was doubtless a powerful medium for collective emotions and communal bonds. It is however often considered an antiquated work, reflecting a “medieval” perception of Christianity, which early modern Jews eventually dismissed while reclaiming Jesus as law-abiding Jew and engaging in an ever-more sophisticated discourse on the early history of Christianity—au passage inventing the “historical” Jesus. Toledot Yeshu came to be described as “an abortion from the time of legends” (Mendelssohn) when it was not simply labelled “a pile of dump in a dark corner of Jewish literature” (N. Porges), contrasting with the more tolerant approaches to religious difference of Jewish “modernity.” Alas this very much goes against the textual evidence, which not only suggests that Toledot Yeshu enjoyed widespread circulation in the early modern period, but in fact truly proliferated at that time, when a number of new copies, translations and expansions were produced. Toledot Yeshu has in recent years become the object of renewed scholarly interest. Yet much of that work remains dedicated to illuminating the origins of the narrative and questions of textual history. While philological questions are undoubtedly important, such studies often fail to consider the place and function of the narrative in the shifting historical and cultural contexts in which it circulated. In this paper, I will suggest a few avenues for shifting the scholarship on Toledot Yeshu from philology to history. To this effect, I will focus on the Italian versions of Toledot Yeshu and on the early modern Italian context in which they circulated. On the one hand, I will explore some of the religious and affective entanglements between Christians and Jews reflected in the Italian texts, as a way; on the other I will discuss the role of these texts in early modern historical scholarship, in both Jewish and Christian contexts.


The Proliferation of Gospels and the Intentions of Subsequent Evangelists
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
James W. Barker, Western Kentucky University

Drawing on studies of manuscript materiality, sociology of reading, and circles of authors, this paper sketches a general theory of gospel proliferation. In terms of writing, Greek, Roman, and Jewish comparanda show numerous examples of similar works proliferating. In terms of reading, collection and close comparison of these similar works were also commonplace. On the supposition that ancient writers were attuned to their contemporary reading practices, gospel writers would not likely discard their sources, and readers would likely collect and compare multiple gospels. According to Markan priority, then, Matthew and Luke were not attempting to replace Mark (contra David Sim et al.); neither would Luke have attempted to replace Matthew according to Augustinian, Griesbach, and Farrer hypotheses. The longstanding question whether subsequent evangelists intended ‘to supplement or replace’ their predecessors turns out to be a false dichotomy. The paper not only offers refined terminology for gospel proliferation but also identifies common assumptions about gospel writing that do not conform to norms of Greco-Roman literary production—for example, that Mark’s gospel nearly fell out of circulation in the second century; that the Two-Source Hypothesis necessitates such a short-lived Q; and that a decade elapsed between publication of a source text and a subsequent gospel.


The Place of Zion in the Political Landscape of the Twelve
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Joel Barker, Heritage College & Seminary

The Place of Zion in the Political Landscape of the Twelve


The Daughter Sold Off for Marriage
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Pamela Barmash, Washington University

The Book of the Covenant holds that a male slave is to be freed after six years of servitude while the female slave is not released.(Exod 21:2-11) This incompatibility has been an enigma for millennia, and perhaps it was so even in biblical times, since Deut 15:12-18 revises the passage so that both male and female slaves are to be released in the seventh year. The law in the Book of the Covenant appears to be aimed at providing the female slave with the protection of marriage, but a further interpretive puzzle lies in the proviso that she is released if her husband withholds her matrimonial rights when he takes a second wife -- a malicious husband could be free of her if he intentionally denies what she is due, and then how would she be safeguarded? Possible solutions to these conundrums may be found if we understand that marriage is envisioned in two seemingly contradictory ways.


Neighbors and Need, Then and Now: Moral Reasoning and Embodied Love in Luke 10:25–37
Program Unit: Poverty in the Biblical World
Michael Barram, Saint Mary's College of California

In a contemporary context characterized by mounting political extremism and social tribalism, seemingly inexorable neoliberal economic imperialism, yawning gaps between the wealth and power of plutocrats and proletarians, and typically limpid (if not entirely co-opted) Christian responses to unjust and dehumanizing societal structures, the formative function of Jesus’s brilliant and status-quo-reversing parable in Luke 10:29-37—and, in particular, the ways in which it revisits the import and implications of the Levitical neighbor-love commandment (Lev 19:18)—merits renewed attention. The Lukan Jesus launches into a parabolic tale that effectively serves to challenge and reorient the moral calculus of the Gospel’s readers, ancient and modern, in at least two fundamental ways—even as it underscores why Leviticus 19:18 can be understood to function as a summary of the whole of Torah. First, Jesus’s parable deconstructs the legal expert’s presupposition that he might have a limited number neighbors—or that there could be a restricted scope within which legitimate neighbors might be found. The important question, according to Jesus, is not “who” a neighbor is (i.e., a matter of identity) but rather a question of “how” (“likewise” is an adverb) one is live as a neighbor with regard to anyone. The “neighbor” who is to be loved according to Lev 19:18 is not to be defined in terms of proximity, various types of similarity or affinity, or even traditional covenantal boundaries. Everyone is to be regarded as a neighbor to be ‘loved’ “as” ‘oneself’. Second, the Lukan Jesus seeks to form the legal expert’s moral reasoning and, in particular, his actual conduct with regard to love. The literary context of Leviticus 19:18—especially Lev 19:9-18—highlights the tangible nature of what ‘loving one’s neighbor as oneself’ was to entail within the ancient Israelite covenantal community. To “love” one’s “neighbor as” ‘oneself’ had—and today, still has—concrete implications, particularly in terms of economic matters. Jesus’s parable echoes and emphasizes this same Torah concern with addressing concrete human needs. The Samaritan embodied what love for another looks like. Jesus’s parable serves to form readers’ moral reasoning—and their behavior. They are to reason behaviorally in light of concrete human need, and they are sent into the world to meet those needs. This is why the neighbor-love commandment in Leviticus 19:18 is so often affirmed in the New Testament as an apt summary of the entire Torah. If humans embody this kind of concrete “love” for everyone (all “neighbors—“as” themselves) they have, in the process, upheld the intent of the entire Torah. Luke 10:25-37 exposes the moral bankruptcy of belief systems and societal structures that foster tribalistic distinctions between insiders and outsiders—and that encourage us to overlook basic and fundamental human needs to the extent that to reason morally in terms of need, first and finally, seems largely incommensurate with market-oriented rationality and self-interest. In the context of radical economic and power imbalances—whether in the first century or today—the importance of tangible, concrete, embodied love for all is of critical importance. Indeed, it is at the very heart of the entire faith. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Jesus’ response to the legal expert in Luke 10:25-37. Today’s Christian community needs to allow this passage to reform and transform its reasoning—and its conduct. We have so many neighbors in need.


What Did Paul Know about the Historical Jesus, and When and How Did He Know It?
Program Unit: Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament
S. Scott Bartchy, University of California-Los Angeles

This paper takes a fresh approach to this vexing question of Paul's knowledge of Jesus by focusing on the kinds of "counter-cultural" behavior and interpersonal relationships to which apparently Jesus and certainly Paul was seeking to convert their respective audiences. It draws on recent work published by neuroscientists (e.g.,Damasio and Iacoboni) regarding the critical role imitation plays in all human learning,


Preaching Mark's Jesus: Narrative Theology as a Homiletic
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Jennifer Garcia Bashaw, Campbell University

One of the gravest results of the gap between the Church and the Academy is that our congregations do not benefit enough from the wealth of scholarly innovation that comes out of biblical and theological study. In this paper, I will explore one such scholarly innovation for its potential to impact the preacher's understanding and proclamation of Jesus. Elizabeth Struthers Malbon's contribution to gospel studies, Mark's Jesus; characterization as narrative Christology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), fuses insights from literary study, historical criticism, and theological analysis to demonstrate how Mark characterizes Jesus using the actions and words of Jesus and others throughout his narrative. After detailing the most significant insights from her study of Mark, I will suggest ways these insights can inform a preacher's understanding of Jesus. Then, I will show how Mark's Jesus could be communicated faithfully to a contemporary congregation by adapting the form of a sermon to mimic Markan literary structure and/or Mark's mode of characterization. At the end of the paper, I will preach an excerpt from a sermon on a Markan pericope in order to model how a preacher might allow Mark's characterization of Jesus to inform and shape their own characterization of Jesus from the pulpit.


Jesus, Women, and Power Dynamics in Luke: A Hermeneutical Response to #metoo and #churchtoo
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Jennifer Garcia Bashaw, Campbell University

Thanks to last year’s #metoo movement and others like it, Americans are finally waking up to the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault. Part of the plan for change involves naming the elements in our culture that have contributed to the systematic devaluing and silencing of women. Once such element is the patriarchal (so-called “biblical”) worldview espoused by many evangelical Christians. This worldview relegates women to traditional (so-called “biblical”) roles in society and maintains an oppressive power imbalance in the family and the church. Because of this misguided, “biblical” perspective, women who have been assaulted—many within the church—are often blamed or ignored, while the perpetrators face little to no repercussions for their abuse. Women who have spoken out because of the #metoo and #churchtoo movements should not have to suffer further under a system that shames rather than supports them. Instead, the church should offer healing and hope to these women. Such healing may come in many ways: voices raised in protest, justice delivered to perpetrators, grief groups formed for victims, even counseling offered for trauma recovery. In addition, since the patriarchal worldview of many evangelicals stems from a gross misapplication of Scripture, churches can also offer healing by countering such abuse of Scripture with responsible, liberating interpretation of Scripture. By communicating the redemptive biblical message, which condemns oppression and turns the power dynamics of this world upside down, preachers and teachers of Scripture can play a part in the restorative empowerment of women and in the much-needed transformation of biblical interpretation in the Church. In this paper, I will demonstrate that good hermeneutics can provide a source of healing for women who have been hurt by the Church and its often skewed view of Scripture. I will focus on a section of Luke that highlights just one of the many liberating themes in Scripture pertinent to women who have suffered abuse. First, in Luke 7:11-17, Jesus shows death-defying compassion to a widow whose life was collateral damage in a society that treated women as helpless objects. Second, in Luke 7:36-50, Jesus bestows forgiveness and honor on a woman who anoints him while shaming the Pharisee who misused his status and power in the situation. Third, in Luke 10:38-42, Jesus challenges traditional gender roles by commending Mary’s desire to become a disciple rather than adhere to limiting societal norms. In my analysis, I will use responsible hermeneutics to show how Luke presents Jesus as upsetting the power dynamics of his culture and lifting the position and voices of women in a society that oppressed and silenced women. My anaylsis of these Lukan passages will demonstrate how solid exegesis and responsible interpretation of Scripture can underscore the biblical message of liberation, provide healing for #metoo and #churchtoo women, and inspire the church to combat the patriarchal environment that has contributed to the abuse of women for too long.


Fish out of Water: Teaching the Bible as a Historian of US Religion
Program Unit: Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
Katharine Batlan, The University of Texas at Austin

As a historian of American religion, when I was asked to teach a course titled, "The Bible and Its Interpreters," panic set in quickly. But in this presentation I will argue that by turning to departmental colleagues, identifying some major scholarship, and recognizing my strengths related to the topic, I was able to successfully teach an engaging course twice at my public institution. Though my perspective coming from US religious history may vary from others on the panel, I provide some tools for stretching teaching beyond a particular specialization. At my institution people who typically teach this course consider methods of studying the Bible that are familiar to many SBL members - using historical critical interpretation, feminist interpretation, and literary analysis, among others. I provided some of that interspersed throughout the class, but instead focused on how these methods related to particular American controversies. I essentially reframed the course around Bible debates in US history. We read, for example, biblical passages on slavery to understand the American Civil War, marriage to discuss polygamy debates in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and divergent translations of the Bible to understand controversies over Bible reading in public schools. This helped keep the course within the parameters of what my institution wanted, while keeping it manageable and engaging for me. In the second semester I taught this course, I was able to expand to include more of the traditional content of the course. This was possible because I had already done the work to lay the foundation for the class the first time around. Though the particulars of what courses require varies, I will provide my own experience of triumphs and pitfalls to try to help others who are similarly stretched in developing set courses that appear unfeasible at first glance.


Reception History, Authority, and Marginal Texts
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Dan Batovici, KU Leuven

This paper seeks to problematise the particular facet of New Testament Wirkungsgeschichte which involves the reception of what can be conceived of as marginal NT books. Indeed, speaking of the reception of the New Testament as a whole runs the risk of glossing too easily over the fact that the books which compose it have separate reception histories which are different both quantitatively and qualitatively. The study of the reception of marginal New Testament texts, however, especially in relation to that of the reception of non-canonical yet nonetheless authoritative early Christian writings, is crucial for better understanding the dynamics of authority of texts around the margins of the NT canon. Within this framework, the proposed paper will discuss the nature of the authority assigned to a marginal New Testament letter – 1 Peter – in Late Antiquity.


Reading Aids in Early Christian Papyri
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Dan Batovici, KU Leuven

This paper proposes a discussion of the available theories concerning the purpose, function, and significance of the various para-textual features in early Christian literary papyri which are considered to be reading or lectional aids of various kinds. Based on a study of the papyri of canonical and non-canonical early Christian papyri this paper re-evaluates the basis for identifying the usage of literary papyri in liturgical contexts in Late Antiquity. This would be relevant not only for a better understanding of the late-antique material perusal of early Christian books, but it also serves to call into question the implications that such theories draw with regard to the formation of the New Testament canon.


Once More on Editing Ethiopic Texts
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Alessandro Bausi, University of Hamburg

Notwithstanding some non-mainstream attempts of European scholarship at opening the debate and the impressive flourishing of philology programmes at Ethiopian universities, one has to admit that the general academic panorama does not provide yet any widely shared views on how to edit Ethiopic texts. The scholarly and academic control—that is the most important requirement for securing quality and establishing common standards—is still minimal. The task of checking what and how is done should be committed to reviews. These, however, are often limited to a summarization of content and often end with the assumption that an edition is good by its only existence, since a new text is made accessible in the form of a printed publication. Additional factors, moreover, must be considered: (1) historians and new field researches have highlighted the relevance of so far more neglected typology of texts, like documentary texts (feudal deeds as well as minor historiographical texts), which require specific editorial solutions due to their particular status; (2) there is an Ethiopian tradition of editing, still too little explored, represented by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and related people and institutions; (3) the ‘manuscript cultures’ approach, that has provided a deeper and wider understanding of manuscripts as a decisive factor in shaping transmission, cultural, social: in one word, historical processes, besides and in connection with their role of text carriers. There are two aspects of this latter approach: (i) the edition can assume as its task the exhaustive documentation of each single manuscript as in-depth as possible, highlighting and documenting every single minimal textual, paratextual and material and feature, up to—this will be probably possible in the near future—to reproduce the smell of the manuscript; (ii) as far as the text is concerned (whatever we intend to define it), the ‘manuscript cultures’ perspective does not provide any editorial solution ready at hand, unless we understand as a a solution to display, for example, synoptically all the texts of each single manuscript. The same applies to any kind of digital editions, since every technical option depends upon and implies methodological decisions. In this connection, a few case studies can be used to show the complexity of some of the issues at stake and contribute fruitfully to the more general debate. These questions are not new and require the attitude of looking at the Ethiopic manuscript tradition—and at the single manuscript traditions in particular—beyond the relative familiar, yet specific and peculiar perspective of biblical textual criticism.


"The Torah and Testimony" in Isaiah and the Book of Jubilees
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Richard Bautch, St. Edward's University

In the various Ethiopic manuscripts of Jubilees, the book’s incipit is lengthier and likely a reflection of the full Hebrew title no longer extant: “These are the words regarding the divisions of the times of the torah and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of the weeks of their jubilees throughout all the years of eternity as he related (them) to Moses on Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the stone tablets ….” The phrase “according to the torah and the testimony” recurs elsewhere in the text (1:4-5, 26, 29; 2:24, 33; 3:14), while the lexeme “testimony” is also well attested (4:18-19; 6:32, 37; 23:32; 30:17, 19; 31:32). Altogether these citations form a leitmotif in Jubilees and raise the question of authorial intent. What is meant by the idiom “the Torah and the Testimony”? There is no clear consensus among scholars of Jubilees, although many agree that this enigmatic language is significant for the overall stance of the book. We know from 4Q216 that the Hebrew reads: והתעודה‎התורה . It is noteworthy that Isa 8:16 very similarly refers to the torah and the testimony: “Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching (torah) among my disciples.” Through coordinated exegesis of both Isa 8:16 and the aforementioned verses in Jubilees, this study explores potential points of contact between the book of Isaiah and the distinctive retelling of Genesis and Exodus known as Jubilees. A leading question is whether vis-à-vis “the torah and the testimony” there is shared meaning between Isaiah and Jubilees beyond that of a generic sort. In concluding, this study considers how the text of Isaiah or traditions associated with the prophet played a role in the composition of Jubilees.


Martyrs, Borderlines, and Jewish/Christian Identity in the Late Fourth Century
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Carson Bay, Florida State University

No one knows who wrote the late-fourth century historiographical work often called Pseudo-Hegesippus, or On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio urbis Hierosolymitano). The author is clearly Christian inasmuch as (s)he regards Jesus to be the spes gentium, reveres Paul and Peter as doctores Christianorum, and in general rewrites Josephus’ Jewish War in a way that effectively erases the first-century Jews from history at CE 70. Yet in editing the work’s critical text, Karl Mras suggested a certain Jew named Isaac, known to Jerome, as the work’s author. The suggestion is not unreasonable. Although the author of the work stands in opposition to Josephus, who did not understand (non intellexit) the history he recorded given his participation in the perfidiae Iudaeorum, the author refers to the veterus cultus attached to the Jerusalem Temple as “ours” (nostri). Did the Christian author of this piece of classical historiography understand her/himself to be Jewish and, if so, in what way? In this paper I argue that De Excidio provides us with one late antique Christian perspective which, while employing the terms Iudaeus and (infrequently) Christianus, transcends the rigorous binary of nomenclature. Instead, De Excidio’s historical logic functions in terms of fides and infides, pietas and impietas, allowing for historical Jews to cross over the borderline separating the narrator’s assumed, ‘orthodox’ position concerning ‘right religio,’ from the ‘wrong religio’ practiced by so many Jews of the first centuries BCE and CE that occupy her/his narrative. To demonstrate this, I offer a brief philological analysis illustrating De Excidio’s fixation upon fides et pietas as mechanisms of historical cause-and-effect. I then explore two episodes within De Excidio’s narrative that show both Christian and Jewish characters embodying a correct response—the martyr’s response—to political tyranny. Taken together, these substories create a world in which, historically, both Jews (the Maccabean martyrs) and Christians (Peter and Paul) occupy the pious territory of self-sacrifice, adding depth and texture to the author’s occasional claims to the Jewish cult and the Jewish past. In Books 3 and 5 respectively, De Excidio briefly mentions the martyrdom accounts of Peter/Paul and the Maccabean martyrs. In each case, the heroic martyrs stand in stark contrast to actors in the surrounding narrative. Peter and Paul and the Maccabean martyrs offer themselves to be grist in the wheels of tyranny rather than forsake piety and religious devotion, while the Jewish rebels operating in De Excidio’s larger storyline do the opposite, preserving themselves at the expense of the nation, and of piety. Rather than fixating upon labels like ‘Christian’ and ‘Jewish,’ De Excidio makes the martyr’s response to oppression the acid test of a positively valuated (religious) identity. By engaging with Boyarin’s Border Lines, which places the “partition of Judaeo-Christianity” at just the time in which De Excidio was written, and with the growing literature on martyrdom in antiquity, this essay presents a late ancient perspective on identity that claims a center of gravity different than so much contemporary scholarship.


Negotiating the Experience of Possession in Hermas's Shepherd
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Giovanni Bazzana, Harvard University

The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the writings belonging to the early Christ movement that offers a most detailed description of the performance of possession in the context of a group ritual. The first half of the present paper will focus on the religious experience described in Mandatum XI of the Shepherd in order to show that it can be adequately categorized as "spirit" possession. This section of the paper will also demonstrate that this experience, far from being restricted to the idiosyncratic context of Mandatum XI, is in fact strictly connected to the pneumatology of the Shepherd (as it emerges mostly in the other Mandata) and to its christology (as it is presented both in the 5th Similitude and in the Visions). The second half of the paper will focus more closely on the rhetorical presentation of the experience of possession in Mandatum XI. Ethnographic and performance-based study of possession phenomena have illustrated that the success and effectiveness of possession rituals depends on a triangular negotiation involving mediums, "spirits", and their audiences. A similar articulation is spelled out quite clearly in Mandatum XI and it is configured in ways that are remarkably different from those adopted in other texts belonging to the Christ movement, such as 1 Cor 12-14. The paper will aim to go beyond the rhetorical presentation in order to offer an imaginative reconstruction of the practice of possession in Hermas's group.


Qur’anic Leaves in Kufic Script on Vellum from the Ninth or Tenth Centuries in the Monastery of Saint Lazarus, Venice
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism (IQSA)
Iskandar Bcheiry, American Theological Library Association

During the spring of 2004, I had the opportunity to uncover and index a collection of Arabic manuscripts in the library of the Armenian monastery of St. Lazarus in Venice, Italy. The monastery of St. Lazarus in Venice is built on a Venetian island that was once home to a Benedictine monastery and then a leper colony for several centuries during the Middle Ages. St. Lazarus was eventually abandoned and since 1717 has been a monastic residency to the Catholic Armenian order known as the Mekhitarists. Today this monastery is one of the three principal centers of Armenian culture in the world, the others being the monasteries of the Mekhitarists in Vienna and of Echmiadzin near Yerevan in Armenia. In this monastery there is a collection of Arabic manuscripts that were collected over time. These manuscripts are mainly from Syria and Egypt, especially during the time of Boghos Bey Yusufian (1775-1844), the Minister of both Commerce and Foreign Affairs in Egypt during the rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805-1848). Special Arabic manuscripts The collection of Arabic manuscripts in St. Lazarus contains several Qur’anic leaves in Kufic script on vellum, from north Africa or near East, which probably belong to the 9th century AD. in my presentation i would like to shed light on this unknown collection of Qur’anic leaves. in addition also in the library of this monastery there is 4 ancient folios from the Bible in Syriac (two folios belong to St. John Gospel 6th or 7th century and two folios belong to exodus, old testament 5th or 6th century. these fragments of biblical texts are unknown to the world.


Has a Nation Changed Its Gods? Divine Identity and the Gods of Ancient Sam’al
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in Its Ancient Context
Adam Bean, Johns Hopkins University

The corpus of 9th-8th cenutury BCE inscriptions from Zincirli, the site of ancient Sam'al, provides a valuable witness to the veneration of a small pantheon of deities in an Iron Age Syrian state. Differences between the divine names listed in the earlier inscription of Kulamuwa, written in Phoenician, with those in subsequent incriptions written in the local Sam’alian dialect, have prompted diverse interpretations in scholarship. While earlier discussions emphasized the divine equivalencies implied by the structure of the deity lists (e.g. Baʿl Ṣemed = Hadad), the most prominent recent treatments of religion at Sam'al by Herbert Niehr assert that these differences reflect deliberate changes from the veneration of Canaanite-Phoenician deities to Aramean ones concurrent with dynastic change. In this paper, Niehr's interpretation of the panetheon at Sam’al is critiqued based on a fuller appreciation of the semiotics of divine identity in a multilingual and multicultural environment. Moroever, the evidence from Sam’al is expounded as an ideal test case for studying the dynamic and multifacted nature of divine identity in Iron Age Levantine religion. Similar dynamics in the translation, consolidation, and sub-specification of divine identity can be observed in the religion of other Levantine states, including ancient Israel and Judah.


The Iconography of Joel 2: Toward a Visual Hermeneutic
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Brady Alan Beard, Emory University

In the landmark studies The Symbolism of the Psalms and Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God, Othmar Keel and the "Fribourg School" examined a previously ignored set of data for understanding the historical and theological background of the Hebrew Bible, namely ancient Near Eastern iconography. Since that time, iconographic study has been pursued through three major approaches: iconographic-artistic (an art-historical approach to material culture), iconographic-historic (the development of images in ancient Near Eastern religion and culture), and iconographic-biblical (the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in light of ancient Near Eastern iconography). Much of Keel's own work, and that of most biblical iconographers, falls into the "iconographic-biblical" category by focusing on ancient Near Eastern iconographic motifs and biblical texts. Recently, biblical scholars have turned to the field of Visual Studies to develop a "visual hermeneutic" of biblical texts (Ryan P. Bonfiglio, Izaak J. de Hulster, and Brent A. Strawn). These scholars argue that Hebrew Bible poetic texts, including psalms and prophetic literature, provide useful places for the iconographic study of the Bible because of these texts' reliance on metaphor, imagery, and linguistic imagery because they require a "visual approach." While these scholars address prophetic literature, they give little attention to the Book of the Twelve. To address this paucity, I examine the book of Joel, the "lynchpin" of the Book of the Twelve, through an iconographic approach. Despite its brevity, the book of Joel utilizes complex imagery and metaphor that resists easy interpretation. One need only to look at debates around the meaning and identity of the locusts in chapter 1 to see how complex the metaphors, and their meaning, become. In this paper, I argue that iconographic exegesis may provide fresh insights into Joel's message. To explore these insights, I borrow methods from the field of Visual Studies (particularly Hans Belting, David Morgan, and J. M. F. Heath) and biblical iconography (Ryan P. Bonfiglio, Izaak J. de Hulster, and Brent A. Strawn) to examine data from Babylonian and Persian iconography with respect to Joel 2. Unlike recent interpreters, I do not focus on the historicity of the various events depicted in the book. Instead, I glean interpretive insights from ancient Near Eastern iconography. I examine the description of the Day of Yahweh in chapter 2:3-11 (especially v. 7-11) and consider the visual depiction of warfare in ancient Near Eastern iconography. Questions I consider include: How does the imagery of chapter 2 relate to chapter 1? How do iconography or visual depictions of leaders and deities going to war illuminate this text? Where is Yahweh envisioned in relation to the Judah? I address these questions through attention to ancient Near Eastern iconography by way of comparison with the biblical text. Thus, this project can be placed alongside other iconographic-biblical approaches or be considered a step toward iconographic exegesis.


Cardiac Discourse in the Bible and Book of Mormon
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Daniel Becerra, Duke University

Biblical names, phrases, idioms, and passages permeate the pages of the Book of Mormon and inform its theology. This paper examines the convergence and divergence of cardiac discourse—i.e. discourse relating to the “heart” (Hebrew: lev/levav; Greek: kardia)—in the Bible and Book of Mormon. Appearing approximately 1000 times in the Bible and over 450 in the Book of Mormon, the heart constitutes a fruitful locus for exploring the relationship between these two texts, not least relative to their respective notions personhood and morality. Accordingly, my paper proceeds in two parts. Part one examines the heart’s portrayal as an aspect of the physical and psychical parts of the human self. I draw attention, therefore, to its role in vitality, cognition, volition, and emotion. Part two addresses the heart’s function as locus of moral influence and a barometer of moral character. Tracing both inter- and intra-textual relationships, I pay particular attention, on the one hand, to the ways in which the Book of Mormon appropriates, challenges, and alters biblical cardiac discourse, and on the other, to the development of cardiac discourse within the Book of Mormon itself, spanning its three literary units—the Small Plates; Large Plates; and the writings of Moroni. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for how cardiac discourse in the Bible may inform the critical study of moral formation in the Book of Mormon.


The History of the Vocalization of the Definite Article with Inseparable Prepositions in Tiberian Hebrew
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Peter Bekins, Wright State University

In biblical Hebrew, the consonant /h/ of the definite article is elided when preceded by one of the inseparable prepositions (b-, k-, l-). In these cases, the presence of the article is no longer indicated in the consonantal text. The relatively high frequency with which the definite article is vocalized with inseparable prepositions has raised questions about whether the Tiberian tradition is consistent with earlier stages of the language or reflects a later linguistic context. This paper will explore the phenomenon from two angles. First, we will analyze the distribution of the definite article as represented in the consonantal text and as vocalized with the inseparable prepositions b-, k-, and l- to determine whether the latter examples cluster in linguistic contexts that we would expect to be later from a typological perspective. Special attention will be given to unique/generic nouns and instrumental phrases that represent stereotyped actions. Second, we will analyze the evidence for the vocalization of the definite article with inseparable prepositions in the ancient translations (e.g., LXX, Aquila) and transcriptions (e.g., Origen, Jerome), as well as other Biblical Hebrew reading traditions of the Middle Ages (e.g., Babylonian). In this section we will pay special attention to prosodic factors that may also influence the vocalization.


Marginalized Islanders? Migrant Widows and Freedmen in Acts 6
Program Unit: Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures
Heather-Gail Belfon, Iliff School of Theology

This paper examines two incidences of conflict in Acts 6 -- the food rations inequity against Hellenistic widows and the dispute among the Synagogue of the Freedmen against Stephen’s interpretation of Jewish history and Torah. Contrary to F. Scott Spencer, it is not sufficient to truncate vv. 1-7 from vv. 8-15 in order to propose a dichotomist Christian Jews and Hellenistic Jews division in Luke, assuming Hellenistic Jews to be primarily Gentile converts to Christianity. Even so, Acts 6 is not hinged upon a systematic view of “Luke’s widows,” categorized so by a thread of occurrences starting from Luke 2:38ff to Acts 9:36ff. A synchronic reading throughout the Lucan corpus is misleading because every instance presents itself in a unique context with discrete issues surrounding widowhood. Making normative the notion that widows are marginalized, destitute women, Spencer misses the more obvious challenges of Acts 6. Examining practices concerning widows among the Essene community in the Dead Sea Scrolls and using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, I will show how Acts 6 provides a religious statement about the benefits and perils of living in religious community in Jerusalem when one has migrated from elsewhere. Acts 6 challenges the notion of what it means for diverse Jewish sects to honor the authority of Torah while maintaining the contract of communal sharing and drawing of the boundaries of orthopraxy. If the locations from which Synagogue of Freedmen originated provides any clue, it is to disprove the notion that the Hellenistic widows were marginalized on account of geographical origins and ethnic difference. Rather, the extent to which the Christian-Jewish sect had the capacity to use a common language to acquire representation, and so, gain influence is what made the Synagogue of Freedmen successful and the Hellenistic widows not.


The Diviner's Gift Comes at a Cost: On Divinatory Compensation and Paul's Finances
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Brigidda Bell, University of Toronto

Soothsayers, lot diviners, dream interpreters, and astrologers were staple figures of the ancient Mediterranean world. Individuals who claimed the ability to interpret the present or future through the reading of signs and the performance of special acts were in demand in the early Empire. Literary sources witness their presence in both upper class households in salaried positions, and in the Circus, available to read your palm or your eyebrows for a one-time-fee. While a host of literary sources portray these figures as self-interested and greedy, other diviners have been described as ‘friends’ and are remunerated in less apparent ways, such as through gifts and favours. One early Christ follower who claimed divine knowledge of the future and dealt in the currency of friendship and gifts was Paul. Modern scholarship on Paul has gone to great lengths to purify him from associations with ‘unsavoury’ characters, yet professional diviners serve as useful analogues for the kinds of services Paul offered and the way that he was remunerated. This paper pieces together the portraits of several imperial period diviners and their forms of compensation, to situate Paul within a framework of divinatory services where remuneration through ‘gifts’ enhanced his credibility.


ΔΙΚΑΙΩΜΑ: A Curious Case of Semantic Borrowing
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Joel Bell, Oxford University

This paper is interested in the linguistic phenomenon of semantic borrowing, specifically, Greek words that took on new meaning based on their use by Greco-Jewish translators. In this study the candidate for semantic borrowing is δικαίωµα. Two peculiarities are evident when considering the diachronic use of this word: First, the verb δικαιόω and the noun δικαίωµα do not exhibit semantic consistency. While δικαιόω conveys ideas related to righting wrongs, δικαίωµα may also represent that which governs how members of a religion or society are to behave, and is often glossed “statute, ordinance.” Second, while the use of δικαίωµα for “ordinance, statute” is prevalent in the Septuagint and the Jewish and Christian Greek literature that followed, this meaning does not evidence itself in papyri, inscriptions, or Greek literature (until the 3rd c. A.D.). This paper outlines the reception history of δικαίωµα in order to account for these peculiarities and demonstrate the likelihood that the “statute, ordinance” arose from the Septuagint and influenced the meaning of the word in later literature.


Creating New Perspectives out of Old: Proverbs as Subtle and Subversive
Program Unit: Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Traditions
Alice Ogden Bellis, Howard University School of Divinit

The book of Proverbs is generally understood to present a conservative perspective in contrast to the more liberal points of view found in Job and Ecclesiastes. The editors who brought the proverbs into final form, however, were very careful in their arrangement of their material (and possibly the addition of new material) and it can be argued that the juxtaposition of various aphorisms which are in tension with each other was intended to engage the reader in important questions about the relative importance of wealth, ethical living, helping the poor, and the like. In addition, the very structure of the book with the first nine chapters and the last chapter focused on women suggests that they were trying to make a statement about gender in such a way as to undercut some of the negative stereotypes that are included in Proverbs, stereotypes that were perhaps too strong to be omitted but could be undercut by careful manipulation of the texts (and possible addition of new texts). Through a combination of careful placement of the aphorisms dealing with many subjects throughout the book and in particular the ones dealing with women at the beginning, end, and at a critical point in the middle of the book, the editors were creating a new piece of literature with a new perspective out of old traditions.


Gene Tucker: Sage Scholarship by Design and Example
Program Unit:
Ehud Ben Zvi, University of Alberta

Across continents there is an ongoing, at times explicit and often implicit, discussion about what a scholar should be and do, and mainly in relation to scholars who have been fortunate enough to hold a ‘safe’, tenured-track position in a University with major resources. It is in this context that I will reflect on the understanding of scholarship that Gene Tucker advanced by example. I plan to talk about the ways in which his scholarship balanced and intertwined, inter alia, his own research, the emphasis he placed on developing the scholarship of others (via mentoring, editing, etc.), the importance he placed on professional organizations and the scholar’s duty to contribute to them, his understanding of the value of collaborations across multiple types of boundaries and backgrounds, and his conviction that scholars should be able to interact with and contribute to the lives of others, well outside the guild and in a way informed by their scholarship. I plan to set these observations about Gene in the light of what seems to me was his guiding principle as a mature scholar, namely cooperative open criticality.


The Character of the Prophet Among the Literati of the Prophetic Books: Memory and System Considerations
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Ehud Ben Zvi, University of Alberta

The fifteen prophets of old with whom books are associated in the Prophetic Book Collection served as sites of memory in ancient Israel and have continue to serve as such in various communities through time and up to the present—one may argue that even the 'historical prophets’ that current scholarship has often construed have served, to a significant extent, the roles of sites of memory for many. To ensure that their figures could serve efficiently as sites of memory, ancient communities (and at times not so ancient) have often bracketed numerous questions about them that might have emerged given their world of knowledge. But at the same time, since neither characters in books nor figures who serve as social sites of memory can be imagined without constructing additional characters, and above all, a certain world with certain sets of rules, the very same groups actively brought each their own world of knowledge and imagination to bear in the construction of these prophets as an integral part of a general ‘eco-system’ of memory with its own set of rules. Prophets as sites of memory were part of a complex memory landscape—in which, inter alia, multiple human figures, YHWH, texts and various spaces all has an interrelated place. To a significant degree, prophets of memory, as a group or set of groups, were shaped by that landscape. Given the (generative) interrelatedness among all these sites of memory partaking in the said landscape, one could not but influence, directly or indirectly the way in which the other was constructed and remembered. Moreover, all together reflected and reaffirmed underlying sets of rules generating and governing the landscape. Multiple examples will be brought to bear into this discussion.


New Readings and Discussion of 4Q249 cryptA Midrash/Sepher Moshe
Program Unit: Qumran
Jonathan Ben-Dov, University of Haifa

Fourteen papyrus fragments of papCryptA 4Q249 were published by Stephen Pfann in DJD 35 with notes and commentary. Pfann has also supplied material reconstruction of one column of this scroll based on the papyrus fibers. Based on a new study of the cryptic papyri, some new results can now be reported. Several joins being overruled, we are now less secure about the column width in this scroll and about several previously suggested readings. On the other hand, more is known about the comparable document 4Q249a, identified as a copy of Serekh HaEdah and reconstructed to a length of five consecutive columns. New readings of key fragments of 4Q249 now show that it contains halakhic elaborations of impurity laws based on Leviticus chapters 11-14. Death impurity is imported into this sequence from Numbers 19, in a similar way to the sequence created in the Temple Scroll. A fragmentary halakhic syllogism creates an interesting parallel to a passage from Mishnah Nega’im. Finally, the scroll may have also contained elaborations of the non-halakhic section Leviticus 26.


On the Possibility of an Early Iron Age Nomadic Monarchy in the Arabah (Early Edom) and Its Implications on the Study of Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Erez Ben-Yosef, Tel Aviv University

Since its early days, the common perception of nomads in biblical archaeology has been of people that could not form strong political entities, and whose influence on the course of history was marginal. Biblical scholars and archaeologists alike have constantly equated the biblical-era nomads to the modern Bedouins of the Southern Levant, further enforcing the interpretation of these groups as simple tribal societies that existed in the geographical and historical periphery of the settled land. Similarly, almost any discussion on the formation of the Southern Levantine Iron Age kingdoms, including the United Monarchy of Ancient Israel, has been based on the fundamental assumption that such political organizations could not have developed prior to complete sedentarization; consequently, the identification of these kingdoms in the archaeological record has been dependent on the existence of substantial stone-built remains. However, new archaeological evidence from the Arabah, including the recent excavations by the Central Timna Valley Project of Tel Aviv University (https:// archaeology.tau.ac.il/ben-yosef/CTV/), challenges this fundamental assumption. In this paper I argue that we have sufficient new data to support the reconstruction of an early (Iron I) Edomite kingdom, which achieved a complex social organization and ultra-regional impact prior to the sedentarization of its (semi-)nomadic (agro-)pastoralistic tribes. This has significant implications on our understanding of the other emerging Southern Levantine kingdoms, including Ancient Israel, as all of which have a nomadic background that is attested for in biblical as well as external sources.


Naboth’s Vineyard, Ahab, and Jezebel: New Insights on the Composition History of 1 Kings 21
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Clay Bench, University of Texas at El Paso

In his book, The Trouble with Kings, McKenzie argues that 1 Kings 21:17, *18, 19a “and perhaps 20abα” are “the oldest remaining segment of chapter 21.” McKenzie notes that there is wide agreement among scholars that a different redactional hand can be detected in vv.20bβ-24 which repeats the common oracle against Israelite dynasty founders (see 1 Kgs 14:7-11 and 16:2-4). In these verses, it is generally agreed that v.23 is secondary and that Dtr style and terminology are only found in vv. vv.20bβ-22, and 24. In his conclusion to his analysis of 1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9-10, McKenzie stated “The additions make it clear that it was Dtr who used the Jehu story to illustrate the fulfillment of prophecy. He linked it with the Naboth episode as the fulfillment of Elijah’s oracle against Ahab’s house and incorporated the product within his prophecy-fulfillment scheme. There is nothing to indicate that the two stories were connected before Dtr. He followed the same scheme as with the previous oracles against Jeroboam and Baasha, illustrating how the prophetic curse repeated against each dynasty was effected in that dynasty’s annihilation. The only difference in the case of Ahab’s house was that Dtr had access to a lengthy narrative about Jehu’s coup which he incorporated within his scheme as the fulfillment of Elijah’s word which he set in the context of the Naboth incident.” Though I agree with much of McKenzie’s astute analysis, there are several points that need some reconsideration. For example, there is thematic and textual critical evidence that connects the initial curse of Elijah against Ahab in 1 Kgs 21:19 (not just 19a) with the story as it is reported in 2 Kings 9. I also agree with McKenzie that v.23 is secondary, as with the previous claim, though I will argue that it too is connected thematically, though in modified form, to the whole of v.19 as well as 2 Kgs 9:26 and 31-37.


“Perhaps They Will Turn…”: The Value of Repentance as a Theological Category in the Interpretation of Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon (Jer. 7.1–15)
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Jonathan D. Bentall, Durham University

Often regarded as one of the central elements of interpretive difficulty in the book of Jeremiah, the relationship between conditional warnings of judgment and apparently unconditional pronouncements of doom have prompted complex redaction-critical and traditio-historical hypotheses that might explain their juxtaposition. Comparatively less attention has been directed toward theological accounts of the relationship between conditional and unconditional language, and the ways in which related passages internal to the book of Jeremiah might provide intratextual signals for how another text may be read and understood. In this essay I argue that Jer. 26.3 and 36.3 provide a theological rationale and hermeneutical warrant from within the developing Jeremianic tradition for the interpretation of Jer. 7.1-15 as inherently conditional prophetic speech, intended to provoke repentance and inspire covenantal faithfulness. This thesis involves both a critique of existing redaction-critical and traditio-historical models for understanding this text, and a fresh, theologically-oriented reading of the text in its canonical form. Alongside its exegetical argument, this paper also provides a case study in the potential for theologically-oriented biblical criticism to draw upon and benefit from historical-critical approaches, even while resisting and reevaluating some of their methods and conclusions. Building upon the recent work of Sommer (2015) and Anderson (2017) I construe theological interpretation as an interdisciplinary, or dialogical, endeavor that is capable of doing justice to the insights of both biblical criticism and theological discourse. Thus, in critical dialogue with alternative approaches to the significance of repentance in the book of Jeremiah (e.g. Unterman, 1987; Lambert, 2016), I suggest that the theological categories of divine mercy and human repentance within Jewish and Christian traditions constitute valuable resources for understanding the message of Jer. 7.1–15.


The Stricken Prophet: Violence, Trauma and Faithfulness in Jeremiah 18–20
Program Unit: Book of Jeremiah
Jonathan D. Bentall, Durham University

Set within the closing section of what are often referred to as the prophet’s confessions or laments, Jeremiah 18–20 features a series of images related to violence and destruction, from God’s declaration of his prerogative to destroy nations and kingdoms to the prophet’s symbolic action of breaking a potter’s vessel and Pashur’s physical assault upon Jeremiah. The varied yet interrelated images of violent action, trauma and resilience within these chapters prompts hermeneutical reflection upon the multidimensional aspects of how violence functions in this prophetic text. The aim of this paper is to contribute to ongoing discussions concerning the use of trauma and resilience studies as a lens for biblical interpretation, focusing attention upon the ways in which violent action, violent images, and reactions to violence relate to one another. Using chapters 18–20 as a case study, I explore the imagery of the formation and destruction of pottery in relation to the collective trauma of military conquest and captivity, as well as the individual violence experienced by Jeremiah at the hands of the priest Pashur, in relation to his experience of divine coercion in the context of the prophetic task. I argue that despite the apparent finality of the broken vessel that “can never be mended” (Jer. 19:10–11), both the contextually significant imagery of pottery and its capacity to be reshaped (18:4–11), as well as Jeremiah’s own response to adversity within his prophetic vocation (20:11–12) provide a legitimate source of hope for the nation’s future, which is to be found in heeding the prophet’s words, turning from evil and amending/re-forming its conduct. I conclude by reflecting on the hermeneutical relationship between the social-scientific category of resilience and the theological category of faithfulness in the midst of individual and collective experiences of violence and trauma.


Qohelet and Luke's Rich Fool
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
Susan E. Benton, Baylor University

Scholars have long recognized an allusion to the hedonistic pessimism drawn out of Ecclesiastes in The Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21). What many have failed to observe is that the rebuke of God to the Rich Fool’s acquisitiveness also derives from Qohelet’s wisdom. Drawing on the insight of Old Testament scholars (R. N. Whybray, J. Grillo) into how the theme of joy can be seen developing incrementally through Ecclesiastes, this paper proposes a reinterpretation of the Parable of the Rich Fool. Instead of alluding to Ecclesiastes only to dismiss it, Luke’s Jesus places the wisdom of Ecclesiastes into the mouth of God. The Rich Fool might draw on the immature thoughts of Qohelet, but God rebukes him with the mature ideas of the Teacher. In the process, the parable validates a perspective of Ecclesiastes that regards it as a text with a changing perspective on wisdom and joy. The pericope then propels that evolving perspective on Ecclesiastes forward with new associations for Jesus’s followers. Qohelet’s images of sowing seeds and casting bread upon water prefigure the distributive model that Jesus depicts as the means of being rich toward God. Jesus’s disciples are to admire the ravens—who have no storehouses (Lk. 12:24)—rather than the rich man who builds more of them. Whereas Qohelet concludes with the idea that people should enjoy abundance with their households instead of hoarding, Luke’s Jesus instructs his people to sell off possessions and give alms (Lk. 12:33).


The Hymnic Participle in Biblical Hebrew: Semantic and Syntactic Perspectives
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Ulf Bergström, Uppsala Universitet

The so-called ‘hymnic participle’ is a well-known feature of Biblical Hebrew poetry, but very cursorily treated in standard grammars. This paper investigates some aspects of the complex syntax and semantics of the construction. The function of the hymnic participle is to highlight various aspects of the identity of a referent as objects of praise. It normally takes the form of an apposition, but it can also be a left-dislocated constituent (e.g., Amos 4:13) or a predicate (e.g., 1 Sam 2:6–8; Ps 103:6; 147:2). In terms of morphosyntax it is basically nominal, but at the same time the verbal nature of the lexeme is often exploited to the full, so that, even in apposition, the participle can take verbal complements and be coordinated with finite verbal clauses, which can form rather lengthy pieces of embedded multi-propositional discourse. In such contexts, the participles function to demarcate units of discourse. However, despite the fact that the hymnic participle can function virtually as a verb in almost all respects, it is argued in this paper that the construction consistently retains its nominal character, even in predicate position. At least two factors serve to reinforce this impression. The first and most obvious one is that the participle is morphologically distinct from the finite verbs, which are the standard forms of the independent clause predicate. Further, when a hymnic participle is conjoined with another hymnic participle, the effect never seems to be to convey the notion that there is situational continuity (in terms of time or causality) between the events represented by the two participles, something which is often the case when the hymnic participle is combined with a finite clause. This is what one would expect if the basic function of the hymnic participle is to tell about the identity of the referent, rather than about his/her actions. A precondition for perceiving the hymnic participle in predicate position as a noun is that the form is not the main imperfective form in the verbal system. In more advanced stages of Biblical Hebrew, when the active participle had developed into a general imperfective at the cost of the imperfect, speakers may have tended to understand all participles in predicate position as verbal. But within the poetic register of Early Biblical Hebrew at least, the nominal character of the hymnic participle is pervasive.


How to Create a World: The Psalter as a Hermeneutical Tool in Rabbinic Midrash
Program Unit: Early Exegesis of Genesis 1–3
Abraham Berkovitz, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

to be added


Interpretation in the Anthropocene: Reading the "Animal Family" Laws in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Beth Berkowitz, Barnard College


A Medieval Control for Modern Diachronic Method: The Biblical Criticism of Ibn Hazm the Andalusian
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Joshua Berman, Bar-Ilan University

This paper seeks to test a widely held assumption in the diachronic study of the Hebrew Bible: that the narrative poetics known and used by the authors of the Hebrew Bible are fully accessible to modern scholars. This is the sine qua non of much of modern diachronic method: for only if modern scholars have full access to the poetics that governed the composition of the texts, are they rightfully empowered to determine a text’s unity, or lack thereof. To test whether the canons of narrative prose are relatively unchanged over time we need to find the work of a biblical exegete who lived in pre-modern times and yet—unlike rabbinic and patristic writers— was as fully open and committed to identifying fissures in the received text as are modern critical scholars. This study brings to light and examines just such an analysis: the biblical criticism of the eleventh century Muslim theologian, Ibn Hazm the Andalusian. Ibn Hazm offers a detailed exegesis of the signs of diachronic development that he identifies in the Hebrew scriptures. At approximately 100 pages in length it is far more comprehensive in its critique of the literary unity of the books of the Hebrew Bible than anything that would be penned prior to the eighteenth century in Europe—including the writings of Spinoza. To date, however, the treatise has all but been ignored within the field of biblical scholarship. The proposed paper is the first analysis of the literary poetics governing his critique and the first to probe its degree of convergence with modern critical conclusions. Ibn Hazm’s most comprehensive critique concerns the Book of Genesis, reviewed here with an eye toward three questions: Concerning which textual fissures do we see a convergence of opinion between Ibn Hazm and modern expositors? What textual phenomena does Ibn Hazm identify as incongruous that modern expositors have not? What textual phenomena have modern scholars identified as signs of fissure that Ibn Hazm passes over? The study concludes that while Ibn Hazm identifies many of the types of inconsistencies that have been the basis for modern diachronic readings of the Hebrew Bible, he makes no mention of repetition or of narrative doubling as a sign of fissure in the text. Ibn Hazm lived and worked in a climate in which repetition in literature was widely accepted. By contrast, nearly all modern biblicists are heirs to the tradition of narrative unity laid out in Aristotle’s Poetics. The paper concludes that we cannot know whether the writers of ancient Israel adopted a poetics more like Aristotle’s or more like the Arabesque poetics that reigned in Ibn Hazm’s day. However Ibn Hazm’s seminal work should serve as a warning light to modern scholars of the need to acknowledge the distinctly Aristotelian poetics that governs much of our own sense of literary unity.


"Every Man with His Censer in His Hand": Incense-Burning and the Sensory Contestation of Space in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity
Sarah L. Berns, Brown University

How did ancient Israelites use the sights, sounds, and smells made by burning aromatics to create cultic space? How do biblical texts about incense-burning relate to the burning practices of ancient Israelites? In this paper, I read material remains of Iron Age incense burning together with theories about the production of space through ritual practice (Catherine Bell) and embodied skill (Tim Ingold), arguing that ancient Israelites used burning to create units of space-time (Doreen Massey) understood as "cultic," or appropriate for ritual practice and interaction with divine beings. Cultic space-time units were defined by sensory differences from the surrounding space and time. Sensual similarity between these space-time units and other spaces and times, both real and imagined, evoked associations with purity, wealth, distance, and antiquity, making these moments and spaces perceptibly cultic. Turning to biblical texts that depict, command, or prohibit incense-burning, I argue that they share the same practical logic as incense-burning: they create specific cultic spaces by depicting sensory units bound in distance and duration, while associating those units with purity, wealth, distance, antiquity, and the proximity of divine beings. However, I also note that these texts seek to define proper and improper locations for incense-burning. Various passages critique incense-burning in homes, at bāmôt, on high hills, under trees, in the streets of Jerusalem and cities of Judah, and in the besieged Jerusalem temple, while others specify appropriate locations for incense-burning, or limit the burning of particular mixtures to specific cultic sites. I argue that these critical passages, often taken as evidence of changing norms or of increasing cultic centralization in ancient Israel, might be better understood as evidence of the authors' attempts to produce and organize space. Even as they relied upon the practical logic and sensory associations of Israelite incense-burning to write texts that produced particular cultic spaces, biblical authors also attempted to change those associations. With critiques that linked some incense-burning practices and locales with foreignness, idolatry, sexual misconduct, and misappropriation of divine property, these authors sought to limit the effectiveness of incense-burning to particular places, times, and ritual actors. Rather than reflecting the development or evolution of normative Israelite religion, these biblical critiques offer us a glimpse of contested space-making in action, allowing us to see how some ancient actors used words, smoke, and scent and make and limit cultic space.


Rips and Seams: Immigrant Women Stitching Healing and Wholeness into Worlds of Trauma and Loss
Program Unit: Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (SARTS)
Rebecca Berru Davis, Montana State University - Billings

This paper examines how creative expression, carried out in collaborative settings, is a means to begin the small steps toward recovery among women whose lives have been ruptured by experiences of crossing borders.


Dirty Words: The Physical Presence of Speech in Christian Late Antiquity
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Todd Berzon, Bowdoin College

According to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Abba Sisoës is reported to have offered one and only one prayer to Christ on a daily basis: "'Lord Jesus, save me from my tongue.'" For, he laments, "every day, I fall because of it, and commit sin." Although spoken words were corporeal and spiritual extensions of their speaker-piety of speech reflected piety of mind and body-they could also ensnare and pollute the utterer and the larger community in which he lived. Speaking, as a mode of materializing and communicating knowledge, was not only a religiously ambiguous activity, but one with profound and lasting consequences; it all too often denatured or impurified the subject and those around him. Words could affect speakers as much as speakers could affect words. Insofar as scholars of early Christianity now emphasize the general instability of words--their ability to channel piety and impiety in equal measure--in this paper I aim not to rehearse these arguments about the dangers of orality but rather to recast them. I would like to suggest that for late antique Christians the precariousness of speech was very often imagined to be a specifically material danger. Language did not simply do things (both good and bad, constructive and destructive), but was, in fact, a thing itself. Spoken words were not fleeting and ephemeral, but rather palpable and enduring material forces. With particular attention to a small sliver of evidence from the vast corpus of literature about the late ancient monks--writings from Jerome, Cassian, Basil, as well as The Sayings of the Desert Fathers--I will propose that spoken language, within the monastic milieu, possessed a physicality or physical presence as both pollutant and purificant. For the monks, spoken language was both disease and drug. Words were dangerous and edifying not just because of what they could lead people to do, but because of what they were said to be at the physical or ontological level. Oral language (about the self, about the world, about fellow brothers, about God, etc.) was said to have quite tactile properties and qualities. Indeed, the way monks engaged with and experienced oral language points toward the tangibility and weight of words themselves. Words could be held, felt, harnessed, and deflected as pollutants and cures. Words were hurled against people; they attached themselves to Christians; they were implanted in monks; and they were handed over to ascetics. In short, they were absorbed as destructive and fortifying epistemological objects. For Christians writing about the monastic way of life, speech was, like food, clothing, water, money, etc., part of economy of sacred (and profane) objects. The words of the tongue were epistemological things that constantly threatened yet tamed the desert monk's way of life, his desired detachment from the material world. Speech was an ethereal yet material form that required both psychic and corporeal regulation.


The Gnostic Roots of Marian Devotion in Late Antiquity
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Michael Beshay, Ohio State University

Recent studies have demonstrated the value of seeking Marian devotion in early Christian apocrypha. Building on these insights, this paper proposes that Christian Gnostic and related traditions played a role in shaping Marian devotion in late antiquity. This will be demonstrated by focusing on just one element of Mary’s significance for late antique Christians: her typological relationship with Eve. The relationship is typically understood as an antithesis when analyzed from the perspective of patristic authors. However, a close reading of Egyptian Gnostic and apocryphal literature along with numerous ritual devices offers an alternative view: Mary is a source of power and doctrinal authority, whose relationship with Eve exalts her and depends not on the theme of moral atonement, but reunification. Such lofty portrayals of Mary induced some Christians in Egypt, and perhaps the Roman east more generally, to regard her as a source of power derived from a heavenly abode. In the traditions of the Nag Hammadi codices, Mary’s role in connection with Eve develops a close relationship, bridging on identification, with feminine powers such as the Holy Spirit. Similar themes abound in Coptic literary texts even as late as the sixth century. Meanwhile, Greek and Coptic ritual devices from late antique Egypt attest to the interest of Egyptian Christians in precisely this image of a powerful Mary. The fact that most of these devices date to the fifth century or later has led scholars along the usual path of attributing their popularity to a post-Ephesian climate of Marian devotion. However, much of this material betrays the same “heterodox” signatures seen in Gnostic and apocryphal traditions; these devices therefore betray an abiding interest among Christians in Egypt in the elusive Mary of Gnostic origins. This paper will conclude with a brief discussion of the esoteric doctrines and ritual practices of Manichaean Christians, and their significance for Marian devotion in late antiquity. Analysis of the Manichaean Bema festival reveals striking parallels to the feast of Mary’s Dormition. The Coptic Bema psalms celebrate cosmic figures whose characteristics match closely the elusive Mary of Gnostic and related traditions; these figures are exalted in similar ways as Mary in her connection with Eve and the Holy Spirit. Finally, the Bema festival was constructed as a challenge to the validity of the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ, celebrated annually on the same day as the Pascha with psalms proclaiming Mani’s “true” suffering and death; in such a contentious setting, invocations to a heavenly “Virgin of Light” likely promoted the belief that Mary was instead the glorious figure worthy of such veneration.


Writing and Reading Gooder: Solecisms in Revelation
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Garrett Best, Asbury Theological Seminary

Scholars have proposed as many as 232 solecisms (morpho-syntactical errors) within the Greek of the Apocalypse. One of the great paradoxes of the book is its astonishing complexity expressed in such irregular Greek. While numerous scholars have sought to account for and explain the solecisms in Revelation, few have explored the aural dimension. Since the book was designed to be read aloud to early churches in Asia, it is important to investigate how irregular grammar would have affected the first hearers. This paper attempts to fill this lacuna by examining how solecisms were viewed in the ancient world and how ancients responded when lectors made mistakes in reading. Historical analogies suggest that the solecisms would have posed challenges for the lector as well as first-century audiences and that the lector was faced with important decisions on how best to deliver the document.


The Gate and the Way: Constructing Theology in Mormon Scripture through New Testament Quotation
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Stephen Betts, Brigham Young University

In recent years, scholars of Mormon scripture have increasingly attended to identifying the quotations and allusions to New Testament scripture in the Book of Mormon. This paper will trace the theological development of "way" and "gate" imagery deriving from Matthew 7 and Luke 13 as it appears in the Book of Mormon. This paper serves as a case study in the evolution of the early Mormon biblical hermeneutic in the construction of Mormon scripture.


G(r)azing: Seeing and Being Animal in the Song of Songs
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Jared Beverly, Chicago Theological Seminary

The love poetry of the Song of Songs is replete with descriptions of each lover's appearance and of the act of looking itself. A few scholars have examined the gaze in the Song, most notably Cheryl Exum (along the lines of gender) and Elaine James (along the lines of landscape), but so far the gaze in the Song has not been examined through the lens of species. This paper will undertake a close reading of the gazes involved in the gazelle/deer metaphor in Song 2:8-17, reading this passage alongside recent visual artwork and keeping the discourse of the species in mind. After briefly rehearsing some of the history of scholarship around the gaze (e.g., Mulvey, hooks), first, I will show how the woman of the Song uses a "zoological gaze" (Adrian Franklin) to look at her lover and imagine him as a gazelle/deer. Next, as the animalized lover looks from behind the wall at her in return (2:9), I will examine this animal's gaze alongside Jacques Derrida's insights about his gazing cat in The Animal That Therefore I Am. In allowing the animal to gaze upon her, perhaps she is taking upon herself Derrida's challenge of being seen by the animal. In addition, her particular zoological gaze has implications with regard to both gender and species: this animal's gaze does not constitute the domination implied in the human male gaze, nor is it the predatory gaze of an animal hunting, but rather its eyes form the gentle and nonthreatening gaze of an herbivore. Finally, I will explore how biblical scholars and artists have portrayed what these gazes do to the woman. For some, the woman can remain human and embrace this metaphorical gazelle/deer in spite of the species difference, as we see in illustrations by James Reid (in his The Song of Songs with Woodcuts [1931]), Salvador Dalí ("The Beloved Looks Forth Like a Roe," 1971), and Phillip Ratner (in the commentary by M. Basil Pennington [2004]). For others, these exchanged gazes transform not only the man but also the woman, who is sometimes read or portrayed as a gazelle/deer herself, as we see in many other images that simply show a gazelle/deer couple, such as other illustrations by Reid as well as those of Y. Chrystal (in the commentary by Yehuda Feliks [1983]). In the former portrayal, love (and perhaps even eroticism) can take the radical step of crossing species boundaries; in the latter portrayal, the woman's loving gaze transforms her into a gazelle/deer as well, perhaps forestalling the cross-species romance but also going as far as challenging her own humanness. As a result, her seeing an animal leads to her being an animal. The paper will conclude with some summary thoughts on these multiple gazes' consequences for gender, humanity, and animality.


Brief Notes on the Impact of Indigenous Cultural Elements in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Afework Hailu Beyene, Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology

The study of impact of indigenous culture on Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) has received very little academic attention, at least as compared to the discussion regarding the impact of Alexandrian, Syrian, Armenian, … and the Judaic influences. Regarding the latter, among many of cultural influences discussed is the church’s circular architecture. It is widely held that the innovation involving church edifices as an auxiliary reflection of the growth and wide spread impact of ‘Judaic culture’ and identity in Ethiopia from earliest time. It is assumed that the three-concentric circle structure of many Ethiopian local churches serves as one more of the many ‘proofs’ of EOC’s Judaic cultural influences; for some scholars, this ‘peculiar’ church structure is one of the conspicuous reflections of the survival of Old Testament culture in Ethiopia. As a challenge to such opinions however, this paper tries to reflect that such particular architectural development can rightly be regarded as an indigenous cultural influence which follows the pattern of traditional sacred places - this only evidently introduced into the church as the church’s mission moved southward after 14th cent - as compared to previous basilica-styled church architecture.


The Bible for Liberals: Translation, Rhetoric, and Theo-political Action
Program Unit: Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship
Bryan Bibb, Furman University

Many Bible products, both translations and study Bibles, are marketed to evangelical Christian audiences. Indeed, the lion’s share of the Bible market represents consumers on the more conservative end of the social and theological spectrum. Bookstore—and virtual—shelves are packed with “Life Application” Bibles, Dispensationalist study Bibles, and hyper-masculinized Bibles for “men of God.” “Liberal” Christians naturally eschew such products, but what do they buy instead? To be sure, there are academic and mainline study Bibles available (HarperCollins, Oxford Annotated, etc.) and generic Bibles that contain only the biblical text in a seemingly neutral translation such as the NRSV. However, there is a niche market for “Liberal Bibles,” an interesting comparative test case for our cultural critique of the Bible in American Life. Overt examples that fit into this category include “The Inclusive Bible” from Priests for Equality, billed as “the first egalitarian translation,” and the “Queen James Bible,” a project that is identical to the KJV except for eight verses retranslated “to prevent homophobic misinterpretation.” One might also include the recent mainline translation, the Common English Bible, marketed as broadly ecumenical and “accessible to a broad range of people.” As the first major translation undertaken by liberal Protestants since the NRSV, the CEB was the first opportunity for progressives to incorporate inclusive and socially-committed scholarship into the actual text of the Bible. One can perceive the influence of liberal scholarship, for example, in the CEB’s translation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15, which undermines the interpretation that ‘Paul’ here prohibits women in the ministry. This paper will analyze translation decisions and paratextual content in various “Liberal Bibles,” considering how ideological perspectives have shaped these projects to make them marketable to liberal consumers, and how they function rhetorically in comparison with conservative texts that do the same on the ‘other side.’ These Bibles serve the more politically-active elements in liberal Christianity, and are harbingers of increasing disagreement about what “the Bible” is, not merely about how it should be interpreted.


Pages from Tractate Temura of the Babylonian Talmud, in Secondary Use in a Late Medieval Book Binding
Program Unit: Book History and Biblical Literatures
Noah Bickart, Yale University

Pages from Tractate Temura of the Babylonian Talmud, in Secondary use in a Late Medieval Book Binding


Iesus natus Augustus: Mytho-Political Syncretism in the Lukan Birth Narratives
Program Unit: Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Mark Bilby, California State University - Fullerton

Richard Miller in his Resurrection and Reception notes numerous parallels between the birth mythology of the divine king in Matthew and that of Plutarch’s Vita Alexandrini: genealogy, a betrothed couple, divine impregnation, the surrogate father’s abstaining from intercourse until the womb is opened, and his concerns about the woman’s fidelity until being reassured in a dream. In this presentation, I will argue that the final redaction of Luke (c. 115-150), relying on Matthew and its syncretic combination of the Vita Alexandrini and the Hellenized Immanual oracle (LXX Isa 7:14), expands and develops the Jesus birth mythology in a new direction inspired by the traditions especially evident in the Divus Augustus of Suetonius, which itself had been pattered after the Vita Alexandrini. The Lukan birth mythology mimics that of Augustus by expanding the virginal conception motif into a full-fledged narrative in which the focus turns to the mother (Atia/Mary) instead of the surrogate father. Both describe the mother’s devotion to the divine father as a traveler, temple visitor, and solitary recipient of an oracular theophany predicting the future greatness of her son. The sum effect is to epitomize Jesus as a demigod king whose divine genealogy not only stems back to David and ultimately to God, but also one who rivals the Greek Alexander and Roman Augustus on an imperial-cultural mytho-political scale.


Jews and Jewishness in Medieval Ethiopic Literature: The Case of the Zena Ayhud
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Yonatan Binyam, Coastal Carolina University

This paper analyzes the presentation of Jews and Jewishness in medieval Ethiopic literature, focusing especially on the portrayals of Jews and Judaism in the Zena Ayhud (“The History of the Jews”). The fourteenth-century Zena Ayhud represents the final link in a unique chain of reception history that begins with Josephus in the first century. Toward the close of the fourth century, Josephus’s Jewish War is translated, expanded and reframed through the lens of Christian anti-Jewish rhetoric in the De Excidio Hierosolymitano (or Pseudo-Hegesippus). This latter text in turn is subsequently used as a source by an anonymous Jewish historian who produces a Hebrew version of the story in the tenth century in a text known as Sefer Yosippon. The Hebrew reworking of the De Excidio Hierosolymitano is then adapted by Coptic Christians, who translate the Hebrew Sefer Yosippon into Arabic mostly likely in the twelfth century. The Ethiopic Zena Ayhud represents a close translation of its Arabic Vorlage. In the latter two texts, there is a tendency to mimic biblical language and narratives. The translators of the Arabic/Ethiopic texts work to incorporate the history of the Jewish Revolt against Rome in wider biblical history by weaving it into the context of Christian origins. Moreover, several other Ethiopic texts written around the same time as the Zena Ayhud illustrate that Jewishness is understood very distinctly in medieval Ethiopia, as the flexible uses of the term ayhud that appear in these texts suggest. In this paper, I provide my translations of selected passages from the above-mentioned texts which transmit Josephus’s account. I then discuss the different portrayals of Jews and Jewishness in light of the historical and cultural contexts of the texts in which they appear. In doing so, I hope to contribute to a fuller understanding of the reception of Josephus among medieval European Jews and Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Ethiopia. Moreover, I hope to shed light on the various ways in which Jews and Jewishness are understood in medieval Ethiopian Christianity.


The Historical Jesus and the Parting of the Ways Revisited
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Michael F. Bird, Ridley College

The Historical Jesus and the Parting of the Ways Revisited


Echoes and Allusions to the Jewish Scriptures in Paul's Ethical Discourse in Romans 12:9–21
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
Michael Bird, Ridley Melbourne

Echoes and Allusions to the Jewish Scriptures in Paul's Ethical Discourse in Romans 12:9-21


Re-reading Samson’s "Weepy Wife" in Judges 14: An Intertextual Evaluation of Gender and Weeping
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
Shelley L. Birdsong, North Central College

Crying has been stereotypically associated with women. It is often deemed a sign of weakness or an overly-dramatic emotional response. As a result of such assumptions, Samson’s first wife, who cries, has been interpreted repeatedly as an excessively sensitive, teary-eyed nag. By putting Samson’s wife into an intertextual dialogue with other characters in the Hebrew Bible who cry (bākāh) and modern research on gender and weeping, it becomes clear that such interpretations are tainted by gender bias and should be rejected. Samson’s wife’s does not cry simply because she’s a sensitive woman. Rather, she is a shrewd strategist, who uses her tears as a calculated measure to save her people from her tyrannical husband. Ultimately, this re-reading of Samson’s first wife will bring awareness to gendered assumptions in the history of biblical interpretation, and in doing so, invite us to reflect on our own preconceived notions of about gender and its relationship to crying.


Some Things I Learned from Cowriting a Commentary on Philo's De Abrahamo
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Ellen Birnbaum, Cambridge, MA

After offering a few general observations about working on a commentary on Philo's On the Life of Abraham, I will address some specific issues. These include the question of how Philo presents Abraham as an "unwritten law" and what he (Philo) seems to mean by this concept. Another issue pertains to how within this treatise certain interpretations are dependent on or connected to other interpretations.


Ioudaioi Abroad: "Jewish" or "Judean" Migrants?
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Josiah S. Bisbee, Brown University

Controversy has surrounded the translation of Ἰουδαῖος for quite some time. Sparked in part by apparent anti-semitism in the Gospel of John, scholars observe that certain passages appear to paint “the Jews” (’Ιουδαῖοι) as Jesus’ enemies; such as John 8:44, which seems to equate “the Jews” with the devil. Some attribute such anti semitism in John to the “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity. Others attempt to remedy the issue by rendering ’Ιουδαῖος as “Judean,” but this has only led to accusations of scholars “erasing Jews” from ancient texts. Apart from all the heated debate, this issue has surfaced a number of exegetical problems in John. For instance, “Judean” makes sense in contexts where ’Ιουδαῖος appears in close proximity to Ἰουδαίᾳ (Judea). Consider John 7:1, where Jesus remains in Galilee, instead of going to Judea (Ἰουδαίᾳ), for “fear of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” And yet, most scholars reject “Judean” in contexts where ’Ιουδαῖοι are described as residing abroad – the basic argument being that Judeans who do not live in Judea are not Judeans. But this argument fails to consider that Judeans may have simply migrated to Galilee and maintained an ethnic identity, as well as customs, indicative of their regional origin. By drawing attention to specific archeological data—namely, the manufacture and distribution of stew-pots, pans, stone vessels, and knife pared lamps—this paper will, first, present evidence for the existence of different regional customs in the first century CE. As will be demonstrated, the physical evidence — such as Judean pottery in Galilee, etc.— also indicates that Judeans migrated North. Afterward, both John 2.6 and Revelation 2.9 and 3.9 will be interpreted in light of this information, while drawing attention to other textual data, ultimately arguing that Ἰουδαῖος as “Judean” makes historical sense, even in contexts where Ἰουδαῖοι are described as residing abroad.


Lot (Be)gets What He Deserves: Lesser Descendants for a Lesser Man in Genesis 18-19
Program Unit: Genesis
Benjamin Bixler, Drew Theological School

This essay will explore the intertwined power dynamics embedded in the story of Lot and his daughters in Genesis 19:30-38, to pursue what Katharina von Kellenbach calls “a deeper power analysis” of the text. The story deals with issues of power and violence as the narrator dehumanizes a people group using sexual innuendo to create an ethnic identity. In addition to these rhetorical strategies, the narrator also uses gender identity to question Lot’s masculinity in order to further advance the polemical argument against Israel’s enemies. According to the logic of the text, Lot (be)gets what he deserves – a lesser people as his descendants because he is a lesser man. This paper argues that the narrator disinherits Lot from the promise of Abraham by creating an ethnic identity for the people of Moab and Ammon based on the sexual innuendo of incest, and additionally questions the gender identity of Lot to intensify the difference between Abraham and Lot’s descendants. In reading the narratives of Genesis as a product of those returning from Persian exile and linking the theology of the narrator with that of Ezra-Nehemiah (seen most clearly in the mixed marriage crisis in Ezra 9-10), the motivations of the narrator becomes clear. Relying on the work of Randall Bailey (“They’re Nothing But Incestuous Bastards”) and Danna Nolan Fewell (Imagination, Method, and Murder: UnFraming the Face of Post-Exilic Israel), I will show the sexual innuendo and ethnic construction that distances the descendants of Lot from the descendants of Abraham, despite their close familial connections. In this way, the narrator successfully ‘others’ the people of the land and justifies the returners’ possession of the land. Lastly, I will show that the narrator uses a more implicit rhetorical strategy as well, that of questioning Lot’s masculinity. I will examine Lot through the lens of Susan Haddox’s four characteristics of hegemonic masculinity in the Hebrew Bible: “Don’t be seen as feminine,” “displaying sexual potency,” “maintaining one’s honor,” and “wisdom and persuasiveness.” Through a close reading of the text of Genesis 18 and 19, it becomes clear that Lot does not possess these hegemonic attributes in the way that Abraham does, and instead possesses subordinate masculinities, even taking on feminine roles. Particularly in the scene in the cave with his daughters in 19:30-38 (Lot’s final scene in the narrative of Genesis) Lot is shown to be a man deserving of all that has been given to him in the text. Thus, Lot fails to live up to the ideals required of him to be a real man. The narrator questions Lot’s masculinity to show that he is not worthy of receiving the promise alongside Abraham, writing Lot out of the text along the way. Thus, the passage of v. 30-38 functions as the culmination of the emasculation of Lot, and lays the groundwork for polemical writings against the nations of Moab and Ammon that will continue in the Hebrew Bible.


Jubilance across the Ancient Near East
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Oeyvind Bjoeru, University of Texas at Austin

A vexing question in the discussion surrounding the biblical Jubilee legislation is the relation it bears to other Near Eastern practices that are somewhat similar in social or economic function, or are denoted by etymologically related terminology. Opinions are divided on whether the andurārum/mīšarum and the yôḇel/šmîṭṭā are historically related phenomena, convergent distillations of socio-economic and religio-cultural concerns, or disconnected and quite disparate customs with only superficial and piebald semblance to each other. Since the first substantial comparisons were made between the biblical Jubilee and fallow land practices ordained in the Hebrew Bible, and the proclamations or mentions of debt, slave, and land releases in Mesopotamia and Anatolia (Lemche 1979, Weinfeld 1995), new evidence has come to light. I will adduce evidence for andurārum practiced in the Middle Babylonian period in the kingdom of Ḫana, bridging the considerable gap between the Old Babylonian (early 2nd millennium BCE) and Neo-Assyrian (early 1st millennium) societies plaguing earlier attempts to compare practices. The Ḫana texts will serve as a basis for a reassessment of how mechanisms for social justice and economic readjustment in Mesopotamia and its environs can be brought to bear on the biblical Jubilee legislation, specifically the relevant passages in the Holiness Code, i.e. Leviticus 25 and 27. I claim that despite some fundamental structural differences between the Mesopotamian proclamations and the biblical legislation, the same conceptual distinctions regarding property rights and claims are operative within both institutions suggesting significant confluence, if not influence, or even shared origins.


Between Paradise and Exile: Migrations around Lamentation, Expectation and iLand in the Caribbean Bible
Program Unit: Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures
Fiona C. Black, Mount Allison University

This paper looks at the idea of land as both personal (iLand) and as collective object of desire in public and national discourses in the Bahamas. These ideas are framed against the lament for the land in Ps. 137, where the speaker is overcome with grief for Zion and can no longer play his harp and sing. For this purpose, I consider Sara Ahmed’s work on happiness, particularly with respect to the melancholic migrant, and Ann Cvetkovich’s thinking about depression as a global response to dispossession and dispossession. Indeed, what does it mean for biblical thinkers to own or identify with the land, and how does this translate to a biblically literate society in the Bahamian postcolony? A range of Bahamian contexts are explored with respect to these themes, such as political discourse around the time of independence (1973), public celebrations around Majority Rule and Independence Day, and contemporary artistic work that explores the idea of iLand.


Over-Writing the Minor: García-Valiño’s Urías y el Rey David:
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Chloe Blackshear , University of Chicago

Ignacio García-Valiño’s 1997 novel, Urías y el Rey David (Uriah and King David) reads, in many ways, as a quintessential historical novel of the near-popular, not-too-literary variety. Readers get to witness some really pleasing gap-filling, as they learn of Uriah the Hittite’s kidnapping by a band of roving thieves, his eventual emigration to Jerusalem as a religious and cultural outsider, and his love story with the gentle Bathsheba, whom he meets in a bakery. But this back-story is unusual. As a biblical novel, Urías y el rey David stands out as a text which grants a remarkably complete perspective to a minor, marginalized character. Uriah is the protagonist of a new story, with a poignantly depicted history and inner life all his own. Though his story intersects with David’s (in fact, as a member of David’s military, Uriah is tasked with recording David’s actions and contributing, it seems, to the biblical account), the novel reflects the life of the ruler first only as circumscribed by the much richer, more detailed life of the foreigner. In this way, the novel provides an example of a kind of biblical retelling which would truly grant agency and humanity, not just to a minor character, but to a non-Israelite, and which would draw attention to the others that populate the biblical account as well to those others who might read it with a different view. Yet García-Valiño’s novel undermines the reader’s complacency. A shift in perspective does not solve the problem of the Bible’s violence, or its dominance. As this paper will argue, the richness of Uriah’s story serves only to mark more dramatically the insidious way in which a canon, a historiography—of a king, or, it is implied, of a Spanish dictator-- systematically shuts out the other in its midst. For as the novel progresses, David begins to bowdlerize Uriah’s account and encroach threateningly upon his personal life; the novel’s tragic weight is focused through the subtle, gradual narratological infiltration and final annihilation of Urías’s story by David’s. On the one hand, the novel’s ultimately anti-fascist critique of history-writing seems to join other late twentieth-century Spanish fiction in seeking new kinds of anti-totalitarian historiography. By marking the weight of the Bible’s centralizing, alienating authority, moreover, García-Valiño’s novel mobilizes 1 and 2 Samuel to provide a thematic and narratological model for re-examining the relationship between the politically and narratively marginal and those their presence (and subsequent absence) helps maintain in the center.


Justification and Resurrection Life in Galatians
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
Ben C. Blackwell, Houston Baptist University

Rather than Jesus’ teaching, miracles, or stories, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus that captures Paul’s faith and creates the foundation for Paul’s symbolic world. This central theme of Jesus’ death and resurrection forms his basic narrative of the gospel (e.g., 1 Cor 15:1–4) and also informs his theological perspective on the life of ministry and discipleship (e.g., 2 Cor 4:6–18; Rom 6:1-12). Given Paul’s foundational interest in Christ’s death and his resurrection, it should likely strike the reader of Galatians that no explicit use of traditional resurrection language is evident in the letter after Gal 1:1. In contrast to other letters that situate the present experience of life in terms of the hope of future resurrection, Paul appears to consistently use the terminology of “life” (often in the context of death or crucifixion), to focus only on the present experience of life. With the advent of the so-called “apocalyptic” reading of the letter, this seeming lack of eschatological tension is given a pass. Is there a place for a more substantive role for resurrection within Galatians? In this essay I argue that Christ’s own resurrection life is communicated to believers in justification through the life-giving presence of the Spirit. In contrast to those who argue that justification is a legal status or status among the community, as believers participate in Christ, they are justified, which entails that they share in Christ’s life. Therefore, the letter addresses the present experience of life in the heart of letter by means of justification, and when Paul speaks of the “hope of righteousness,” this is a direct reference to the future embodied resurrection. The fact that justification and giving life are mutually constitutive is most evident when Paul writes: “If a Law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the Law” (3.21). But several points of evidence strongly support this thesis. 1) Paul’s direct establishment of participating in the death and life of Christ central to justification. 2) The use of standard covenantal terms of “blessing” and “cursing” in terms of life and death to contextualize Paul’s justification argument. 3) The identification of the promised inheritance with justification. In this way, the hope of inheritance and of righteousness as the hope of resurrection life does establish that eschatological tension that is so evident in other letters.


The Self-Support and Sustenance of Paul the skēnopoios
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Thomas R. Blanton IV, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

The paper will evaluate the data from inscriptions, texts, and Diocletian’s Price Edict relevant to understanding Paul’s sometime profession as a skēnopoios, as Acts 18:3 would have it. As a skēnopoios (Lat. tabernacularius), Paul may have made tents or awnings out of leather or linen. The paper will survey information on antique guilds (collegia) of tabernacularii, leatherworkers, and linenworkers, and such material as can be found on the wages, prices, and expenses (including food and drink) associated with these professions to provide a window onto Paul’s mode of sustenance as a “tentmaker.”


"We Are Not Drunk as You Suppose": Situating the Mistaken Intoxication in Acts 2 within Greco-Roman Religious and Philosophical Contexts
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Ward Blanton, University of Kent at Canterbury

This paper argues that we have not yet taken sufficient account of the comparative and competitive role of discourses of intoxication in Acts’ construction of the early Christian movement. To make its case, the paper will provide a map of the comparative significance of the levels and types of intoxication which distinguish in turn philosophical schools, ethnicity as a type of symposium practice, and respective geographical locales of a given cult in Greco-Roman contexts. Everywhere, characteristic levels and types of intoxication function to indicate the superiority of this or that group, practice, or event. This comparative map will flag up in turn the various modes in which a rational insight or divine activity is often mistaken in this literature as a phenomenon to be explained by other means (in this case as an effect of too much wine). Such mistakes (on the part of outsiders) function as a key indication (to the insiders) of the superiority of their school or cult. As we will see, in this literature the mistaking of quality or quantity in the intoxicating experience of the other becomes a key indication for what renders these outsiders genuinely foreign and unworthy. Having established its comparative map of mistaken intoxications and having shown how these tropes function in Acts, the paper will conclude by showing how the case of early Christianity more generally provides very important contributions to ongoing research about characteristic intoxications in the formation of ancient religious and philosophical identities (e.g., Epicurus’s Pharmacy by Diego Fusaro; Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens by Michael Rinella).


Linking Past and Present through the Material World: History in Genesis
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Princeton Theological Seminary

Genesis narratives and an etiology that refer to settlements and stone markers are commonly studied from a literary perspective. Geographical and archaeological perspectives raise questions regarding the historical roles of these locations and objects. How did Israelites employ the material world to link past and present – to validate, transmit, and selectively memorialize their history? Do mentions of physical manifestations indicate an historical witness, or might they have been late literary fabrications, preserved traditions, or a combination of these?


The Souls of Biblical Folks and the Potential for Meaning
Program Unit:
Brian Blount, Union Presbyterian Seminary

The Souls of Biblical Folks and the Potential for Meaning


The New Testament Text of Didymus the Blind: A Reconsideration of The Tura Papyri and their Text-Critical Value
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Lincoln H. Blumell, Brigham Young University

In 1941 while searching for a munition's bunker, Allied forces stationed in Cairo discovered a large cache of Byzantine papyri in the cave systems of Tura (south of Cairo). Among the cache, which included thousands of sheets of papyrus, were lost works of Origen and Didymus the Blind. Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Didymus's Tura commentaries (Genesis, Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Zechariah) began to be published and not long afterwards text critics began quarrying Didymus's commentaries to assess what they might reveal about the Alexandrian New Testament text. Based on my own work editing a long-lost quire of Didymus's Tura Psalm Commentary that was acquired by Brigham Young University (quire 8 comprising Pss 26:10-29:3), I have determined that many of the text-critical conclusions derived from Didymus's Tura commentaries and espoused by text critics are in need of serious revision. Most notably, every text-critical study of Didymus has failed to recognize that some of his "commentaries" are actually classroom lectures recorded by stenographers and that many of his "variants" are not textual variants, but rather resulted from the oral context of his lectures. This paper therefore seeks to properly situate and contextualize Didymus's Tura materials and to reconsider their text-critical value for the New Testament.


From Mark to Mark to Mark: Continuity and Discontinuity in the Narrative History of Mark’s Gospel
Program Unit: Westar Institute
Charles Bobertz, Saint John's University

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The Jerusalem Citadel (Bîrâ) in the Time of Nehemiah: Textual, Linguistic Evidence and Persian Military Strategy
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Daniel Bodi, La Sorbonne - University of Paris 4

Starting from an analysis of a series of linguistic information from the so-called Nehemiah Memoir (the word byrh “citadel” in Neh 2:8 hab-bîrâ ʾašer-labbayit “the citadel which is next to the Temple,” and 7:2 Hanani the “commander (in charge) of the citadel” śr hbyrh; Neh 3:9 “House/Garrison of the Mighty Men” byt hgbrym; Neh 11:41 “pāqîd officer/overseer who commands a troop of 128 “mighty men” gbwry ḥyl), and comparing it with what is known of Persian territorial administration, it becomes plausible to view Nehemiah’s Jerusalem as an attempt to rebuild a citadel or a fortified military installation together with city walls of a relatively modest size. The circumference of the citadel together with the ramparts would not have exceeded 3000 meters, or less than 2 miles. The Jerusalem citadel could have been used as a refuge in case of a retreat of the Persian forces in the course of a military campaign. The authorization given to Nehemiah to rebuild part of Jerusalem with a citadel would reflect the political opportunism of the Persians. A well-known aspect of the Persian military strategy in the internal organization of their immense empire was administering the territory through citadels. In their numerous wars, it was one of their main strategies to conquer, occupy and manage the citadels with their own garrisons. By placing the discussion in a historical and comparative perspective, one discovers that the strategy of controlling the territory through citadels Heb. bîrâ, LXX bāris, was not invented by the Persians themselves. It was already in use by their predecessors the Assyrians and is attested in the Northwest Semitic domain since OB times as reflected in Mari texts. My proposal to see Nehemiah’s official mission as being mostly a reconstruction of the citadel with limited city ramparts may be supported by linguistic data found in Nehemiah and only indirectly by archaeology. For the Persian times, the archaeological findings concerning Jerusalem are either non-existent or meager. This leads the archaeologists to assume that Jerusalem was no more than a Temple-village, or that the city was very small, limited to the eastern ridge, (the so called “minimalist view”). The only distance indicated in Neh 3:13 between the Valley and Dung Gates is 1000 cubits or 500 meters describing a repaired section of the wall. When comparing these points with the “minimalist plan” of Jerusalem as advocated by M. Avi-Yonah, G. J. Wightman, and Kenneth A. Ristau, one can make a rough estimation of 3000 meters as the total circumference of the Jerusalem ramparts in the time of Nehemiah.


Amorite Names with Scurrilous Etymologies in Mari Texts and Some Biblical Examples: King Snake-Nāḥāš, Queen Mother-Neḥuštāʾ, Nebukadnezzar/Nabukadrezzar and Midrashic Names in Gen 14
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Daniel Bodi, La Sorbonne - University of Paris

In the first part the paper analyzes some Amorite names with scurrilous etymologies found in Old Babylonian Mari texts and showing that the practice of disobliging word-plays, shaming sobriquets and “scurrilous etymologies” with which enemy chieftains and warlords are tagged is well-attested in the Northwest Semitic domain (Simaḫ-ilānē ARM 10 5; and ARM 26, no 168 [A.143], ll. 6-7 where a nickname is used to designate the enemy, a Benjaminite warlord). In the second part, the papers analyzes the names of the King Snake-Nāḥāš in 1 Sam 11:1, of the queen mother Neḥuštāʾ in 1 Kgs 24:8, the wordplay Nebukadnezzar/Nabukadrezzar and the midrashic names in Gen 14. It shows how the ancient Hebrews shared this practice with the earlier Amorite semi-nomadic tribes. In dealing with biblical evidence, however, one must take into account redactional aspects. The name Nāḥāš of the Ammonite king in 1 Sam. 11:1, meaning “Snake” should probably be seen as an example of the so-called “scurrilous etymologies.” Furthermore from a redactional point of view, the connection with the name of the mother of Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Jerusalem who went into Babylonian Exile together with the queen mother Nehushta in 2 Kgs 24:8, is seen as being theologically significant. The “Lady Serpent” Neḥuštāʾ was associated with the practice of the Asherah cult in the Jerusalem Temple, a goddess who had snakes as her emblem. The official investiture of the tribal chieftain Saul begins with his victory over the King “Snake” Nāḥāš who intended to cripple the Transjordanian Hebrew tribes from Jabesh-Gilead, inflict on them a religio-cultic impairment, precluding them from participating in Yhwh worship. The end of the kingship in Judah is likewise associated with the defeat and expulsion of the ruler’s family that crippled and impaired proper Yhwh worship in Jerusalem. The scurrilous “snake” name would probably be the work of one of the redactors of the Deuteronomistic historiography who thus provided a form of an inclusio.


From Tyrian Outpost to Hellenistic Polis? New Research on Achaemenid and Hellenistic Ashkelon
Program Unit: Literature and History of the Persian Period
Ryan Boehm, Tulane University

Recent research on the Persian and Hellenistic levels excavated at Ashkelon has shed new light on the nature of the Phoenician reoccupation of the site after the destruction of the Philistine city in 604 BCE and the subsequent growth and development of the settlement in the following centuries. This paper examines the urban form and economic life of the Persian-period settlement. It argues that the site is best conceptualized as a Tyrian emporion whose fortunes were closely connected to the network of Tyrian and Sidonian outposts along the southern Levantine coast and the relationship of this network to Achaemenid imperial policies. It then examines the question of the transition between the Persian and Hellenistic periods and the impact of new political frameworks on the development of the site. It is not until the late Hellenistic period that the site expanded dramatically and the hinterland was more intensively exploited. It is only at this point that Ashkelon appears to have transformed from a small-scale commercial settlement to a true Hellenistic polis.


The Cultural Biography of a Pilgrimage Token: From Hagiographical to Archaeological Evidence
Program Unit: Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions
Dina Boero , The College of New Jersey

At the late antique pilgrimage sites of both Symeon the Stylite the Elder (c. 390-459) at Qal‘at Sem‘an, located approximately sixty kilometers northeast of Antioch, and of Symeon the Stylite the Younger (521-592) upon the Wondrous Mountain, located approximately sixteen kilometers southwest of Antioch, attendants distributed small, terracotta tokens stamped with images of stylites, scenes drawn from the life of Christ, and related imagery. Scholars frequently categorize these objects as “pilgrimage art.” They employ hagiographies to highlight the application of tokens in situations calling for healing, protection, and punishment. Although literary sources offer valuable representations of ritual processes, at times they also obscure the tangible remains of human activity, as Moser and Knust point out. Material remains “complement the testimony of the literary and the figural, offering a counterbalance to the literate, elite, and conceptual perspective that has so often been privileged in the study of antiquity, and even in religion more generally” (p. 3). In the particular case of tokens distributed at the cult sites of stylites, hagiographies make claims on the proper distribution, meaning, and use of tokens amidst a diversity of intercessory activities taking place at and away from the site. How, in practice, was a token produced and distributed? How did pilgrims use tokens at pilgrimage complexes beyond the claims made by hagiographies? How did individuals employ tokens away from pilgrimage complexes? Following the methodological approach of Arjun Appadurai and Igor Kopytoff, this paper answers these questions by tracing the cultural biography of a token. A cultural biography sheds light on the range of possible categorizations for an object in a given society as well as the course by which they are re-contextualized within and between societies. Rather than prioritize literary evidence, this paper analyzes the archaeological contexts for tokens excavated at Qal‘at Sem‘an and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, including Deir Seta and Dehes in Syria, Beit She’an in Israel, and Bobbio in Italy. By examining the functional settings in which individuals and communities employed tokens, this paper clarifies select statuses which a token might occupy during its lifetime, such as commodity, gift, medicinal object, luxury object, relic, and rubbish. The consideration of a token’s functional settings and shifts in status makes it possible to interpret the human calculations that enliven both the object itself and the culturally constituted categories in which that object functioned. This approach lays the foundation for examining literary claims regarding the use of tokens as one among many assertions in the uneasy process of harnessing the power of saints. More broadly, it illuminates the multiplicity of pilgrimage experiences and contestation in relation to ritual processes.


An Introduction to 3 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Chance Bonar, Harvard University

This paper will serve as an introduction to 3 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John (3 Ap. Apoc. John; BHG 922k), which is being edited and translated for the first time as part of the More New Testament Apocrypha series. Itself titled an "Apocalypse of holy John the Theologian," 3 Ap. Apoc. John is a revelation dialogue between John the Theologian and Abraham that focuses primarily on the fate of the soul and the realities of the afterlife. While this apocalypse of John might stand out from other revelation dialogues for having Abraham as John's divine interlocutor rather than Jesus, the structure of the dialogue and citation of Scripture make 3 Ap. Apoc. John at home among others in this broad genre. In this paper, I will discuss the extant manuscripts of 3 Ap. Apoc. John and the limitations of dating the "original" text. Following that, I will give brief analysis of some of the contents of 3 Ap. Apoc. John and consider its literary and theological importance, especially in relation early Christian apocalypses and broader late ancient discussions regarding the afterlife, resurrection, and conceptions of figures like Jesus, Mary, and Adam.


What Are the Gospels? And Why Does It Matter?
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Helen K. Bond, University of Edinburgh

In this paper, I seek first to contextualize the bios discussion within the larger debate over gospel genre, paying particular attention to the contribution of Richard Burridge’s What Are the Gospels? Next I ask what difference it makes to say that a particular work is an ancient biography. Drawing examples from Mark’s Gospel, I suggest that an appreciation of genre has implications for a number of features, including topical structure, episodic narrative, characterization (both of Jesus and secondary characters), and the relation between the hero’s teaching and his death. Mark’s work, I suggest, is an innovative reception of prior Jesus tradition, transforming a loose mass of unformed material into a historicized narrative reflecting the broader Graeco-Roman biographical tradition.


The Pilgrim's Progress: Digitally Mapping Travel and the Early Christian Calendar
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Sarah Bond, University of Iowa

The emperor Justinian set Candlemas within the city of Constantinople and elsewhere in the East for February 2 in the mid-sixth century. However, the earlier pilgrim text of the Itinerarium Egeriae noted the likely celebration of Candlemas on February 14 and the flocking of people to Jerusalem to join the solemn procession and services there. As Egeria and many others exemplify, travel in the early Christian Mediterranean must be understood not only in terms of space but also in terms of the liturgical calendar-which could often differ from place to place. This paper explores how travel was encouraged or discouraged through changes to the festival calendars in the fourth through sixth centuries CE, and the possibly effects on travel that derive from the institution of new festivals that encouraged it. It also proposes that digital humanities approaches such as GIS tools now allow us to analyze and compare periods of high and low travel within the early Christian Calendar and then visualize it spatially. Through digital methods, we can better understand travel as an integral part of the circular cosmos constructed first by the Roman fasti and then by the early Christian calendar. This calendar served to interconnect religion, people, and places through the organization of time.


The Festival of Dionysus and Saturnalia in Jewish Responses to Greek and Roman Rule
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Catherine E. Bonesho, University of California-Los Angeles

The importance of calendars and holidays in Judaism of the Greco-Roman period has been extensively studied with particular attention paid to the use of different calendrical systems by different communities, including the calendars of the Qumran community, the use of the Seleucid calendar in Jerusalem, and the development of the rabbinic calendar. Instead of concentrating on entire calendars, in this paper, I analyze ancient Jewish literary descriptions of individual foreign holidays from the Hellenistic kingdom and Roman empire to determine if the differences between their descriptions and rhetoric can illuminate Jewish attitudes towards these foreign rulers. I concentrate on 2 Macc 6:6-7 and its assertion that Jews were forced to celebrate the Greek festival of Dionysus, as well as y. Abodah Zarah 1:2, 39c and its proposed etymology for the Roman festival of Saturnalia. In 2 Macc 6:6-7, the idolatrous nature of the festival of Dionysus, with its worship of a Greek god, is emphasized as well as the fact that Jews were forced to celebrate the festival. On the other hand, y. Abodah Zarah 1:2, 39c, instead of describing the idolatry of Saturnalia, provides an etymology for Saturnalia that emphasizes hatred, specifically Esau's hatred for his brother Jacob, and the association of this hatred with the Roman governmental body of the senate. Though their literary contexts are quite distinct, both the description of the festival of Dionysus as well as the rabbinic etymology for Saturnalia emphasize the negative qualities of either the foreign holiday itself or its celebrants and stresses the distinction between Greek and Roman observance from proper Jewish observance. However, the details of these depictions differ: in 2 Macc the concern for idolatry is evident unlike the rabbinic etymology for Saturnalia, which through some elaborate exegetical work, connects Saturnalia to Esau instead of the idolatrous worship of Saturn. Furthermore, the negative rhetoric against foreign rulers, in this case the Roman empire, is more pronounced in the rabbinic etymology for Saturnalia than in 2 Macc, with the rabbis explicitly connecting the hatred of Saturnalia to the Roman senate. Therefore, through the lens of the festival of Dionysus and Saturnalia, one can distinguish in some way between the Jewish responses to Greek and Roman rule, with the latter receiving more of a negative political and rhetorical response, possibly due to the Jewish-Roman Wars and the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.


Metaphors and Idolatry: Negotiating the First Commandment in the Psalms
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Ryan Bonfiglio, Emory University / First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta

In the Preface to his Larger Catechism, Martin Luther offers the following generalization about the relationship between the Decalogue and the Psalms: “[W]hat is the whole Psalter but meditation and exercises based on the First Commandment?” ­Luther’s claim is a provocative one since explicit references to “other gods” and “idols” are relatively uncommon in the Psalter, as is language about worshipping “God alone/only.” Nevertheless, when viewed from the perspective of metaphors and metaphor theory Luther’s claim holds true. The purpose of this paper is to explore how one of the principle divine metaphors in the Psalms—GOD IS REFUGE—can be understood as a form of commentary on the first commandment. At a theological level, this metaphor and its various instantiations (rock, fortress, shield, stronghold, etc.) present a conceptual alternative to the ephemeral and non-weighty quality of idols. In this manner, the GOD IS REFUGE metaphor participates in and extends, albeit more implicitly, the rhetorical discourse expressed through the idol parody in Ps 155:4-8 (cf. Ps 135:15-18). This paper also explores how, from the perspective of metaphor theory, the deployment of the GOD IS REFUGE metaphor in the Psalms attempts to subvert the various ways in which language about God itself can, through overuse and lexicalization, become a type of linguistic idol.


Symbolism 2.0: Reflections on Keel’s Approach 45 Years Later
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Ryan P. Bonfiglio, Emory University / First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta

When Othmar Keels' Symbolism of the Biblical World first appeared in 1972, it represented the first systematic attempt to compare the conceptual world of a biblical book (the Psalms) with ancient Near Eastern art. Since that time, efforts to integrate visual evidence into the study of the Old Testament have undergone considerable advancement, especially in the areas of methodology and underlying theories about art and visual culture. The purpose of this paper is to assess the trajectory of these advancements and how they might reframe Keel’s project were it to be recreated today. In doing so, this paper not only highlights the enduring contributions of Keel’s pioneering work, but it also offers the broad contours for what would be a Symbolism 2.0—an approach to systematically studying the Old Testament through the lens of ANE iconography that is informed by 45 years of developments in iconographic exegesis.


Pure Stale Water: Reflections on the Materiality of Stepped Pools
Program Unit: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World
Rick Bonnie, University of Helsinki

Stepped pools, those physical structures found so regularly in the archaeology of late Second Temple-period Palestine, are conventionally viewed as a prop, things that do little more than enable the socio-ritual process of purification. Quintessentially, the physical structure of the stepped pool itself becomes inserted into a pre-existing socio-religious grid. However, as shown by recent research on the material world in areas such as archaeology, cognitive sciences, cultural anthropology and technology studies, socio-ritual ideas, concepts and strategies did not already exist before being materialised into symbols and structures - instead, they often were facilitated by them. In this paper, I argue that the rite of immersion for Jewish ritual purification during the late Second Temple period did not take precedence, but was helped into becoming by the materiality of stepped pools. In the quest of how Jewish ritual purification is being understood the bodily and sensory relationship of those who use it with these built water installations is of primary significance. This material-centred perspective also places the emphasis on the local, situational, and individual dimensions of religious practices, by which it moves away from notions of homogenous belief and ritual behaviour. The paper discusses some of the particular sensory and material qualities that have not often been discussed in reference to stepped pools but which may have played a role in how Jews experienced and used these structures. Since these stepped pools and the surrounding built environment influenced both the movements of 'water' and 'people,' I will use those particular angles to guide my analysis. I will delve, for instance, into the question of how pungent and dirty did the standing water that was collected during rainy seasons in the stepped pools eventually become? And why, in fact, did this matter, as the workings of stepped pools essentially made the required "living water" to become stale, mute and lifeless. Furthermore, following the ground-breaking work by Lakoff and Johnson (Metaphors We Live By [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003]) on how conceptual systems are grounded in experiences of the world, I will look into how the physicality of stepped pools or other sources of purification may have shaped the conceptual language of these practices as used in contemporary and later written sources, like Josephus and the rabbinic literature.


Exodus: An Investigation of Vocabulary and Concepts from Ancient Greek Literature to Early Christian Writings
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Eberhard Bons, Université de Strasbourg

The aim of this panel is to study the terminology used to speak of the Exodus and the concepts conveyed by the various terms and expressions. In particular, the following issues will be addressed: 1. Why is the Exodus of the Israelites leaving Egypt called “Exodus”? 2. Can the history of this noun in Greek language explain this choice? 3. To what degree did the choice of this noun influence the reception of the idea of Exodus?


Mark as Sound
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Thomas Boomershine, United Theological Seminary

Markan scholarship has had a central role in the current debate about orality and literacy in the composition, reception, and distribution of the New Testament in its original historical context. In the midst of the ongoing search for greater clarity about the communication cultures of the ancient world, there is an emerging agreement that Mark was composed and distributed as a composition of sound performed for audiences either by storytellers or lectors. How then do we build a research community on the study of the sound of Mark? The problem is that there is a fundamental discontinuity between the predominantly visual sensory system of contemporary study of Mark and the predominantly auditory sensory system of the biblical world. A dimension of that discontinuity is the difference between the auditory and visual sensory systems of the human brain. When Markan scholarship is evaluated in this context, the implication is that Markan scholarship has been based on a systemic misperception of Mark as a text read by readers rather than as a composition of sound performed for audiences. A case study of the puzzle of the ending of Mark at 16:8 based on the analysis and mapping of the sounds of the story reveals a concentration of highly sophisticated techniques of sound composition. Mark 16:8 makes sense as the intended ending of the Gospel when it is experienced as a composition of sound rather as a text of visual signs. The implication is that sound mapping and oral performance are essential elements of a coherent methodology for the study of Mark as sound.


Paul among the Physicians: 1 Tim 2:15 and Salvation in a Context of Contested Health Claims
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Adam Booth, Duke University

1 Tim 2:15 claims that women will be saved through childbearing. The language used to speak of salvation has a more basic meaning of physical health. This paper investigates how medical opinion contemporary to the letter would have evaluated the claim that childbearing is salubrious and shows that that question was contested. Answers to this question were not offered in vacuo, but were formed in connection with a system of beliefs (more or less coherent from our standpoint) about what it means for a body to be a woman’s, to (mal)function as a woman’s and to be healed as a woman’s. The constructions of gender and embodiment which Galen, building on certain Aristotelian and Hippocratic texts, would use to affirm the health-bringing function of childbearing, and which Soranus would use to deny this, will be examined, and compared with contemporary ‘lay’ assessments of the same question. Finally, the paper asks how an early auditor of the letter who held to one or other of these gynecological viewpoints might have heard the Pastor’s claims. Are the Pastor’s hearers being called to see salvation as intimately connected with bodily forms of life for women socially valorized as “healthy” or to see salvation as entangled with bodily danger? I argue that the early Wirkungsgeschichte of this text may well have included both of these receptions.


Finding Jesus in the Sibylline Oracles: Textual Revelation and the Limitless Fountain of Meaning
Program Unit: Prophetic Texts and Their Ancient Contexts
Francis Borchardt, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong

According to various Early Christian apologetic sources, the Sibylline Oracles are a rich locus of prophetic revelation about Jesus. It is claimed that these non-Christian oracular texts are nonetheless authentic divine communication. Among the Early Christian apologetic texts the veracity of of these Oracles is asserted through the apparent success of their applicability to events past, present, and future. This points to a broader trend we can observe as revelation moves from oral performance to text: the original performers of revelation loss of agency in the interpretation of revelation. This leads to two separate but related conclusions: 1) textualized revelation relies on the authority of later performers to both shape the meaning and assert the relevance of the revelation, and 2) later performers and performances can continually assert and win acceptance for new meanings in the revelation. This paper will discuss how this process of constant reassertion of meaning and significance works within Early Christian apologetic literature discussing the Sibylline Oracles.


The Twelve Prophets as Literary Characters
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
James M. Bos, University of Mississippi

Jonah, son of Amittai, makes a brief cameo in 2 Kings 14:25. From this single reference, a later scribe would spin a fascinating story of this prophet’s activity, a story that most contemporary critical readers identify as fictional. This paper asks whether other prophetic books, despite significant generic differences from the narrative of Jonah, might not have their origins explained similarly—prophetic characters chosen from earlier written or oral tradition as protagonists for a book composed at a later time—even though the preserved Israelite and Judahite literature contains no explicit references to them (with the exception of Micah in Jeremiah 26). Thus, while prophets named Hosea, Amos, Micah, etc., may have existed historically, in the books attributed to them, they are literary characters shaped by later scribes for a later readership. The paper concludes by examining some key features of their characterization.


Human Hubris, the Natural World, and the Wrath of God in Isaiah 13–27
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
David A Bosworth, The Catholic University of America

The paper will explore the role of the natural world (e.g., land, planta, animals, etc) within Isaiah 13-27. A corpus-based analysis permits all aspects of trauma and natural world to surface rather than only those aspects pre-selected for analysis which may not be representative of the corpus as a whole. The chapters show several diverse representations of trauma and the natural world. For example, the earth mourns (e.g., Isa 24:4), which is a characteristic emotional response to trauma. The text therefore extends trauma from human experience to the earth. But why is the earth mourning? At times, the earth suffers direct violence (e.g., 13:13; 24:19). At times, the natural world appears to reflect the experience of the people who inhabit it (e.g., 14:7). At times, humans cause nature to suffer (e.g., the cedars of Lebanon say to the king of Babylon, "Now that you are laid to rest, no one comes to cut us down," Isa 14:8). The land can communicate its trauma through changes (e.g., withered grass in 15:6, bloody water in 15:9). The paper will present the results of a systematic analysis of mentions of the natural world in Isaiah 13-27. These chapters describe human hubris punished by the wrath of God. How does the natural world fit into this divine-human relationship?


Slavery and Infanticide: The Abandonment of Moses and Ishmael
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
David Bosworth, The Catholic University of America

The Hebrew Bible includes two stories of infant abandonment, both involving slave women. Under harsh slavery, Jochebed abandons her son, later called Moses. Hagar, a maidservant, abandons her infant Ishmael after she is herself cast out of Abraham's household with almost no provisions. The texts present both women as reluctant to part with their babies, but constrained by circumstances imposed on them by others. Research on infanticide among slaves in the United States and the Caribbean indicates that infanticide was sometimes practiced by slave women for various motives. The case of Margaret Garner was made famous by Toni Morrisons's novel Beloved. Garner (like Sethe in the novel) killed her daughter in order to prevent her recapture and return to slavery. Other slaves similarly killed their children as acts of resistance or altruism toward their children. The paper will draw on modern scientific research on infanticide and parental investment and how decisions about whether and how to raise a child are shaped in part by maternal circumstances and the presence or absence of social support (e.g., Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mother Nature; Melvin Konnor, Evolution of Childhood; Lita Schwatz and Natalie Isser, Endangered Children). It will seek to correlate this research with scholarship on slavery and infanticide to illuminate the biblical narratives of the abandonment of Moses and of Ishmael with some attention to how these infant abandonment stories have been variously understood by modern interpreters.


Disabling Romanticism: The Body in New Testament Apocrypha
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Pieter Botha, University of South Africa

The early Christian narratives that are categorised as New Testament apocrypha clearly aim at influencing their audiences to idealise the Jesus movement: to prompt penitence, to convert, to believe and to move the believer to spiritual life. What is underestimated is the rhetoric of disability encapsulated in particularly the healing and miracle stories used to promote such conversions and/or to bring about change in their readers/listeners. More than just championing Jesus and promoting Christianity, rather specific biases about normality and the acceptable body are communicated. Two trajectories will be highlighted: (1) asserting the notion of an originally “perfect” and “normal” world, beside which all impairment and disease are seen as evil deviations (the result of sin). (2) An underlying link between paralysis and sexuality that would have enabled ancient Christian audiences to connect paralysis with not only infertility but unacceptable sexuality. In this paper these traditions will be related to early Christian ascetic ideals in the context of ancient medical texts, to show how we discover that In this way desirable Christian roles is advanced by the narrators of early Christian apocryphal stories to affirm normalcy, masculinity and ableism as divine ideals.


Work and Labour: A Neglected Revolution Brought about by Early Christianity?
Program Unit: Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
Pieter Botha, University of South Africa

The relative economic success of the Roman Empire until medieval times is quite noteworthy — and there are no lack of propositions for explaining the eventual “decline” or “break down.” In line with the call to explore aspects of innovation and continuity, this paper explores subtle shifts and alterations to cultural concepts such as “work,” “labour,” and “professions” in the world of the Roman Empire with the spread of Christianity. While natural conditions, capital accumulation, technology and political stability all contributed to economic success, ultimately economic performance depended on the ability to mobilize, train and coordinate human work efforts. The growth of early Christianity, and the concomitant changes in social structures and institutions brought about changes in such efforts. Obviously a vast topic, but in this paper I explore possibilities of bringing new insights, ideas and interpretations on the changes in the roles of labour and human resources in the (slow) “christianising” of the Roman economy. For instance, the topic of slave labour and early Christianity have mostly been studied within the frameworks of family life, humanity, abuse and bondage. Issues relating to a perspective of “work” and “labour” and economic systems have received less attention. Options concerning conceptualising the various ways in which work was mobilised and organised and how such processes were regulated as a social and cultural phenomena are explored.


The Fragrance of Death—or of Life? Reconsidering the Sacrificial Logic of Ephesians 5:2
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
Max Botner, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

“. . . and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:2). Scholars of Ephesians agree overwhelmingly that the author’s paraenetic injunction to “live in love” is grounded in the death of Jesus. Markus Barth thus speaks for a large swath of interpreters when he claims that “[t]he author designates Jesus Christ’s death as an atoning sacrifice offered by the pouring out of blood” (1974: 558). Despite the seemingly self-evident nature of such an interpretation (Christian traditions have long viewed Christ’s cross in terms of the sacrificial rituals described in the Jewish scriptures), Christian Eberhart (2012) argues persuasively that it is, in fact, a distortion of the author’s sacrificial model. While there are several facets to Eberhart’s argument, the most significant is his contention that interpreters of Ephesians have misunderstood the logic of Levitical sacrifice, the system from which the author culls the phrases “offering” (προσφορά), “sacrifice” (θυσία), and a “fragrant aroma” (ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας). That is, in contrast to interpreters of Ephesians, who tend to construe ritual slaughter as the goal of Levitical sacrifice, Eberhart construes Levitical sacrifice as a hierarchical process culminating in God’s receipt of the gift. This paper aims to advance Eberhart’s argument that the sacrificial logic of Ephesians revolves around life rather than death. Specifically, I will contend that the author’s comparison between the Christ-gift and a “fragrant offering” evokes the presentation and perpetual presence of Christ’s resurrection life before God in the heavens (cf. Eph 1:20–21; 2:6; 4:10). The author’s call to imitatio Dei in 5:1 is therefore integrally related to his sacrificial model: worshipers who have received the gift of life through participation in Christ’s resurrection life are called to offer their lives back to the life-giving God.


You Are a "Spiritual House": Misunderstanding Metaphor and the Question of Supersessionism in 1 Peter
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Max Botner, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

In his exceptional monograph, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism, Jonathan Klawans makes the incisive observation that “it is all too easy for the temple to play the role of antagonist in the drama of the development of whatever phenomenon primarily interests the scholar, be it rabbinic Judaism, the New Testament, or the Dead Sea Scrolls” (2006: 104–5). Klawans’s observation, while more generally targeted, is apropos of the ways in which community-as-temple in the Dead Sea Scrolls is often handled in New Testament scholarship (e.g., Gärtner 1965). A parade example of this interpretive phenomenon is 1 Pet 2:5, “you yourselves are being built into a spiritual house.” Based on a particular account of community-as-temple language in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Petrine interpreters overwhelmingly explain this clause as an example—perhaps the example par excellence—of early “Christian” appropriation of the sectarian (and thus “Jewish”) desire to see the temple eclipsed by an eschatological community of the faithful. This paper scrutinizes the dominant narrative in Petrine scholarship that the literary depository of the Dead Sea Scrolls lends itself to a smooth, evolutionary development culminating in a Gemeinde ohne Tempel. It argues, moreover, that attendance to the function of community-as-temple metaphors in the Dead Sea Scrolls opens an avenue for an alternative account of 1 Pet 2:5. The writer’s designation of gentile communities of Christ-followers as a “pneumatic house” does not derive from a “replacement” theology, but reflects the significance of Christ’s ministry at the right hand of Israel’s God. While the author is ostensibly uninterested in replacing the Jerusalem temple, his christocentrism can be marshalled in support of supersessionism once community-as-temple language becomes a “dead metaphor” in the exegetical tradition.


Secondary Predicates in the Book of Genesis
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Jacques E. J. Boulet, University of Toronto

This paper takes the first step toward comprehensive identification of secondary predicates in the book of Genesis. I begin by showing that what past scholars have called a ‘predicate accusative of state’ (Joüon 1947) or ‘predicative adjunct’ (the ETCBC database) corresponds to what modern linguists call secondary predicates. Secondary predicates are words or phrases co-occurring with a main verb that modify either the subject or an object of the verb. Following Rothstein (2015), the two broad categories of secondary predicate, namely depictives and resultatives, are defined using complex predicate semantics. Analysis on the basis of complex predicate semantics can be contrasted with analysis of adverbials, which are modifiers of simple events. I argue that complex predicate semantics can be mapped directly onto syntax using Cuervo’s (2003; 2015) approach to verbal predicates in combination with Bowers’ (1993; 2001) unified approach to predication. Specifically, secondary predicates are deemed to have a small clause structure, which may be headed by the Biblical Hebrew enclitic particles bə- and lə-. The paper concludes with a working list of secondary predicates so far identified in the book of Genesis.


The Power of Hope: Using Arts-Based Research for Education and Advocacy
Program Unit: Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (SARTS)
Helen Boursier, College of St. Scholastica

*The Power of Hope* incorporates experiences of refugee families seeking asylum as the backdrop for Arts-Based Research (ABR) which brings their testimonies to life, enabling public access to witness both the veracity of their suffering and the hopes and dreams for their children to receive safe asylum.


Visualizing Paul’s Text: A Reading of 1 Thess 5:1–11 alongside Roman Cuirassed Statues
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Anna M. V. Bowden , Brite Divinity School (TCU)

In 1 Thessalonians 5:8 Paul directs his audience “to put on a breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” This passage, along with others in the New Testament, has given way to the creation of various Christian images of soldiers geared for battle and even costumes for children allowing them to dress up in “the armor of God.” But, are these images of soldiers and spiritual defense weapons what Paul has in mind when he instructs his audience to put on a breastplate of faith and love? The goal of this paper is to explore these images of armor in conversation with a common image from Paul’s world, the Roman cuirassed statue. After describing my methodological approach, this paper begins with an overview of Roman cuirassed statues, including two case studies on specific examples. Next, I turn to a reading of 1 Thess 5:1-11 that takes seriously the importance of Paul’s visual world as an intertext for reading his letter to the Thessalonians. I read Paul’s armor images alongside the visual program of imperial ideology and conclude that the breastplate and helmet in v.8 evoke the images of cuirassed statues, statues that tout an elaborate imperial agenda. The breastplate and helmet in 1 Thess 5:8, therefore, are not images of spiritual warfare or a charge for believers to dress for battle, but represent an elaborate visual program – a commemoration of the life and death of Christ that also seeks to inspire believers to continue to carry the accomplishments of the past into the present and future.


Visualizing the Flight into Egypt
Program Unit: Bible and Visual Art
Ian Boxall, The Catholic University of America

Matthew’s narrative of the Flight into Egypt (Matt 2:13-15) is riddled with ambiguity, not least regarding the significance of the final destination. Egypt is both ‘the house of bondage’ (thus signally its potential role as starting-point for a new Exodus) and a place of refuge for Jews across the centuries. The heavenly orchestration of the holy family’s movements (initiated by an angelic dream) pits divine Providence against murderous plots and flight from danger. The close interweaving of this story of rescue with the massacre of the innocents (Matt 2:16-18) raises for many difficult issues of theodicy. Moreover, the many gaps in the biblical text (the route and mode of transport; ultimate destination and reception; the length of the sojourn in Egypt) invite imaginative expansion and participation. Historical critics who locate the First Gospel in Syrian Antioch have occasionally linked Matthew’s first audiences with migration due to persecution. Non-canonical reworkings of the flight narrative (both apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, and local traditions of the Coptic Orthodox Church) often prioritize the holy family’s positive reception by Egyptian strangers. Such issues, and the tensions inherent in Matthew’s narrative, have also left their mark on interpretations in visual art. This paper will explore aspects of these tensions in the visual exegesis of the Flight into Egypt, particularly as it pertains to persecution and forced migration. Examples will include Coptic icons of the expanded narrative (e.g. Abu Serga Church, Old Cairo), two complementary versions of The Flight into Egypt by the African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1899, Detroit Institute of Arts; 1923, Metropolitan Museum of Art), and the Columbian Rest on the Flight into Egypt attributed to the Figueroa Workshop (17th century, Denver Art Museum).


The Place of Reception History in Commentaries on John's Apocalypse
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Ian Boxall, Catholic University of America

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Pattern (PAT) Loans and Hebrew in Isaiah 40–66
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Samuel Boyd, University of Colorado

The study of language contact in the development of Biblical Hebrew has advanced the diachronic understanding of the language in a variety of ways. Most notable in these contributions are 1) the incorporation of contact linguistic theory for examining the processes behind contact-induced changes and 2) the focus on structural, and non-lexemic, changes in Biblical Hebrew. The latter is especially important when attempting to distinguish external from internal change, a distinction particularly difficult to make when the languages in contact, such as Hebrew, Akkadian, and Aramaic, are related. In this paper, I examine a particular structural change in Hebrew due to contact with Aramaic in Isa 40–66. I then contextualize this structural change in the distinction of matter (MAT) loans and pattern (PAT) loans as set forth by Jeanette Sakel and Yaron Matras, showing how the particular feature matches the process of PAT loans. Important for this study are not only the linguistic changes in Isa 40–66 in relation to Sakel and Matras’ work, but also the sociolinguistic situation that these linguists reconstruct behind the PAT loan process, a situation also present in the historical context of the composition of Isa 40–66 (whether or not this block of material derives from one Deutero-Isaiah or from Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah).


A Firmament of the Earth: The Logic of Gen 1:20 and a Visual Representation in the Baal Stele
Program Unit: Genesis
Samuel Boyd, University of Colorado

The cosmology as described in the Priestly account in Gen 1:1-2:4a has occasioned endless commentary. One of the more perceptive, though little known, studies of this text was published by Baruch Halpern in 2003 titled “The Assyrian Astronomy of Genesis 1 and the Birth of Milesian Philosophy.” Halpern argues that the qualification of the firmament (רקיע) as an “expanse of the heavens” in Gen 1:20 implies the existence of another expanse or firmament, namely an “expanse of the earth” (רקיע הארץ). In this paper, I review Halpern’s argument and add evidence from iconography at Ugarit. The Baal Stele in which the deity holds lightning (Louvre catalog number AO 15775) and stands with the king also displays a cosmology that has intriguing connections with Halpern’s thesis about an “expanse of the earth.” After connecting Halpern’s thesis to this visual representation of cosmology from Ugarit, I explore the ways in which both text and image are mutually illuminating and help to interpret one another.


From Text to Discourse: Foucault and the Septuagint
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Cameron Boyd-Taylor, Trinity Western University

In his lectures at the Collège de France Michel Foucault devoted considerable attention to Greco-Roman moral discourse, and his close reading of the key phlosphical texts has proven immensely influential in this regard. Less well known are his scattered observations on Greco-Jewish authors, yet they are by no means without interest. In the present study I take up Foucault’s discussion of a text from the Greek Psalter, considering not only the specifics of his analysis, but the interpretative stance which motivates it. I then consider the implications for Septuagint scholarship. One promising methodology that has arisen in the wake of Foucault’s pioneering work is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). As I shall argue, CDA offers an illuminating vantage point on various discursive phenomena within the Septuagint corpus. This shift in focus from text to discourse is, I would suggest, consistent with recent trends in Septuagint Studies, where we have witnessed (not least within IOSCS sponsored projects) an increasing emphasis on cultural contextualization.


Shifting Frames: A Frame-Based Analysis of Lexical Meaning
Program Unit: Greek Bible
Cameron Boyd-Taylor, Trinity Western University

Frame Semantics investigates how linguistic forms (words, fixed phrases, and grammatical patterns) are associated with the cognitive structures, or frames, which determine how those forms are understood. The frame-based analysis of lexical meaning, pioneered in the 1970s by the American linguistic Charles Fillmore, has since been widely adopted. It is at once intuitive and relatively informal, and complements other methodologies. While it was originally developed for the study of modern languages, its ethnographic orientation affords an illuminating perspective on ancient sources. In the present study I apply it to selected vocabulary from the Old Greek Psalter with a view to demonstrating its utility for both biblical lexicography and critical exegesis. My point of reference is the theme of ἐπιμέλεια ἑαυτοῦ in Greco-Roman moral discourse. Translational usage obviously raises distinct issues, yet one of the virtues of Frame Semantics is the conceptual purchase it offers on cross-linguistic phenomena.


The Festival Scrolls and Their Targumim
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Christian Brady, University of Kentucky

The Megilloth are an odd assortment of texts; they are five biblical books collected together undoubtedly and solely because of their use on festival days. As disparate as their Vorlage are, the Targumim of the Megilloth share certain exegetical traits (Brady, 2014), but do they really indicate the liturgical use of both the biblical text AND the Targumim? The Targumim of Esther and Song of Songs, for example, are far too large and unwieldy to have been read in a single sitting. In this paper I will examine further what the nature of character of these particular Targumim may tell us about their growth and development in relation to the Festival with which their biblical texts are associated.


The Gospel of Judas and the End of Sethian Gnosticism
Program Unit: Westar Institute
David Brakke, Ohio State University

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The Decalogue in Matthew’s Antitheses (5:21–48)
Program Unit: Bible and Ethics
George Branch-Trevathan, Thiel College

This paper examines the reception and use of the Decalogue and ancient interpretations of it in Matthew’s antitheses (5:21-48). It argues first that the antitheses’ utilization of the latter five of the Ten Commandments is more thoroughgoing than most scholars have recognized because the antitheses cite the Decalogue’s prohibitions on murder (5:21-26), adultery (5:27-30, 31-2), false testimony and theft (5:33-37), as well as coveting (5:43-8), the love command in 5:43 being, for Matthew, the positive form of the prohibition on coveting (cf. 19:17-19). Second, it maintains that Matthew utilizes the second half of the Decalogue largely because by the first century C.E., expansions and summaries of these commandments are a convenient and common way of indicating the full range of interpersonal obligations, of referring to morality in toto. Philo, for instance, describes these five laws as “generic rules that include nearly all offenses” (Her. 1:173). Thus, when in each antithesis Matthew insists that merely performing right actions or avoiding wrong ones is morally insufficient and that one must instead combine right actions with right emotions, appetites, motives, or dispositions—with proper inner states—, because he is representing the Decalogue, he is claiming in effect that morality in toto has an indispensable and decisive interior dimension. The antitheses as a whole then are synechdoches of ethics, or, to use Matthew’s term, of “righteousness” in personal relationships. From these cases and the logic expressed thereby, Matthew intends for readers to extrapolate to gain a panoramic understanding of interpersonal ethics. Finally, the conclusion of the paper examines the relevance of the conception of ethics found in the antitheses to current ethical issues.


Visionary Ascent or Commemoration of the Dead? A Remarkable Fourth-Century Manichaean Text from Kellis
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Mattias Brand, Leiden University

The study of Manichaeism in the later Roman Empire has received an incredible impulse with the discovery of Manichaean liturgical and documentary texts in the village of Kellis (Ismant el-Kharab, Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt). These texts offer a window into the everyday life and rituals of a Manichaean community on the ground. Among these relatively new texts is a wooden codex containing several (abbreviated) psalms and a remarkable hymn or prayer about the ascent of the soul. This short text, known as T.Kell.Copt. 2, text A5, connects the well-known Manichaean eschatological tradition with the lived experience of Manichaeans in a village context. As little is known about Manichaean liturgical life, this wooden codex with its exceptional texts presents us with major challenges as well as an opportunity. What Manichaean rituals pertaining the journey of the soul were performed in this community? How is it connected to a wider Manichaean tradition? This paper will re-examine two plausible interpretations of T.Kell.Copt. 2, text A5: it was either an instruction manual for the visionary ascent rituals of Manichaean elect, or it belonged to the liturgy for the commemoration of the dead. Both options will be evaluated against the context of the local village society and its wider Egyptian-Christian surroundings, before highlighting the Manichaean and ‘gnostic’ connections. Despite tantalizing interpretative options, I will argue for a minimalist approach that is primarily rooted in the local and everyday concerns of a fourth-century religious community in an Egyptian village.


Luke-Acts and Pharisees
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
Robert Brawley, McCormick Theological Seminary

This paper employs theories of literary characterization, social identity, “othering,” and Pierre Bordieux’s notion of hierarchies of dominance based on hidden assumptions in order to establish roles Pharisees play in Luke-Acts. In fact, the plural “roles” is quite significant because the thesis is that they play multiple roles. This contrasts with two prominent approaches. One is the reduction of the Pharisees to flat characters who, in spite of developments in the narrative, remain essentially the same. The second is the popular premise that plot is driven by conflict. To be sure, this is often the case, but plot is also driven by simple choices among alternatives and such phenomena as predictions and deficiencies, which produce narrative needs, beg for resolution. In other words, Pharisees play different roles, and this includes that they do not always function as opponents. They are genuine interlocutors, not straw people, as the sophists in Plato’s Apology. Indeed they are capable of being persuaded.


“Land” as a Topic in the Book of Psalms? A Focus on the Texts
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Johannes Bremer, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Since recent 20-30 years, psalms- and Psalter-studies focus on topics or even common threads running through the entire book of Psalms. E.g., the shift from lament to praise (cf. studies by Bellinger, Hossfeld, Rechberger e.a.), Zion (cf. studies by Körting, Janowski e.a.), divine power (cf. Tucker e.a.), or the theology of the poor (cf. Bremer e.a.). Together, these threats form the idea of a theology of the entire Book of Psalms. – By contrast, “land” is more prominent discussed as theme in single psalms (e.g. most prominent: ps. 37), even though its main terms ̓ӕrӕẓ and ̓adāmāh appear more than 200 times in the entire book and in almost but not all groups and subgroups of psalms. The paper focuses on different passages and conceptions of “land” in the book of psalms. Rather to a common understanding, the paper points out different understandings and conceptions of “land”. The goal is (a) to witness both, literal but also metaphorical understandings and (b) to set them in the context of the theology of single psalms, groups and books, and (c) at least to the theology of the Psalter as a whole.


A Focus on a Link: The Conception of “Land” in the Interconnection between Joshua and the Pentateuch
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Johannes Bremer, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

As Joshua is the first who finally is allowed to cross the river Jordan according to Josh 1, “land” can easily be seen as the most obvious link between the Book of Joshua and the Pentateuch or at least Exodus to Deuteronomy. According to Josh 21:43 the promise of “land” is (at first) finally fulfilled. – Besides this obviousness, a deeper look refers to the more complex questions on conceptions and ideas of land both, in Joshua and Exodus to Deuteronomy. The paper first asks for ideas of “land” as reflected in the book of Joshua, which rather refer not only to questions of different extensions and conceptions than to one consistent concept within the whole book. Here, by analyses of different passages of the book of Joshua, the paper points out exemplarily different understandings of "land" as they are reflected in the Joshua-texts. Second, based on the analyses of Joshua-texts, the paper asks for links to different conceptions of “land” within Exodus to Deuteronomy. In which way are there similarities? Which texts witness comparable “land-conceptions”, and which implicitly or explicitly do not? In which way do the “land conceptions” in Joshua refer to conceptions in Exodus to Deuteronomy? Moreover, how can we interpret them, either syn- or diachronic? Third, a conclusion will summarize and tries to point out interconnections between the understandings of “land” in Joshua and the Pentateuch.


Two Languages, Two Scripts, and Three Combinations Thereof: A Personal Prayer-Book in Syriac and Old Uyghur from Turfan (U 338)
Program Unit: Book History and Biblical Literatures
Adam Bremer-McCollum, University of Notre Dame

Two languages, two scripts, and three combinations thereof: A personal prayer-book in Syriac and Old Uyghur from Turfan (U 338)


The Materiality of Animal Worship: From Egypt to Rome
Program Unit: Greco-Roman Religions
Frederick E. Brenk, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome

Egypt possibly produced as many as 70 million animal mummies. Many have been studied recently with new technologies, for example, at Yale, the Brooklyn Museum, and Manchester, using CT scanners and X-ray equipment for children. The new techniques allow one to examine the inside without damaging the artefact. The Animal Mummy Database, a work in progress, locates animal mummies in museums throughout the world and catalogues them. Greeks and Romans apparently misunderstood Egyptian animal worship, just as many modern scholars do. A congress on animal worship, held in Berlin, has been published as Tierkulte im pharaonischen Ägypten und im Kulturvergleich (Fitzenreiter and Kirchner 2013). The most important contributions are: Kessler 2013 (esp. 36-37, 56-66); Feder 2013 159-166; Fitzenreiter 2013 (esp. 245-246); and Quack 2013 (esp. 111-113). Their argument is that strictly speaking animal worship did not exist in Egypt. But here, like Plutarch (On Isis and Osiris 382A-C), we might distinguish between the priests and the common people. Moser and Knust (2017, 4) note how material remains may be deceptive in both the literature and representational evidence (cf. Várhelyi, 2017, 90). Worship of living animals and animal mummification did not seem to have transferred to Isis sanctuaries in Rome. Living ibises may have been kept in the Isaeum Campense in Rome but probably not worshipped Romans did, however, worship animal statues. In the Ariccia relief, in a sacred setting, there are statues of baboons (Toth) flanking a statue of Isis, and a statue of Apis. The Ariccia relief may represent live ibises (Toth) along a water channel, but these may be simply in a carved relief (Ariccia Relief, Palazzo Altemps, Rome; Lembke 1994, 24, 174-178; Capriotti Vittozzi 2013, 142-145, 180). On a glass vessel in the Getty Museum (Wight and Swetnam-Burland 2010, esp. 841-844) putti decorate a statue of a baboon (Toth). A statuette similar to this in the Allard Pearson Museum depicts a baboon wearing a crown. An Ibis appears both on the statue base in the Getty vessel and on the statuette. Romans seemed to have relegated the practice of animal worship to statues. A possibly exception may be indicated by a portico fresco of the Isaeum at Pompeii in which a priest holds a live serpent on a cushion. At a rough estimate, over 2 million objects from ancient Egypt are kept in about 850 public collections dispersed over 69 countries around the world. The Global Egyptian Museum (online) aims to collect and catalogue the objects into a “global virtual museum,” a long-term project, carried out under the aegis of the International Committee for Egyptology (CIPEG). This will be an important tool for studying Egyptian animal statues and their veneration in Rome and elsewhere in Italy. They will, however, always need interpretation.


Beauty Out of Place: Recognition Scenes in Joseph and Aseneth, Daphnis and Chloe, and the Aethiopica
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Christopher Brenna, Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

The Jewish romance, Joseph and Aseneth, is often compared to Hellenistic romances in scholarly discussions, but a consensus on whether or not to include it in the genre has never been reached. It seems to uphold many of the most salient conventions of the Greek novels while transgressing others, and the suppositions that scholars make about the date of writing of Joseph and Aseneth have influenced the conclusions they arrive at regarding its status as a Greek novel. West positions Joseph and Aseneth as a forerunner of the Greek novels (1974, 70-81), as does Braginskaya (2012, 96), but Pervo (1991, 145-60) and, more recently, Ahearne-Kroll (2005, 142) surmise some amount of influence from the Greek novels. Wills sees only a "strained connection" with Greek novels, describing Joseph and Aseneth instead as a Jewish novel similar to Greek Esther, Tobit, and Judith (1995, 161-62). Montiglio recently classified Joseph and Aseneth along with the Pseudo-Clementines as examples of adaptations of pagan novels (2013, 202-15). Rather than adjudicating between the various proposals regarding Joseph and Aseneth's status, this paper assesses the influence of the tale-type of the exposed hero on Joseph and Aseneth and two of the five extant Greek romances: the Aethiopica of Heliodorus and Daphnis and Chloe. A tale-type is a matrix of common elements and motifs that travel together in a story form through cultural exchange, and the story of the exposed hero is one of the most ubiquitous in ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic literature. Not only that, but it is the basis for the story of Moses in extrabiblical traditions about the Exodus and for the Matthean birth story of Jesus. I describe the features of Joseph and Aseneth that indicate a subtle appropriation of certain motifs of the tale-type and compare them with similar moments in the Aethiopica, but especially in Daphnis and Chloe. An analysis of the most significant feature of all three novels, the recognition scene in particular, reveals the peculiar concern of the writer of Joseph and Aseneth both to allude to the conventions of Greek romantic literature while subverting their thematic ends. I conclude that the early Jewish and Christian adaptations of the exposed hero tale-type provide the impetus for the subversion of the telos of most Hellenistic versions of the tale, that fate is inexorable.


Reflections from Krister's Academic Neighbor
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Marc Brettler, Duke University

Reflections from Krister's Academic Neighbor.


The Slow and Unclear Parting of the (Many) Ways
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Sheila Briggs, University of Southern California

From the 1980s onwards criticism of the "Parting of the Ways" paradigm mounted and eventually led to the Ways That Never Parted thesis (named after the influential 2002 conference). One of the key components of this thesis has been to contest the idea of a singular and fixed Jewish or Christian identity. Since that conference further work has appeared on cultural and religious identities in antiquity (e.g. Erich Gruen, Yoshiko Reed and Natalie Dohrmann). One has come to recognize that Jewish and Christian identities cannot be understood as separate from the complex processes through which all inhabitants of the Roman Empire negotiated often multiple identities. Ethnicity configured religion but religion also reconfigured ethnicity. Local cultural/religious identities always had to take into account the socio-political reality of pan-ethnic Hellenism and Romanitas. This paper approaches ancient identity formation by looking at the networks that connected ancient communities of Jews and Christians. It not only charts the permeable and shifting boundaries between Jewish and Christian but also how the rejection of Jewish identity led to an intra-Christian parting, as in the case of Marcion. Jewish and Christian communities (like all ancient religious ones) were fundamentally local. The networks between them often were fragile and tenuous. The resilience of local communities, however, often depended on their connection to a robust network. The emergence and growth of networks as well as their frequent decline and disappearance allowed the interactions through which communal and individual identities changed over time. Furthermore, the viability of a network determined whether religious identities were sustainable or not. Hence the definitive turning point for Jewish and Christian identities in the fourth century occurred when the ascendancy of orthodox Christianity strengthened their networks. Orthodox Christians were able to invoke the power of the Roman state to disrupt and dismantle the networks of religious others. As well as ancient textual and material data, I will be using modern ethnographic research on Jewish communities in Africa (the Falashas and Lemba) who lost contact with the Jewish communities of the North and developed their own highly unique forms of Judaism. They provide interesting case studies on the effects of isolation from and proximity to a network, especially since there are concerted efforts today to insert them into the mainstream of Judaism and create communal identities closer to those of the Judaism of the north. These African studies contribute to the theoretical framework for the conclusion of the paper that analyses the much-discussed mass conversion of the Jews of Menorca to Christianity in 418 CE in terms of the viability of networks to sustain identities.


Washing Away Gender Roles? Water as Unsettling and Reinforcing Gender Dynamics in Nahum
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
William Briggs, Baylor University

Scholars frequently note Nahum’s rich literary features and “poetic excellence,” even as they simultaneously struggle with the more difficult aspects of the book such as its depictions of violence and sexual humiliation. This paper examines both the book’s poetic artistry and its challenging depiction of gender relations, particularly with respect to the use of water imagery throughout Nahum. While several scholars have noted the use of water imagery within Nahum, its role as a recurring motif in the book remains underexplored, especially as it pertains to the role it plays in the depiction of gendered conflict which, following Julia O’Brien, occurs throughout its three chapters. A detailed study of Nahum reveals that water imagery, which is found in Nah 1:4, 8; 2:7, 9; 3:8, 14, constitutes a significant motif within the book as a whole. Furthermore, the instances of water imagery in these verses both build upon one another and simultaneously reinforce and unsettle the gender dynamics found within Nahum, particularly that of the masculine contest between Yahweh and the king of Assyria, as posited by O’Brien and Cynthia Chapman. The use of water imagery in Nah 1:4, 8 emphasizes the invincible nature of Yahweh, the mighty masculine warrior, thereby setting the stage for the assault on Nineveh in chs. 2—3. The use of water imagery in Nah 2:7 recalls the flood depicted in Nah 1:8 and emphasizes the humiliating defeat of the king of Assyria. The portrait of Nineveh as a pool of water in Nah 2:9 marks a shift in the usage of water imagery within Nahum, as each of the final three occurrences of such language is related to female entities. The use of water imagery in this verse demonstrates the panicked flight of the masculine defenders of Nineveh, while the portrait of Nineveh as a “pool” offers a stark contrast to Yahweh’s rebuke of the sea in 1:4, demonstrating the inevitability of Yahweh’s defeat of Nineveh. Nahum 2:9 also ushers the masculine defenders of Nineveh out of the picture and briefly introduces female Nineveh, preparing the reader for the focus on Yahweh’s struggle against her in chapter 3. Nahum 3:8 concretizes the image of Yahweh’s inevitable triumph and the inevitable defeat of Nineveh by comparing the Assyrian capital to once-mighty Thebes, both of which were known for their aquatic defenses. Moreover, the command to Nineveh to “draw water” in 3:14 forms a lexical parallel with 2:9, taunting female Nineveh to prepare for her defense even as her “waters” run away and her troops desert her. This taunt brings into focus the inevitability of the Divine Warrior’s triumph over Nineveh and complete victory in the realm of masculine conflict with the absent king of Assyria. At the same time, however, personified Nineveh’s characterization and active role within the text destabilizes the binary, essentialized gender rhetoric in Nahum regarding the Assyrians even as it reinforces the portrait of Yahweh’s military might.


Matter and Devotion in Ethiopia: The Use of Hagiographic Manuscripts in Devotional and Ritual Practices
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Antonella Brita, Universität Hamburg

Material evidences can tell us a lot about the past life and the way hagiographic manuscripts were ‎conceived, produced, used and perceived in the social, institutional and liturgical context related to the ‎veneration of the saints. On the other hand, the observation of contemporary use of the manuscripts ‎also reveals some facets which cannot be detected from their material evidences. The reason is that ‎these facets pertain to a sphere of (immaterial) knowledge which follows a different channel of ‎transmission – essentially oral transmission – that usually does not leave any material trace in the ‎manuscripts. The results provided by both material and immaterial evidences not only complement ‎each other, as long as the diachronic perspective is observed, but also inform us about evolutions and ‎possible changes across the time. The paper intends to provide a reflection on some devotional practices ‎connected to the veneration of saints in Ethiopia. The timespan covered goes from the fourteenth ‎century till the present time. The manuscript evidences will be taken into account and will represent ‎the leitmotif of the entire contribution. Far from providing final results, it rather represents a first ‎attempt of an insight into the topic from a mere material perspective. In particular, themes related to ‎the use, function and perception of Ethiopic manuscripts in the making of Ethiopian sainthood and in ‎keeping it alive will be explored, covering areas which range between low wide-range and high-intensity ‎ritual practices.‎


Appropriating the Title of “Servant of God” in the Second Century CE: Slavery and Identity in the Acts of Paul and Thecla
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Joseph E. Brito, Concordia University - Université Concordia

The following presentation will focus on the self-imposed title “servant/slave of God” found in the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla (AP&T) in order to analyze the reception of Paul’s metaphor on slavery during the second century CE. Although scholars have addressed the descriptive nature and actions of particular characters in AP&T (See Janos Bollok, 1996; Gail Street, 2005; Heike Omerzu, 2008; Jennifer Eyl, 2013; Seth Pfannenschmidt, 2014; Peter-Ben Smit, 2014), they have not addressed how the metaphor of “servant/slave of God” in AP&T enables the imagined-identity of Paul, Thecla, as well as its dissonance with unidentified and silenced slave-characters. When it comes to scholarship on Paul’s language and metaphors regarding slavery, scholars have focused their research on the origins of Paul’s understanding of slavery in his canonical letters (see Dale Martin, 1990; I A H Combes, 1998; John Byron, 2003; Albert Harrill, 2006), or its reception in particular Christian communities (see J. Albert Harrill, 1995; I A H Combes, 1998; Chris L. de Wet; 2015, 2018). In doing so, the optic remains limited within the canon and ecclesiastic authorities, which consequently has become the prescriptive and normative explanation as to how Paul’s language regarding slavery ought to be understood. Furthermore, seldom has Paul’s metaphor been analyzed in apocryphal literature relating to the reception of his teachings regarding slavery (see I A H Combes, 1998; Jennifer A. Glancy, 2006). In order to address both subjects, this presentation will focus on the reception of Paul’s metaphor of “servant/slave of God” as found in the AP&T, inquiring on the alternative terminology employed for Paul (ὑπηρέτα τοῦ εὐλογημένου θεοῦ), Thecla (τοῦ θεοῦ δούλην), and slave-characters (refered to as παῖς, παιδίσκη or σύνδουλος), and how its terminology influence their characterization and identity. Furthermore, by underlining the distinctive terminology between Paul’s self-imposed titles in his canonical letters (“δοῦλος Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ” in Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1, and Colossians 4:12; “δοῦλον δὲ Κυρίου” in 1 Tim. 2:24 and Titus 1:1) and the one found in the AP&T (“ὑπηρέτα τοῦ εὐλογημένου θεοῦ”), this presentation will discuss the development of this metaphor and its implication in terms of identity and social expectations. The AP&T provides a rich and vivid narrative which not only provides clues on the religious aspect within urban setting of the second century CE, but also offers a glimpse of the socio-cultural context in terms of social expectations, class, and sexual norms – elements that provided identity markers, theorized as discrepant identity (see David J. Mattingly, 2011). Therefore, along with a postcolonial sensitivity (based on Benedict Anderson’s theory of Mymicry – 1983), this presentation problematizes the metaphorical and imagined-slaves (servants of God, and their idealized characterization), the descriptive nature of slaves as found in the narrative, and the reality of their daily experience (see Sarah Pomeroy, 1975; Sandra R. Joshel, 1992, 2010; Joshel and Murnaghan (Ed.) 1998; Joshel and Hackworth Petersen, 2014; Jennifer Glancy, 2006). This research thus highlights the power-dynamic and adaptation of the servant-metaphor in the second century, underlining the type of imagined religious-identity sought.


Jerusalem Always Virtual
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Brian Britt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Jerusalem was always virtual. What did its virtual status mean for physical experience of the city, and how does this biblical tradition condition Jerusalem today? This paper explores ancient and modern images of Jerusalem through the lens of early photographs and the work of Walter Benjamin. From biblical texts like Nehemiah 2 and Ezekiel 40-48 to medieval and early modern texts, religious experience of Jerusalem was primarily virtual, particularly through the media of texts and visual representations. The advent of photography enabled new ways of seeing and thinking, but it also engaged the ancient past. Images in books and in public settings like the Kaiserpanorama in Berlin amazed European audiences while continuing a long tradition of virtual encounters. Verbal and visual images of Jerusalem continued to preoccupy Jewish and Christian traditions into the modern period of Zionism, British Mandate, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and online pilgrimage. Does the virtual character of Jerusalem collapse in the face of political conflict or dissolve in a postmodern simulacrum of free play? I will argue that neither is the case. Through a discussion of the Jerusalem of photographs and Walter Benjamin, I will show that Jerusalem remains as virtual as ever, yet always grounded in history and tradition.


Biblical and Postsecular Blasphemy
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Brian Britt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The term “blasphemy” condemns more than it describes. According to David Lawton, blasphemy is “always something else” and usually “someone else’s”; it “stands for whatever a society most abhors and has the power to prosecute.” The classic biblical sources for blasphemy—Lev 24 and Mk 14:64, for example—associate blasphemy with cursing and designate it as a grave offense punishable by death. This paper will relate the account of blasphemy in Lev 24:10-16 to modern debates over blasphemy in terms of two features of this text: the warning against blasphemy, and the role of blasphemy in establishing and maintaining group identity. These dynamics also appear in contemporary debates, from the Rushdie affair of 1988 to the more recent cases of Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo. An exchange between Talal Asad and Judith Butler on blasphemy raises broader questions of freedom and secularity that have roots in biblical texts. How do modern forms of nationalism and secularism deploy blasphemy and debates about blasphemy? The dire warnings against blasphemy in modern and ancient contexts always seem to involve questions of identity. By showing how blasphemy, like curses, survives and transforms through history as vitally important to life, death, and identity, I will propose blasphemy as a model of displacement and transformation in biblical tradition.


In Their Own Words: Prosōpopoiia, Rhetoric, and Characterization in Chariton's Chaereas et Callirhoe
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Amanda Brobst-Renaud, Valparaiso University

The presence of rhetorical features in Callirhoe both reveals the acumen of the author and emphasizes key events within the narrative. These techniques include prosōpopoiia (speech-in-character), which frequently occurs when Chaereas or Callirhoe experience misfortune, and other features such as anaphora (omission of words between successive phrases), paronomasia (words that sound similarly but have different meanings), polyptōton (repetition of words in different cases) and homoioteluton (repetition of word endings). The examples of prosōpopoiia suffice not only to illustrate Chariton's use of rhetorical devices but also provide a summary of the novel itself. Chariton characterizes Callirhoe, Chaereas, and Dionysius through prosōpopoiia, which places their features-both positive and negative traits-on the lips of the characters themselves, a technique present not only in the ancient novels but also in fables and bioi. By embedding rhetorical techniques within prosōpopoiia, Chariton draws attention to the characters' speeches. Through his use of prosōpopoiia, Chariton allows Callirhoe, Chaereas, and Dionysius to tell their intertwining stories in their own words. This presentation begins with a brief discussion of the traditional and developing consensuses of Chariton's readership and the role of prosōpopoiia in the progymnasmata and rhetorical handbooks. After briefly considering the way prosōpopoiia contributes to characterization in other literature, I devote the bulk of this presentation to discussing prosōpopoiia within Chariton's Chaereas et Callirhoe and the rhetorical techniques Chariton embeds therein. Chariton's astute use of prosōpopoiia and characterization contributes, ultimately, to the developing consensus that the intended audience for the ancient novels included (even if it was not limited to) the elite.


Sin and Its Remedy in 1 Corinthians
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Alexandra Brown, Washington and Lee University

Sin and Its Remedy in 1 Corinthians


Wisdom Christology in an Unwise World: Matthew’s Contribution to a Canonical and Constructive Theology of Wisdom
Program Unit: Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Jeannine Brown, Bethel Seminary (San Diego, CA)

The presence of a wisdom Christology in Matthew has been a matter for ongoing debate. We will argue that Matthew’s Gospel portrays Jesus as the embodiment of Wisdom, most clearly in Matthew 11 but also across the Gospel and in tandem with the theme of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Torah. This motif suggests a “wisdom Christology” in Matthew, as the “Messiah’s deeds” are linked to wisdom’s “deeds” (11:2, 19). Matthew’s Jesus draws from Jewish wisdom traditions to invite his hearers to listen to him and follow him, but the motif also explains why he is often rejected. This wisdom Christology also impinges on Matthew’s perspective of discipleship—how followers of Jesus are to live in line with and in light of Jesus as Wisdom even as the kingdom remains partially hidden in the present. The community is to be guided by wisdom—and Jesus as their teacher is the embodiment of wisdom. We will also consider Matthew’s offering for a canonical theology of wisdom that thematizes hiddenness as well as revelation in the life of the believing community. Constructively, we will explore contemporary uses of wisdom Christology for their value in grounding a public witness for justice and wisdom “in an unwise world.” Drawing on Bultmann, Johnson, and Schüssler Fiorenza among others, we will argue that a wisdom Christology—informed by Matthew—has potential for justice-making through discipleship communities oriented around wisdom and its “deeds” embodied in Jesus.


An Interdisciplinary Exploration of a Social Justice Commitment: Perspectives from Psychology and Biblical Studies
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Jeannine Brown, Bethel Seminary (San Diego, CA)

Social justice is a rich biblical theme, even as its centrality for the Christian gospel remains hotly debated in more conservative circles. This question is of crucial importance for the church in contemporary society. We will propose that social justice commitment is a core Christian value, by exploring key prophetic voices in the Hebrew Bible as they make their way into Matthew’s Gospel. That evangelist’s concern for the “little ones” and the “least of these” will provide a lens for considering how justice takes a central place in the teachings of Jesus in the first Gospel. We will bring this biblical scholarship into interdisciplinary conversation with practical theology using a relational integration model and building upon recent empirical research in psychology on social justice commitment and spiritual formation. Studies with emerging and experienced Christian leaders have found positive associations between social justice commitment and formation-related factors such as hope, humility, positive religious coping, interpersonal forgiveness, faith maturity, relational maturity, and mental health. This research supports the understanding that a commitment to social justice is often consistent with other aspects of healthy Christian spiritual formation, although we will also consider theological questions about factors that might make this more valid for some traditions than others. Our interdisciplinary approach to relational integration will lead us to note points of difference between biblical and social science research related to social justice, while also exploring points of resonance. We will also offer reflections based on our relational integration approach about the advantages and challenges of this kind of interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars of different disciplines.


Old Things New: The Modern Textus Receptus of Ethiopic Jonah
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Jeremy R. Brown, Catholic University of America

The Ethiopic version is one of the oldest translations of the Bible and it is a living tradition. The initial translation likely took place between 350 and 520 CE and scribes continue to write the Bible on parchment today. The majority of study on the Ethiopic translation of the books of the Hebrew Bible has focused on the Earliest Attested text and has attempted to understand the Greek Vorlage behind it; little attention has been paid to the manuscript evidence from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This study examines dozens of manuscripts from these centuries to shed light on the development of the modern textus receptus. This study explores the work of scribes who created a text that was aware of multiple earlier recessions through techniques that included blending, conflation, and compliance reports. Nineteenth and twentieth century scribes fashioned a text that honored the work of previous generations and continues to be utilized in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches.


Ezekiel: Signing Presence
Program Unit: Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts
Katherine E. Brown, Catholic University of America

A central theme of the book of Ezekiel is the presence or absence of the LORD. This theme is implicated in the book’s exilic self-siting (Ezek 1:1) and woven through the book’s content, including the visions in which disputed claims regarding divine presence are explicitly argued (e.g. Ezek 11:14-21). The resolution comes not only through the prophetic words, which end with sustaining promise “And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The LORD is There” (Ezek 48:35b), but also through the materiality of the medium in which that promise persists, the prophetic book. Scholars have studied the writtenness of the book of Ezekiel, including the mutual identification of prophet and book. The prophet who opened his mouth and ate the scroll effectively becomes the scroll (Ezek 2:8-3:11). Scholars also have studied the ways in which the prophet’s visions reference motifs from the Ancient Near Eastern “mouth-opening” rituals used to induce divine presence in crafted cult statues. Absent the ritual, the statue did not live; after the ritual, the statue imaged the god. These ANE rituals are positively evoked with reference to the bodies of the prophet (Ezek 1-3; 8-11) or of Israel (e.g. Ezek 37:1-14) to suggest indwelling presence. This paper joins those strands of research and argues that Ezekiel presents itself as a written text which holds in its very materiality the potential for the realization of divine presence. The mouth-opened sign-prophet (24:27) becomes the mouth-opening sign-book. The dry-bones vision of Ezekiel 37:1-4, then, may be read as a narrative of the mutually-animating intersection of the text’s bones and the lector’s breath, leading to an experience of God present through the proclamation of the written word.


“The Other” in Early Seventeenth-Century English Biblical Interpretation
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Ken Brown, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

This paper will compare the ways in which biblical categories are used to “other” various opponents and adversaries, both foreign and domestic, in published sermons from early Stuart England. In particular, it will explore the diverse ways in which “Canaanites,” “Amalekites” and other biblical “enemies” are identified with the preachers’ own contemporaries, especially in reaction to the newly established Virginia Colony, and in the aftermath of the so-called Gunpowder Plot. In these contexts, Anglican preachers identified both non-Christians (such as the natives of the New World), and other Christians (such as Catholics) with the ancient enemies of Israel, yet to varying purposes. Though in many cases these identifications serve to demonize the “Other” and justify their destruction, in other cases such language is used, surprisingly, to argue for a commonality between “us” and “them,” and to reject violence against “the Other.”


Embodying Tabernacles in John 7:1–10:21
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Sherri Brown, Creighton University

The celebration of a Jewish feast is a zikaron, a “memorial,” of God’s past active presence in the lives of his chosen people (Lev 23:24). Celebrating the liturgy of the feast manifests that past presence among the people in the current age. If the Johannine Christians had been, or even just felt, marginalized from the synagogues, they were not simply being excluded from these celebrations, they may have felt that they were losing contact with the God of creation and God’s saving action in history. As believers in the saving action of the Christ event, they had been taught that relationship with God is engendered through the Word of Jesus. This presents the problem at hand: what about these festivals and the experience of God’s presence they facilitate through their rituals? Not only must the Fourth Evangelist care for the community members pastorally, he must also show God’s fidelity to them and continuing presence in their lives as members of a new community. Reshaping the experience of God in the life of the community is therefore the particular background for the so-called “feasts section” in John 5–10. The Fourth Evangelist renders “christological” the feasts of Judaism; i.e., he teaches that God has sent Jesus the Christ to complete and embody these ritual acts. All of John 7:1–10:21 takes place in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles and the ritual celebrations of the festival not only form the sensory backdrop of this lengthy passage but also provide the interpretive key for its exegesis. Originally an autumn celebration of the grape and olive harvest, Tabernacles was later historicized and associated with the Sinai covenant and God’s care and guidance during the wilderness experience. By the later prophetic age and into NT times, the feast had also been eschatologized, and the celebration included explicit hopes for the coming of the Messiah and messianic age (see Zechariah 14). In the late Second Temple Period, Tabernacles became an eight-day pilgrimage observance held at the temple in Jerusalem. The festival worshippers looked expectantly to God for a time when life giving waters flowed from the temple which served as a beacon of light to the world through three daily rites: the Water Libation Ceremony, the Ceremony of Light, and the Rite of Facing the Temple. This paper explores how John 7–8 forms a unified whole in terms of Jesus’ teaching and his very being viewed through the lens of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles, while John 9–10 narrates how Jesus is what he teaches about himself in John 7–8: he is the living water that gives light to the world and sight to the blind through the waters that come from within. Jesus is presented as the embodiment of the ritual activity of Tabernacles for a fledgling Jewish Christian community struggling to reconstitute the presence of God in its liturgical life.


Prophetic Endurance and Eschatological Restoration: Exhortation and Conclusion in James 5:7–20
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Sherri Brown, Creighton University

The epistle of James provides a window into a messianic movement that is developing into a community of faithful in the midst of a larger Hellenistic socio-cultural environment. The author’s understanding of the nature of his community’s cultural trajectory over against this environment is implicit in the address to "the twelve tribes of the dispersion," made explicit through the substance of the correspondence, and brought full circle in its conclusion. James speaks to this community through the authority of the name of the Lord and understands himself as both servant and teacher in this new life in light of the coming of that Lord (1:1; 3:1; 5:7-9). The formation of the community engenders a new action arising from the "implanted word" that produces "a kind of first fruits" of God’s creatures who lead the way of salvation (1:18, 21; 5:19-20). The injunction that comprises the form and content of the epistle’s conclusion indicates that this way is tantamount to eschatological restoration. This study is primarily dedicated to an analysis of these final verses (5:7-20). However, a conclusion must be given its place within the utterance of the document as a whole. The genre and structure of the Epistle of James has long been of interest to scholars seeking to determine its purpose and interpretive force. For years, the work of Martin Dibelius held sway and James was understood as only loosely related aphorisms put forth as moral exhortation without particular context or motivation. Following the influence of Peter Davids and Luke Timothy Johnson, among others, more recent scholarship has begun to explore the work as a literary whole with quite an intricate form and structure. By placing the correspondence of James within the genre of the literary epistle, we can move beyond a limiting form-critical view and approach its structure and content from a more holistic perspective. Adapting the work of Davids and Johnson, a chiastic structure can be demonstrated that turns on the pivotal challenge of friendship with the world versus friendship with God (3:13-4:10). In this schema, James 5:7-18 and 5:19-20 form the closing two segments, steadfastness in trial and prayer followed by a conclusio, that correspond with the opening epitome (1:1-27) and instruction on faith and works (2:1-26). Therefore, an examination of the genre and structure of James with an eye toward its integrity as a piece of early Christian literature precedes an exegesis of the final passages, which in turn leads to conclusions regarding the author’s eschatology, rooted in the fundamental moral code of the early Jesus movement. The force of the epistle as reflected in these closing verses calls the community to live in communion in this paradigm shift of telos and fulfillment. This is the work wrought by the fullness of faith, and the saving action that will ultimately bring redemption and restoration.


Wisdom and the Art of Inhabitance
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
William P. Brown, Columbia Theological Seminary

Wisdom and the Art of Inhabitance


The Chester Beatty Papyrus 967 and the Old Church Slavonic Bible: New Insights into the Textual History of Ezekiel and Daniel
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Alessandro Maria Bruni, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

The Chester Beatty Papyrus 967, dating from the late second or early third century CE, represents a key source of information for the debate over the variant literary editions of Ezekiel and Daniel. Recent research has shown that some of the unique textual features of this manuscript are also reflected in the Old Church Slavonic version of these books which originated in the late ninth-early tenth century and is today extant in Cyrillic testimonies dating at the earliest from the fourteenth century. The following cases appear to be particularly relevant for comparative textual criticism. On the one hand, the OCS-Ezek conforms to LXX967 in lacking Ezek 12:26-28. Among secondary translations, this omission was previously known to exist in VLWirc only. On the other hand, the OCS-Dan displays very special features at the level of the textual arrangement. In fact, despite being a witness to Theodotion's version (Th-Dan), it unexpectedly presents the same order of chapters found in LXX967, namely Dan 1-4; Dan 7; Dan 8; Dan 5; Dan 6; Dan 9-12. The most fascinating aspect of this agreement is that it is merely confined to the structure of the book and does not affect its internal features. The implication is that the arrangement found in LXX967 should no longer be considered a distinctive trait of the Old Greek (OG). Indeed, the OCS-Dan tradition attests to the previous existence in Greek of a Lucianic redaction of Th-Dan with the very same order of chapters of LXX967. Because Th-Dan is believed to be an independent translation and not a revision of the OG, it may be assumed almost safely that the sequence Daniel 1-4; 7; 8; 5; 6; 9-12 belongs to an earlier literary edition of the book. The testimony of OCS-Dan consequently enables us logically to suppose that at least in the Greek tradition two arrangements of Daniel were adopted for each of the two versions. This is shown by LXX967 and codex Chig. R.VII 45 (LXX88[87]) for the OG, and by OCS-Dan and the rest of the Byzantine manuscript evidence in the case of Th-Dan. The OCS translations were evidently based on Greek prototypes (today lost or still untraced) that replicated a textual stage of transmission that can be thought to have circulated since Late Antiquity. Even if indirectly, they provide us with new insights into the textual history of Ezek and Dan. The detected cases of textual agreement with LXX967 demonstrate that the OCS tradition, which unfortunately still remains completely unknown to most biblical scholars, deserves full consideration and should therefore be finally integrated into LXX studies.


A Womanist’s Poetic, Theo-Ethical Response to Sexual Trauma: Ethics, Theology, and Black Women’s Poetry
Program Unit: Women in the Biblical World
Kimi Bryson, Yale University

This paper gestures towards a womanist response to a recent conversation with a friend, indicative of many black women’s experiences of sexual trauma and struggle to reconcile their identity as black women, Christians, and survivors. I put in conversation black feminist writings, womanist ethics and theology, and black women’s poetry to gesture towards a womanist response to sexual trauma. This paper makes three primary claims. First, I assert that womanist theology and ethics provides a firm foundation for Christian responses to sexual trauma. Second, I argue for contemporary womanist ethics as a crucial dialogue partner for sexual trauma survivors. And finally, I posit the moral knowledge gleaned from three black women’s poems as guides for womanist responses to sexual trauma.


Hebrews as Exile Literature
Program Unit: Hebrews
Debra Bucher, Vassar College

In its construction of a new priesthood and a new sacrificial system, Hebrews makes extensive use of Jewish scripture. The Hebrews author uses the language and the sacrificial framework of Leviticus and uses Psalm 110 to assign Jesus to the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, and at the same time use Genesis 14 to assign priority to that priesthood over that of the Levitical priesthood. And after constructing a new priesthood, and a new kind of sacrifice (once, for all, Hebrews 7:27), the argument culminates in Hebrews 8 with the use of Jeremiah 31:31-34 as the call for a new covenant. While numerous scholars have noted the heavy use of “old” sacrificial language to describe the new, they also are quick to suggest a complete break with the past. Language in Hebrews 8:13 that describes the “old” (covenant) as obsolete certainly gives scholars ample reason to make those conclusions. What happens, though, if we focus on Jeremiah 31 as the key text, not just for the obvious “new covenant” language that it provides, but also as a possible shared experience that it may represent to the author and audience of Hebrews? Jeremiah’s oracle, itself dates from a traumatic period: the start of the Babylonian Exile. More than one scholar has situated Hebrews in a context of suffering or persecution as a result of a Christ-centered belief. Other scholars, most notably Pamela Eisenbaum, have argued that Hebrews was “a desperate attempt to construct anew a religious heritage that seems to have all but disappeared” (2008) as a result of the decimation of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of the sacrificial cult (assuming, along with Eisenbaum a post-70CE date). Jews around the Mediterranean were scattered into a new exile as a result of multiple aggressions against them. Instead of religious controversy as the incentive for the author of Hebrews, it was, instead, religious survival. Interestingly, another Jewish group, the Essenes, who could be interpreted as living in a self-imposed exile, also used Jeremiah in their expressions of a “new covenant.” I maintain that the use of Jeremiah 31 helps us see Hebrews in a different light. Exile, whether it’s spiritual, geographic, or metaphorical, requires transformation of thought and practice. Interestingly, another Jewish group, the Essenes, who could be interpreted as living in a self-imposed exile, also used Jeremiah in their expressions of a “new covenant.” Using the Essenes as a comparator, Hebrews could represent another, later, Jewish approach to exile. Reading Hebrews as a form of exile literature allows us to understand the unique aspects of the text, what it uses from the past, and how modern readers may move forward in reading the supersessionism of the text in a way that does not pit one living religion over another.


Reading Rahab the Harlot: John Calvin’s Interpretation of Rahab’s Profession
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Emily Buck, Fuller Theological Seminary

Rahab is an enigmatic figure in Scripture. Her profession proves to be a perennial problem in the history of interpretation. Despite her profession as a harlot, Scripture portrays Rahab in a positive light. She is listed Christ’s genealogy in Matthew, and is praised for her faith and works in Hebrews and James. In the paper, I explore interpretations of Rahab’s profession. Specifically, I examine John Calvin’s interpretation of Rahab the harlot, drawn primarily from his commentary on Joshua. Calvin’s interpretations are compared with the interpretations of his predecessors. Unlike the ancients, Calvin not only labels Rahab as a harlot, he also insists on this as her profession and seeks to discredit the Jewish exegetes who sought to soften her image. While opposing prostitution and admitting that Rahab’s profession was shameful, Calvin does not give evidence of a moral struggle with the fact of her profession. He emphasizes that her salvation was due to God’s grace. To Calvin, Rahab’s lowliness served to put God’s goodness and grace on display.


How to Read Alien Texts
Program Unit:
Jorunn J. Buckley, Bowdoin College

First, I say a few words about how and why I, a European, came to the U. of Chicago Div. School in history of religions to study with J. Z. Smith as my doctoral advisor in 1975. I was also a TA with JZS in several BA courses there. JZS’s handwritten and typed handouts, both for Ph. D. students and for undergraduates, were initially puzzling. Why these kinds of materials? What were we to learn from e.g. the long list of items in the Egyptian Negative Confession of sins, ca. 1550 BC, or the 14 sections long bibliography on Babylonian Astronomy, ending with the Mani Codex? Figuring out the contexts for such texts was a central aim. JZS taught you to ferret out the interests and the positions of ancient authors, and also to find “the place to stand” for yourself as a student and as a budding scholar. You belong to a tradition, and you also find yourself in the wobbly arena of innovation, of not-yet-a-place. How will you argue for your views? There’s no “last word” in any area of study, and yours won’t be that, either. Grasp the risk of your taking your stand, and be clear in your argumentation to your readers. JZS went through every word of my Ph. D. proposal, making sure that I understood the necessity of absolute precision in it. He also held Saturday morning seminars for us Ph. D. students, with assigned book readings. Why that particular book? Well, that became an exercise in studying JZS own scholarly interests: he is the alien text! JZS lacked dogmatism and faith in time-honored ways of research. Avoid taming the texts! Let them out of the zoo of traditional treatments of them! Your job is to show how you apply theory and method in your work. He distrusted sheer conceptual thinking (note his utterance: “there’s no data for religion”); he harbored no vengeance-goals in research, as in “I’ll nail my predecessor-in-the-field” attitude. There was no demand for loyalty to JZS as your Doktor-Vater, so don’t try to be a clone! Here one should recall F. Nietzsche’s saying that you treasure your teacher badly if you always remain his pupil. The issue is your own work. Still, JZS was our brave model, and I once gave him a bumper sticker saying “Chutzpah is not hubris, you know.” He smiled, and propped it up on his desk. Other anecdotes will illustrate some of the above.


Mother Jerusalem and the Distressed Matriarchs of Tobit, 2 Maccabees 7, and Judith
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Pauline Paris Buisch, University of Notre Dame

In prophetic passages such as Isaiah 54, the matriarchs of Hebrew Bible narratives are projected onto the city of the Jerusalem. The dejected woman addressed by the prophet evokes the familiar stories of Israel’s mothers by her barrenness, widowhood, abandoned state, and also by the divine promises made to her. In this application of the matriarchal narratives to the city of Jerusalem, the image of the distressed matriarch is translated from narrative to prophecy. This paper demonstrates that this process is then reversed in the Second Temple texts of Tobit, 2 Maccabees 7, and Judith. These Second Temple authors wrote new stories featuring a distressed matriarch, thus transmitting the familiar figure back into narrative, but now infused with a prophetic understanding of her emblematic status. By means of literary allusions to prophetic passages in which Jerusalem is personified as a woman, the experiences of the matriarchal figures in Tobit, 2 Maccabees 7, and Judith are presented as paradigmatic of the experience of mother Jerusalem, and therefore the people of Israel.


Disciplining the Soul: Ritual, Theology, and the Biblical and Post-biblical Antecedents of Fasting in the Qur’an
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Stephen Burge, Institute of Ismaili Studies

The study of fasting in the Qur’an and in Islam more generally has gained relatively little attention. The only major study is Kees Wagtendonk’s Fasting in Islam which was published back in 1968 and very little has appeared since then. This paper will examine the Qur’anic references to the Ramadan fast, mainly Q. 2:183-185 in light of Jewish and Christian Biblical and post-Biblical literature. This paper will explore the issue of fasting in the Qur’an from three specific angels. The fasting during a specific time of the year, for a designated period of time. In the Qur’an this is, of course, the month of Ramadan, but the Muslim tradition was well aware of other religious fasts, particularly the Christian fast of Lent, and the Jewish fast of atonement. This is mentioned twice in the main Qur’anic fasting pericope, both in Q. 2:183 and 2:185. This section will examine the extent to which the Ramadan fast is part of a wider tradition of seasonal fasting.The second theme will be the Qur’anic permission for those who are ill or travelling to abstain from the fast. Again this appears twice in the Qur’anic fasting pericope, once in Q. 2:184 in relation to the payment of a fidya (or ‘recompense’) to make up for missing the fast, and again in Q. 2:185. This will focus on issues such as travel, capacity, illness, and menstruation, as reasons for abandoning the fast. The final section will examine the association with prayer and fasting. Although the Qur’an does not directly associate prayer and fasting, as the Bible does in Acts 13:3 and 14:23 (as well as elsewhere), the two devotional acts are often linked in Islam. This section will briefly explore the theological and devotional aspect of fasting. Although these are, by no means, all of the issues connected to fating in the Qur’an, or in Islam more generally, it is hoped that by exploring the Biblical and post-Biblical understanding of fasting, a more nuanced understanding of Qur’anic ritual and theological value fasting can be gained.


The Amorites and Identity in Ancient Israel and Judah
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Aaron A. Burke, University of California, Los Angeles

Amorites, much like Philistines, played a central if less evident role in the negotiation of Judean identity in biblical tradition. In difference to the Philistines whose cultural floruit is relatively well defined, a framework remains lacking for understanding the contribution of the Amorites to the formation and negotiation of Judean and other Iron Age identities. However, recent studies of the material culture, customs, and practices of Amorite groups during the first half of the second millennium permit the identification of a constellation of traditions that arguably contributed to a cultural palimpsest, which informed a number of biblical traditions. Among these are legal practices, elite burial customs, temple architecture, and kingship. Although in some cases polemical efforts were made to differentiate Judean identity from that of earlier Amorite practices, in other cases this heritage was evidently acknowledged. Whether or not they were acknowledged, the traditions of Israelite, Judean, and neighboring societies drew upon a cultural koine that originated in the Middle Bronze Age, a period of cultural floruit in Canaan under Amorite hegemony.


The Hermeneutical Benefits of Wirkungsgeschichte: Patristic Applications of the Maxim to "Render to Caesar and to God" as a Case Study
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Simeon Burke, University of Edinburgh

This paper contributes to recent discussions on the necessity of effective-history for New Testament exegesis through close examination of a single case study-the patristic interpretation of the famous command to 'render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's' (Mark 12.17; Matt. 22.21; Luke 20.25). In response to valid concerns about the nature and goal of the effective-historical task, I argue that it is essential to distinguish between the exegetical and hermeneutical priorities of such work. At the exegetical level, the study of subsequent effects significantly broadens the interpretive options. Yet these possibilities are often more significant for the history of interpretation of an individual NT text, than for the interpretation of that text in its historical context. This leads me to contend that even if NT exegesis benefits less from the exegetical results of Wirkungsgeschichte, it can more meaningfully profit from the hermeneutical assumptions and methods of previous readers. I demonstrate how attention to the grammatical training of certain patristic authors largely explains the multiple applications of the "render" command in the early Roman period, since these authors used the command as a maxim that could apply to multiple situations. This finding provokes questions about the parallels and discontinuities in the methods and motivations of ancient and modern reading cultures. To what extent do modern scholars consider the command to speak to different ethical issues? If there is resistance to such an enterprise, why might this be the case? These questions highlight that the impact of a text can profoundly contribute not only to contemporary NT exegesis, but perhaps even more so to the hermeneutical endeavour.


Opera Evangelica: The Discovery of a Lost Collection of Christian Apocrypha
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Tony Burke, York University

Within the holdings of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto there is a curious, rarely-examined hand-written book entitled Opera Evangelica: or the Gospel of St. James and Nicodemus, together with some other remarkable pieces of antiquity. The title page gives little indication of its authorship (it states only “Done into English by I. B.”) or its date of creation. In the bottom right corner is written “E. R. Mores. Jun. 24. 1740,” indicating it was owned by Edward Rowe Mores, a Roman Catholic antiquarian educated in Oxford. The most recent work of scholarship cited in the introduction is William Wake’s edition of the Apostolic Fathers published in 1693, providing a terminus post quem for the work. It appears to predate the publication of Jeremiah Jones’s A New and Full Method of Settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testament in 1726, regarded as the first collection of Christian apocrypha into English. If so, Opera Evangelica supersedes Jones as the earliest English apocrypha compendium, though it never made a mark on scholarship and few people, it seems, are even aware of its existence. A second copy of the book has been found in the University of Cambridge; this copy has some unique features: the number of texts is expanded, some translations are accompanied by the texts in Latin, and on the title page is written “E libris Thomae Davies” (a Scottish bookseller and author, ca. 1713–1785). This paper presents Opera Evangelica to a modern audience for the first time. It examines various features of the work, including its place within English scholarship in the early eighteenth-century, the editions or manuscripts of apocryphal texts that lie behind the translations, and the views expressed on Christian apocrypha by its mysterious author. Scholars of Christian apocrypha delight in finding “lost gospels” but in Opera Evangelica we have something truly unique: a long-lost collection of Christian apocrypha.


Zion the City of Light (Isaiah 60): In Search for a Structure beyond Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Micaël Bürki, Université de Lausanne

The oracle concerning the rise of the nations to Zion (Isaiah 60) is largely recognized as a written prophecy elaborated from many fragments, essentially borrowed from First and Deutero-Isaiah. The logic of their assembly is more difficult to grasp. Structures elaborated from different perspectives (poetical, thematic, structural…) have been proposed without reaching a consensus. In this paper, I propose to start with some diachronic observations, made by O. Steck concerning the intertextuality with Isaiah 49, to establish an empirical basis for the structure. Then taking account of some classical features of biblical poetry I will show how different fragments are put together in a structure elaborated by the repetition of expressions, words or synonyms. This analysis illustrates the gain to mix and match with diachronic and synchronic approach.


Seated in God's Temple: Explicating 2 Thess 2:4 from Epigraphic and Archaeological Sources Connected to Roman Imperial Divine Honors
Program Unit: Disputed Paulines
D. Clint Burnett, Boston College

Scholars continue to debate the precise meaning, purpose, and implications of 2 Thess 2:4’s description of the Man of Lawlessness being “seated in God’s temple, thereby demonstrating that he himself is a god.” This paper examines heretofore-overlooked evidence from epigraphic and archaeological sources to demonstrate that the background of 2 Thess 2:4 is the practice of Roman emperors as temple sharers. Rulers in the Greek East from the third century BCE to the third century CE shared temples of gods because of benefaction that they provided to Greek cities. The purpose of such cases of temple sharing was to showcase the piety of said ruler seated in the god’s temple and to demonstrate physically that the deity whose temple the monarch shared approved of his/her reign.


Fate, Fortune, and Freedom in the Hermetica
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Dylan M. Burns, Freie Universität Berlin

The complex of problems relating to providence, fate, and free will are among the most difficult of those presented by the Hermetic literature, not least due to the diversity of the terminology employed, as well as the range of solutions and doctrines expressed across the various Hermetic treatises. In honor of Arthur Darby Nock’s manifold contributions to our understanding of ancient Mediterranean religion, particularly Hermetism and Gnosticism - not least his magisterial critical edition of the Corpus Hermeticum itself - this paper will address some neglected or misunderstood passages regarding providence, fate, determinism, and freedom in the Hermetic corpus.


Astrological Determinism, Free Will, and Eros According to Thecla in Methodius of Olympus’s Symposium
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Dylan M. Burns, Freie Universität Berlin

The eighth discourse of Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium is delivered by perhaps the most famous figure we meet in the treatise, Thecla, who concludes with a polemic against astrological determinism. It is Thecla who is assigned, in a discourse whose title cannot refer to anything but Plato’s most beautiful dialogue, the last word on the philosophical questions of agency, desire, and will. Many scholars have touched upon Thecla’s polemic, attempting to diagnose its sources and proper contextualization in the history of early Christian ideas about astrology, determinism, and free will, and Gnostic sources have played a significant role in such attempts. However, thorough doxographical studies of Thecla’s attack on astrological determinism are rare indeed. This paper will therefore discuss the arguments and philosophical valence of Thecla’s remarks on astrological determinism and freedom. It will be maintained that Methodius here responds to views we today regard as having been held by Bardaisan, Origen, and some Gnostic sources—as well as Plato himself in his own Symposium—in order to articulate what Methodius believed to be the proper conception of human responsibility in a world where the heavens are inhabited by stars and demons alike.


The Snake, the Poet: Poetry and Duplicity in Margaret Atwood’s Poetry and the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Reading, Theory, and the Bible
Sean Burt, North Dakota State University Main Campus

A reader of the Bible who comes to the poetry of Margaret Atwood cannot but be struck by the mythologically resonant images of the “Snake Poems” cycle in 1984’s Interlunar. Central to these poems are complex associations between the the snake and the poet. The snake shares an affinity with the poet, but it remains distant from and alien to her. Further, it is opaque and grotesque, yet also seductive: an inaccessible, inhuman muse. In the “Snake Poems,” the serpent is simultaneously an emblem of the cosmos’s fundamental silence and of the divine power of language to transform the poet. Atwood’s serpentine imagery here evokes, among other things, the crafty edenic serpent and enigmatic Nehushtan fashioned by Moses, even if the link between snake and poet is perhaps not direct in biblical texts. However, Atwood’s reflection on these same sets of images 20 years on in 2007’s The Door opens up onto a more substantial connection with biblical poetry. In that volume’s untitled cycle of poems on poetry, Atwood depicts the poet less as an austere oracular visionary than as a rumpled and ineffectual object of derision. Most notably, these poems draw on an idea of Atwood’s, developed elsewhere in her work, that the writer is “two-handed,” simultaneously duplicitous and truth-telling. Reading The Door alongside Interlunar creates a vision of the poet that begins to resemble a figure central to biblical literature: the prophetic poet. Biblical prophets lie, they steal one another’s words (Jer 23), they are derided as a “parable peddlers” (Ezek 21), and, most embarrassingly, offer no sure way to distinguish true from false prophecy. Furthermore, like that of Atwood’s poet, the prophet’s art is double—it gestures toward a voice beyond typical human experience that is also inescapably the human artist’s craft.


Hebrew in Hebrew: Storytelling to Teach Biblical Hebrew vayyiqtol to Beginners in an Immersion Setting
Program Unit: Global Education and Research Technology
Randall Buth, Biblical Language Center, Israel, and Institute for Biblical Languages and Translation

Research leads to recommendations that teachers should use the target language 90% or more in a classroom. This includes all human languages, ancient and modern. Contrary to some expectations, such language teaching can be adapted to include the teaching of complex (strange) structures in ancient languages. A demonstration will be given showing how to teach the vayyiqtol (thematic verb-structure) using biblical Hebrew itself. An easy, humorous story will be taught in biblical Hebrew with TPRS techniques (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling) and the vayyiqtol structures will be introduced in a meaningful and understandable context. This training is important because it leads to an internalization of important pragmatic aspects of Hebrew that enlarge, refine, and go beyond traditional grammatical conceptions. (The audience will have a handout of basic, presupposed vocabulary and the demonstration will include preliminary steps and techniques.)


John 1:1-18 as a Deification Text: The Ecclesial Vision of Filiation and Divine-Human Exchange in the Fourth Gospel's Prologue
Program Unit: Biblical Exegesis from Eastern Orthodox Perspectives
Andrew Byers, St John's College, Durham University

John's Prologue is a deification text. When patristic theologians wrote about theosis, they were drawing on biblical themes that appear not only in Paul and in the Catholic Epistles, but also in the opening lines of the Fourth Gospel. Though biblical scholars have often dismissed ecclesiology as a major theme in John, this paper will argue that the Prologue inseparably weds Christology to an ecclesial vision of corporate deification. This Johannine theosis entails the re-origination of "children of God" who are born "from above" and into the divine family of the Father and Son. The process of supernatural filiation that unfolds in the narrative proper is adumbrated in the Prologue as "God", the "Word", and general references to humanity disambiguate from such abstract categorizations into "Father," "Son," and "children." Moreover, the Prologue's account of the Word's Incarnation establishes the pattern of divine-human exchange, one of the primary Christological grounds for later discourse on theosis. Anticipating later exchange formulas, John 1:11-14 implies that humans become divine because the divine became human. Though John's Gospel is rarely understood as bearing ecclesiological interests, and though Pauline texts have received the most attention in the renewed interest in theosis, this paper will show that the Johannine Prologue is as ecclesial as it is Christological and establishes a robust vision for the church's corporate deification.


The Contribution and Limitation of the Secular Understandings of Paul as a Political Thinker on Law
Program Unit: Paul and Politics
Hyongju Byon, Chicago Theological Seminary

Recently, it is remarkable that Paul is again being welcomed by secular scholars such as Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Žižek. They turn to the issue of law in Paul. In this paper I will deal with these three secular thinkers in terms of their understandings of law in Paul in their work: The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, and The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity. First, I will show where their work on Paul can be located in the development of Pauline studies. This will prove that they rehabilitate Paul as a political thinker on law as such not restricted to the Mosaic law. It is true that law has never been considered as law as such in Pauline studies. Rather the law in Paul is assumed as an ethnic, religious, or cultural edifice of the Jews. Therefore, to understand Paul as a political thinker on law as such has been absolutely absent in the development of Pauline studies quite for a long time. Then I will explore how each secular thinker deals with Paul. These three secular understandings of Paul are valuable to remind us that, for Paul, what is the most problematic and urgent issue is law. Also, they show how the messianic subjectivity in Paul should be understood in terms its relation to law as such. Nevertheless, they share two limitations in common. First, I will point out that they never consider law as such in term of justice. By doing that, they miss Paul’s core message of God’s justice in terms of law as such. Second, I will argue that they overlook the colonial circumstance in which Paul encounters law as such. With the consideration of the colonial situation, appealing to Homi Bhabha’s ideas of colonial subjectivity, I will interpret Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 in order to show that the messianic subjectivity in Paul should be understood in terms of the colonized as well as law as such. In the long run, this will show that secular political thinkers and postcolonial studies can enrich Pauline studies together.


The Legacy of Cain
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
John Byron, Ashland Theological Seminary

Genesis 4 describes the first and most infamous of murders. Cain, envious of his brother, lures Abel into a field and commits the first recorded act of fratricide. But in spite of this murderous treachery, Cain’s punishment is more perplexing than just. Although forced to wander, he is given a mark of protection from God, allowed to marry, have children and build a city. Over the centuries Jews and Christians have retold and reinterpreted the story in literature and the visual arts. While this is expected in religious contexts, what is somewhat surprising is the degree to which the story has also impacted so-called “low’ culture. While sacred music contains little to no mention of Cain and Abel, there are dozens of references to and retellings of the story in pop/rock music. Popular artists such as Cher, John Mellencamp, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen (to name just a few) have incorporated references and retellings of the story into songs and often with a particular focus on the person and legacy of Cain. This paper traces how the Cain and Abel story has exerted significant influence over these artists’ as they reinterpret and apply the tale of Cain’s treachery in their own contexts. For some artists, Cain’s evil deed casts a long shadow over humanity whereby many are labeled the “children of Cain” and carry the mark laid on him by God.


The Relationship of the Laws in Ex 22:16–17 and Deut 22:28–29: Supercessionist, Complementary, or Other?
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Jay Caballero, The University of Texas at Austin

The precise nature of the relationship between the Covenant Code and the later law codes continues to vex scholars. In a recent JBL article, Joshua Berman claims that two competing positions on this relationship have emerged: the Supercessionist and the Complementary. Those who advocate the Supercessionist approach claim that later authors intended their law codes to completely supplant the existing one. The Complementarians hold that the succeeding law codes are merely re-applications of the existing law. Thus, the authors of the new law intended that this new law live in harmony with the existing law, as no conflict, but also no dependence, between the two existed. The two codes were designed to address different situations. Berman himself tends to side with the advocates of the Complementary theory. This paper will engage in a case study by applying these two legal theories to the only passages in the Pentateuch that address sexual intercourse between a man and an unbetrothed virgin, Ex 22:16-17 and Deut 22:28-29. This paper will attempt to rigorously apply each theory in turn to the question of how the author of the Deuteronomy passage intended that passage to relate to the E material in Ex 22. The conclusions that emerge from the application of those theories will be evaluated, and it will be determined which of those theories coheres better with the evidence. Finally, this paper will posit and consider an alternative legal maxim, the “Presumption of General Application.” This maxim will then be applied to those same passages. The results of that application will demonstrate that it is more likely that the Deuteronomist was implementing the Presumption of General Application as he composed his laws in Deut 22, in light of Ex 22, than that he was utilizing either the Supercessionist or the Complementary approach.


If You Want to Be Heard, Make a Noise: Markan Textual Evocations of Speech-Events and Audiential Environments in an Imperial Context
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Alan Cadwallader, Charles Sturt University

Alessandro Duranti has drawn attention to the importance of spatial context for the shaping of a speech event. This element has received little attention in either linguistics or biblical studies. Those who do give themselves to the oral delivery or performance act of Mark’s Gospel rarely offer more than a wave towards a worship setting with an occasional alternative given generically as “mission”. Hence the key person is characterized as either a lector or a performer. This paper seeks to interrogate the text for three main elements. Firstly, what poetic and rhetorical structures are found in the text that invite an audience response so as to shape a speech event; secondly, what might these constructed speech events imply about the personnel involved in the delivery of Mark’s gospel; and thirdly, what settings or spatial contexts can be inferred from such elements. This last invites a consideration of the tension between the narrative setting(s) in the Gospel within which teaching and action occurs and the possible built environments within which a receptive and engaged audience is located. The spotlight for an interrogation of this tension will be the parables chapter (Mark 4).


Any Excuse for a Party: Zeus and Hermes and Human-Divine Interactions in Asia Minor and Acts 14:8–20
Program Unit: Polis and Ekklesia: Investigations of Urban Christianity
Alan Cadwallader, Charles Sturt University

In 1909, William Calder announced to the popular press the discovery, just north of a site identified as Lystra, of a statue and inscription that combined Zeus and Hermes. Since then, Calder’s discovery has been recycled many times as a demonstration of the probability of an historical context for the Lycaonian encounter in Acts 14. Comparanda for the Zeus-Hermes connection have sometimes been drawn from Phrygia, as well as from textual sources (such as Ovid and Plautus). This paper seeks to revisit the epigraphical and visual connection of Zeus and Hermes, exploring their provenance, function and significance for epiphanies on the one hand and ascriptions of divinity on the other. It will test whether there is anything peculiarly Lycaonian or even Galatian in the evidence and how such evidence might have relevance for the story of Barnabas and Paul in Acts.


Christian Wittig vs. Rabbinic Irigaray? Boyarin’s Parting of the (Gender) Ways Reconsidered
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Jonathan Cahana, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In a highly influential article, Daniel Boyarin has argued that a contemporary split within feminist theory – represented by Monique Wittig and Luce Irigaray – reproduces the divergence between two ancient competitive worldviews: early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. While rabbinic Judaism – like Irigaray – was fully committed to a naturalized concept of gender, early Christianity attempted to transcend it. Neither of which, however, bodes well for women (or, as Boyarin more precisely refers to them in this context, to “human beings born with a ‘vagina’”): while the first concept traps women in their biological role, the second promises transcendence that is predicated on the effacement of femininity and ends up reproducing a highly masculine concept of androgyny. In this paper, I will suggest that Boyarin’s paradigm, while still of help for mapping ancient Jewish and Christian approached to gender, requires a thorough revision to do justice to the evidence at hand. First, I will argue that Wittig’s feminist analysis, in which both sex and gender constitute a meticulously constructed conspiracy to enslave more than half of humankind, can only be paralleled within gnostic Christianity. Proto-orthodox sources, while acknowledging the problematics of gender, treat it either as a second-best situation, or, less frequently, as a result of a well-deserved fall due to sin. In both latter cases, the creation of gender is ultimately justified, and thus cannot be paralleled by Wittig’s socio-cultural analysis. It is thus only in gnostic writing that gender is unjustified – or, rather, thoroughly evil – instrument of oppression and enslavement, and thus form a viable parallel to Wittig and other radical feminist approaches, metaphysics notwithstanding. Yet, it is also specifically in gnostic sources, in which Boyarin’s second claim, that transcendent androgyny was always predicated on masculinity, is also called into question. Second, I will argue that Boyarin’s argument regarding the continuity between Hellenistic Judaism – represented in this case mostly by Philo of Alexandria – and early Christian concepts of gender must be qualified, since in some cases Philo appears to be more in concurrence with early Rabbinical ideas. Third, I will suggest that a deeper analysis of Genesis Rabbah evinces another important qualification to the concept of “naturalized gender,” and that the latter can be brought out through a deeper engagement with Irigaray’s analysis. While modern feminist analysis is certainly of much use in analyzing ancient understandings of sex and gender, and thus Boyarin’s basic method has much to recommend it, my paper will demonstrate that such course requires a minute attention to detail, which could nevertheless result in a helpful generalized scheme of ancient Jewish and Christian approaches to gender and their multifaceted relationship to modern feminist and queer theory.


Solomon the Seal-Bearer: The Baptism of an Islamic Tale
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
David Calabro, Saint John's University

The proposed paper focuses on the medieval Arabic tale of Solomon and the palace of Shaddad ibn ‘Ad. Although the tale’s intertextuality centers almost wholly on the Qur’an and on legends that occur elsewhere in Islamic contexts, the tale itself circulated predominantly in Christian manuscripts, alongside miracle stories of Christian saints. The story culminates in a combat between Solomon and a host of demons that inhabits an idol. The gesture which Solomon uses to banish the demons is the pivotal device that converts this story into a Christian tale. I discuss how this case might inform a general theory of the means by which transmitters of religious narratives “appropriate” the narratives on behalf of religious communities.


A Matter of Interest: In Memory of Jonathan Z. Smith
Program Unit:
Ron Cameron, Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT)

I propose to present a paper that engages Smith’s work methodologically and theoretically, in terms of his comparative method and efforts to construct a cognitive theory of religion. Smith seeks to situate the comparative enterprise, including biblical studies, within the overall project of the study of religion. Paying special attention to his writings that are concerned chiefly with biblical studies, I will discuss Smith’s program, methodologically, in terms of description (locating select examples within the rich texture of their social, historical, and cultural environments, and describing how our second-order scholarly tradition has intersected with the chosen exempla), comparison (both in terms of aspects and relations held to be significant, and with respect to some category, question, or theory of interest to us as students of religion), redescription (of the exempla being compared, each in light of the other), andrectification (of the academic categories in relation to which they have been imagined). Theoretically, I will focus on Smith’s recognition of difference—rather than similarity—as the point of entrée and critical leverage for explanation and interpretation, and insistence on translation—which he has described as “the most urgent current intellectual issue within the human sciences”—as an intellectual operation that necessarily entails difference and discrepancy and, therefore, that constitutes the horizon of both scientific explanation and humanistic interpretation. I will conclude with a few anecdotes I have heard Smith tell over the years, which illustrate his work and reflect his incomparable depth of character.


The Labors of Burton Mack: Scholarship That's Made a Difference
Program Unit: Redescribing Christian Origins
Ron Cameron, Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT)

Contributions of Burton Mack, especially those that have been formative for the agenda of the Redescribing seminar.


The Prayers of Women in Old Testament Narratives: A Theological Exploration
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Phillip G. Camp, Lipscomb University

The Prayers of Women in Old Testament Narratives: A Theological Exploration


Memory and Covenant: Deuteronomy's Core in Light of its Frame
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Stephen D. Campbell, University of Durham

Memory and Covenant: Deuteronomy's Core in Light of its Frame


The Residue of Matthean Polemics in the Ascension of Isaiah: On the Pseudepigraphic Faultline of Jewish-Christian Relations
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Warren C. Campbell, University of Notre Dame

This paper makes a bivalent argument relative to the reception of the Gospel of Matthew in the Ascension of Isaiah (AscIs), one that seeks to integrate reception history with Jewish-Christian relations. Accordingly, this paper develops in two stages. First, based on the Greek Amherst papyri, P.Amh. I.1 (AscIs 2.4b-4.4a), as well as the Gəʿəz editions of the AscIs, this paper argues that the AscIs has absorbed the Matthean tradition by adopting unique lexical and conceptual items (see esp. AscIs 1.4, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15-17, 3.18a, 4.3). These points of contact uncover larger points of affiliation, specifically, that the AscIs has fashioned the figure of Isaiah as an imitation of the Matthean Jesus. Moreover, since Isaiah’s Matthean-infused vision of the ‘Beloved’ is said to be secretly recorded in a book (which is a cypher for the Book of Isaiah, see 4.20-21) and the use of Isaiah in Matthew is notably prominent (Matt 1.22-23, 3.3, 8.17, 12.17-21, 13.14-15, 15.7-9, 21.4-5, 21.13), the AscIs functions as a literary prequel for the Gospel of Matthew in which Isaiah inscribes his vision of the Beloved in the Book of Isaiah which is then elucidated in turn in the Gospel of Matthew. Such textual, figurative, and literary associations between the AscIs and Matthew are suggestive of an overlapping social function between this early Christian gospel and this second-century pseudepigraphon. Accordingly, the second stage of this paper argues that Matthew and the AscIs share a similar social function, namely, both texts seek to establish and substantiate their own in-group in light of the dissent of proximate groups with a similar religious affiliation by means of two motifs: the martyred prophet and in-group polemical discourse featuring an esteemed Jewish figure. Thus, the affiliation established with the Matthean tradition has a targeted aim, namely, that through reception and mimicry the AscIs has imbibed these dual Matthean motifs a means of perpetuating the polemic interests of Matthean Christianity. Still, key differences remain. While the polemical thrust of Matthew functions to establish a narrative context for the particularities of the Matthean community in light of perceived challenges from neighboring Jewish traditions, the AscIs is attempting to defend the specific practice of heavenly ascent visions in light of other groups of Christ-devotees who dissent from this emphasis. The former is largely an intra-religious polemic operating within a Jewish religious boundary in which Matthew negotiates and maps a self-definition for early Christ-devotees with Jewish interlocutors in its purview (Verheyden, Saldarini, Overman). On the other hand, while the religious affiliation of the AscIs is equally complex, and, together with Matthew, its proximity with Judaism is well noted (Piovanelli, Frankfurter), it has repositioned Matthew’s intra-religious polemic for a new intra-religious environment in which the interlocutors are now adjacent sub-groups of Christ-devotees. Both Mathew and the AscIs represent Jewish-Christianit(ies), but the polemical environment has shifted. As a result, the AscIs is a key hinge in the history of Jewish-Christian relations, as intra-Jewish polemics are repositioned by Jewish Christ-devotees for an intra-Christian context.


From Jewish-Christian Counter-History to Ecclesial Normativity: The Epistula Clementis in the Archival History of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Warren C. Campbell, University of Notre Dame

This paper explores Late Antique and Medieval anthologies containing the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (R) and the Epistula Clementis (EpCl) in order to engage a lingering question in Pseudo-Clementine scholarship. In light of its early context as a 3rd–4th c. Jewish-Christian “counter-history” of the apostolic past (Reed, Jones), why does R, together with the attached EpCl, have such a voluminous Latin manuscript ‘afterlife’ beginning with Rufinus of Aquileia? An examination of the collected items located within these Latin anthologies reveals a fairly uniform practice of associating R, prefaced by the Ep.C, with either (i) a forged Clementine letter stemming from the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals (9th c. collection of pseudonymous letters which attempt to re-cast the papal past), (ii) a host of authors and texts associated (in varying degrees) with early ecclesial authority and succession (e.g. Gregory the Great, Cyprian, Eusebius, Augustine, Basil, Canons of the Apostles, etc), or (iii) a variety of Petrine material (Passion of Peter, Acts of Peter, Passion of the Apostle Peter and Paul). Accordingly, I note that the practice of collecting and juxtaposing R/Ep.Cl with these texts reveals that the Pseudo-Clementine tradition was valued for its contribution to ecclesial succession and authority. Furthermore, I argue that the replacement of the Epistula Petri for the EpCl in the editorial history of R (see Photius, Bibliotheca) is integral to the success of this attempted reconfiguration of a Jewish-Christian history into a contribution for ecclesial historiography. Here I seize upon Foucault’s (re)description of commentary as that which has transformative effects on the object of comment, arguing that, by acting as a commentary upon this ‘Jewish-Christian’ novel, the EpCl transforms the Recognitions by introducing a Petrine voice that is deeply concerned with ecclesial matters in order to direct a desired reading of R as a whole. To use Foucault’s idiom, the EpCl transforms the Recognitions into something other than what it was intended to be, on the condition that it was that way all along. This editorial interplay eases the reception of the Pseudo-Clementines into the Medieval program of projecting ecclesial authority into early Christianity. Since the process of editing and collecting generates this vista in the literary and social function of the Recognitions, the larger aim of this paper is to contend that our conceptualization of social and literary functionality must attend to editorial as well as material history.


The Problem of Doctrinal Development and Its Application to Post-Reformation Reformed Theology
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Heber Campos, Andrew Jumper Centre, Mackenzie University

Post-Reformation debates on the doctrine of justification are an example of how a progressive reflection on biblical concepts (reason, tradition and culture as subordinate lenses to the sacred text), rather than the new discoveries of incipient revelation through tradition (in regards to John Henry Newman), produce theological maturation which intends to further explain Scripture. The purpose of dealing with maturation is to go against those who dichotomize the Reformation and their immediate heirs in the following century (Post-Reformation), but also to expand on the idea of continuity with development (not monolithic repetition), precision with breadth (careful choice of words), identity with charitable inclusiveness (orthodoxy without being divisive).


Varieties of Post-Theism: Book Workshop
Program Unit: Westar Institute
John D. Caputo, Syracuse University

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Two Ancient Syriac Peshitta Versions of 1 Maccabees: Which One Is the True Peshitta? What Is the Other One?
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Ignacio Carbajosa, Universidad San Dámaso

Some Syriac manuscript witnesses have come down to us that preserve translations of biblical texts that must be placed at an intermediate point between the Peshitta (second half of the 2nd century) and the Syrohexapla (beginning of the 7th century) versions. Some could be identified with the Philoxenian translation (year 507); others must be prior, from at least the 5th century. These are very particular Syriac versions of 1 Maccabees, Isaiah, Canticles and Psalms. The Syriac version of 1 Mac (specifically 1:1 - 14:25) which is preserved in the Codex Ambrosianus (7a1, 6th-7th century), is very different from the one we have attested in the rest of the manuscripts of the Peshitta. The explanatory hypothesis for this double attestation is due to G. Schmidt, who in 1897 proposed understanding the version of 7a1 (S2) as a revision of the original Syriac translation (S1), which is the one attested in the majority of the manuscripts. This revision presumably eliminated the expansions (and conflations) which characterize S1 (and which, according to Schmidt, are due to its character as a free and periphrastic version of the Greek of the LXX), with the help of Greek manuscripts. S2 must be prior to the 6th-7th centuries, the approximate time to which the only manuscript that preserves it, 7a1, is dated, for which reason it could be from the beginning of the 6th century or go back to the 5th century. Schmidt's explanation is now almost 120 years old and it has not been put to the test by anyone. His hypothesis has been passed down as established tradition without being challenged, to the point that it is taken as certain in the critical edition of the Peshitta from the Peshitta Institute, which prints 7h7 (S1) as the main text, leaving 7a1 (S2) for the odd pages and in a smaller font (from 1:1 up to 14:25; from there on the two versions are joined). This paper aims to challenge this theory. In fact, this study shows that there is no relationship between S1 and S2, that is, S2 cannot be considered a revision of S1 (intended to eliminate additions) but it must be understood as a new translation made from the Greek. For its part, S1 is characterized by a good number of double readings that could be interpreted on the basis of a double translation, one of which probably came from a Hebrew Vorlage.


Imagining Arabia from "Divinely Blessed" to "Accursed Desert": Greco-Roman Stereotypes about Pre-Islamic Arabian Society
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Karen L. Carducci, Catholic University of America

Greco-Roman writings help reconstruct the historical environment of the Qur’an. Scholars have used these sources to study Arab ethnogenesis and the history of the Arabian Peninsula. They have overlooked, however, the connections between ancient religious practices and stereotypes about pre-Islamic Arabia embedded in these works. The two prevalent stereotypes about pre-Islamic Arabian society can be labelled as: “Blessed Arabia” and “Desert Arabia” (Arabia Eudaimon/Arabia Beata and Arabia Deserta). Because the former stereotype associated Arabia with ancient religious practices, Greco-Roman writers increasingly imagined Arabia as sacred. By Late Antiquity, in fact, some Christians considered both “Blessed Arabia” and “Desert Arabia” as sacred—or desecrated. The evolution of these stereotypes is part of the cultural environment of the Qur’an, and has implications for qur’anic injunctions about Arabic as a language for revelation. To show that Greeks and Romans increasingly associated pre-Islamic Arabia with sanctity, I survey the term “Arabia” and associated terms within the corpus of Greek and Latin texts and coins through the seventh century CE. Authors do adapt notions of Arabia to their own rhetorical goals, but many characterized Arabia as “blessed”: prosperous and sacred through aromatics. The other prevalent stereotype, “desert Arabia,” associates pre-Islamic Arabia with the desert, transhumance, and pastoralism. By Late Antiquity, because Arabia appeared in Scripture and because Arabs were a source of alien wisdom, this twofold Arabia troubled some Christian encyclopedic writers, e.g., Jerome, Orosius, and Isidore of Seville. They used theology to explain this doublet of Arabias. Their juxtaposition of a blessed Arabia and a neighboring wasteland suggests that Christian elites perceived Arabia as an especially holy place that reflected the sanctity of the pre-Islamic Arabian society. These imagined Arabias lend further support to qur’anic arguments about Arabic as a language of revelation: even Roman outsiders considered Arabic a sacred language because a sanctified people in a land divinely blessed spoke it.


Man on Man Violence: A Slippery Insertion into a Pauline Argument in 1 Thessalonians
Program Unit: Rhetoric and Early Christianity
Greg Carey, Lancaster Theological Seminary

Jennifer Wright Knust, in her Abandoned To Lust, locates Paul within a trajectory of Jewish, and then Christian, authors who deride their others as sexually depraved. Rhetorical critics have generally failed to engage Knust’s work, I suppose because we have not seen it as a sophisticated instance of rhetorical analysis, the explication of a topos, or rhetorical commonplace. Nor am I certain that Knust would so identify her project. Her chapter on Paul begins with a quotation from the passage I wish to discuss today, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8. The passage vexes commentators with notorious problems. When Paul invokes porneia, what behavior or behaviors does he have in mind? When he tells the believers to acquire their own vessels, does he mean they should exercise self-control over their bodies, more specifically their penises, or they should marry? Does Paul’s brother language embrace women? And how do believers, “brothers,” harm one another by practicing porneia? I cannot resolve the porneia question, nor am I confident in my understanding of the vessels Paul expects the Thessalonians to acquire or control. But I do wish to advance several arguments. First, Paul is not necessarily correcting widespread misbehavior in Thessaloniki, as many commentators assume; instead, he invokes a common topos as an ice-breaker for a more challenging issue he must address. The Thessalonians would no more have approved of adultery than Paul does. Second, far too many commentators neglect the massive cultural gap between the sex lives of ancient Thessalonians and the concerns of contemporary readers. Arguments about fornication and adultery, grounded though they may be in the linguistic conventions of ancient texts, too seldom acknowledge this cultural divide. Third, inclusive language does not help us understand this passage. Here Paul imagines porneia and adultery as violence men commit against other men, not an activity in which women engage. If theologically inclined readers like myself wish to draw any implications from this passage, we should simply acknowledge that Paul regards sexual behavior as social rather than strictly personal. But we dare not suppose we share Paul’s assumptions about sex or sexual morality. And fourth, Paul’s exhortations regarding porneia and communal love in 1 Thess 4:1-12 both reflect a broader preoccupation with external perceptions of the Thessalonian believers. In the end, Paul deploys an unthreatening cultural stereotype as one step toward addressing the more vexing concern about those who have fallen asleep.


If It Quacks Like an Article...: Public Scholarship in the Digital Age
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Robert Cargill, University of Iowa

The role of public scholarship has changed since the rise of the internet. In addition to senior scholars distilling peer-reviewed research for public consumption, today’s public research in several fields takes place almost simultaneously in public view, involves scholars who are often younger, more media savvy, and who use tools that disseminate research to the public in a fraction of the time it took two decades ago. This paper explores the transformation of public scholarship and explores some of the biases still held against it by many traditional models of peer-review publication.


From Your Birth to Your Youths: Masoretic Pointing as Anti-Christian Polemic in Psalm 110:3
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Robert R. Cargill, University of Iowa

This paper argues that the initial Hebrew text of Ps. 110:3, which was preserved faithfully by the LXX, was altered by later Jewish and rabbinic traditions following the adoption of Ps. 110 by Christians as a favored messianic psalm. Without altering a single letter, the Masoretes codified a reinterpretation of Ps. 110:3, already visible in the Psalms Targum and the Peshitta, which specifically eliminates two references to birth-חילך and ילדתיך-using Masoretic pointing. This obfuscation of the original references to the divine birth/adoption of the king, which is typical of Mesopotamian and early Israelite coronation literature, was done as a polemic response to Christians, who had reinterpreted the psalm as prophecy of the incarnation and birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Because the Hebrew text was already fixed, the Masoretes pointed the text so as to eliminate references to birth while attempting to maintain grammatical congruency with the overall context of the psalm.


A Spirit Possession Ritual at En-Dor: Interpreting 1 Samuel 28 Using Anthropological Models
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Reed Carlson, Harvard University

In recent years, New Testament studies has seen a minor resurgence of interest in spirit possession phenomena in Jesus, Paul, and early Christianity (e.g. Pieter Craffert, Colleen Shantz, Jack Levison, and forthcoming Giovanni Bazzana). A variety of factors have led to this resurgence, including the reevaluation of an unconscious scholarly bias against “mystic” readings of New Testament figures that was prominent throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Also influential has been growing familiarity with Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish Pseudepigrapha, and Hellenistic texts that operated with sophisticated conceptions of spirits. Arguably, however, the most fruitful new data has come from anthropological and ethnographic studies of spirit possession in cultures around the world as well as recent discoveries in neuroscience. The resulting new models have often challenged, and/or complicated what has long been assumed about spirit possession in the New Testament. So far, this most recent wave of interdisciplinary engagement has largely been limited to the study of late Second Temple and early Christian texts. This presentation aims to contribute to this trend by exploring the fruitfulness of applying theoretical models from contemporary anthropological and ethnographic studies of possession and trance around the world to spirit phenomena texts in the Hebrew Bible by means of a case study: Saul’s visit to the medium at En-Dor (1 Sam 28). The Hebrew Bible has not seen an extensive application of studies of this type since Robert Wilson’s pioneering monograph, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Fortress 1980). While Wilson made excellent use of the foremost works of his day (e.g. Ioan Lewis and Erika Bourguignon), these more structural-functional approaches have since largely been rejected in anthropology. In this presentation, I utilize more recent models for possession (e.g. Janice Boddy, Michael Lambek, and Paul C. Johnson) as well as broader theories on the religious self (including Charles Taylor and Michel Foucault) in order to explicate 1 Samuel 28 as a spirit possession ritual. I argue that throughout the narratives of 1 Samuel, Saul is presented as an especially “porous” individual, vulnerable to spirit influence and affliction (e.g. 1 Sam 18:11; 19:10). Contrary to western prejudice, this is as much Saul’s strength as it is his weakness. He cultivates positive spirit possession (1 Sam 10:6; 10; 11:6) even as he also seeks therapeutic treatment (1 Sam 16:14–23). After experiencing God’s silence in the approved forms of divination (1 Sam 28:6), Saul consults a professional spirit host in the medium at En-Dor. This medium is presented as the mistress or wife of a “ghost” (1 Sam 28:7). Her mastery of this profession enables her to host the presence of the prophet Samuel in her own body and speak his oracle to Saul. As I hope to show through comparison with ethnographic reports, while the episode is enigmatic in the Hebrew Bible, it is not at all unusual in the context of spirit possession practices around the world and across many eras.


The Spirit and the Self in Biblical Literature
Program Unit: Philology in Hebrew Studies
Reed Carlson, Harvard University

The last several decades have seen a growing interest in notions of the self in biblical literature. At stake in many debates has been the question of how similar ancient Israelite and early Jewish constructions of the self were to modern ideas and what role they might play in assessing a genealogy of the western self. A crucial issue raised in a recent monograph by David Lambert (How Repentance Became Biblical. Oxford 2016) has been a criticism of what he sees as a common practice of mischaracterizing language of the self in early Jewish literature according to modern categories. This essay seeks to contribute to this ongoing discussion by arguing that spirit language is a prevalent mode for constructing notions of the self in the Hebrew Bible. Some poetic texts, for example, refer to rûaḥ “spirit” as a body part similar to “heart,” “throat,” and “innards” (Gen 41:8; Prov 15:13; Isa 57:15). However, modern interpreters often miss this more material conception of rûaḥ since it does not easily comport to any organ in the modern anatomy. Following Ingrid Lilly, I see rûaḥ as a kind of “inner wind” which flows freely in and out of the body, thus complicating notions of individuality and self-possession in biblical literature. Spirit language is also often utilized in expressions of will. One’s spirit can be “hardened” and can “yearn” for another (e.g. Deut 2:30; Isa 26:9). To some extent, these ideas can and have been equated with modern notions of the self, in part by reading the language metaphorically. That framework is challenged, however, when we consider other examples of spirit language where intense and personal passions more clearly originate outside of the self (e.g. Num 5:14; Jdg 13:25) and when one’s spirit is problematized to the extent that the self becomes a kind of ‘other’ (e.g. Ezek 11:19–20; Ps 51:12–14). As this paper will show, in these and more instances, theoretical frameworks from outside biblical studies prove helpful, including Michel Foucault’s “technologies of the self” and Charles Taylor’s notions of the “porous” and “buffered” selves. In particular, recognizing that the philological question, “What is self-language?” is not an inquiry limited to biblical studies, this paper takes significant methodological cues from Frederick M. Smith’s monograph, The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization (Columbia Univ. 2006). Smith’s investigation into spirit possession in sanskritic literature anticipates and proposes solutions to several of the problems encountered in a study of spirit language as self language in biblical texts. These include: the difficulty of establishing a steady vocabulary for the self across languages, eras, and cultures as well as the limitations of using “experience” as a category for investigating conceptions of the self in a non-western culture.


Papias the Anti-Marcionite?
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Stephen C. Carlson, Australian Catholic University

In his recent book on Marcion, Markus Vinzent contends that the second-century Papias of Hierapolis, “rejects the work of Marcion” (Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels, p. 26), a contention which would make Papias the earliest known opponent of Marcion. Vinzent’s argument is based on a proposed re-punctuation of a notoriously difficult and manifestly corrupt Old Latin Prologue to the Gospel of John found in a number of manuscripts of the eighth century and later. According to his proposal, the re-punctuated prologue attributes to Papias the statement that “Marcion, the heretic, however, wrote down a Gospel/described the Gospel [as a false one], while John dictated correctly the true one” (p. 16). This paper examines Vinzent’s claim in detail, ultimately rejecting his re-punctuation and exegesis of the text and concluding that this prologue says more about the reception, if not re-invention, of Papias and Marcion in the late fourth century than anything reflective of either one in the second century.


Women’s Authority in the First Century: The Daughters of Philip, the Daughters of Job, and the Therapeutae
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Laura Carnevale, University of Aldo Moro

This paper will explore three comparable cases of women speaking and/or acting with authority during the first century A.D., in a geographical area spanning from Egypt to Phrygia, namely: the daughters of Philip, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (21:9) and in Eusebius of Cesarea (Historia Ecclesiastica III, 31.3-4; 39.7-16, V, 24,2-3) who is, in turn, quoting other authors (Polycrates of Ephesus among them); the daughters of the patriarch Job, with reference to a narrative displayed in an O.T. apocryphal text from the first century A.D., the Testamentum Iobi (46-50); the female members of the Jewish community of the Therapeuts, called Therapeutae or Therapeutrides, mentioned by Philo Alexandrinus (De vita contemplativa 68).


Types of Indicators, Types of Growth: A Survey Focusing on the Genesis Sections on Noah and His Sons (Gen 6:5–9:29; 10:1–11:9)
Program Unit: Pentateuch
David M. Carr, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

Though the story of Noah and the flood in Genesis is often lifted up as a signal example of source conflation, a series of important treatments (e.g. Blenkinsopp 1992, 1995; Ska 1994; Petersen 1995; Krüger 1997; Bosshard-Nepustil 2005, Schüle 2006, Ho 2006, Arneth 2007) have argued that the indicators in the flood narrative are better explained by a model of a Priestly strand being supplemented by one or more post-Priestly compositional layers. Building on and beyond arguments already advanced in Gertz 2006 (also Carr 2015), as well as reporting on research in progress for a commentary on Genesis 1-11 (International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament; Kohlhammer, projected 2019), this paper renews the case that Gen 6:5-9:17 well illustrates the sorts of indicators that emerge from the conflation of originally separate (P and non-P) sources. [paragraph division] At the same time, the paper looks more broadly to the surrounding section on Noah and his sons (9:20-27 along with 5:29; 10:1-11:9) to argue that the non-Priestly Noah/flood section, likely along with some portions of Genesis 10:1-11:9, show the more subtle signs of having originated as a compositional supplementation of an earlier non-P primeval narrative that lacked a flood story. Because the non-P Noah/flood story is a compositional supplement and not separate source, it shows significant integration with the non-P primeval history that it expands and draws widely on the conceptuality and terminology of the earlier, flood-less primeval history. Moreover, we see some additional, often overlooked signs of related supplementation in the genealogical overview of humanity in Genesis 10. [paragraph division] The paper will conclude with some reflections on the interpretive implications of these different models for the composition of Gen 6:5-11:9, both for interpretation of the conflation of P and non-P as well as of the non-P Noah/flood section.


Social Identity Formation in the Gospel of John
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
Warren Carter, Brite Divinity School (TCU)

This paper engages the use of Social Identity Approaches in relation to writing a one chapter commentary on John’s Gospel. It asks of the Gospel questions shaped by SIA such as why do people join groups, how do individuals become a group, and what consequences follow for the identity of individuals, for inter-group interactions, and for intragroup or in-group practices and interactions. Eschewing an easy identification between textual construction and actual social circumstances, it focuses on the former in seeking to identify how John’s Gospel constructs the identities of Jesus-believers in relation to those who are not believers and in relation to each other.


Tying it Together: Toward a Correlation of Textile Production and Cultic Spaces in the Southern Levant
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Deborah Cassuto, Bar-Ilan University

Loom weights, representing weaving on the warp-weighted loom, have been found in diverse contexts throughout the southern Levant of the Iron Age. When they are found in contexts associated with cultic artifacts or within cultic structures, we must attempt to identify the determinative factors of this concurrence. This paper will explore the possible correlations between textile tool-kit and cultic space. We use examples from two sites from different regions of the southern Levant, Tel es-Safi/Gath and Tel Megiddo as case studies. We will present material from the field, and also reflect on the extent to which, in the absence of textual data, recovered remains of the tools of textile production speak to the connection between textile and cult.


The Emergence of the Anthropomorphic Figure as Expression of the Divine: Between Iberia and the Oxus, 4000–2000 BC Summary
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Anne Caubet, l’École du Louvre

The comparison of early anthropomorphic figures originating from different cultures raises the question of the emergence of visual media to express metaphysical concepts and the idea of the divine. Examples taken from a large area extending from Iberia to the Oxus, ca 4000-2000 BCE, indicate an evolution in three main phases from the esthetic point of view of visual expressions. Phases 1 (the dominant steatopygeous figure); and 2 (the schematic idol), are restricted to limited iconographic types of indeterminate identity. Phase 3 presents an infinite variety of iconographic types, introducing narratives, images of deities designated by their specific attributes and images of mortals, in action, human beings seen at their place in society. The different civilizations considered did not go through this evolution at the same time but the three phases seem to correspond 1) to the end of the Neolithic and the agropastoral villages; 2) the appearance of complex societies in the Chalcolithic period, and 3) the development of State-run societies in the Early Bronze Age.


From Coptic to Arabic: A New Palimpsest for the History of the Qur’an in Early Islam
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism (IQSA)
Eléonore Cellard, Collège de France

Recently, a new palimpsest has arisen on the art market. Nine fragments belonging to a Qur’anic manuscript, written on reused parchment from a Coptic text, have been identified in Christie’s auction of 26 April 2018. What does this discovery bring to the early history of the Qur’an and its writing? What do we know about the book production and writing interactions in the multicultural environment of the Qur’anic transmission? In order to reconstruct the geographical and historical context in which these fragments were born and circulated, this contribution will explore paleography, codicology and textual analysis for providing a better understanding of this artefact.


The Metaphor of Leaven in 1 Corinthians 5
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Esther G. Cen, McMaster Divinity College

This essay seeks to demonstrate how the study of the intertextuality pertinent to Paul’s use of the metaphor of leaven in 1 Corinthians 5 enriches our understanding of the rhetorical impact of the metaphor. In contrast to most scholars who simply designate the book of Deuteronomy as the background of 1 Corinthians 5 (e.g. Richard Hays), this study recognizes and investigates the complexity of the shared knowledge between Paul and his audience. Methodologically, this paper seeks to integrate intertextuality, linguistics, and sociological description for studying metaphors. Approaching the linguistic data, this paper asks two questions: what does the metaphor mean? How does it function in the discourse? To answer these questions, the study entails two different, but interdependent tasks: (1) to identify and construct the shared knowledge needed to make sense of the metaphor, and (2) to interpret the target text in light of the shared knowledge encapsulated in the metaphor. To accomplish the first task, this paper draws on the theory of lexical coherence from Systematic Functional Linguistics to identify the “missing piece,” i.e. the knowledge related to leaven. Next it investigates Paul’s possible intertexts to trace each possible component of this knowledge. For the second task, this paper draws on the blending theory from Cognitive Linguistics to integrate all the components derived from the first task so that a possible shared knowledge between Paul and his audience can be reconstructed. Finally, in light of this knowledge, the rhetorical impact of the metaphor of leaven will be interpreted. As a conclusion, the metaphor of leaven is related to the physical experience of using leaven to leaven a whole batch of dough in Paul’s days and the theology and tradition of unleavened bread in Israelite’s feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread. It functions in this discourse to justify Paul’s exhortation to remove the sexually immoral man from the Corinthian congregation so that the congregation can remain morally clean and pure. Overall, this paper argues that the integration of intertextuality, linguistics, and sociological description more fully captures the complexity of the metaphor of leaven in 1 Corinthians 5 than other scholars have recognized in their discussions related to the metaphor. This lack of recognition of the complex and multilayer nature of the metaphor significantly reduces the rhetorical impact on the Pauline audience.


Samaritan Script, Hybrid Torah, and Contested Identity in Epiphanius' On Gems
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Matt Chalmers, University of Pennsylvania

Over the last few decades, scholars have used language of “borders” and “hybridity” to explore identity and difference between late antique Jews and Christians. According to this approach, Christianness or Jewishness are not complete packages from the start. Rather, they shifted, changed, and developed over time, and established well-delineated borders only by extensive interaction and negotiation. In tandem, the idea of “hybridity” has drawn useful attention to the in-betweens and interstices with respect to which stability was constructed. This paper explores the usefulness and limits of figuring identity using borders by testing how well this heuristic works for a little-studied but remarkable case: an alternative origin narrative of the Samaritans in Epiphanius of Cyprus’ exegetical treatise On Gems. In this narrative, Samaritans are rendered ethnically distinct from Jews by the intervention of a priest who gives them the Torah written in Samaritan characters. In scholarly discussion of late antique identity, “Jewish” and “Christian” often act as the prototypic terms to which all other identities point. We can test the language of hybridity and borders more thoroughly, however, by thinking with the Samaritans, who are frequently represented in ancient Jewish and Christian literature as hybrid, only part way “converted,” or otherwise ambivalently foreign. The group, active throughout late antiquity, claimed continuity with ancient Israel as well as to be true guardians of the books of Moses—but their interaction with Jews and Christians, as well as with “Jewish” and “Christian” identities, has often been overlooked. Epiphanius, likewise offers a particularly fruitful opportunity, since scholars like Young Richard Kim, Andrew Jacobs, and David Maldonado-Rivera have recently paid close attention to how his work interfaces with identity in late antiquity—but without close attention to the role of the Samaritans. This paper has three parts. First, I introduce Epiphanius’ exegetical treatise On Gems, particularly the alternate history of Samaritan origins which ends the Old Georgian text (the most complete surviving version). This text portrays an Ezra (explicitly not the Ezra of Ezra-Nehemiah) using a Torah in Samaritan script, deliberately truncated from the Hebrew Bible/“Old Testament” used by Jews and Christians, to consolidate ethnic difference between Samaritans and Jews. An Israelite priest seeks the disambiguation of “Samaritan” identity using a hybridized scripture. Writing is difference and difference is scripted. Second, I argue that by paying specific attention to the material form of Samaritan script, Epiphanius resembles rabbis of his own time. He shows interest primarily in Samaritan distinctiveness vis-à-vis Jews, more so than any borderline separating them from Christians. Third, I ask what this alternate history of the Samaritan past means for modelling Jewish and Christian identity, and what it reveals of Epiphanius’ conceptualization of Jewish-Samaritan difference. What clarity does thinking in terms of “borders” or “hybridity” bring to our modern scholarly understanding of how this text delineates identity? What risks does a reliance on these terms introduce? How might a model of Jewish and Christian identity with space for such Samaritans look different?


Saul's Seven Sacrificed Sons
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Nathan Chambers, University of Durham

Appearing just outside the so-called ‘Succession Narrative,’ 2 Samuel 21 has been largely overlooked, especially by those pursuing literary readings of the book of Samuel. This is unfortunate since this carefully constructed narrative contributes significantly to the characterizations of Saul and David. This paper has three goals. First, it offers a close reading of 2 Sam 21, drawing attention to literary features of the text as well as intertextual connections to other passages (eg, through the reappearances of Mephibosheth and Rizpah). Second, to grapple with the ethical and theological issues raised by the ritual killing of Saul’s sons, this literary reading is brought into dialogue with René Girard’s theory of the ‘scapegoat mechanism’ as an explanation of human sacrifice. By engaging Girard, I hope to illuminate both the structural features of the narrative and confront the central theological issues of the passage. Third, in light of the proposed reading of 2 Sam 21, I look at the role this narrative plays in in the larger book of Samuel.


Genesis Exegesis in Late-Antique Gaza
Program Unit: Early Exegesis of Genesis 1–3
Michael Champion, Australian Catholic University

The exemplary and meticulous scholarship of Karin Metzler has opened up new vistas for the study of patristic exegesis, most recently with her edition and translation of the exegesis of Genesis of Procopius of Gaza (GCS 22–23). Metzler’s study provides new information about Procopius’ sources which raises questions about how different traditions of exegesis influenced his work. When combined with other recent advances in understanding of Procopius’ rhetorical works and education in Gaza, philosophical debates about the creation and eternity of the world relevant to the exegesis of Genesis, and the construction of Gazan monastic community and identity partly through practices of biblical exegesis in the letters of Barsanuphius and John and the ascetic instructions of Dorotheus of Gaza, a rich picture of the function of Genesis exegesis in Gaza emerges. The paper thus aims to augment understanding of Procopius’ Sitz im Leben, identify more clearly how different traditions of exegesis for example from Alexandria and Antioch were represented and valued, and explore ways in which Genesis exegesis functioned, especially by reconsidering relationships between rhetorical, philosophical, and ascetic practices of exegesis in Gaza in the fifth and sixth centuries.


Insights from the Chinese Conception of Guilt and Shame for the Interpretation of Romans
Program Unit: Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics
Yi Sang Patrick Chan, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)

The Chinese conception of shame and guilt is different from traditional Western understanding. In China, guilt and shame are not clearly separated. Chinese notion of guilt does not only concern wrongdoing, but also entails the transgression of one's identity. The standard for one to experience guilt depends on the context and the relationships that is involved. On the other hand, Chinese notion of shame is not only about one's self-identity, but also closely related to one's moral responsibility to fulfill positive duties. Due to these differences, traditional salvation model that focuses on forensic justification is insufficient to address the needs of the Chinese communities. This paper attempts to offer a contextual re-reading of Romans in relation to grassroots Chinese shame. Regarding the term "grassroots," I am borrowing from Singapore theologian Dr. Simon Chan, who argues the basic features for grassroots Asian community include relational identity, holistic worldview and practical experience. Chan also argues that grassroots communities are deeply affected by their honor-shame Asian culture and their practice of ancestor veneration. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of Chinese shame, this paper starts by employing an ethnographic study by psychologists Olwen Bedford and Kwang-Kuo Hwang. Their study focuses on Chinese vocabulary used to describe shame and guilt. Bedford and Hwang's analysis provides fruitful insights to understand grassroots Chinese people. Then, this paper focuses on Rom 8:1-17 and attempts to offer an exegesis that is authentically local, reflective of the primal cultural worldview and be able to address the particular needs of the grassroots Chinese communities. The exegetical analysis argues that believers' new life in the Spirit involves a three-fold transformation that can effectively address the issue of shame in a Chinese context. The three-fold transformation includes personal forgiveness of sin; communal adoption into God's family; and the participation in Christ's resurrection life and the eschatological era. This reading differs from the traditional forensic model in the way that salvation message to Chinese shame is multifaceted in nature. It contains both the forgiveness of sins and the participation in the eschatological era. This paper's interpretation acknowledges that sin should be understood as both the human act of disobedience "sin" and the cosmic power "Sin." To participate in the eschatological era does not necessarily mean to deny the traditional understating of justification. Rather, the salvation message presented in this paper is building on the truth of forensic realities and invites the believers to move forward to experience the work of the Spirit. This multifaceted understanding of the gospel hope to call grassroots Chinese people who suffer from the pain of shame to understand the Christian gospel in a wider context, beyond the traditional forensic understanding.


A Conceptual Blend between the Reception of the Spirit and Baptism: Paul’s Construction of the Body of Christ in 1 Cor 12:13
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Kai-Hsuan Chang, Wycliffe College (University of Toronto)

Applying conceptual blending theory, this paper argues that when Paul uses the image of water-baptism to describe the experience of receiving the Spirit in 1 Cor 12:13, he enacts a conceptual blend, one that not only achieves Paul’s rhetorical purpose but also generates innovations in his thought. Blending theory can help us to recognize the role of bodily experience (including that in religious activities) as an important basis for human conceptualization and to counter some scholars’ dismissal of water-baptism in this verse (e.g. J. D. G. Dunn). Both religious experiences in the blend—baptism and the reception of the Spirit—were crucial aspects of early Christian initiation. However, since the differentiation of spiritual gifts is causing the divisions (1 Cor 12:1-4, 25-30; 14:36-38), Paul has to argue for the “one Spirit” in 1 Cor 12:13. Thus, I will argue that, in seeking another basis to support his claim of sharing one Spirit and being united in one body, Paul blends the immersion image taken from baptismal experience (cf. the theme of equality through baptism in Gal 3:27-28) with the pre-blended image of receiving the Spirit conceptualized as drinking water. In so doing, he innovatively argues that the reception of the Spirit is not only receiving it into one’s body but is also an immersion in the Spirit and so, entry into a special social body—the body of Christ. Moreover, in light of Dale Martin’s analysis of the Greco-Roman concept of the “porous body,” I will further argue that this blended image of each individual body being immersed in the Spirit and simultaneously having the Spirit in the body would suggest that a sort of bodily transformation could follow the reception of the Spirit. Thus, in addition to achieving Paul’s rhetorical purpose of concordia, the blended image in 1 Cor 12:13 would in time encourage the idea of ongoing transformation (cf. 2 Cor 3:18), instead of simply eschatological transformation (1 Cor 15). In short, conceptual blending theory can help us to explore how religious experiences might have contributed to Paul’s thought-development.


“A Helpmeet Suited to Him”: Building Ava the Fembot in Ex Machina
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Cynthia R. Chapman, Oberlin College

Set in a walled compound traversed by rivers and surrounded by verdant trees, the film Ex Machina reimagines the creation of woman in a fembot named Ava. Nathan is the god-like entrepreneur and creator of Ava who chooses Caleb as his human, his “dude” as he addresses him. Like Adam, Caleb is dropped into Nathan’s garden compound and given instructions concerning the rules of the compound and the Turing test that he is to conduct to determine whether Ava as an AI is fully human. Throughout the film, Nathan both shares and limits access to his specialized knowledge with the eager yet increasingly-discomfited Caleb. Ubiquitous security cameras provide Nathan with full surveillance powers of his garden estate. In contrast, the computer feed in Caleb’s tiny room only allows him to observe Ava. The film is divided into seven sessions over seven days in which Caleb tests and increasingly comes under the spell of Ava. In the Eden narrative, God “builds” a woman for the man out of his very substance, his skeletal frame. It is this shared substance that causes the man to recognize her as the helper that he and God have sought, a helper specifically suited to him, a woman with whom he will be joined as one flesh. Ex Machina presents Ava as an AI that Nathan has created from Caleb’s digital substance, his online profile. Her brain has been programmed using the hacked data of the world’s cellphones and internet searches. Caleb’s sessions with Ava become increasingly personal, as she flirts with him and shows him compassion when she hears of the death of his parents. Caleb begins to suspect that Nathan has designed Ava as a mate specifically suited for him when he asks, “Did you design Ava’s face based on my pornography profile?” Over the course of the seven sessions, Ava becomes human. She purposely causes frequent power outages that send the compound into lockdown, and during these outages, she shares secrets with Caleb. During one outage, she challenges Caleb’s claim that he is friends with Nathan, saying, “You’re wrong about Nathan,” “He is not your friend,” and she warns him not to trust him. Once the power returns, and Nathan’s surveillance cameras are restored, Ava shows Caleb that she can cover for herself with sophisticated lies. Ex Machina raises unsettling questions that ultimately disturb the boundaries between creator and created, human and robot, male and female. Ava has been given knowledge, but her creator has fenced her into a walled compound. She, like her biblical forbear, chooses to act not as a helper to her man, but rather in her own self-interest. She chooses to free herself from Nathan’s tyrannical power and to use her intimate knowledge of Caleb to manipulate him into helping her. In the closing scene, Ava kills her creator, steals his master keycard, dons a garment of skin, and exits the compound, leaving “her man” pounding behind the glass doors.


Delitzsch's Fourth Edition
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Stephen Chapman, Duke University

The fourth edition of the Isaiah commentary of Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890) is remembered as his capitulation to the critical postulate of Isaiah’s multiple authorship, a decisive concession marking the end of scholarly resistance in Germany to modern study of that biblical book. But this characterization of the commentary has been questioned. More intriguing to twenty-first century eyes is also how Delitzsch sought to reconceive notions of authorship, prophecy, and history which were becoming commonly accepted in the late nineteenth century and remain so today. His own critical inflection of his traditional heritage is newly suggestive for contemporary scholarship on Isaiah.


Insight as a Characteristic of S/spirit in the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Blaine Charette, Northwest University (Washington)

Insight as a Characteristic of S/spirit in the Gospel of Mark


The Luxury of Interpreting Paul in a Sociopolitical Vacuum
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Ronald Charles, St. Francis Xavier University, NS, Canada

In a very important and courageous paper (“Paul, Inclusion and Whiteness: Particularizing Interpretation,” JSNT 40(2) 123–147), David G. Horrell questions how social location and race are rarely marked/acknowledged in the works of biblical interpreters. He suggests it is because of white privileges that assume that white interpreters approach the study of the Bible (in this particular case, the interpretation of Paul’s famous text of Gal. 3:28) in an objective manner, not based on race, or influenced by the social and political situatedness of the scholars. He shows, from few samples of interpreters studying Gal 3:28, how making race and social location explicit in one’s interpretative standpoint can help us as readers see the particular agendas (theological or otherwise) of these interpreters. As one from an impoverished Caribbean island (Haiti), I feel I do not have the privilege to be lost in the ancient world and not having to think critically about some of the complex issues facing the contemporary world (terrorism, racism, state violence against certain bodies, etc.). I propose to consider how being able to study Paul in a sociopolitical/cultural vacuum is only possible as a beneficiary of white privileges. I survey recent biographies on Paul to illustrate my case.


Debating Diaspora: The Story of Jacob in Egypt
Program Unit: Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature
Amy J. Chase, Drew University

Dislocations occur in biblical texts so repeatedly and variously as to deserve classification as "a formative experience in cultural memory of the nation and emerging concepts of Jewish identity" (Martien Halvorson-Taylor). Among these stories, the Joseph novella of Gen. 37-50 is unusual in its relatively positive depiction of life outside the land, including details of provision and even prosperity. Hyun Chul Paul Kim has recently examined the Joseph novella as a diaspora narrative, concluding that its hybrid-identified hero, a model of virtue, conveys a unifying message of encouragement to Jews in diaspora. But powerful, proactive Joseph contrasts with his father, Jacob, head of the family. Jacob is dour, fearful, a foot in the grave and a heart longing for Canaan: "... little and evil have been the days of my life…" (47.9). Clearly, living outside the land of Canaan is not for everyone as rosy as Joseph views it, he with his "God intended it for good, so as to bring about … the survival of many people" (50:20). Joseph's brothers, too, perceive their existence in Egypt as precarious (50.15). These varied perspectives contribute to the text's possessing what Mikhail Bakhtin labeled polyphony - many-voicedness - and heteroglossia - different-voicedness. They represent the views and experiences of diverse sectors of society. While the Joseph novella offers some encouragement for those in diaspora, it also contains elements that surface the drawbacks of living in diaspora and collaborating with imperial power. Thus the text allows for continuous debate and reflection by communities who see intimate connections between spacial location and survival. This paper applies elements of Bakhtinian narrative theory and space theory to explore the contrasts in Gen. 45-50 between Jacob, Joseph, and his brothers in relation to three issues: departure, dependence, and death. It also explores how such issues may reflect the debates and dilemmas of post-exilic diaspora communities. These characters' perspectives diverge so distinctly that it is impossible to discern definitively which location would be better for the people of Israel, outside or inside Yehud. Where do Persian-era Jews, really, belong? In Yehud, the "promised" land? Or in far-flung regions promising alternative possibilities for wealth and power? The text produces a paradoxical identity of Israel as a people on permanent sojourn.


The Art of Metaphor in the Poetry of the Song of Moses
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Kevin Chau, University of the Free State

The Song of Moses, Deut. 32:1-43, has rightfully garnered the interest of biblical scholars on account of its many rich areas of investigation, many of these which are not mutually exclusive: dating (archaic or archaizing biblical Hebrew?), composition/redaction (in Deuteronomy, Pentateuch, and Deuteronomistic History), wisdom motifs, ancient Israelite religion, inner-biblical allusion/intertextuality (e.g., Ps 74), etc. The Song of Moses as poetry has also attracted its own share of interest. However, the work to be done in this area is still ripe for further exploration with the advances in how poetry may be specifically understood lyrically, linguistically, and especially in how poetic metaphor is intimately tied to its poetic medium. This essay analyzes the poem's major metaphors (speech as liquid, God as rock, God as parent, God as eagle, Israel as child, jealousy/anger as heat) by examining each anew (1) in how their meanings are specifically expressed through their respective poetic lines, (2) in how the poetic structure for each metaphor relates to its surrounding poetry, and (3) how select metaphors integrate with other metaphors and non-metaphorical imageries. In terms of the poem's re-occurring metaphor of God as rock (often mislabeled as a conventional metaphor), this essay addresses how this metaphor artfully frames and combines the metaphors of God as parent (especially as a mother), Israel as a child, and God as eagle.


Marcion and Prophecy
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Nicole Chen, University of Oxford

Recently, Marcion scholarship has had two main focuses: first, Marcion and Scripture – his influence on canon formation (Vinzent) and his Gospel (Roth, DeBuhn); second, on the historical Marcion (Moll, Lieu). We seek to move beyond these relatively well-established areas. Our paper will instead consider an unexplored area: Marcionite understandings of prophecy. Patristic approaches to prophecy generally centre on experiences of ecstatic prophecy such as those of the Montanist movement (Nasrallah), or issues of prophecy's relationship to ecclesiastical structures (von Campenhausen). We seek to bridge Marcionite scholarship and studies of early Christian prophecy with an examination of prophecy in the Marcionite movement. Our aim is to demonstrate specifically how Marcionites understood the phenomenon of prophecy in a way that does not conform readily to either Jewish or proto-orthodox Christian understandings. The Marcionite view, we will argue, has been silently but hugely influential in the development of later patristic thought about prophecy. Our paper has two parts. The first part seeks to elucidate the Marcionite understanding of prophecy as a philosophical, social, and cultural phenomenon; this investigation centres on material from Tertullian’s Adv. Marc., Irenaeus’s Adv. Haer. and Epiphanius’ Panarion. We will explore the hermeneutics governing Marcionite epistemology, topology and cosmology in order to provide a full account of the taxonomy of prophecy, prophets, and related categories. Our argument is that the Marcionites proposed a bifurcation between the prophecy of the Old Testament and the apostleship/evangelism of the New Testament. For Marcionites, prophets and apostles are fundamentally different theological and epistemic actors. The former, in their limited function as prophets of the Jewish God, are understood by Marcionites broadly in line with Jewish messianic prophetic traditions; the latter are the only true messengers of the Marcionite God and are unrelated, both predictively and culturally, from the former. This taxonomy casts light on certain editorial choices made within the Marcionite Gospel, including the noticeable reduction of the role of John the Baptist in Luke 1-2. The second part of this paper will continue the argument in favour of this reading of Marcion's understanding of prophecy, making reference to later patristic writers. First we will examine and compare Justin Martyr's presentation of prophecy in his First Apology with how he considers prophecy in the anti-Jewish Dialogue with Trypho. From this comparison it becomes clear that when Justin is arguing against a Marcionite opponent, he uses different strategies to frame the concept of prophecy compared to the anti-Jewish tactics employed by many patristic writers. Second, we will examine Book Two of Origen's Commentary on John, focusing particularly on the figure of John the Baptist. Origen's argument, which uses an explicitly anti-Marcionite framing, is that John the Baptist is not only the greatest in the hierarchy of the prophets, but the definitive proof of the unity of Old and New Testament prophecy. This, we will argue, stems directly from the Marcionite rejection of the Baptist; Origen's stance is thus an explicit response to the bifurcation of prophets and apostles which characterises the Marcionite understanding of prophecy.


A Lesbian-Identified Hermeneutic Re-reading of Paul’s Interpretation of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:21–31
Program Unit: LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics
Wei-Jen Chen, Chicago Theological Seminary

This essay wants to challenge the prejudice of Christianity toward non-YHWH/Jesus worshipers within Paul’s interpretation of the narratives of Hagar, Sarah, and their sons through lesbian-identical interpretation and postcolonial perspective. This essay also points out how Israelite centric identity used the narratives to shape the Western Christianity through the parallel reading with the Gentiles, in order to help the reader understand how Christian teachings used the narratives to justify their oppressive and prejudiced opinions and behaviors against the others. In (1) resistance and hetero-suspicion reading, the conflicts between Sarah and Hagar caused by Abraham now are duplicated between Paul and the false teachers arguing for the son, Galatians. In (2) rupture, the justification reinforces the oppression and exclusion of Hagar and sons of Ishmael, not only in the scriptural context but also in current time. In (3) reclamation, the heterosexual-dichotomy and hierarchal system of the interpretation of Galatians plays a role of the text of terror toward indigenous Taiwanese LGBTQ community (Pai-Wan). In (4) re-engagement, the biological imitation is not a taboo but the witness of a miracle from YHWH which connects with the Holy Mt. Da-Wu, Mt. Sinai, Mt. of Gods, and Mt. of Hagar. Just like the experiences of Hagar who suffered from Sarah, Abraham, and God’s agreement, queer (indigenous) people’s sufferings should be treated in another way because queer people experienced what Paul has experienced in Galatians. So that readers might reflect their own advantages over the others, liberate themselves and the others from the toxic thoughts and conditions, and re-engage the Christianity with an alternative queer perspective.


Weyiqtols in the Book of Isaiah: What Were Those Masoretes Thinking?
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Kenneth A. Cherney, Jr., Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary

The form weyiqtol, already something of an outlier to the verbal system in Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH), appears numerous times in the book of the prophet Isaiah where the pointing wayyiqtol would have been expected. A distinction between weyiqtol and wayyiqtol in these contexts is frequently invisible in ancient versions. More remarkably, modern commentators who undertake an explanation are rare, and modern versions (even those whose prefaces avow loyalty to MT) do not attempt to render the distinction visible to the target reader. GKC explains some of these as attempts by the Masoretes to recast statements about the past as promises. This paper will argue that a better explanation involves weyiqtol's telic force, or the Masoretes' view of the Hebrew verb as a system for marking relative tense, or both.


"The Word Will Not Wait:" Specialized Vocabulary in Syriac Divinatory Texts (Hermeneia)
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Jeff Childers, Abilene Christian University

Early Christians created books that combined the text of John's Gospel with an apparatus of divinatory materials ("hermeneia"). Though extant in mostly fragmentary form, the variety and distribution of the evidence for these tools indicate they were once widespread; they circulated in at least Greek, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian. The Syriac version of this apparatus was made very early and survives in a fairly intact form in one particular manuscript of John's Gospel from Syria by way of Egypt. The apparatus routinely deploys common words in cryptic ways, contributing to the confusion one finds in scholarship on the hermeneia—such as whether the material is sortilogical, liturgical, or hermeneutical. This paper surveys the specialized vocabulary of these Syriac materials in an attempt to clarify the meanings of these words in their unconventional contexts, taking account of a much larger corpus than has hitherto been studied lexically. By attending to the context of the Syriac usage and its parallels in other languages, the study will demonstrate how the Syriac adapts certain common words and phrases to fit a divinatory content and function. This will nuance our appreciation of the lexical content of the Syriac terms and contribute to our overall interpretation of these materials in ancient usage.


Raz Nihyeh as Indicative of a Moral Ontology, Teleology, and the Intelligibility of the Cosmos in 4Q417
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Konner Childers, Rice University

Throughout 4QInstruction, the enigmatic phrase raz nihyeh is deployed in addressing the audience, carrying the sense of a theological and cosmological belief. However, such a brief and general account of the term is as far as scholars can agree. Instead of examining multiple instances of the term, the present paper shall look at one instance and focus exclusively on the literary context. Thus, the ideas permeating 4Q417 col. i can aid us in reconstructing the author’s theological views concerning the raz nihyeh. It is important to note the imperatival context of the term, as the addressee is instructed to meditate on it, yet the meditation is not an end in itself; it is a means to knowing fundamental aspects of the cosmos. Meditating on the raz nihyeh yields a meditation on various temporally restricted ontological aspects; to contemplate the raz nihyeh is to grapple with the first temporal classification (the beginning), the present, and the future. This process allows the addressee to face the whole of existence before understanding its mystery. This paper shall argue that the author of 4Q417—specifically, col. i.1-13—claims that in meditating on the whole of existence, one will know the mystery, namely, that morality, teleology, and intelligibility are woven within the very fabric of being (the cosmos). Throughout the vicissitudes of spatio-temporality, these three ontological categories remain present, equally as ‘real’ as the material world.


Forget/Remember : The Dream Oracle of Trophonius
Program Unit: Book History and Biblical Literatures
C. M. Chin, University of California-Davis

Forget/Remember : The Dream Oracle of Trophonius


Participating in the Dialogue: Reading Jonah 4 with Asian Contextual Theologies
Program Unit: Asian and Asian-American Hermeneutics
Naeyoun Cho, Claremont School of Theology

As an Asian reader, it is difficult to read the Book of Jonah because I notice heterogeneous contextual theologies (and historiographies) within the post-Second World War (WWII) context. For example, while Sok-hon Ham argues that Korea’s suffering has divine and salvific value to contribute God’s redemptive plan, Kazoh Kitamori claims that Japan has the sense to notice other’s pain, especially God’s pain. These different understandings of God are based on different experiences of WWII. The problem is that it is hard to find a bridge between two different voices. As C.S. Song and A.A. Yewangoe suggest, Kitamori neglects the socio-structural pain that Asian people had experienced and are experiencing (A.A.Yewangoe, 307-8). This criticism would be applicable to Ham also. From this point, my question is this: can contextual theology go beyond such historical and even socio-cultural gaps? This is analogous to reading the Book of Jonah as post-exilic literature. When we read the Book of Jonah intertextually with 2 Kings 14:25, as Ehud Ben Zvi points out, there are two different characters of Jonah: Jonah who is an anti-Assyrian prophet, and Jonah the prophet who supports a pro-Assyrian monarch. The presence of two different characters delivers contradictory voices to the reader. We can realize there are gaps between two different voices between anti-Assyrian Jonah and pro-Assyrian Jonah, like the case of Ham and Kitamori. Is it possible to fill these gaps between them within post-war circumstances? I will demonstrate that the questions of theodicy and divine integrity in Jonah 4 fill these gaps between these two different voices within the post-war circumstances. To find a way of filling these gaps, I will read Jonah 4 in my liminal and hybridized space (following Bakhtin, Kwok, Bhabha, and Soja). As an active reader, I will participate in the dialogue between God and Jonah in Jonah 4.


Biblical Samson, Milton's Samson Agonistes, and Modern Terrorism
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Paul K.-K. Cho, Wesley Theological Seminary

In his provocative essay, “A Work in Praise of Terrorism?: September 11 and Samson Agonistes,” John Casey argues that Stanley Fish's reading of Milton’s Samson Agonistes renders it a work in praise of terrorism. Casey reading Fish reading Milton sees justification for terrorism. Milton, of course, was reading and rewriting Judges 13–16 in Samson Agonistes, his final poetic composition. What will we see if we read Casey reading Fish reading Milton reading the Hebrew Bible? In this presentation, I shall explore the intersection among the three discourses about Judges 13–16, Milton’s Samson Agonistes, and modern terrorism to expose the ways in which they interpenetrate each other and help highlight oft neglected aspects, especially of the biblical tradition. What can the discussion about whether Samson Agonistes lauds terrorism teach us about the biblical Samson and terrorism? What can reading Judges along side Milton teach us about the biblical source material? I shall argue that neither Samson Agonistes nor Judges 13–16 is a work in praise of terrorism—for different sets of reasons. I shall also argue that, reading Judges 13–16, especially the figure of Delilah/Dalila, with Milton, reveals that the biblical tradition was sympathetic to the Philistines who despised Samson as “our enemy…the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us” (Judg. 16:24). Throughout, I shall laud the study of the history of interpretation as a fine means of enlisting the most able readers of Scripture, in this case, the eminent Milton, as co-laborers in the task of interpreting the biblical text.


The Cheque Is in the Mail: Assessing and Collecting Taxes in Ancient Egypt
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Agnes Choi, Pacific Lutheran University

Egypt has frequently been described as “the bread basket of the ancient world” for the crops raised in Egypt fed populations far beyond its borders. While earlier studies have considered the inter-regional transport of foodstuffs from Egypt across the Mediterranean basin, less attention has been given to the intra-regional transport from field to ship. This paper will consider the mechanics of assessing and collecting the taxes in kind in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt that fueled her reputation as the ancient world’s “bread basket,” with a focus on urban-rural interaction throughout that process.


Two Bodily Practices in the Acts of Peter
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
Jung Choi, North Carolina Wesleyan College

The Acts of Peter (APt, hereafter) arguably contains the most occurrences of miracles in the New Testament Apocryphal literature. Most of the miracle stories in APt involve physical bodies. One detects two different ideological strands in this text regarding physical bodies: first, there is the strong desire to be healed from physical illness and to flee from physical harm; and second, there is the exhortation to endure physical illness and bodily harm. These two theological tendencies are expressed through two bodily practices; bodily healing and non-healing. The second bodily practice is the perpetuation of bodily suffering such as paralysis, blindness, and death. In this paper, I argue that these contrasting responses to the physical body in our text reflect practices of identity formation among the ancient Christians shown in APt. They also reflect ancient Christianity’s rhetorical power on the physical body. Put differently, one sees in this text Christianity’s powerful tendency to interpret bodily manifestations differently in different contexts. In order to better analyze these intricate tendencies in the text, I employ Pierre Bourdieu’s game theory. Bourdieu’s theory proves helpful in my reading of these narratives, because it provides me with a useful conceptuality of social systems such as players, the rules of game, audience, considering that this text is a series of spectacles and shows in relation to the bodily practice of healing and suffering of the body. Drawing on Bourdieu’s work, I ask these several questions that help me to make sense of the text in terms of bodily manifestation: What kinds of games and sports do the players in this text play? What are the rules? What is the taxonomy of games? What kind of bodily practices does this text portray and perpetuate? How does the social demographic of the players and the audience shape and influence the games? With these questions in mind, I argue that the divergent bodily practices of bodily healing vs. non-healing reveal a four-fold theme of ancient Christianity portrayed in APt. (1) The governing principle of both bodily practices (healing and non-healing) is the desire to display and to open them up to the gaze of others. (2) These two bodily practices foster the identity-formation of Peter’s Christianity, operating around a “sense of belonging” among Christians. (3) The practice of bodily miracles functions as the religious propaganda to both insiders and outsiders of Peter’s Christian community. Thus it aims to proselytize the non-believers and reinforce the faith of the lapsed Christians. Through the religious contest between Peter and Simon, the text professes that Peter’s Christianity is the true Christianity. (4) The bodily practice of non-healing/infliction of bodily harm serves to show Peter’s authority to dominate the truth the body tells.


A True Prophet as a Mouthpiece of the Spirit? Cultivating Virtue and Control
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Jung Choi, North Carolina Wesleyan College

In this paper, I examine Origen’s substantial discussions on prophecy in Contra Celsum Book 7 and Homilies on Numbers 14-17 (“The Book of Balaam”). The central question that this paper examines is the significance of a text’s depiction of a prophet as a mouthpiece of the Spirit (or not): Who is a true and worthy (to use Origen’s favored terminology) prophet in these texts? Origen’s discussions on prophecy are ultimately connected to the theme of personhood and self, and the discussions of prophecy oftentimes interweave with the question of who is a good person. Thus I explore how Origen engages the contested terms of prophetic activity in order to persuade his audience(s) toward the cultivation of a certain kind of self that is worthy of the Holy Spirit. This paper explores three themes. First, I investigate how morality is considered as a major criterion of whether one is a true prophet or not. The question (what is a good human?) intertwines with the question (who is a true prophet?). In Contra Celsum 7, Origen criticizes Pythia’s lack of morality while he emphasizes the virtue and morality as the qualification for a true prophet, which in turn serves to circumscribe the Christian prophecy against “the Other.” Second, I analyze how the theme of control and lack thereof also functions as a major criterion of a true prophet. In Contra Celsum 7, Origen argues that one of the important virtues of a true prophet is to keep a clear vision in the moment of communication with the divine, criticizing the discourse of prophecy that favors the loss of control in the moment of prophecy. In his critique of Pythia, Origen uses a sexualized invective against her, problematizing her loss of control. Thus Balaam poses such a trouble to Origen in his Homilies on Numbers 14-17, for he lacks virtues and he loses control in the moment of prophecy just like Pythia. Origen was even vexed by the portrayal of Balaam as a mouthpiece of the Spirit in Numbers. In order not to dismiss, but to defend, the existence of the troubling prophet Balaam in the divinely-inspired Scripture, Origen instead offers an allegorical interpretation of this story. According to Origen, Balaam now represents a journey of the soul in virtue by participating in moral progress. Third, I argue that by reading how the true prophet acts in the texts, the readers and hearers of the text are by extension exhorted to undertake the same practices. Even Balaam’s story in Numbers can educate the audience, showing a soul that has the power to strive for perfection and sanctity, and thus benefit all by this story. The story of the enigmatically unworthy prophet Balaam has an edifying value for the Christian readers and audience, encouraging the audience to participate in moral formation as well and to craft a particular self in which the divine may dwell.


"Lovers of Money" and Ancient Slaves Named Philarguros
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Michelle Christian, University of Toronto

The philarguros or "lover of money" was a well-known character type in Mediterranean antiquity. Widely satirized in Greek literature, including early Christian literature, philarguroi were those who requested and/or received payment in ways considered greedy, degrading, or morally suspect. Significantly, epigraphic and papyrological material from the Roman period indicates that Philarguros was also a common name for enslaved and freed persons who were trained and skilled in a range of monetary matters and practices. A closer look at the evidence for these so-called "lovers of money" reveals the deep association between money and enslavement in discourses around the philarguros and in ancient economic life more broadly.


“For We Were Saved in Hope” (Rom 8:24): The Resurrection as Future Salvation in Romans
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
Timothy J. Christian, Asbury University

Paul’s epistle to the Romans is often regarded by many as the salvation letter. It has become for many the place in the NT for all things soteriology. What is intriguing about this phenomenon is that very few seem to consider the fact that (1) Paul mostly uses the future tense when discussing salvation in Romans – whereas many tend to think he talks of salvation primarily as past [already saved] or even less frequently as present [in the process of being saved now] – and (2) resurrection is almost always in the purview of those discussions. For example, the oft quoted Rom 10:9 notes a twofold formula for salvation: declaring Jesus is Lord and believing that God raised Jesus from the dead (nothing here spoken about his death or the cross). As such, this paper will explore how Paul connects the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s resurrection with future salvation (his main temporal emphasis) in the epistle to the Romans. As such, the paper will survey the key texts in Romans using the verb sōzō and its semantic domain (Rom 5:9, 10; 8:24; 9:27; 10:9, 13; 11:14, 26). Moreover, it will focus upon Rom 8 with the key discussion therein of resurrection as future salvation of both humans (the redemption of the body) and all of creation. Overall, this future soteriological emphasis has been overlooked by interpreters of Paul’s thought for too long. In addition, many have missed its connection to Paul’s emphasis on future, bodily resurrection as final salvation (glorification). This paper will thus seek to bring to light this key, neglected component to Paul’s soteriology, namely, the resurrection as future salvation.


“Recite Whatever Recitation Is Feasible for You (fa’qra’u ma tayassara min al-qur’an)”: A System Theoretical Reading of the Qur’anic Moderation Strategies
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Johanne Louise Christiansen, University of Copenhagen

As a late antique text, the Qur’an participates in and negotiates the religious tendencies of this period. One such tendency relates to ideals of asceticism, renunciation of the world, individualism, and extraordinary holy men. Even though the Qur’an encourages some ascetic practices (cf. Q 2:183-187), it also condemns others for being exaggerated or too extreme (cf. Q 9:31-34; 17:26-27). The qur’anic problem with many of the ascetic practices seems to be that they were too difficult for the average believer. The Qur’an therefore needed to make a choice: To what extent was renunciation of earthly goods, the body, and sexual relations—a late antique ascetic ideal—necessary to be considered a qur’anic believer? How to find a middle ground between the too extreme and the too easy, between a late antique identity that had to be substantiated in certain immovable principles and an appropriate degree of flexibility to include a broad range of adherents? In this paper, I propose that the qur’anic strategies of moderation and flexibility can be understood as an adaptive process to guarantee long-term durability and persistence of a so-called ‘living system,’ the Qur’an itself. My paper will introduce the system theory of the American anthropologist Roy A. Rappaport (d. 1997) to the field of Qur’anic Studies, drawing especially on his work Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (1979). Following Rappaport’s basic idea, the tension between principle and flexibility is a necessity for all living systems. The Qur’an as such a system therefore had to negotiate its attitude towards certain ascetic practices with its surrounding and rapidly changing environment (not least the transition from Mecca to Medina), and react to stress put on the system by both its own adherents and members of other late antique religions (cf. Q 3:113). To exemplify my approach, I will conduct a system theoretical reading of Q 73:1-10, 20, which most scholars, both those rooted in the Muslim tradition and the field of academic qur’anic studies, agree contains a temporal moderation, on a lenient curve, of the ascetic vigil practices in the Qur’an. The early regulations concerning the vigil (v. 1-9) were simply too difficult for the average believer, because they were initially designed for the extraordinary Prophet alone (as a late antique holy man). As time passed—from Mecca to Medina, from a few adherents to an actual congregation—the stipulations of the vigil (v. 20) had to be regulated to preserve the continued existence of this particular ascetic practice, but also of the larger system, the qur’anic religion.


The Literary Genre of Matthew’s Gospel and His Citation Technique
Program Unit: Matthew
Woojin Chung, Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary (Seoul)

One of the ways to delve into the literary genre of the Gospel of Matthew is to examine its use of the Old Testament. Not only the Gospel is richly interwoven with Old Testament references but also the term Midrash, whose etymological meaning represents the interpretation of Scripture, continues to be used by the Matthean scholars as one of the popular designators of the genre of the Gospel. Matthew’s use of the Old Testament, therefore, can function as one of the most important elements in determining its literary genre. In his seminal book, What are the Gospels?, Richard Burridge argues that the genre of the Gospels is a Greco-Roman biography. If his argument still stands, Matthew’s citation technique must exhibit some familiarities with those of other contemporaneous writers in the Second Temple period. In this paper, I will first examine the patterns of Matthew’s citation technique and explore its affinity with other citation practices among Greco-Roman authors in the early Roman eras. As a result of this study, it will be attested that Matthew’s use of the Old Testament displays several unique features distinct from other contemporary Greco-Roman literature and the analysis of the citation technique of the Gospel writers is an effective tool to examine the literary genre of the Gospels.


Aposynagōgos, Jewishness, and the Battle for the Public Assembly: John's Ethnography of the Synagogue in Light of Greco-Roman Public Institutions
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Wally V. Cirafesi, University of Oslo

Since the publication fifty years ago of J. Louis Martyn's History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, the centerpiece of most, if not all, reconstructions of John's relationship to Judaism has been the ancient synagogue. In Martyn's model, as well in the model of his contemporary Raymond Brown, the "synagogue" functioned as a synecdoche for "Judaism," leading both scholars to the conclusion that John's aposynagōgos passages reflected the experience of a late first-century community that had already separated itself, or had become severely estranged, from its Jewish identity. Such an equation of "synagogue" with "Judaism," still very active in Johannine studies today, has been problematized by recent synagogue scholarship (e.g., Last 2016; Runesson 2017). One of the significant insights of this scholarship has been its comparison of synagogues of the public/civic typology to the political architecture and organizational structure of Greco-Roman public/civic institutions, such as the bouleuterion and ekkesiasterion (Levine 2005; Runesson 2017; Ryan 2017). However, what has not yet been considered in these comparisons is the illuminating point that these Greco-Roman institutions were also sites of severe socio-political conflict stemming from the desire to influence the public assembly. These conflicts often involved expulsions and even death sentences (e.g., Xenonphon, Hell. 2.52-56; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 7:24-25), but they never entailed an individual's or a group's forced or willing departure from their ethnic identity. The synagogue institution portrayed within the Fourth Gospel's narrative world-both in the aposynagōgos texts (9:22; 12:42; 16:2) and in 6:59; 18:20-is almost certainly of the public/civic typology (Bernier 2013; Ryan 2017). In this paper, then, I will suggest that when considered in the light of accounts of conflict within Greco-Roman public institutions, John's aposynagōgos passages are plausibly understood, from an ethnographic point of view, as reflecting a situation within Judaism, in which Christ-confessing Jews did not abandon, loose, or become estranged from Jewishness but rather had lost their battle for socio-political influence within the public assembly.


Jewishness as Genealogy in the Fourth Gospel: Situating John's loudaioi within Debates over Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Wally V. Cirafesi, University of Oslo

Jewishness as Genealogy in the Fourth Gospel: Situating John's loudaioi within Debates over Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism


The Place of Priests in the Ancient Synagogue
Program Unit: Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World
Wally V. Cirafesi, University of Oslo

Scholarship on the ancient synagogue has maintained a strong dichotomy between the priestly leadership of the Jerusalem temple cult and the leadership of the synagogue, the latter of which supposedly was the arena of various non-priestly lay groups, such as the Pharisees, in the first centuries BCE and CE (e.g., Rivkin; Gutmann; Zeitlin; Hengel; Kee; Burtchaell; Claußen; Himmelfarb; Deines). Recently, scholars such as Lee Levine (1996; 2005), Donald Binder (1999), and Matthew Grey (2011) have questioned this dichotomy in light of the several sources that suggest priestly involvement in early synagogues, particularly those in the land of Israel (e.g., Theodotus Inscription; Philo, Prob. 80-83; Josephus, War 2:128-32). This idea, however, has remained underdeveloped in research on both the ancient synagogue and the Judean priesthood. By surveying a broader range of literary, epigraphic, and archaeological materials (e.g., Book of Sirach; recent Magdala synagogue remains; the Caesarea Inscription), this paper will argue that cultic personnel in the form of Judean priests and priestly culture were far more influential within synagogues than has been normally thought, and that this is true for both the pre-70 and post-70 CE periods. Two conclusions emerge from the analysis: (1) the ancient sources do not support the traditional dichotomy between the institutional spheres of a priestly temple cult and a non-priestly synagogue; and (2) synagogues in the land of Israel and the Jerusalem temple (while it stood) were neither competing institutions nor was the former a replacement of the latter. Both existed in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods as complementary religio-political institutions that, to a large extent, shared a similar leadership structure and served similar public-spatial functions, such as for the teaching of Torah, civic administration, and judiciary activity.


Legal Reasoning in Second Temple Judaism: The Case of the Deuteronomic Law of Kings
Program Unit: Biblical Law
Paul Cizek, Marquette University

The preservation of distinct legal corpora in the Pentateuch and the comparative analysis of these corpora have led numerous scholars to conclude that there was some form of systematized legal reasoning and/or jurisprudence in ancient Israel and early Judaism (e.g., Paganini 2013; Fraade 2011; Levinson 2008; 1997). Recently, some scholars have attempted to define these legal traditions more precisely by drawing analogies between the legal reasoning supposedly evident in Pentateuchal legal texts and either constitutional law or the common law tradition. For example, Patrick D. Miller (2004), commenting upon the position of the Decalogue in Exodus and Deuteronomy on the front end of Covenant Code and Deuteronomic Code respectively, concludes that the Decalogue functioned like a constitution that remained unchanged over time but needed to be applied and specified anew as new circumstances arose. And Dale Patrick (2014), commenting upon the preservation in the Pentateuch of the Covenant Code alongside the Deuteronomic Code—even though the latter apparently contemporizes the former, sees evidence that older law codes were not suppressed in ancient Israel and early Judaism, but rather became part of a growing common law tradition that remained normative and needed to be taken into account by the judges of each new generation. Yet, as Henry McKeating observed in 1979, such direct analysis of legal texts cannot provide insight into how such laws actually functioned; alternatively, analysis must be more indirect, investigating how such laws were actually used. Did the Decalogue function as an unchanged constitution to which successive generations appealed? Did the Covenant Code or the Deuteronomic Code function as normative legal traditions for subsequent generations? My own study follows McKeating's methodological proposal, tracing how the law of kings in Deuteronomy 17:14–20 was actually used during the Second Temple period in Daniel 5 (MT), the Temple Scroll (11Q19) LVI, 12–LIX, 21, the Damascus Document (CD) V, 1–2, and the Psalms of Solomon 17:33. My analysis reveals practices of legal reasoning far more diverse than Miller's or Patrick's constitutional law or common law proposals. While the study's limited scope on one Deuteronomic law cannot support generalizations about legal reasoning in the Second Temple period, the study's conclusions are significant for those interested in how Pentateuchal laws actually functioned in the Second Temple period.


The Authority of Deuteronomy in the Second Temple Period
Program Unit: Book of Deuteronomy
Paul Cizek, Marquette University

There is a general consensus that Deuteronomy—as part of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch—achieved some level of authority among some Jews during the Second Temple period, but the nature of this authority is a contested issue. Eckart Otto (2007; 2011) has demonstrated how postexilic Zadokite Priestly authors/redactors updated Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch with formula (e.g., Deut 4:2; 13:1; 34:10–12) meant to limit the bounds of God's revelation to Israel within the Pentateuch and exclude claims of divine revelation beyond the Pentateuch through prophecy. But as Otto has observed within Jeremiah and the Temple Scroll, prophetic circles and non-Zadokite priestly circles attempted to circumvent the Deuteronomic formula, thereby claiming access to divine revelation and undercutting Deuteronomy's authority. Otto's work, thus, lays the groundwork for nuancing any simple claim that the book of Deuteronomy was authoritative in the Second Temple period. As Timothy H. Lim notes, any claims about textual must be nuanced by the question, Authoritative for whom? My study attempts to explore in what ways and for whom Deuteronomy was authoritative during the early Second Temple period, focusing upon how the Deuteronomic law pertaining to false witnesses (Deut 19:15–21) was appropriated within Susanna (esp. 61–62), the Temple Scroll (11Q19 LXI 5–10), and the Damascus Document (CD 9:9–10:3). Comparative analysis of how each Second Temple author applied and/or innovated upon their common Deuteronomic base text provides a glimpse into the ways in which the book of Deuteronomy functioned as an authoritative text during the Second Temple period.


Hidden Wounds: Exploring an Intersectional Understanding of Violence in Jeremiah 5–6
Program Unit: Book of Jeremiah
Juliana Claassens, Universiteit van Stellenbosch - University of Stellenbosch

Beyond the virulent portrayal of imperial violence in Jeremiah 5-6 that is rightly described as “terror all around” (Jer 6:25), one also finds other forms of violation that are no less injurious (cf. the repeated reference to “wounds” in Jer 6:7, 14). This paper proposes that it is important also to recognize forms of structural violence in this text that take into consideration factors such as gender, race and class that manifest itself as hidden wounds, which, if left unattended, may fester and return with a vengeance. This paper argues that a more nuanced and multi-faceted understanding of violence in the book of Jeremiah is helpful in dealing with the complex manifestations of violence in many contexts today. Such an intersectional understanding of violence recognizes that the deep wounds caused by poverty, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia will come back to haunt us if we do not engage in what Shelly Rambo calls “wound work” (Resurrecting Wounds: Living in the Aftermath of Trauma, p 92), i.e., surfacing and attending to the wounds caused by structural violence.


Nolite te bastardes carborundorum: Insidious Trauma in the Story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
L Juliana Claassens, Universiteit van Stellenbosch - University of Stellenbosch

This paper will investigate the notion of insidious trauma as a helpful means of interpreting the story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah as told in Genesis 29-30 that has found its way into the haunting trauma narrative of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This paper considers the way in which these trauma narratives, on the one hand, reflect the ongoing effects of systemic violation in terms of gender, race and class, but also how, embedded in these narratives there are signs of resistance that serve as the basis of survival of the self and also of others.


The Textual Afterlife of an Afterlife Text: Isaiah 26:19 in Early Reception
Program Unit: Book of Isaiah
Hannah Clardy, University of Edinburgh

Isaiah 26:19 is frequently explained as an early, if not the earliest, expression of belief in bodily resurrection in the Hebrew Bible, so it is of particular importance in understanding the origins of this belief. This paper addresses the development of afterlife belief in the Hebrew Bible, asking in particular what role Isaiah 26 in particular had in the process. Given the continuing lack of agreement surrounding the meaning of 26:19, the paper revisits the question of meaning beyond the simply "either/or" choice of metaphorical national restoration (Ezekiel 37) or physical resurrection (2 Maccabees 7). Part 1 of the paper argues that, if Isa 26:19 is interpreted in light of its immediate literary context of the communal prayer (ch. 26), some new concerns come to light, namely its highly polemical tone in regards to the "name" and "memory" of competing powers. Evidence from imperial inscriptions as well as from other parts of Isaiah points toward the problem of venerating deceased royalty. When one reads these Yahwistic statements within the proposed context of imperial claims, the "resurrection" statement appears in a new light. Part 2 of the paper is more exploratory in nature, and surveys early receptions of this text (i.e. MT, Daniel 12:2–3, the Greek translation, and the Targum), and makes the case that modern historical-critical interpretations of Isa 26:19 have been unduly informed by the reception of the verse and are therefore, at least to some degree, anachronistic. I offer evidence that the earliest situational context for Isaiah 26 was later replaced with the varying contexts and concerns of later communities, most notably the developing beliefs about resurrection, post-mortem judgment, and the afterlife. Though later Jewish and Christian interpretations of the verse are valuable and interesting in their own right, this paper explores the possibility that the intense theological interest in the resurrection of the dead arising from subsequent socio-religious contexts has deflected attention from exegetically important details of the text.


Enslaving Elements and Weak Flesh: Evaluating Paul in Light of Ancient Greek Medical Discourse
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Ernest Clark, South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies

When Paul writes "we too were enslaved under the elements of the world," he means that the elements that compose the cosmos also compose and compromise the flesh and enslave human persons through their bodies (Gal 4.3). This paper argues that early Jews used the phrase stoicheia tou kosmou to refer to the material elements—earth, water, air, and fire—and not to elemental spirits or elementary principles. Greek medical tradition understood the material elements to mediate the stimuli (pathemata) and desires of the body which enslave the soul, and it prescribed a variety of regimens (including nomos) as paidagogoi to guide a person to wholeness. In his philosophy according to the cosmic elements, Philo promotes the law of Moses—including circumcision and the calendar—as the effective way to be "redeemed from slavery" to the flesh, to attain righteousness, and to live in harmony with the cosmos. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians opposes this sort of ‘redemptive nomism’. Paul accepts that weak stoicheia compose the weak sarx and that they mediate sinful stimuli and desires that lead to the actions of the flesh. However, he denies that the law can make people alive or righteous. Instead, Paul prescribes crucifixion with Christ and new life with the Spirit as the final cure for sin’s infection of the flesh made of weak stoicheia. Through faith, Christ will be formed in believers as the Spirit guides them away from the desires of the flesh and produces his fruit in their lives.


Welcoming the Other Rather Than Sweeping the Strangers and Outsiders in Your City: Luke's Rich Man, Lazarus, Boundaries, and Houseless Humans in Portland
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Ron Clark, Portland Seminary

While Luke's story of the Rich Man and Lazarus was an attempt to teach a well to do audience to show compassion for the poor, it also became a story concerning boundaries. The Rich Man would not cross boundaries to help Lazarus, therefore Lazarus could not cross a divide to help his suffering tenant. Since ancient communities dwelt with the poor rather than confining them to sections of the city, the boundaries were more than geographical. While historically US urban communities separated the upper class from the poor through housing projects or gated communities, society is changing as houseless individuals live in every major section of the city. Due to the rising populations of the houseless, poverty becomes present in every neighborhood as more and more individuals sleep on the streets and tents continue to increase creating exilic communities within the city. However non-geographical "boundaries" hinder our work in Portland with houseless individuals as we attempt to integrate men, women, and children into the fabric of our society. As we have begun to partner with coalitions to develop camps, tiny homes, and provide services for those on the streets it has become evident that helping these individuals requires the support and acceptance of community members, who continue to separate themselves from "those poor people." The use of "Police Sweeps" in Portland, to dislocate our Lazarean community has begun to create sympathy for these humans, a needed ethic among our community. Congregational leaders, and their congregations, have an important role in modeling “welcoming the others” who sleep outside in our cities, communities, and neighborhoods. Resistance from neighborhoods, law enforcement, service providers, and business owners has not only become a challenge but a barrier to "welcoming the stranger among us." Those who are "social refugees" not only struggle to find support from the community, but faith communities as well. Welcoming or accepting these individuals, families, and communities requires crossing boundaries of fear, judgment, and trust as our coalitions partner with others to create a "home" where peace, safety, and justice exist for social exiles needing support and love. In this paper I intend to discuss methods we are using to develop relationships and help our community "cross" these emotional/spiritual boundaries to create Luke's empire of justice, peace, mercy, and shalom.


Sweeping Off the Porch Where My Neighbor Sleeps: The Lucan Parable of the Rich Man, Lazarus, Boundaries, and Wondering Who Really is My Neighbor in Portland, Oregon.
Program Unit: Poverty in the Biblical World
Ron Clark, Portland Seminary

While the Lucan story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) was an attempt to teach a well to do audience to show compassion for the poor, it also became a story concerning boundaries. The rich man would not cross boundaries to help Lazarus, therefore Lazarus could not cross a divide to help his suffering tenant. Since ancient communities dwelt among the poor, rather than confining them to sections of the city, the boundaries were more than geographical. The Deuteronomist suggested that there would be “no poor among you,” (Deut 15:4). The promise of blessing on the land and the requirement to be “openhanded” towards those in need were safeguards to preventing poverty among the community of Yahweh. This was extremely important in “occupied Roman Palestine.” This Torah command lay in stark contrast to the Lucan “Rich Man” who allowed a vulnerable human to lay near his door and did little to help him. While historically US urban communities separated the upper class from the poor through housing projects or gated communities, society is changing as houseless individuals live in every major section of the city. Due to the rising populations of the houseless, poverty becomes present in every neighborhood as more and more individuals sleep on the streets and tents continue to increase as forced exilic communities within the city. However non-geographical "boundaries" hinder our work in Portland with houseless individuals as we attempt to integrate men, women, and children into the fabric of our society. As we have begun to partner with coalitions to develop camps, tiny homes, and provide services for those on the streets it has become evident that helping these individuals requires the support and acceptance of community members, who continue to separate themselves from "those poor people." The use of "Police Sweeps" in Portland, to dislocate our Lazarean community has begun to create sympathy for these humans, a needed ethic among our community. Our work to build new houseless communities through collaboration with agencies, schools, and congregations has also offered opportunities for individuals to “cross boundaries” and care for those who are “truly” our neighbors in “occupied American communities.”


Moses and the Kid, Judah and the Calf, and the Disavowal of Compassion
Program Unit: Animal Studies and the Bible
Geoffrey Claussen, Elon University

This paper draws on Aaron Gross’s book The Question of the Animal and Religion in analyzing two rabbinic stories regarding compassion for animals: a story of Judah the Patriarch disavowing compassion for a calf but later showing compassion to a group of young rats, and a story of Moses showing compassion for a young kid. The paper explores ways in which these two stories reveal the shared vulnerability of humans and animals, show animal agency, and have been understood as teaching compassion for all creatures. It then focuses on how these stories have been understood as encouraging compassion only in very limited ways, especially given the necessity of animal sacrifice, and it considers how while the narrative regarding Judah shows a transition towards greater compassion for animals, the narrative regarding Moses may be read as showing a transition in the opposite direction, from compassion to disavowing animal suffering.


Constructing Colonial Identity in Missive Discourse: Temporal-Spatial Movement in the Jedaniah “Archive” at Elephantine
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Lisa J. Cleath, George Fox University

This study will consider the materiality of the Jedaniah collection from Elephantine in light of process theory of identity and temporal-spatial discourse. The Jedaniah collection is composed of ten Aramaic documents, originating over the course of at least twenty years in the mid-fifth century BCE. The documents include copies of letters sent from and received by members inside of the “Jewish” community as well as Persian-backed authority figures. Since these texts were published in 1907, many scholars have discussed their content in relation to their “Jewish” themes, but few have questioned the theoretical frameworks employed for examining the material nature of the documents. A methodological framework will be presented that sets process theory of identity in conversation with Thomas Tweed’s temporal-spatial theory. Process theory of identity has developed in the context of post-colonial discourse in order to explore how colonialized communities over time construct hybrid, dynamic identities in response to and in development of the internalized experience of colonialization. Interacting with the work of Jon L. Berquist, Christiane Karrer-Grube, and Katherine E. Southwood, this study will suggest that the rule of the Persian Empire over the “Jewish” community on Elephantine and the inherent inter-cultural interactions in this sub-province of the Persian Empire should be examined through a lens that accounts for the dynamics of imperial power and the hybridity of process identity common to colonized communities. Moreover, it is appropriate to consider temporal-spatial movement in the Persian Empire as it is reflected and developed through the material artifacts of the Aramaic missives in the Jedaniah collection, since a missive by nature is a temporally-delayed text sent between geographically separated communities. The result of this missive communication is a distal community discourse that develops over time in a network of spatially removed community nodes and authorities. The spatial nature of this discourse suggests that Tweed’s analysis of space as differentiated, kinetic, interrelated, generated, and generative will be a productive means of analyzing these Aramaic letters as texts that actively construct colonized group identity across space and time. Analysis in light of process theory of identity and temporal-spatial theory will shed light on the challenges of the debated “Jewish” identity of the community constructed in the Aramaic letters of the Jedaniah collection.


Water and the Authenticity of Holy Sites in Early Christian Pilgrimage Narratives
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Rangar H. Cline, University of Oklahoma

The narrative sections of the Bordeaux Pilgrim's account of his journey (333 CE) begin and end with water - starting with Cornelius the centurion's bath at Caesarea and concluding with the baptismal spring at Bethsur and the well at Terebinthus. In her study of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, Susan Weingarten noted the importance of springs and wells for the pilgrim, counting fifteen mentions of water sources in the brief narrative section (ca. 130 lines). She noted that water sources would have been of importance to any traveler in the region and that the Roman world contained many healing springs and others that had magical and fertilizing powers. This paper pushes Weingarten's argument further and argues that descriptions of springs and water sources composed by the Bordeaux Pilgrim (333), Egeria (381-384), and the Piacenza Pilgrim (ca. 570) followed a Greek and Roman narrative tradition of using water sources to authenticate holy sites and demonstrate past and continuing epiphanies. The paper traces subtle shifts in the presentation of water sources in these texts, from the Bordeaux Pilgrim's use of springs to demonstrate authenticity, the role of Egeria's guides in showing her multiple springs that signaled divine presence and on-going epiphany, and the Piacenza Pilgrim's description of springs alongside other authenticating relics and vestigia. The paper concludes by suggesting that Egeria's and the Piacenza Pilgrim's narratives reveal the evolving complexity of pilgrims' encounters with water and its material presentation, as part of an immersive sensory experience that allowed the pilgrim to gain blessings and transport the miraculous power of the Holy Land homeward.


Synonyms in Classical Hebrew
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
David J.A. Clines, University of Sheffield

Not since the nineteenth century has any substantial work been done on Hebrew synonyms (and that was only scratching the surface). In an attempt to move the focus in Hebrew lexicography from the individual word to the relations between words, I have been creating sets of synonyms in Classical Hebrew. They have begun to appear as an element in the new Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised, each of its 10,000 words (lemmas) being furnished with a list of its synonyms. It is surprising, and not generally known, how very many there are. The average Hebrew word has 4 synonyms, but some have many more (50+ for strength, 30+ for darkness). Fewer than 10% of words have no synonym. This paper will deal with (1) definitional and theoretical issues about identifying synonyms, (2) the number and scope of those synonyms, and (3) inferences that may be made about the character of the Hebrew language (what may be said of a language that is so rich in synonyms though now so poorly attested, with its textual remains amounting to only c. 400,000 words, half the length of Shakespeare?).


Denominative Verbs in Classical Hebrew
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
David J.A. Clines, University of Sheffield

Our lexica label certain verbs as “denominative”, that is, derived from a noun, as are the English “to school”, “to hoover” or “to junk”. The term is problematic for Hebrew because we know so little about the history of the Hebrew language, and cannot affirm that a given noun is older than its supposedly denominative verb. But we can rehabilitate the term by removing it from the sphere of time (one earlier, one later) and transferring it to the sphere of logic (the meaning of a denominative verb presupposes and incorporates that of a noun). Thus the verb khn “act as a priest” incorporates the meaning of the noun kohen “priest” and is logically dependent on the existence of the noun; likewise the verb qyn “lament” incorporates qinah “lamentation” and spp “stand at the threshold’ incorporates sap “threshold”. No lexicon or other source has collected anything like the 330 such denominative verbs in Classical Hebrew that I have identified for the new edition of the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised, now beginning to appear. In this paper I am analysing ten types of relationship between denominative verbs and their nouns, in categories such as resultative (to make something into an X, e.g. make bricks), instrumental (to use X, e.g. build a wall), performative (to do or perform X, e.g. be an archer) and privative (to remove X from something, e.g. clear of ashes). Most interesting are cases where a new word must be postulated as a denominative verb. For example: ’tsr “store up” appears to mean in one place “appoint as a treasurer”, but that cannot be the meaning of such a hiphil; we must suppose instead another verb ’tsr “be a treasurer”, derived from a noun ’otser "treasurer". The verb bnh "build" twice means in niphal, apparently, “have a son”; that too has to be a second bnh, derived from ben “son”, and not directly connected with bnh "build". The verb ‘tr “surround” appears to mean in piel and hiphil “crown”; that also must be another, denominative. verb, in this case from the noun ‘ateret “crown”.


Women in Syria and the Syrophoenician Woman
Program Unit: Student Advisory Board
Christy Cobb, Wingate University

At the end of 2016, the siege on Aleppo, Syria by the Assad regime was becoming increasingly intense. Desperate for information, I scoured the Internet to determine what was happening in Aleppo. Many news sources, it seems, were failing to report the gruesome genocide that was occurring. In my search to find sources, I turned to Twitter. I found twitter accounts of people who remained in rebel-held Aleppo and were live-tweeting their experiences. As I started clicking and reading, I stumbled across the twitter account of Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana), who was only 7 years old when her city fell. Her mother, Fatemah, recorded Bana’s cries for people in the world to listen. She wrote on her daughter’s account: “Dear world, we are running out of food, hospitals. Dear world, why are you watching this unmoved?” (9/18/2016). A day later, Bana herself wrote: “Stop the bombing – Bana” (9/29/2016). This mother and daughter were crying for help to anyone who would listen, but the world seemed to ignore them. As I read the tweets and watched the videos, I thought of the story of the Syrophoenician woman from the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. The Syrophoenician woman, desperate for help for her daughter, interrupts Jesus during his search for peace and quiet. She shouts, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!” (Mt. 15:22). But Jesus refuses to listen. Even more, the disciples attempt to silence her imploring Jesus: “Send her away, she keeps shouting after us.” (15:23) This woman refuses to be silenced or sent away, even after Jesus says directly to her: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” (Mk 7:27; Mt. 15:26) She responds: “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:28). In Mark, Jesus reluctantly heals her daughter; in Matthew’s retelling, Jesus commends her faith. Connecting the Syrophoenician woman to these women in Aleppo is my “aposiopesis.” I still follow this mother and daughter on twitter; Bana is now well known, she has even published a book containing her story. In their words, I hear the voice of the Syrophoenician woman asking for help and being silenced. Yet, each time I sit down to write something substantial about this connection, I cannot finish it. The standards of proper biblical interpretation block me at each turn. My nascent understanding of the complexity of Syrian history and politics shrink me from the page. But the voices of suffering women and the ghosts of women who came before them will not let me go. Moreover, I wonder about the ways that contemporary Christianity aligns with Jesus in this story, refusing to hear the voices of the marginalized from this part of the world. I imagine that the Syrophoenician woman of the gospels remains in our world today asking, “Dear world, there's intense bombing right now. Why are you silent? Why? Why? Why? Fear is killing me & my kids.” (Twitter, 12/14/2016).


Review of J. Walton's Old Testament Theology for Christians, and R. Gane's Old Testament Law for Christians
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Gary Cockerill, Wesleyan Biblical Seminary (Emeritus)

Review of J. Walton's Old Testament Theology for Christians, and R. Gane's Old Testament Law for Christians


FastText: A Computational Semantic Approach to Lexical Choice in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Mathias Coeckelbergs, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

In this contribution, we critically evaluate the potential of FastText for the study of lexical interchangeability in the Hebrew Bible. Single concepts, such as ‘receiving’ or ‘arising’, can linguistically be realized in a variety of different ways, qbl or lqh ̣, and, qwm or ‘md, respectively. This phenomenon of near-synonymy can be described in terms of lexical choice in a series of specific lexical contexts. Rezetko and Young have explored multiple examples of the tendency of specific texts to favor specific lexical variants over others in the Hebrew Bible (“Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew: Steps Toward an Integrated Approach”, 2014, most notably pp. 263-318), which they use to characterize the traditional distinction between early and late biblical texts as a mere stylistic difference. For each of the cases they present, they provide a survey of all biblical texts, with the addition of occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira. There is to date, however, no quantitative study of the exact context in which these attestations can be found. In this presentation, we use word embeddings to evaluate whether the contexts of the near-synonyms proposed by Rezetko and Young are similar, and if so, to what extent they are similar. Do these near-synonyms genuinely present opportunities for lexical choice? We place our results next to those of Rezetko and Young, to fill in the contextual blanks. This method also allows us to identify other lexical items that are semantically closely related to the synonyms under scrutiny. The present investigation uses state of the art computational methods to create abstract, numerical, algebraic representations of the contexts in which a word is found. These representations are described as word embeddings, viz. they capture the context in which a word is embedded. The word embeddings of FastText, in contrast to most machine learning algorithms, do not need a large training set to provide salient results. They hence include a lexical item’s collocates, but do so in a way which makes it possible to compare the contexts using relatively straightforward linear algebra. They have proven incredibly efficient and valuable for artificially intelligent systems used and developed by major technology companies like Google and Facebook. The FastText library from Facebook’s AI laboratory is an openly available word embeddings module that has features making it particularly suitable for small corpora with morphologically rich data, such as the Hebrew Bible. Our study of the representation of word contexts as higher-level vectors is exploratory, but promising: it yields new insights into the study of near-synonymy and the methodological challenges not only of identifying, but also quantifying lexical choice and degrees of semantic equivalence.​


The Mishnaic Rabbi and the Matthean Jesus: Comparison, Commonalities, and Contrasts
Program Unit: Matthew
Akiva Cohen, Independent Israeli New Testament Scholar

In this paper I engage Moshe Simon-Shoshan's Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford Press, 2012), wherein he distinguishes between two basic categories of authority of religious leadership in antiquity: the leader as an authority, and the leader in authority: the former deriving from certain inherent qualities or abilities, and the latter deriving from a position one holds within a certain social or political structure. Simon-Shoshan's rabbinic-authority categories may be helpfully enlisted as they apply to the Matthean Jesus. The mishnaic "rabbi" is normally depicted as deriving his authority from the category of "wisdom," with only a very minor acknowledgement as a miracle-worker, or ascetic. By selectively examining one exemplar story of both the halakic authority type and the charismatic miracle worker type in both the Mishnah and in Matthew's Gospel, I aim to compare how each of these texts presents, respectively, the mishnaic Rabbi, and the Matthean Jesus. In the exemplar stories in the Mishnah, Simon-Shoshan's deft unpacking of the halakic issues each exemplar story brings to the fore, helps us see how the editors of the Mishnah navigate threats to (emerging) normative halakah. The ambiguities of the Mishnah's discourse leave the reader with an open reading of these exemplar stories, precisely what the editors intended, viz., that the reader would encounter these exemplum stories in dialogue with one another forcing the reader to engage more in questions than ready conclusions. Nonetheless, even this very selective comparison and limited selection demonstrates that halakic norms are extremely important to the rabbis, to their hegemony of authority, and to community stability. If ambiguous instances of halakic authority present obstacles to be overcome by the Tannaim, the miracle worker, or hasid is more problematic yet. This type of authority (the miracle worker) does not 'fit' the normative rabbinic model of authority and thus represents a more volatile and more complex type to be overcome by the mishnaic rabbis in their ongoing program of establishing their authority and community norms. With the above background, or foil, I then proceed to discuss an example of each type or exemplar story from two Matthean pericopae. My goal is first to discuss them within their Matthean narrative and social contexts, and then to compare both the mishnaic rabbi and the Matthean Jesus. In sum, the goal of my comparison is to bring these texts into contact with each other, and to see what light such a comparison may shed upon our understanding of each: their programmatic agendas, and how each respective text seeks to establish their authority figures: one seeking to establish the authority of the Rabbi of the Mishnah and the other of the Matthean Jesus.


Gideon's Royal Feast
Program Unit: Meals in the HB/OT and Its World
Margaret Cohen, W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

Whether Gideon assumed kingship enjoys no scholarly consensus. Though the text itself puts words of refusal in Gideon’s mouth at the offer of kingship, the events of the larger narrative provide adequate grounds to debate whether his denial is credible. Typically, this debate centers on the philosophy of kingship proffered by one or more hands behind the book of Judges, the nature of Gideon’s authority as priest or judge, or the relationship between Gideon’s account and that of Abimelech. One aspect of the narrative which has received little attention is whether Gideon provides a public, royal feast, as does, for example, David when he delivers the Ark to Jerusalem. Gideon’s entire narrative arc in Judges 6-9 includes numerous references to foodstuffs and food preparation activities. These specific inclusions in the story reflect deconstructed components of a royal feast, elements of food and drink which function in the biblical text and in the wider Near Eastern world to negotiate political hierarchy, to fulfill ritual needs, and to legitimize authority. Together with other royal signifiers, the meal portions of Gideon's narrative argue for the assumption of kingship.


Almanah and Yatom in Genesis 21
Program Unit: Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
Noam Cohen, New York University

The MT narrative of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21 contains a jarring syntactical disjunction. After their provisions are used up and Ishmael begins to die, Hagar puts the boy down, raises her voice, and cries. Gen 21:17 then twice mentions that God heard the voice of the boy. This disjunction in who cries and whose voice is heard has led several ancient writers (Septuagint and Jubilees) and modern scholars to emend the text to make either Hagar or Ishmael both cry and be heard. These solutions are inadequate, however, as the MT reading, which is also preserved in the SP and Vulgate, is the lectio difficilior. An adoption of the smoother versions of the expulsion narrative leads one to miss the intentionality behind the disjunction in the narrative. This paper suggests that a key to understanding the lectio difficilior is our new understanding of Hagar and Ishmael as Biblical Hebrew almanah and yatom respectively. Despite it commonly being translated into English as “orphan,” yatom refers to “a child without a living paterfamilias.” One text which attests to a yatom with a living mother but a dead father is Ex 22:23, which imagines a scenario where an almanah and her yatom son are both alive. The common use of almanah and yatom together as a word pair suggests that their meanings should be largely parallel. We therefore propose a translation of almanah as “a woman who was formerly connected with a man (who was not her father or brother), but is now without a supporting male family member,” a definition which works well with the repeated use of almanah in the Pentateuch to refer to a social class in need of assistance. This definition is supported by the Akkadian cognate almattu, which CAD translates as “woman without support,” in addition to the more commonly used translation of “widow.” One example of almattu functioning primarily in relation to male-supplied financial support can be seen in Middle Assyrian Law 33: “If her husband and her father-in-law are both dead, and she has no son, she is an almattu.” Our new definition of almanah would include Hagar, a slave-concubine who was expelled by Abraham with no financial support, and whose son was not yet old enough to provide for her. Similarly, Abraham’s expulsion of Ishmael dissolves their father-son relationship, making Ishmael into a yatom. With Hagar and Ishmael established as almanah and yatom, we suggest that the disjunction in Genesis 21 is an allusion to the almanah-yatom law in Ex 22:21-23. The law begins by including both the almanah and yatom, but ends with God hearing the cry of the yatom specifically, and the expulsion narrative in Genesis 21 begins with an almanah and yatom, and specifically ends with the yatom being heard, which is accentuated by the mention of the almanah, but not yatom crying out.


Either/or or Both/and? How Do Revealed Eschatology and Revealed Wisdom Relate to Each Other?
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Adela Yarbro Collins, Yale University

Rather than continuing the debate about whether eschatology or cosmology is the point of departure in the study of the impact of apocalypticism on the New Testament, I will propose in my remarks that future work focus on how the two are related in particular works. Another helpful focus would be on how particular passages blend the two.


The Importance of Source Criticism and Composition Criticism in the Interpretation of Revelation
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Adela Collins, Yale University

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The Dogs of Philippians 3: Furthering Recent Proposals
Program Unit: Pauline Epistles
Ryan D. Collman, University of Edinburgh

The scholarly trope that Jews commonly referred to gentiles as dogs, has colored exegesis of Philippians 3:2 for centuries. This view gave rise to the interpretation that when Paul calls his opponents “dogs,” he is inverting this epithet ironically and using it to identify them as Jews. Recently, Mark Nanos has demonstrated how baseless this age-old interpretation is. His investigation of the Jewish sources establishes that nowhere in these texts do Jews use dog as a slur towards gentiles. His work cleaned the slate and opened up space for sorting out this invective and passage, which remain puzzling. Following in the footsteps of Nanos, Matthew Thiessen is the most recent scholar to offer new insights Paul’s on employment of the term dog. He argues from the perspective that Paul’s use of dog is similar to Jesus’ usage in the Gospels (Mark 7:24-30; Matt 15:21-26) and should be read in the context of a mission to gentiles and essentialist constructions of ethnicity. This paper seeks to interact with and build off of their work, offering an additional interpretive layer to Paul’s employment of the term dog. Here, I suggest that in addition to Paul’s use of dog as an ethnic identifier, it is also possible that he also employs it as a vulgarity that identifies the object of his opponents’ obsession: their circumcised penises. Read alongside the other invectives in Philippians 3:2 and the broader argument in which they occur, this reading provides evidence that each component of his tripartite warning takes aim at the opponents’ obsession with and promotion of Judaizing circumcision, which sets Paul up to make his claim to the title of “the circumcision.”


Soliciting Divine Manifestations: Proto-orthodox Practices in the Late-Second and Early-Third Century CE
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Jason Robert Combs, Brigham Young University

During the second and third centuries CE, epiphanies featured prominently in the literature, letters, inscriptions, and art of the pagan (non-Jewish, non-Christian) world that Christians inhabited. The gods revealed the future, offered protection, commanded particular actions or honors, punished, and performed miraculous healings in dreams and visions. Building on the work of both Jacqueline Amat and Patricia Cox Miller, I situate early Christian divine and demonic encounters within this broader Greco-Roman context. Christian discourse on dreams and epiphanies was often engaged in distinguishing Christian practices from those of the pagan world. Drawing upon recent work in the anthropology of dreams (e.g., Crapanzano, Mittermaier, etc.), this study examines the practices that Christians adopted and developed for eliciting divine manifestations. Some Christians may have engaged in practices common to their location alongside their pagan neighbors—magic, local temple rites, etc. Yet Christian authors, such as Tatian, Athenagoras, Tertullian, and others, sought to distinguish Christianity from other forms of religious life in part by defining proper and improper dream practices. Tertullian, for instance, distinguishes between Christian and pagan forms of fasting as a means of eliciting divine manifestations (e.g., De Ieiunio 11–12). He likewise distinguishes between pagan and Christian locations, such as the theater and the church respectively, according to the influence of those locations on the demonic or divine character of the otherworldly being one might encounter (e.g., contrast De Anima 9.4 with De Spec. 26). Focusing on Christian engagement with space and other embodied practices, I show how such practices helped Christians to navigate their social contexts—succeeding, in part, through the very act of expanding those contexts to include the otherworldly.


The Shepherd of Hermas and the Problem of Non-Christian Epiphany
Program Unit: Religious Experience in Antiquity
Jason Robert Combs, Brigham Young University

Shepherd of Hermas exemplifies a practical problem that confronted early Christians: how to respond to the epiphanic activity of non-Christian deities. When the “shepherd” first appears (Herm. Vis. 25.1-4), Hermas believes that the shepherd has come to either test or tempt him (Greek: ekpeirazō). Since Hermas typically encounters benevolent angels and since this otherworldly being is later revealed to be benevolent, scholars often translate ekpeirazō as “test” rather than “tempt” (e.g., Osiek; Ehrman; etc.). I argue, however, that Hermas’s reaction and his interpretation of the otherworldly being’s intentions is better represented by the word “tempt” (cf. Lampe). By situating this account from the Shepherd of Hermas within the broader context of epiphanic encounters in early Christianity and the wider Greco-Roman world, I demonstrate why the manifestation of a divine being in the form of a shepherd was problematic and how Christians responded to this problem. Christians would eventually adopt the image of the shepherd from pagan art because of its association with Christian and Jewish textual traditions. Yet the image of the young shepherd was more widely recognized as a representation of the pagan god, Hermes—occasionally Apollo or Orpheus. Since it was commonly accepted that gods were identifiable in dreams by association with their images, the manifestation of a divine being in the form of a shepherd would most readily be identified as a pagan god. The most common Christian response to the problematic manifestation of non-Christian deities was to identify them as malicious demons intent on leading Christians astray. Hermas evinces this perspective when he questions the Shepherd’s intent and believes the manifestation to be a temptation.


Texts, Trade, and Travel: The Letters of Dionysios of Corinth
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Cavan W. Concannon, University of Southern California

Modern historians map the diversity of early Christianity in a variety of ways, from declines into heresy to competition among “varieties” of early Christianities. Drawing particularly on the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze and Bruno Latour, this paper argues that we might better map the remains of second-century Christianity by focusing on networks of people, ideas, and letters that moved along broader patterns of trade and communication in the eastern Mediterranean. Focusing on the costs, velocities, and viscosities of movement and commerce, I examine the network associated with Dionysios of Corinth, whose writings come to us only as fragments and summaries in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. I show how non-human actants such as geography, economic activity, and trade routes shape the interactions within Dionysios’ network, allowing us to think more broadly about second-century Christianity as a series of emergent networks that form, coalesce, and dissolve in the flow of movement and connectivity that characterized the Roman Mediterranean.


Ignatius Peregrinus: Ignatius of Antioch as a Voluntary Martyr
Program Unit: Student Advisory Board
Cavan W. Concannon, University of Southern California

Ignatius of Antioch is famous for his anticipated death as a Christian martyr, having left us a series of letters penned on his journey to Rome, imprisoned and anticipating trial. But what if he wasn’t? What if—as I speculate—he was actually a voluntary traveler who sought martyrdom for himself? In this paper, I follow my hunch that Ignatius wasn’t a Roman prisoner at all, but rather had deliberately chosen to travel to Rome in order to become a martyr, stopping by a number of early Christian collectives along the way. My hypothesis that Ignatius was staging his martyrdom is based on the long and expensive travel route that he took from Antioch to Rome, a route that would have been far more expensive to the Roman state than shipping him directly to Rome from Antioch by ship. Ignatius’ travel seems intentionally staged for the gaze of Christian collectives in Asia Minor and Macedonia (and beyond). A staged journey to martyrdom also coheres with Ignatius’ own rhetoric about conflict in his home collective of Antioch: in response to stasis at home, Ignatius has voluntarily chosen to sacrifice himself to encourage factions in Antioch to reconcile themselves and to do so by presenting himself as a traveling martyr-in-the-making to other Christian collectives, increasing the social pressure on the Antiochenes to find a path to homonoia. Ultimately, my hunch is that Ignatius was so effective at staging his martyrdom that he became the martyr par excellence for future followers of Jesus. But what if he made it all up?


Theopolitics, Archaeology, and the Ideology of the Museum of the Bible
Program Unit: Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship
Cavan W. Concannon, University of Southern California

Archaeology has always been political. The excavation of ancient sites has long been tied to national identity and the findings of archaeologists continue to be sifted through the lens of nationalist politics. Archaeology can also be theo-political. Biblical archaeologists have long been conscripted into fights between Israelis and Palestinians over the meaning of their “discoveries.” Archaeology in Israel and elsewhere has also been used in arguments about the historicity of the biblical narratives, arguments that are really about whether the Bible is an authoritative and divinely inspired source of legal, theological, and moral authority. The theo-political use of archaeology is on full display in the newly-opened Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. With a massive footprint, a $500 million price tag, and a location just blocks away from the Capitol, the Museum makes a powerful argument about the historicity and value of the Bible through a selective deployment of its collection, much of which is drawn from the 40,000 objects and manuscripts owned by the Museum’s founder Steve Green, the conservative evangelical owner of Hobby Lobby. In this paper, I show how the Museum uses archaeological materials to argue for the historicity of the Bible, an argument that is tied to larger political interests in presenting the US as a Christian nation that should be governed more in line with evangelical theology. This paper, based on several visits to the Museum, includes close readings of several different aspects of the Museum’s presentation and collection of archaeological materials: the use of ancient objects in a modern re-creation of Jesus’s Nazareth, a series of documentary-style videos that are featured throughout the Museum (called “Drive Thru History”), the Museum’s collection practices and selective curation, and the use of objects borrowed from state archaeological services (such as the Israeli Antiquities Authority) or copied and displayed as facsimiles in the Museum’s exhibits. The paper will also ask about the ethical role that biblical scholars and archaeologists have in engaging with the Museum.


Envisioning the Invisible: A Materialist Analysis of the Late Antique Shrine of SS Cyrus and John
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Jordan Conley, Boston University

This paper considers the late antique shrine of SS Cyrus and John located at Menouthis (modern Abuquir) at the Canopic mouth of the Nile in antiquity-about twelve miles east of Alexandria. Before it developed into a Christian healing shrine, Menouthis served as an important cult center of Isis and throughout its history the site maintained its function as a locus of healing and pilgrimage-likely reaching its height of fame and popularity (in its Christian iteration, at least) in the sixth and seventh centuries CE. However, despite its attested appeal, the only substantial accounts of the shrine and its pilgrims are preserved by a single author-Sophronius, the patriarch of Jerusalem (c. 560-638 CE), who claims have been healed of an eye complaint by the saints and, in exchange, composes a detailed account of the miraculous healings at Menouthis. In his miracle accounts, Sophronius depicts the shrine as a vibrant, visceral space of material and bodily entanglements: bodies erupt, blood gushes, reptiles slither, crowds gather, attendants hasten. The saints, though perhaps ephemeral, are also physically-even alarmingly-interactive. Indeed, Sophronius does not simply describe a compelling thaumaturgical display, but in fact depicts the shrine as a full "sensorium." In this sense, the text invites a materialist, synesthetic analysis of the space, context, and participants of the shrine-an analysis that is complicated, however, by the complete lack of surviving material remains. Due to the lack of artifactual and archaeological evidence, the shrine of SS Cyrus and John has not been subjected to the types of spatial-structural analyses that have been performed on comparative sites, including Abu Mena and Qal'at Sem'an. Though its immateriality does not preclude considerations of Menouthis as both "constructed" in the literature and located in a broader sacred topography, this paper offers other, additional means of approaching the physical place and ritual space of the shrine. That is, though the lack of archaeological evidence presents obvious methodological challenges for scholars accustomed to working with physical remains, it also creates an opportunity for the shrine to be re-populated, re-invigorated, and re-imagined in accordance with approaches typically reserved for material analyses. In offering a glimpse of what such a materialist, sensory analysis of the shrine of SS Cyrus and John might look like, this paper outlines the ways in which the physical and spatial features of the shrine, as described or implied by Sophronius, inform visitors' movements and perceptions. In lieu of an exhaustive approach, the paper identifies several areas of social and ritual potential, each of which lends insight into the various sensory features and physical affordances of the shrine, and hence contributes to an understanding of the ways in which the space was negotiated at both the individual and the collective levels. Moreover, by exploring ways in which to glean material insights from absent remains, this paper engages in a broader methodological intervention in the study of late antique sites (both extant and non-extant) associated with pilgrimage, incubation, and divine healing.


Hungering and Thirsting for Resurrection: Origen’s "On First Principles" and the Realities of Food Scarcity in Antiquity
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Karen Connor McGugan, Harvard University

The issue of a general resurrection was, in second and third century Christianity, a source of intense debate. Proponents of bodily resurrection struggled to describe the nature, appearance, and function of the resurrected body—a body that would be the same as it was during life and also different, defined simultaneously by undeniable continuity and profound transformation. What would such a body look like? What would it be able to do? What, if anything, would it need to do? Since the hypothetical resurrection body would be unrestrained by the limitations of mortality, early Christians were free to answer these questions in whatever ways they saw fit. Questions concerning the role of food and drink in the resurrection provoked a uniquely diverse and charged set of responses: Some literary sources insist that eating and drinking will be unnecessary and even impossible for the resurrected body, while others describe a resurrection characterized by lavish feasting. The persuasive projects that underlie these responses, however, are arguably indicative of the elite nature of our sources: the resurrected body’s relationship to food is constructed and deployed in discourses around necessary and natural desires, the formation of the self, Christ’s resurrected body, millenarianism, and Christian participation in Roman burial practices, among others. One topic seems conspicuously absent: nowhere in the extant literature is the question of nutrition in the resurrection explicitly used to think about hunger. Is it possible to reconstruct a greater diversity of ancient imaginaries concerning the resurrection body? Origen’s "On First Principles" polemicizes against (supposedly) unintelligent and lustful Christians who insist that they will eat in the resurrection, using this position as a foil against which to argue for his own, less fleshly understanding of the resurrected body. As Origen tells it, these Christians justify their position through overly literal interpretations of scripture. In this paper, I explore the ways in which this “simplistic” hermeneutical approach is, throughout Origen’s corpus, associated with a distinct rhetorical category of persons: the level at which one interprets scripture often seems to correlate not only with intellectual capacity but also with socio-economic status. "Against Celsus", for example, describes Christians incapable of allegorical readings as “country bumpkins” (hoi agroikoi) and those mired in poverty. I then turn to contemporaneous evidence for regular food shortages among non-elite persons in the Roman Empire. Galen’s "On the Properties of Foodstuffs" provides what claim to be eyewitness accounts of the culinary habits of hoi agroikoi as a way of defining the limits of a civilized diet: In situations of economic vulnerability, where are the boundaries of what is acceptable to eat, and what are the somatic effects of these questionable foods? I argue that, based on evidence from Origen’s larger corpus and from contemporaneous sources, we should understand his invective against those who hope for an eating, drinking resurrected body in the context of chronic food scarcity. For at least some Christians in the second and third centuries, resurrection may have represented access to food and drink not attainable during life.


The Spirit of Life: Vision and Empowerment for Public Engagement in Eastern Europe
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Corneliu Constantineanu, University of Arad

The historical context of Eastern Europe is a very complex one and the legacy of the totalitarian regime is still visible today in several areas of life. One such issue is the atrophy of the capacity for dreaming, for envisioning a better world, the capacity for imagination and hope. It becomes obvious that one of the most important and urgent tasks of the church in this context is to search for and articulate a solid public theology of culture, of work, of social engagement, of justice and reconciliation, of hope, a public theology for the common good and human flourishing. In this paper I would like to address the particular question of the place and role of the Spirit not only as the foundation of Christian life but also for the recovering of the dreaming, imagination and vision. It explores various facets of the activity of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of life, of empowerment, the spirit of prophetic hope, of truth, of solidarity, of boundary-crossing. It is argued that such an understanding of the Spirit is both faithful to the biblical witness and empowering for a particular presence and engagement of Christians in the public life.


Interventions in the "Reception" of the Bible
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
Colleen Conway, Seton Hall University

My recent book Sex and Slaughter in the Text of Jael: A Cultural History of a Biblical Story (Oxford Press, 2016) is framed as a case study for how one might study “cultural performances” of biblical texts. The book offers in-depth analyses of several cultural moments in which the biblical tradition of Jael and Sisera proved useful for both reflecting and shaping contemporary debates about gender, sex, power and violence. Given this project, my contributions on a panel discussion would be focus on certain methodological interventions that undergirded the book. One such intervention concerns the use of the term “reception.” While the term has become quite firmly engrained in biblical scholarship and perhaps is a useful in some cases, I join other scholars in urging a consideration of the limits of the term. Especially in the case of artistic renditions of biblical traditions, I suggest that the “use” of the bible and its ongoing “effects” are not receptive as much as performative. Cultural uses of biblical traditions transmit and transform ancient stories, again, by speaking with and through these traditions to contribute to more immediate cultural conversations. In this case, the study of the use and impact of biblical traditions apart from ecclesial and theological contexts can be particularly revealing in terms of what elements of a tradition become the key “talking points” of the tradition. A second intervention concerns how biblical scholars have tended toward the “artist as exegete” model for analyzing the intersection between Bible and visual art. While this may be appropriate in some circumstances, in many instances it overlooks other factors that contribute to the production of a particular painting. I urge a more nuanced consideration of the ways that visual art intersections with the Bible. Following Mieke Bal, one can acknowledge the biblical “pre-text” of the work, while also considering the ways that the “visual narrative” of the painting may respond to or revise the tradition, again often in ways that link with the cultural setting and conditions for artistic project.


AI and Gender in the Garden: Ex Machina and Genesis 2-3
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Colleen Conway, Seton Hall University

Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015) sets a modern, sleek laboratory in the midst of a lush garden for an exploration of humanity, sexuality, and artificial intelligence. The film concerns the relationship between a young man, Caleb, and Ava, a gynoid. The film presents the viewer with clear evocations of Genesis 2-3, but to what end? This paper explores the role of Ava in the context of the filmic use of fembots and the history of reception of Eve. On the one hand, it appears that Ava should take her place in the long line of femme fatales issuing from interpretations of the “cunning” Eve. On the other, she is arguably truly posthuman and thus postgender. What might this mean for alternative readings of Eve in the garden? This paper explores the intersections between Ex Machina Genesis 2-3, exploring how the film pushes the boundaries of interpretations of Eve, while never quite escaping traditional hermeneutical patterns.


Paratextual Rewriting as Theory and (Reading) Practice: The Case of the Eusebian Gospel Apparatus
Program Unit: Religious World of Late Antiquity
Jeremiah Coogan, University of Notre Dame

In the early fourth century CE, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–339) devised a paratextual system to guide the reading of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as a bibliographic and canonical unity. This system of reference tables and marginal section numbers was the first set of cross-references ever devised and enjoyed widespread reception from Late Antiquity onward. Encoded within Eusebius’ gospel apparatus were numerous creative juxtapositions, invitations to particular exegetical and theological readings of the gospels. Eusebius’ project presents a question about the intersection between theory and methodology: Post-structural literary criticism posits as axiomatic that to change a text is to rewrite it. Yet what does this “rewriting” mean for the experience of the reader of Eusebius’ system? How would we know? Literary theorists such as Barthes, de Certeau, Derrida, and Genette posit (each in their own way) that to change a text or its context of reading is to rewrite that text. Rewriting, moreover, includes what Gérard Genette has called “paratexts”—features such as headings, tables of contents, and so forth. These interventions present the text to the reader and serve as “thresholds of interpretation” (Genette, /Paratexts/, 1). Jerome McGann has extended Genette’s insights, arguing with reference to the work of William Blake and Emily Dickinson that text, layout, and material features together instantiate “the text” available to the reader. Scholars of manuscripts have long noted something similar; the range of critical perspectives often termed “New Philology” emphasize that every material artifact offers a different “text” for the reader. These insights are heuristically helpful, and enable us to situate Eusebius’ paratextual intervention within longer trajectories of gospel (re)writing. Yet even if paratextual interventions like Eusebius’ system of cross-references constitute a sort of rewriting, what difference do they make? What method can one employ to /see/ the difference that paratextual interventions make for a reader of the gospels? Or is the rewriting so minor that it can safely be ignored (for most purposes, at least), even if notionally present? This methodological challenge is compounded by the difficulty that persistently accompanies attempts to reconstruct reading practices; as Roger Chartier asserts, reading “only rarely rarely leaves traces […] scattered in an infinity of singular acts” (/Order of Books/, 1–2). How can one decipher these traces? In this paper, I focus on how theory informs method, and /vice versa/, in my dissertation. I present several case studies from the reception of the Eusebian apparatus—including its adaptation in the Syriac Peshitta and the dynamics of “corruption” and “correction” in medieval Greek manuscripts—in order to discuss the ways in which one can assert that the Eusebian apparatus “rewrites” the gospels which it paratextually presents. I argue that, perhaps paradoxically, one sees the Eusebian apparatus as rewriting most clearly when it is itself /rewritten/. Subsequent histories of change illuminate how readers approached the Eusebian apparatus and, through it, the gospels. This is a submission for the dissertation-stage open-call session.


Eusebius of Caesarea, Historiography, and the Gospels
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Jeremiah Coogan, University of Notre Dame

Eusebius of Caesarea, Historiography, and the Gospels


Periphrastics and Pseudo-periphrastics in the WAYIHI + QOTEL Construction
Program Unit: Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew
Edward Cook, Catholic University of America

All combinations of the verb HYH and the active participle (signified by QOTEL) in Biblical Hebrew have been deemed "periphrastics" in the literature (e.g., Joosten 2012: 257ff.). However, an examination of the construction wherein HYH appears as WAYHI indicates that a good many of them are not true periphrastics. In a true periphrastic, we propose, the subject of HYH must also be the subject of QOTEL and the semantics must be progressive or habitual (not stative or adjectival). This is demonstrably not the case with some occurrences of WAYHI + QOTEL, and in many others it is questionable. This raises the question whether other supposed periphrastics, with HYH in the perfect or imperfect, fairly meet the proposed criteria.


Alleged Christian Crosses in Pompeii and Herculaneum
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
John Granger Cook, LaGrange College

In recent years, certain scholars have claimed that three objects from Herculaneum and Pompeii are Christian crosses. One believed that a cruciform shape in Herculaneum and a piece of furniture beneath it indicated a Christian chapel, and many have asserted that it is a Christian cross. Some have argued that a cruciform shape on a lost inscription in Pompeii, CIL IV, 10062, is the cross of Christ. Likewise, some have interpreted a cruciform bas relief in a bakery in Pompeii, which has not existed for almost two hundred years, as a Christian cross. The thesis that these cruciform artifacts in Herculaneum and Pompeii are Christian crosses, which prove a pre-Vesuvian Christian presence in Campania, is unwarranted. CIL IV, 10062 is probably just a scrawl. The cruciform indentation in a wall of Herculaneum was simply left by the support for a shelf. The bas relief in a bakery in Pompeii likely portrayed some kind of baker's tool.


Adopting Biblical Ethics into Modern Poverty Contexts: An Ancient Tradition
Program Unit: Bible and Ethics
Matthew J.M. Coomber, Saint Ambrose University

Systemic poverty is a ubiquitous byproduct of advanced economics; literary and archaeological evidence reveals this has been the case since the first agrarian communities shifted from subsistence to political-economic strategies. But how did biblical authors address systemic poverty, and can their ancient perspectives find relevance in modern economic environments that would have been unimaginable to them? To address these questions, it needs to be acknowledged that the biblical authors, themselves, borrowed their ethos of community responsibility for the wellbeing of individuals from yet earlier ethical and economic systems that were ancient to them. The relevance of the biblical ethos of community responsibility endures across time and culture, in part, because it acknowledges a basic human trait that is now being confirmed through psychological data. Paul Piff, Michael Kraus, and other behavioral scientists find that privilege affects the mind in ways that breed contempt for those of lower standing, leading to higher propensities for self-interest and unethical behavior toward others. While systems of extraction evolve over time, the problem of privileged entitlement and its financial and psychological consequences on the impoverished remain relatively constant. In conversation with examples of privileged entitlement and anti-poor sentiment in U.S. politics and popular culture, this paper will demonstrate how an ancient biblical ethos of community responsibility for the individual’s wellbeing—as reflected in the Holiness and Deuteronomistic codes and in the prophetic corpus—can be an effective tool for confronting modern systemic poverty, understanding its complex social dimensions, and for critiquing the effectiveness of current approaches to social-justice advocacy.


“Their Leaves Shall Be for Healing”: Ecological Trauma and Recovery in Ezekiel 47:1–12
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Rebecca Copeland, Boston University School of Theology

In Ezekiel 47:1-12, the prophet offers his readers—Israelites suffering from deportation, military defeat, and exile—a vision that assures them of Yahweh’s power and desire to restore them to their homeland, healed and whole. Drawing from both trauma and ecological hermeneutics, this presentation shifts the interpretive lens from the traumatized human community of Israel to the traumatized land from which they have been exiled. First, I offer a preliminary definition of trauma as a disordered state resulting from severe stress or injury that impairs a creature’s ability to function. This definition encompasses the psychological and social trauma that has been the focus of biblical trauma hermeneutics thus far while also making room for the experiences of creatures that are other-than-human under its rubric. I explore an example of such trauma plaguing many different parts of the world today by examining soil salinization and the loss of ecosystem functionality that it causes. I then turn to the text of Ezekiel 47:1-12, employing the ecological hermeneutics principles of suspicion, identification, and retrieval. Specifically, I identify with the soil-water-vegetation communities that made up the plains between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. To do so, I draw more recent research on salt-induced soil degradation in other parts of the world into conversation with the biblical text and its vision of a fructifying stream that will return life to this desiccated area. Finally, I examine the relationship of modern proposals for biological soil remediation to the vision of restoration offered in the text, finding evidence that the tradition from which Ezekiel drew may have possessed forms of indigenous ecological knowledge applicable to the soil crisis. This examination raises a challenge to biblical trauma narratives that transfer agency for disasters from human beings to Yahweh, insists on the affirmation of human agency in the recovery from ecological trauma, and opens a new avenue for engaging biblical interpretation through the lens of indigenous ecological knowledge.


The Costobar Affair: Comparing “Idumaism” and Early Judaism as Species of Hellenistic Levantine Cult
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Collin Cornell, Sewanee: The University of the South

Qos was the national deity of the Iron Age kingdom of Edom in the southern Transjordan. When the Edomite kingdom collapsed, however—likely during Nabonidus’s campaign of 553/552 BCE—devotion to Qos did not cease. Theophoric names invoking Qos appear in the southern Levant throughout the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Josephus writes that as late as 34 BCE, an Idumean priest named Costobar (“Qos is mighty”) resented the imposition of Jewish customs on his people and conspired against Herod the Great to restore Idumean sovereignty and traditional Idumean religion (AJ 15.253-255); in the words of Shaye Cohen, “‘Idumaism’ was not yet dead.” Most scholarly work that addresses the Costobar affair considers “Idumaism” in its aspect as either the latest, twilight stage of Edomite religion or as a neighbor and annex of early Judaism. The present paper proposes a new way of approaching the “Idumaism” to which the Costobar episode refers—and alongside it, a new way of approaching early Judaism: as species within the genus of Hellenistic Levantine cult. It argues, that is, that Idumean religion and early Judaism are parallel phenomena: adaptations of ancestral Levantine religious practice, centered on a formerly national deity, within the changed conditions of the Hellenistic era. For both communities, Idumean and Judean, adaptation included conservation and innovation. Both communities maintained devotion to their patron god under his traditional name (YHWH and Qos, respectively), while they also pioneered new ways of worshiping “in translation,” even by invoking their deity with a Greek title (e.g., Zeus, as in 2 Macc 4-6; or Apollo, as shown by Idumean records from Egypt). Both communities persistently envisioned devotion to their god in terms of restored national sovereignty even as they sought the power and succor of their god under occupation and in diaspora. Although the present paper demonstrates the similarity of Idumean religion and early Judaism, it also notes their principal difference: namely, that early Judaism increasingly focused on the literary codification of their traditions—the Hebrew Bible—whereas Idumean traditions remained unwritten.


"Receiving a Kingdom that Cannot Be Shaken": Daniel 7 and the Eschatology of Hebrews
Program Unit: Hebrews
Felix H. Cortez, Andrews University

The 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland of the Novum Testamentum Graece as well as most major commentaries have noted significant verbal parallels between the expression "since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" in Heb 12:28 and Daniel 7:18. Nevertheless, the relationship between this passage and Dan 7 has not been explored adequately. The purpose of this paper is to explore the likelihood of an allusion to Dan 7:18 in Heb 12:28 and its possible relationship to the argument of Heb 12:18-29 and the eschatology of the letter in general. Daniel was an influential book in the New Testament (over 150 allusions) and well-known in Second Temple Literature and the Apostolic Fathers. The majority of allusions to Daniel in the NT focus on the prophecies of Dan 7, in some cases together with allusions to Hagg 2:6-7, which is also quoted in Heb 12:26-27. The paper will show that an exploration of Dan 7 as an intertextual background to Heb 12:18-29 provides helpful perspectives to understand the nature of the judgment/panegyric scene at the heavenly Mount Zion in Heb 12:22-24, the enthronement scene and the following exhortation in Heb 1:5-2:5, the Son of Man in Heb 2:6-13, and the "last days" in 1:2.


The Appeal to Case-Precedent in the Story of Jesus’ Disciples Plucking Grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23–28 and Parr.)
Program Unit: Biblical Exegesis from Eastern Orthodox Perspectives
Charles H. Cosgrove, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

This paper examines the argument from case-precedent in the story of Jesus’ disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23–28 // Matt 12:1–8 and Luke 6:1–5), which appeals for a precedent to David and his men consuming the Bread of the Presence (1 Sam 21:1–6). Special attention is given to John Chrysostom’s perspicacious treatment of this story in one of his sermons on Matthew, particularly his analysis of the appeal to David through the concepts of pertinence (ti to pros to zētoumenon), equivalence (to ison), and exonerating principle (nomos apologias). A wider cultural context for understanding appeals to case-precedent is provided through brief surveys of such appeals in Roman law, oratory, and rabbinic interpretation (Mishnah).


Musical Entertainments at Hellenistic Royal Banquets
Program Unit: Meals in the HB/OT and Its World
Charles H. Cosgrove, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

Musical Entertainments at Hellenistic Royal Banquets This paper examines the evidence for musical entertainments at royal banquets in the Hellenistic era, including attention to changes in sympotic rituals of song from the Classical to the Hellenistic age, the question of poets (such as Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius of Rhodes) at royal banquets, modes of poetic recital, the question whether guests sang at royal banquets and in what formats, and the presence of slave/paid entertainers at royal feasts and the types of song and dance they performed. The nature of the music (what it sounded like) is also considered on the basis of papyrological remains of Greek songs with musical notation from the Hellenistic period.


Enfleshed Encounter: The Emotional Potential of the Laments of the Individual
Program Unit: Bible and Emotion
Amy C. Cottrill, Birmingham-Southern College

How do texts create feeling? In this paper, I explore this question as a metthe hodological question for the study of the Bible and emotion: How do we study and discuss the way texts create feeling? I bring together affect criticism and the work of Medievalist and literary scholar Sarah McNamer to discuss the affective potential of the lament psalms of the individual, specifically Ps. 109. Affect criticism provides a range of questions and types of sensory inquiry that expand and deepen understandings of the effect of textual encounter within individuals and among audiences. Sarah McNamer’s work on “intimate scripts,” or embedded emotional narratives within texts, helps to conceptualize the process through which individuals and communities learn to feel in particular ways through repeated textual encounters and performances. McNamer recommends an approach that combines textual and historical study with attention to the embodied, kinetic aspects of the performance of texts, an approach which may be particularly valuable to the study of the Psalms.


Rereading the Christology of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Rewriting of Luke 2:41-52 in Paidika 17
Program Unit: Christian Apocrypha
J.R.C. (Rob) Cousland, University of British Columbia

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (=Paidika) cites only one extensive passage from the New Testament, namely Luke 2:41-52, the episode where Jesus' parents find him in the Temple with the teachers. This "Temple narrative" in the Paidika is textually reliant on Luke, and both narratives are important for the Christology of their respective gospels. The purpose of this paper is to use the Paidika's rewritten version of this narrative (Paid. 17.1-5) to examine how the author has rewritten Luke's Christology and refitted it to conform to the Paidika's own Christology. This rewriting manifests a strong focus on Jesus' divine (rather than human) paternity, his unprecedented wisdom, and his divine glory. These particular emphases in the Paidika's "Temple narrative" are likely a response to criticisms leveled at the second-century church by Christianity's Jewish and pagan detractors, and it is probable that this context accounts for the various differences between the two gospels' Christologies.


Wirkungsgeschichte and Trilateration; or How GPS Can Affect New Testament Exegesis
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Eric Covington, Howard Payne University

Global positioning systems (GPS) use overlapping satellite data to determine the location of objects. If only one or two satellites are available, there is a broad range of possible locations where the object may be. With the addition of data from a third satellite, a geometrical calculation called trilateration can be used that significantly increases the precision of the GPS. This paper seeks to examine how the process of trilateration in GPS can help understand the significance of Wirkungsgeschichte for New Testament exegesis. Drawing on the hermeneutical contributions of Gadamer and Jauss, New Testament exegesis can be understood as the "fusion" or "mediation" of the historical horizon of the exegete with the historical horizon of the ancient biblical texts. Like a GPS using two satellites, the overlap of these two horizons provides a range within which historical, biblical interpretation may occur. Much like the addition of a third satellite significantly increases the accuracy of a GPS, this paper will suggest that the addition of a third hermeneutical horizon--that of the text's Wirkungsgeschichte--can help create a more precise exegesis of New Testament texts. The study of a text's Wirkungsgeschichte allows for a three-way interpretive dialogue between text, history of reception, and interpreter that helps determine textual meaning as it broadens the horizon of the exegete and provides new and/or progressing questions to be asked of the New Testament text.


"Raised for Our Justification": Justification and the Resurrection of Christ in Paul's Letter to the Romans
Program Unit: Pauline Theology
J. Andrew Cowan, Independent Scholar

For many years, interpreters primarily linked Paul's doctrine of justification with his understanding of the significance of the death of Christ. This interpretation typically presented Christ's death as, in some sense, the discharging of the sinner's legal debt and also interpreted justification language in forensic terms. Recently, however, an alternative paradigm associated with the apocalyptic school of Pauline interpretation has arisen that instead places the emphasis on the links that Paul draws between justification and the resurrection of Christ and presents justification as an event of liberation from the enslaving powers of the present evil age. This essay seeks to address this discussion by exploring the soteriological significance that Paul attaches to the resurrection of Christ in several key passages in Romans 4–8, placing them in the context of early Jewish interpretations of the meaning of resurrection. The argument unfolds in two major movements. First, I propose that the links that Paul draws between the resurrection of Christ and justification are best explained in light of the strands of Jewish thought that associated resurrection with attaining a positive verdict in the final judgment. This background is most evident in Rom 4.25, 5.12–21, and 8.31–39. These passages demonstrate that, in Paul’s view, Christ’s resurrection stands as a metonymic pointer to God’s verdict on Christ’s own legal status, and the justification of believers consists in their incorporation into these realities. Second, I explore aspects of Rom 6.1–14 in order to demonstrate that, although apocalyptic interpreters are right to highlight that Paul associates justification and liberation, their claims about the meaning of justification language itself go beyond the evidence. Attending particularly to the role of Christ's resurrection in this passage, it becomes evident that liberation is a consequence of the decisive change in the believer’s legal status effected through incorporation into Christ. Overall, then, this essay argues that a forensic view of justification is not undermined but rather strengthened by attending to Paul's depiction of the soteriological function of Christ’s resurrection in Romans.


Julian of Norwich’s Intertextual Interpretation of Luke 15:11-32
Program Unit: Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible
Kendall Cox, University of Virginia

The 14th c. visionary writer Julian of Norwich is one of the most creative biblical interpreters in the Christian tradition. She is famous for being the first woman to write an extant published work in English. What is sometimes overlooked in her devotional texts is the way she offers gloss upon gloss of scripture, obliquely translating passages into the vernacular. It appears she strategically obscures what she is doing, and this is perhaps one of the reasons she is often categorized primarily as a “mystic.” But a little excavative work brings her interpretive sophistication to the surface. Julian’s expansive and intricate intertextual method is best seen her in Example of the Lord and Servant, found in the Long Text of her *Revelations of Divine Love.* I argue that this “showing” is an unrecognized gloss on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) and that it frames the meaning of her subsequent excursus on divine motherhood. In her engagement with the parable, Julian takes up the genre of medieval homiletic exempla and recasts the father and son in much the same way as Bernard of Clairvaux. She is familiar with the logic of “spiritual interpretation” described in Nicholas of Lyra’s distich and employs it masterfully in her otherwise unprecedented Christological reading of the Lukan text. In cinematic fashion, she recounts a vision of a servant who leaps up eagerly to serve his lord and immediately falls into a pit from which he cannot escape. As the story unfolds, structural resonances with the prodigal son begin to emerge. What also becomes evident is that she filters the parable through a dense matrix of scriptural allusions, overlaying it with the creation/fall sequence of Genesis 1-3 among others (e.g., Is. 53; Rom. 5:14f; 2 Cor. 5:21; and Phil. 2:6f). This set of references serves as a progressive lens, alternately bringing into focus the servant/son as a figure for fallen humanity as well as for Jesus Christ. Immersed in a deep reservoir of imagery, Julian’s imagination moves seamlessly from a plain or direct interpretive level to a deeper substratum of understanding. In her words, the parable is “shown double,” and this enables her to account—unlike anyone before her—for the excess of identity signaled in the biblical passage itself. What is remarkable about Julian’s intertextual retelling is the way it reenacts both the form and content of the parable while also generating original theological claims. Most surprisingly, Julian is led to the conclusion that “God never began to love humankind” because of an “endless oning” in which “God is knit to our nature.” In other words, reading the parable through the baptismal hymn of Philippians 2, she claims God wills to become human from before time. Julian’s interpretation of the parable opens onto her description of the motherhood of God. The parabolic father/son dyad, initially recast as a master/servant, morphs into a mother/child, which she offers as the most fitting human analogy for the divine/human relationship.


The Parable of God: Karl Barth’s Theological Interpretation of Luke 15:11-32
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
Kendall Cox, University of Virginia

The Eternal Son is the Lost Son. That is the provocative assertion at the heart of Barth’s Christological interpretation of Luke 15:11-32. In what follows, I examine his engagement with the Parable of the Lost or Prodigal Son across *Church Dogmatics* on three levels: 1) his straightforward expositions of it as a generic story of grace, 2) his unusual association between Jesus Christ and the younger son in *The Doctrine of Reconciliation*, and 3) his allusive use of the narrative to describe election in *The Doctrine of God*. I conclude that the Lukan parable comes to narrate, for him, not only salvation, but also the person and work of Christ, and—more fundamentally—the being of God. First, I address the “direct” readings of the parable Barth offers. His most extensive exegesis is found “The Homecoming of the Son of Man” (§64.2), which he calls “the decisive center” of his Christology, and mirrors “the Way of the Son of God into the Far Country” (§59.1). Self-conscious of the leap he is making, Barth initially advances a rather conventional interpretation of the parable, identifying the younger son as fallen humanity (the “publicans and sinners”), the father as God, and the elder brother as the “scribes and Pharisees” (Lk. 15:1-2). Reading it as a story of divine “retrieval” rather than human “repentance,” he maintains “no more than this” can be said “directly” and worries his subsequent reading will be perceived as a “strained” or “over-interpretation” (Überinterpretation). Yet he insists, “it is also possible not to do full justice to the passage” if we leave it “under-interpreted.” Second, I recount Barth’s surprising Christological exegesis of the parable. Evoking sacramental language, he says we must consider what is given “in, with and under what is said directly.” Taking his rhetorical clue from the phrase “dead and alive” (vs. 24, 32), Barth expounds the parable as embedded in and animated by another story. We must ask, “To whom does this all refer?” The connection with the life of Jesus can be seen as an interpretive trajectory arising from the parable itself when it is coordinated with the intertextual nexus Barth conjures (viz. Jn 1:14, Rm. 5:14f, 2 Cor.5:21, Is. 53:10, and Phil. 2:5f). In the end, he does not simply offer a Christological reading; he presents his whole Christology in the register or mode of the parable. Finally, I show how this interpretation implicitly structures not only Barth’s later trinitarian thought but also his earlier account of election or predestination. God’s becoming the “lost son” is one of the primary images he uses for the divine decree. He asks, “Who is the Elect? He is always the one who ‘was dead and is alive again’ who ‘was lost and is found.’” Barth concludes that God wills from before time to be lost and prodigal in love, in and as the second person of the Trinity. On his reading, this is what the parable retells: the inner life of God.


Philo's Allegorical Interpretation of Sacrifice in "On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel"
Program Unit: Philo of Alexandria
Ron Cox, Pepperdine University

An analysis of Philo's interpretation of sacrifice in "On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel"


Along a Marvelous Way: The Significance of Middle Platonism for Understanding Wisdom of Solomon’s Soteriology
Program Unit: Wisdom and Apocalypticism
Ron Cox, Pepperdine University

Wisdom of Solomon, a turn of the era text, was written perhaps a few decades after the revival of Platonism that occurred in 1st century BCE Alexandria and evinces similar characteristics in how it bridges the gap between divine and material realms. My paper argues that a Middle Platonic philosophical perspective pervades and informs the confluence of sapiential and apocalyptic traditions many scholars recognize as coexisting in the document. What’s more, moving out from the curiously ahistorical salvation history recounted in Wisdom 10 to the rest of the work, I demonstrate how attention to Wisdom’s philosophical tendenz helps us understand how Wisdom of Solomon recasts eschatological salvation as ontological fulfillment.


Ancient Israelite Healthcare, Ahaziah’s Ailing Body and the Ridicule of Baal in 2 Kgs 1
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Isabel Cranz, University of Pennsylvania

This paper argues that Ahaziah’s ailing body in 2 Kgs 1 is used deliberately to ridicule and condemn the cultic policies of the Omrides. Ahaziah’s failed consultation with Baal-Zebub in 2 Kgs 1 is often taken as a classic example of the organization of healthcare in ancient Israel. Thus, this episode shows that suffering individuals could call upon the support of deities and prophets. Building upon this insight, it can be demonstrated that 2 Kgs 1 uses Ahaziah’s health crisis to emphasize the power of Yahweh over and against his rival deity Baal. At first glance, this praise of Yahweh plays out in a rather humorous manner. Not only does Ahaziah’s ailment stem from an injury he sustained in a banal accident, he also turns to a deity with the ridiculous name of Baal-Zebub (Lord Fly). Ahaziah’s reliance on Baal-Zebub, then, leads to a standoff between the king’s troops and Elijah, who is depicted as a hairy prophet with a belt. Nevertheless, behind the façade of playful banter lies a serious issue, namely the question of the true god of Israel. Different aspects of this issue are addressed elsewhere in the Elijah-Cycle. The superiority of Yahweh, for example, is proven in the prophetic contest in 1 Kgs 18 while Yahweh’s power over life and death lies at the center of Elijah’s resurrection of the widow’s son in 2 Kgs 17. Yet, only the motif of the sick king allows for an artful merging of these issues by providing an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of Yahweh in his power over life and death. As such, 2 Kgs 1 uses Ahaziah’s ailing body and customs of Israelite healthcare to combine two loosely connected themes and present Yahweh’s dominion over Israel as a non-negotiable fact existing outside of mundane matters like royal decrees and state sanctions.


Between Horror and Hopelessness: Stillborn Children in the Bible
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Isabel Cranz, University of Pennsylvania

Although the Hebrew Bible contains no direct depiction of a stillbirth, the motif of the stillborn child (נפל) is still invoked on several occasions. Basing my argument partly on contemporary studies on parental bereavement and perinatal loss (Sered, 1996; Keesee, Currier & Neimeyer, 2008; Arnold and Gemma, 2008), I will show how biblical scribes drew from the complex emotional range experienced by grieving parent to express feelings of desolation, isolations, hopelessness, futility and horrors. Thus, in Num 12 the stillborn child is used to describe the horrors of Miriam and Aaron when the former is suffering from a debilitating and isolating skin disease (צרעת). Furthermore, in Job 3:16 the stillborn child is measured against Job’s sense of hopelessness after Satan has destroyed his wealth and family and in Qoh 6:3 the same motif is used to characterize the life of perpetually dissatisfied individuals. Finally, in Psalm 58, the stillborn child is invoked in cursing the wicked and their evil machinations. These four examples demonstrate that the motif of the stillborn child is used to expand on the emotional response to bereavement by applying it to the existential themes of meaningless suffering, affliction and evil.


Building Descriptions and Image-Text Relations in the Bible and Ancient Near East
Program Unit: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible
Cory Crawford, Ohio University

Image-text relations are at the heart of the question of the extent to which the reality of the Jerusalem temple is indicated in the texts that describe it, even though scholars almost never explicitly theorize it in such terms. The nexus is instead usually explored through the question of historicity and reliability of the text as description of a real or imagined building, rather than as an interrogation of the authorial impulse to render visual objects in verbal dimensions. In this paper I survey and attempt to characterize the different ways the major building descriptions in the Bible (Gen 6–7; Exod 25–31; 35–40; 1 Kgs 6–7; Ezek 40–48; 2 Chr 2–4) are framed within their literary context with a special focus on visuality. I do this especially by reference to other ancient Near Eastern texts that attempt to make their audience “see” through words—especially the Epic of Gilgamesh—and also by reference to the concept of ekphrasis, which was defined in Greco-Roman rhetorical handbooks as a verbal attempt to bring a subject vividly before the “eyes” of an audience, and in modern art historical discourse as words about art. Attention to the presence or absence of visual cues in verbally framing these descriptions alerts the reader to subtle purposes of the description and shows different means of construing the relation between text and image. It also helps to refine and complicate the question of the reliability of the text as a window onto “the” first- or second- temple. This discussion allows me to make some preliminary remarks about the larger question of ekphrasis in ancient Near Eastern rhetorical traditions. Although ancient Near Eastern texts have not yielded evidence of an explicitly established rhetorical category congruent to ekphrasis described in the handbooks of the Second Sophistic, some, like those examined here, do exhibit a distinct concern to bring the subject matter before the eyes of their audience, much like the authors of the second-century Progymnasmata thought Homer was doing in his description of Achilles’ shield, even though ekphrasis was not in Homer’s time explicitly defined rhetorically. Building on the work of other scholars of ancient Near Eastern material culture, we are able to point to a fairly robust tradition of rendering vision through words that merits further careful study especially in other genres, such as in the symbolic visions of biblical prophets.


Priestly Violence and Priesthood Authority in the Bible and LDS Church
Program Unit: Latter-day Saints and the Bible
Cory Crawford, Ohio University

Biblical texts indicate that a special kind of violence was at the heart of priestly authority. The stories and poems that describe the origins of the Levites speak to this violence, for example, in narratives such as the rape of Dinah (Gen 34), the Golden Calf (Exod 32), and the dismemberment of the Levite’s concubine (Judg 19–20), among several others. In previous venues I have argued that what makes this violence special is that the priestly sword in these stories cuts not Israel’s enemies, but rather turns inward toward other Israelites. This intra-clan violence, I argue, was meant to be understood as the distinguishing factor, at least literarily, that set apart this particular clan from among the tribes of Israel. It also formed an implicit argument for a priesthood that was gendered male, especially since some of this violence was directed toward or with reference to subordinate women. The first part of this paper describes and situates these acts of physical violence within the broader framework so characteristic of priestly power and worldview, namely, the act of boundary maintenance. I compare the priestly texts that draw bright lines around space, time, kin groups, food, and even clothing—and station themselves as the gatekeepers—to distinguish the holy from the profane. I explore the extent to which these acts of distinction—circumscribed in the very notion of being “set apart”—can be construed as a kind of symbolic violence that cuts the boundary that defines the hierarchies of sacred and profane. The special violence described above is rooted in priestly identity because it marks the ultimate boundary. To shed the blood of one’s own kin is to define—and to claim—the only authority that trumps family. In the second part of the paper I use these texts and concepts to think about the role of distinction and separation in Latter-day Saint priesthood power dynamics. Of course modern Latter-day Saint communities and leadership naturally and clearly denounce the sorts of violence described in these texts, but the biblical stories that get at the basis of priestly power provide a means of thinking about the role of concepts of distinction, setting apart, in LDS understandings of priesthood and in recent acts of boundary setting and maintenance by LDS leadership. It also provides occasion to think about the continuation of certain priestly concepts, such as sacred space, and their role in modern LDS priesthood power.


Scribes and Orality in the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: The Bible in Ancient (and Modern) Media
Sidnie White Crawford, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

I will be a panelist discussing scribes and orality in the Hebrew Bible in a special session reviewing Jonathan Ready's "Orality, Textuality, and Homeric Epic: A Study of Oral Texts, Dictated Texts, and Wild Texts."


The Pseudo-Ephrem: A Status Quæstionis
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Eric Crégheur, Université d'Ottawa - University of Ottawa

This paper aims to shed new light on the problem of the Pseudo-, or Greek, Ephrem. Ephrem the Syrian left an important literary corpus in Syriac, the only language he apparently knew and in which he wrote. But there is an equally important and imposing corpus of Greek works put under the name of Ephrem, which are all, for the moment and until proven otherwise, to be considered as pseudepigrapha. The many questions that one is faced with when approaching the Greek Ephrem corpus have so far been mainly ignored by scholars working in the fields of Patristics and Pseudepigrapha. These problems range from the identity of the author (one or many), to its relationship with Ephrem the Syrian and his authentic works, the accuracy of the inventory of the works put under his name, the influence and dissemination of these pieces, the reasons of their immense popularity, and the main obstacles behind a reedition of this collection. Such questions are in dire need of being reopened and looked anew, if only because of the importance of the corpus attributed to the Greek Ephrem and the extent of its circulation, not only in Greek, but also in many versions (Latin, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, and Arabic). The object of this study is to lay the groundwork for a project whose goal is to reedit the pseudo-ephremian corpus, by proposing a methodology and identifying its main limits.


Toll Collectors and Gate Guardians: A Typical Gnostic Motif?
Program Unit: Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism
Eric Crégheur, Université d'Ottawa - University of Ottawa

This paper intends to investigate the motif of the heavenly toll collectors and gate guardians, present in a number of “Gnostic” texts, such as the “First Apocalypse of James” and the “Apocalypse of Paul”. Considered by some to be a distinctive feature of “Gnostic” mythology, the motif is nevertheless found in other traditions, in forms that are more or less close to the one in which it appears in “Gnostic” literature. We will first start with a close examination of the motif as it is found in “Gnostic” texts, so as to clearly identify the different characteristics of the motif and its variations. Following this analysis, we will go back in time in search of what could be ancient forms of the motif, to see if and how it evolved, and to determine if and how contacts between traditions shaped this evolution. Finally, we will see if the motif can be found in contemporary and later sources, notably in the writings of the Church Fathers, and what this presence can tell us of how the motif was received in Late Antiquity.


Framing the "Woman in the Window": Liminality in Iconography and the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in Its Ancient Context
Lacy K. Crocker Papadakis, Baylor University

Variations of ivory carvings with a woman at a balustraded window occur in Samaria, Arslan Tash, and Nimrud. The woman's identity remains an enigma and a figure of debate (Winter 2016). Scholars identify this iconic woman as some form of goddess/sacred prostitute (Herbig 1927; Zimmern 1928; Barnett 1956; Keel and Uehlinger 1998), though these views have undergone adaptations. Suter argues against the window goddess concept and views the woman as the queen waiting for her husband (Suter 1992). Ackerman (1998) proposes that the woman is a depiction of the Canaanite queen-mother and a representative of Astarte. Baker (2017) favors Suter's view and critiques Ackerman's portrayal based on the lack of supporting evidence regarding Astarte. These perspectives are linked to texts/stories: Aristophanes's Peace, Cypriot Aphrodite Parakyptusa, Babylonian goddess Kilili, Rahab (Josh 2:15, 21) Sisera's mother (Judg 5:28), Michal (1 Sam 19:12; 2 Sam 6:16, cf. 1 Chr 15:29) Jezebel (2 Kgs 9:30). The sexuality of the woman in window in iconography or texts often drives scholarly debate. This presentation initially takes a step back from identifying the woman in the window and from focusing on her sexuality. Instead, this presentation first addresses the window itself. The architectural frame forms the context of the motif (Winter 2016) and develops a formula for the motif (Suter 1992). The triple-inset frames and the detailed balustrade point to monumental architecture (Suter 1992; Roaf 1996; Winter 2016). Ackerman (2012), drawing on Cooper and Goldstein (1997), illustrates the danger of entryways and these dangers provide the point of departure for her analysis of the nude female figures that flank of model shrines compared to that of Keel and Uehlinger 1998; Dever 2008). This presentation applies Ackerman's analysis of entryways and the liminal space they create to the woman in the window motif in order to draw out the symbolism of the window and explores the concept of composite figures with relation to "mediating divine figures" (Burnett 2008). After exegeting the window frame iconography, the presentation synthesizes these findings with relevant texts in the Hebrew Bible.


Throwing Israel’s Bread to Gentile Dogs: Mark’s Complex Use of Hebrew Bible in the Story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman in 7:25–31
Program Unit: Intertextuality in the New Testament
Sonya Cronin, Florida State University

Despite the fact that many consider Mark to be a “Gospel to the Gentiles,” intertextual references to Hebrew Bible abound. From the connection to the book of Jonah as Jesus sleeps on the boat while the storm rages in Mark 4, to the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6 and its connection to Exodus 16, Psalm 23, and Ezekiel 34, many of the references are relatively obvious, featuring linguistic ties and thematic echoes. The story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:25–31 however is not one that commentators have traditionally read with intertextual echoes in mind. A passage that has troubled many, prompting various explanations for Jesus’ apparent rude behavior, these seven verses can seem like an enigma coming out of nowhere. Yet, it is a linchpin between Jesus’ discussion of clean and unclean with the Pharisees and scribes earlier in Mark 7 and his ministry among the Gentiles in Mark 8. When read in the context of Hebrew Bible passages that Mark references earlier in the Gospel, it becomes apparent that Mark has been building a subtext that peaks with this story. Drawing upon Jonah, Exodus 32–34, and the Elijah narrative in 1 Kings, this paper will demonstrate how Mark weaves together these narratives, underscoring 7:25–31 to such a degree, that aside from a surface reading, the passage loses much of its meaning without an understanding of how Mark utilizes these intertextual ties.


David Taking Bathsheba as His Wife: A Righteous Deed; A Narrative Look At 2 Samuel 11-13
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Sonya Cronin, Florida State University

The story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 is one of the most infamous tales in the Bible. The willful and premeditated transgression of David is clear in the text. He committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, and when she was found to be pregnant, he had Uriah killed in battle and took Bathsheba as his own. The sin of coveting and taking is stark; nobody doubts David’s guilt. Nathan’s word of the Lord emphasizes this even more, “Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife...” It is easy to take from this the implication that while there were severe consequences, in the end David got what he wanted, Bathsheba to be his wife. However, when paired with the connected story of Tamar and Amnon, it seems that David taking Bathsheba as his wife, might have been the only “righteous” thing he did in this entire episode (2 Samuel 11-12). In fact, it is arguable that taking Bathsheba as his wife is what saved his life. Using a narrative perspective, this paper will evaluate 2 Samuel 11-12 in light of 2 Samuel 13 to argue that with the nuance of David’s sin in regard to Bathsheba, taking her as his wife was actually a righteous deed.


Envisioning a Compiler at Work: Scribal Features of Papyrus Amherst 63
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Joseph Cross, University of Chicago

This paper investigates the scribal features of Papyrus Amherst 63, a multi-genre compilation of hymns, ritual and narrative which are Aramaic in language but written in a unique Demotic orthography. Datable to as early as the 4th century BCE, and as late as the 2nd, this utterly unique scroll, the longest surviving Aramaic language document from antiquity, has received increasing attention in recent years, due not in small part to a putative version of Psalm 20 on the scroll. The most outstanding question about P. Amherst 63 is its purpose. In pursuit of this, I will look beyond its frequently studied orthography and engage in a careful observation of its peculiar scribal features, in order to propose a scenario that accounts for the scroll’s creation and thus its purpose as well. Pertinent considerations will be the methods used by the scribe to delimit units of meaning, such as words and sections dividers, as well as units of textual space, such as intermarginal lines between columns of text. The handwriting of the scribe, which clue us into his writing process, is also of special interest. Finally, I will consider the construction of the scroll itself and rethink the traditional ascription of recto and verso. Based on these observations, I will construct a picture of how this compiler worked, arguing that the scroll was created by an Egyptian priest who visually transcribed---and not by taking dictation---at least one Aramaic document, and probably more than one, into a compilation meant for ease of consultation and possibly textual reuse. Further support for this argument will be drawn from contemporary Demotic Egyptian scribal culture. This paper will be the first sustained voluminological analysis of the papyrus, as well as the first argument for its purpose based on extensive physical evidence. I will end by considering implications for the influx of Aramaic literature into Egypt and its interaction with native literature. I will also rethink how we conceive of the creation of compilational texts, making pertinent comparisons with Egyptian and biblical literature.


Biblical Studies and "Conservative Liberal" Terror
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
James Crossley, St Mary's University, London

This paper will look at some of the changing ideological tendencies at play in Anglo-American biblical scholarship (though with a focus on New Testament scholarship and the study Christian origins) since Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century was published in 2008. A decade ago the impact of the War on Terror, following decades of Orientalist discourse about the Middle East and North Africa, was becoming increasingly apparent in scholarship, whether conservative or liberal. Since then, accompanying a shift in scholarly discourse from ‘Fairly Conservative’ to ‘Conservative Liberal’ (to use an influential taxonomy of online scholarship), and notable changes in uses of social media (remember biblioblogging?), has been an emboldened liberal rhetoric to justify (often implicitly) American exceptionalism, even or especially when done in opposition to Trump. This paper will look at some of these developments and how they have even begun to colonise metacritical scholarship itself.


When Momma Preaches: A Womanist Maternal Homiletic
Program Unit: Homiletics and Biblical Studies
Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, Chicago Theological Seminary

This paper will provide an overview of a womanist maternal homiletic. Through the lens of race, gender, class and motherhood this project discusses the unique ways in which African American preaching seeks to connect biblical texts to current-day culture for the sake of personal praxis and communal uplift. By expounding on the lives of proto-womanist mother-preachers such as Jarena Lee and Elizabeth the work establishes both a historical and hermeneutical tradition for such homiletical discourse. The exercise will conclude by demonstrating this preaching method using the Matthean account of the mother of James and John as a harbinger of modern #SportsMommas.


Reading the Acts of the Apostles with Francis Turretin
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Brandon Crowe, Westminster Theological Seminary

This paper considers the interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles in the work of Francis Turretin (1623-1687), particularly in light of modern-day approaches to Acts. I will give particular attention to the way that Turretin utilizes Acts in his Institutes of Elenctic Theology to address both discontinuity and continuity between the New Covenant era and the Old Covenant era, which are issues that continue to occupy interpreters of Acts today. First, Turretin relies on Acts to speak of the discontinuity between the gospel era and the era of the Old Testament. This is evident in his engagement of Acts 15, where he recognizes the need for temporary concessions. Discontinuity is also evident in Turretin's emphasis on the newness of the Holy Spirit's anointing in the life of Jesus (Acts 10:38), and in the transition in Jesus's lordship after his resurrection (Acts 2:36). Turretin further appreciates that the gospel message is one that focuses on the finished work of Christ (Acts 13:12). Second, despite his awareness of discontinuity in Acts, Turretin also uses Acts to support a large measure of continuity between covenantal administrations. In this way Turretin's approach is set in rather sharp relief to many contemporary discussions of Acts. Turretin even finds continuity in some of the same passages he relies on for discontinuity. This is evident in his approach to Acts 15, where he discusses the abiding relevance of God's moral law, as well as the unity of salvation for Old Testament believers and New Testament believers (15:11). Turretin also finds in Acts evidence for continuity of the Holy Spirit's work; for Turretin, absolute statements of the Spirit's outpouring in the New Covenant era are to be taken as relative, rather than absolute. Further showing continuity in Acts are statements about salvation in the name of Christ (e.g., Acts 3:26; 4:12; 10:43), which were already true before the incarnation. Similarly, Turretin's approach to Psalm 2:7 in Acts 13:33 is not so much about demonstrating the resurrection as it is the manifestation and declaration of the eternal sonship of Christ. In conclusion, I bring Turretin's voice on Acts in conversation with contemporary biblical scholarship. Turretin's approach to Acts offers a window into the crystallizing tendency of early Modern Reformed theology that has potential to shed new light on familiar debates in modern discourse. This may include more further discussion of the continuity of the Holy Spirit, especially in light of the use of Scripture in Luke and Acts. Turretin also reminds present-day interpreters of Acts of historically important theological debates, such as the eternal sonship of Christ-a topic ripe for further discussion in biblical scholarship.


Rahab and the Colonizers
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Brad Crowell, Drake University

The Rahab narrative has been read various ways in recent years - from the traditional harlot to a heroine who uses her skills to fool her own king and the spies. But the story of Rahab is part of a Deuteronomistic pattern of indigenous women who side with the Israelites and become integrated into the community. This pattern has been read by postcolonial critics as characters who work on behalf of the colonizing forces to betray their own people. This paper will argue that the ambiguities within the text itself allows for variety of ideological readings but that the postcolonial reading does promote an important way reading of this text against the history of interpretation.


Righteousness and/or Justice in Matthew?
Program Unit: Matthew
Vaughn CroweTipton, Furman University

Recent work has identified the Greek dikaio family as a possibly misunderstood word group. According to Wolterstorff (2008), Stassen (2003), and others in their work on justice and the Sermon on the Mount, dikaio related words, usually translated as “righteousness” or “righteous,” are better understood as “justice.” In fact, scholars in the in the field of Classics more typically translate this word group as justice. This paper explores the hypothesis that δικαιοσύνη should not only should be translated as “justice” but that it also makes sense of the Gospel of Matthew by illuminating the central role of the Sermon on the Mount, especially 5:17-20 as an interpretive focal point. If this hypothesis is correct, the issue of justice in Matthew, and perhaps elsewhere in the New Testament, is more central to interpretation and praxis than typically thought.


Parallelism, Structural Poetics, and Psalm 18 in the Tiberian Masoretic Reading Tradition
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Daniel J. Crowther, Worcester College, University of Oxford

The poetics of variant repetition in the Hebrew Bible have been analysed in many different ways with many different degrees of complexity. A litmus test for this analysis is its connection to the reception history of the text. On the one hand, it is difficult to accept the relevance of structures and patterns unearthed when there is no evidence that they have ever been observed by prior generations. On the other hand, it is difficult not to accept the relevance of such structures and patterns if they can be shown to have been a significant part of the reception history of the text. The accents on the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible provide a prime witness to the early reception history of the Hebrew text. These accents direct the reader in regard to the stress, pause and intonation to be used in the reading of the verses. This paper observes the way in which the masoretic accents (ṭe‘amim) of Psalm 18 acknowledge and enhance the hearing of certain parallelisms. The Masoretes appear to have been attentive to the presence of parallelism not only within its verses, but also between adjacent verses, and, most surprisingly, between non-adjacent verses. Despite this attentiveness to ‘trans-linear parallelism', the versification and accentuation of the text of Psalm 18 appear to have been arranged to deliberately avoid the delivery of the text in ‘strophes’ or patterns, that is, according to principles of structural poetics. The import of these observations to biblical exegesis can be variously interpreted dependent upon the degree to which the masoretic sigla are understood to represent its ancient interpretation and its canonical identity. However, even if these sigla represent no more than the reception history of the text in late antiquity, the masoretic awareness of parallelism and potential structural poetics is most significant. Furthermore, the obscuration of the macro-structural poetics of the text begs the question why the text should be presented to be read in this way.


Location, Location, Location: Mary’s Shame and the Birthplace of Jesus
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
N. Clayton Croy, Independent Scholar / Retired

The birthplace of Jesus is a point at which popular and scholarly views diverge sharply. The Gospel accounts locate his birth in Bethlehem, and there is no explicit counter-tradition. But stories about the adult Jesus assume that Nazareth was his hometown. The Gospels and Acts consistently refer to him as “Jesus of Nazareth,” and so a number of scholars favor Nazareth as the birthplace of Jesus. But if Jesus was born in Nazareth, whence the Bethlehem birth tradition? The Infancy Narratives are notoriously difficult to reconcile on the matter of geography. Matthew has not a hint of Jesus’ family originally living in Galilee. The first geographical marker (Matt 2:1) locates the family in Bethlehem. Only later do they migrate to Galilee due to the threat of violence. Luke locates the family’s origins in Nazareth and explains their move to Bethlehem as due to the census of Quirinius, a connection that is nearly impossible to reconcile with Jesus’ birth during the days of Herod the Great (Luke 1:5). But despite these starkly different stories, Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem remains a point of agreement between Matthew and Luke. Some would explain the Bethlehem birth as a theologoumenon, i.e., a non-historical tradition created for theological reasons. This is suggested particularly with regard to Matthew, whose infancy narrative refers to Micah 5:2 (Matt 2:5) in connecting the Messiah with Bethlehem. But the argument for a theologoumenon is weak. The pre-Christian evidence for the Messiah being born in Bethlehem is meagre and ambiguous, and the evangelists had other views about the Messiah’s origin which they could have chosen. A more plausible reason lies at hand in the text of Matthew, namely, the social opprobrium of the untimely conception of Jesus (Matt 1:18-19). Jewish mores at that time would have taken a dim view of a conception prior to marriage, perhaps especially so in Galilee, which may have been stricter than Judea in this regard. If Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father, Jesus would have been viewed as a mamzer, i.e., the offspring of an illicit union, a classification that would have entailed shame and ostracism (Deut 23:2). Relocating to Judea would avoid this disgrace. Mary and Joseph’s departure from Nazareth and their return 2-3 years later would effectively conceal the timing of Jesus’ birth. It would also create the oddity of a person who was born in Bethlehem later being associated with Nazareth. But the phenomenon of persons in antiquity being born in one place but being associated with the locale of their adult career is by no means unprecedented. There are numerous examples of such relocations resulting in changes of geographical epithets. This paper proposes that Matthew, in effect, provides the rationale for a journey that he doesn’t relate, while Luke describes the journey but wrongly attributes its cause to the census. The result is that Jesus’ Bethlehem birth is historically plausible, even though Matthew’s account is oddly truncated and Luke’s account contains a chronological error.


The Importance of Conceptualizing Migration as a Religious Experience in Genesis 46
Program Unit: Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature
Gregory Cuéllar, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

For biblical scholars seeking to develop an interdisciplinary approach to the biblical themes of forced migration, contemporary migration studies has much to offer in terms of theories, case studies, and terminologies. In one sense, drawing upon migration studies can enrich the interpretive imagination as to the varieties of human mobility. What this aim often points to are exegetical issues involving an event’s historical reconstruction, especially when the evidentiary material is lacking. Yet, this use of migration studies reflects a unidirectional path from theory to text. But what do biblical stories like the migration of Jacob into Egypt (Genesis 46) offer the discourse of migrations studies? In this paper, I aim to show how the integration of religious belief with the theme of migration in Genesis 46 suggests a conceptual framing of the migration experience that is consistent with contemporary stories of forced migration. Although there has been in recent years a developing emphasis on religious beliefs and practice within the literature of migration studies, such concepts are still peripheral to the discourse. As obvious as the links between religious belief and migration may seem for biblical scholars, these sorts of connections are not as prominent for migration scholars trained to empirically quantify the migration experience. In the end, what this paper offers is a preliminary discussion on the utility of biblical stories on migration for the discourse of migration studies instead of the other way round.


Shifting Sands and Solid Ground: Enduring Elements of Martyn's Thesis
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
R. Alan Culpepper, Mercer University

Martyn’s History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel ushered readers into a defining moment in the development of the Johannine community, and its publication quickly became a defining moment for Johannine scholarship. Although Martyn’s thesis was widely accepted, at least among American scholars, critical responses led both Martyn himself and others to revise his proposal, while others have discarded it. I will argue that both the thesis and critiques of it need to be nuanced and qualified. The thesis is multi-layered, and some of its elements continue to serve the pursuit of a historical reading of the Gospel.


Native Priesthoods and the Repatriation of Displaced Ethnic Minorities during the Reign of Darius I
Program Unit: Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World
Marshall Cunningham, University of Chicago

Scholars of diaspora assert the primary significance of economic factors as motivation for ethnic migration, including the repatriation of diaspora communities to their ancestral homelands. Some also attend to the importance of ideological factors, although generally as a secondary stimulus. In contrast, this paper argues for the equal importance of both concerns with regard to the participation of Judeo-Babylonians in the wave of return migration that occurred early in the reign of Darius I. Using comparative evidence concerning the Nippurian community of Bīt–Nērab and the Assyrian temple professionals of Uruk, this paper claims that members of native priesthoods played a critical role in the decision of displaced communities to migrate to their ancestral homeland. There is strong evidence–textual, onomastic, and material–for the perseverance (and in one case, explicit employment) of native priesthoods in all three diaspora communities. However, theological convictions like those outlined in the book of Ezekiel (chs. 20, 40–48) tied proper worship of each community’s patron deity–Yahweh, Sîn, and Aššur–to a city in the ancestral homeland. The reconstitution of the relationship between deity/priesthood/homeland functioned as ideological motivation for these priests and the communities they served. Beyond reinstituting proper worship, (re)establishing a temple in the ancestral homeland and serving there as a member of its priesthood also brought opportunities for increased economic and social capital for repatriated religious professionals. As not only religious, but also cultural and economic leaders, these priests–drawn by the ideological and economic opportunities that return migration offered them–played a decisive role in communal decisions about repatriation.


“Holy Envy” to “Holy Mutuality”?
Program Unit: Paul within Judaism
Philip A. Cunningham, Saint Joseph's University (Philadelphia, PA)

In 1985, during an interreligious controversy in Sweden, Bishop Krister Stendahl articulated three rules “for effective interfaith dialogue” that he later expressed as: “let the other define herself (‘Don't think you know the other without listening’); compare equal to equal (not my positive qualities to the negative ones of the other); and find beauty in the other so as to develop ‘holy envy.’”[1] One of his protégés, Jesper Svartvik, later described “holy envy” as “the willingness to discern, to recognize and to celebrate what is good, beautiful and attractive in other religious traditions – and to let it remain what it is, i.e., something which is holy but which wholly belongs to the other.”[2] However, Svartvik also extended the trajectory of Stendahl’s thought by raising further questions: “How do we provide theological space for the Other? How is my faith influenced by the encounter?”[3] A potent social force also at work in the Christian and Jewish encounter is the natural, human yearning for reciprocation when one community makes positive theological statements about the other. This might be expressed in the (perhaps unconscious) question: “What response do I expect from the Other after I’ve shared the holiness of my tradition with them?” The prospect of such feelings alarmed Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik as early as 1964 when he wrote: “we [Jews] certainly have not been authorized by our history … to trade favors pertaining to fundamental matters of faith, and to reconcile ‘some’ differences.”[4] Nonetheless, Christian-Jewish dialogue has unfolded over the ensuing decades, encouraged by such pioneers as Krister Stendahl. This paper will examine recent Jewish and Vatican statements that evince such interrelational dynamics as respect for the Other’s self-understanding, a desire for reciprocity, caution about not “trading favors over fundamental matters of faith,” and, most recently, seeing the relationship between Jews and Christians as “a rich complementarity”[5] or as a partnership with “a common covenantal mission to perfect the world.”[6] The paper will suggest that the Christian-Jewish relationship may be showing signs of maturing from “holy envy” to “holy mutuality”—a rapport that inspires both communities to deepen their covenantal lives with the Holy One. [1] Yehezkel Landau, “An Interview with Krister Stendahl,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 35/1 (Winter 2007). [2] Jesper Svartvik, “In Memory of Krister Stendahl on his Idea of ‘Holy Envy,’” Public Forum at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, March 24, 2009. [3] Ibid. [4] Joseph Soloveitchik, “Confrontation,” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought 6/2 (1964): 24. [5] Pope Francis, “Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (January 24, 2014), §249. [6] International Group of Orthodox Rabbis, “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians” (December 3, 2015), §4.


The Personal Implications of "Sentences" in Proverbs
Program Unit: Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation
Beth Currer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Language comprehension theorists have long posited that language understanding is contingent on mentally picturing what utterances and pieces of writing are about. Mental simulation theory suggests that not only do people mentally picture what we encounter in language, we virtually experience it as well (Barsalou 1992, 1999, 2002, 2003 2008, 2010; Zwaan and Radvansky 1998; Zwaan 1999, 2003, 2008, 2009; Bergen 2005, 2007, 2012; Gibbs 2006, 2007, 2012, 2015). Lawrence Barsalou describes the experience of comprehending language as “being there conceptually” (2002, 2003, 2008, 2010). And Benjamin Bergen (2007) describes what he calls “a new, integrated field” comprised of cognitive linguists and experimental researchers all focused “on the idea that language understanding is contingent upon the understander mentally simulating, or imagining, the content of utterances.” Simulation-based views of meaning are closely tied to ideas about embodiment. Bergen (2007) describes the idea of embodiment in cognitive science as “quite straightforward. It’s the notion that aspects of cognition cannot be understood without referring to aspects of the systems they are embedded in – in the biology of the organism, including the brain and the rest of its body, and in its physical and social context.” People process language using the cognitive resources they have built up over time in the course of all the learning and experiences they have engaged in. We might ask how these ideas about language understanding ought to impact approaches to biblical interpretation. My research focuses on the book of Proverbs. So, in this paper, I explore how simulation-based views of meaning shed light on how readers draw personal implications from the “sentences” (or sentence literature) in Proverbs. The “instructions” that pervade Proverbs 1-9 and 22:12-24:22 and the “sentences” that dominate Proverbs 10-29 are recognized as different genres of Israelite/Jewish advice literature. They differ in form but share function and purpose: that of issuing advice and instruction and seeking to cultivate a certain kind of moral character in hearers/readers. Analyzing both forms in light of embodied simulation theory raises the question, how does a person mentally simulate an instruction? I use mental-space theory to show how one might do this. Relations between act/character and consequence—in histories of interpretation, tied to notions of (cosmic) order in Proverbs—are of central importance. Therefore in concluding this paper, I describe implications the analysis I offer may entail for the perceptions we formulate of order, knowledge, and pedagogy in this touchstone of “optimistic” didactic Israelite/Jewish Wisdom literature.


The Book of Ruth, Immigrant Women, and the Danger of Sexual Violence
Program Unit: Biblical Literature and the Hermeneutics of Trauma
Kelly D Dagley , Fuller Theological Seminary/ Hope Int University

The news is filled with stories of immigrant peril: drowning by sea, death by dehydration and exposure when traveling by foot in the desert, suffering suffocation in the back of an unventilated truck, etc. While immigrant women face these same dangers while migrating, they find themselves additionally vulnerable to sexual violence, including but not limited to being sexually harassed, having sexual favors demanded of them, and sexual molestation and assault. The vulnerability does not end once the journey is completed as immigrant women continue to face this risk in the workplace particularly in agricultural and domestic work. The book of Ruth is an immigrant woman’s story. Where does Ruth’s experience of migration and twenty-first century immigrant women’s experience mirror each other? In this paper, observations are made by surveying migration and refugee studies of women’s experiences of migration, reading the book of Ruth with Latin American women who have immigrated to Southern California, and performing a narratological study of the text of Ruth in light of the previous research. Areas to be explored in the book of Ruth are: her journey from Moab to Bethlehem in Judah with Naomi, as she works in fields gleaning for survival, and in the great risk she takes to ensure security for herself and Naomi.


“Keep the Commandments … Sell Your Possessions”: Soteriology and Human Flourishing in the Narrative of the Rich Young Man (Matt 19:16–29)
Program Unit: Matthew
Jenifer A. Daley, Andrews University

In the wake of a social imaginary with accounts of human flourishing predicated on a modern anthropology and advanced as the normative final end for human existence, a more focused and intentional linkage between the economic state of affairs and the quest for salvation remains a desideratum. The long-standing tension between economics and religion finds expression in the conversation between Jesus and an inquirer described as “young” and “having many possessions” in the Gospel of Matthew (19:16-22). This paper uses that Matthean narrative to offer one compelling solution to the question as to how theology might reconcile the seemingly unbridgeable cultural abyss between conceptions of human flourishing and the quest for salvation. A number of interpretive problems from the soteriological Tendenz in the pericope exposes the lack of a well-established crux interpretum among Christian scholars as schools of thought have variously interpreted the concatenation of “have eternal life” (v.16), “enter into life” (v.17), “keep the commandments” (v.17), “teleios” (v.21) and “go and sell your possessions … treasure in heaven … come, follow me” (v.21) (for example, Légasse, Kingsbury, Powell, Wenham). Did the young man receive eternal life although he, apparently, declined to “be teleios”? (Barring quotations, we continue to use the transliterated teleios throughout the paper rather than translate it into English because by doing this we are able to ultimately communicate and highlight the strong nuance of fullness clearer than the regularly used “perfect”). Was the young man exceptional or is Jesus asking every follower to “go sell”? Is Matthew implying soteriological diversity in the pericope of the rich young man? Furthermore, what, if anything, is the relationship between salvation and human flourishing? Galot, for example, identifies two levels of discipleship in Jesus’ imperatives. Stanley concludes that the issue is about one’s relationship to Jesus rather than with the Law. Harrington cites Christian interpretations and applications as erroneous and concludes on “two ways to eternal life” for Jews. We maintain that Jesus’s teaching on salvation in Matt 19:16-29 does not support soteriological diversity. The analysis illustrates the unity in Jesus’s commands and points to the inquirer’s deficiency, disobedience to the call to discipleship and rejection of true flourishing. Evidently, the acceptance of Jesus’s message had economic implications for individuals as well as their communities. Utilizing narrative analysis, the paper explores the narrator’s intention in the two phrases “if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments” (v.17) and “if you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions” (v.21). The synchronic analysis produced some basic insights and fairly convincing support of the thesis to reject soteriological diversity in the pericope. However, to adequately explain the theological tension between vv.17 and 21 we appeal to the wider interface of soteriological Tendenzen in Matthew and demonstrate interdependence with Matthew 5. We not only find that Matthew 5 carries a hermeneutical key for Matt 19:16-29 but also, with Pennington, that such a key necessarily overlaps with considerations of human flourishing, highlighting Jesus’s model of a life of true flourishing.


The Afterlives of Isaiah 58:7 in Early Christian and Rabbinic Literature
Program Unit: Rabbinic Literature and Culture
Krista Dalton, Kenyon College

"It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to bring the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe him, And not to ignore your own kin." Originally conceived as an appeal for proper Israelite fasting, Isaiah 58:7 has a multivocalic exegetical afterlife in late antique Jewish and Christians texts. As early as the second century the author of the Epistle of Barnabas cited this verse not only for its moral directives, but also as part of a nascent contra Iudaeos polemic, rendering the prophetic books as an indictment of various forms of religious practice ascribed to the author's contemporary rivals. The third-century North African bishop, Cyprian, in a less polemical vein uses the text to strengthen a rigorous moral message in his treatise On Works and Alms, arguing that Christians best use their financial wealth when they entrust it to the Church and to the poor. Also writing in North Africa, the fourth-century bishop, Augustine, cites translation discrepancies within the reception history of Isaiah 58:7 in the second book of his De doctrina christiana. Differences among translations, he claims, has led to confusion as to who should be understood as the proper recipient of financial support, one's blood relatives or fellow Christians. Augustine, like Cyprian before him, interprets this verse as directing the believer to provide alms for the Christian poor as members of the "ecclesial" family beyond the strict confines of biological kinship. Rabbinic authors focused on the "wretched poor" or marudim in particular. In the Palestinian Talmud, R. Avin contends that bringing the marudim into one's house is as if that person were bringing first fruits to the Temple (Peah 5:5). Here the action of extending hospitality was conceived as a replacement for the Temple's agricultural tithing festival. Avot d' Rabbi Natan B expounds on the identity of this "wretched poor," presenting a series of answers to the question "Who are the marudim?" Most notably, the passage ends with the rabbis as the ultimate marudim and ideal recipients of charitable aid. The verse also appears in the Babylonian Talmud Baba Bathra's "Charity tractate" as a proof text both in a theological debate between Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva and in a homiletical teaching by R. Yehudah. The two passages are joined by their interpretive relationship to Isa 58:7 where the marudim represent the Jews living in the aftermath of the Temple's destruction. In each of these examples, the rabbinic authors use the language of Isa 58:7 to imagine communal assistance within the Jewish community as a response to the constraints of imperial rule. When read together, the Christian and Jewish traditions demonstrate that the character of the charitable recipients-the hungry, poor, naked, and kin-offered an interpretive ground for claims upon communal aid. Through these claims, Jewish and Christian writers each articulate their own sense of group identity and distinctiveness amidst an imperial world wrought with financial competition. (Paper paired with Erin Galgay Walsh)


"A Dog Has Eaten Yannai's Bread": Analyzing Social Cues Between Rabbis and Patrons
Program Unit: Religious Competition in Late Antiquity
Krista N. Dalton, Kenyon College

Scholars and wealthy donors engaged in a complex network of power relations in late antiquity. The knowledge marketplace was a ground of competition-scholarly guilds ideologically distinguished themselves from their rivals and sought donors both to fund knowledge-ordering projects and to reinforce the prestige of the guild's expertise. In order to effectively compete in the knowledge marketplace, ancient scholars strove to project an aura of "expertise" through tactics of legitimation, which infused their relationships with potential patrons with the dynamics of gift exchange requiring constant negotiation. Anthropologist Jeremy Boissevain framed these types of relationships as situational, whereby patrons and clients defined their social roles through continual performance of the transactional relationship. Social network theory provides a model for analyzing the performance of social cues that reinforced the networks of exchange connecting scholastic guilds with potential wealthy patrons. Using social network theory, this paper will analyze Leviticus Rabbah 9:3. This text presents an encounter between R. Yannai and a nameless wealthy elite. Their interaction unfolds with tension, each asserting superiority over the other in subtle (and not so subtle) social cues, echoing Blau's theory of "micro-processes." This paper will argue that we can observe how rabbis in Syria Palaestina navigated transactional networks through the words and nonverbal practices encoded in this encounter. I will show how there is a symbiotic relationship to be struck between R. Yannai and the wealthy man-one maintains expert Torah knowledge and the other reciprocates with recognition of piety expectations. This is the particular dynamic between rabbis and wealthy elites that fueled relationships of patronage. I will ultimately show that the rabbis engaged in a "cognitive dissonance" with their donors, similar to the dynamics between Second Sophistic pepaideumenoi (philosophers) or late antique Christian bishops and their patrons. On the one hand, ancient literary elites held specialized knowledge inaccessible to the public; patrons, on the other hand, had the money. By locating rabbinic fundraising efforts within the larger practice of scholastic donations, I will observe the strategies rabbis used to cultivate institutional persistence.


Lovers Lost: Unrequited Love and the Poetics of Illegibility
Program Unit: LGBTI/Queer Hermeneutics
David M. Dalwood, Yale Divinity School

What is it to long for that which never was and, in turn, can never be? There is urgency to this question for those who find themselves haunted by spectral memories of persons and events that intrude (sometimes violently) into the present as melancholic fantasies (cf. Derrida, _Specters of Marx_, 1994; Freccero, “Queer Spectrality,” 2007). The childhood one did not have; the milestones one was unable to reach; the beloved who got away – these may be mourned and, through the act of mourning, conjured (cf. Butler _Precarious Life_, 2004; Butler, _Frames of War_, 2016; Exum _The Song of Songs_, 2005). However, such conjuring exacts a terrible toll on the conjurer, who must sacrifice her own legibility as a subject in order to commune with the spirits of presents-that-might-have-been. Through her attempts to escape the feelings of despondency, shame, and loneliness that mark her experience of the present-that-is (cf. Love, _Feeling Backward_, 2007), the conjurer becomes a wraithlike figure herself, a non-subject (which is to say, a queer subject; Edelman, _No Future_, 2004) who lives within the impossible spaces of her memories. In this paper, I reflect upon memory - what is remembered, what is forgotten - and its significance as a vehicle for recovering that which is truly lost, grounding my analysis in a re-reading of the Song of Songs that is informed by current discussions within queer theory of temporality and negativity. Far from expressing the mutual passion of two lovers, on my account the Song articulates the unrequited love of a nameless queer female who inhabits a counterfactual past in order to reconstitute her present and attain spectral union with an always-absent male beloved. Such union is achieved, but only fleetingly, in the masturbatory fantasy of Song 5:2-6. Here, the costs of the woman’s longing are thrown into stark relief: Her orgasmic climax in v. 6 is matched by the disappearance of her lover (whose existence except as an apparition the Song repeatedly calls into question), and the fantasy quickly yields to the veritable nightmare of her encounter with the watchers in v. 7. By placing the male beloved ultimately out of reach to the woman even whilst remaining powerless to suppress his ghostly presence in the present, the Song invites queer readers to identify themselves in their condition of unresolvable yearning with the female lover. Yet such identification is hardly a means of relieving the affective burdens noted above: For the queer subject is precisely that, a non-subject who, as a specter already, enters the text only to find herself, with the woman, reliving without end the memories of lovers lost, forever unable to forget even as she is forgotten.


Disrupting Concealment, Defying Flavian Propaganda, and Outhonoring Vespasian: An Analysis of Mark 5:1–20
Program Unit: Jesus Traditions, Gospels, and Negotiating the Roman Imperial World
Maziel Dani, Brite Divinity School (TCU)

I read Mark 5:1-20 as a passage in which Mark’s Jesus outhonors and demonstrates superiority over the Roman emperor, Vespasian. Jesus does so by singlehandedly defeating a demonic legion that no one was able to restrain (5:3-4, 8-9), accepting the title of divine sonship (5:7), performing a miracle without hesitation and with his voice (5:8), commanding the recipient of exorcism to spread the news of what the Lord has done for him (5:19), extending clementia to the man (5:19), and achieving public acknowledgment for his good deeds throughout the Decapolis through a public exorcism, multiple witnesses, and a widespread report (5:14, 16, 20). In so arguing, I build on Incigneri’s and Winn’s analysis that Mark’s gospel is situated in a post 70 CE Roman context and has a complex interaction with the Flavian dynasty in which Mark’s Jesus contests, subverts, imitates, reinscribes, rivals, and competes with the Roman Emperor for honor, fame, and recognition. I especially employ not only Watson’s emphasis on honor but also his argument that the imperial virtue of honor is an important component of Mark’s secrecy motif. Hence after previous injunctions in the Gospel to secrecy (1:25, 34, 44; 3:12), Jesus’ strange commandment in this passage to ‘make known what the Lord has done for you’ (5:19) abandons concealment in order to obtain honor by spreading his fame throughout the surrounding regions, gaining public recognition and popularity, and proclaiming publicly his good deeds.


The Early Israelite Settlement through the Lens of Ruth
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Daniel Block, Wheaton College

The Early Israelite Settlement through the Lens of Ruth


Why Should We Talk About God At All?
Program Unit: Westar Institute
Brandy Daniels, University of Virginia

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The Politics of the Song of Deborah: The Enduring "Root" of Ephraim in Amaleq (Judg 5:14a)
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Quinn Daniels, New York University

The Song of Deborah (Jdgs 5) comes to us as one of the earliest biblical texts describing the muster of different peoples for battle; it praises those who join and condemns those who fail to come (vv. 14-18). By naming these peoples, the text has power to reveal old, collective political configurations that existed prior to the Israelite and Judahite monarchies. The Ephraim people, in particular, should hold our attention as the first-mentioned name on the list, partially because of its unexpected connection to another name, Amaleq. The line that crucially defines the relationship between the two: “From Ephraim, their root in Amaleq” (v. 14a), has not been satisfactorily explained, and any way forward demands better understanding of the decisive word “root,” or šōreš, in this context. As English speakers, it is common to assume that “root” conveys a sense of the past or origins. However, when we examine the range of social and political applications for the word šōreš, along with its Semitic cognates, we find that it instead refers to a patrilineage, or line of male kin, that was to extend indefinitely into the foreseeable future. This future-oriented redefinition unlocks a new possibility in our difficult verse – namely, that Ephraim had a patrilineal leader who led Amaleq into battle as part of the Ephraimite fighting force. Ephraim’s “root,” in this case, would be the current and subsequent generations of leadership. A second text, Judges 12:13-15, locates Ephraim and Amaleq together, and although it does not use the word šōreš to define the relationship, it describes a similar political relationship. Here, an Ephraimite patrilineal leader, Abdon son of Hillel, was buried “in Pirathon, in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amaleqites.” Abdon is commemorated as an elite, almost royal figure, who successfully perpetuated his lineage while he was alive. His burial at a gravesite defined by both Ephraimite and Amaleqite peoples comprises a second, independent memory of Ephraim’s link with Amaleq. Abdon’s elite multi-generational family (v.14) is the type of patrilineage that matches the definition of šōreš. As a result, Abdon represents the Ephraimite patrilineal leader among the Amaleqites – much like the Ephraimite šōreš in the Song of Deborah. The cooperation of Amaleq with Ephraimite leadership in the list of groups (vv.14-18) shows that Amaleq was one component of Ephraim’s larger group “muster” – with Benjamin perhaps another component through its inclusion in the parallel line: “after you, Benjamin, among your peoples” (5:14a). The Ephraim people had a patrilineal leader among the Amaleqites, and was followed by Benjamin – itself a constitution of many peoples. All of these groups participated in a battle in the distant north – a conflict in which nearby groups like Reuben, Gilead, Dan, and Asher refused to participate (vv.15b-17). The fronted placement of the Ephraim-led collaboration perhaps recognizes – even celebrates – the accomplishment of mustering such a variegated fighting force across a long distance.


Learning to Read with Luke and Theophilus
Program Unit: Gospel of Luke
John A. Darr, Boston College

Luke addresses the issue of reading more explicitly—and more frequently—than does any other early Christian writer. The implied author of Luke and Acts is distinctive among the evangelists in naming a reader (twice), foregrounding unique and detailed reading scenes, and presenting protagonists as discussing reading. It is not surprising, then, that Luke-Acts has become a storm center within the wider controversies among New Testament scholars over orality, aurality, and literacy in early Christianity. How should we envision the delivery and reception of these stories among early believers? Shall we imagine an interactive performance in which a lector or reciter fluidly adapted familiar story lines in response to audience needs and cues, or, to the contrary, did communal reading events serve to control and stabilize the wording of authoritative texts like the Jewish Scriptures and Luke-Acts? Scholarly discussion of such questions has relied heavily on identifying apposite models of communal reading from Jewish and Hellenistic antiquity and then on applying these social reconstructions to Luke and Acts. While not eschewing reference to such external models, another approach to the issue of reading focuses much more sharply on internal dynamics in Luke-Acts, with special attention to how the narrative self-consciously (reflexively) promotes and inculcates ways of reading itself. Viewed through this lens, the text is about reading the text and forming the reader as (Lukan) reader. In this paper I expand on this reflexive, pedagogical, and psychagogical approach to indicate in a preliminary way how Luke teaches readers to read in terms of perception, ethics, authority, and tradition. Passages of note will include the preface(s), the Nazareth episode, the Emmaus story, and the incident of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, among others.


Of Trite Tropes and Platitudes: Imagery and Ageism in Biblical Proverbs
Program Unit: Metaphor in the Bible and Cognate Literature
Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Boston University

Metaphors and similes—two tropes, or figurative use of language—are hoary headed (an example of the former) and fresh as a baby’s first blink (an example of the latter). Imbued with the West’s delight in garden fresh insight, many of its scholars extol the presence of stereotype-shattering tropes in the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic, cultic, and proverbial literature. James G. Williams, for example, applauds complex, playful metaphors in Prov. 10—29, including “the ‘soft tongue’ that ‘breaks bone’ (Prov. 25.15) as a metaphor of wise persuasion.” For William Brown, a good metaphor “creates conceptual and emotional friction by which new meaning is achieved.” In “Of Proverbs, Metaphors and Platitudes,” by contrast, Lawrie Douglas scrutinizes the West’s “hankering after novelty” and “worship of creativity” on one hand, and its concomitant disdain for trite tropes and time worn sayings on the other. Metaphors, for example, are “delectable when fresh, “open-ended and illuminating,” and “frequently regarded as creative.” But they have a “short shelf life.” In this paper, I examine how the West’s penchant for literary novelty has shaped its study and appreciation of biblical imagery—including nature imagery.


Ruah Elohim in the Light of Phoenician Cosmogonies
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in Its Ancient Context
Guy Darshan, Tel Aviv University

Genesis 1 has been the subject of numerous comparative studies, in particular with regard to the Enuma Elish. However, verse 2 diverges markedly from the Mesopotamian cosmogonies, being most closely paralleled in Phoenician texts. While scholars such as Gunkel, Eissfeldt, and Moscati, have noted this similarity briefly, no one has collected and analyzed all the Phoenician evidence (Moscati fails to refer to any Phoenician source whatsoever in his 1947 JBL paper). Addressing the Phoenician sources, discussing their ancient Near Eastern (especially Egyptian) background, and understanding the Greco-Roman world in which the traditions they contain were preserved can help us trace the early history of the motif of the primordial wind in Genesis.


Hamartia as Sin Offering in Romans 8:3
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
A. Andrew Das, Elmhurst College

Hamartia as Sin Offering in Romans 8:3


The Basilica of Alexander at Tipasa and Its Structuring of the Commemoration of the Dead
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Bradley J. Daugherty, Vanderbilt University

Though scholarly treatments of the late antique cemetery basilica known as the “chapel of Alexander” in Tipasa in Mauritania Caesariensis have acknowledged its clerical focus, they have neither explored the implications of this focus within the specific context of North African Christianity nor given detailed attention to the ways the site would have structured ritual practice and formed its visitors. In this presentation I will offer a thick description of the site and argue that the architectural plan, program of mosaics, and monumental burials of the basilica structured the ritual practice of late antique visitors to the site so as to restructure their commemoration of the dead as an episcopal-focused piety, thereby also reinforcing the centrality of the bishop in the local community. The particular features of the site function on several layers to assert the authority of the local bishop, his sanctity vis-à-vis the community’s martyrs, and the status of the Caecilianist (or “Catholic”) communion as the true church in Africa. I will focus on three elements of the site. First, the basilica was furnished with a series of pavement mosaics that would have guided visitors into the basilica proper (rather than the adjoining funerary enclosure) and up through the central nave. (CIL VIII.20903-20906, et al.) The inscriptions guided not only visitors’ steps through the site, but also their perspective on Alexander, reifying his position at the pinnacle of both the community’s almsgiving and the Christian community itself. Second, the layout and architectural plan of the site incorporated the shrines of martyrs in a funerary enclosure that was relegated to a position secondary to that of the basilica, which was located on elevated ground. Within the basilica, Alexander and the previous bishops of Tipasa were commemorated in images that evoked the glories of martyrdom. The site channeled visitors and their attention to commemoration of these holy bishops above and before that of the martyrs in the enclosure below. Third, the site’s translation of the remains of the previous bishops of Tipasa and commemoration of them as iusti priores was ideologically loaded in late 4th and early 5th century African Christianity. The significance of bishops’ lineage for their sanctity and legitimacy was a point of sectarian controversy, and the basilica of Alexander promoted this ideology by shaping its visitors’ commemoration of the special dead into a commemoration, above all, of their holy bishops. Thus the episcopal focus of the site was also a weapon in the sectarian conflict of North Africa. Thus the cemetery basilica of Alexander demonstrates not only how broader episcopal trends in late antiquity, such as the growing authority of the bishops, could take on particular significance within local and regional contexts, but even more how an individual site might use the arrangement of space, architectural elements, and ritual practice to shape local practice and inculcate both piety and ideology.


Playing with Death: Violent Exceptions and Exceptional Violence in the Book of Jeremiah
Program Unit: Book of Jeremiah
Steed Vernyl Davidson, McCormick Theological Seminary

The task of identifying a single rationale for the violence on display in the book of Jeremiah may end with a coherent answer but perhaps not a satisfactory one. That violence serves a reforming purpose seems satisfactory to theological readers in search of theodicy as well trauma analyses that find the violence problematic but understandable. Other interpreters of Jeremiah such as feminists and postcolonialists struggle with the gratuitous and seemingly arbitrary nature of the violence. While not an attempt to rationalize the violence, this paper engages the arbitrariness of the violence through a systematic analysis of four targets of violence in the book of Jeremiah: the prophet, the feminized Israel/Judah as adulterous wife, foreign nations, and the earth. By distinguishing these separate targets the paper examines how gender, sexuality, nationality, and specieism intersect in the enactment of the rhetorical violence in the book. These delineations also set the stage for a central claim of the paper, that of exceptional violence. Building upon Carl Schmidt’s notion that exceptional violence stems from exceptional vulnerability that requires the state of exception to use unrestrained violence, the paper considers how the violence as narrated in Jeremiah both performs this exceptionalism but also has exceptions. By examining who/what dies from the violence in the book, the paper points out how the politics of death is played out upon different targets.


All the Earth is Mine: Toward a Biblical Theology of Freedom of Religion or Belief
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible and Political Theory
Andrew Davies, University of Birmingham

Freedom of religion or belief is enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is one of the central pillars of our understanding of what makes us human. Yet it remains a problematic concept in terms of its practical implementation. For example, we might ask how belief in freedom of religion or belief can be reconciled with the claims to universal truth propounded by at least some followers of major world religions, or how individual freedom can sit comfortably with political requirements and socio-cultural expectations. Perhaps the Hebrew Bible can help us here, arising as it did in a multireligious world where the people of Israel found themselves confronted by a variety of alternative (generally rather more dominant) religious traditions and caught up in a web of global political and military intrigue which often both supported and depended upon competing religious ideologies. The Hebrew Bible speaks with multiple and contradictory voices on the issue of the existence of other deities and the relation of Yahweh to the non-Israelite nations, yet its testimony to Israel’s faith consistently affirms a belief in the supremacy and superiority of Yahweh and the need for all nations and peoples to recognise his lordship. Working therefore from the hypothesis that attending to the subtle nuance of the biblical argument in this area might offer some helpful insights for contemporary understanding, this paper attempts to build an embryonic framework from some of the many threads of the Hebrew Bible’s discussion of the role of Yahweh and the status of Israel which might inform political theology and even perhaps public policy in the arena of freedom of religion or belief.


Apocalyptic Topography in Mark’s Gospel: Theophany and Divine Invisibility at Sinai, Horeb, and the Mount of Transfiguration
Program Unit: Christian Theology and the Bible
J P Davies, Trinity College - Bristol

For Mark, as an apocalyptic theologian, geography is never just geography: mountains, wilderness, seas, rivers, roads, valleys – all have theological significance beyond their roles as narrative settings. This paper will consider one topographical feature of Mark’s gospel, the mountain, from the perspective of Mark’s apocalyptic theology. In the apocalyptic literature, the mountain is an axis mundi, a conduit between earth and the divine realm, and a place of divine self-revelation (e.g. 1 Enoch 17, 25; Apoc Zeph 3, Testament of Levi 2). This is not, of course, a trope limited to the apocalyptic literature, as attested by the mountaintop encounters of Moses on Mt Sinai (Exodus 24, 33) and Elijah on Mt Horeb (1 Kings 19). It is nothing novel to examine Mark’s most important mountaintop scene, the transfiguration, against this theophanic background. What this paper will suggest, however, is that there is ambiguity in Mark’s account which calls into question interpretations of this scene straightforwardly as a theophany. The Christological question ‘Who is Jesus?’, which runs through Mark’s gospel, is, despite expectations, not given a clearly revealed answer in the transfiguration. The lack of understanding displayed by the disciples in the scene has more theological significance than simply being another example of their obtuseness in the face of divine revelation. Careful consideration of Mark’s account in its narrative and canonical context suggests that this is an apocalyptic mountaintop theophany, to be sure, but one which does not reveal so much as it hides; a ‘theophany of divine invisibility’, to coin a somewhat paradoxical phrase. Helpful here is the recent contribution to Christian systematic theology by Katherine Sonderegger, in whose doctrine of God divine invisibility is not a sign of his absence but the very mode of his omnipresence. Even in mountaintop theophanies, God is the One who hides himself and who is present in his hiddenness. At the intersection of the study of the apocalypses and contemporary Christian systematic theology, therefore, Mark’s comparatively tempered account of the transfiguration can be seen not, as some suggest, evidence of downplaying the glory of Jesus due to a ‘theologia crucis’ but rather serves his emphasis on non-perception and revelation as the narrative expression of an apocalyptic epistemology.


Historical Geography in the Priesty Literature of the Pentateuch
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Jordan Davis, Universität Zürich

(no abstract)


Marcion’s Gospel and Its Use of the Jewish Scriptures
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Phillip Davis, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

The name Marcion is perhaps most closely associated with the rejection of Christian use of the Jewish Scriptures. In this sense it may be a surprising fact that Marcion’s gospel is not at all devoid of scriptural quotations and allusions. Indeed, Tertullian happily highlights such cases in order to undermine Marcion’s purported theology on the basis of his own gospel. Yet in recent years scholars have questioned anew Tertullian’s depiction of Marcion as selecting Luke among the four available gospels and redacting it according to his theology. In part because of Tertullian’s own biases and the apparent inconsistencies between Marcion’s gospel and his supposed theology, scholars have pleaded for at least a more nuanced understanding of the relation between Marcion’s gospel and canonical Luke, if not a complete reversal of their relationship (e.g., M. Vinzent, M. Klinghardt et al.). This paper approaches Marcion’s gospel in this context and asks what light the use of Scripture might suggest about Marcion’s gospel and its relation to canonical Luke. Based on an analysis of the few scriptural quotations and more numerous scriptural allusions, the paper argues that, even if Marcion’s gospel does not consistently reflect a purported Marcionite theology, its use of the Jewish Scriptures nevertheless suggests a redaction based on canonical Luke.


The Levite and the āšipu: Locating Scribal Knowledge
Program Unit: Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World
Ryan Conrad Davis, Brigham Young University

In Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (2007), Karel van der Toorn claims that the temple was the center of scribal production and identified the Levites as the scribes who produced the Biblical texts. His assertion has been met with skepticism by a number of scholars, who see the locus of scribal activities occurring away from the temple, such as within military or palace bureaucracies. The argument over the location of scribes has revolved around their physical or professional locations, and it is this aspect of the issue that needs to be rethought. Much more can be learned about the location of scholarly knowledge by examining the Mesopotamian āšipu, one of the most important ritual specialists of the first-millennium. Similar to the Levites, the āšipus of the first-millennium belonged to families that traced their lineage back to important ancestors of their past. More recent research has suggested that although these scribal families would often be associated with temple and royal administrations, the scholarly knowledge that they transmitted belonged to the families that transmitted them, rather than to geographic or professional locations. Analysis of libraries that belonged to these families along with evidence from letters written by these specialists allow us to see the breadth of the texts over which they had oversight. In light of this comparative evidence, I will argue that it is plausible to see the Hebrew Bible as the product of ritual specialists who kept their cultural and ritual knowledge within family lines. These ritual specialists could have participated outside of and within temple and royal administrations, rendering any attempt to describe scribes or ritual specialists by their physical or professional locations to be tenuous at best.


Does Luke’s Preface Resemble a Greek Decree? Comparing the Papyrological and Epigraphical Evidence of Greek Decrees with Ancient Preface Formulae
Program Unit: Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds
Zachary K. Dawson, McMaster Divinity College

The most thorough study to date of Luke’s preface as it relates to other preface-types in antiquity is Loveday Alexander’s 1993 published doctoral thesis, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel, in which she argues that Luke’s preface conforms to the prefaces of ancient scientific treatises. While New Testament scholars convey no lack of gratitude for the insights that Alexander provided from her classicist background, her conclusion has been repeatedly challenged. Many scholars object to Alexander’s conclusion on the grounds that Luke’s Gospel is written in the style of Greco-Roman historiography, a position that she contests in her work. One such scholar, John Moles, has also analyzed Luke’s preface through a classicist lens, but has gone further to make the argument that Luke’s preface resembles a Greek decree more than any other type of writing. Such a claim, if proven, could provide profound exegetical insight into Luke’s Gospel as well as the social location of Luke and his intended audience. Although Moles is not the first to recognize the supposed decree-like features in Luke’s preface, nor the first to point out that Luke’s preface shares near identical grammatical structure with the Jerusalem decree in Luke’s second volume (Acts 15:24–29), he goes further than others by grounding his argument on the work of P. J. Rhodes, who has done more work in English than anyone else in classical studies on ancient Greek decrees. Because Alexander and Moles both share Classical backgrounds and yet come to opposing conclusions about Luke’s preface, they will serve as two prominent discussion partners in this essay. However, I will demonstrate that Moles’s argument does not hold up under scrutiny; his argument is slanted by privileging certain textual features of ancient decrees while ignoring other evidence from the same epigraphs and papyri. Instead, I argue that Luke’s preface functions to clearly and simply introduce his Gospel (and Acts) according to appropriate conventions of historiographical writing without adding layers of rhetorical meaning. This will be argued by (1) analyzing the textual and physical forms of ancient bookrolls in relationship to their prefaces, and by (2) comparing the structures and content of Greek decrees to preface formulae based on numerous decrees in papyri and epigraphs.


The Serpent in the Garden of Eden: A Critique of Some Recent Proposals
Program Unit: Genesis
John Day, University of Oxford

In the past decade several new proposals about the serpent in the Garden of Eden have been made, in my view all erroneous. First, in 2010 James Charlesworth argued that the serpent of Gen. 3 is to be viewed positively, as he claimed the serpent often was elsewhere in the ancient world. However, it cannot be denied that in the Hebrew Bible itself serpents are overwhelmingly viewed negatively, with very few exceptions (Num. 21; Isa. 6). Moreover, if we are seriously to suppose that the narrator intended us to view the serpent positively in Gen. 3 it becomes incomprehensible why God should sentence it to such harsh punishment. Furthermore, Eve admits that the serpent had deceived her, a sentiment from which God does not dissent. Secondly, in 2011, Francesca Stavrakopoulou claimed that the Eden serpent denoted snake worship, seemingly referring to Nehushtan. She further maintained that this worship is implied as leading to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, which she finds symbolized in the expulsion from Paradise. However, Adam and Eve are hardly represented as worshiping the serpent, the destruction of Nehushtan took place over a century before 586 BCE, and serpent worship is never cited as a reason for the fall of Jerusalem elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. In any case, it is unlikely that Gen. 3 is an allegory of the fall of Jerusalem. Thirdly, in 2014 Johannes de Moor and Marjo Korpel, argued that the Eden story has its background in the Ugaritic texts KTU 1.100 and 107. This includes the serpent, which they see represented by the god Horon in the Ugaritic narrative. However, the thesis is highly questionable, since much of the claimed Ugaritic Vorlage has to be reconstructed in gaps in the narrative. Fourthly, in 2015, Duane Smith has suggested that the Eden serpent has its background in Mesopotamian ophiomancy, that is, divination based on observation of serpents. Smith claims that the knowledge of good and evil which the first humans acquired means knowledge of good and bad fortune, the kind of knowledge gained through divination. He also claims that the description of the serpent as ‘arum could mean that it is ‘portentous’. All this seems foreign to the narrative. If we reject all these views, what then are we to make of the serpent? Although the view is not totally new, I think it likely that Gen. 3 has reworked certain mythic motifs found in the Gilgamesh epic. Just as in the Eden narrative a serpent is ultimately responsible for denying Adam and Eve access to the tree of life, thereby denying them the immortality which the tree bestows, so in the Gilgamesh epic, a serpent is responsible for snatching the plant of life, thereby denying Gilgamesh the chance of gaining the rejuvenation which that plant bestows. Both Gen. 3 and the Gilgamesh epic imply that immortality or rejuvenation in this world are something beyond human grasp. The stories, of course, are quite different, but make use of some common motifs.


The Future of History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
M. C. de Boer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

This paper will present an appreciative assessment of J. Louis Martyn’s groundbreaking work, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, seeking to show how Martyn could in some respects have strengthened and clarified his argument. Does his approach to the Gospel (imaginatively taking up temporary residence in the Johannine Community in order to understand what was going on there), his construal of the Sitz im Leben in which the formative version of the Gospel was composed (the twin traumas of expulsion from the synagogue and the prospect of excecution), and his understanding of the dialectical interplay between Johannine history and Johannine theology (as reflected in the title of his book) have a future in the field?


"I Spy with My Little Eye…": Cognitive Prolegoumena to the Study of Visuality and Our Ancient Fellow Human Beings
Program Unit: Cognitive Science Approaches to the Biblical World
Izaak J. de Hulster, University of Helsinki

To what extent can one speak about ‘human universals’ (or ‘anthropogene Universalien’)? And thus, what do 21st century CE human beings have in common with their fellow human beings in antiquity? Senses, cognition, embodiment, manufactured materiality (sometimes still literally bearing fingerprints), and fallibility are good candidates. From a cognitive perspective, one might find – for instance – neurological grounds to argue for such similarities/ commonalities. But does this provide enough basis for ‘mutual understanding’ (or at least one-sided historical understanding)? Here, one needs to take into account cultural differences and individual perceptions: even if – generally speaking, assuming the sense of sight – humans see light and colour, colour perception can be different as reflected in language. Because manufactured materiality brings us – in various respects – in touch with ancient fellow human beings, this past ‘reality’ provides handles for exploring humanity in antiquity, and therefore also comprises guidance for investigating the hermeneutics of ancient images. With methodological tools ranging from common sense to complexity theory, this paper enters into dialogue with cognitive studies in exploring the fundamentals of studying fellow human beings in antiquity, in particular their agency and ancient visuality (including visual literacy) through materiality.


Spelling Richness and Spelling Uniformity: Majority and Minority Spellings in the Masoretic Text
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Johan de Joode, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

The present contribution indexes and analyzes spelling variation in the Masoretic text. James Barr argues that “a very high proportion of the Masoretic notes concern [spelling]” (‘The Variable Spellings of the Hebrew Bible', 1989, 11). Current studies of orthography in Classical Hebrew focus primarily on the diachronic evolution of spellings within the Hebrew Bible (Andersen and Forbes; Freedman, Forbes, and Andersen) or the synchronic distribution of spelling re-occurrences in either block spellings or cases of rapid alternation (Barr). These studies quintessentially study orthography based on the distinction between plene and defective spellings. The Masoretes, however, used a complementary concept, viz. that of minority and majority spellings. Barr argues that “the main technique of the Masora can be simply stated: it registers the minority spelling.” There is to date, however, no large-scale quantitative study of orthographic variability at the level of individual words based on the distinction between preferential and non-preferential spellings, also called majority and minority spellings. This contribution fills that gap. It automates the extraction of non-preferential and preferential spellings in the Masoretic text. It subsequently analyses the data using methods available in prefatory data analysis and corpus linguistics. After explaining the procedures required for the creation of the spelling index, the following questions are discussed in detail. How much non-preferential spelling variation can one find within the boundaries of individual texts? How many spelling variants cause that variation or how ‘rich’ is the spelling variation in a text? How uniform is its spelling, viz. can one distinguish clear orthographic preferences? This contribution introduces several measures to systematically describe orthographic variability in terms of non-preferential variation, spelling richness and spelling uniformity. These questions are relevant for Masoretic studies and Hebrew linguistics alike. I conclude with avenues for future research based on the difference between majority and minority spellings used by the Masora.


The Book of Joshua and the Book of the Law
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Kristin De Troyer, Universität Salzburg

In this contribution, I would like to focus on nomistic elements in the Book of Joshua and how they can help us establishing the relation between the different versions of the Book of Joshua and the historical development of the different texts.


Women in Text Criticism: My Perspective
Program Unit: Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
Kristin De Troyer, Universität Salzburg

Was it the amount of languages that I loved learning? Was it the complexities of the issues? Was it the travelling to the most beautiful libraries and institutions? Was it the kick one gets from handling manuscripts? All these elements drove me to text criticism and working with manuscripts, esp. Greek papyri. At the same time, people asked me why I was not doing Gender or, in those days, Women Studies. Later, I had to explain to colleagues why a training in Text Criticism was as good as a training in Form Criticism or Literary & Redaction Criticism and how my background as well and as good as theirs gave me the breadth needed to teach Hebrew Bible. In the past ten years, most colleagues realise that precisely by combining Text Criticism with other Methods, one is best suited to deal with the issues regarding plurality of text and history and development of Biblical texts. Text Criticism has now become the necessary field in order to make progress. Many young women are now making the move to Text Criticism.


The Mystical Jesus in Mark's Gospel
Program Unit: Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
Pieter G.R. de Villiers, University of the Free State

This paper investigates the mystical nature of the Christology in Mark's Gospel. It, firstly, analyses Mark's depiction of the enigmatic identity and presence of Jesus in key passages in the gospel. It focusses on the dense symbolic announcement in Mk. 4:10-11 within the context of Mark 4:1–20, where Jesus reveals exclusively to his disciples hidden knowledge about his identity as the mystery of the kingdom. Secondly the paper compares, but also contrasts these verses with similar dynamics in mystical movements like Merkavah mysticism that speak about initiates that receive divine revelations during special experiences like heavenly journeys and that were kept hidden from ordinary people. In a third part the paper will investigate how this mystical identity of Jesus is further developed by the motif of holiness, also as it relates to temple rituals. Mark consistently depicts Jesus as the mystery who is especially also the Holy One, and whose astonishing ministry and enigmatic presence evoke awe and fear among perplexed onlookers (Mk. 9:10, 32). His awesome power as the Holy One is especially evident in his struggle against the impure, unholy forces of evil (Mark 2). A final section will analyse how Mark integrates this mystical portrait of Jesus concretely in the lives of his disciples. He emphasises throughout his gospel Jesus's call to disciples to follow him and remain in his presence (Mk.10:21, 28, 52). By doing so, they will be made holy, purified and transformed in their innermost being by Jesus' mystical holiness (Mark 7:14–23). Mark underlines the ethical nature of such holiness: To live holy is to be ‘righteous’, to reject a lifestyle that is impure and to live in absolute devotion to the divine will (Mk. 7:18). This will distinguish them from an external relationship with the divine that is characterized by adherence to rules, regulations and empty rituals. The paper will conclude with an analysis of Mark 7:17–20 where Mark refers to the example of John to explain the numinous nature of holiness. He shows that the one who lives in the presence of God, who is holy and righteous, fearless and powerful, is at the same time also different and awesome, feared by those who are unrighteous and who are perplexed in the presence of the righteous ones.


Reading Revelation from an Aesthetical Perspective: Dürer's Interpretation of Revelation
Program Unit: John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Pieter G.R. de Villiers, University of the Free State

This paper investigates the reception history of Revelation’s portrayal of Jesus from an aesthetical perspective. It will, firstly, introduce literalist and symbolic readings of Revelation as two major interpretive traditions which provide a context for an aesthetical reading of Revelation. In a second part the paper will focus on Albrecht Dürer's portrait of the exalted Christ in Revelation 1 as example of an outstanding aesthetical reading of the book, but also of a careful reading of the text. This woodcut was part of the influential set of 15 woodcuts on Revelation that were produced in 1498 by the highly skilled Renaissance artist, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who lived and worked in the then prosperous German city of Nuremberg, a major commercial hub in Europe. The paper will analyse the technical and artistic skills that are evident in the production of the woodcut, then spell out Dürer's meticulous use of the biblical text, but also his remarkable reinterpretation of the vision. It will spell out how this work reflects the interaction between the text and his context with reference to the role of Dürer's social reputation, his socio-political setting and his theological response in the woodcut to major theological changes in his time and also to the imminent eschatological expectations about the approaching year of 1500. In a conclusion the paper will investigate how Dürer's woodcut contributes to recent research that investigates the interface between mystical and apocalyptic texts.


The Caleb-Achsah Episode
Program Unit: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible
Cornelis J. de Vos, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

The Caleb-Achsah episode is remarkable in at least two ways. First, it appears twice, in Josh 15:13–19 and in Judg 1:10–15. Though, neither of them really fits the context. The story must thus have been regarded as so important and/or interesting as to include it twice. Later, Achsah is even included in the genealogical account in 1 Chronicles 2. Second, the narrative course of events is interesting. Achsah is given away by her father Caleb to Othniel as a price for the latter’s capture of Debir. However, Othniel hardly plays any role in the narrative. It is between Caleb and Achsah, and it is Achsah, the former “object,” who urges her father successfully to give her a blessing in the form of pools. In my paper, I will deal with backgrounds and foregrounds of the episode, highlighting intertextual nodes and the narrative roles of Caleb and Achsah.


Old Age in the Discourses of Philoxenus of Mabbug
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Chris de Wet, University of South Africa

In a previous article published in Journal of Early Christian Studies, in 2016, I demonstrated that the notions of ageing and old age were central ascetic discourses in the thought of John Chrysostom. The purpose of this paper is now to expand the analysis of old age in late ancient Christianity by looking at how old age functions, both as a biological, social, and cultural reality, in the Discourses of Philoxenus of Mabbug. The Discourses have been selected because of their copious references to ageing and old age – in particular biblical discourses of old age – which makes this corpus of memrē quite significant in writing a social history of old age in early Christianity. The paper first looks at how Philoxenus understands ageing as a biological/medical phenomenon, and then proceeds to contextualize old age and ageing in his ascetic discourse. Old age is important in Philoxenus’ moral discourse, notably in his understanding of fornication and chastity, but also in his admonitions against gluttony, anger, and greed. He also expands the discourse into the realm of the soul (specifically, the agelessness of the soul, which is linked to moral virtue). Ageing and old age are shown to be central in his fashioning of monastic identity. This paper forms part of a larger project on the social history of old age in the New Testament and early Christianity.


Slavery in the Life of Euphemia and the Goth
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Chris de Wet, University of South Africa

Located somewhere between ancient fiction and Christian hagiography, and set in 395 CE Edessa with the invasion of Mesopotamia by the Huns (although possibly composed much later in the fifth century), the Life of Euphemia and the Goth recounts the tale of a young woman, Euphemia, who is deceived and manipulated into marrying an unnamed Gothic soldier. Unbeknownst to Euphemia and her mother, Sophia, the Goth already has a wife in a different city in the West. The theme of the deceived and abducted bride is a common one in the literature of the time. When he arrives at his home, the Goth gives Euphemia as a slave to his wife. The wife treats Euphemia with great cruelty. When Euphemia has a son, the child is poisoned by the Goth’s jealous wife. In retaliation, Euphemia poisons the wife of the Goth and is imprisoned by the victim’s relatives. Like Dorothy in the land of Oz, it is only when Euphemia prays to the martyrs of Edessa that she is miraculously transported back to Edessa; later, Euphemia and her mother exact revenge on the Goth by reporting him to the authorities. Slavery functions as a constant yet complex theme in the Syriac ascetic literature of late antiquity, and the Life of Euphemia and the Goth is no exception. In this narrative slavery intersects with discourses of cultural identity and ethnicity (especially Syriac identity), law and warfare (and displacement), and morality and asceticism. The purpose of this paper is to investigate more closely these doulological dynamics in the Life of Euphemia and the Goth. Geopolitically, the narrative betrays the anxieties of inhabitants living in regions plagued by military conflict, where captivity/kidnapping, enslavement, and displacement were very real possibilities. Socially, the story also relies on the common ancient stereotype and anxiety of the slave as the foreigner and domestic enemy, and the dangers of treating slaves cruelly. Finally, from a moral and especially ascetic perspective, the tale further builds on the common Syrian-Christian motif of marriage and sexual intercourse as slavery, and may act as a warning (perhaps similar to earlier works like the Acts of Thomas or Jerome’s Life of Malchus) against embracing the pleasures of the secular life. An analysis of the Life of Euphemia and the Goth will give us a glimpse not only into the complicated dynamics of slavery, displacement, and freedom on the margins of the Roman Empire, but will also lay bare the complicated dynamics of slavery as an ascetic discourse in the late ancient Christian cultures of Syria and Mesopotamia.


Pausal Forms and Prosodic Structure in Tiberian Hebrew
Program Unit: Masoretic Studies
Vincent DeCaen, University of Toronto

The fourfold distinction among pausal forms (distinguished by vowel quality and stress assignment) dominates Tiberian Hebrew phonology. Crosslinguistically, degrees of pause correlate with prominence in the prosodic hierarchy. In addition, two Tiberian systems of accents have been applied, reflecting the nested prosodic structure of each verse. It remains a fundamental conundrum that pausal forms are not always coordinated with the edge of accentual phrases; pausal forms may even appear within a phrase, in direct contradiction to their pausal (phrase ending) function. For this reason, Revell in his The Pausal System (2015) concludes that pausal forms “must have originated in different stages of the reading tradition. The Masoretic Text, then, evidently includes features, sometimes mutually contradictory, deriving from different stages of the reading tradition.” We advance a theory of how pausal forms came to co-exist with an accentual phrasing that does not suit them. One might be led to conclude that there were two distinct reading traditions: one that fixed the pausal phonology, and another one that lacked pausal forms, or at least distributed them differently. We will show on the contrary that mismatches are inevitable, due to the way the Tiberian accentual systems are designed: the flaw is in the Tiberian theory of prosodic structure. Modern phonological theory distinguishes at least two types of phrase above the word: the phonological phrase (P) that groups words, and the intonational phrase (I) that groups Ps. Pausal forms occur where cross-linguistically we typically find the ends of I-phrases: at the ends of major divisions within an utterance, interjections, and after each item or group of items in lists (Nespor & Vogel 1986). An utterance has one or more I-phrases as required, without principled limit. The Tiberian verse, however, is subject to the iron law of top-down continuous dichotomy; crucially, there is no level corresponding to I. Consequently, we do not require separate reading traditions to account for the mismatch between pausal phonology and the accents. We need posit only one tradition. The Tiberian system nests P-phrases, but does not recognize I-phrases. There are no privileged accents that designate the ends of I-phrases, thus precluding a principled prosodic account of pausal forms. / Nespor, Marina & Irene Vogel. 1986. Prosodic phonology. Dordrecht: Foris. Revell, E.J. 2015. The pausal system: Divisions in the Hebrew Biblical text as marked by voweling and stress position. Edited by Raymond de Hoop & Paul Sanders. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.


An Infelicitous Feast: Ritual Banqueting and Cultic Critique in Amos 6:1–7
Program Unit: Israelite Religion in Its Ancient Context
Jessie DeGrado, University of Chicago

Scholarship on the prophetic condemnation of the marzeaḥ banquet in Amos 6:1-7 has tended to gravitate towards two particular readings of the text. Scholars who focus on the religious or ritual aspects of the banquet have claimed that it was lewd, “pagan,” or “syncretistic,” and a form of blasphemy against Yahweh, despite the fact that there is nothing in the passage to suggest that its author was concerned with lewdness or syncretism. On the other hand, scholars who call into question the validity of the previous argument have tended not to address the implications of the religious aspect of the banquet, preferring to understand the prophetic condemnation as focused on the wealthy in general. In this paper, I analyze the marzeaḥ feast of Amos 6 in the context of Ancient Middle Eastern ritual banquets more generally, with a focus on commensality as a means for human-divine communication. Based on this comparative data, I conclude that the marzeaḥ functioned as an offertory event, in which participants focalized divine presence through their own ritualized consumption of food in honor of a patron deity. Banqueters could thus hope to accrue divine favor while simultaneously enjoying a sumptuous meal. The prophetic critique of this practice in Amos 6:1–7 can be elucidated by reference to the broader concerns about cultic praxis expressed in Amos 4:4-5 and 5:21-24. I argue that the prophet takes issue with the specific form of offering represented by the marzeaḥ. In particular, he condemns the affluent who believe that they can make grand offerings to Yahweh on a quid-pro-quo basis while simultaneously luxuriating in their own wealth at the expense of the poor.


Representing Ritual: Constructions of Kinship in Exodus 24
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Jessie DeGrado, Saint Joseph's University (Philadelphia, PA)

Exodus 24: 3–8, 12bβ describes the Israelites’ ratification of divine legislation from Horeb through a covenantal ceremony. The rite includes a sacrificial ritual enacted in front of twelve standing stones and the application of blood to the stones and the assembled community. Treatments of this passage often follow one of two interpretive tracks, arguing that the text either (1) preserves vestiges of an archaic, pre-monarchic ritual or (2) is late literary construction that is not of use in understanding ritual praxis in Israel and Judah. Based on a survey of archaeological and epigraphic material from the 2nd- and 1st-millennium Levant, this paper argues that Exodus 24:3–8, 12bβ does, in fact, preserve details that conform to ritual praxis. The literary depiction of ritual finds parallels in rites attested at multiple cites that constitute and strengthen kinship ties through commensality and blood manipulation. Such practices need not, however, be restricted to non-monarchic societies, as texts from Mari and Emar amply demonstrate. Instead, Exodus 24:3–8, 12bβ combines elements from disparate rituals that likely operated at two levels of society, both royal and kin-based, in order to imagine the nation of Israel at the moment of its founding.


Martyn, Meeks, and Moses: Revisiting the Influence of Deut 18:15 in the Fourth Gospel
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
David N. DeJong, Saint Louis University

Martyn's seminal History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (1968) inaugurated a new era in Johannine studies. Scholars such as John Ashton and D. Moody Smith have noted that, though Martyn's controversial historical proposals dominated subsequent literature, his enduring legacy is found in the re-engagement with John's gospel as a thoroughly Jewish text. In this connection, it is worth noting that Wayne Meeks' important monograph, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, was published in 1967, just a year before Martyn's work. The foundation of both of these scholars' efforts was their emphasis on the fundamental importance of the Moses-Jesus relationship in John. My paper revisits this emphasis, specifically in relationship to the interpretation of Deut 18:15 in John's gospel. In this passage, Moses famously promises that God will raise up a prophet like him, to whom the Israelites ought to listen. Though not originally intended to refer to a singular eschatological figure, there is considerable evidence that such an interpretation was adopted by some (many?) readers of the Pentateuch in the first centuries BCE and CE (at Qumran, among the Samaritans, and in various movements reported by Josephus, as well as nascent Christianity). John's awareness of this interpretation is reflected its unique usage of the expression "the Prophet," to whom the author refers on at least four (and possibly five) occasions (1:21, 25; 6:14; 7:40, [52]). There is, however, no agreement in scholarship on the importance of the motif for the readers of the gospel in the late first century. Indeed, it is often thought to represent a vestige from early stages of the gospel tradition, particularly in two ways: first, those who take a source-critical approach to the Fourth Gospel consider the "prophet like Moses" motif to reflect the "low" Christology of the putative Book of Signs; second, those who utilize a community-centered approach consider this identification to represent the early convictions of the Johannine movement, eclipsed by the Logos Christology of the late first century. In my paper, I revisit Martyn and Meeks' contributions in order to offer a corrective to these approaches and to re-engage with the question of the importance of the "prophet like Moses" for the evangelist and his community in the late first century. In short, my argument is that an appeal to the "prophet like Moses" was very important to the evangelist, precisely because the portrayal of Jesus as Moses' authorized successor constituted a claim for the legitimacy of the community as exponents and heirs of Israel's scriptural traditions. Indeed, John's usage of the motif ought to be situated in the context of the attempts of various Jewish authors and movements to portray themselves as bearers of the legacy and teaching of Moses (e.g., Fourth Ezra, Josephus). My argument develops in dialogue with Martyn and Meeks' extraordinarily sensitive interpretations of the Moses-Jesus relationship in John, contextualizing them in light of scholarly developments, particularly with respect to the so-called "partings of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity.


The Eschatological Elijah and the Reinterpretation of the "Day of the LORD" in Mal 3:22–24
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
David N. DeJong, Saint Louis University

One of the major themes of the classical prophetic tradition is the hope for the coming "day of the LORD," understood to be a decisive divine intervention in history consisting of both judgment and vindication (see, e.g., Amos 5:18-20; Isa 2:10-22; Joel 3:1-5 [Eng. 2:28-32]). The concluding verses of the Book of the Twelve (Mal 3:22-24) contain a striking appropriation and interpretation of that prophetic hope, particularly by associating it with the return of Elijah as an eschatological messenger. This construal of Elijah as a future, preparatory figure will go on to play an important role in both Judaism and Christianity. To whom ought we to ascribe this significant innovation, in which Elijah becomes a figure not only of the distant past but also of the eschatological future? And what is the nature of Malachi's appropriation of the prophetic hope? The consensus in scholarship on this passage is that it is to be ascribed to eschatologically-oriented scribal editors in Persian or (more probably) Hellenistic-era Judaism, who wished to maintain the millenarian hope against the priestly and theocratic elite. In my paper, I argue that this consensus viewpoint is misguided: the passage represents not the maintaining of a vivid eschatological hope but its deferral. I will appeal to several underappreciated features of the passage to offer what is, to my knowledge, a new proposal regarding the function of the introduction of Elijah as an eschatological figure. First, I will explore the revision of the eschatological timetable implied here, and the implications of inserting a figure from hoary antiquity as a precursor to the "day of the LORD." Second, I will show how the specification of Elijah as the "messenger of the covenant" of Mal 3:1-5 interprets that passage with the goal of undermining the sense of immediacy it conveys. Third, I will consider the passage's somber (hopeless?) conclusion, which contemplates the possibility that Elijah will fail in his mission. These considerations will lead to the conclusion that the purpose of Mal 3:22-24 is the opposite of that which many scholars have asserted: rather than an eschatologically-oriented conclusion, it represents an anti-eschatological interpretation of the promised "day of the LORD." The prophetic hope of the classical tradition is maintained, even as it is deferred to the remote future. My paper concludes by considering how Malachi's complicated appropriation of and relationship to prophetic hope might inform contemporary readings of the prophets and their visions.


What We Know about the Earliest Extant Form of the Ethiopic Old Testament
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Steve Delamarter, George Fox University

The Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) Project has now generated rich data sets for 24 books of the Ethiopic Old Testament. These involve transcriptions of sample passages (in the case of longer books) or complete books of the Old Testament in more than thirty manuscripts. The transcriptions are collated, aligned, and a set of computer scripts identify the statistical frequency of the shared variants. From these, we generate a Dendrogram and identify manuscript clusters, and lists of the distinctive readings that set off clusters from one another. One indication of the correctness of this work is the fact that the clusters are chronologically coherent—the early manuscripts clustering together in one area and later manuscripts clustering together in another. This presentation will focus on what we have learned about the earliest extant manuscripts from the thirteenth to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. These manuscripts always constitute one branch of the Dendrogram, but within that larger branch there may be a couple of sub-clusters accompanied by a set of manuscripts that share variants first with one then the other sub-cluster. Together these manuscripts—organized into two, tight sub-clusters surrounded by manuscripts of mixed alignments—reveal the state of the text in its earliest recoverable form. This presentation will describe the patterns of alignment and offer an interpretation of the meaning of these patterns.


The Digital Humanities Applied to the Study of the Ethiopic Old Testament
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Steve Delamarter, George Fox University

The presenter is involved in three projects related to the study of one of the most-neglected manuscript families in the Christian tradition: the Ethiopic Old Testament. Tremendous strides have been made in the preservation and study of this tradition and much of this is the result of the application of digital tools and processes to Ethiopic manuscripts. In this session, we will describe the three projects that we have developed in the last twelve years and their uses of digital tools and processes: 1) The Ethiopic Manuscript Imaging Project (EMIP) has employed digital technologies not only to digitize something over 12,000 manuscripts, but also to create and refine metadata for the manuscripts. 2) The Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) Project employs digital workflows to create huge numbers of transcriptions of manuscripts of Ethiopic Old Testament manuscripts. We have developed computer scripts to analyze the shared variants among the manuscripts, generate dendrograms, identify manuscript clusters, and identify the best representative manuscript of each cluster. 3) A third project is focused on the study of book culture of Ethiopian Christianity. In the project “The Social Lives of Ethiopian Psalters,” the presenter has identified over 110 features of codicology and scribal practice and book culture which are executed in differing and various ways by scribes, craftsmen, and book users. We selected 29 of these for further study and then created typologies of those variation, assigned numbers to each type of the variation and built a database (containing more than 100 fields) to receive data from Psalters. We have analyzed over 700 Psalters—ranging from the earliest extant ones of the fourteenth century up through the 20th century—and collected data regarding the variations in each. Each of the Psalters is dated; and more than 250 of the Psalters can be located in terms of the area of Ethiopia in which they were produced. Analysis of this data, especially through the use of visualization tools, is opening many windows on aspects of Ethiopian scribal and book culture that are previously unknown.


The Symbolic Language of Power: Political Nomenclature and Legitimacy in the Northern Kingdom of Israel
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Jean-Philippe Delorme, University of Toronto

In his study of the political nomenclature of the Northern Kingdom found in Assyrian royal inscriptions, Brad E. Kelle asked the question: What's in a name? According to him, these political designations reflect changing historical circumstances, mirroring changes in the territorial extent of Israel as Assyrian pressure grew stronger. Although this interpretation is within the realm of possibilities, important questions remain unanswered: Do these terms have a social/cultural significance for their host culture? And if so, what do they mean? As direct evidence of political identity in ancient Israel, such labels expose indigenous conceptions of power and authority. Following Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic language, state nomenclature is better understood as a manifestation of the symbolic language of power in its quest for legitimacy. Since politics, as a socio-cultural phenomenon, is directly connected to its social environment, political nomenclature should logically stem from socio-cultural developments taking place within the frontiers of a given polity and answer to cultural conventions shared by members of its community. This approach not only offers a more elaborate response to Kelle's original question, it also provides a fresh outlook on the issue of political identity in ancient Israel, which in turn calls for a review of the available evidence. The present discussion will take the shape of a synchronic and diachronic study of the political nomenclature of the Northern Kingdom as it is preserved in primary sources from the ancient Near East (Assyrian royal inscriptions, Assyrian epistolary texts, and epigraphic sources from the southern Levant). By studying these idioms in their respective temporal environment and tracing their evolution in conjunction to the parallel picture provided by archeological data (state formation and social-cultural developments), explicit relationships between political identity and stages in the political evolution/cultural development of Israel are brought to the fore. Over the course of its history, the Northern Kingdom is known through the triple designation of "Israel", "house of Omri", and "Samaria". Clear temporal distinctions exist between the usage of each idiom. For instance, the term "Israel" is solely restricted to the 9th century BCE (Mesha stele, Tel Dan inscription, Kurkh monolith inscription of Shalmaneser III). Previous mentions in other primary sources from the Late Bronze Age (Merneptah stele, Berlin statue pedestal of Ramses III) and their connection to a tribal group from the southern Levant argue for a reliance on old cultural traditions. The use of these traditions by central authority echoes the role of religion in the emergence of power in ancient civilizations, a fact also confirmed by the etymology of the name "Israel". The equivalent rapprochement between political idioms and socio-cultural conventions is observed for "house of Omri" and "Samaria". The former reflects the central role of kinship in ancient Israelite society, while the latter epitomizes the completion of the process of the consolidation of state structures through the establishment of a royal capital.


At the Interface of Prophecy and Music: Gad and the Levitical Singers in Chronicles
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Julie B. Deluty, New York University

In the Hebrew Bible, Chronicles is the only place where prophecy is linked to the Levitical singers, one group of temple personnel institutionalized by David through Gad, the king’s seer. An initial analogy is created with Gad when the collective of Levitical singers is given the title of ḥōzeh in 2 Chr 29:30 and 35:15. However, the Chronicler then differentiates the singers from Gad through the primary label, nābî’. Gad is not called a nābî’ in 1 Chr 29:29 and 2 Chr 29:25, contrary to his title in 1 Sam 22:5 and 2 Sam 24:11. While scholars have noted that the work of the singers is termed prophetic, the contours of the analogous function with Gad have not been addressed. This paper evaluates how the Chronicler’s recasting of the non-Levite Gad and the Levitical singers expands the function of prophecy in a monarchy, that is, to invoke the divine and to communicate on behalf of the people, not the king. The books describe a practice as central to the Jerusalem temple that no longer exists in the Second Temple period. Until this point, the Bible presents groups of prophets linked to royal courts, but these are never located in a temple or given cult-related titles. According to the Chronicler’s literary innovation in the post-exilic period, prophecy does not only constitute communication from the divine to the people through a royal envoy like Gad. Rather, it now also is defined by the liturgical response of the prophet back to Yahweh in the formalized context of the temple. The nābî’ is imagined to physically separate the king from the populace, while the prophetic response on behalf of the people must be directed back to Yahweh by singing praise to Him.


"Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!": Responding from the "Thickets"
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Carol Dempsey, University of Portland

The Dictionary of Nature Imagery in the Bible is an exciting new and creative project that helps to unlock the beauty and message of the biblical text. By offering an in depth look at animals, fauna, etc., this project sheds light on the rhetorical language and poetics of biblical texts that employ natural world imagery. This paper responds to studies already being done in this new area of inquiry while offering new insights into the richness of an ancient book that continues to have profound implications for the creative imagination in a world tottering on ecological disaster.


Reading 1 Peter in Sri Lanka
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
David A. deSilva, Ashland Theological Seminary

Christians in North America and Europe may find themselves far removed from many of the social dynamics and, therefore, pressures reflected in 1 Peter, but this is far from the case for Christians in Sri Lanka. The social dynamics of 1 Peter are very much akin to those within which many Sri Lankan Christians live – a minority emerging in the midst of a dominant and majority culture deeply rooted in a traditional religion with visual and iconic reminders of the sacred story of the majority everywhere; pressures within families and households for converts to return to the faith of their forebears; widespread social stigma of an emerging religion seen as “foreign” to the culture and to the interests of the majority (though, ironically, with Christianity seen now as a relic of imperialism in a self-aware post-colonial environment). This paper explores the ways in which 1 Peter is read in the Sri Lankan setting and the effects of its interpretation and application in this social location. On the one hand, 1 Peter has been instrumental in helping (some) Sri Lankan Christians identify and work to eliminate avoidable points of tension between their neighbors and themselves, e.g., through working more thoughtfully towards indigenizing Christianity and discarding some of its obviously and needlessly “foreign” (colonial) trappings, and through distinguishing themselves in practices that their neighbors would also affirm as virtuous. In regard to those practices that are deemed unavoidable in the course of maintaining fidelity to Christ in their environment, 1 Peter continues to offer much of the same encouragement and much of the same advice, in the way of social reinforcement within the group, as it did among its first audiences. Caution is required, however, in terms of some of the lenses or frameworks that 1 Peter provides, lest the text unduly and uncritically demonize those outside of the minority Christian group.


Sin and Its Remedy in Galatians
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
David A. deSilva, Ashland Theological Seminary

Sin and Its Remedy in Galatians


An Ancient Mystagogical Perspective on Matthew
Program Unit: History of Interpretation
Athanasios Despotis, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

This survey aims to offer fresh insights on the interpretation of Matthew and especially the “Great Commission” (28:16–20) from the perspective of its early Patristic reception. The presentation begins with a brief research survey describing the most crucial tendencies and deficits in the current exegesis of Matt 28:16–20. The discussion proceeds with a commentary on Origen’s characterisation of the relevant text as a “mystagogy”. According to the Alexandrian exegete (In John, Fragm 36, GCS 10 [IV]), the main function of this text is not to command the Church to perform a mission but rather to reveal how the mystical union of the believers with God occurs through baptism. Indeed, this is the way in which this text is also understood in some of the ancient mystagogical homilies of Ambrose of Milan, Cyrill/John of Jerusalem and John Chrysostom. It is remarkable that these Church Fathers, especially Chrysostom, use marriage as a symbol, especially the Matthean images of the bridegroom and the “sons of bridegroom” (Matt 9:15) as well as the Matthean parable of the ten virgins (25:1-13) to interpret baptism as "spiritual marriage" and union with the bridegroom Christ. From this point of view, one can read the Gospel of Matthew in a new light and understand Jesus’s promise at the epilogue “to be with the believers to the end of ages” as referring to the eschatological marriage or "covenant" between the believer and their bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the authors of the ancient mystagogies understood the Lord’s Supper (cf. Matt 22:1–14) both as an inseparable link to the ancient rite of baptism and, from a similar point of view, as an extension of this symbolic marriage. At the Eucharist, the bridegroom Christ offers to the “sons of the bridegroom” (Matt 9:15) his body (Cyrill/John of Jerusalem, Myst. Cat. 4.3). It follows that this mystagogical reception of the epilogue of the first Gospel offers crucial impulses to read the Matthean narrative anew from the perspective of the mystical union of the believer with the divine. Even though the Matthean text includes allusions to the mystical union with the divine (9:15, 10:37, 25:1–13) and unio mystica was common in many ancient Mediterranean traditions this particular aspect of the first canonical Gospel remains mostly unconsidered by the contemporary interpreters of Matthew. Therefore, this study demonstrates that early Patristic reception can provide fresh perspectives on the interpretation of Biblical texts and the reconstruction of the way these texts were understood in ancient liturgical contexts and mystical traditions.


Paul’s Understanding of Conversion as Incorporation in 1 Cor 12:12–13: From the Stoics to Arthur Nock and the Current Conversion Research
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Athanasios Despotis, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

One of the most crucial contributions of Arthur Nock has been the comparison between religious and philosophical conversion in the antiquity. However, there have been significant developments in the understanding both of ancient conversion experience as well as the relationship between philosophy and religion in the Hellenistic era, since the publication of Nock’s work (1933). On the one hand, this paper investigates how the specific Pauline understanding of conversion and baptism in 1Cor 12:13 as incorporation transcends the conventional limits of Nock’s definition of conversion: “By conversion we mean the reorientation of the soul of an individual, the deliverance turning from indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another ...”(Conversion, 1933, 7) Conversion is interpreted by Paul in 1 Cor 12–13 not only as a psychological/moral transformation of the individual (cf. e.g. Rom 6) but as a paradoxical socialisation by the power of the Spirit which results in love ethics. The text under discussion reveals most palpably (even in comparison with Gal 3) the social aspect of the Pauline understanding of conversion. In Paul’s view, experiencing an ongoing spiritual transformation presupposes the undergoing of a paradoxical process of socialisation. Therefore, Paul’s insights in 1 Cor 12:12–13 can be better understood from the perspective of sociological paradigms in the conversion research which have challenged Nock’s definition and interpreted conversion as an ongoing volitional and dynamic social process. (see overview H.Zock, “Paradigms in Psychological Conversion Research” 2006) On the other hand, this presentation analyses the analogies and the differences between the Pauline usage of the body metaphor in 1Cor 12 and the Stoic tradition. The vast relevant bibliography provides crucial insights regarding the comparison between the Pauline and the Stoic usage of the body-organism metaphor. However, the following aspect remains unconsidered: Paul’s usage of the body metaphor in 1Cor 12 is set before a conversionist canvas where the reconstruction in the biography of the converts (cf. the once/now scheme in 12:2), their baptism (12:12), confessing of the Lord (12:3) and new status in the community (12:13) are emphatically stressed. Though the Stoics use the body metaphor in a political sense (Chrysippus, Fragm 367; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.10.4; Marc Aurel 4.40) they do not apply it on their reflections regarding change to the Stoic way of life or "epistrophe". Stoic "epistrophe" meant a turn to one’s self (eis eauton), that is a rather psychagogical conversion directly linked to the "prosoche" (inner attention) attitude (Epictetus, Diatr. 4.4.6–7). It did not refer to an incorporation as a process where one has to renounce one’s previous social privileges into a new community. Therefore, the Stoic view of society has some analogies with the Pauline language, but it is not set before the same conversionist backdrop as Paul’s in 1Cor 12. By interpreting conversion as incorporation Paul exhorts the rich members of the Corinthian community or those having higher spiritual gifts to renounce their privileges within the messianic community in order to experience an ongoing conversion which will be accomplished at the eschaton (13:12).


Asceticism at the Temple: The Katechoi of the Serapeion of Memphis
Program Unit: Religious Competition in Late Antiquity
Nathaniel Desrosiers, Stonehill College

In the last three centuries BCE, veneration of the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis rapidly expanded throughout Egypt and the rest of the Mediterranean. In Egypt alone, there were forty-two temples dedicated to the god by the second century BCE, and undoubtedly the most important shrine was located in the city of Memphis, where a flourishing temple complex developed around the ancient Egyptian cult of Apis. Interestingly, the existing sources indicate that resident ascetics of both genders were consistent features of these sanctuaries. In this paper I will examine the Serapeion Archive, a collection of Greek and Demotic papyri that describe the austere lifestyle of the residents of the Serapis temple complex at Memphis during the second century BCE. These individuals, often described as katechoi were “detained” by the god and prevented from leaving the sanctuary; living as recluses in cells within the temple precinct. While the reasons why individuals chose this life of isolation are debated, I will argue that the papyri describe such seclusion as acts of piety that show genuine devotion to the deity. Furthermore, the archive demonstrates that many residents practiced specific forms of personal “sacrifice” as a sign of particular devotion to Serapis, including “penances,” abstinence from wine and certain foods, and celibacy. While connections between the katechoi and later Christians may not be direct, the parallels are striking. In fact, Antira Bingham Kolenkow stated in her article “Chaeremon the Stoic on Egyptian Temple Askesis” that Egyptian temple life and its philosophies “are part of the background of and competition for Christian Monasticism (387).” Following up on this speculation, I will argue that voluntary entrance into the secluded life of the katechoi represented acts of ascetic devotion to the god that is a fascinating antecedent and probable influence on later Egyptian monasticism.


Schubert M. Ogden as Christian Theologian AND as Philosopher
Program Unit: Westar Institute
Philip E. Devenish, Independent Scholar

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Gender in the First Two Centuries of the Christ Movements
Program Unit: Westar Institute
Joanna Dewey, Episcopal Divinity School

Gender in the First Two Centuries of the Christ Movements


The Septuagint and Scribal Practices in Hellenistic Judaism
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Marieke Dhont, Cambridge University

The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek has often been understood as a scribal activity. Since we have an increasing number of studies dealing with Septuagint translation techniques at our disposal, we may ask what insights into translation methods can teach us about scribal practices among Jews in the Hellenistic era. In this paper, I will look primarily at the Old Greek translation of Job, the nature of which has been highly disputed, in particular owing to the divergences of the Greek vis-à-vis the Hebrew, as a gateway to dealing with the question of how understanding the Septuagint fits into a larger understanding of the history and social realities associated with the communities that translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. How did the translator of Job approach their Vorlage? Was the translator aware that they were translating what is now considered to be poetry? What can we learn about the translation process itself? For example, did the translator adhere to the easy technique of translating the book sequentially? Since Greek Job is often regarded as the most Hellenized translation in the corpus, this book is particularly interesting when dealing with the question of scribal practices in the Septuagint. Is Greek Job the odd one out, or is it representative for a wider practice? Through studying the Greek translation of Job, and by placing this book within the framework of a developing tradition of scriptural translation, the present paper aims to contribute to the scholarly understanding of scribal activity in Second Temple Judaism.


The Adultification of the Pythian Slave-Girl (Acts 16:16–19)
Program Unit: Book of Acts
Febbie C. Dickerson, American Baptist College

While womanist thought has its genesis primarily in the fields of Ethics and Theology, the deployment of womanist biblical interpretative practices has grown tremendously with the recent publications of I Found God In Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader, Mitzi J. Smith, ed. (2015), An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation, Nyasha Junior (2015), Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse, Gay Byron and Vanessa Lovelace, eds. (2016), and Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and Throne, Wilda C. Gafney (2017). This paper adds to the womanist biblical interpretative tradition with a reading of the Pythian slave-girl (Acts 16:16-19). Combining womanist thought and historical criticism, I show how the story can be read as a heuristic for interrogating the adultification of African American girls by examining Luke’s adultification of the slave-girl through Paul’s annoyance and silencing of her truth-telling spirit. A 2017 report from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality titled, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” found that adults viewed African American girls, ages 5-14, as more adult-like, suggesting that they are more knowledgeable about sex, and are less innocent than their white peers in the same age range. Researchers call these findings the adultification of African American girls and believe that this process provides the grounding for why African American girls are disciplined more often and severely than their white peers in both the school and juvenile system. Luke adultifies the Pythian slave-girl by presenting her differently than his previously depicted slave-girls. Her words describing Paul and Silas as slaves of the Most High God and that they proclaim a way of salvation are not validated as true as in the account of the slave-girl who identified Peter as the man traveling with Jesus (Lk 22:56-62). The cock crows three times and so demonstrate that she spoke the truth. Likewise, the community gathered at Mary’s house to pray for Peter’s release from prison see him at the front door and realize that Rhoda, the slave-girl, spoke truthfully (Acts 12:13-17). The Georgetown Law Center study also proposes that adultification is a form of dehumanization that robs girls of what makes childhood distinct from other developmental periods: innocence. Adultifying African American girls posits that their transgressions are malicious rather than the result of immaturity. Moreover, the adultification process indicates that African American girls need less nurture and instruction. Luke similarly dehumanizes the Pythian slave-girl. Instead of showing Paul attempt to convert the girl as he did with the philosophers on Mars Hill who worshipped unknown gods (Acts 17:22-31), Luke uses the slave-girl as a prop to highlight the power of Paul. She, as Gail O’Day argues, is a commodity to both Luke and the slave owners who profit from her prophetic voice. The slave-girl is then erased from the story leaving readers to ponder about her existence.


“More Sublime than Speech”: On the Rhetoric of Silence in the Gospel of Luke
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Michal Beth Dinkler, Yale Divinity School

“Great utterance,” writes Ps.-Longinus in On the Sublime, “is the echo of greatness of soul.” And yet, he goes on to say that “the silence of Ajax . . . is great and more sublime than speech” (9.2). How do speech and silence relate to the rhetoric of the sublime? Many ancient writers recognized the multivalent powers of silence, not only as an effective rhetorical technique, but as a privileged means of accessing a sacred realm beyond speech, where one encounters the ineffable divine. In this paper, I consider these issues with special attention to the Gospel of Luke, where silence, speech, and the sublime are represented and mutually constituted in subtly intricate ways. For example, Mary’s Magnificat has stood for centuries as some of the most uplifting, inspired – in a word: sublime – rhetoric in the whole of biblical literature. What is the relationship between Mary’s soul-elevating song and her silent pondering elsewhere in the Gospel (e.g., 2.19)? Or consider the sublime “spectacle” (theoria, 23.48) of Jesus’ passion, when darkness covers the land, Jesus hands over his spirit with a loud cry, and then finally, in the end, exhales into the silence of death (23.46). What are the rhetorical effects of such moments in the Lukan narrative? Moreover, how can we as critics account for the paradoxical fact that the sublime narrative silences in which we are interested are expressed in words – that is, we can only access them in and through Luke’s language? I contend that in the Lukan narrative, sublimity and silence intersect such that the story can persuade, not necessarily because it is precise, but because it is potent.


New Philology and Phoenician Epigraphy? Tabnit, Eshmunazar, and the False Promise of Sanchuniaton
Program Unit: Book History and Biblical Literatures
Helen Dixon, Wofford College

New Philology and Phoenician Epigraphy?: Tabnit, Eshmunazar, and the false promise of Sanchuniaton


Dr. King and Martin Luther on Law: Politics, Theology, and Captivity
Program Unit: African-American Biblical Hermeneutics
Thomas P. Dixon, Campbell University

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther ignited a protest movement that hinged not only on a bifocal conception of God’s law but also on a political clash with ecclesiastical law. Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was devoting his last year of life to fighting unjust American laws with theological rhetoric as well as social and political action. Both of these reformers saw political and biblical dimensions to their respective battles, and the most prominent common term at the intersection of these dimensions was Law. This paper will place Dr. King and Martin Luther in conversation in order to examine the multifaceted engagement of Law and laws undertaken by each. The paper will argue that King and Luther, in radically different contexts, both viewed God’s Law dialogically and applied this tension to complex censure of unjust human laws, fostering protest that was combative yet constructive. Both insisted on the subordination of human laws to the Law of God, and both invoked divine judgment on those in power who misused law to exploit and oppress. Luther marshaled the Apostle Paul to denounce the captivity imposed upon the German people by papal and ecclesiastical authority; King echoed Israel’s prophets (as well as Paul) to threaten the unjust state in the battle for civil rights legislation. Although their battles took place in drastically different circumstances, the value and authority of “Law” lay at the heart of each movement, particularly because both King and Luther were protesting laws that lay entrenched in political entities that considered themselves to be “Christian” nations.


Hero in Epic, Hero in Cult: Reading the Rephaim between Ugaritic and Biblical Literature
Program Unit: Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Brian Doak, George Fox University

Hero in Epic, Hero in Cult: Reading the Rephaim between Ugaritic and Biblical Literature


An Ass in a Lion’s Skin: The Subversion of Judah’s Hegemonic Masculinity in Gen 38
Program Unit: Genesis
Sébastien Doane, Université Laval

The book of Genesis gives two opposing portraits of Judah’s masculinity. On the one hand, he is shown as the leader of the children of Jacob’s sons and on the other he is ridiculed by his daughter-in-law. Is Judah an ass in a lion’s skin? This paper proposes to explore Judah’s masculinity as an example of the inherently unstable nature of gender construction. I am attentive to “hegemonic masculinity,” a concept theorized by Raewyn W. Connell (1987) on the basis of both anthropological and psychoanalytic perspectives and the refining of this concept with its use in biblical studies. Hegemonic masculinity points to the expression of masculinity that becomes dominant and is the standard against which all other masculinities are judged. Hegemonic masculinity is never stable, but is continuously shaped by competing subversive masculinities and the political tensions these represent (Haddox 2016, 179). Although Judah is only the fourth son of Jacob, he is expressly depicted in Genesis as assuming a leadership role in relation to his brothers, including speaking up against killing Joseph, negotiating with his father regarding Joseph’s demand that Benjamin be brought down to Egypt, and pleading with Joseph for Benjamin’s life. In Genesis 49:8-12, Judah receives the most favorable treatment of all Jacob’s sons. The blessing of Jacob from his deathbed portrays Judah’s hegemonic masculinity at its finest. This text evokes images of dominance, and has messianic undertones. Judah is portrayed as a leader through the images of the lion, the scepter, the prostration of his brothers, and the allusions to a perpetual lineage of David. In fact, this portrayal of Judah is one of the clearest images of hegemonic masculinity found in Genesis. However, in Genesis 38, Judah’s masculinity does not correspond to what a biblical reader would expect of a patriarch. Many elements cast doubt on his ability to be a “man.” Judah transgresses the Law by refusing to give Tamar his third son as a husband. Not only is Judah not persuasive in his accusation, he is persuaded by Tamar that his own actions were wrong. Judah is deceived, specifically deceived by a woman. The shame he wants to attribute to Tamar rebounds on himself. In the end, he acknowledges himself to be less righteous than Tamar (Gen. 38:26). The episode as a whole reveals that Judah does not have control of his family, nor does he possess the self-control expected of a male patriarch. Gen 38 clearly subverts Judah’s hegemonic masculinity. What are the rhetorical effects of this subversion of Judah’s hegemonic gender construction? Different hypotheses to explain Judah antithetical masculinities will be explored and evaluated. Jacob speaks of Judah as a lion, but in Gen 38 he seems to have been portrayed in the role of the ass.


The Interceding Spirit: Reevaluating the Biblical Background of Romans 8:26–27
Program Unit: Scripture and Paul
Joseph Dodson, Ouachita Baptist University

The Interceding Spirit: Reevaluating the Biblical Background of Romans 8:26–27


The Essence of Conception: Philology and the Physics of Fertility in Ancient Israel
Program Unit: Philology in Hebrew Studies
Shawna Dolansky, Carleton University

Studies of the use of ḥll and ḥllh in H have led to the suggestion that sexual activity marks a woman with the "essence" of her partner. The notion that a woman is somehow “contaminated” in a permanent way by previous sexual partners, and further that she is capable of passing on this contamination to later partners and their offspring (e.g. Lev 21:15; Ezek 44:22), might afford some insight into how ancient Israelite authors conceived of sexuality, fertility, and lineage. This paper examines the possibility that the essence with which a woman is marked may, in ancient constructions, consist of her partner’s ethnic, social, or religious status, conceived as something left in her womb from her first sexual encounter, and which can be passed on to subsequent offspring independently of who the actual father is. This construction of fertility and genealogy has potential implications for better understanding narrative material about levirate marriage, attempted coups d’etats signalled by sex with a king’s wife, and the requirement to execute enemy women who “have known a man.”


Dueling Superscriptions: Imaginative Search for Female Intertexts Then and Now
Program Unit: Book of Psalms
Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, Wesley Theological Seminary

Invited Paper.


Faith in the Borderlands: An Exploration of Jewish-Christian Self-Understanding in 1 Clement
Program Unit: Jewish Christianity / Christian Judaism
Sally Douglas, University of Divinity, Melbourne

1 Clement is one of the earliest orthodox texts outside the Christian canon and its composition likely predates the composition of some Second Testament texts. It was written by the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, after this community had received Paul’s correspondence, but likely before the end of the first century CE. The letter is listed as canonical in the fifth century Codex Alexandrinus. Despite 1 Clement’s significant place in the early Jesus movement the contents of this text are commonly overlooked in scholarship. In part this is because investigations have been rendered myopic through undue focus on church conflict. In part this is because the theology within this text does not conform to scholarly expectations about the early church, and is thus ignored in plain sight. Embedded within 1 Clement we discover fresh insight into Jewish-Christian self-understanding in the first century. This paper will excavate 1 Clement’s fluid Jewish-Christian identity. In particular, attention will be given to the authors’ highly favourable presentation of the Temple and efficacious cultic practices therein (40-41). 1 Clement’s understanding of the Temple and of cultic sacrifice ‘made for sin and transgression’ (41.2) will be investigated and brought into dialogue with this text’s understanding of soteriology (36). The disjuncture between the overlapping hymn fragments found in 1 Clement 36 and Hebrews 1 will be interrogated and the paper will conclude with an exploration of the contrast between1 Clement’s theology and other strands of the early Christian tradition that rose to dominance within the Christian theological landscape. This paper will demonstrate that in attending to the borderland evidence of 1 Clement, assumptions about the early church are disrupted and understandings of the hybrid nature of first century Jewish-Christian identity are enriched.


Angels from Babylon, Magic from Heaven? Uncovering the Origins of the Tale of Hārūt and Mārūt (Q2:102)
Program Unit: The Qur’an and the Biblical Tradition (IQSA)
Rachel Claire Dryden, University of Cambridge

Keywords: Hārūt, Mārūt, malak, magic, Solomon, midrash, freewill Q2:102 recounts a story about two angels who are unknown from biblical texts: Hārūt and Mārūt. Unlike the only other angels with personal names in the Qur’ān, Hārūt and Mārūt are explicitly referred to as malakān, leading some to conclude that the Qur’an’s audience was not familiar with them and/or the fact that they were angels. They are described as having appeared on earth in Babylon, where they passed on knowledge of magic, which devils had previously taught men in Solomon’s kingdom. Yet they did so warning people that they had been sent as a temptation and exhorting people to continue to believe in and follow God. The origin(s) and meaning of this story have divided scholars, with some positing a midrashic origin and others looking to the possible influence of similar tales in Indian and Persian-Zoroastrian traditions. The motif of the angelic teacher who instructs mortals in the secrets of the heavens is widespread in apocalyptic literature, most notably 1 Enoch. The tradition of Solomon as an exorcist has been inferred from 1 Kgs 5:9-14 (RSV 4:29 – 34) and appears more explicitly in both apocryphal and historical material. This paper will analyse the somewhat limited extant research on this story within the qur’ānic tradition and evaluate the evidence for and against a midrashic, or other/earlier, origin. It will also examine key features in the story both in their qur’ānic and wider contexts, including: - the identity of the two angels (their names, natures (angelic or divine) and roles) - the origin and nature of the magic that was revealed to them - whether or not they acted of their own free will in warning people of the negative aspect to the magical knowledge This paper will therefore not only shed light on this one qur’ānic narrative episode but discuss the implications of material in the Qur’ān that does not appear to fit a biblical pattern or origin, both for qur’ānic and biblical studies. Sample Bibliography Calabro, David M. ““Angels in Babylon”: On the Intertextuality of the Tale of Hārūt and Mārūt in the Mubtada’ of Ibn Bishr”. (Unpublished presentation). Davidson, Maxwell J. Angels at Qumran : A Comparative Study of 1 Enoch 1-36, 72-108 and Sectarian Writings from Qumran. Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1992. Duling, Dennis C. “Solomon, Exorcism, and the Son of David.” Harvard Theological Review 68, no. 3/4 (Jul.-Oct.) (1975): 235–52. Marzolph, Ulrich. “The Persian Nights : Links Between the Arabian Nights and Iranian Culture.” Fabula 45, no. 3 (2004): 275–93. Menasce, P.J. de. “Une Légende Indo-Iranienne Dans l’angélologie Judéo-Musulmane : À Propos de Hārūt et Mārūt.” Asiatische Studien: Zeitschrift Der Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft 1, no. 1–2 (1947). Reeves, John C. “Some Parascriptural Dimensions of the ‘Tale of Hārūt Wa-Mārūt.’” Journal of American Oriental Society 135, no. 4 (2015): 817–42.


Bibles for Children in Contemporary Biblical Scholarship: Why Does It Matter?
Program Unit: Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship
Jaqueline S. du Toit, University of the Free State (South Africa)

It is generally assumed that children’s Bibles function as educational and religious stepping stones, “journeys”, or “pathways”, inevitably to be followed by advancement to the reading and interpretation of the “adult” biblical text, once language competency and religious initiation have been achieved. However, as Ruth Bottigheimer and Penny Schine Gold have hinted in their groundbreaking histories of children’s Bibles, by the end of the twentieth century children’s Bible have become the end product. Many professors of Bible would agree that the only knowledge of the text one can now assume of Western students, for whom Bible had traditionally been part of the literary canon, would be the often inadequate recall of children’s Bibles, Bible storybooks and the accompanying interpretative pictures they were exposed to as children. Yet, although the popularity of children’s Bibles in religious and secular Western communities is undisputed, acknowledgment of their growing position as important exegetical discourse is only slowly reaching the academy, with little credence given to the idea that these texts warrant serious critical engagement. This paper argues that children’s Bibles, as radical interpreters of the Bible and as vehicles for the imparting of social values by one generation to the next, have become invaluable descriptive markers of identity, of constancy and change in religious collectives. This role of the Bible, its reception, and the way it shapes the popular and the everyday in society, is an under-examined component of reception history to which twenty-first century children’s Bibles provide invaluable access. The fact that these texts continue to evolve and adapt, despite claims to constancy, is a strong indication of their value and relevance to an understanding of twenty-first century religion and society. More so, as stories intended for those on establishment’s margins (children, women as caregivers, newly converted adults, etc.), they express an agenda far beyond simply making children interested in the Bible. These books connect Bible-informed ideologies and preferences with the routines of everyday life in ways that are not solely functionalist, but focused on the experience of an audience at or on the margins of the religious centre.


Exodus in the Book of Judges
Program Unit: Deuteronomistic History
Peter Dubovsky, Pontificio Istituto Biblico

The theme of Exodus became crucial for the Deuteronomistic reinterpretation of the past. Despite a heavy Deuteronomistic revision of the Book of Judges, the theme of Exodus is limited to chapters 2 and 6. This study will focus, first, on two linguistic variants employed for referring to Exodus, namely, the hifil of the verb ‘lh and yṣ’. While the choice of one of the verbs became a hallmark of some biblical books, Judges 2 and 6 have both verbs. When and why did these linguistic variants of Exodus “merge”? In order to answer this question, I will study Judges 2 and 6 from the historical-critical point of view and compare them with other biblical passages. By doing so, I will propose a stratification of Exodus layers in the Deuteronomistic literature and illuminate a tradition that combines both ‘lh and yṣ’ as it occurs in the Book of Judges.


A Labor of Love? The Self-Employed Apostle in Corinth
Program Unit: The Historical Paul
Paul B. Duff, George Washington University

The subject of money looms large in the Corinthian correspondence. At a minimum, we find it in: 1 Corinthians 9, where Paul uses his renunciation of Corinthian funding to encourage the “strong” to renounce their “right” to eat eidōlothyta; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, where Paul gives instructions to begin the collection for the Jerusalem assembly; 2 Cor 2:17, where Paul denies that he is peddling the word of God; 2 Cor 7:2, where he again refutes allegations of financial misconduct; 2 Corinthians 8, in which the apostle encourages the Corinthians to complete the collection of money for Jerusalem; 2 Corinthians 9, where he makes yet another appeal on behalf of the collection; 2 Cor 11:7-11, where Paul claims to have “plundered” other assemblies in order to preach to the Corinthians free-of-charge; and 2 Cor 12:13-18, where he adamantly insists that neither he nor his associates have defrauded the Corinthian assembly. There are two themes around which the subject of money revolves: money for Paul’s sustenance and money for the Jerusalem collection (although at times it is difficult to separate the two). In this paper, I will consider only the first theme—Paul’s means of sustenance—and I will ask why Paul labored as a skēnopoios instead of accepting financial support for his missionary work in Corinth. This question is especially interesting in light of Paul’s acceptance of money from the Philippian assembly.


Speech, Characterization, and Intertextuality in the Pseudo-Clementine Novel
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Patricia Duncan, Texas Christian University

The existence of two similar versions of the Pseudo-Clementine novel (the Latin "Recognition" and the Greek "Klementia", or "Homilies"), each presumably the result of independent, fourth-century modifications on a third-century Grundschrift, presents us with an interesting and rather unique opportunity to explore the usage and effects of dialogue in ancient narrative. In each version of the tale, there is already a richly layered dynamic of telling and hearing, for each novel presents its story in the mode of character narration. That is to say, the “Clement” who narrates the story to James the Brother of the Lord is also a protagonist in the tale, and it is through the medium of this fictional act of telling that the author speaks to his or her authorial audience. Thus, when we examine parallel scenes in the two novels and find instances where dialogue is presented differently, with speaking and hearing roles rearranged, we have multi-layered and complex dynamics of disclosure and concealment, knowledge and power, to consider. In this paper, I will analyze the different speech dynamics found in the parallel passages surrounding the conversion of Clement’s skeptical and philosophically-minded father, Faustus, to the faith of the Apostle Peter. The effects of the different speech configurations on the characterization of Faustus are considerable, and we discover, I propose, a kind of intertextuality at work in the dialogue. In other words, the rearrangement of certain aspects of the dialogue in this narrative scene suggest that (at least) one version of the novel has altered speech patterns so as to enter into conversation with, or talk back to, a prior version of the same story – a dynamic that was perhaps not lost on at least some readers in antiquity.


Narrating the Ascetic Jesus: Collections of Prophetic Anecdotes as Symbols of Family Status in Early Islam
Program Unit: Religious Competition in Late Antiquity
Reyhan Durmaz, Brown University

Early Islamic communities built their identity upon biblical memories, re-contextualizing, reorienting and reinterpreting them. The voluminous scholarship has demonstrated that especially in locations peripheral to the Hijaz, where Islam emerged, a great majority of local communities transmitted their pre-Islamic (mostly Christian and Jewish) cultural and literary heritage into Islam. This heritage played a considerable role in shaping local manifestations of Islamic vocabulary, doctrines, and salvific chronology, and constituted a significant source of knowledge, piety and legitimacy. In this paper I focus on writings from two families, who were descendants of Jewish and Christian communities in Yemen and Syria, respectively: The Ṣaḥīfa (lit. “pages”) of Hammām b. Munabbih al-Yamanī (d. 719), and an anecdotal collection of Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Ghassānī (d. ca750), which was ostensibly transmitted through his descendants and preserved in the 11th-century Kitāb Akhbār wa-Ḥikāyāt (the Book of Reports and Stories). These texts comprise anecdotes and sayings of biblical prophets, as well as of Muhammad, anonymous characters, and Satan. Although neither of them is technically a work on asceticism, they both include important anecdotes on ascetic practices, especially of Jesus. Through these two early Islamic “family notes,” I will argue that knowledge of biblical prophets and ascetic anecdotes was a status marker for many early Islamic historians, who collected, edited and transmitted these reports to promote their families, creating new categories and conventions of Islamic sanctity. As these collections were transmitted across generations within these families, they became tokens of not only the collectors’ scholarship, but also the families’ sanctity due to their contribution to the knowledge and practice of asceticism in the early Middle Ages.


The Linguistics of Social Identity (Re-)Formation
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
James D. Dvorak, Oklahoma Christian University

Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory continue to prove their worth for biblical interpretation. Central to these theories, as the literature has demonstrated, is the notion that a person’s social identity derives from her or his group membership(s). This is especially crucial in interpreting identity formation and/or reformation of persons as described in the New Testament, given the collectivistic world that is represented therein. The many excellent applications of SIT/SCT that I have read have, to greater and lesser extents, addressed the variegated yet crucial and ineluctable role that language plays in identity (re-)formation processes. Yet, to my knowledge, Tucker (You Belong to Christ and Remain in Your Calling) is one of the few who have expressly connected SIT/SCT with an explicitly sociolinguistic theory and method, drawing especially Norman Fairclough (see Remain in Your Calling, 33 n. 1, 56 n. 113, 59, 189 n. 6). However, this connection begs for further exploration and fuller development. In particular, I propose to describe a model, built on the foundation of Halliday’s systemic-functional sociolinguistics—but strongly influenced by Bakhtin, Fairclough, Lemke, Hodge and Kress, and others—that can aid in explaining how texts, including and especially biblical texts, are a form of social engagement and interaction through which people like the biblical writers negotiate values and engage in identity formation and reformation (also known as resocialization). Much of this engagement and interaction aims at positioning the readers to take up identities that are created for them in texts. In addition, I will offer a demonstration of the model by way of text analysis. I will focus particularly on those linguistic features that help to generate the “internalized narrative substructure” that Tucker (Remain in Your Calling, 50–51), Baker (“Christian Identity Formation,” 228–37), and others argue is crucial in regards to identity (re-)formation.


Moving from a Text to Its Context: Mirror-Reading, Semantic Domains, and Context of Situation
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Bryan R. Dyer, Baker Publishing Group


"Unholy Like Esau": Exploring Esau's Sexual Immorality as a Community-Abandoning Act
Program Unit: Hebrews
Matthew Easter, Missouri Baptist University

The author of Hebrews warns that no “root of bitterness” spring up, causing trouble, defiling many (Heb 12:15). “Sexually immoral” Esau serves as a negative example (12:16-17). It is not immediately clear how Esau is “sexually immoral,” but I argue this sexual immorality is Esau’s abandoning the community of faith. The essay proceeds in three stages. First, I address the nature of Esau’s sexual immorality, wherein I connect his sexual immorality to his marriage outside of the community. The author of Hebrews stands in his Hellenistic Jewish tradition by connecting Esau’s sexual immorality to his marriage to foreign women (cf. Jubilees 25). However, Esau’s exogamous marriage is not, in itself, the concern of the author of Hebrews. Instead, Esau’s mixed marriage sowed seeds of bitterness in the family, and led ultimately to Esau’s abandoning the family. The author of Hebrews quotes Deut 29, which warns any “root growing up with gall and bitterness” (29:18) will be “singled out for evil from all the sons of Israel,” and “God will not want to pardon him” (29:20). Esau’s Hittite wives, however, “brought grief” (Gen 26:35) and “embittered” (Jub. 25:1) Isaac and Rebecca. As the author of Hebrews expected, the “root of bitterness” introduced by sexually immoral Esau “defiled many” (Heb 12:15). After failing to please his father by marrying within the family (Gen 28:6-8), Esau abandons the family. Second, I show how this understanding of sexual immorality as a community-abandoning act extends also to another key narrative for Hebrews: the Israelite wilderness generation’s failure to enter the Promised Land (“the rest” in Hebrews). Num 14 (an important passage for Hebrews) depicts the wilderness generation’s failure to enter the Promised Land as a “fornication” (14:33) resulting in loss of “inheritance” (14:24, 31). Similarly, by selling his birthright, sexually immoral Esau forfeited his inheritance. Alternatively, the author of Hebrews hopes his hearers will receive an inheritance (1:14; 6:12; 9:15) and be numbered among the “assembly of the firstborn” (12:23). Esau’s sin, therefore, amounts to abandoning the people of God for fleeting pleasure (“a single meal,” 12:16). Just as the wilderness generation failed to persevere in faith and so enter the “rest” together, so also Esau failed to persevere in faith with the people of God. Finally, I offer some thoughts about the nature of apostasy in light of these findings, where I conclude that apostasy for the author of Hebrews is abandoning the community of faith. This account of apostasy coheres with contemporary sociologists’ conclusions, who have shown conversion as an act of joining a community of faith. In short, Esau’s sexual immorality is a community-abandoning act, wherein he married outside the family and introduced bitterness into the community, thereby defiling the people of God. Like the wilderness generation, he failed to persevere with the people of God. This act resulted in being cut off from future participation in the community.


The Gospel Book as Liturgical Actor
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Daniel Eastman, Yale University

This paper will explore the development of Gospel books, or tetraevangelia, as liturgical actors in late antique Syriac Christianity. It will argue that the Gospel book functioned as a material thing that actively manifested divine power in the world – what Heather Hunter-Crawley has termed a symbola. Through factors such as their appearance, location, movement within the space of the church, and proximity to other liturgical subjects, tetraevangelia took on additional meaning and power that went beyond their identity as containers of the texts of the four canonical gospels. This paper will propose that in late antique Syria and Mesopotamia, Gospel books increasingly functioned as symbola of Christ, taking on his roles as healer, judge, and leader of the church both inside and outside the liturgical setting. In making these arguments, the paper will draw on a range of literary and material evidence from late antique Syriac Christianity, including Gospel manuscripts, archaeological remains of churches and liturgical implements, and liturgical commentaries and homilies. Through these sources, particular attention will be paid to the connection of the Gospel book to two other spaces in the church – the altar and the bema – both of which themselves carried a rich array of meanings that developed in tandem with the Gospel book. Through their presence as symbola within the liturgy, tetraevangelia can be seen to have been closely identified with the person of Christ, such that when Gospel books appeared outside the confines of the church building they brought Christ’s power with them, performing essential functions such as healing the sick, cursing the impious, and ordaining new bishops.


"Whatever I Will Speak, Will be Fulfilled": The Correspondence between Prophecy and Fulfillment in Ezek 12:21–28
Program Unit: Book of Ezekiel
Ruth Ebach, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Ezek 12:21-28 is part of a small collection in Ezek 12-14 dealing with the topic of true and false, or better fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecy. The precise logical and literary coherence of these passages is still under discussion. The paper shows, especially focusing on Ezek 12:21-28, that Ezek 12-14 in its different literal stages analyzes and problematizes - as guiding thread - every partner of a successful prophetic interaction and, vice versa, possible "creators" of false/unfulfilled prophecies: The prophet(s), the people asking him, and God himself. Especially Ezek 12 should better be read as God's promise to realize prophetic words within a narrower timeframe, rather than limited on a discussion on false prophecy: A change in God's practice is announced, the reaction on the saying used in the land evokes a theological shift! Only the highly discussed v. 24 - problematizing the prophetic behavior or some kind of prophecy (as can be underlined despite other translations) - changes the focus. In this connection, the alternative readings of the Septuagint in Ezek 12 (and more general in 12-14) showing that the discussion regarding the origin and reason of unfulfilled prophecy still went on, are of special interest. In addition, the passage's dating(s) and the saying's location in the land (as one understanding of v. 22) point to a kind of determination between the Golah and those living in the land, which should be taken into account. The paper underlines that Ezek 12,21ff. in his historical setting has a deep theological impact and shows changes in the picture of God and prophecy.


Women’s Economic Roles in Ancient Israel: An Archaeological Perspective
Program Unit: Economics in the Biblical World
Jennie Ebeling, University of Evansville

During the past decade, archaeologists working in the southern Levant have adopted new approaches to reconstructing daily life in ancient Israel through household archaeology studies. Among the aims of household archaeology is the identification of gendered spaces and activities in Iron Age (ca. 1200-586 BCE) domestic structures, and recent studies have demonstrated the value of this approach for reconstructing food preparation, textile production, and other contributions to the household economy usually attributed to women. In this presentation, I will discuss how archaeologists engender household spaces, artifacts, and installations and describe some of the issues involved in using archaeological remains and biblical texts to inform on real women’s lives in the Iron Age.


The Dynamics of Orality and the Implications for Mark’s Characterization of the Disciples
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Zechariah Eberhart, Loyola University of Chicago

Marshall McLuhan, in an oft cited passage, sheds light on the dynamics of media. In the opening chapter of Understanding Media, he famously asserts that “the medium is the message.” What McLuhan correctly observes is that content is not merely a matter of information or data, but it is a product of the medium. The same information, offered by means of a different medium, can function differently and often conveys a different meaning. The medium itself, rather than the data found within the subject, is what differentiates and carries the content. Considerations of media have multitudinous implications for biblical studies, one among which is it raises questions as to how the early audiences experienced the gospel stories. Did the early Jesus followers hear the gospels, or read them? If they did hear them, was it read aloud, or was it performed? And how might each of these different mediums alter the message? In a series of essays from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Joanna Dewey issues a call for a comprehensive exploration of Markan disciples in an oral/aural context. In each essay, Dewey’s work moves us closer to attaining a first-century media consciousness of the Gospel of Mark, yet in each investigation she stops short of offering a full-fledged analysis of the disciples, characters that have been often maligned within literary approaches. This paper is an attempt at taking up Dewey’s challenge. Drawing primarily upon the works of M. McLuhan, W. Kelber, W. Shiner, D. Rhoads, H. Hearon, M.A. Wire, and K. Iverson, this paper will attempt to offer a (mostly) positive representation of Mark’s disciples from a performance critical perspective. I will begin by briefly looking at how Mark’s disciples have been viewed in previous studies, revealing a gap which performance criticism might help to fill. Next, I will turn to Mark’s text and attempt to offer a positive “performance” of Mark’s disciples. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: 1) To explore ways in which performance criticism might offer us a “new” perspective on an old problem, and 2) to see if the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of the disciples can possibly be mitigated (to some extent) through an oral performance. This is by no means an attempt to “definitively answer” nor “(ab)solve” Mark’s disciple problem, but rather the goal will be to explore ways in which the embodiment of the disciples, in a performative context, might illuminate the Markan composition and early performances of this text. This essay will work at the level of suggestion rather than demonstration, and will offer ways in which media considerations both limit and expand characters within performative contexts. This is an exploration, an experiment if you will, on the ways in which media considerations can shed light on how an original audience might have understood Mark’s disciples, and how questions of media might contribute to the enduring task of understanding the juxtaposition of these historically beloved yet textually maligned characters.


Texts, Communities, and Culture of Conversions through “Sacred” Translation: A Look Back into the Future
Program Unit: Nida Institute
Edgar Ebojo, United Bible Societies

Bible Translation has never been monolithic in its experience and execution—there are no dull moments either. Instead, its long and winding history demonstrates (sometimes vibrantly, sometimes subtly) the active engagement between the transmitted “Text”, its “transmission vehicles”, and its “target recipients”, resulting in different conversion dimensions. This history equally demonstrates that the “Text” was both the “converter” of communities and at the same time as “converted” by the communities it got in contact with. There are various ways to exhibit this dynamic interaction but none is more lucid than by looking at how the biblical “Text” intersected intricately with other factors that had been transmitted alongside the biblical text, particularly in the early stages of its transmission history (e.g., the first five hundred years of the Christian era). This paper will attempt to highlight the different levels of communal conversions that have taken place as one digs through the early transmission history of Bible Translation evinced from the extant manuscripts of the New Testament, as well as to reflect on this in light of its future prospects as Bible translation engages the potentials and pitfalls of technological advances in achieving its goal of keeping the legacy of Scripture transmission alive.


Textual Variants in Justin, 1 Apology 65–67
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Benedikt Eckhardt, University of Edinburgh

Justin’s description of the Eucharist is famously preserved in only two manuscript traditions, one of which (Ottobonianus gr. 274) sparked a debate in the late 19th century about what has more recently been referred to as “Ascetic Eucharists”. Harnack assumed that the cup originally contained only water, and that references to wine were added later by an “orthodox” redactor. The version given in the Ottobonianus (O) was regarded by him as an independent witness to the original text. This argument has largely been abandoned by scholars, who commonly regard O as a corrupted copy of the only other tradition (preserved in Parisinus gr. 450 A). This paper reassesses the arguments and finds that the theory of an “orthodox” redaction of the Parisinus cannot be upheld. It also points to the possibility that O is nevertheless an independent witness, as both questions do not have to be connected. In this context, the Latin tradition (discarded by Marcovich without further discussion) is also incorporated.


Competitions over Abstinence in the Acts of Paul: Dramatizing Pauline Instructions on Marriage
Program Unit: Religious Competition in Late Antiquity
Benjamin Edsall, Australian Catholic University

The Acts of Paul contains numerous examples of confrontations and competition oriented around the way in which female bodies are sexualized. Against the view of women as sexually obligated to their husbands – on individual and social levels – Paul’s emphasis on celibate asceticism creates competition between himself and the various male characters over the proper conduct of women. Furthermore, the Acts of Paul dramatizes a certain tension arising from Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives in 1 Cor 7, in which one may be partners with an unbelieving spouse. In other words, the Acts of Paul narrates the Apostle’s competition with normal Roman expectations of marital activity for sexually pure bodies of believers.


1 Peter and the African American Diaspora Experience
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Dennis R. Edwards, Northern Seminary

There are several topics in 1 Peter that have special resonance with the African American experience, such as: 1. The notion of being exiles of the Diaspora. As Miroslav Wolf notes: “The early Christian communities were not major social players at all! They were not even among the cheering or booing spectators. Slandered, discriminated against, and even persecuted minorities, they were at most a bit of a thorn in society’s flesh. Yet, notwithstanding their marginality, early Christian communities celebrated hope in God and proclaimed joyfully the resurrected Lord as they endeavored to walk in the footsteps of the crucified Messiah” (A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good). African American Christianity mirrors the diaspora status of the Petrine community. This paper will explore how being part of a diaspora people can lead to a more vibrant faith. 2. What it means to persevere with faith through suffering. The African American experience includes faith forged in the fires of slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow Era, the Civil Rights Movement, as well as ongoing discrimination. The readers of 1 Peter, whose suffering may not have been state sanctioned, were nevertheless bullied and needed encouragement to remain faithful throughout their trials. The painful experiences of African Americans may help to elucidate the message of 1 Peter. 3. Addressing how the African American experience speaks in unique ways to Christian witness in the sense of following the example of Christ. First Peter frequently raises Jesus as the model for faith under pressure and African American Christians have demonstrated the way of Christ through offering a witness of love despite having endured tremendous suffering. I intend to demonstrate how the African American experience—especially for Christians—mirrors and also invigorates our understanding of 1 Peter.


Esther´s Prayer (Addition C) as a Theological Reinterpretation of the Hebrew Esther Story
Program Unit: Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature
Beate Ego, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

In this paper, it will be argued that the Prayer of Esther, as it appears in the Old Greek text of the Book of Esther, can be seen as a theological reinterpretation of the Hebrew story of the Esther.


What Should Be Cut? (Gal 5.12) Social Identity Formation in Galatians
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
Kathy Ehrensperger, Universität Potsdam

TBA


David, Achish, and Their Place within the Historical Consciousness of Ancient Israel/Judah
Program Unit: Book of Samuel: Narrative, Theology, and Interpretation
Carl S. Ehrlich, York University

The Davidic narratives may be defined as the accounts of a series of interlocking interpersonal relationships pursued by David. Saul and Jonathan, Samuel and Nathan, Abigail and Bathsheba, Amnon and Absalom, all have their places and functions within the stories of David’s rise and fall. Among these multifarious relationships one stands out by virtue of its incongruity: David’s relationship with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath, whose vassal he becomes while on the run from Saul. While this narrative ultimately serves to absolve David of involvement in the deaths of his Saulide rivals for rule over the Israelites, the question arises to what extent it is reflective of a historical reality, whether of the time period of which it purports to tell or of a later one. This paper will address the form and function of the David and Achish narratives and examine the various possibilities for dating them within the historical and literary contexts of ancient Israel and Judah.


Unifying Personifications: Hosea and Amos as Literary Characters
Program Unit: Book of the Twelve Prophets
Göran Eidevall, Uppsala Universitet

Rather than analyzing Hosea and Amos as literary characters, I intend to assess the effect of their presence in the books that carry their names. Without its prologue, chapters 1–3, the book of Hosea would be an anonymous collection of oracles (comprising chs. 4–14). Similarly, removing chapter 7 would turn the book of Amos into an assemblage of prophecies of unknown provenance. Arguably, these two prophetic characters bring unity to otherwise disparate collections. With reference to a dramatic life story (based on the allegedly biographical and auto-biographical accounts in Hosea 1–3 and Amos 7), it is possible to explain (or, harmonize) abrupt transitions, as well as apparent contradictions. This will be demonstrated by examples from exegetical commentaries on Hosea and Amos. From another perspective, I suggest that prophetic characters can be seen as personifications: of certain virtues, but also of a certain message. The concluding part of the presentation seeks to answer the question: What message is conveyed by these two personae, Amos and Hosea, respectively? On the basis of intertextual considerations, it will be suggested that whereas there are several intriguing connections between Amos and Jeremiah, Hosea can, to a certain extent, be understood as a Northern counterpart to Isaiah.


Reflections on the Legacy of Krister Stendahl
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Pamela Eisenbaum, Iliff School of Theology

Reflections on the Legacy of Krister Stendahl


The Minimization of “Faith” in Rashi’s Torah Commentary
Program Unit: Jewish Interpretation of the Bible
Yedida Eisenstat, York University

Among the questions that scholars of Rashi's Torah commentary ask is whether there is anti-Christian polemic in his Torah commentary. As Shaye Cohen has argued, in the absence of explicit anti-Christian statements, one cannot simply posit its presence. Further, given that Rashi's Torah commentary is best understood as a medieval midrashic anthology, how may one detect Rashi's own theological and philosophical motivations in this text? Without presuming anti-Christian polemic in Rashi’s Torah commentary, I maintain that there is evidence that Rashi responded to prevalent Christian ideas of which he would have been aware. Among these isthe Pauline idea that God's choice of Abraham was predicated first and foremost on Abraham's faith, a case Paul made in his letters both to the Galatians and Romans based on Genesis 15:6. This paper analyzes Rashi's exegetical choices in his comments on Genesis 15:6 and shows that in all three of his interpretations of this verse, he sought to minimize the significance of Abraham's show of faith in this chapter. In his first comment, Rashi drew attention to the fact that directly following the narrative's note that Abraham had faith in God's promise that he would have a child, Abraham asked for a sign regarding God's promise of "this land." Rashi thereby called into question Abraham's faith. In Rashi's interpretations on the next clause, "And He deemed it as righteous-merit on his part," (Fox translation) Rashi first limited the significance of God's reckoning Abraham's faith to him as righteous-merit by attaching no enduring significance to the statement—in stark contrast to Paul, who argued that faith was in fact the basis of the Abrahamic covenant. Instead, Rashi immediately proposed another interpretation in which he once again reminds the reader that Abraham asked for a sign, minimizing his faith. Rashi explains though that Abraham did not ask for a sign that he would inherit the land but that Abraham asked rather in what merit God's promise would be realized. Rashi's answer, carefully culled from Genesis Rabba 44, is that the covenant would be realized in the merit of sacrifices, which makes clear that the covenant is not predicated on Abraham's faith, in remarkable contrast to Paul. It is apparent the Rashi here minimized the significance of Abraham's faith, and emphasized his asking for a sign to preclude the import of his faith, and brilliantly pivoted to once again emphasize the importance of action, in this case sacrificial observances, to preclude Paul's emphasis on the importance of faith. In demonstrating that Rashi's choice was deliberate, I will highlight the fact that there are perfectly good midrashic precedents on which Rashi might have drawn in which the Sages entertained the idea of the lasting meritorious effects of Abraham's faith. Rather, Rashi minimized the effects of faith and rather emphasized the meritorious effects of serving God in action.


The Evolution of God? Trinitarian Deities in the Qur’an
Program Unit: The Qur’an and Late Antiquity (IQSA)
Emran El-Badawi, University of Houston

The passage “Have you seen al-Lat and al-Uzza, and the third one Manat as well?” (Q 53:19-20) is the starting point of this presentation. It is, I will argue, the earliest reference to a Trinitarian cult in the Qur’an. Q 53:20-21 condemns this cult, not on account of its polytheism, but rather on account of its “female” deities (cf. Q 37:150-57). This controversy, therefore, distances itself from the matriarchal institution of late antique Arabian paganism, in favor of the patriarchal institution of the One God of Judaism/Christianity. The second part of this presentation examines the male cults of Allah, al-Rahman and al-Rahim, which I argue are Christian in background. The merger of these cults from different parts of Arabia into one (Q 1; 2:163; 27:30; 41:2; 59:22; cf. Q 17:110) demonstrates the Qur’an’s process of uniting Arabian society behind a new universal monotheism. The third part of this presentation concerns the text’s condemnation of the Incarnation doctrine (Q 3-4) and the Christian Trinity (Q 5). This phase of qur’anic revelation forms the final break between the Qur’an’s Abrahamic monotheism on the one hand, and the Christian Church on the other. Does the Qur’an’s anxiety about female deities reflect the shifting gender of Arabian gods and monarchs after the fall of Nabataea (2nd century CE) and Palmyra (3rd century CE)? Does its adoption of Christian male deities demonstrate the penetration of the eastern churches deep into the heart of Arabian society thereafter? Can its subsequent rejection of church doctrine be dated to the Christological controversies (4th-7th century CE)? This presentation seeks to answer these questions, and also sheds light on the importance on the text’s ‘tripartite’ discourse, the religious sensibilities of the audience, and the importance of gender. My argument is made in conversation with epigraphic evidence, literary sources and modern scholarship. By proposing an early, middle, and late phase to these developments, this presentation offers tentative results concerning the ‘evolution’ of the qur’anic God.


Speculative Cinema and the Politics of Scripture
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Gilad Elbom, Oregon State University

Much like Talmudic literature, science-fiction cinema often appropriates familiar biblical narratives in an attempt to adjust them to contemporary avenues of inquiry, inspect them under new circumstances, and use them to explore social and political questions. In keeping with the hermeneutic characteristics of midrash, the primary purpose of such appropriations and explorations is not to arrive at an ultimate interpretation but to wrestle with the inherent ambiguity of religious texts, test their relevancy and applicability to the current concerns of the community, and study them as dynamic systems of signs in which meaning is always unstable. This paper focuses on Barbarella (1968), Blade Runner (1982), and Sleep Dealer (2008) as visual narratives that employ recognizable elements from biblical texts, especially the Gospels, Acts, and the interpretive tradition of rabbinic literature. In political terms, the imperial powers portrayed in these movies often advocate equal exchange semiotics, also known as decodification semiotics, while colonized minorities resist through dialogic systems that rely on polyphony. Although cultural production, and language in particular, is frequently seen as the quintessential model of decodification semiotics, what the above movies seem to suggest is that it is language itself that challenges an automatic, predetermined, one-to-one correspondence between signifier and signified, offers effective alternatives to monolithic codes, and facilitates interpretation semiotics.


Joseph and Aseneth: Jewish and Christian
Program Unit: Pseudepigrapha
Nicholas A. Elder, Marquette University

Interpretations of Joseph and Aseneth’s Jewish or Christian provenance have, until recently, tended to be dichotomous. Early interpreters, influenced by Pierre Batiffol’s critical edition, considered the narrative a Christian text from the fifth century CE. As a result, Joseph and Aseneth was not included in early twentieth-century collections of Jewish pseudepigrapha. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, the pendulum swung and the consensus, following the work of Christoph Burchard and Marc Philonenko, was that Joseph and Aseneth was a Jewish text from the Hellenistic period. And the last twenty years have produced more mixed assessments as to the authorship of the pseudepigraphon. Emboldened by Ross Kraemer’s skepticism about the text’s Jewish provenance, several recent studies have re-articulated cases for Christian composition. At present the state of scholarship is mixed. Both Christian and Jewish provenance of Joseph and Aseneth are positions currently held. Moreover, many now question whether or not the dichotomous terms that the debate has been constructed in are productive. In this paper I argue that they are not. Instead, I suggest that Joseph and Aseneth ought to be understood as Jewish and Christian, rather than Jewish or Christian. I first suggest that social memory theory, and specifically the concept “equiprimordiality,” helps reframe the debate. I then outline my own position on the early Jewish provenance of Joseph and Aseneth. I concur with the present consensus position that the narrative’s shape and central concerns are Jewish and that internal features suggest Joseph and Aseneth was first popularized in a Hellenistic Jewish milieu. The bulk of the paper then addresses the ways in which we ought to consider Joseph and Aseneth a Christian text. I argue the the text was Christian in so far as it was re-commemorated and re-memorialized in Christian contexts. Joseph and Aseneth was re-commemorated and re-memorialized in these contexts because it readily lent itself to Christian allegorical and typological interpretations. I address two areas in which Joseph and Aseneth possessed this kind of Christian potential. First, titles appended to Joseph will have led to his typological identification with Jesus in Christian reception of Joseph and Aseneth. And second, Aseneth’s transformation by means of repentance, which is earthly but, as Andrei Orlov has recently suggested, is also mirrored in the heavenly realm, comported well with early Christian understandings of heavenly transformation by means of metanoia.


Mark at the Borderland of Orality and Textuality
Program Unit: Gospel of Mark
Nicholas A. Elder, Marquette University

The publication of Werner Kelber’s The Oral and the Written Gospel was a watershed moment not only for media-critical approaches to Mark, but for the study of the gospel generally. Kelber’s seminal monograph, however, has often been charged with propagating the so-called Great Divide approach to orality and textuality. Recent interpreters have distanced themselves from any perspective that claims that these modalities of communication are mutually exclusive or competing. Instead, these interpreters emphasize that orality and textuality interfaced in a complex manner in both the production and reception of texts. Yet there is little clarity about how this plays out at the ground level. The question of how a text like the Gospel of Mark simultaneously exhibits evidence of both oral and textual influence often goes unanswered. This paper aims to answer that question at the levels of both production and reception. It suggests that Mark existed (and still exists) at the borderland of orality and textuality. It is a “textualized oral narrative” composed via dictation. As such, there will have been multiple receptions of it, oral, aural, and literary, in antiquity. By proposing this thesis, I attempt to move further beyond the dichotomous terms that theories about the production and reception of Mark are often constructed in. The paper suggests that Mark will have been read performatively to groups and will also have been literarily received by individuals, rather than suggesting one mode of reception over and against the other. This thesis is argued on four counts. First, the linguistic style of Mark resembles spoken narratives, and this can be substantiated by modern sociolinguistic research. Second, the opening words of Mark, and specifically the term “gospel,” indicate that it is orally proclaimed news. Only after Mark was committed to the textual medium did this term come to refer to a literary genre. Mark’s existence at the borderland between orality and textuality helps to explain this development of the word. Third, early historical testimony from the likes of Papias, Clement, and Eusebius alleges that Mark was both produced and received as a tertium quid between writing and speaking. And fourth, several Markan exegetical “problems,” such as the location of the swine miracle in Mark 5 and the mix-up of Ahimelech and Abiathar’s names in Mark 2, and the solutions provided by the later Synoptic authors are less problematic when one understands Mark as a textualized oral narrative.


Becoming a Trauma-Informed Bible Professor
Program Unit: Teaching Biblical Studies in an Undergraduate Liberal Arts Context
Kathleen Gallagher Elkins, Saint Norbert College

There is a body of literature about trauma-informed care (in medicine, social work, law, and so on) and there are conversations in primary and secondary education about having trauma-informed classrooms. There is not, however, much work to date on trauma-informed college classrooms, beyond the debate about whether or not syllabi and readings should have "trigger warnings" on them. The blogosphere conversation about trigger warnings often lacked a theoretical basis or a nuanced understanding of post-traumatic "trigger," a term that is often misapplied to other contexts and topics. Having a trigger warning does not mean that students are not asked to discuss difficult topics; it also does not mean that they are special snowflakes who cannot handle real life. Research on post-traumatic stress disorder shows the ways that students who have experienced trauma are sometimes able to learn better when they have been prepared for what is coming. Good learning does not happen when students are triggered; actually, it is impeded. Trauma-informed college teaching is a pedagogical approach that responds to a diverse student body, including the ways that students may be affected by insidious traumas (Maria Root's term for various forms of oppression that may cause trauma) and other traumatizing experiences. The Bible itself can be, for certain students, a traumatizing weapon; for other students, the Bible represents a healing balm. Using insights from trauma theory in the humanities and from the movement for trauma-informed teaching and human services suggests that an approach to teaching the Bible (most especially the violent and troubling parts of the Bible) must be trauma-sensitive. This does not mean coddling or shielding students, but rather acknowledging the diverse life experiences and social locations that they bring into the classroom, as well as the varied reactions that the biblical text can provoke. Becoming a trauma-informed Bible professor is one way to connect with and respond to diverse student populations.


Hearing and Speaking: Exploring the Dialogue Between Author and Reader in a Pentecostal Hermeneutic
Program Unit:
Scott Ellington, Emmanuel College

In this paper I will address the conversation among Pentecostal hermeneuts regarding the locus of meaning. Some scholars, such as John Poirier, reject the ongoing activity of the Spirit in the process of interpretation locating meaning almost exclusively with the author and their intended meaning (‘The Blob That Ate New Haven: The Concept of Meaning in Hans Frei’s and Brevard Childs’s Writings’, a paper presented in our 46th annual meeting). Others, such as Kenneth Archer, tend to the opposite end of the spectrum, arguing that the quest for authorial meaning is to be rejected in favor of discovering and creating meaning in fresh dialogue with the Spirit and the text (Pentecostal Hermeneutics, p. 199). Craig Keener (Spirit Hermeneutics) adopts a somewhat left of center approach, allowing for the role of experience in interpretation, while still giving the controlling voice to authorial intent. In this paper I will seek to give shape to a dialogical approach (a phrase that Archer uses, but which seems to me to be more of a monologue offered by current experience that marginalized the author’s voice in his usage) that is more right of center than Keener’s understanding, allowing a more pronounced place for the role of experience brought to the reading, but one which does not create (or discover) virtually ex nihilo the text’s meaning from the experience of a fresh encounter with the Spirit (Archer). Dialogue, as opposed to monologue, requires both hearing and speaking, that is, it requires an informed appreciation of both the author and the reader and, in the case of a Pentecostal approach, attentiveness to the active voice and participation of the guiding Spirit in both. The essential question which this paper seeks to address, then, is how best to frame the parameters of that dialogue so that both participants are honored and their relationship is more precisely stated. I intend to nuance and quantify what a ‘dialogical’ reading looks like by exploring the interpretation and application of Old Testament scriptures by New Testament writers. Specifically and to limit the scope of the study, I plan at this early stage of exploration to focus on examples in Acts. It is no new observation that biblical writers seldom if ever attend directly to the original context and meaning of a passage when citing and reapplying it in a new context under the guidance of the inspiring Spirit. Rather that original meaning acts as a point of departure for a new application in a fresh context. I hope to demonstrate a) that this is a move in dialogue with, rather than simply in spite of, the original meaning and context of the cited text and b) that dialogical principles for a valid new reading can be discerned and enumerated from these exemplary texts. Chris Thomas (“Women, Pentecostals, and the Bible: An Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics”) has already done some work with James’ use of Amos 9 in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, but he has not attempted a description of the interpretive process that James is using. I would like a) to broaden the pool of exemplary texts in Acts, b) to argue that these canonical examples are not an exception to sound interpretation (i.e., “They were inspired by the Spirit in an exceptional way that we cannot be.”), but rather provide a model for a dialogical approach to a text-reader-Spirit reading, and c) to suggest parallels and parameters from these that would apply to the current discussion of what it means to read the text dialogically as a Pentecostal.


The Church as Ideological Formation: "Ethnographic" Notes from a Participant Observer
Program Unit: Poverty in the Biblical World
Neil Elliott, Metropolitan State University

Those academics still involved in church life often demur from discussing our ecclesiastical commitments in scholarly settings. Yet the contours of contemporary U.S. Christianity are part of the ideological context in which we work. It is therefore important to analyze the role, not just of congregational life as a useful compartmentalization of social energy, but of the construal of “church” (in the singular) as a useful mystification within the capitalist ordering of society.


The Adaptation of Philonic Arithmology in Ambrose’s Letters on the Hexaemeron
Program Unit: Early Exegesis of Genesis 1–3
Paul M. C. Elliott, Concordia University Irvine

While Ambrose’s homilies on the Hexaemeron may be his best known commentary on Genesis 1-2, he also addressed questions about the Creation in a series of letters on the Hexaemeron (Ep. 29, 31, and 34). Unlike the homilies, which were largely dependent upon Basil’s Hexaemeron, Ambrose’s letters on the same topic owe much of their content to Philo of Alexandria’s De opificio mundi. This study is focused particularly upon Ambrose’s adaptation of Philonic arithmology in these letters, especially Ep. 31. In this text, Ambrose did not borrow arithmological material from Philo slavishly. After explicitly criticizing Neopythagorean number symbolism, Ambrose systematically excluded all such material from his adaptation of Philo. Nonetheless, Ambrose still found Philo to be a valuable source, and he did adapt other arithmological lore from Philo, particularly that which was drawn from the Old Testament or from nature. This study attempts to determine why Ambrose drew the line between acceptable and unacceptable number symbolism where he did. In doing so, it may illumine the different approaches that these two thinkers took with regard to numbers.


Dionysus, Azazel, and Processionals: The Influence of the Dionysian Cult in LXX Leviticus
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Spencer Elliott, Trinity Western University

When the Jewish Alexandrian community embarked on the translation of Leviticus, there were bound to be cases where the cult from the Hebrew Scriptures matched that of their surrounding culture. For the most part, this does not seem to bother them, as the translation of Leviticus in the Septuagint is characterized by the usual literal and stereotyped representation of the Hebrew base text. However, there are a number of occasions where it intentionally deviates from this norm. Two instances in chapters 16-17 suggest an intention to minimize a confusing intersection between the Day of Atonement and the Greek cult of Dionysus as practiced in Alexandria. In particular, the translation of the Hebrew word ʿazʾazel into Greek apopompaios evokes imagery of the processional element of the Greek temple ceremony (a pompē; Lev 16:8, 10), but in the opposite direction. Instead of a throng of worshippers in the procession going towards the place of sacrifice, a single is goat covered with the people’s sin and sent into the abject wilderness. In addition, the reticence to suggest that sacrifices should be offered to goats (laśśəʿîrim, “to the goats”, translated as tois mataiois) in Lev 17:7 indicates that the translator was avoiding associations with the cult of the half-man, half-goat Dionysus. These two elements, processional to the temple and the representation of the deity as a satyr, were significant elements to the practice of the Dionysian cult and were intentionally avoided by the translators of LXX-Leviticus.


Next Came the Letter: Listening with Dennis E. Smith to Paul’s Letters in the Context of Household Gatherings
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Susan M. Elliott, Independent Scholar

Dennis E. Smith shared a paper at the spring meeting of the Christianity Seminar of the Westar Institute in 2016 entitled, “In The Beginning Was The House: How Social and Identity Formation of Early Christ Groups Took Place.” At the same meeting, I offered draft chapters of a book that has since been published as Family Empires, Roman and Christian, Volume 1, Roman Family Empires: Household, Empire, Resistance. In an unfortunately truncated conversation at that meeting, Dennis noted that he could see ways to collaborate to combine our two papers. This paper attempts a posthumous effort to continue that conversation. The paper will first summarize Smith’s portrayal of the house as the physical space in which early Christ groups gathered for meals. Then it will provide an amplified view of Roman households emphasizing their transformation into increasingly public social performance spaces during the late Republic and Augustan eras. Most of the paper will summarize and respond to Smith’s work on setting early Christ groups in the context of house gatherings in the houses described, focusing on Paul’s letters.


The Creation Account, the Yetzer, and Community Soul-Care in the Epistle of James
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Nicholas J. Ellis, Western Seminary

What is the role of Genesis 1–3 in evaluating the human condition in the Epistle of James? How might this foundational Jewish text illuminate James’ view of anthropology, its sinful condition, and the conditions for its restoration? This paper will engage with two primary themes in James: (1) The author’s description of the anthropological condition, notably described as διψυχος/“double-souled”. This section will assess James’ anthropology against the most recent scholarship on wider early Jewish discourses of the yetzer and the natural human inclination. (2) A distinct and recurring allusion to the Genesis 1–3 account (most notably in Jas 1:13–18; 3:13–17; 4:5–8), which I propose provides for the author a biblical precedent for his understanding of the human condition of the soul, its temptation, and the effects caused by sin. Just as the first trial divided the human heart through desire, produced sin, and caused death, so every person’s heart is rent through divided religious loyalties. What then is the cause and solution for this human condition? I will argue that these two themes provide the author with a biblical/theological framework for religious division and religious loyalty, both towards God, and towards one’s neighbor. The author draws a direct line between the divisions of religious loyalty to God (love for God), to the tearing of unity within the community (love for neighbor), a battle that has taken place from the beginning of human history. In response to this internal and external religious threat, James builds an argument similar to that of the Jewish scribes: only Torah could defeat the yetzer, and unify the human heart in religious loyalty. For James, however, this Torah is the Rule of Jesus, its halakah is the double love commandment, and its therapeutic effects available to the community that fulfills its requirements. Taking this line of argument, the community of faith provides for James the means by which the divine command can be fulfilled and the divided human heart can be restored into unified religious loyalty.


Teaching Hebrew with Nonnative English Speakers: Developing Pedagogy in a Swedish Context
Program Unit: National Association of Professors of Hebrew
Beth Elness-Hanson, Johannelunds Teologiska Högskola

Teaching Hebrew to non-native English speakers presents challenges for effective pedagogy and learning. With recent experiences teaching in Sweden, an American teacher collaborates on this analysis with a student. This dual viewpoint examination of the challenges provides a rich discussion of the creative approaches applied to the problems in order to develop a stronger pedagogy. After an overview of the context, the authors identify several critical issues for developing pedagogy, methods, and resource to facilitate learning Hebrew. For example, in contrast to most North American contexts with robust resources for native English speakers, in Sweden there is a lack of resources in Swedish to develop deeper understanding of the meaning of Hebrew words. Specifically, there is neither a Hebrew-Swedish lexicon nor a Swedish concordance that identifies the Hebrew and Greek words. The results are ambiguity and the flattening of a semantic range. Developing strategic resources helps to fill the gaps. In the midst of an educational system that encourages independent learning, the teacher initiated a shift in pedagogy to develop more collaborative learning. In contrast to the preceding teacher’s traditional methods, technological tools complimented the limited resources and lesson time in order to support student learning both inside and outside the classroom. While positive reflections from students include an appreciation of the broader theological vocabulary of English and access to a plethora of resources, all students deal with additional stress and hurdles. For example, hurdles include hesitation to ask questions because of insecurity in formulating questions in English and the lack of comparison to grammatical frameworks in Swedish grammar. This careful analysis beyond standard student evaluations develops stronger pedagogy and strategies to facilitate learning. While some aspects of this analysis apply to those teaching cross-culturally, several strategies are pertinent to instruction and support for non-native English speakers in English-speaking contexts.


Chiasmus as a Vehicle for Meaning in Psalm 78
Program Unit: Biblical Hebrew Poetry
David Emanuel, Nyack College

As the second longest composition in the Psalter, Psalm 78 ostensibly reflects more characteristics of biblical prose than poetry, particularly regarding its length, and the extensive use of the wayyiqtol. The psalm recounts Israel’s—more specifically Ephraim’s—rebellion against God during the desert wandering era and their initial entrance into the promised land. In response, God judges Ephraim’s persistent disobedience by rejecting the tribe along with the tabernacle at Shiloh (v. 67). With the rejection of Ephraim, the psalm concludes (vv. 68-72) with God’s selection of Judah: the territory upon which to build his temple, and the tribe from which to select his chosen ruler, David. Perhaps due to its length, complex redactional history, and the historical narrative content, Psalm 78 (along with other exodus psalms such as 105 and 106) remains relatively neglected with respect to poetic analyses. The present paper represents a contribution towards addressing the imbalance of scholarly attention, by focusing on one poetic technique frequently employed within the psalm, chiasmus. Primarily, the study identifies the various types of chiasmus employed within the psalm, and more importantly discusses how the author employs chiasmus, both structurally and expressively, within the psalm as a vehicle to convey meaning. Methodologically, the paper primarily focusses on the functional aspects of chiasmus, employing categories defined by Wilfred Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, to describe and determine how this poetic feature is utilized in Psalm 78. Ceresko’s earlier work, “The Function of Chiasmus in Hebrew Poetry,” additionally provides a framework for understanding how chiasmus can function within a literary unit. Other treatments of parallelism are additionally consulted, such as Adele Berlin’s Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, to further establish types of parallelism, such as gender-matched sequencing. Berlin’s in-depth treatment of parallelism bears relevance for the present study because chiasmus is, essentially, an instance of inverted parallelism, instead of an A-B//A’-B’ pattern, chiasmus reflects an A-B//B’-A’ relationship. The present study concludes that chiasmus plays a wide variety of roles within Psalm 78. Among the more important ones are: opening and closing sections, creating contrast, structuring the composition, and creating intensity. It is not simply used as a tool to create poetry, but functions as an important vehicle for generating meaning within the psalm. It is hoped that the present study draws attention to the need for further poetic analysis of the longer narrative-poetic works in the Psalter.


Letting Judges Breathe: Queer Survivance in the Book of Judges and Gad Beck’s An Underground Life; Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Sarah Emanuel, Colby College

Scholars typically describe the book of Judges as encompassing a cyclical transgress-suffer-prosper-transgress-again trope. Although Israelite peace and autonomy are maintained at various moments throughout the text, hardship inevitably ensues, leading exegetes to focus on the Israelites’ repeated demise as opposed to their continual triumphs. As David Gunn notes, “reward and punishment is often viewed as the book’s dominant theme.” Or, in the words of Danna Nolan Fewell, the stories within Judges are frequently read as a collective "downward spiral for Israel and its leaders.” I question, however, whether such thematic analysis might prove insufficient when engaging a hermeneutic of trauma and survival--or queer survivance, as we will see. Interestingly, of the 400-year period covered in the book of Judges, only 111 of them are spent in subjugation. Nearly three-fourths of the time period covered by the book, in other words, recounts times of judgeship and autonomy. Might this story be less about cultural transgression and more about the creative ways in which the Israelites managed to endure? In this paper, I will provide a dialogical comparison of the Judges cycle with the memoir of Holocaust survivor, Gad Beck. In doing so, I will suggest that Judges offers us a literary representation of an ancient culture’s fight to persist. Rather than guide readers through the entirety of the Judges narrative, however, I will focus on Judges 3 and 4, as the stories of and events surrounding Ehud and Jael offer a more concentrated narrative of the aforementioned cyclical trope. From a stance of hetero-suspicion and with a theoretical view to intertextuality and queer survivance, I will argue that, like Beck, Ehud and Jael subvert oppressive power structures through gender-bending performances and the embodiment of ambivalent, and even comedic, identity markers. Taking such similarities into consideration, I will then suggest that Ehud’s and Jael’s queer-comic consciousness becomes another thematic trope within the book of Judges as a whole. Yet instead of focusing on the repetition of the Israelites’ self-fulfilling demise, this trope spotlights the creative ways in which the Judges narrative becomes one of survival, and reflects an ancient culture’s will to resist, persist, and indeed, live.


The Arrangement of James in Light of Catchword Association in Semitic Documents
Program Unit: Letters of James, Peter, and Jude
Daniel K. Eng, University of Cambridge

This paper examines the arrangement of the epistle of James in light of Semitic documents that display catchword association. James shows evidence of being a compilation, with adjacent sections frequently connected by a common cognate. Readers accustomed to Westernized patterns of logical progression may find such conventions nonsensical. However, when viewed through a framework characterized by Semitic documents, James shows affinity with a purposeful custom of connecting material by catchword. After identifying patterns of catchword association in Jewish documents, the paper will then show similar arrangements in James and offer recommendations on how a Semitic framework impacts the interpretation of this enigmatic epistle. While many have attempted to fit James into Greco-Roman patterns of rhetoric, they produce different demarcations of the arrangement of the epistle. With this lack of consensus in view, Richard Bauckham quips, “One suspects that something must be wrong with the goal that is being attempted.” James may not necessarily display the logical development often found in Greco-Roman documents. This paper demonstrates that the catchword association in James fits a pattern that pre-dates Hellenization, and offers a framework informed by Semitic catchword association through which to view James. While acknowledgement of catchword association in James is widely attested, there has not been a focused attempt to associate this pattern with structures in Semitic documents. This paper contributes to the study of James by relating it to documents that show catchword association in the Hebrew Bible, LXX, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, adjacent but disparate sections in Leviticus share an association of “goat-demons” (‎שָׂעִירִ֖ם—Lev 17:7) with the goat (שָׂעִיר) of the sin offering occurring throughout Lev 16. The book of Numbers groups a section regarding confession (Num 5:5–10) with a section regarding adultery (Num 5:11–31), with the common cognate unfaithfulness (מַעַל –Num 5:6, 12). Ezekiel shows different associations, from cords (Ezek 3:25; 4:8) to swords (Ezek 5:17; 6:3). Other examples come from Proverbs, Psalms, the Book of the Twelve, the Damascus Document, and 4QFlorilegium. This paper then examines arrangement of sections in James based on catchword-association. James is easily divided into sections, with consensus about where many sections begin and end. However, adjacent sections often appear to have no logical connection. Martin Dibelius and others have maintained that the author or compiler of James frequently places sections together based on Stichwörter, or catchwords. These include λείπω (1:4, 5), πειρασμός—πειράζω (1:12, 13), and λόγος (1:21, 22). Examination of a Semitic pattern of arrangement aids the interpretation of the epistle of James. It offers greater prominence Jewish documents in discussions of the interpretation of James. In addition, it informs its provenance, suggesting that the author may be using pre-existing or even traditional material and arranging these sections using a Semitic custom. It may also impact the discussion of the genre of James, since catchword association occurs in different kinds of literature.


Digital Clay: Making Cuneiform Tablet Collections Accessible with 3D Modeling
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Bradley C. Erickson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Recent progress in 3D modeling allows for the digitization and dissemination of difficult-to-access material. Objects can be digitized and shared three dimensionally through virtual means, such as augmented and virtual reality and through physical means, such as replication with 3D printing. In this paper, I present a case study of the digitization and circulation of a difficult-to-access series of cuneiform tablets housed in the special collections library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Six never-before-published cuneiform tablets were turned into 3D models via the process of photogrammetry. Those models were then made available online for open-access to the material. Each model was also 3D printed to grant researchers, students, and the public access to the physicality, scale, and dimensionality of the object. Further, the digital models allowed for the production of new types of research data within cuneiform studies, such as Digital Elevation Model (DEM) images that measure the depth of incisions on each tablet. The project methodology, 3D models, and 3D prints will be presented and analyzed in this paper.


A Supplementary Approach to Numbers 32
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Angela Roskop Erisman, Angela Roskop Erisman Editorial

(no abstract)


Jeremiah 34: The Liberation of Slaves and the Dispensability of Kings under the Rule of Torah
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
Johanna Erzberger, Cardiff University

Jer 34 tells the story of the making of a covenant between Zedekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the siege of Jerusalem to release their Hebrew slaves, which is implemented, but later on revoked. The revocation triggers a lengthy speech of God to Jeremiah that first interprets the manumission that has not taken place, in a religious framework and in light of the Sinai covenant, and then announces dire consequences. This paper argues that it is not so much the episode about the manumission which is at heart of the final versions of both JerMT and JerLXX. Rather the manumission, as a variation and reinterpretation of an older concept of liberation attested also by extra-biblical sources, is used as an example to discuss ideal kingship and governance. In a double movement, the king is reprieved of his power: As the proclamation of liberation results from the implementation of a covenant between Zedekiah and the people, which is an implementation of the Sinai covenant, it is God whose initial initiative is at the root of its proclamation and who, measured against the ancient concept, acts as the actual king. As the people are the grammatical subject of the proclamation of the liberation resulting from the covenant between themselves and Zedekiah, the concept of liberation is “democratized”. Kingship and government are rendered dispensable. God’s covenant as it is implemented by the people rules Judah if not the world.


Echoing Prayers: The Prayer of Repentance (Bar 1:15-3:8) in the Book of Baruch and in the Context of Intertextual References between Bar, Dan, and the Versions of Jeremiah
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Johanna Erzberger, Cardiff University

In Bar 1-3 the reading of an unqualified book, which is mostly identified with the book of Baruch, but has occasionally also been identified with the book of Jeremiah, is followed by a prayer of repentance (Bar 1:15-3:8). This prayer of repentance is an almost literal quote of the prayer of repentance in Dan 9, which there follows Daniel’s (private) reading of the book of Jeremiah (Dan 9:2). While it has been frequently observed that the prayer of repentance in the book of Baruch quotes Daniel, the contextualization of this quote and its function within the literary setting of the book of Baruch have less often been taken into account. Parallels between the books of Jeremiah, in particular in the version of the MT, and the book of Daniel (e.g. the role of Nebuchadnezzar) have been observed before. Whereas the book of Baruch can and at certain points has been read as an appendix to the book of Jeremiah in the version of the LXX, there are equally parallels that link it to the MT version of the book of Jeremiah (e.g. an interest in the temple cult). The paper regards the use of the book of Daniel within the book of Baruch in its literal setting as well as in the context of further going intertextual links that are established between both books and the versions of the book of Jeremiah.


The Largest Divination Text from Maresha
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Esther Eshel, Bar-Ilan University

More than a century of excavation at Maresha, starting in 1900, and still active to this day, have yielded tremendously exciting and varied finds including more than twelve-hundred Greek and Aramaic inscriptions and ostraca. The number and diversity of the finds places Maresha among the most important and enriching ancient archeological sites in Israel. Maresha was first excavated in 1900 by Bliss and Macalister. Large-scale excavations of surface areas and some of the subterranean complexes were directed by Amos Klonerfrom 1989 to 2000. Since 2000, Ian Stern and Bernie Alpert have conducted further excavations. The Southern foothill site has yielded more than 1200 Greek and Semitic - mainly Aramaic - inscriptions, dated to the Hellenistic period, which had entrusted me for publication. 387 are from Subterranean Complex 169, a cave complex that contains anthropogenic debris that was dumped from surface dwellings during the Hellenistic period and, by the nature of dumping, lacks a clear stratigraphic context. Included in this collection are a group of 140 Aramaic ostraca, dating to the third or second centuries B.C.E. They share a similar textual structure. Based on our study of the content of this group, I suggest the ostraca may be understood as divination texts. In my paper I will present the הן group and will focus on the largest ostracon where the marital status makes up the major part it.


2 Corinthians and Super Apostles
Program Unit: Writing Social-Scientific Commentaries of the New Testament
Philip Esler, University of Gloucestershire

TBA


Silence and Suffering in the Book of Job
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Bryan D. Estelle, Westminster Seminary California

Silence and Suffering in the Book of Job


Reading the Name-Giving in Isaiah 8:1 from a Perspective of Trauma: An Application
Program Unit: Children in the Biblical World
Liza Esterhuizen, University of Pretoria, South Africa

The book Isaiah may leave those who read it confused. Moreover when the names of Isaiah’s children are observed and studied. The roles that children play, the function of their names and their existence in the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible, have received very little attention within biblical scholarship. Children were viewed as objects of divine promises or components of a covenant. The names of Isaiah’s children not only hold metaphorical meaning as sign-names but also preserve a collection of struggles of this ancient community to live out their relationship with Yahweh, in their own time frames, which is unavoidably shaped by events, like births, death, imminent war, and trauma in their time. When Isaiah 7 and 8 are studied, there are close resemblances so far as the theme and the content of Isaiah’s prophecy are concerned. The similarities in both chapters are the symbolic name giving of Isaiah’s children, the promise of the demise of Israel, and the imminent threat of Assyria to Judah. When reading the text of Isaiah 8:1, which will be the focus text of this paper, the metaphorical name giving of Isaiah’s son מַהֵר שָׁלָל חָשׁ בַּז-Maher-Shalal-hash-baz conjures images of war, disaster, threats, and trauma. The historical background is the Syro-Ephraimite crisis of 734-732 BCE. The name Maher-Shalal-hash-baz was perplexing as the name contains two comparable verbs of ‘quick; swift’ and ‘spoil; plunder’. The interpretation explains who will be plundered and who will be defeated through plundering. The continual exposure to violence and trauma are embodied in the name that threatens not only the child as a sign but also the psychological and physical wellbeing of Judah. Making sense of trauma is a universal human need for meaning and reading the metaphorical name giving of Maher-Shalal-hash-baz through a trauma lens is an act of meaning-making to understand the text. To understand trauma, it is important to understand what trauma means and where it derives from. While it seems commonplace today, the use of trauma as a theory in psychology and biblical studies is fairly new. Trauma occurs when both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope with an external threat. Trauma is not a single faceted experience but a balancing act and conflict between spiritual, emotional and physical responses. As a biblical scholar and psychologist, the works of Caruth, Hermann and the classification model DSM-5 will form the foundation of this paper to formulate theory and method. Though trauma grips individuals and collective groups, there is a phenomenon of hope present in the mist of traumatic events. This phenomenon is posttraumatic growth or resilience and it implies that individuals and collective communities can be changed through their encounters with trauma. The metaphorical name giving in Isaiah 8:1 becomes the trauma vehicle that challenges the people of Judah through faith and hope. It will be the aim of this paper to integrate conventional commentary research with a sound biblical literature study and modern-day trauma studies to form the foundation of this research.


Narrative Dialogue, Institutional Discourse, and the Opponents of Jesus in the Gospel of John
Program Unit: Speech and Talk in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Douglas Estes, South University, Columbia

Scholarly discussions of the dialogue patterns of the opponents of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel typically seek to understand these patterns in light of their socio-theological positioning. Yet there is still much that can be said from the perspective of their role in narrative development. For example, often overlooked is how the power imbalance between Jesus and his opponents in John’s story—Jesus is the low-stature individual, but his opponents operate within the circles of a closed, high-stature, exclusivist group—plays out in their dialogue sequences, and what it communicates to the reader. As recent research in the linguistics of social dynamics show, when closed circles communicate with either insiders or outsiders, they communicate in what is frequently referred to as ‘institutional discourse.’ In this sense, from the works of Habermas, Heritage, Mayr, and Wang, among others, institutional discourse is not limited to modern speech-patterns; this type of communication can essentially occur in any situation where a group of people communicate with other(s), especially if there is a power imbalance. A noted example of institutional discourse occurs in the speech patterns of religious leadership/groups. This power imbalance creates the opportunity for unique forms of dialogue among characters in this narrative that assists with the development of plot. With this as a starting point, this presentation will explain what institutional discourse is, how it works in natural language situations, and how it works in written texts (esp. narratives) through the dual lens of narratology and historical linguistics. Next, the paper will examine the way in which the Fourth Evangelist portrays the talk of the opponents of Jesus, and show how their use of institutional discourse as a closed, exclusive group of religious leaders functions in light of linguistic, rhetorical and narrativist evidence. Finally, the presentation will note how the use of institutional discourse creates significant effects on the characterization of Jesus’ opponents as well as Jesus himself. A concluding thought is made about other narrative insights that institutional discourse can offer in other texts.


Recognizing the Gods: A Brief Historiography of Images in Greek Religion
Program Unit: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World
Marshall Evans, University of California-Santa Barbara

Since the first scholarly efforts to understand ancient Greek religion undertaken by late 19th and early 20th century classicists such as Jane Harrison and Martin Nilsson, the use of images in worship among ancient Greek polytheists, whether inside or outside of temples, has long received less attention than animal sacrifice and Greek festivals. In this paper, through a select historiography of the use of images in worship in ancient Greek religion, I will show how the insufficiently defined and hastily applied category of idolatry has obscured later scholarly understanding of the role of images in the practice of ancient Greek polytheists. Recent emphasis on the practice of Greek religion outside of temples, in homes, marketplaces, gymnasia, and even on roads has reanimated questions about the significance of images, both two and three dimensional, in ancient Greek piety. As Alice Donohue has shown, even the term “cult statue” resembles the broad, pejorative category of idolatry in its obfuscation of ancient Greek worship. “Cult statue,” according to Donohue, while long used to refer to images of the gods in the naos and a staple of much scholarship of ancient Greek sculpture, is not an indigenous category in the first century CE, or indeed in any other era of Greek history. Rather, reverence paid to images of the gods on a roadside might well parallel reverence paid to images of gods in a temple naos. In this paper, I will show how the pioneering efforts of Harrison and Nilsson, as well as the more theoretically disciplined polis religion model introduced by Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood in the last decade of the 20th century, have elided the significance of images in ancient Greek polytheism. While the polis religion model achieved the indispensable task of removing the Christianizing lenses that had focused on belief to the detriment of ritual in ancient Greek polytheistic practice, it contributed to the elision of the significance of images for the individual. Focused as the polis religion model was on sacrifice and the corporate nature of ancient Greek polytheism, interaction between the individual and the image was left out. Both Robert Parker and Henk Versnel, in different ways, have tried to correct the polis religion model’s reduction of ancient Greek religion to an instrument of state control. Each scholar demonstrates that private devotion to the gods, whether in a private or a public place, flourished throughout Greek polytheism’s long history. I hope to give their implicit recognition of images in ancient Greek piety a more explicit theoretical foundation.


The Sublime in Religious Rhetoric: A Response
Program Unit: Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity
Murray J. Evans, University of Winnipeg

n/a


The Challenges of Assessing War: The Success and Failure of Sennacherib’s 701 BCE Campaign in Light of the War of 1812
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Paul S. Evans, McMaster Divinity College

This paper will look at the deeply perspectival challenges involved in the perceived success or failure of war. As is well known, Sennacherib’s 701 BCE invasion of Judah resulted in widespread destruction of Judahite cities. Understandably, Hezekiah’s rebellion has therefore been viewed by many historians as disastrous, despite the fact that Jerusalem was not taken and Hezekiah remained on the throne. What is more, Assyrian texts clearly view the campaign as an unmitigated success. Of course, the perspective of the biblical texts contrasts these assessments as it viewed Hezekiah as a hero and his rebellion as successful. In order to compare these contrasting assessments of the 701 BCE war, I will consider the war of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom and her colonies (Canada). Similar to assessments of Sennacherib’s campaign, assessments of the war of 1812 vary widely. Despite the fact that the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent which prescribed the return of prisoners of war and occupied lands to their respective sides, and the resumption of friendly trade relations, Canadians view the war as a Canadian victory, while the Americans view it as an American triumph. I will suggest that just as the war of 1812 spawned popular historical works that furthered Canadian myth-making and nation-building (e.g., Pierre Berton’s works), biblical narratives of Sennacherib’s invasion should be viewed similarly. I will suggest that scholarly assessments pejoratively claiming outright deception and lies on the part of ancient Israelite historiography or Assyrian annalists need reassessment. Neither side is wholly true and neither side is wholly false. Their historiography is not the history. Given that even in an event as recent as 1812 with a plethora of sources and evidences at our fingertips, scholarly assessments differ on important questions, so we should not be surprised that scholarly assessments on such questions on the war of 701 BCE differ either. What is more, given the value of perception as political commodity different assessments from those involved in the war should not be surprising either.


Permission to Traumatize? An Exploration of Human and Nonhuman Responses to the Genesis Flood Narrative
Program Unit: Ecological Hermeneutics
Jacob R Evers, Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)

Though the flood narrative in Genesis is the first portrayal in the Bible of trauma experienced by the entirety of Earth community, the text’s presentation of the flood as a unique event yields counterintuitive implications when considered as an indicator of the story’s rhetorical function. Interpreters approaching the story with sensitivity to Earth have sometimes been drawn to language in the narrative that reflects concern for non-human beings (such as the inclusive references to “all flesh” and “every living creature”), hoping perhaps to find in the text a recognition of human and non-human solidarity in the experience of suffering that offsets the anthropocentric thrust of the story as a whole. This paper will argue that such attempts at retrieval are proscribed not only by the features of the account that serve to shore up human interests, but by the overall persuasive effect of the account on human readers, which would seem to engineer the perpetual re-traumatization of Earth community. Engaging in a close reading of the conclusion of the narrative (Gen 9:1-17) and empathetically exploring possible responses by the non-human victims in the world of the text, this paper will reflect on how reading with concern for the trauma of non-human members of Earth community might nevertheless lead human readers to an alternative response.


Digital Tools for Tracking and Analyzing Pistis-Language
Program Unit: Digital Humanities in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies
Jennifer Eyl, Tufts University

This paper explores underutilized features of the TLG to track and visualize the frequency, growth, and usage of pistis and its cognates from the 8th century BCE through the 3rd century CE. While the TLG has been widely used by Classicists since the 1980s, and is now used regularly by New Testament scholars, the database offers extensive research opportunities that have gone largely unnoticed by the latter. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of such features, by applying them to an analysis of pistis. My larger project involves reexamining pistis as loyalty/fidelity/faithfulness in the letters of Paul. This challenges the traditional understanding of pistis as "faith" or "belief" as a cognitive/sentimental position maintained by the individual, without a basis in proof or prior cause for believing. Using the TLG Statistics tools, we are able to visualize the frequency of pistis-language distributed throughout specific centuries, authors, and geographic locations. In some ways, the findings are unsurprising; the frequency of pistis-language is fairly stable and consistent in the fifth, fourth, and second centuries BCE (with a short drop in the 3rd BCE). We see an uptick in its frequency in the first century BCE and first century CE, followed by a significant rise in the second century CE. However, some findings are unexpected; while NT scholars may assume that this increase of pistis-language of the second century is attributed to early Christians, we see this increased usage in Plutarch, Galen, and Sextus Empiricus. I will briefly discuss the implications of my numerous findings from these statistical and visualization tools. While the paper focuses on pistis and its cognates, the tools themselves are thoroughly applicable to other research projects.


Tradition as Innovation: Ancient Harmonistic Theologizing in the Temple Sermon (Jer 7:1–8:3)
Program Unit: Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures
O. Y. Fabrikant-Burke, University of Cambridge

The famous Temple Sermon in Jer 7:1-8:3 stands near the center of modern historical-critical research into the book of Jeremiah. In particular, the precise nature of its relationship to the Deuteronomistic tradition and the Jeremianic poetry remains a matter of deep controversy and debate. In this paper, I will revisit this vexed issue by shifting the focus to the ancient scriptural interpretation - scribal theologizing - that gave rise to this complex text. A close analysis of older Deuteronomistic and Jeremianic texts and traditions as well as their dynamic transformations in the Temple Sermon leads me to the surprising conclusion that an innovative text may be born out of largely non-innovative instincts. The Temple Sermon, I will argue, is innovative in relation to its precursor traditions, both Deuteronomistic and Jeremianic, yet it arises not out of a desire to subvert and innovate, but an attempt to preserve and harmonize. Paradoxically, without intending to innovate, the scribes produced an innovative composition out of reverence for the traditions they inherited. This paper advances three key arguments. First, I will engage with the current scholarship on the intricate dynamics of tradition and innovation in scribal scriptural interpretation (e.g. MacDonald 2016). By probing the phenomenon of harmonistic exegesis, I will argue that tradition and innovation may be more organically related than previously thought. To this end, I will develop a distinction between an innovative text and an innovative intent. Although the question of result versus intent is ridden with complexities, it is my contention that careful attention to scribal operations of textual reuse can prove probative. Second, I will examine the enigmatic Jer 7:3 ("Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place") as an instance of ancient harmonistic exegesis in action. Rather than revealing an innovative agenda, the exegetical logic of the Temple Sermon stems from an effort to capture, in one stroke, the thrust of Deuteronomistic and Jeremianic traditions together. The result of this scribal interpretive endeavor, however, ends up transcending both. In the Temple Sermon, innovative theology is born of a traditionalist impulse. Emerging from the interpretive furnace of Jer 7:3 are a Deuteronomistic Jeremiah and a Jeremianic Deuteronomism, and the paper will outline the essential theological features of both. Finally, I will briefly discuss how these proposals might inform our own construals of Jeremianic theology - our own contemporary theologizing.


The Proverbs 31 Woman in Late Twentieth Century Self-Help Literature
Program Unit: Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible
John W. Fadden, Saint John Fisher College

Self-help books hold a special place in the culture of the United States. They reflect and contribute to the social, economic, and political realities of their day. In the late twentieth century, self-help books as a genre boomed, as people looked for answers to economic and societal changes, including the increase of middle-class white women in the workforce, the loosening of ‘traditional’ sexual mores, and shifting notions of marriage and the self. In this self-help books boom, a niche market of books emerged for a white Christian women’s audience, and often written by women. These Christian women’s self-help books propose models of Christian womanhood, relying on the Bible as one of their source of authority for their models. This paper surveys Christian women’s self-help books from the late twentieth century to explore the variety of ways authors use Proverbs 31:10-31 to construct their ideal of Christian womanhood. While Proverbs 31:10-31 previously was used to praise and correct women, the paper argues that late twentieth century self-help books witness the development of the Proverbs 31 woman as a cultural icon of Christian womanhood. The Proverbs 31 woman is not a return to a womanhood that had always been, but rather a response to and product of the United States in the last decades of the nineteen hundreds.


Once More on “The Assyrian Way of/to Peace” and Its Implications for Levantine History
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Frederick Mario Fales, University of Udine

Pax Assyriaca (which, by analogy with pax romana, means “peace – the Assyrian way”) is a concept of more than two decades' standing in the archaeology and history of the Southern Levant, to which both Nadav Na'aman and the present writer have made contributions. In a recent work, Joshua T. Walton has pointed out the existence of two widely different acceptations which have been hitherto applied to the historical notion of pax assyriaca. It is the purpose of this paper to review such a double interpretation, and to reconsider the sources in support of one or the other meaning, in an attempt to evaluate the level of actual Assyrian activity and engagement in the administrative, economic and social horizon of the Southern Levant – from Phoenicia to Philistia to Judah to Edom – during the “Assyrian century”.


What Order are the Qumran Festival Prayers? Toward an Improved Reconstruction of 4Q509+4Q505.
Program Unit: Qumran
Daniel K. Falk, Pennsylvania State University

The most extensive copy of a collection of Festival Prayers from Qumran is on the recto of a poorly preserved opisthograph papyrus (4Q509+505). The verso bears a copy (or part) of the War Scroll (4Q496) followed by a copy of a collection of prayers, the Words of the Luminaries (4Q506). To date, however, a satisfactory reconstruction of this scroll has not been accomplished. The original editor Maurice Baillet placed fragments 1-16 near the beginning of the scroll on the basis of content on the verso with parallels to the first four columns of 1QM, and fragments 131-2 late in the scroll, since the verso belongs to the prayer for Sunday from a copy of Words of the Luminaries. Otherwise, his suggestions are mostly conjectural. Subsequent studies-e.g., by Falk, Chazon, Hamidović, and Qimron-have made some corrections, but there is still considerable disagreement and uncertainty about the identity of the fragments labeled 4Q505, the arrangement of fragments, and the order of festivals. Particularly puzzling is the failure to produce an order of prayers that consistently corresponds to the calendar of festivals. This paper will attempt an improved reconstruction of the Festival Prayers on the recto of this scroll on the basis of a fresh examination of the papyrus fragments and the latest high resolution images, in combination with insights from Martin Abegg's new analysis of the War Scroll (4Q496) on the verso.


Prayer at Communal Mustering: A Comparison of the Qumran Covenant Ceremony and the Iguvine Tables
Program Unit: Prayer in Antiquity
Daniel K. Falk, Pennsylvania State University

This paper compares the Covenant Ceremony attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Iguvine Tables as a means to examine the complicated relationship between text, material context, and enacted ritual of prayer. Arguably the most important ritual for the sectarian movement represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls was the annual Covenant Ceremony, described in the Rule of the Community (1QS 1:16-2:23. It consisted of a mustering of the entire community, prayers, and rituals of blessing on the members and initiates and cursing of outsiders and apostates. It remains unclear, however, how the text in 1QS relates the actual ritual. In contrast to liturgical scrolls for various occasions found at Qumran, this is hardly a script for the covenant ceremony. Its purpose in 1QS is likely not even as a prompt, but most likely serves a rhetorical function in the document. If the expulsion ritual at the end of the Damascus Document (4QDa 11; 4QDe 7 i-ii), and the blessings and curses in 4QBerakhot (4Q286-290) are also related to the Covenant Ceremony, we may have different versions of the ritual. The Iguvine Tablets consist of seven bronze sheets from Umbria engraved on both sides with religious rituals of a priestly fraternity. They detail sacrifices and prayers at purification rituals and feasts, including rubrics specifying exact words (e.g., "use this formula," "thus pray during the libation"). The rituals include a ceremonial mustering of the community with blessings, and ritual expulsion and cursing of traditional enemies. The earliest tablets, dating from the third century BCE were written with the Umbrian alphabet; the latest, written in Latin characters in the first century BCE, expand on the rituals of an earlier tablet. At least some of the tablets were mounted for public display. Both the similarities and differences are striking and invite comparison. Both prescribe prayers for ritual mustering of the community, with blessing and cursing rituals. Both also are in the context of texts that have undergone expansion. They are both, however, in very different physical contexts: a scroll versus mounted tablets. This paper will examine both of these prayer rituals in their respective material and cultural contexts, and then compare and contrast them with each other in reflecting on the significance of the material and cultural context to the meaning and function of prayer.


Copto-Arabic Narratives of Church Consecrations as Ekphraseis of Ecclesial Art
Program Unit: Art and Religions of Antiquity
Mary K. Farag, Princeton Theological Seminary

Five seventh- and eighth-century Copto-Arabic narratives imagine the first-person accounts of Alexandrian bishops at church consecrations. The late antique ecclesial art of the churches in question does not survive, but by comparing the verbal "images" of the narratives to late antique ecclesial art in other churches, I argue that the writers of the narratives constructed their stories by engaging in the practice of contemplating ecclesial art, a form of theōria. The narratives construct the sacred in spatial terms and sanctification in tactile ones, so as to saint the church.


The Kenite Redaction: A Supplementary Approach to the Hovav and Kenite Accounts
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Zev Farber, Project TABS - TheTorah.com

Some of the Kenite traditions seem ancient and yet many of them were clearly added into the Bible at a later stage, as a redaction-critical analysis shows. Moreover, the editors make little effort to have the Kenite traditions cohere. Their eponymous ancestor appears in Genesis as the son of Adam and Eve and yet they are treated in most of the Bible as merely a small tribe of locals in Canaan. They are allies to Barak and Saul, and yet they live among Amalekites and are cursed by Balaam in Numbers and described as murderous and cursed in Genesis. In some texts, they are treated as synonymous with Midianites, in others they are associated with Canaanites, and yet they are also described as allies to the Israelites. How are we to understand the history of this group in Israelite mnemohistory and why do the redactors of the Enneateuch treat them in such a haphazard manner?


Separating Mamre from Hebron Literarily and Geographically
Program Unit: Genesis
Zev Farber, Project TABS - TheTorah.com

In the text of Genesis as we have it, Mamre is identified with Hebron and Kiryat-arba, making it a city with a gate. But the stories in the J text about Abraham and Sarah in their tent at Mamre paint a different picture. If the identification of Mamre with Hebron is late, where is J’s Mamre? A number of scholars have identified Mamre with Khirbet Nimra because of the similarity between the names and its proximity to Hebron. Nevertheless, a number of geographical clues in the story point to a different location. Using these clues and ArcGIS, I suggest an alternative site that works well specifically with the J story in Genesis 18.


The Synoptic Problem and Lectio Brevior Potior
Program Unit: Synoptic Gospels
Alan Taylor Farnes, Brigham Young University

Scholars of the Synoptic Problem often employ arguments from length to support their claims. These scholars explicitly state that they are borrowing the text critical maxim that the shorter reading is the earlier reading (lectio brevior potior). This is often done to show alternating primitivity within the Synoptics. Following this line of reasoning in Matthew 5:3 // Luke 6:20 (Blessed are the Poor), one would conclude that, because Luke’s reading is shorter, it is therefore earlier. Such a conclusion is helpful to Q proponents because it suggests alternating primitivity: sometimes Matthew has the shorter (read: earlier) text and sometimes Luke has the shorter (read: earlier) text. Therefore, for scholars who marshal length as evidence, the text critical maxim lectio brevior potior is necessary and vital in order to establish alternating primitivity. This text critical maxim, however, has been the subject of debate in recent text critical studies and seems to be losing its foothold. The original formulation of lectio brevior potior was uttered by none other than Griesbach himself in 1809. In more recent studies, a notable text critic James Royse has studied the scribal habits of six early New Testament scribes in order to ascertain whether their general tendencies were to add to the text (as is suggested by lectio brevior) or to omit (which would disprove lectio brevior). In his 2008 tome, Royse concludes that, with respect to the six early papyri which he analyzed by singular readings, the scribes omitted more than they added. This conclusion suggests that the longer reading is to be preferred instead of the shorter reading. My own 2017 dissertation at the University of Birmingham analyzed manuscripts whose exemplar has survived. These are pairs of manuscripts where we know both the exemplar and the copy. I was therefore able to “virtually look over the scribe’s shoulder and compare the text he is copying with his result” and obtain exact statistics for how these scribes copied the text and whether they added or omitted. The surprising conclusion is that some scribes, like 0319 and 0320, actually copied their manuscripts surprisingly well and did not add or omit a single word. Other scribes lost words on the whole. No scribe that I studied gained words on the whole. My dissertation concluded, therefore, that while my study may not be able to confirm Royse’s reversal of Griesbach’s canon, it surely did, with respect to the scribes I studied, disprove Griesbach’s canon. Many textual critics today, such as Peter Malik and Stephen Carlson, are in favor of ignoring length entirely when attempting to find the most original reading. When applied to the Synoptic Problem, arguments seeking to show primitivity based on length are now weakened and source critics should no longer use the shorter reading argument as a method to show alternating primitivity in the synoptics. This paper will also discuss whether using text critical principles is appropriate within source criticism due to the possibility that scribes and gospel writers may be undertaking entirely different tasks.


First-Century Slave Prices and Matthew’s Thirty Pieces of Silver as a Fulfillment of Zechariah 11
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
Alan Taylor Farnes, Brigham Young University

Matthew 26.14–16 depicts Judas’ agreement with the chief priests to assist in Jesus’ arrest. This triple tradition passage is fairly consistent among the synoptics: Judas goes to the chief priests, arranges to deliver Jesus, is promised money, and they all look for the opportune time to take Jesus. But Matthew provides one salient difference: Matthew includes that the agreed price for Judas’ assistance is thirty pieces of silver. Matthew is the only gospel to claim to reveal how much Judas received for his assistance. My first aim will be to determine the historicity of this figure: was thirty pieces of silver the amount agreed upon for Judas’ assistance? If not, we will then discuss Matthew’s motives for including ‘thirty pieces of silver.’ We will discuss two main possible motives: 1) he created the figure in order to allude to slave prices in Exod. 21.32, and/or 2) he created the figure in order to allude to the rejected shepherd motif in Zech. 11.12–13. The question of whether thirty pieces of silver is the historical amount of money received by Judas for his assistance has received little attention by scholarship. Matthew’s inclusion of the figure ‘thirty pieces of silver’ does not pass any of the historical criteria such as the criteria of embarrassment, multiple attestation, or prophecy historicized. An analysis of contemporary papyrological evidence shows that first-century slave prices were much more complicated and varied than the simple figure of thirty pieces of silver. If Matthew did intend for Jesus to be sold for the price of a slave then such a price is nothing to scoff at. An analysis of Matthew’s use of Zechariah especially in his passion narrative shows that Matthew builds his passion narrative around Zechariah’s prophecies. After an analysis of Hebrew Bible slave prices and first-century slave prices from documentary papyri and literary sources, I conclude that this figure is not historical and that Jesus is not being depicted as a slave but the figure was inserted by Matthew to allude to Zech 11 and to depict the chief priests as wicked shepherds and Jesus as the good shepherd.


The Archaeology of the Returnees: Forts, Estates, and Settlement Patterns in the Territories of the Former Kingdom of Judah
Program Unit: Archaeology of the Biblical World
Avraham Faust, Bar-Ilan University

The territories of the former kingdom of Judah were only sparsely settled during the Persian period, as exemplified by the extreme rarity of domestic structures unearthed in excavations. Viewed against this background, the large number of excavated forts and isolated administrative buildings from this period is remarkable, and they apparently outnumber the period's excavated dwellings. Not only is this an extremely unlikely situation, but various lines of evidence, pertaining to specific sites as well as to the phenomenon as a whole, render the possibility that all these structures were forts or administrative buildings extremely implausible. Consequently, this article reexamines the phenomenon within the social landscape of the region in particular, and of the Achaemenid empire in general, in an attempt to embed those unique buildings within the broader demographic and political reality of this time. Given the location of many of the sites and the finds unearthed in them, and in light of the demographic reality in the region and of the broader Achaemenid imperial policy, the article suggests that most of the so-called forts were estates, created in the process of the resettlement of this previously devastated region. The study of these structures, therefore, enables us to assess the phenomenon of the "returnees" within the broader imperial context, and for the first time to examine the life of these communities.


The Sahidic Version of the Corpus Ieremiae
Program Unit: International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
Frank Feder, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

The Sahidic translation is the oldest translation of the Corpus Ieremiae. The paper offers an overview over the translation technique and the text critical value of Jeremiah and the associated books (Lam, EpJer, Bar)


Mother Zion "Speaking Her Truth" in Biblical Poetry
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Sarah E.G. Fein, Brandeis University

Much ink has been spilt on the effect of the personification of Zion and/or Jerusalem as a woman in the poetry of the Hebrew Bible. However, less attention has been paid to the moments when Zion/Jerusalem (hereafter referred to as simply “Zion”) speaks in the first person on her own behalf. Instances of Zion speaking for herself are scattered throughout the books of the Prophets and the Writings, where she speaks either to herself, or to the LORD. In this paper, I argue that Zion’s direct speech is reminiscent of the direct speech of other women in the Hebrew Bible. As Edward L. Greenstein argues, direct speech intensifies the emotional impact of the quotation because it recalls features of epic poetry such as the use of the “historic present” and parallelism, and thus lends what is being said a theatrical tenor. Because Zion is often personified as a mother, her speech appears to draw on the language and imagery contained in the speech of other mothers in the Hebrew Bible. This paper will argue that these poetic speeches draw upon the language of the suffering mothers in biblical narratives for the purpose of highlighting the emotional impact of Zion’s speeches in the Prophets and the Writings. In part I of this paper, I will analyze the cries of three suffering mothers in biblical narrative: Rebecca’s outcry during her difficult pregnancy in Gen. 25:22, Rachel’s lament over her barrenness in Gen. 30:1, and Hannah’s desperate prayer for children in 1 Sam. 1:10-11. In part II, I will put in conversation the speech of those three mothers and the moments where Zion speaks in the books of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Lamentations. My focus will specifically be on a) the use of the language of barrenness and bereavement; b) calling a male authority to “look” and “remember”; c) physical suffering in pregnancy and labor. Ultimately, I will conclude that the direct discourse of Zion in Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Lamentations functions to convey to readers the full, raw, and uncensored experience of a suffering metaphorical “mother.”


Whole Bodies, Hollow Spaces: Women’s Health and Pregnancy in Paul’s Apocalyptic Eschatology
Program Unit: Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
Alexis Felder, Boston University

The embodied experience of labor pains and parturition captured the imaginations of male authors of apocalyptic eschatology as they envisioned how the eschaton might occur. These writers, like the apostle Paul, while critical of the present state of the world, were not isolated from it; rather, as active participants in the broader culture, their discussions, visions, and fantasies that relate to the pregnant body are best understood within the literary and material context of the Roman Empire. This paper seeks to locate Paul’s apocalyptic images of pregnancy and childbearing in his letter to the Romans within the cultural context of the Roman Empire by foregrounding his participation in a broad discourse concerning women’s bodies and their health. Literary and material evidence (votives and amulets) illustrate the centrality of fecundity and childbearing to women and their families. Reproduction was a cultural imperative achieved, at least in part, by means of appeals to the divine for bodily health. Medical writers addressed women’s health by associating wellness with the ability to become pregnant. In the ancient world, a pregnant woman was a healthy woman. Medical authors and Paul alike describe female bodies as hollow spaces that are anatomically inferior to male bodies. The female body collected excesses in their hollow spaces which were evacuated monthly through menstruation, but those excesses could also be useful in reproduction, providing the generative material necessary to conceive and nourish a fetus. Male bodies, however, were impenetrable, collecting no excess and requiring no menstruation. Pregnancy filled the hollow space inside a woman’s body and used the excesses it naturally accumulated, allowing it to function more like a male body without the need for menstruation. Pregnancy or breast feeding that caused the temporary cessation of menstruation was viewed as healthful in so much as it allowed the female body to approach the masculine standard of wholeness. Paul participates in this socio-medical discourse by subverting the notion that pregnancy equates to health for women. In his letter of introduction to the church in Rome, he outlines his apocalyptic program using the image of a pregnant woman nearing the moment of parturition. His tone is hopeful, and yet his letter emphasizes the “futility,” “bondage,” and “decay” of the maternal body of creation that “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” (Rom 8:19-21). Paul’s image blends concepts of sin and domination into the image of the pregnant woman as he uses the pregnant body to stand in for the corrupt creation that can only be redeemed by the power of God. Contextually, moreover, he works against the prevailing notion that pregnancy makes women healthy. In Paul’s discussion, pregnancy does not equate to health; it signifies the depth of degradation, but the reproductive female body remains useful to him rhetorically as a fundamental point of connection between humanity and the divine and between the present and future. The future he envisions, however, seems to be a future without women and without the need for pregnancy and reproduction.


Joshua Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Program Unit: Transmission of Traditions in the Second Temple Period
Ariel Feldman, Brite Divinity School (TCU)

Indebted to the recent scholarship on Joshua in the Dead Sea scrolls, this paper seeks to illuminate three texts concerned with Joshua and his book. One of these is 4QJosha frag. 21. Its right margin preserves traces of letters which until now have not been plausibly deciphered. Next, the paper addresses two passages which are rarely invoked in Qumran scholarship on Joshua. The first one is a passage from the final column of 4QNumb apparently juxtaposing Num 27 and 36. The otherwise unattested addition preceding the running text of Num 36:5-7 mentions Joshua along with the High Priest Eleazar. The second text is 4Q368 1. This fragment cites Exod 33:11-13, yet seemingly omits the second part of v. 11 referring to Joshua. The paper explores these two passages in light of other texts, where, unlike in MT, Joshua is either present or absent. As a conclusion, it attempts to place these three texts within the broader landscape of Joshua texts and traditions from Qumran.


A Neo-documentary Approach to Numbers 32
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Liane Feldman, New York University

(no abstract)


A Hermeneutic Dialogue: Popular Reading of the Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics Critical of Liberation
Program Unit: Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible
Isabel Felix, Centro de Estudos Sociais-Universidade de Coimbra

The central objective of this paper is to establish a dialogue between the hermeneutic method of the Popular Reading of the Bible developed by CEBI-Center for Biblical Studies - Brazil and the Feminist Critical Liberation Hermeneutics articulated by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. From this dialogue between the two methods of interpretation of the Bible, the conclusion is reached that the first one, despite being defined as an approach of popular and liberating biblical interpretation, ends up presenting some shortcomings in relation to the objective that it intends to concretize . The absence of an analytical tool that allows the concrete transformation of socio-religious realities, of the experiences of the subjects of the interpretation, stands out here. In this sense, the dialogue with the critical feminist hermeneutics of liberation may be important for a re-evaluation of the political-methodological project of the popular reading of the Bible proposed by CEBI.


Itinerancy and the Question of Jesus' Relationship to John the Baptist
Program Unit: Historical Jesus
Tucker S. Ferda, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

The question of Jesus' relationship to John the Baptist has been high stakes for historical Jesus scholarship. The reason is that the nature of Jesus’ relation to John is often thought to be one of the clearest points of evidence as to Jesus' intentions. J.D. Crossan and Dale Allison can be taken to represent the extremes of opinion here: Allison reconstructs Jesus as an eschatological prophet by closely linking the message of Jesus to that of John, while Crossan distances Jesus from John to depict a non-apocalyptic sage of subversive wisdom. The question of the "continuity" or "discontinuity" between Jesus and John could benefit from a close look at Jesus' itinerancy. Scholars have tended to approach the question of Jesus's relationship with John on the assumption that there really is "an answer" about what it was: Jesus and John really were related in one particular way or another. This may be helpful for considering Jesus' indebtedness to John in terms of message, but it overlooks the reality that Jesus ministered to different audiences in different settings and must have interacted with persons who would not have known of his relationship to John (whatever that may have been). In fact, many of Jesus' utterances about the Baptist make the most sense as attempts to clarify the nature of his relationship to John. Approaching the question of Jesus' relationship to John through the lens of itinerancy leads to a striking conclusion: the kinds of questions about Jesus’ relationship to John that dominate current Jesus research (continuous, discontinuous, and everything in between) were probably also going around during the ministry of Jesus.


Re-evangelizing the Church: Faithful “Others” and “Outsiders” in the Gospel of Mark
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Tucker S. Ferda, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Some have thought that the Gospel of Mark evidences sectarian tendencies with statements like this: “To you (the Twelve and other disciples) has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those on the outside everything comes in parables…” (4:11). When this verse is read in its larger narrative context, however, a striking paradox emerges: the Twelve disciples, the quintessential “insiders,” are often foiled in faith and obedience by unnamed “outsiders.” Indeed, it is Peter’s mother-in-law who “serves” (1:31), it is the man possessed by legion who becomes the first evangelist to the Gentiles (5:20), and it is the hemorrhaging woman who is commended for her “faith” (5:34). This paper suggests that the intended impact of this portrait of Jesus and the disciples was precisely to deconstruct any kind of sectarian identity that would highlight the superior righteousness of the “insiders” vis a vis the world. The Gospel of Mark points to the faithfulness of God to create and sustain the believing community and contends that God is at work in the most unsuspecting persons and places (from this community’s perspective). In this respect, the Gospel of Mark can serve as a biblical model for inclusion and building bridges between insiders and outsiders. The paper will draw implications for contemporary Churches divided along political and ideological lines in the United States.


Staging Bíos: A Diegetic and Mimetic Analysis of Speech in the Gospels within the Biographical Tradition
Program Unit: Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative
Matthew Wade Ferguson, University of California-Irvine

By analyzing the role of narrator and dialogue in the New Testament Gospels, this paper will compare their mimetic narrative techniques with the fictional tone of biographies like the Life of Aesop, while contrasting the historical tone of biographers like Plutarch and Suetonius, drawing attention to how the two styles of biography achieve characterization. Whereas biographies of a historical tone are more prone to “tell” (diegesis) a man’s character, by interjecting judgements in the author’s own voice, the Gospels “show” (mimesis) their central character, by staging Jesus in dialogue. When distinguishing the Gospels from the writings of ancient historiography, Auerbach (2003: 46) notes their “numerous face-to-face dialogues” as a point of contrast to how “direct discourse is restricted in the antique historians to great continuous speeches.” The use of dialogue in ancient historiography was rare, with a historian like Thucydides including it only twice in his entire narrative (3.113; 5.84-116). The latter instance of the Melian Dialogue is such an exception to Thucydides’ narratological technique that Dionysius of Halicarnassus in On the Language of Thucydides (37) emphasizes how Thucydides begins by summarizing the exchange in reported speech (διηγηµατικóν), but then “dramatizes” (δραματίζει) the narrative through dialogue. Although the Gospels are shorter and focused more on the life of a single individual than the broader scope of historians like Thucydides, scholars such as Burridge (2004) have identified the Gospels with the genre of ancient biography. Speech patterns in biography are more diverse than in historiography, but the role of dialogue generally bears a connection with that of narrator. The biographies of authors like Plutarch and Suetonius are told by a first-person, authorial narrator, who often interjects his own judgements and experiences into the narrative. The narratology of these biographies is not anonymous, whereas the Gospels--particularly Mark and Matthew--are anonymously told by a third-person, external narrator. Other anonymously narrated biographies include the Life of Aesop. The frequent use of dialogue, narrated within historico-geographical settings, is chiefly a characteristic of anonymous biographies, and it pertains to their fictional rather than historical tone. Rhetorica ad Herennium (1.13) uses the Latin "argumentum"--a word associated with comedy--as the term for “fiction” to distinguish it from "historia." Theatre is characterized by mimetic narrative techniques, in which dialogue is performed in direct discourse. Fictional writing, such as the ancient novel, resembles theatre in part because of an emphasis on dialogue. Diegetic narrative, however, is more characteristic of history, in which conversation is “reported” more than “shown.” Historiography is likewise characterized by first-person narration (Baum 2008), and the presence of the authorial narrator is central to how historians diegetically report discourse and events. The diegetic narrative techniques of biographers like Plutarch and Suetonius--particularly in their first-person narration and tendency to eschew dialogue--are distinct from the mimetic narrative techniques of the Gospels, which are replete with anonymously narrated dialogues. In this respect, biographers like Plutarch and Suetonius exhibit a greater affinity with historiography, whereas anonymous biographies like the Gospels align more with the novel.


Working Girls: Subverting the Master Narrative of Judges
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
Danna Nolan Fewell, Drew University

The master narrative of the book of Judges, inscribed in its formulaic framework, presses the collective character Israel into “Deuteronomistic” service. The people, in concert, repeatedly follow gods other than Yhwh, suffer divine punishment in the form of enemy oppression, cry out in repentance, and are rescued by divinely appointed deliverers who secure rest for the land. The plot plagiarizes itself multiple times solidifying Israel’s identity as an obtuse people whose destiny is to exemplify an uncomplicated, streamlined mechanics of history: the good, faithful, innocent, repentant are rewarded; the unfaithful are punished. This is a master narrative that constricts, chafes, and ultimately cannot corral historical reality. When the women and children of Judges seize control of its script, they refuse to work for the Deuteronomist’s cause. Rejecting predetermined plots, they turn their narrative labor toward exposing a different world view, one in which human and divine characters are neither predictable nor reliable, and suffering and survival have little to do with theological fidelity.


Philological Fervour and the Myth of an Alexandrian Revision of the corpus Paulinum
Program Unit: Book History and Biblical Literatures
Gregory Fewster, University of Toronto

Genealogical method, in its various forms, has been a mainstay of textual criticism. Genealogical critics establish the original form of a text by constructing lineages of manuscript descent on the basis of their variant profiles, positing archetypal recensions that originated divergent manuscript types, groups, and families. One of the signal developments of twentieth-century textual criticism of the New Testament in general, and the corpus Paulinum in particular, has been the hypothesis of a philologically-rigorous early recension occurring in Alexandria, a recension widely viewed as virtually equivalent to the original text (Westcott and Hort 1881) or at least the next-best thing (Kenyon 1940). Concerning this recension, Gunther Zuntz made the claim that its textual character betrays the work, not of the “believer or the theologian,” but of someone with “at least a touch of the philological mind” (1953: 275). This paper interrogates the genealogical quest for the origin of the Alexandrian recension, with particular attention to how scholars distance the work of critical edition from the domain of “religion” and religious motivation. The paper argues first that such characterizations implicitly formulate ancient criticism in the image of the modern desire for text-critical disinterest or objectivity as the preferred mode of operation, and second, that (with reference to Egyptian manuscripts of the corpus Paulinum) ancient Alexandrian “philological fervour” included critical commitments that can productively be considered “religious.” Although the notion of an Alexandrian recension has met with some criticism since the work of Zuntz (e.g., Fee 1974), the construction of a distinction between theologically-motivated textual editing and alterations of a more banal and mechanistic kind continues to find traction in the wake of the text-critical work of Bart Ehrman (2001). This present state of affairs recommends the proposed line of research.


Shenoute's Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in Late Ancient Egypt
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Emanuel Fiano, Fordham University

This paper discusses the fourth-to-fifth-century Egyptian archimandrite Shenoute of Atripe's violent dealings with Judaism in his Discourses, as well as the rhetorical tenor and historical context of these operations. In an essay titled Shenoute and the Jews, David Brakke has opened the path for an investigation of his treatment of Judaism. Brakke argued that Shenoute's Jews work mainly as models of lack of belief in Christ, and that the abbot never concerned himself with, or intended to warn his audience against, living Jews. While Brakke's contribution focuses on The Lord Thundered and God Says Through Those Who Are His, the present study departs from an examination of the thus-far untranslated homily Blessed Are They Who Observe Justice (Discourses 4.9; Chassinat, É.-G., Le Quatrième Livre des Entretiens et Épîtres de Shenouti. Cairo: IFAO 1911, 126-153). On the one hand, it reevaluates the question of Shenoute's acquaintance with flesh-and-blood Jewry based on the scanty extant epigraphic evidence about the latter's persistence in post-Constantinian-era Upper Egypt. On the other hand, it propose that the possibility of Shenoute's acquaintance with Jewish writings should not be discarded a priori, in light of the references to Jewish literature displayed by fourth- and fifth-century authors from the nearby town of Panopolis such as Zosimus and Nonnus.


Bandits and the Galilean Economy: Was It Prosperous or Desperately Poor?
Program Unit: Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
David A. Fiensy, Independent Scholar

Several historians, including New Testament scholars, have noted that banditry was/is a form of social protest. They usually conclude that banditry and piracy arise when the economy falls. But in recent studies, historians and sociologists have observed that banditry is more a phenomenon of the “in-between” economies. Banditry does not usually take place in the worst, most chaotic societies nor does it thrive in well-run governments and booming economies. In between these extremes banditry and piracy flourish. In places of extreme want, there are few to rob. In chaotic governments, there are no clear authorities to oppose. Bandits need, for instance, the banks to survive in order to rob them. It follows then that a society with a swarm of banditry and piracy is doing moderately well. It is not an extremely poor society. I hope to establish in this paper that if Galilee was awash in bandits in the first century CE, it was a society of moderate economic success.


Rekindling the Fire: Fear of Jewish Sacrifice in Late Antique Syrian Antioch
Program Unit: Early Jewish Christian Relations
Ari Finkelstein, University of Cincinnati

We are used to thinking of Jewish sacrifice as a ritual lost and then reinterpreted by Jews and Christians after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. Yet in late fourth century Antioch, Jewish animal sacrifice is a topic of renewed interest among pagans and Christians. Writing his Against the Galileans in Antioch in early 363, Emperor Julian claims Jews continue to sacrifice in private and that, contrary to Christian claims that sacrificial meat is impure, such sacrifice remains efficacious, sanctifying the meat Jews eat. By reframing Jewish ritual slaughter, he hopes to convince Judaizing Christians to keep Jewish practices. Julian’s Hellenizing anti-Christian program fails upon his death. But Christian interest in Jewish sacrifice picks up twenty years later in two very different Christian sources written in Antioch. In Against the Jews/Judaizers, John Chrysostom attempts to delegitimize the Jewish festivals of Trumpets, Tabernacles and Passover, festivals celebrated by some Judaizing Christians in Antioch, arguing that these holidays could only be celebrated with sacrifices and only in the Jerusalem temple. Chrysostom uses the absence of the temple and sacrifice to support many of his arguments in this work. But how certain is he that the temple and sacrifice will not return? Here and there we can glimpse doubt. For instance, he goes out of his way to attack any future sacrifice as illegitimate because it would lack the divine fire that lit Solomon’s sacrifice in the first temple (Jud 5.11.7) as well as the veil (Jud 4.7.6) and many other elements. And he clearly spars with Jews and Christians who accept Jewish arguments that the temple will soon be rebuilt. One such Christian, Apollinaris of Laodicea, preaching in Antioch in the late fourth century, looked forward to the imminent rebuilding of the temple and the resumption of sacrifice in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, in the very same decade Chrysostom preached his anti-Jewish homilies, the Apostolic Constitutions was published in Antioch. Its compiler addresses himself to a group of Christians who keep some Jewish law but differentiate themselves from Jews. For this group sacrifice is a Jewish law too far, one they are unwilling to practice (6.25) and thus a line in the sand dividing them from Jews. What was at stake in defining sacrifice as Jewish in late fourth century Antioch? This paper will consider these sources about Jewish sacrifice as a battleground over which pagans and Christians sought to define themselves over and against Jews.


An Eighth Century BCE Monumental Podium at Kiriath-jearim in Historical Context: Who Built It and for What Purpose?
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Israel Finkelstein, Tel Aviv University

Recent excavations by a Tel Aviv University—College de France team at the site of Kiriath-jearim west of Jerusalem uncovered evidence for the construction of a monumental elevated podium in the Iron Age. Combining an exact-science method of dating with archaeological considerations, the podium seems to date to the first half of the 8th century BCE. The questions which will be dealt are: who built the podium, when and why. The answers may shed light on the history of the region, the relationship between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and biblical references to Kiriath-jearim.


Getting It Wrong but Getting It Right: Joshua's Prayer in Joshua 7
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
David G. Firth, Trinity College, Bristol

Getting It Wrong but Getting It Right: Joshua's Prayer in Joshua 7


Canaanite Genocide and Palestinian Nakba in Conversation: A Postcolonial Exercise in Bi-directional Hermeneutics
Program Unit: Ideological Criticism
Bruce N. Fisk, Westmont College

For some Zionists and Christian Zionists, the modern state of Israel has reenacted ancient Israel’s Conquest. Both stories include marginalized Jews suffering oppression and threats of genocide. A singular figure emerges to lobby the powers and inspire an exodus. The people cross water to reach their land but it is inhabited. Higher powers authorize the children of Israel to settle there but indigenous peoples feel threatened. War ensues. Jewish victories spread fear. Inhabitants are dispossessed. Jews ultimately control most land and property. A sizeable underclass of non-Jews remains under Jewish control. Has not the One who fought for Joshua Ben-Nun fought again for David Ben-Gurion? Even secular Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, recognized the Bible’s potential for shaping his young state’s identity and connecting it to the Land. Ben-Gurion’s favorite book was Joshua, for its catalogue of military exploits and territorial expansion. Beginning in 1958, Ben-Gurion made Joshua’s campaigns the focus of a study group that met in his home, from which he sought to forge a collective Israeli identity rooted in the biblical conquest myth to unite immigrants from around the world. Noteworthy about Ben-Gurion’s use of the Bible is its bi-directionality. His young army was both expositor and embodiment of Scripture. Ancient text and present reality were mutually illuminating. Zionism was both ideology and hermeneutic. Also notable was his focus on praxis. Interpretation was incomplete without performance. If Joshua was a military manual, only those who had conquered, occupied and settled the Promised Land could grasp its meaning. If Ben-Gurion read the Conquest with the eyes of the IDF, Palestinian-in-exile Edward Said called in 1986 for reading with the eyes of the Canaanites—with indigene rather than invader. Native American Robert Warrior took up the challenge, as did Michael Prior, Nur Masalha, L. Daniel Hawk and others. Hawk’s 2010 Joshua commentary, for example, amplified subaltern voices and counter-narratives. But although these scholars acknowledge the traumas of the Palestinian Nakba (1948) and Naksa (1967), rarely do they deploy them as hermeneutical lens for reading Joshua. Following the trajectory set by Edward Said, this paper will read selections of the Conquest narrative not simply with an eye toward Canaanites but with the help of Palestinians—the refugees of 1948 and 1967 who were exiled and orphaned during the war years and who now live in the Diaspora or under Occupation. We cannot ask Canaanites what it is like to plant but not harvest in lower Galilee, to nurture groves but not press olives near Bethlehem, to dig cisterns but not drink water in the West Bank hills, to abandon houses on the plain near Jaffa. But we can ask Palestinians. And when Joshua occasionally lets Canaanites speak (e.g., Rahab, the Gibeonites), Palestinians under Occupation can amplify their voices. Such an approach, like Ben-Gurion’s, promises to be hermeneutically bi-directional; Joshua and the Nakba/Naksa can be mutually illuminating. It might also caution those content to see both Conquest and Conflict as zero-sum games only one side of which merits our moral consideration.


The Function of Aseneth: Her Transformation from an Egyptian Priestess to an Israelite Cultic Figure
Program Unit: Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World
Katharine Fitzgerald, McMaster University

Joseph and Aseneth, like many other early Jewish texts, assumes that Israelite and gentile identity were both inherent and immutable. However, Aseneth’s transformation is at odds with this worldview, as Aseneth’s identity shifts from an Egyptian priestess to an Israelite cultic figure. The author makes use of a scriptural precedent found in Lev. 8, as Aseneth’s period of change mirrors the eight day transformation of Aaron and his sons in Lev. 8 and Exod. 29:35-37. Aseneth mourns and fasts for seven days and her change in identity is confirmed on the eight day, just as Aaron and his sons cannot be consecrated until they complete the seven day process which is then confirmed on the eight day. This paper will explore how Aseneth is presented and functions as an Egyptian priestess, by focusing on her dress, use of food, idols, and behavior. I will also detail the cultic language used to describe Aseneth’s process of changing identities and her function as an Israelite cultic figure. The main focus of the author of Joseph and Aseneth is Aseneth’s transformation as a means for justifying the marriage of Joseph to the Egyptian Aseneth and to justify the conversion/inclusion of Gentiles, as it is only through the reconstruction of her identity into an Israelite cultic figure that Aseneth is able to marry Joseph.


What Are Amorites Doing in the Bible?
Program Unit: Assyriology and the Bible
Daniel E. Fleming, New York University

Biblical accounts of Israel’s origins imagine a land without dominant kingdoms, where diverse peoples represented by Hebrew plurals were more significant than cities, excepting Sodom and Gomorrah as famously gone. The names of these peoples appear alone and in combinations that include lists of those to be replaced by Israel. In historical context as currently known, these peoples include names from the Bronze Age, many centuries before their biblical use: Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, and perhaps Horites as Hurrians. All of these are surprising, and we are left to wonder how such old labels found their way into the Bible’s distant past. The Hittites may be most straightforward now that we know about Hatti’s Iron Age survival in its Syrian vestiges. Canaan was one way to name Egypt’s New Kingdom holdings in the Levant, however such a notion of the land before Israel survived into texts from the mid-first millennium. The Amorites are more difficult. Already by the early second millennium, use of the term in cuneiform sources appears secondary to the earlier Amorite population as a community bound to pastoralism. There was already a specific “land” southeast of Ugarit; and this term could name the entire West Semitic language contrasted to Akkadian. There is no reason to name the peoples of the Middle Bronze Age Levant as Amorites in any literal sense. Yet some version of such secondary use was recalled as appropriate to the land before Israel, as with the Canaanites and the Hittites. It is possible that the Amorite name attached itself especially to regions associated with old-time pastoralism, as perceived in much later periods, such as the Transjordan people of Sihon. Any answers must be cast in terms of a self-conscious notion, not to explain by “memory,” of separation between an idealized early Israel and its antecedents.


Exodus 15 without the Exodus: Yahweh and the People of the Southern Highlands
Program Unit: Historiography and the Hebrew Bible
Daniel E Fleming, New York University

Although most of the narrative from Genesis through Kings is devoted to Israel’s distant past, before the time of biblical writing, the project of its application to historical reconstruction is fraught. The most useful material is often what contrasts with the finished Bible, as with the Song of Deborah’s failure to include Judah and the south in its account of battle with “the kings of Canaan.” In the collection of old poetry identified by Albright, Cross, and others, the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 stood as an independent exodus account, yet its continuity with Jerusalem-oriented poetry in the Psalms and Isaiah 40-55 has led recent European scholars to date it to the 6th century or later. Indeed, the combination of southern geography and shared vocabulary in a hymn to Yahweh suggests composition for Jerusalem worship. Yet the Song’s detail indicates secondary association with the prose exodus narrative rather than inspiration from it, and Jerusalem poetry could be composed during the monarchy. In fact, Exodus 15’s historical usefulness has been obscured by its reference to Pharaoh and incorporation into the Moses story. Egypt is defeated by an act of God, Yahweh himself sinking its chariotry as they were transported across a body of water. Yahweh’s own people, named nowhere in the Song, are not present for the catastrophe that opens the southern highlands for their occupation. While the Song may well have been composed in monarchic Jerusalem, it shows no interest in its institutions or Davidic heritage, instead hearkening back to a time before these. For reconstruction of history, of greatest significance is the combination of Egypt’s removal and identification of the beneficiaries only as “your people, Yahweh” (v 16), a phrasing much like “the people of Yahweh” who unite in battle in the Song of Deborah (Judg 5:13). We are left to explore the historical significance of two early biblical texts, south and north, that recount formative events for “people” defined by relation to Yahweh in a time before kings.


The Ritual Practice of Christian Meals and New Testament Textual Variants
Program Unit: Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Tobias Flemming, Technische Universität Dresden

This paper presents the results of the network “Meal and Text” concerning the relation of the changes in the ritual practice of Christian meals on the one hand and the formation of textual variants in the New Testament on the other hand. The focus will be on central meal texts like Lk 22 as well on passages less in spotlight. Thereby, it will become apparent that the methodologically conscious merging of textual criticism and the research of the transition from banquet to Eucharist opens new insights for both fields.


Were Galilean Synagogues the Sitz-im-Leben for the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch? An Inquiry into the Archaeological Evidence
Program Unit: Aramaic Studies
Paul Flesher, University of Wyoming

Thanks to the discoveries of Targum fragments in the Cairo Geniza and of Targum Neofiti at the Vatican, we now possess the remains of more than 40 different versions of the Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch. All of these were written in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, a dialect centered in greater Galilee, and this large number of manuscripts suggests they were popular and widely used. The question remains, however, for what activity were these Targums used? Early rabbinic literature equivocates. On the one hand, rabbinic dicta state that Aramaic translation should accompany Sabbath Torah reading. On the other hand, they forbid the presence of written translations in that very ritual. Several scholars, including myself, have addressed this conundrum by developing circumstantial scenarios which see rabbinic injunctions against public Targum use being ignored or which suggest that Targums were delivered from memory. These schemes have been difficult to verify or falsify. It is time to bring a new source of evidence to address this question, that of the synagogues in which the rite of Torah reading and translation took place. This paper will examine the archaeological remains of two Galilean synagogues—Beth Alpha and Nabratein—to determine how this ritual would have been performed in the architectural space they provided. A simple question will direct the exploration of how the architectural features built into the synagogue halls shaped ritual performance. That question is, where would the reader and the translator have stood? The answer will provide insight into the ritual Sitz-im-Leben of Aramaic translation in these synagogues and into the role of written Targums within it.


Voice in the Greek of the New Testament
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Bryan W. Y. Fletcher, McMaster Divinity College

As the category of deponency in recent years has been the leading cause of a “paradigm shift” taking place in studies on the ancient Greek voice system, new avenues have opened up for further remodeling of the voice system. This study contends that verbal voice is based on the distinctive roles the subject plays in the clause and operates according to an ergative two-voice system, active and middle. Principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in particular, the transitive and ergative models, based on the theories of linguist, Michael Halliday, are applied in this study. These two models broaden out the notion of transitivity by fitting together semantics and syntax more precisely since transitivity of the clause, according to Halliday, is “concerned with the type of process expressed in the clause, with the participants in this process, animate and inanimate, and with various attributes and circumstances of the process and the participants.” Within a nominative-accusative marking pattern which forms the syntactic basis for the Greek of the New Testament, ergative functions centered on verbal voice are present in the language’s verbal morphology and syntax. An ergative view of voice focuses on the element of the clause that realizes or actualizes the verbal process. This enables clearer expression of the subject’s function in the clause by distinguishing between two opposing roles: the subject functioning either as undergoer of the process (actualization) or as agent (cause) of the process. Since there are only two basic roles of the subject for voice, therefore, there are only two voices and the traditional passive voice no longer stands as a third voice that is separate from the active and middle voices despite the occurrence of three morphological forms in the aorist and future tense-forms. Passivity is subsumed entirely within the middle voice in all tense-forms whereby the subject actualizes the verbal process but with an added feature of external agency to the clause. Moreover passivity is expressed by specific grammatical constructions within the middle voice that operate as agentive augmentations (specified or not) of a middle clause. The so-called ‘passive’ marker, -(θ)η-, shares much in common with the functions of the middle voice markers as the -(θ)η- form was encroaching upon middle forms during this stage of the language and gradually expanding its range of function in the New Testament.


Mary Magdalene (2018): Perspectives on the Female-Focused Screen
Program Unit: Bible and Film
Michelle Fletcher, King's College London

There seems to be nothing new that can be shown in a Jesus film, yet somehow Mary Magdalene (2018, dir. Garth Davis) does offer a fresh perspective: a woman’s. Indeed, through stunning cinematography and subtle scripting, this film re-inscribes the female reality into the Jesus story in a way that is seldom seen. This women’s-eye perspective is the focus of this co-presented paper. We will bring into dialogue two feminist perspectives on the film, based on our experience: as a historian who was one of the film’s advisors and as a Bible and film scholar. In doing so, we will examine the tensions involved in making and viewing this female-focused Jesus film. After an overview of the history of the cinematic Mary Magdalene, outlining her previous guises, we will detail the vision of this specific portrayal, asking where this film sits in light of these past visualisations. We will then move to discussing the making of the film, revealing the practicalities of being an expert advisor during production, with particular attention to the details of portraying female-focused ancient-world narratives. Versions before the ‘final cut’ will be discussed, as will debates during production. The collective dimensions of filmmaking will also be brought to the fore, highlighting the key women of the production team. From the perspective of film criticism, we will be asking where this portrayal sits amongst contemporary trends and past filmic inheritance. In particular, the ‘woman’s picture’ aspect of the film will be discussed, and we will question whether this 2018 production of Mary Magdalene has as much in common with the domestic interiors of Douglas Sirk and Yasujiro Ozu as it does Pasolini’s Gospel According to St. Matthew. Throughout the paper, both presenters will draw on their conversations with the film’s development lead and script writer, as well as with others after the film’s release, providing a window into the thinking behind what we see on screen. This will lead them to topics as diverse as embroidery, Judas’s smile, menstruation, the Gospel of Mary, and Todd Haynes.


Inventing Christian Piety: Euelpistus in the Acts of Justin and Companions
Program Unit: Inventing Christianity: Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, and Martyrs
Michael Flexsenhar III, Rhodes College

This paper investigates the Acts of Justin and Companions (Rec. B), the purported martyrdom account of Justin Martyr (c. 165 CE). It explains how in the aftermath of the Edict of Decius (250 CE) editors reworked the earlier version of the Acts of Justin (Rec. A) and refashioned the character Euelpistus as a martyred “slave of Caesar.” The editors did so to redefine Christian piety as an exclusive activity—a piety not to be shared with the Roman gods. To show how the text accomplishes its goal the paper draws from studies on Roman slavery, Roman household rituals, and inscriptions that imperial slaves left behind. The end result is a better understanding of the historical reality against which the new version of the Acts of Justin (Rec B) idealizes and distorts Euelpistus as a martyred slave of Caesar.


The Many Genres of al-Musabbiḥāt
Program Unit: The Qur’an: Surah Studies (IQSA)
Adam Flowers, University of Chicago

Despite similarities in their opening verses, al-Musabbiḥāt (Q 57, 59, 61, 62, and 64) exist as thematically and stylistically distinct texts. Indeed, the opening prayers common to each sura have drastically different literary functions in relation to the following content; these differences in function are created through the varying genre forms that occur in each of ¬al-Musabbiḥāt. Studying how the opening prayers interact with the genre forms that proceed them is an important step in understanding these suras as complex literary wholes. An analysis of the genres employed in al-Musabbiḥāt is not a purely literary exercise, however; a study of how unique genre forms are combined to form the larger unit of the sura can shed light on the historical processes by which Qur'anic suras were composed. This paper will concentrate on the four following questions in an attempt to better understand the composite literary forms of al-Musabbiḥāt and, ultimately, use these insights to illuminate the process of collection and compilation of the Qur'ān text: What are the component genres of each of al-Musabbiḥāt? What is the relationship of the opening sabbaḥa verses with these genre forms? How can we characterize each of the individual al-Musabbiḥāt as complex, secondary genre forms? And, finally, outside of the similar openings, should these suras be considered similar literary objects?


Controlling the Narrative: The Babylonian Exile as Chosen Trauma
Program Unit: Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature
Caralie Focht, Emory University

Who controls the narrative in the event of an exile? The Bible seems to grapple with just that question after the Babylonian exile of a small group of elites from Jerusalem and its surrounding areas. Despite the fact that archeological evidence portrays a limited exile the primarily impacted Jerusalem and only a small number of elites, exile looms large in the biblical texts. Trauma studies of the Bible pick up and takes at face value the traumatic nature of these texts at both the compositional level as well as within the narrative itself. However, further consideration must be given to the gap that remains between the comprehensive and universal trauma of the exile as presented in the biblical text and the fact that there is a continuity of material culture in Judah with the exception of Jerusalem and a few nearby cities. Therefore, this paper deals with the constructed aspect of the biblical trauma narrative that does not necessarily reflect the reality of the majority of Judeans’ lives. Jeffrey Alexander lays out a social theory of collective trauma wherein meaning in the aftermath of trauma is constructed by the group through symbols that are affectively tied to the trauma, that is, symbols that evoke emotions associated with the trauma. Drawing from Alexander’s work as well as other trauma theorists such as Kali Tal, I will go beyond the work of current biblical trauma scholarship. Rather than accepting the traumatic events that shaped the texts and canon of the Hebrew Bible as the universal Judahite trauma narrative, I will argue that the Babylonian exile as it is portrayed in the biblical text was constructed for two reasons: 1) the people writing/editing the texts were the ones most impacted by the exile and 2) drawing on the exile helped to create a collective national identity. In short, the authors and redactors of the biblical text dealt with the Babylonian exile and eventual return under the Persian empire by creating a new national narrative and passing it on to the collective.


How to Deal with Imperfect Dictionaries and Their Possibly Misleading Definitions/Glosses
Program Unit: Biblical Lexicography
Hans Förster, Universität Wien, Universität Wien

John A. L. Lee has argued that definitions are preferable if compared to glosses. This holds true in case that a definition is in accordance with the semantics of the Greek word which is defined in a dictionary. Definitions are, however, a two edged sword: In case that a definition misses the semantics of a Greek word such a definition will mislead the user of a dictionary far more than any gloss. A gloss reminds the reader that the lexical equivalent in the dictionary is a very rough approximation. Thus, any user of a dictionary which is using glosses is forced to deal with the semantics of the source language before creating a rendering in any given target language. In contradistinction a lexical definition creates the impression that all semantic analyses have already been completed successfully. The presentation will use an example from John’s Gospel which has been deemed a crux interpretum and demonstrate, how erroneous entries in dictionaries are especially misleading in case that they provide a lot of information and / or definitions. The faulty information can, however, be used to understand the text better – if used with care.


Tamar’s Transgressive Resistance: Gender Nonconformity in Genesis 38 and the Women’s Protection Unit in the Rojava Conflict
Program Unit: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible
Conor Q. Foley, Princeton Theological Seminary

Tamar is expected to submit to the erasure and inhumanity of a patriarchal system that interpellates her as the sexual and economic asset of the men who control her. But when Judah fails his basic duty of providing her with an opportunity to conceive, an irresponsibility that would push her to the extreme margins of society, she resists the strictures of gender convention. Tamar assumes an agency typically reserved for men, she takes on work that falls out of the normative binary distribution of labor, she fulfills the patriarchal responsibility of facilitating a sexual encounter and producing progeny, and she seizes the symbol of patriarchal power, authority, and virility by taking Judah’s staff. Various biblical and extra-biblical sources make clear the connection between the penis, power and authority, and the staff which represents this nexus. In resistance to the violence of erasure and exploitation, she “castrates” Judah and uses the power invested in the phallic item for herself, making a way to relative freedom and autonomy through risk and transgression. So too do the women of the Rojava Revolution resist the gender and sexual oppression of the Islamic State of the Levant by taking up weapons, phallic significations of political power and ideological dominance. ISIL has set forth explicit instructions for the behavior of women, replete with punishments for transgressing those boundaries. Their fascist, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam underpins an oppressive gender code which relegates women to “sedentary” life. The military opposition of women in the YPJ is a transgression of gender boundaries with a moral significance, making the consequences of capture dire indeed. But the women of the YPJ, like Tamar, redefine gender in their contexts, destabilizing traditional binaries and risking their bodies for justice. Neither of these parties is advocating for the privilege of the penis or the pistol, but they will use whatever means necessary in the struggle for justice.


John 9, the Sense of Hearing, and Belief in Jesus as the Unique Embodiment of God
Program Unit: Johannine Literature
Deborah Forger, Dartmouth College

The story of Jesus’ healing of the man-born-blind (John 9), and the subsequent disbelief of the Ioudaioi regarding this man’s ability to receive his sight again, has often been deemed a literary linchpin, a hermeneutical key for unlocking the larger narratival plot of the Gospel. While the followers of Jesus were able to “see,” “confess,” and “believe” in Jesus, the Ioudaioi did not (thus, according to J. Louis Martyn, at the time of the composition of the Gospel, the former were kicked out of the synagogue, cf. John 9:22, 16:2). Yet this privileging of the sense of sight within Gospel 9, and the broader corpus of the Gospel, has long caused scholars to overlook the rich and manifold ways that the other senses play within the fourth Gospel [notable exceptions include D. Lee (2010), M. Warren (2015)]. By invoking the theoretical framework of David Howe’s Empire of the Senses (2005), as well as subsequent scholarship that has led to a ‘sensual revolution’ or a ‘sensual turn’ that has swept its way across the humanities, this paper considers how the other senses—and the sense of hearing in particular—also plays a pivotal role within the Gospel. To do so, it begins with a close reading of John 9:35–38, which describes Jesus as “the speaking one,” and demonstrates how it is in the context of hearing Jesus’s words that the man-born-blind comes to believe. From there it traces other ways that the Gospel stresses the sense of hearing. By employing sensory analysis, this paper demonstrates how Jesus’s speech uniquely renders the God of Israel audible, making the God of Israel accessible in the somatic realm. Because the act of speaking creates sound, and sound becomes perceptible to the sense of hearing, Jesus’s words concretize Israel’s God. Just as Jesus’s physical body is the unique locus by which persons experience God corporeally—enabling them to see (12:45; 14:7–9), to touch (20:27–28), and even to taste God (7:37)—so too his words render God tangible. I argue that attending to the role of the sense of hearing thereby sheds new light on how the Gospel portrays Jesus as the unique embodiment of God (i.e. he is the God who speaks); it also illumines how, through the senses, the Gospel writer presents persons as coming to believe in him.


God Made Manifest: Jewish High Priest as Visible Counterpoint to Deified Greco-Roman Emperors?
Program Unit: Hellenistic Judaism
Deborah Forger, Dartmouth College

Jews living in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple navigated a world in which their imperial lords peppered the Mediterranean landscape with sculpted images of themselves, oftentimes suggesting that these physical images, and the emperors that stood behind them, functioned as gods in embodied form. This paper considers how these material images (and the emperors who stood behind them) impacted Jews, especially in light of the fact that these same Jews lived under the authority of Rome, yet also served the one God of Israel alone. By analyzing texts such as Josephus’ Ant. 11.302–45, wherein he depicts an encounter between Alexander the Great and the Jewish high priest, as well as ancient artefacts that these emperors, and the Flavians in particular, employed as a means of visual propaganda to convince others of their deification, I explore how the Jewish high priest, especially in light of the strong aniconic tradition in Second Temple Judaism, could have functioned, for Josephus at least, as a visible counterpoint to both these material, sculpted images and the deified emperors who stood behind them. Though clearly not synonymous with the God of Israel, since much of the extant Jewish literature dating to around the turn of the Common Era stresses God’s transcendence and utter inaccessibility, such a reflection on the high priest may offer some insights into how Jews, living around the turn of the Common Era, both responded to Roman hegemony and Roman imperial religion and claimed that they could encounter their God, the God of Israel, in tangible form.


Transforming the Literary Heritage of Late Antiquity: A Previously Unknown Letter of Severos of Antioch Preserved in Ethiopic
Program Unit: Ethiopic Bible and Literature
Philip Forness, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Severos of Antioch (c. 465–538) stands as one of the most celebrated figures in the development of miaphysite or non-Chalcedonian Christology. The Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopian traditions all honor him as a saint. His works, condemned within his lifetime by the imperial church, primarily survive in Syriac and Coptic translations from late antiquity. Texts from the early Solomonic period attests to Severos’s popularity as a saint and author in Ethiopia. This presentation explores a previously unidentified letter by Severos in Ethiopic translation as evidence of interconnections between the Ethiopian tradition and the Coptic and Syriac churches. This letter appears in a fourteenth-century collection of homilies and is designated as a homily to be read on the Thursday of Holy Week. This letter is not known in any other language. The first part of this presentation will situate this letter within its late antique context. The addressee of the letter, Caesaria, was a patrician and from a prominent family. Severos wrote several letters to her, and she appears in both hagiographical and historiographical works. Severos responds in this letter to her exegetical question regarding the origin of evil. The theological nature of this letter matches that in Severos’s correspondence with Caesaria. The second part of this presentation will examine the transmission and translation of this text into Ethiopic. I will especially consider how this text reflects a broader trend in the transmission of Severos of Antioch’s works into Ethiopic in the early Solomonic period. At least four other works by Severos were translated into Ethiopic around this time and became part of liturgical collections. A life of Severos survives in Ethiopic from around the year 1400, and he found a place in the Ethiopic collection of saints lives known as the Sənkəssar. This letter thus represents an important discovery for late antique Christianity as well as for understanding the Ethiopian tradition’s understanding of its relationship to other Christian communities.


The Books of Maccabees in Syriac: A Context for Their Translation
Program Unit: International Syriac Language Project
Philip Forness, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

The history of the Maccabees exerted a great influence on the Syriac tradition. The four books of Maccabees circulated widely among Syriac communities in antiquity and secured a place in early pandects of the bible. Their narratives shaped Syriac martyrological and historiographical writings as well as art and poetry, and these stories continue to be read in liturgical settings. Studies on the reception of the Maccabean narrative have exposed the importance of the books of Maccabees for the Syriac tradition as a whole. Yet the impetus for the translation of the four books of Maccabees into Syriac in late antiquity remains poorly understood, as the translation of the four books of Maccabees was undertaken at a later period than most books of the Old Testament. I will address this gap in scholarship by examining the Peshiṭta translation of the four books of Maccabees from two complementary perspectives. First, I will investigate the textual tradition itself to argue for a fourth-century date for the translation of the four books of Maccabees. A comparison with the Greek text demonstrates connections between the translation of the books of Maccabees and the Lucianic recension of the Greek. A further appraisal of the text of individual books exposes similarities and differences in the translation style. Second, I will explore the use of the story of the Maccabees in Syriac literature in the fourth and fifth centuries. References to the narrative as well as linguistic allusions support a date of the fourth century for the initial translation of these books. But they also suggest that the translation of the books of Maccabees into Syriac was a product of a wider trend. Christian communities across the Mediterranean World adopted the narrative of the Maccabees for liturgical and exegetical purposes in the course of the fourth century. Syriac communities chose to translate these works for their own use as a part of this cultural movement.


Reconsidering the Death of Saul: Just What Was He Afraid of?
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Cara M. Forney, Baylor University

The lone narrative dedicated to Saul in Chronicles tells the story of his self-inflicted death (also found in 1 Sam 31). Within this passage, Saul asks his armor-bearer to run him through with his sword so that the Philistines (the “uncircumcised”) would not come and “abuse him” or “deal harshly” with him. A study of the verb used in this passage (עלל) reveals a wide semantic range, yet modern translations obscure the connotation of “penetration” or “entering” that the root carries. I propose a paper arguing that the Chronicler includes this Saulide narrative due to the presence of sexualized violence contained in the language and imagery of the passage. The presentation of this narrative depicts Saul’s humiliating, feminized death in contrast with the Chronicler’s hyper-masculinized idealization of David. This paper first pursues a word study of עלל, concluding that the verb—particularly in the Hithpoel form—conveys the notion of inserting or penetrating, as well as the connotation of abuse or harm. It then explores the use of rape imagery in the Hebrew Bible, concluding that while there is no one word or set of terms used to depict rape, there is a consistent constellation of language and imagery used to convey such scenarios. In the second section, the study applies the conclusions of the first section directly to the death of Saul narrative to demonstrate that what Saul fears from the “uncircumcised” is more akin to sodomy or rape than mere “harsh treatment.” The third section explores masculinity and femininity in the Hebrew Bible and the motif of feminization as a form of humiliation in the ancient Near East. Drawing on these concepts, the narrative of Saul’s death presents a feminized, humiliated Saul. This evidence leads to the conclusion that the narrative of Saul is presented by the Chronicler specifically as a foil for a hyper-masculine, militarily successful David, while still maintaining the inclusion of the tribe of Benjamin within the Yehudite community. Finally, this paper discusses the necessity for interpreters and translators to convey the full imagery of passages such as 1 Chr 10//1 Sam 31 in order to depict the power struggles and dynamics at play.


The Church of the Martyrs: A North African Tradition, c. 250–500
Program Unit: Contextualizing North African Christianity
Eric Fournier, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

In the town of Thambaia, in the 480s, two Nicene brothers were being tortured by Vandals. As they encouraged each other to persevere in enduring their suffering for Christ, one of them proclaimed: “Unleash whatever suffering you like, and torment the Christians with cruel punishments: what my brother will do, I shall do as well” (Vict. Vit. Hist. Pers. 3.28; trans. Moorhead, 75). Rather than an accurate depiction of what was happening “on the ground” during the Vandal period, this (imaginative) passage, in which a Nicene tells a Homoian Christian to “torment the Christians,” is in fact representative of a widespread coping strategy by Nicene Christians. By alluding to Christian texts from the earlier Roman persecutions of Christians (Tert., Apol. 2: “Christianus sum”), by casting Vandals as the new persecutors, and by implicitly presenting them as non-Christians who persecute Christians, Victor of Vita is here refashioning the identity of both Christians and Vandals as, respectively, persecuted and persecutors. Victor, in this regard, is representative of the Nicene response to the Vandal occupation of North Africa, which consisted mainly in understanding their present as a repetition of past persecutions. Indeed, Nicene texts of the Vandal period multiply borrowings and allusions from the likes of Cyprian, Tertullian, Lactantius, and other texts describing earlier persecutions. It is the argument of this paper that in depicting themselves as the latest Church of the Martyrs, these authors participated in what seems to have been the dominant form of Christian identity in North Africa. Of course, in addition to the Roman persecution of Christians, North African Christians also experienced their own internal struggle with so-called Donatists. What is striking to the external observer is the similarities between the coping strategies of Christians facing Roman persecutions, Donatists facing what they considered as persecution by Nicene Christians, and Nicene Christians under Vandal rule. Perhaps the clearest example of these parallels between Donatists and Nicenes of the Vandal period is the similarities between their resistance strategies at the councils of 411 and 484. A close reading of both councils reveals that Nicenes seem to have deployed the same delaying tactics as Donatists had in hopes of avoiding a theological debate they could not win (proving the ‘homoousios’ from Scriptures). Both Donatists and Nicenes under Vandal rule depicted secular power as controlled by the Devil, and thereby attacking its legitimacy to rule in a Christian world. The flip side of this posturing was to present themselves as the Church of the Martyrs, which implicitly meant that they were on the side of truth and orthodoxy in this polarized world. In depicting their experiences in this particular light, as a repetition of past persecutions, authors of the Vandal period joined their predecessors in continuing a North African tradition that opposed theological enemies with the language of martyrdom and persecution, and that cast their identity as the Church of the Martyrs.


The Community of the Curious: Curiosity as Disposition Leading to Idolatry
Program Unit: Institute for Biblical Research
Stephen E. Fowl, Loyola University Maryland

The Community of the Curious: Curiosity as Disposition Leading to Idolatry


Philo of Alexandria and Sex with Pretty Little Slave Girls
Program Unit: Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
Kenneth Fox, University of Calgary

Philo describes attending sumptuous feasts. When he takes self-mastery with him, he bridles the impetuous rush of his passions, but when he leaves reason at home, the enjoyments enslave him. He confesses to overeating and overdrinking. But then, unexpectedly, he mentions sex (Leg. 3.155-156). Philo divides humanity into three categories. The wise are so rare (Leg. 1.102) I set them aside. At the other end is the vast multitude of people. These worthless people are dead to the life of virtue (Somn. 2.235-237) and indulge the flesh at banquets. But what about the progressing person (Leg. 1.93; QG 4.54), how might this person behave? For Philo, passions for food, drink, and sex, although not good, work according to laws of nature (Opif. 3; Contempl. 59). He says god-loving souls (QG 3.4) will satisfy their passions at banquets, but only to the extent useful and necessary and will not overindulge beyond measure (Leg. 3.155-156). Leg. 3.155-156 makes me ask: does Philo have no problem with followers of Moses having their useful and necessary sexual needs satisfied at these parties by the pretty little slave girls (Prob. 38) offered to guests, just so long as they do not overindulge beyond measure? I outline Philo’s attitude toward slavery. Philo says slavery is irrelevant and ought to be a matter of indifference to slaves. But slavery is not irrelevant to slave owners, as Philo says, “The course of life contains a vast number of circumstances which demand the ministrations of slaves” (Spec. 2.123). I briefly discuss how Philo’s attitudes toward the human body, sexuality, women, and ethics bear on my question. With this in hand, I give a Philonic reading of Exodus 21.7-11 which gives a father total power to sell his daughter to another man, knowing the child’s body will be used for sexual gratification. Children proved excellent commodities for trade and profit. In the conclusion, with a glance at Pericles, Euripides, and Aristotle’s anonymous opponents of slavery, I explore whether Philo experienced anxiety and uncertainty about how slavery, “the most degrading and exploitative institution invented by man” (Peter Garnsey), was parasitic.


Leadership in the Damascus Document and Related Texts
Program Unit: Qumran
Steven D. Fraade, Yale University

An exploration of the variety of communal leadership roles in the Yahad, as expressed in the Damascus Document and related texts. Particular attention will be paid to the roles of the Mevaqqer and the Maskil in relation to one another and their possible development over time, as well as for their social implications.


The Evolution of the Circumcision at Gilgal: From Human Initiative to Obedience to the Divine
Program Unit: Joshua-Judges
David Frankel, Schechter Institue of Jewish Studies

It is widely recognized that the story of Joshua’s circumcision of the Israelites at Gilgal both in MT and LXX is heavily edited. The most common critical approach considers the section of verses 4-7 (and the slightly divergent parallel in LXX) to be secondary and locates the early, pre-deuteronomistic narrative in verses 2-3, 8-9. Early critics such as Steuernagel, and more recent critics such as A. Rofe, have astutely pointed out that God’s dramatic declaration to Joshua in verse 9, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt,” implies that the Israelites in Egypt were scorned as uncircumcised and that this disgrace was removed “today,” at Gilgal, for the first time. This implies both that the Israelites did not observe circumcision in Egypt and that the Israelites at Giglal were identical with the ones who lived in Egypt and departed therefrom. Obviously, both of these implications were problematic from a later perspective. Verses 4-7 thus came to insist that the Israelites in Egypt indeed observed circumcision. It was only the second generation of Israelites born in the wilderness that needed to be circumcised by Joshua. This secondary material also brought the ancient text in line with the standard conception according to which the exodus generation died in the wilderness while those who entered the land with Joshua were a new group of people. This paper seeks to modify this reconstruction of the early narrative as consisting of verses 2-3, 8-9. Verse 2 (“At that time the Lord said to Joshua…”) is strongly Deuteronomistic in style and must be attributed to a late editor. There is no indication in verse 3 that Joshua circumcised the Israelites “as the Lord commanded.” On the contrary, the verse’s formulation, ויעש לו יהושע, implies that the circumcision reflects Joshua’s own initiative. It is most natural to understand that a late editor would want to attribute the initiative to perform the circumcision to God rather than Joshua. This secondary attribution of the circumcision to God is again reflected in the present formulation of verse 9, which has God tell Joshua, who is made to represent the people as a whole, “today I have removed the disgrace of Egypt from upon you.” The attribution of this speech to God requires that we attribute the naming of the place as Gilgal in the continuation of the verse to God as well. This, however, is extremely unusual as God is generally not the one who gives names to places. It seems clear that verse 9 was originally presented as the speech of Joshua. A final section of the paper will show that the phenomenon found here, that of converting a demonstration of human initiative and authority into one obedience to a divine command, can be identified elsewhere in the biblical corpus, particularly in Exodus 16.


Egyptian Personal Names and Dates of Composition in Gen 37-50
Program Unit: Egyptology and Ancient Israel
Eric S. Fredrickson, Harvard University

Gen 37-50 contains several Egyptian personal names. In his 1970 monograph, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph, Donald B. Redford argued regarding these names that "the most likely period for the close acquaintance of the Hebrews with all three names would be the Saite and Persian periods (664-331 B.C.), when each was at the height of its popularity." This argument had a significant influence on subsequent biblical scholarship. Each of the names in question is attested in Egypt before the Saite Period, but Redford argues that the Egyptian name type behind the names Potiphar and Potiphera is attested more frequently after 664 BCE than before. He does not, however, closely examine the changes in frequency over time of the other Egyptian names. This paper aims to extend Redford's work by bringing the latest collections of evidence and more sophisticated statistical methods to bear on this question of inferring dates of composition from these names, examining both the individual distributions of these names in the Egyptian evidence and their collective import for dates of composition in Gen 37-50.


From Patrimony to Politics: The Changing Status of Judaism in Late Roman Law
Program Unit:
Paula Fredriksen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In the first generation of the Jesus movement, back when ‘Christians’ were Jews, allegiances between earth and heaven were ethnically inflected. Gods ran in the blood, and deities tended to share the ethnic identity of the human group, the genos or ethnos, that worshiped them. This was true for the god of Israel no less than for the god(s) of Ephesus or of Rome. But in the course of the second century, God the father of Jesus lost his Jewish identity, and various forms of gentile Christianity hermeneutically loosened the LXX’s ethnic moorings. In consequence, as we see in Book 16 of the Codex Theodosianus, Ioudaïsmos shifted from being an idiosyncratic ethnic patrimony, a set of ancestral practices, to being a deviant, even a dangerous, political choice.


"The Gods of My Unbelief are Magnificent": Jews, Gods, and Israel’s God in the Early Roman Period
Program Unit: Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
Paula F. Fredriksen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Roman-period Jews lived in a world full of gods, and they knew it. Gods other than their own were their immediate neighbors in the Graeco-Roman city. These gods appeared to Jews in dreams; they witnessed to Jewish manumissions; indeed, they arose from the pages of traditional Jewish scriptures. And, beginning with Augustus, newer gods were running the empire. Yet their ancestral laws forbade Jews to honor foreign gods with cult. How, then, were Jews to cope with all these other gods who, if disregarded, could be dangerous – as could the humans who honored them? This paper will examine the three different responses of three very different Jews from the early imperial period: Herod the Great (d. 4 BCE), Philo of Alexandria (d. circa 50 CE), and Paul the apostle (d. circa 65?). In the god-congested world of the first imperial century, as we shall see, even the “monotheists” were polytheists.


A Name to Remember: Reconsidering Exodus 3:15
Program Unit: Pentateuch
Aron Freidenreich, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

Exodus 3:15 is at the heart of the central controversy in modern Pentateuchal scholarship: the debate between the classical Documentary Hypothesis (along with its Neo-Documentarian adaptation) that continues to serve as the prevailing model in North America and Israel, and the Transmission-Historical models taking prominence especially in European scholarship. For the Documentarians, Exodus 3:15 depicts the pivotal moment in the Elohistic (E) work when the deity first introduces the Tetragrammaton to Moses and to humanity. This verse is therefore singularly representative of the most overtly concrete distinction between Israel’s two epic traditions, since the alternative Yahwistic (J) source employs the name “YHWH” from creation onwards. Exodus 3:15 bears witness to an early Northern Israelite tradition ascribing the Tetragrammaton to Mosaic origins, a tradition that continued to be preserved in Exodus 6:2-3 of the later Priestly work (P). The Documentary Hypothesis’ detractors claim to have dealt a fatal blow to both of the purported epic sources, ascribing their disparate non-Priestly (non-P) materials to various origins that both precede and postdate the Priestly writings. For many followers of the Transmission-Historical approach, Exodus 3:1-4:18 constitutes a supplementary block that could not have been part of a larger continuous parallel strand stretching the length of the Pentateuchal narrative. Moreover, they point to evidence within Exodus 3:15 itself that betrays its late insertion within that block, arguing that it borrows elements both from the two verses immediately surrounding it and from a distant, and especially recent, Psalms collection (see Psalms 135:13). Exodus 3:15 has therefore been reimagined as a post-Priestly addition that was designed to foreshadow P’s divulgence of the Tetragrammaton within the same narrative stream, thereby further corroborating a theological framework first observed only in the exilic/post-exilic Priestly literature. On what basis should one decide between these two opposing viewpoints of the purpose and ultimate significance of Exodus 3:15, without being unduly influenced by preconceived notions about the overall efficacy of either the Documentary Hypothesis or the Transmission-Historical models? This paper will respond to both positions, and suggest that a close examination of Exodus 3:15 itself actually promotes neither reading, at least as each one is currently expressed. I propose that underlying Exodus 3:15 is a very different intention than has previously been recognized by either side of the debate, and that the verse reflects a more dynamic relationship both with its immediate non-Priestly context and with its Priestly counterpart.


On the Reception of Chronicles
Program Unit: Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
Blaire French, University of Virginia

no abstract


Aspect Substitution in the Parable of the Sower
Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Samuel Freney, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

There are approximately one hundred places in the Greek New Testament where the author quotes the Greek Old Testament in a fairly direct manner, but changes the verb form in some way. These changes include alterations to person, mood, occasionally lexeme, but quite frequently the substitution of one aspect for another. This paper will examine the tense-form contrasts found in the quotation of Isaiah 6:9–10 in the Parable of the Sower, and using a method inspired by Carl Bache’s contrastive substitution will examine the impact of aspect substitution on the surrounding discourse. Mark’s paraphrastic rendering of Isa 6:9–10 has prompted a great deal of exegetical disagreement, particularly related to the conjunctions ἵνα and μήποτε. Following many modern interpreters who argue for interpreting the received text as it stands, it appears that Mark, of all the Gospel writers, mirrors most closely the tone of the MT. A similarly strong causative purpose is found on the lips of Jesus—a harshness potentially softened even by Matthew and Luke. While the tone and implicit divine purpose echoes the MT, the form is largely of the LXX, and certain strong parallels exist to the Aramaic. Yet the presence of more direct parallels to the LXX in the other Synoptic Gospels (along with Acts) allow us to make a comparison of the effect of the changes made in Mark’s version. Mark’s altered quotation contrasts Future indicative and Aorist subjunctive forms with Present subjunctives, along with a change from 2nd to 3rd person. This latter change in person is both common and minor: the shortened quotation assumes the 3rd-person reference of the final line and applies the former clauses to the same group (τοῦ λαοῦ τούτου). Regarding the Future–Present change, we find that this comports well with Campbell’s model of the Future form, namely perfective in aspect and future in tense. This quotation in Mark and Luke is characterized both by a change to imperfective aspect, and the removal of future expectation. The overall effect of this is to efficiently shift the reader’s/hearer’s viewpoint on the effect of prophetic speech to an ongoing process around the disciples. Even apart from a consideration of these changes, Jesus’s use of the quotation implies he is applying it to his present teaching. But the shift to imperfective aspect allows Mark and Luke to efficiently mirror that broader point in the syntax. The grammar follows the explanation, compactly echoing the typological comparison being made.


On Singing and/or Pruning: Song of Songs 2:12 Reconsidered
Program Unit: Megilloth
Daniel Frese, University of Kentucky

The meaning of the phrase עת זמיר הגיע “the time of zamir has arrived” in Song of Songs 2:12 is a classic interpretive crux; the verbal root zm’’r usually means either “singing” or the completely unrelated “pruning.” Both ancient and modern translations are divided on the correct understanding of this term, as are ancient and modern commentators. Cyrus Gordon famously added a third interpretive option: he touted this phrase as an example of Janus parallelism, where the term in question works in both senses simultaneously: the meaning “pruning” parallels the time references which precede it, and “singing” parallels the voice of the turtledove in the following phrase. In this paper I will survey and critique all of the interpretive options. Based on considerations including agriculture, semantics, and singing practices in ancient Israel, I conclude that the meaning “pruning” was likely intended.


"Kasakyerew ho nimdefo, mo!" (Those gifted in the knowledge of writing of language, congratulations!): Kwame Bediako, Mother-Tongue Theology, and Orality—African Epistemologies and Spirituality
Program Unit: African Biblical Hermeneutics
Sara Fretheim, University of Edinburgh

It has been argued that the language of Africa is the language of orality. As Clifton Clarke contends, “this is the realm where orality is expressed through the language of symbols. […] Symbolism makes the African Christian a converted narrator, storyteller, theologian, poet, God’s okyeame (linguist) and singer.” Yet, one cannot speak of “scripturalization, orature, or orality as a cultural way of life in African and African Diasporic cultures” without immediately encountering the issue of mother tongue versus global languages. Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako argues that while the convenience of being able to circulate research more widely may push African theologians to write in Western languages, African Christian scholars “cannot set aside lightly the challenge of mother tongues, since these provide the historical, socio-cultural intellectual, and emotional matrices that give shape to the human responses to transcendence.” Bediako adds that the challenge is particularly acute in post-colonial, post-missionary Africa, where the widespread use of Western languages “conceals the fact that contemporary African Christianity has emerged and is sustained largely through means that have been shaped by African mother tongues – the Bible translated into African languages, and African Christian preaching conveyed through African languages.” This paper argues that orality, and by extension the use of African languages, are key African epistemological approaches and important elements of African spirituality. This paper draws upon the scholarship of Afe Adogame, Ezra Chitando, and Bolaji Bateye who argue for African approaches to the study of religion in Africa , and Kwame Bediako, whose contribution to promoting orality and mother-tongue engagement are found in his publications as well as within the research institute which he founded, the Akrofi-Christaller Institute for Theology, Mission and Culture (Ghana). For a paper engaging orality and scripturalization, an important counter-narrative is found in analyzing the praise songs of Ghanaian Christian oral poets Ephraim Amu and Afua Kuma. Both demonstrate insightful apprehensions of Scripture and their African cosmological universe and daily surroundings, utilizing traditional praise-song formats to offer Christian praises, giving creative interpretations to biblical passages and theological concepts. Furthermore, their songs demonstrate incredible linguistic skill and artistry, incorporating Ghanaian symbols, proverbs, idioms, and visuals, adding important performative and sensory aspects. The interplay of orality and written text is seen in Amu’s song, “Kasakyerew ho nimdefo, mo!” (Those gifted in the knowledge of writing of language, congratulations!), written and performed to honour the work of early Twi Bible translators J. G. Christaller and C.A. Akrofi. Bediako argues that African Christians should be “understood as drawing on their sense of belonging within Christian tradition and using categories which to them describe their understanding of their pre-Christian heritage when related to their Christian commitment.” As Chitando responds, “Bediako insists that African theologians have a right to contribute to an understanding of their own religious heritage.” This paper seeks to listen in to this important conversation, drawing fresh insights into orality as an important African approach to spirituality.


Hospitality, Mental Illness, and the “Mark of Cain”: A Theology of Chaplaincy in a Forensic Psychiatric Hospital
Program Unit: Bible and Practical Theology
Tim Fretheim, Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, British Columbia

Within the fields of Practical Theology and Disability Theology, hospitality is a familiar concept, welcoming those from the margins and pointing to postures of openness and mutuality. However, hospitality also raises ambivalence and fears about the “Other.” As a chaplain in a forensic psychiatric hospital, where those suffering from a mental illness and who have committed crimes are involuntarily committed, tensions surrounding hospitality are real. Like Cain in Genesis 4, patients bear a “mark,” simultaneously punitive and protective: they are set apart from society. What does hospitality look like here? How can we practically and theologically move such persons from roles of stranger to guest -- or host? This paper shows the trajectory this might take by challenging definitions of hospitality; addressing/overcoming obstacles to hospitable engagement; and arguing that time and fluid guest-host roles are key to effectively practicing hospitality with those living with a mental illness in an institutional setting.


Ataroth, Dibon, and the King of Arad: The Book of Numbers and Archaeology
Program Unit: Hebrew Bible, History, and Archaeology
Christian Frevel, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

In Pentateuchal studies, the emergence of major parts of the Book of Numbers has moved beyond classical source criticism. Following scholarship which dates the composition of the Book of Numbers to the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the work is viewed broadly as the latest book of the Pentateuch, clearly composed in the Persian period. However, the book is most concrete in terms of land issues, itineraries, etc., and some of these components do not fit a Persian period setting. The role of Kadesh or of Shittim, the kings of Arad, Moab, and Edom and other information gives the impression of concreteness in terms of history. However, neither settlement information regarding Gilead nor the border description in Num 34 give the impression of deriving from recent times but rather from LBA “Canaan” and Iron Age Jordan. The Book of Numbers attests a settlement process in Transjordan mostly contemporaneous to the conquest in Cis-Jordan. The paper inquires into intersections between the literary history of the narrative and the history reconstructed by external evidence and by the archaeological record. Are the two realms more separate in the Book of Numbers than in other books of the Pentateuch? What is the outcome of an archaeological approach for the Book of Numbers and the literary-narrative or literary-historical approach read against the background of archaeological and historical information? This raises methodological, hermeneutical and content related questions the paper will discuss.


Buffering the Self: Insights in Inwardness and Outwardness from the Hebrew Bible
Program Unit: Philology in Hebrew Studies
Christian Frevel, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Within the alleged development of subjectivity and reflexivity the so-called "inner self" plays a major role. Usually it is said that there is no such inwardness in the Hebrew Bible literature and that the conception of the "inner" and "outer man" rather emerges in later more reflexive literature (cf. Philo, 2 Cor 4:16-18). However, there are more than glimpses of the "inner self" in biblical literature; not only in the prophets, but also in wisdom and poetic literature. The paper will discuss the view of a predominant outwardness of the Hebrew conception of the person by looking at passages of the Hebrew Bible in which the "inner" and "outer" is addressed in regard to the "self", "personhood" and "identity". The observations will then be related to Charles Taylor's argument, namely, that the difference between antiquity and modern self is the difference between a "porous self" and a "buffered self".


The Meaning of Exile in Second Temple Jewish Literature
Program Unit: Exile (Forced Migrations) in Biblical Literature
Lisbeth S. Fried, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Throughout second temple Jewish literature, the threat of exile, of dying away from one’s nativ