One of the main motivations to use the bible in Norwegian kindergardens with a christian foundation, is its ’christian values.’ There is a general understanding that the bible’s inherent values are christian, and ideal for a child’s life. Thus, children need to get to know the bible. But what bible is presented for the children? Yvonne Sherwood’s term ’liberal bible,’ the idea that the bible and modern society is on the same page, corresponds well with the understanding of the bible in kindergardens with a christian foundation. In a survey on the use of the Bible (fall 2018), educators in kindergardens were asked why and how the bible was part of their pedagogical program. The lists of biblical stories that were used, show two main guideline-principals: 1) pedagogical concerns and 2) the concern for the bible. The pedagogical concerns correspond with the guidelines for kindergardens set by Norwegian authorities: First, the pedagogical concern to meet the child, plays part in the selection of stories. Thus a large amount of the stories include animals. Moreover, the kindergardens are expected to reflect Norwegian traditional holidays, which generally means to include the biblical stories related to christmas, easter, and pentecost. The other prinicipal, which is also the overarching concern, is grounded in an understanding of the bible itself: that the bible is a subject that authorizes good values. The lists of stories however, are heavily influenced by the selections found in children’s bibles: there are lots of male heroes. The lack of female characters is not necessarily an expression of contempt of women, but a loyalty towards bible as culture values and remembers it. A significant question to be asked is this: what does our cultural bible say about ”our” christian values?

It has long been recognised that a number of Ethiopic literary traditions, hagiographies and magical texts bear marks of the influence of the early Jewish literature of 1 Enoch and Jubilees. The significance of these works in Ethiopia has largely been focussed on the ecclesiastical context of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church or its theological discussions and biblical interpretation that employ language and imagery from 1 Enoch and Jubilees primarily for Christological formulations. However, to what extent such texts inform the lived religiosity of Orthodox Ethiopians or shape the deeper normative notions and images that underlie people’s world-views has been entirely absent. Adequate attention has also not been devoted to investigating if and how 1 Enoch and its prototypical early Jewish apocalypticism has informed Ethiopian oral tradition or Ge’ez oral poetry. This is particularly true in terms of the relationship between the apocalyptic outlook in Jewish texts in the Ethiopic canon and apocalyptic elements in the way Ethiopian Orthodox imagine their social existence. To address this scholarly lacuna, I will employ the notion of social imaginary as defined by Charles Taylor to present my preliminary observations regarding the relevance of the Enochic apocalyptic outlook in shaping an Ethiopian imagination that has constructed a symbolic world to make sense of a social existence marked by suffering and evil. Towards this end, I will analyse the content and social function of apocalyptic discourse in published and unpublished Ge’ez oral poetry/Qene whose symbolic world engages the issue of social injustice and persecution in comparison to apocalyptic thought in selected 1 Enoch traditions. In exploring the symbolic world of the apocalyptic imaginaries evident in these Qene in comparison to 1 Enoch’s apocalyptic imagination, I hope to explore the possibility of identifying early Jewish apocalyptic thought as the ideal relative to which Ge’ez oral poetry codify and comment on the state of the world. Going forth, this study hopes to incorporate a larger corpus of Ge’ez, Tigrigna and Amharic oral poetry, proverbs, and adages to explore to what extent the paradigm of Enochic apocalyptic tradition and its notion of mediated revelation about time and wisdom can be thought to provide the foundation on which the social imaginary on evil, social injustice and persecution is constructed by Orthodox speakers of Ge’ez and related languages.

This paper will analyze the city of Rome through the lens of borderlands theory, a body of scholarship concerned with topics such as the nature of boundaries and their practical and symbolic functions; the relationship between physical barriers and ethnic, economic, religious, or other social differences; the permeability of borders and how this shapes discourses about migration and its effects; and the complex and situational nature of individual and group identities in borderland regions. While much scholarship on ancient and modern borderlands has historically been focused on “peripheral” areas at the limits of empires or between nation states (the Roman Empire’s Rhine/Danube frontier, the United States’ border with Mexico), this paper will argue that immigration also transforms great cities into borderland spaces, using imperial Rome as a case study. At its height in the first centuries of the Common Era, Rome’s large population was comprised largely of migrants or their descendants. The capital was a place with many internal boundaries, from the physical (hills and valleys, walls and gates, the line of the Tiber dividing Trastevere and the Vatican from the rest of the city) to the administrative (14 regions and 265 neighborhoods from the time of Augustus forward). At the same time, Rome was a place where boundary-crossing was a constant backdrop to everyday life. As Romans worked, worshipped, attended the games, took baths, and got into trouble, they continuously navigated the city’s porous internal borders. While doing so, they also moved between different social worlds. Natives encountered newcomers, Latins encountered Greeks, and (as the history of Christianity tells us) rich encountered poor. In short, boundary-crossing in the imperial city was both a spatial and a social process, as it is in all borderland regions. Understanding community formation in the urban borderland requires close attention to this fact.

Ben Sira’s engagement with theodicy questions has perplexed commentators for centuries. This instruction defends the transcendent majesty of the Deity, while at the same time seeking to inoculate God from any responsibility for human sin. Borrowing heavily from Genesis, Deuteronomy, and other antecedent texts, the author utilizes the “Do not say” formula characteristic of Egyptian instructions to answer his interlocutors and arrive at some measure of consistency. This paper will explore the ambiguous presentation in Sir 15:11-20, especially when considered alongside such passages as 33:14-15, where God makes everything in pairs, and 39:12-35, a hymn of praise. Ben Sira’s affirmation of a good and bad “inclination” or “temperament” (yetser) foreshadows what will appear more fully in the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus and rabbinic texts. The argument here is that the author’s efforts are more didactic than doctrinal, as he seeks to merge Torah-piety with sapiential discourse and maintain his traditional understanding against those with apocalyptic ideas and/or skepticism about longstanding retributive models. Stoic influence is apparent in some of Ben Sira’s presentation, but the baseline goal is to defend the righteousness of God, at times absolving the Deity from sin and at other points speaking of duality in creation. In all of these efforts, Ben Sira is offering an apologetic, meandering response to the origin of evil. His presumed opponents represent a broader discourse on these existential questions in late Second Temple Judea than had occurred in earlier periods.

In this paper we explore the discussion of allusion in Graeco-Roman literary scholarship, seeking to understand how ancient authors alluded to multiple texts/ideas within a passage. We are interested in discerning reading and composition strategies, especially how they might have been taught as well as the interpretive process undertaken by the author.

The Jewish practice of binding tefillin (generally translated as: “phylacteries”) to the arm and the head is an ancient one. While a small number of enigmatic references to the practice occur already in late Second Temple period literature, the first significant details relating to the ritual of tefillin are found only in early rabbinic literature. The ritual remains an important component of Jewish religious praxis until today. The discovery of ancient tefillin remains together with the Dead Sea scrolls in the middle of the 20th century provided the first opportunity to investigate evidence predating the rabbis for the origins and early development of tefillin practice. Unfortunately, however, this vital corpus of tefillin finds never merited comprehensive scientific analysis and publication. Many of the finds remain unpublished, including numerous tefillin slips which have never been unfolded and deciphered. Official publications of the tefillin texts which have been opened and deciphered rely on old readings of the minuscule texts carried out before the introduction of high-resolution multispectral imaging. The paleographic character of the scripts found on most of the published tefillin slips has never been studied comprehensively, and as a result the chronology of the finds remains uncertain. And finally, no full scientific report has ever been published on the vast majority of the tefillin casings. The corpus of Judean Desert tefillin is a treasure-trove of vital information on the origins and early development of halakhah which remains largely untapped. The present paper describes a new work-in-progress: the first comprehensive scientific analysis and publication of all of the ancient tefillin remains found in the Judean Desert. The project makes use of state-of-the-art technologies to analyze both the inscribed tefillin slips as well as the casings made to house them and the straps meant to attach these to the body of the tefillin practitioner. The overall objective of this project is to provide a better understanding of the specific details of tefillin ritual during the Late Second Temple and Interwar periods as an important example of how early halakhah in general was observed and developed over time and across ancient Jewish society. The five specific objectives are: 1. to obtain new texts from undeciphered and still-unpublished tefillin slips; 2. to ascertain new readings of previously-published tefillin slips using new imaging technologies; 3. to discern the dating of all tefillin manuscripts through paleographic analysis; 4. to characterize the questionable tefillin slips; 5. to characterize the tefillin casings and straps in terms of morphology, animal origin of the leathers, and manufacturing processes (tanning, dying, forming and stitching). The significance of the current research project reaches far beyond the limited question of early tefillin practice alone in that it promises to serve as an important test-case for the development of early systems of Jewish ritual law in general.

Leviticus 4:1–35 contains a series of laws governing the חטאת sacrifice; the “purification” or “sin” offering. Unlike the voluntary gift offerings of Lev 1-3 which are tokens of reverence and gratitude to God, the sacrifices in 4:1–35 serve an expiatory function. Their purpose is to secure atonement and forgiveness from God for specific violations or sins. That is, the efficacy of these sacrifices apply exclusively to inadvertent or unintentional offenses on the part of a specified group of individuals. This means that these offerings are not applicable to certain sins – precisely, defiant or “highhanded” sins, for which forgiveness by חטאת is not possible, a situation one finds in Numbers 15. Num 15:22–31 contains a similar tradition which, like Lev 4, seems to be dealing with the same issue, namely; unintentional or inadvertent sins, for which expiatory sacrifice is required by way of חטאת. However, a closer look at Numbers reveals that the two sets of laws are not altogether identical. While the relevant passage in Num 15 restates the sacrifices required for inadvertent violations just like Lev 4, the sacrifices in the two sections differ in a number of significant ways as we shall see below. Moreover, Num 15:30–31 makes it clear that there are sins beyond sacrificial atonement. These differences in legal prescriptions have been the subject of vigorous scholarly debates from late antiquity to the present. Many solutions have been proposed in view of a possible resolution of the apparent discrepancies between the two texts. In view of the ongoing discussion, the aim of this paper is to reconsider the relationship (if any) between the two חטאת sacrifices in Lev 4 and Num 15:22–31. In order to achieve this, we shall begin our discussion by a brief examination of the term חטאת, with regard to its etymology and meaning. The next is a review of the two kinds of חטאת sacrifices in the P source of Leviticus 4. In considering the treatment of חטאת in Num 15:22–31, we shall investigate the possibility of an internal cohesion of the various laws in the passage. This would be followed by a critical comparison of Lev 4 and Num 15:22–31 in order to address the question of whether we have two different laws or a later abbreviation of an earlier one.

Michael D. Swartz’s articles over the years have invited students and scholars alike to the study of late antique and medieval Jews through his analysis of magical-ritual sources of the Genizah, the liturgical poetry of the synagogue (piyyutim), and the mystical prayer of Hekhalot literature. In this presentation I review one of Swartz’s most intriguing and provocative contributions to the field: his endeavor to locate the authors of mystical and magical texts not in the periphery of Jewish society but at its heart, in the synagogue, even in leadership positions. Swartz argues for the fundamental coherency of ritual texts, the comprehensibility of piyyut, and the agency that prayer provided to ancient Jews, whether they were mystics or synagogue attendees. Swartz’s contributions have paved the way for my own research questions on ritual, liturgical, and mystical texts and the people who composed them. Building on his research, I examine how Jews sought healing in late antique Jewish society, turning to other mediators around them, both human and angelic, within and outside familiar institutional settings. Thinking about Jewish mediation in antiquity leads me to a larger rumination on the role of relationship networks among Jews in antiquity, including those among Jewish synagogue functionaries, ritual practitioners, rabbis, and mystics, but also with actors in the invisible realm, namely the angels. I close by reflecting on Robert Orsi’s critique of the category of religion and exploring how Judaism may be studied as a relational religion, far more focused on relationship with invisible networks than has been previously acknowledged.

In 18th century British culture, the sublime was almost always weighted with theological significance. From Addison to Burke, we are in the region of sublimity when our imaginations engage vastness and extreme power, the irresistibly fearful and threatening, the grand, imposing, vertiginous, and appalling. For those who expounded and applauded the sublime in nature and art, sublimity was not merely a feature encountered in plunging ravines, starlit nights, or poetry that tried to dizzy the reader with nature's scary exuberance. Most vitally, our experience of the sublime revealed human destiny as made in God's image with a capacity of mind and imagination apt for the apprehension of deity. Sublimity was the measure of humanity, indeed, in Edmund Burke's account, it was distinctively the measure of man, having a decidedly gendered preference, as discovered by the swooning ladies in a Gothic novel. As a measure of humanity and humanity’s moral and religious vocation, the sublime also provided a determining characterisation of divinity. God, Adam Smith insisted, is “of all the objects of human contemplation by far the most sublime.” If our capacity for sublime response and its attendant emotions engages the highest and best in human religious and cultural aspirations, and is the responsive chord for the mystery of God, then what of the Bible, the authoritative vehicle of divine speech? A due recognition of the sublimity of Scripture was not less important given the parallel insistence that the sublime mode in literary was the acme of art. The Bible could hardly lack the uplift that qualifies the highest in human literature. Configuring Scripture by way of sublime enthusiasm, however, involved some profound reordering of the theological shape of the Biblical canon, away, for instance, from the New Testament toward the Old and, within the latter, away from the prophetic orientation toward Jesus toward celebrations of divine power in creation and judgement. In the context of the New Testament itself, feeling for the sublime as the measure of God and humanity privileged the language of apocalyptic, just as it obscured the Pauline paradoxes around power. Outside the apocalyptic language of the Gospels, Jesus was a somewhat awkward theological feature, refusing the sublime assistance of angelic battalions and teaching with a decided lack of sublime oomph. This occasioned some awkward, not to say, dodgy, Christological manoeuvres in order to retain both a sublime reading and Christian orthodoxy. None of this is without some long-term theological and cultural significance since enthusiasm for the sublime involved a recasting of notions of power within the cultural imagination, one developed further in the 19th and 20th centuries, even when literary and philosophical interest in the sublime declined.

The Christian interpretive tradition has long recognized the tension between James' position in 2:14–26 (e.g., 2:24: “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”) and Pauline views (esp. Rom 3:21–31; 4:1–12; Gal 2:15–21; Gal 3:1–6; Eph 2:8–9) (e.g., Rom 3:28: “a person is justified by faith apart from the works prescribed by the law”) on the relationship between faith, “works,” and justification. This paper surveys the variety of ways in which this tension between James and Paul was addressed in the ancient Greek and Latin commentary on James traditions. I trace the Greek tradition as witnessed primarily in the Catena to James attributed to Andreas (late 7th c.) and the full commentaries attributed to Oecumenius (10th c.) and Theophylact (early 12th c.); the Latin tradition as witnessed primarily in the various writings of Augustine and Bede’s Commentary on James (early 8th c.). The central aim throughout both traditions is to show that the apparently contradictory views of James and Paul can be reconciled. They seek to demonstrate the harmony between James and Paul in a variety of ways: 1. James and Paul address different audiences, and thus emphasize different aspects of faith and actions 2. James writes to correct a mistaken interpretation of Paul 3. James and Paul define “works” differently: James refers to ethical action, or to a striving for holiness after baptism; Paul to the commandments of the Mosaic law 4. James and Paul define “faith” differently: James refers to simple assent to God’s existence; Paul to an intentional, firm consent 5. Paul refers to a faith held at baptism, James to the faith that a mature Christian should have 6. Both share the same understanding of true faith: Paul’s conception of “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6) is the same as James’ formulation of faith “brought to completion by the works” (Jas 2:22). This survey of the ancient Greek and Latin interpretive readings of James and Paul reveals not a forced harmonization of contradictory views based on a preconceived notion of the harmony of Scripture, but rather a careful exegesis of individual texts, with close attention paid to each author’s historical setting, his rhetorical purposes, and the precise, contextual meaning of his key terms.

Stone has often been used as a metaphor for a lack of understanding or diminished senses. Dense. Dumb as a rock. Stone deaf. We find this in common cultural references, but also in the Bible. There, people are often considered to have a lack of understanding or of not hearing, even though they are not deaf. As it often does, however, the Bible speaks with more than one voice. We find a compelling passage in the book of Joshua (24:25-27), where after reading out the law, the leader of the Israelites sets up a stone which has “has heard all the words of the Lord...” Because it has heard both the law and the vocal reply of the people, the stone can act as a testifying witness. Here we find not a metaphorical comparison of humans to a stone, but the personification of a stone which can hear. Many of David Hammons’ sculptures are roughly head-shaped stones, topped with hair taken from the floor of African American barbershops. These works are a statement on African American identity, with the rock as a silent and lifeless pedestal for what is culturally assumed to be the primary distinguishing characteristic of the black body. However, these rock heads are not only statements on African American identity; as heads without ears, they are also representations of unhearing individuals. We suggest that insights from the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community (D/HoH) can help us better reflect on both Hammons’ work and on the scriptural metaphors involving deafness. Doing so can open up a discussion on ableism in communities that are deeply informed by religious texts that metaphorically utilize deafness for a lack of understanding. Just as Hammons’ sculpture focuses hearing viewers’ attention to the hair, those in the D/HoH community must daily interact with others who are generally unable to recognize their difference (“Funny, you don’t look/sound deaf.”). By reflecting on the ability of the D/HoH community to hear without access to audible sounds, we hope to find biblical and artistic means to subvert the harmful and exclusionary tradition of the metaphorical equivalence of deafness with a lack of comprehension.

This paper examines the impact of the popular children’s songs about Jesus’ love for children, artwork depicting Jesus’ blessing of children, and infant baptism and dedication liturgies centered around this same theme on the reception of the synoptic accounts of Jesus’ encounter with children in Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; and Lk. 18:15-17. Such popular uses of this biblical account capitalize upon this gospel encounter as an opportunity to market Jesus to children as a gentle and welcoming teacher. Images of the compassionate Savior with arms outstretched toward a handful of smiling children hang in many Sunday School classrooms, mirroring children’s bibles with similar images across the ages, while baptismal fonts are engraved with the words of Jesus that the gospel texts recount. This paper seeks to provide a survey of the history of the use of the synoptic accounts of Jesus welcoming the little children in children’s literature and accompanying practice and to interrogate its influence on preconceived images of Jesus brought to the study not only this text, but also the broader gospel corpus, in contrast to A. James Murphy’s more cautionary picture of the Jesus Movement’s early interactions with children.

Books of hours, the medieval ‘best seller’, are collections of prayers intended for private use. This genre of small book functions also a window into the reception of particular biblical scenes, with material from the psalms woven throughout. These books are better known today through their decoration and art-historical value; the quantity and quality of which was determined by the wishes (and purse) of the patron. Indeed luxury copies were intended as both objects of devotion and works of art. They offer direct insight into the interpretation of specific biblical passages. One particularly fine example in the Chester Beatty collection is the Coëtivy Hours. A masterpiece of fifteenth-century illumination, it was produced in Paris (1443-45) for Prigent de Coëtivy, noted bibliophile and Admiral of France, to mark the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais. There can be no doubt as to the high cost and monumental effort that went into its production as almost every additional prayer available was included, each introduced with a three-quarter page miniature (148 in total). In addition, all 364 folios are ornamented with foliate borders inhabited by a variety of entertaining marginalia. Fully digitised for the 2018 exhibition Miniature Masterpiece, this partially disbound volume, measuring only 142 x 113 x 42mm, was one of 2000 objects included in the launch of Chester Beatty’s new searchable database of high-resolution digital images in December 2018. The Coëtivy Hours offers a perfect example of the advantages of digitisation and online access. This diminutive volume can now be seen in more detail than by the original illuminators, accessible to almost anyone, anywhere. The digitised collection and scholarly catalogues will bring considerable benefits for students, scholars, researchers and educators. Images can be downloaded for non-commercial use, free of charge. This paper explores new avenues for research into the reception history of the bible offered by new institutional digitisation tools and open-access, focusing on the Coëtivy Book of Hours as test case.

The veqatal is widely acknowledged as forming a contrasting pair with vayyiqtol. Their functions within time, mood, and aspect are generally recognized, although a question about veqatal as a volitional perfective aspect has been raised. Such a perfective proposal conflicts with the data, and should be rejected. On the one hand, in past contexts both veqatal and yiqtol default to habitual and imperfectivity. Ironically, when in future contexts, even yiqtol has a propensity to be perfective, and then veqatal is similar. ¶ We would like to look at the singular and problematic usages of ve-qatal. These have often been interpreted as if they were simply a ve, and a qatal appearing together, not as a fused form, veqatal. We must ask how communication happened in antiquity, and decide whether or not veqatal was internalized as a piece of the verb system. If so, how were stories heard by ancient speakers with an internalized veqatal? How was the veqatal received by speakers of mishnaic Hebrew during the Second Temple, or by speakers of modern Hebrew today? ¶ Formerly, we would read בנים גדלתי ורוממתי (Is. 1:2) as two simple qatal forms in something like a hen-dia-dys. However, as we have internalized the biblical use of veqatal through classroom teaching, the thematic veqatal seems the more natural and immediate reading in Isaiah’s poetry. Even Qohelet may contain more veqatal than is normally understood (or vocalized by the MT). The natural reading of שיאכל ושתה is a yiqtol and a thematic veqatal, which shows the writer's familiarity with the thematic veqatal.

Ambivalence has long circled the place of the dietary prohibitions in the compositional history of the book of Deuteronomy. Their terminology of clean-unclean, while not quite completely singular within the book, does not accord with the terms or turns of phrase generally viewed as central to the Deuteronomic-Deuteronomistic tradition. On the other hand, animal consumption plays an important—if not central—role in the book’s purpose and theology. Given these well-known factors, how can one understand the significance and historical location of the dietary prohibitions within the book of Deuteronomy? This study investigates the role of the overall passage on the dietary prohibitions in Deut 14:4–20 as part of its immediate context of 14:1–2, 3, 21 and within Deuteronomy as a whole. In spite of the content largely determining the terminology for vv. 4-20, a number of terminological and thematic issues help locate this section within the wider book of Deuteronomy, such as abomination (תועבה) in v. 3, notions of clean and unclean elsewhere in the book, the profound roles of eating and drinking within the law collection, and the overlap of the concluding prohibition of 14:21 with other biblical law collections.

Caesarea Maritima and Jerusalem were the two most important cities in Palestine during the first six centuries of our time. Prima facie, no two cities could be more different: the one existed almost as long as people could remember and was thought to be the capital of Judaea (and more), the other was founded only by Herod the Great; Jerusalem was the home to the second temple of the Jewish people, and whoever came by sea to Caesarea could not fail to notice the temple of the emperor. But with time the one city lost its temple completely, and with time the cult of the emperor diminished seriously in importance: what is more, both cities reached the status of Roman colonies, and for roughly 200 years this status determined the way the cities operated. Cities in the Graeco-Roman world were depended mostly on their upper classes, and these upper classes traded involvement, favours, money for social positions in the cities (one of the keywords is euergetism). Now, it seems clear that Jerusalem as a city did not always work in this way, but it seems equally clear that differences and similarities between the two cities can be brought into focus by a study of their upper classes, the way they worked in the city, the places they came from, the way their memory was held up by the city (and their families). At the same time, important breaks in the history of the cities (and of the state they belonged to) will stand out in this investigation, especially if we look beyond the year 324 - and it is an important question, whether religion played a role in this, and how far a city and its upper class was defined by religion.

The testimonium flavianum is so heavily redacted with the inclusion of at least one gloss, it is hard to discern which parts of it are originally by Josephus. It is followed by an even more bizarre narrative, the Tale of Paulina. The Tale of Paulina departs from Josephus’s typical interests of political and military history. Even when he digresses to intrigues or gossip, it is usually part of his interest in leaders and royals. Paulina’s tale is further singled out by its introduction as a sory of a sad calamity that caused confusion among the Jews (ἕτερόν τι δεινὸν ἐθορύβει τοὺς Ἰουδαίους). Notwithstanding, the story does not conclude with any account that would explain how this curious narrative affected the Jews as a whole. The contents of the story showcases a plethora of Hellenistic tropes, including sexual extortion (presented as unrequited love), mistaken identity and deceit, a hybrid sexual interaction between humans and (presumed gods). These are reminiscent of various Greco-Roman myths, as in the stories of Zeus and Leda, Cephalus and Procris, and Hephaestus and Aphrodite. The Egyptian setting of the story with the mention of the Temple of Isis and the god Anubis are uncharacteristic of Josephus, to say the least, and suggest a different provenance. Some have suggested that the tale reflects Roman aversion to the Egyptian cult of Isis, as reported also in Tacitus’s Annales. The particularly Jewish tropes include the denigration of pagan temples as locations of deceit and debauchery. Elements from the Additions to Daniel are manifestly present here, both the deceit surrounding the pagan cult, familiar from Bel and the Dragon, as well as the sexual extortion reminiscent of the Tale of Susanna. The suspected extramarital birth that includes a false claim for a conception by a deity is intriguing in light of the proximity of this tale to the brief mention of Josephus. It is reminiscent of other slanders of Jesus’s origins, some of which survive in rabbinic literature. This has been noticed before, but requires a new appraisal in light of new research on Jewish tales surrounding Jesus, as well as the markedly Hellenistic (and hence non-rabbinic) nature of the tale as a whole. This paper will consider the conflicting elements of this tale as Jewish, Christian, and Hellenistic, in order to reassess the possibilities of the identity and allegiances of its author.

The last chapters of the books of Kings have received much scholarly attention in research on the Deuteronomistic History (DH) in Josh-Kgs. Not only do they constitute the end of this hypothesized work, but they raise several interpretive issues that have long fascinated scholars. Already F.M. Cross pointed out that the narration of the Babylonian conquest does not seem to align with the theological reflections in the former part of Kings. He therefore ascribed these chapters to an Exilic editor. Other scholars observed that the multiple and inconsistent accounts of deportations in 2 Kgs 24 and 2 Kgs 25 contain interpolations, which raises the question of how the writers envisioned the respective significance of the events of 597 and 587. As for the very end of the books of Kings, most commentators treat 2 Kgs 25:22-26, 27-30 as annexes, and consider 2 Kgs 25:22-26 an excerpt from Jer 40-41. Within the model of a DH, all of these questions surrounding the meaning and literary history of these chapters are focused on the DH as the relevant interpretive context. This paper takes a different approach. It discusses 2 Kgs 24-25 in the context of parallel accounts of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in the book of Jeremiah. While the parallels between 2 Kgs 25, Jer 39 and Jer 52 are well known, these texts are often lumped together in exegetical analyses. The result is a combined text-critical discussion of these texts that blurs the differences between them. Yet, the Jeremiah texts themselves have a complex history, as is attested in the manuscript tradition. Taking into account the differences between the Greek and the Masoretic texts of Jeremiah, the paper will particularly focus on the relationship between 2 Kgs 24-25 and Jer 52. The disintegration of traditional DH models requires a renewed discussion of redaction-critical models, such as those proposed by C. Seitz, J. Wöhrle, or K. Schmid. The paper discusses these various suggestions for the redactional history of these passages, paying particular attention to points of contact with the Jeremianic tradition that go beyond the obvious parallels. Rather than proposing a (too) easy one-directional solution for the textual developments, the paper aims to shed light on how the end of the book of Kings developed in dialogue with Jeremianic traditions. In particular, it argues that the literary developments between the two works reflects an ongoing discussion on the memory of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem.

The predominant view of Qur’ānic Revelation in Sunni Muslim Qur’ānic exegesis (tafsīr) and theology (kalām) has the Angel Gabriel verbally dictate the contents of a pre-existent heavenly Qur’ān to the Prophet Muhammad in a piecemeal fashion over twenty years, which the Prophet recites verbatim to his audience. Most Islamic studies scholarship takes this “scriptural-verbal dictation” theory of revelation” as axiomatic and common to all Muslims. This paper argues that the Qur’ānic concept of revelation is one where the Messenger receives non-verbal inspiration (waḥy) from a “Transcendent Kitāb” and expresses it as piecemeal Arabic qur’āns tailored to his audience. Drawing on Qur’ānic studies scholarship by Fiegenbaum (1973), Crollius (1974), Graham (1984), and Madigan (2001), the paper first argues that the Qur’anic concept of kitāb does not refer to physical scriptures, but rather, has the meaning of divine prescription, decree, and guidance, symbolized by “divine writing”. Qur’ānic kitāb is a genus category that includes prophetic revelatory guidance and divine decrees. Second, building on Madigan (2006), Sinai (2006), and Neuwirth (2010), the paper argues that the revelatory process described in the Qur’ān distinguishes between a “Transcendent Kitāb” – a celestial domain of God’s knowledge and decrees called kitāb mubīn – and the piecemeal Arabic qur’āns, which are situated “adaptations” (tafsīl) of the Transcendent Kitāb tailored to audiences. Thirdly, the paper critically engages the arguments of Bell (1934), Jeffery (1950), Izutsu (1964), Fiegenbaum (1973), and Neuwirth (2015) concerning the Qur’ānic notions of sending down, (tanzīl), speech of God (kalām Allāh), and inspiration (waḥy). In doing so, the paper shows that tanzīl/inzāl does not actually describe the revelatory process and that kalām Allāh does not mean verbal linguistic speech. It is then argued that Qur’ānic waḥy denotes a non-verbal form of divine communication conveyed to the Prophet’s heart through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. This entails that waḥy is a process by which the Prophet “reads” the Transcendent Kitāb and verbalizes it into Arabic qur’āns. To corroborate this reading, the paper shows that early Muslim understandings of Qur’ānic revelation, as reflected in the Qur’ān and early ḥadīth, blur the hard distinction between “divine word and prophetic word” (Graham 1977) and elevate the Messenger’s extra-Qur’ānic speech to a level nearly on par with the qur’āns. This idea of waḥy as non-verbal inspiration, entailing revelatory agency for Muhammad, is mentioned in classical works including certain ḥadīth, the tafsīr of al-Māturīdī, Ismaili writings, and later ‘ulūm al-Qur’ān works.  

Far from being sectarian, the pressures felt by Johannine Christianity resulted from their cosmopolitan setting in the Greco-Roman world. In particular, presenting Pilate as miscomprehending the truth, and featuring Thomas making an anti-Domitian confession in John 20:29 reflects an anti-imperial thrust of John’s story of Jesus. Additionally, numerous inferences of the historical backdrop of the Johannine Epistles abound, but a striking lacuna involves the relative dearth of historical-critical treatments of the Roman Imperial Cult under Domitian (81-96 CE) upon the ethical concerns of the diaspora-setting Johannine situation overall. Indeed, tensions with the Jewish leadership of local synagogues were real (1 John 2:18-25), as were debates with hierarchical Christian leaders, such as the primacy-loving Diotrephes (3 John 9-10). However, the socio-religious backdrop of the assimilative teachings of the docetizing “Antichrists” (1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 7) was directly impacted by the requirement of emperor laud instituted by Domitian, which was carried forward by further administrations. As echoed by the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan some two decades later, the long-established practice of requiring Christians to demonstrate emperor laud, confess Caesar as Lord, and to deny Christ carried penalties up to and including capital punishment if transgressed. These pressures would have been real in the rest of Asia Minor, even if Christians were not to be sought out programmatically. That being the case, some of the primary ethical concerns behind the thrust of the Johannine writings come into clear view. (a) The miscomprehension of Pilate (John 18:28-19:22) and the confession of Thomas, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:29) were clearly crafted with an anti-Domitian thrust, as such is the way the third Flavian Emperor expected others to reference him. (b) Obviously, the Johannine Apocalypse challenges the numismatic image of baby Domitian holding seven stars in his hand, as such is performed by Christ himself (Rev 1:20). (c) Likewise in the Johannine Epistles, claiming to be “without sin” was less a matter of Gnostic perfectionism and more a factor of disagreement between Gentile and Jewish believers over what things were sinful and which were not—illuminated by socio-religious tensions with the Imperial Cult (1 John 1:5-10). (d) The appeal to love not the world was especially targeted at young adults, tempted to be involved in assimilative practices associated with imperial festivities and pagan celebrations, embellished by Rome (1 John 2:12-17). (e) The threat of docetizing traveling ministers is that they were teaching assimilation with Greco-Roman culture, legitimated by the cheap-grace implications of a non-suffering Jesus (1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 7). (f) While venial sins might be overlooked, death-producing sins could not be, and submitting to the requirements of the Imperial Cult would have been first among them (1 John 5:16-17). (g) Finally, all of these issues are addressed culminatively and directly in 1 John 5:21: “Little children, stay away from idols!” That being the case, the last word in the first Johannine Epistle serves as its first word, challenging believers’ participation in the Roman Imperial Cult and its associated practices.

The task of reconstructing Q has always been fraught with challenges, some arising from the inherently nuanced nature of the endeavor, others stemming from skepticism with which such attempts have not infrequently been met. In recent decades the impossibility of a precise reconstruction of Q has been asserted by a number of scholars at least partly on the grounds of what Dieter T. Roth calls in his 2018 monograph “a thought experiment” involving the reconstructed text of Mark’s gospel. As the argument goes, Mark’s gospel, when reconstructed solely from the Matthew-Luke overlap containing Markan material, amounts to a document that does not closely resemble the canonical gospel of Mark as we know it. Consequently, the proponents of this argument conclude, any reconstruction of Q as a document should similarly be viewed with suspicion. In this paper we shall suggest that the “reconstructed Mark” argument cannot be deployed to invalidate the reconstruction of Q as a document, because Mark’s gospel presents an inadequate test case for Q. The multiple ways in which the two documents differ from one another will be highlighted. We shall also revisit the once well-known but perhaps more recently forgotten or underappreciated observations clearly showing that the evangelists consistently treat the double synoptic tradition material, viz., Q, more favorably than their Markan source. The purpose of our discussion will not be to discourage continued critical assessment of Q’s word-level reconstructions in the future. We do hope, however, to shift scholars’ attention away from what is at best a simplistic argument.

This study centers on the relationship between temple architecture (both real and figured) and Jewish religious and cultural values in Greco-Roman Palestine. The Second Temple not only determined the worldview of the varieties of Judaism in its time but also reflected, in its spatial layout, the values and tensions at the heart of Jewish society. Without reducing the purpose of the temple to the establishment and enforcement of social divisions and hierarchy (as some current scholarship tends to), this paper examines how architectural changes at the outer edges of the Temple precincts, the liminal area that distinguished the chosen community from outsiders, relate to complex and diverse Jewish attitudes toward the Greco-Roman world. Such attitudes continued to develop and were at least partially informed by the tumultuous experiences of Jews with non-Jews throughout the period. Analysis will proceed on two planes. First, I consider the very patchy historical record, seeking clues for development from the evidence of Josephus, 1 Maccabees, and the Greek and Latin warning inscriptions from Herod’s Temple. Then, within this historical framework, I turn to roughly contemporary texts portraying ideal temples and focusing especially on their presentation of the boundary between inside and outside as a reflection of core conceptions of covenant and election. Here I intend to focus on the Temple Scroll and related Qumran traditions, as well as some relevant early Christian traditions. The comparison will illustrate not only the centrality of the image of the temple across different Jewish groups, but also, more importantly, how different notions regarding the boundaries of the temple played into distinctive understandings of the covenant, different expectations with regard to God’s plans for humanity, and ultimately, different platforms for the construction of communal identity.

The hijrah of Muhammad and his earliest followers from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 CE stands as an epoch-making event in the historical memory of the early Muslims preserved in the literary works of the Arabo-Islamic tradition. Yet, does there exist any historical evidence for this pivotal event beyond the immense cache of communal memory preserved in this literary evidence? This paper argues that there indeed exists a bevy of evidence for the historicity of the hijrah outside the literary source material—even if one limits the survey of the available data to artifacts dating to the 1st century AH/7th century CE. Moreover, establishing the historicity of this event has potentially monumental consequences for the current debate over the feasibility of applying diachronic approaches to reading the Qur’an and for defending this approach from its critics, who dismiss it as overly reliant on assumptions internalized from the sirah-maghazi literature of the 2nd–3rd/8th–9th century.

Whereas Michael Sells has explored the multidimensionality of meaning across what he identifies as the semantic, acoustic, emotive and gendered modes and has aptly pointed out the use of the feminine grammar in creating impressive feminine ‘sound-scapes’ or barely hidden personifications (or ‘sound figures’, as he calls them), in hymnic surahs of the Qur’an (e.g. Surat al-Qadr [Q97] and Surat al-Qariah [Q101]), I am not aware of any studies of the alternate use of the feminine and masculine grammar in the same verse or couplet and how it may relate to a deeper gender discourse in the immediate passages and in the overall literary intent of the relevant surah (e.g. Q al-Najm 53:38–39, alla taziru waziratun wizra ukhra / wa an laysa li-l-insani illa ma sa‘a). In this paper I propose to study the two terms–nafs and insan–most commonly used in the Qur’an to refer to the human subject. Both terms are semantically gender inclusive whereas the former is grammatically feminine and the latter grammatically masculine. Beginning with some general observations on the interchangeable use of the two terms in the Qur’an leading to grammatical gender fluidity, the paper shall proceed to a more focused study of Surat al-Najm, where there is an explicit and implicit discussion of gender across its semantic, acoustic and emotive modes. The surah’s breathtaking rhythm with its short verses and feminine endings (except for verses 26–32, which seem to be a later insertion), its concern with denial of female goddesses, its use of the feminine and masculine grammar to refer to the human subject and the primacy of the ethical across human differences makes it an excellent candidate for such a study. The paper will also endeavor to determine the degree to which there might be a tension or agreement between the various modes through which the discourse on gender is developed in this surah. Finally, the paper will reflect on how the gender fluidity of qur’anic grammar might open a way for queer Muslims to transcend hetero-normative and patriarchal readings of the Qur’an.

Estimates suggest that of all the books in the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Songs was commented upon more than any other book in the Middle Ages, with the possible exceptions of Genesis and the Psalms. The Song’s interpretative history is a vast and complex field and medieval commentaries and interpretations are very diverse. One central point of agreement, however, is that the literal content of the Song is not something to which a great deal of attention should be paid. From Origen in the 3rd century until John of the Cross in the 16th, the consensus of the vast majority of commentators was that in itself, the song does not refer simply to a human relationship, and if we were to read it in that way, it would, in the words of Denys the Carthusian, “be of no worth, sensual and prurient, and not spiritual, mystical, most excellent and heavenly. It would then not be a prophetic text, but a sort of love song.” Until the 12th century, readings of the Song in the Latin West had centred on allegorical interpretations in which the bride represents the Church. Inspired by Origen, the 12th-century Cistercian monks William of Saint-Thierry and Bernard of Clairvaux and the Augustinian canon regular Richard of Saint-Victor popularized the ‘personal’ or ‘moral’ reading of the Song, in which the bride represents the individual soul, and they thus radically reshaped the Song’s reception and profoundly impacted the Christian mystical tradition. This paper will explore whether and to what extent the pervasive moral mystical reading of the Song – in all its diversity – functions as a norm for understanding the Song theologically, despite the fact that contemporary exegetical scholarship has decisively moved away from this reading. The contemporary exegete Jean-Pierre Sonnet (2005) has suggested that allegorical readings of the Song were not only traditional (i.e. dating back to a tradition of Jewish interpretation predating the Song’s definitive inclusion in the canon), but that this book was so popular among medieval commentators because the language of human love and the language of divine love have so much in common. The historical theologian Denys Turner (1995), on the other hand, has suggested that in the Middle Ages, the Song represented the perfect combination of monastic interests – namely Neo-Platonic, Dionysian erotic ontology on the one hand and almost constant scripture reading on the other. Taking its lead from these and other studies, this paper will explore (i) a number of specific medieval mystical readings of the Song, (ii) the extent to which this mystical theology rejects or presupposes the literal, erotic content of the poem, and (iii) whether retrieving medieval approaches to the Song might influence its role in theology today. What might we learn from the way in which the most ‘profane’ of biblical books might impact contemporary understandings of erotic relationships with O/others, both human and divine.

Sacred space and profane space are not mutually exclusive. Cognitive science has proven clear, distinct boundaries are not realized between existential categories. The reality of life space is the sacred and profane may exist in the same space with one taking precedence over the other. A space may become sacred to accommodate a sacred action limited to a particular temporal moment even with the profane present. In this way, sacred space becomes utility based for life focused outcomes. This paper explores the reality of the sacred and the profane occupying the same space. Primary examples are taken from 2 Kings 4:32-35 and 1 Kings 17:19-23 in which death (profane) is at the spatial forefront confronting prophetic power (sacred); and 2 Kings 5:9-14 in the story of Naaman confronted with the dirty Jordan river (profane) and divine healing (sacred). In the one case, the profane space is permanently transformed by sacredness. In the other space, the sacred act is momentary and the profanity of the space remains constant.

The New Testament attests seven instances of μνεία, typically glossed as “remembrance, memory, mention,” all within the Pauline corpus, six of which occur in the epistolary thanksgiving periods. Four of these attestations occur in the periphrastic phrase μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι, which lexica such as BDAG, LSJ9, and GE gloss as “mention, make mention.” Despite such concordance across weighty lexica, English NT translations tend to oscillate, seemingly arbitrarily, between glossing μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι as “mention” and “remember,” and commentators argue over how best to determine the precise sense of μνεία in this collocation. There is tension, moreover, between “mention” as commonly used in contemporary English and the cotext of the Pauline thanksgivings, a disjuncture that appears to have gone unnoticed in lexica and scholarly literature. “Mention” connotes “a reference, comment or remark that is generally brief in nature and incidental to the main point” (OED3, s.v. “mention,” n.), whereas the Pauline prayer reports suggest a depth of intentional prayer incongruent with a mere cursory reference. This disjuncture appears to stem from the lexicological trajectory of “mention” in English. “Mention” has been used as a gloss for μνεία since the sixteenth century, but the sense of a brief and incidental remark associated with “mention” today did not originally exist; rather, “mention” denoted “the action of calling to mind or commemorating something in speech or writing” (OED3, s.v.). It appears that such semantic shift has escaped the attention of translators, commentators and lexicographers alike, most likely due to the neatness of the calque “make mention,” the semantic overlap between “mention in prayer” and “remember in prayer,” and the limited contextual evidence within the NT. Moulton and Milligan’s Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament provides a number of attestations intended to illustrate μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι in the sense of “make mention,” but a fresh examination of papyrological and epigraphical material confirms that the semantic range of μνεία does not include “mention” in the contemporary English sense and that such a gloss is based on archaic usage of the English word that is no longer legitimate. In the papyri, μνεία occurs both formulaically in epistolary proemia, as in the NT, and also in independent usage. These attestations connote three separate nuances of remembering: remembering as a purely internal recollection, remembering as a communicative event intended to draw ongoing attention to the object of the memory, and remembering accompanied by a responsive action, the nature of which is determined from context. These nuances are not adequately captured by the glosses “remembrance, memory” and dictate the need for substantial revision of existing entries in BDAG, LSJ9, and GE. Data from the documentary papyri also facilitates the drawing of an additional conclusion that deserves mention in lexica, namely that μνεία was a high register lexeme whether used formulaically or independently, a conclusion significant for informing assessment of lexical choice within the Pauline epistolary proemia.

Isaiah 44:28 argues that Cyrus is God’s shepherd. At His command, Cyrus has ordered the re-building of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of the Temple. This verse is located at the culmination of a series of literary units (beginning in 43:16) which praise Cyrus’ actions while implicitly undermining the Neo-Babylonian royal ideology Cyrus himself promulgated. The culminating verses of these units (44:26-28) exhibit a very positive view of Cyrus' plan to allow return to Yehud and rebuilding of the Temple. But 43:16-44:27 subvert elements of the Neo-Babylonian royal ideology Cyrus adopted, by appropriating its motifs. Instead of using them, as Cyrus did, to argue that Marduk chose Cyrus, these verses use these motifs to argue that God chose Israel. 44:1-2, which argue that God formed Israel “in the womb,” have long been recognized as an example of such subversion (Paul 1968), but there are many other examples of this technique in 43:16-44:28. These include the claim in 43:19-20 that God creates a path and water in the desert, which recall claims in Nabonidus’ inscriptions (Beaulieu 1989: 173), the claim in 44:3-4 that God revives Israel (reflecting Cyrus’ claim in his cylinder that he revived Babylon), and the argument in 44:5 (repeated in 44:21) that Israel is God’s dedicated servant. Embedded within these adaptations of Neo-Babylonian royal ideology is a clear polemic against Marduk theology and Babylonian iconography in 44:6-20. This polemic begins in 44:6-8, which use the Babylonian belief that Marduk was not present at creation to undermine Babylonian claims that Marduk is the chief god. Only YHWH, the Creator who acknowledges no rivals, can persuasively claim to be the author of future events. In 44:9-11, idolators are called upon to bear witness in favour of Marduk’s claims of chiefness, but they are unable to do so because they cannot affirm a role for Marduk at creation. The polemic continues with an attack on the idol-making and -animating ritual in 44:12-20. In 44:21-28, the two strands of argument articulated since 43:16 reach their joint culmination. 44:21 refers to the polemic against idols in 44:6-20 and also refers to the image found in 44:5 of Israel as God’s servant, an image appropriating elements of Cyrus’ royal ideology. 44:24 goes beyond this; it affirms God’s creation of Israel from the womb, thus recalling the subversion of Cyrus’ ideology advanced in 44:1-2, while also affirming God’s role as sole Creator, thus recalling the polemic in 44:6-8. Finally, 44:27 refers to the cosmic combat motif, thus closing the circle begun in 43:26. The Babylonian cosmic combat story tells how Marduk became supreme, but 44:27 uses this motif to affirm the supremacy of YHWH. Taken as a whole, 43:26-44:28 carefully balance an appropriation of Neo-Babylonian royal ideology with an attack on Babylonian mythology. Both of these arguments reach their joint culmination in 44:28, arguing that Cyrus, who appropriated Neo-Babylonian royal ideology to support his own royal claims, is actually the servant of YHWH.

This paper will speak from the experience of grammar in the world of the Hebrew Bible to grammarians and interpreters of the Greek New Testament. It draws primarily on the experience of the struggle to understand the Hebrew verb and formulate helpful categories of grammar that advance our understanding of the Hebrew Bible. These will be used as the basis for both caveats and encouragements for grammarians of Greek, especially with regard to the nature and explanatory power of grammar.

Luke 24:44-46 raises a number of questions for modern interpreters. First, the curious phrase, “while I was still with you” (v. 44), gives the awkward impression that Jesus, who has just eaten fish in the presence of the disciples (v. 43), may not actually be present with them. Next, Jesus’s statement that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” is intriguingly precise and vague at the same time. It names three distinct sections of the Hebrew Bible but offers no specific examples. Moreover, because Jesus introduces his next statement with the standard citation formula, “it is written,” the reader expects an explicit quotation. But the words that follow (“that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead”) do not resemble any known OT text or combination of texts. This paper will argue that most, if not all, of these tensions can be resolved if we posit the influence of 4 Macc 18:9-19 on Luke 24:44-46. The awkward phrasing in Luke 24:44 need not imply a docetic view of the risen Jesus. Rather it is probably the result of an intentional echo of the wording of 4 Macc 18:10. In the latter the mother of the famous Maccabean martyrs encourages her seven sons by reminding them of the teaching of their late father: “While he was still with you (ἔτι ὢν σὺν ὑμῖν), he taught you the Law and the Prophets (τὸν νόμον καὶ τοὺς προφήτας).” Similarly, the risen Jesus reassures the disciples by saying, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you (ἔτι ὢν σὺν ὑμῖν), that everything written about me in the Law and the Prophets (τῷ νόμῳ Μωϋσέως καὶ τοῖς προφήταις) and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). To illustrate the father’s teaching from the Law and the Prophets, the mother of the seven martyrs presents a carefully arranged chiastic sequence of OT quotations and allusions. The theme of the first half of the chiasm is the suffering of the righteous, and that of the second half is God’s ability to make the dead live. The two parts of the mother’s list correspond to the sequence of two themes in Luke 24:46, namely, that the Christ should first suffer and then rise from the dead. Notably, even though the mother introduces the father’s teaching as coming from the Law and the Prophets, the center of the chiasm includes a programmatic quotation from the Psalms. It may thus serve as a precedent for the otherwise unparalleled reference to the Psalms in Luke 24:44. Overall, the intertextual connections with 4 Macc 18 suggest that Luke 24:44-46 is not a claim about the fulfillment of texts that refer specifically to the Messiah, but a claim that Christ’s suffering and resurrection are the climactic fulfillment of two themes that can be found in each of the three major divisions of the OT.

Acts 17:16-34, Paul's speech in front of the Areopagus in Athens, is often characterized as his attempt to engage with Hellenistic philosophy. Yet, rather than discussing philosophical dogma or virtues in the abstract, Paul focuses on his experience of the city of Athens and the role of materiality. At the opening of this passage, Paul makes it clear that his opinion of Athenians was informed not by dialogue with philosophers but by walking through the city and observing the ubiquity of pagan shrines and idols. In response to what he saw in Athens, Paul argued that the true God cannot be expressed by or worshipped through materiality. The end of the passage states that some in the audience were swayed and joined him, and modern scholars have pointed to conversions such as these to assert that pagan religious experience was easily cast aside by some. In this paper, I first contextualize Paul's speech by considering the types of religious performances he would have seen while walking through the public spaces in Athens. More importantly, I look at the Pauline epistles to show that early followers of Paul from pagan communities struggled to adopt his program both practically and conceptually while still inhabiting sacred landscapes similar to that of Athens. Greek cities in the first century were filled with temples and shrines that acknowledged the presence of gods within the community and provided a venue for interaction with them. Anyone walking through the city, like Paul, passed and interacted with multiple shrines regularly, usually through the performance of religious rituals such as pouring libations, making offerings, and engaging in theoria with the idol. From the Areopagus, therefore, Paul's greatest challenge in changing the pagan worship practices was actually the physical space of Athens. For Paul's audience, the influence of sacred materiality was not something able to be dismissed quickly. The newly converted followers of Paul may have shifted their religious worldview but they still had to inhabit the geographical space of the Athenian sacred landscape, which encouraged and reinforced the pagan worldview. This paper relies on two theoretical premises. The first is that monuments, such as temples, act as external symbolic storage by conveying and reinforcing cultural narratives to the viewer (Renfrew, 1998). The second is Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social behavior which states that ingrained actions not only reflect but reinforce cultural values and norms. Thus, interacting with pagan shrines through the performance of religious activities strengthened the very pagan mindset that Paul sought to eliminate. Acknowledging the importance of space in shaping religious experience is crucial for our understanding of early Christian communities. In cities like Athens, Paul needed to combat the pagan mindset not only intellectually but also spatially. Evidence from his writings shows that this effort continued well after an individual's initial decision to become a follower of Paul.

The Book of Lamentations is a response to the destruction of the Temple, the punishment of exile, and the painful sense of loneliness and failure. It reflects the feeling that the relationship with God may have come to an end. The nation is depicted in the megilla as a woman, and by portraying her as a widow / nidda / lonely / betrayed / sexually humiliated / abandoned, represents the state of the nation. The image of Jerusalem as a sinful, abandoned woman is precise and powerful. The image is not one of death, which would have provided the painful solace of suffering that is finite, but rather of a woman who was raped and defiled and left to live, forlorn and companionless. A woman like this is a living witness to ongoing pain and anguish without relief. The Song of Songs masterfully paints a picture of the relationship between man and woman, between lover and beloved, between two lovers experiencing the complexities of the love bond, and at its center is the experience of passion and the challenge of consummating it. The megilla gives voice to a woman who loves and is loved and offers a glimpse into the woman's attitude to love, passion, yearning, and desire. It sketches a world that moves from alienation and estrangement to intimacy and harmony. Already in antiquity this megilla was understood allegorically and interpreted as a metaphor for the relationship between God and His people; it reflects the vicissitudes that this relationship has undergone, is still undergoing, and will yet undergo. Concerning both megillot, opinions differ as to whether the megillah in question is an integral work with structural order and conceptual development, or whether these are independent works arranged as an anthology one after the other. In my lecture I will follow the scholars who for different reasons suggested that the work should be seen as an integral unit with an inner logic (even if they were not written entirely by one author). I propose that the megillot be read side by side. I will show various motifs that link them, and most important - I will propose ideological-theological significance to the reading of Lamentations and the Song of Songs, two works that contend with the challenge of existence in the face of the presence and actions of God. Special emphasis will be placed on the fact that in both megillot, the collective is represented by the image of a woman. I will analyze the implications of this representation and of the relationship to God as an intimate partner.

Roman Jakobson, patriarch of literary linguistics, stylistics, and structural poetics, conceptualized parallelism in ways more technical and arguably more sophisticated than how biblical scholars have applied the term to Biblical Hebrew poetry (BHP) since Robert Lowth. Parallelism according to Jakobson is more than the patterned stacking of words and grammatical-syntactic constructions from verseline to verseline. It is also more than the gradual or intensification of semantic domains from verseline to verseline. As such, this paper sets out to demonstrate that Jakobson, in understanding that parallelism operates hierarchically at all linguistic levels (e.g., phonemes, lexemes, and syntagemes), and that parallelism is an integral part of the of the poetic text’s overall artistic architecture, posited that linguistic parallelism ultimately functions to create structural cohesion through subtly variegated linguistic repetitions (e.g., reiteration and collocation), that in turn create a discourse grounding against which foregrounding occur. In short, and for Jakobson, linguistic parallelism has a dual rhetorical discourse function of structural cohesion and foregrounding.

This paper examines the pragmatics of the “city lament” genre by considering the various epistemological and sociological claims embedded in its literary expression (Dobbs-Allsopp 1993). Building upon the notion that the qinah is a discourse which expresses the failure of categories (Vayntrub 2015; 2019), this paper explores how such failure is mapped onto the female body in Lamentations. I will examine how Jerusalem, personified as Daughter Zion, serves as both the site and embodiment of categorical failure. In this analysis, I consider how the motifs of maternal cannibalism and barrenness relate to one another, and together rhetorically and conceptually undo the category of motherhood and maternal exemplarity. These motifs do so through an inversion of procreative imagery. Through these rhetorical examples, the paper more broadly seeks to reframe an understanding of the city lament to encompass the conceptualization and contestation of wholeness as it interrelates gender and embodiment in the ancient world.

My paper aims to offer a fresh understanding of kǝḇôḏ YHWH in the Pentateuch’s Priestly Document (P), considering P’s coherent presentations of the deity and his appearance (both in its narrative and law). Kǝḇôḏ YHWH has been predominantly translated as and thus understood through abstract nouns, like “the Glory of the LORD” or “the Presence of the LORD,” but these translations do not adequately capture the sense of this phrase. According to my hypothesis, the expression may have evoked a more concrete image to the reader. There are some better interpretations. Moshe Weinfeld, Julian Morgenstern, David H. Aaron, and Benjamin D. Sommer suggest that it refers to the divine body, while Moshe Greenberg, Tryggve N. D. Mettinger and Shawn Zelig Aster ascribe it to the person or the self of the deity. Yet I think both views still do not fully grasp P’s technical use of the phrase. It is my thesis that kǝḇōḏ YHWH is a royal robe of the deity, agreeing with Michael B. Hundley who suggests a bright, radiant cloak. There are fifteen attestations of kǝḇōḏ YHWH in P: Exod 16:7, 10; 24:16-17; 28:2, 40; 29:43; 40:34-35; Lev 9:6, 23; Num 14:10; 16:19; 17:7; and 20:6. Admittedly, it is not simple to draw out a definitive concept of kǝḇōḏ YHWH from these instances. Nonetheless, some biblical and extra-biblical clues are available. First, the word kāḇōḏ is used for the priestly garments in Exod 28:2 and 40, even though the word is a modifier for the garments rather than their designation. Also, the Mesopotamian word melammu—often described as the fiery, awe-inspiring garment—is comparable to kǝḇōḏ YHWH in P. Comparing kǝḇōḏ YHWH with melammu has an additional benefit: it gives a royal flavor to the understanding of kāḇōḏ. Yet I part from Hundley who sees this divine garment as an enigmatic, camouflaging device of the divine essence that indicates divine presence; instead I see its purpose to be presenting the official public aspect of the divine quality, a purpose which makes perfect sense within the entire Priestly history that depicts the deity as king. Understanding it in this sense, I will demonstrate that kǝḇōḏ YHWH as the royal garment also accords well with both the remainder of the above instances and consistently with the Priestly deity throughout P. I expect my paper to contribute to the novel understanding of the Priestly God. P’s depiction of the deity including kǝḇôḏ YHWH has often been considered anti-anthropomorphic and transcendent by concealing the essence of the deity. But if understood as a garment as such, it cannot but imply anthropomorphism. Kǝḇôḏ YHWH does not conceal divinity, but rather reveals divine/royal quality and stresses the hierarchic superiority of the deity, so fully anthropomorphic, in the public sphere.

Scholars have long noted the pronounced use of Christological typology in the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel employs numerous typological images for Jesus without apparent concern for negotiating how these typologies overlap and interact. For example, Jesus is cast as the Davidic horn of salvation in the Song of Zechariah, as the heir of the mantle of Elijah and Elisha in Luke 4, and as Moses anew in the transfiguration narrative. How does the Gospel of Luke navigate these typological intersections so that Jesus can be the fulfillment of all these different traditions from the Hebrew Bible? The key is found in the voice from the cloud during the transfiguration. This short speech in Luke 9:35 has a number of curious features. First, it appears to be a composite stitched together from passages in the Hebrew Bible. It most likely sandwiches together an allusion to Psalm 2, Isaiah 42, and Deuteronomy 18. This could be understood as an attempt to rescripturalize accepted texts into a new divine utterance that fuses together the Davidic, Prophetic, and Mosaic traditions. Second, the speech despite its shortness has features in common with prosopopoeia as understood in the rhetorical handbooks. The sequence of citations follows Theon’s recommendations for the chronological arrangement of prosopopoeia, and the choice of material reflects the demands for sensitivity in the creation of speeches. Understood in this way, the speech on the mount of transfiguration uses divine proclamation to cement together the numerous Christological typologies of the Gospel. Thus, it paves the way for the audience to understand how Jesus is the fulfillment of all that is written in “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (Lk 24:44).

In this paper I will look at a number of texts that develop an interpretive tradition growing out of early reading of the Book of Isaiah in which innocent suffering is transformed. I will try to demonstrate that this tradition grows out of a process of interpretation and translation that is embedded in practice: the practices of reading, explaining and translating texts, but also bringing the texts into practice, into lived practice that in itself constitutes an act of interpretation. I will argue that the notion of labour, or toil, brings the dimensions of interpretation and practice together and constitutes a driving force behind the growth of a rich tradition. At this level we are perhaps not speaking of an interpretive tradition but of the emergence of a concept that is embedded in practice: the concept of labour. We cannot relate this directly to the any single passage in Isaiah, but neither can we separate it from interpretive traditions that build on earlier texts, including Isaiah.

The lexeme lāšôn has a wide range of semantics that developed throughout the history of ancient Hebrew. The word underwent semantic expansion based on its physical and spatial properties and on its function as an articulator. The basic meaning of lāšôn is “tongue.” It may also refer to “language,” “nation,” or “speech.” While the semantic history of lāšôn has received a certain degree of treatment, particularly with respect to metaphorical usage, visual semantics embedded in this lexeme are as yet unexplored by any cognitive investigation. That is, how the ancient Hebrews might have visually conceptualized and cognitively processed the term lāšôn when uttering and hearing it. This paper will pay particular attention to the “speech” dimension as a productive site for understanding the visual-semantic property of lāšôn in poetic contexts where the term is used as a synecdoche, typically collocated with abstract nouns (e.g., šeqer, tahpukôt, mirmāh, ḥokmâ), to indicate speech imbued with qualities. By way of appealing to insights from the iconographic representations of the Akkadian cognate lišānu “tongue” or “blade,” I will explore the way in which the ancients conceptualized lāšôn as speech particularly in association with the sword imagery and its inherent characteristics. In this paper, I will argue that lāšôn was imagined as a sharp-edged weapon that leads both the speaker and the hearer to “deadly” and thus decisive consequences. I will also maintain that the speech language is semantically tied to the concept of performance, verbal action that actually enacts or produces what is uttered with intention, and that the ancients perceived speech as a kind of speech act. I will then examine how lāšôn “speech” conveys the concept of performance in passages from Proverbs. This paper hopefully offers some insights on theorizing visual cognition in semantic processing through the use of iconography.

In this paper I will examine the use of the term Nazarene/s (נוצרים/נוצרי) in rabbinic sources. I will outline the sources which use this term, the context in which it is used, and survey the scholarly discussions concerning this term and the group it is meant to represent. These rabbinic sources provide an angle through which to ponder the question of Jewish Christian relations in the first centuries CE, as seen from the eyes of the composers of the rabbinic sources.

Holy Craps: Lot Casting as a Priestly Rite in Acts 1 In the opening chapters of both Luke and Acts the reader encounters an episode involving the casting of lots (cf. Luke 1:8–9; Acts 1:26). In the Gospel of Luke it is clear that this is a custom associated with the priesthood (cf. Luke 1:9), a tradition attested by the Chronicler (e.g., 1 Chr 24:5, 7, 31; 25:8, etc.). Though it may appear that the imagery in Acts 1 is unrelated to priestly traditions, this paper will argue that priestly lot-casting traditions provide the most plausible backdrop for the imagery in Acts 1. First, we will show that the disciples in Luke-Acts elsewhere appear to be associated with priestly imagery (Strelan [2008], Fletcher-Louis [2007]). Among other things, they are identified as the future “judges” of Israel (cf. Luke 22:30), a role most prominently associated with the priests (cf., e.g., Deut 17:9; 2 Chr 19:8-11), particularly in the eschatological age (cf., e.g., Ezek 44:23; 4Q161 VIII–X, 24–25). In addition, like the Levites, the apostles’ commitment to Christ is linked to the renunciation of kin (cf. Exod 32:29; LXX Deut 33:9; Luke 18:29), a commitment in context also linked to a unique “inheritance” (cf. Luke 18:18), terminology also especially associated with the Levitical priesthood (cf. Num 18:20, 23; Deut 10:9; 18:1–2; Neh 13:10). All of this would seem to reinforce the idea that the “office” Judas has turned aside from in Acts 1 is best understood in priestly terms (cf. also Acts 1:20 and Num 4:16). Second, we shall argue that such imagery makes sense since Jewish hopes for the restoration of Israel—something Luke links to Christ—frequently involved not only the expectation of an eschatological temple, but also an eschatological priesthood (e.g., Isa 66:21; Mal 3:3; Ezek 40:45–46; 1Q28b 3:22–23; CD 4:1–6). Third, the broader structural pattern of the narrative of Luke-Acts as a whole reinforces the perception that the casting of lots in Acts 1 is related Zechariah’s lot-casting in Luke 1. As numerous studies have demonstrated (e.g., C. Talbert [1982], R. Tannehill [1991], C. Rothschild [2004]), the events in the Gospel of Luke are clearly paralleled in the life of the community in Acts; e.g., the Spirit descends upon Jesus in visible form at his baptism (Luke 3:22), just as the Spirit descends upon the apostles in visible form at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4); etc. This paper therefore suggests that the apostles’ lot-casting in Acts 1 follows this pattern and intentionally mirrors Luke 1. This reinforces the imagery found elsewhere in the narrative that suggests that the disciples play a priestly role in the Christ-believing community.

The first major theological section of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians begins with a citation from the Greek translation of his scriptures (Isa 29:14) modified under the influence of a Greek Psalms text (32:10). While scholars have seen this connection, none have documented just how far Paul is influenced by the Greek translations of these two texts in what follows, the entire section of 1 Cor 1:10–4:21, as well as how this “divine speech” in the first person from God influences the course of the argument. This paper seeks to analyze the functions of such divine speech, termed theopoiēsis, akin to the Greek rhetorical technique of prosopopoeia, and to investigate the allusions and echoes to both Psalm 32 LXX and Isa 29:14–15 LXX that aid this characterization of God through scripture. The paper proposes that words in these key Greek texts are interspersed throughout the discourse, lending Paul’s argument some of its major themes. Ultimately, the scriptural language (brought into the discourse from these Greek versions of Paul’s scriptures) comes to an important climax in 1 Cor 4:5, where Paul draws heavily from Isa 29:15 (an allusion not detected by interpreters thus far) to make a point about his apocalyptic theological epistemology: that the Lord will reveal secret plans “when the Lord comes” (readers are left wondering whether this “Lord” is God or Christ). With this allusion to Isa 29:15, Paul brings his argument to a climax, which began with theopoiēsis in 1 Cor 1:19 (citing Isa 29:14). Moreover, the puzzling statement, “Not beyond what is written” (1 Cor 4:6), makes much more sense when one recognizes that Paul has now brought to a close an argument based on God’s speech in Isaiah 29:14–15. Finally, these texts emphasize the universal context within which Paul reads his scriptures: a cosmic narrative in which humanity and God play the central roles, and in which God is the principal revealer of Godself to humanity, an epistemological point that overturns the faulty theological epistemology of the proud and boasting Corinthians. From the first instance of theopoiēsis in 1 Cor 1:19 to the last allusion to this divine speech in 1 Cor 4:6, God is characterized as powerful, wise, and other (all attributes which come via the Greek scriptures), as well as speaking and revealing Godself in Christ (aspects of God’s character which are brought to the interpretation of God by Paul).

This paper, in part, re-examines this complicated textual tradition of Joshua 5.2-9. However, while there are many ways one might compare the various textual witnesses and begin reconstructing the complex history of Joshua 5, my goal here is not to engage in this kind of debate, and certainly not to delineate the original or even earliest text. Instead, my analysis examines the various witnesses on their own terms, helping the reader to more clearly see the varied importance ascribed to the act of circumcision in Joshua 5. By encountering each text on its own terms, the reader will begin to see multiple levels of cultic, social and theological meaning attached to this particular instance of Israelite circumcision. After some comments on Joshua 5.2-9’s literary positioning and its basic narrative development—shared by the Hebrew and Greek text traditions—I briefly sketch circumcision’s place in both the biblical tradition and wider ancient Near Eastern world. Upon synthesizing the major interpretive moves of Joshua 5.2-9 in the MT, OG, and Qumran versions, I move to explicate the ways that circumcision functions in this narrative—principally how this ritual removes the enigmatic חרפת מצרים (5.9).

Judith Perkins, in her now classic on the suffering self, helpfully reoriented our understanding of how Christians used the suffering body to articulate the parameters of a unified Christian narrative. Here I draw on Perkin’s work to begin to push our understanding of the suffering self to a suffering gendered self in the fantastical bios written and dreamed of by men. To narrow my focus, I will examine Gerontius’s labor of love, the Life of Melania the Younger. The author makes it clear that this is an intentional exercise in memory making as well as a performance of personal piety. He uses elements of the Greek novel to coax his readers into his vita. The author then insists that it is only when the reader properly interprets the young girl’s early experiences of marital torment that the moral of the story is revealed. I conclude that the young saint’s experience of marital rape is filtered through the imaginative fantasies of late ancient male writer intent on constructing a recognizable (bad) Christian romance.

The idea of a divided soul is familiar to us from Platonic philosophy, where only the triumph of the rational part of the soul over the appetitive and spirited parts will allow for the subject formation of the philosopher. In Stoicism, which depicted the soul as unitary rather than tripartite, a division emerges nonetheless in the form of first and second-order selves in dialogue, and here too, there must be a struggle before the two the philosophical subject can transit from a “person on the pathway to being Stoic” (proficiens) to the ideal Stoic wise man (sapiens). Whereas for Plato, the divided soul proved useful in the formulation of many of the main ideas of the Republic (such as the shape of justice and the hierarchy of the ideal city), Roman Stoicism is entirely about getting the human soul to its ideal state, a state in which the wise man will not be adversely affected by anything that is not under his control. This is the telos of Roman Stoicism (even as its practitioners humbly admit failure) and the most perfectly rational way to live. How then to form such a subject? In Seneca’s writing, this subject is the outcome of the successful struggle of the second-order self to master the first-order self—indeed, to master and become one with it, so that the soul finally is unitary. Unlike Platonic dialectic, in which two people search for the truth together via the exercise of logical argument, the Stoic process is represented as taking place largely via internal dialogue. The dialogue takes place between the prescriptive self (second-order) and the faulty (first-order) self, and relies on the liberal use of military and judicial metaphors and analogies to motivate forward progress, as well as the use of exercises such as “Hermes’ wand” and the meditatio malorum, the former a practice of learning to see and evaluate differently, the latter a reflection on the myriad bad things that could happen to you, a sort of emotional prophylaxis should such an event actually occur. But the Stoic process for the formation of the correctly philosophical subject, through its isolation of that subject, its use of a second-order self, and its privileging of absolute self-control, opens itself up to a number of problems Plato never faced. Strikingly, these are represented, as if on the other side of the coin, in the dark protagonists of Senecan drama, who seem to have taken Stoic spiritual exercises and put them to unauthorized use, and who finally emerge triumphant and happy from their own acts of evil.

Psalm 8, the first praise psalm in the Psalter (tehillim, ‘praises’), is well known for its reflection on the place of humanity and its acknowledged echoes of Genesis 1. There has been much meditation upon and scholarly analysis of this much-loved Psalm, but while scholars have reflected on the function of praise, including its constitutive function, they have not often considered the details of Psalm 8’s anthropology upon its position and function in the Psalter, or indeed the light it sheds upon the genres of praise and lament. Indeed, as a uniquely ‘first person’ praise psalm, it may be that this psalm creates a context for the 3rd person praise psalms which follow. By means of a close examination of the biblical text, with attention to genre, poetics and rhetoric, I will argue that Psalm 8 represents a post-fall re-envisioning of the place of humanity within Yahweh’s world. The psalm’s single human verb ‘I see’ is the key to its anthropology, and to the restoration of the humanity to the privilege and responsibility of their appointed place in relation to Yahweh and earth. The praise of the psalm enables those who voice it to embrace their place within Yahweh’s order and to take up the ‘rule’ with which they are entrusted, and thus to bring about the restoration of Yahweh’s good order. It enables them to ‘see’ the world as Yahweh has conceived it (along with its antithetical notions of power that relativise human rule), and to align their vision with Yahweh’s, and puts a declaration in their mouths that makes these their own. Psalm 8 shows that a life lived within this order is the ultimate declaration of praise, and indeed constitutes a turning aside from ‘the way of the wicked’, upon which turning Psalm 1 (and so the Psalter as a whole) has declared blessing. Within the book of tehillim, Psalm 8 reveals that the lament over the loss of Yahweh’s order in Psalms 3 to 7 is fundamentally an expression of covenant hope for restoration. The praise of Psalm 8 appears as the antonym to this series of laments. It is the voice of the one who lives with the dissonances of the fallen world, but whose eyes Yahweh has opened.

Whether explicit or implicit, many of the predominant desired learning outcomes in undergraduate biblical studies courses relate to the idea of reading. Whether reading closely, or critically, or through particular hermeneutical lenses, faculty expect students in these classes to acquire, practice, and then apply certain reading skills to biblical texts. While these tasks are, arguably, best engaged in-class, through collaborative peer-to-peer and group conversation with the faculty serving as model or guide, the majority of student reading is generally done independently outside of class. Among the many challenges to our reading goals for students, then, is the isolated and unsupervised nature of the bulk of their reading experience. As one way to address those challenges, this paper offers an introduction to online learning tools, in particular Perusall.com, found to be effective in engaging students in guided and collaborative reading outside of class. Perusall is primarily a free, online e-reader platform in which faculty and students can collectively annotate texts. Annotation features allow faculty to define or explain unfamiliar vocabulary in the text, provide guiding questions linked to particular passages, or highlight connections or themes via tags in order to help students understand and critically consider their reading as they go. For students, these same features allow them to raise and respond to faculty and peer questions on particular passages, to create their own hashtags in order to make connections in and between texts, and to report on their own points of confusion (anonymously, if they prefer). This in turn improves in-class discussion by preparing students to engage with particular passages and one another’s ideas. While no tool is perfect, this type of collective annotation work has proven effective for enriching out-of-class reading experiences and reenforcing reading-based learning goals in undergraduate biblical studies courses.

Even though the Covenant of Levi is infrequently attested in biblical texts that date to the Persian Period, its significance for the era in question is considerable, in terms of social identity and group politics. There is an allusion to the Covenant of Levi in Jeremiah (Jer 33:21-22), and it is clearly referenced in Malachi. Malachi, however, situates the glowing Covenant of Levi (Mal 2:4-7) within an oracle that is highly critical of the temple priests in Jerusalem (Mal 1:6-2:14). In this the second oracle of Malachi, the priests’ failure to worthily serve God and God’s people is elaborated in stinging detail. Famously, the prophet excoriates the priests for blemished sacrifices offered at the temple (Mal 1:7-8, 14). This study focuses on Malachi’s juxtaposition of the pro-levitical covenant and the harsh denunciation of priests that serves as its context. First the study considers the commentary tradition, where the Covenant of Levi is typically contrasted not with the Malachi’s second oracle but with notions expressed elsewhere in the book of Malachi that the people’s covenantal relationship with God had ceased to exist in the manner it did before the exile. Employing a literary-critical approach, commentators sometimes argue for continuity between the Covenant of Levi and the oracle that frames it inasmuch as both derive from the Aaronide Blessing in Num 6:24-26. In this vein, Elie Assis has recently suggested coherence between the covenant and the oracle because the figure of Levi both reflects obedience to the teaching of Torah and serves as the sign of a covenant that God has made with priests. Taking a different approach informed by social-identity theory, this study asks whether the Covenant of Levi indicates a group of priests, either a cadre or a coalition, current in Jerusalem in the fifth or fourth centuries BCE. In this scenario, there is tension if not outright conflict between the priests celebrated in the Covenant of Levi and those subject to attack in Malachi’s second oracle. The juxtaposition of these two perspectives in Malachi 2 is a window on inter-group conflict within Yehud, and it further clarifies our understanding of the religiously based politics in this place and time. To develop this contrast, we introduce insights gained from reading 1 Chronicles, understood as a text imbued with characteristics of prophecy rather than a strictly historiographical work of the Persian period. 1 Chronicles 23-27 provides a designation of temple personnel, comprising both religious (chs. 23-26) and secular figures (ch. 27). In this account, distinctions in privilege between the priests and the Levites are subtle but clear. The differences between Levites and priests in this section of 1 Chronicles shed more light on the social fissures reflected in the Covenant of Levi as set in its literary context, the second oracle of Malachi. In concluding, this study considers the place of the Covenant of Levi in the larger sweep of covenant in the Persian Period.

Scholars have long recognized that, for many early Christian authors, Josephus’ corpus functioned as a kind of second canon. Josephus’ presentation of historical and/or biblical narrative provided inspiration and fodder for a host of early Christian authors pursuing sundry literary-rhetorical ends. In particular, Josephus’ treatment of certain heroic figures from the Hebrew Bible – figures like Moses, Joshua, and David (catalogued systematically by Louis Feldman) – set a standard for the cultivation of a particular brand of mos maiores from the Hebrew Bible. In time, Christian historians would take their turn at reconstructing past figures for present purposes, re-remembering Hebrew heroes in Christian contexts, often with Josephus (along with the biblical text) in hand. This paper presents what I argue is the most significant historiographical use of Hebrew heroes within early Christian literature. The passage under question comes in the last book of De Excidio Hierosolymitano, a Latin rewriting of Josephus’ Jewish War that was to become the standard Christian history of the Second Temple’s demise – indeed, a standard Christian version of Josephus’ text – for centuries subsequent. Drawing upon both biblical and Josephan tradition (and classical literary tropes), the author inserts a long epideictic speech at the beginning of Book 5 of De Excidio (5.2.1–2). This speech is addressed directly to Jerusalem and the Jews, and it goes on at length to describe, explain, and confirm Jerusalem’s destruction as divinely sanctioned following the Jewish rejection of Jesus. At the beginning of this speech comes one of the most interesting uses of biblical heroes anywhere in ancient literature. At the beginning of this speech, the author of De Excidio speaks directly to the ciuitas of Jerusalem and asks, “How have you been deceived?” (Quomodo decepta es?). The author then goes on to introduce five biblical figures – Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and Elisha – each in terms of a famous biblical episode (or two). The author then uses these biblical references to juxtapose the nobility and competency of these ancient Hebrew heroes with the Jews of the first-century C.E. (the fictive audience). Conceptually, this rhetoric creates a stark juxtaposition between ancient Israel and the “modern” Jews who witnessed Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 C.E. This paper explores this narrative-oratorical presentation of national decline in conversation with recent scholarship on Rezeption, what Hindy Najman has called “traditionary processes” and “Mosaic discourses,” and with reference to text-critical questions. While influenced by Josephus’ presentation of these figures, the author of De Excidio also interacts with the biblical traditions that lie behind the episodes and characters he cites. This paper thus introduces some particularly intriguing text-critical problems involving Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scriptures while also speaking to contemporary discussions about reception, adaptation, translation, and authority. It treats Josephus as a “second canon” for Christian authors, thus also providing an interesting comparandum for other scholarship on rewritten Bible or rewritten Scripture.

This paper argues that the newborn in Revelation 12:5 who “will shepherd (ποιμαίνω) all the nations with an iron rod” and who is “snatched (ἁρπάζω) to God” is meant to evoke the infant Dionysus. Adela Yarbro Collins has demonstrated that the Leto-Apollo-Python myth underlies Revelation 12, but the snatching up of the child breaks the otherwise convincing combat myth pattern, and thus it demands further explanation. Of the several raptured children we find in Greco-Roman mythology, the infant Dionysus shares numerous attributes with the baby of Revelation 12:5, in aspects both manifest and subtle. In Euripides’ Bacchae, which is the classic, but far from only, telling of the tale, Zeus saves his newborn son from death by snatching him up (ἁρπάζω) into his thigh and taking him to Olympus. As an adult, Dionysus returns to his mortal mother’s home as the god of wine to receive his divine due, and he wreaks havoc upon those who refuse to worship him there. Revelation also narrates an adult return, identifying the endangered infant of 12:5 with the warrior in 19:15 through their mutual quotation of “shepherd with an iron rod.” This warrior will “trample the wine press of the wrath of God Almighty” to annihilate those who fail to acknowledge him as Lord. Dionysus, like Jesus, was called shepherd (Merkelbach, Die Hirten des Dionysos, 1988). Multiple inscriptions dating to the late first century BCE and late first century CE in Ephesus, one of the most prominent of the seven cities of Revelation, register priests of Dionysos Phleus Poimantrios, “Dionysus the Shepherd.” The author of the Apocalypse would have ample opportunity to encounter the infant god, since iconography of the birth and childhood of Dionysus was ubiquitous in the ancient world, including Palestine and Asia Minor, and particularly in Ephesus, Pergamum, and Smyrna. In a study of the ancient iconographical evidence of divine children in the Greco-Roman world, Michaela Stark concludes that Dionysus can “rightly be labeled as the divine child par excellence.” There are more representations of him, over a longer time span, and throughout a wider geographic area, than of any other divine child. Even more, Dionysus is an anomaly among the Olympian gods in that his iconography alone portrays him both as a child and as an adult in the same work (Stark, Göttliche Kinder, 2012). In terms of broader themes in Revelation, Dionysus and Jesus also pair well. For example, Dionysus descended to the underworld and returned from it, linking the god of exuberant life inextricably to death. A bone inscription from the Dionysian mysteries expresses this simply as “life-death-life”; cf. Revelation 1:17-18, “I am … the living one, and I was dead, and see, I am living.” This is just a sampling of the literary, inscriptional, and iconographic evidence that the paper employs to demonstrate the likelihood that Revelation 12:5 and 19:15 draw on the myth of Dionysus.

A fascinating and widespread source of evidence for ancient awareness of the complexities and perils of identifying deities can be found in literary motifs reflecting a sudden meeting with a suspected manifestation of the divine. In such encounters found in sources ranging from classical literature to biblical texts, an element of uncertainty and anxiety regarding the identity of the divine being encountered is ubiquitous. H. S. Versnell has insightfully connected such motifs in Greco-Roman literature to pervasive habits of doubt and equivocation in attempting to correctly name and respond to the encountered divine. Yet in discussions of several comparable episodes in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Gen 16:7-14; 18:1-33; 32:23-33; Exod 3:1-15; Judg 13:1-23), explanation of the motif of uncertain divine identity has been underappreciated, misdirected toward the (non-existent) identity of a divine messenger, or explained by appeal to a dubious notion of a quasi-magical power in the possession of a divine name. While the notion of “power in possession of the name” has been more widely critiqued in scholarship on Greek religion, it still persists in discussions of the Hebrew Bible. This paper critiques such explanations of the role of questions about the names of divine beings in theophany episodes in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, it is demonstrated that this motif reflects awareness of anxiety and uncertainty surrounding divine identity, and that the primary impetus for characters in these episodes desiring confirmation of the identify of an encountered divine being is to facilitate proper cultic response to the event, i.e. to know what god to present offerings to and/or pray to. Additionally, it is demonstrated that in the Pentateuch such episodes support a narrative arc in which key characters grapple with the question of how to identify the god(s) of the ancestors of Israel, culminating in the revelation of the divine name to Moses in Exodus 3-6.

This paper explores arguments in support of the developing roles of the Jerusalem temple and its personnel in the economic and administrative organization of Achaemenid Judah. Also explored are how these roles relate to the Achaemenid Persian administration of the southern Levant within the wider empire.

Conditional structures are well represented within the Northwest Semitic corpus, and they vary in some interesting ways. This paper will present a taxonomy of conditional structures with respect to sentence structure and discourse incorporating grammatical features such as the use of a conditional particle to mark the protasis, the presence of the so-called “waw of apodosis”, word order in the clause, and the use of suffixed or prefixed verbal forms. This will be followed by a discussion of the possible semantic and pragmatic features that may condition these features, as well as any phenomena found in typical main clauses that may be blocked within conditional structures.

Based on a precursory study, some of the methodological perils of past New Testament lexica may be true for κατάκριμα: lazy reliance on predecessors, unhelpful dependence on Bible translations (and on Latin in general), improper use of etymology, and the employment of glosses or synonyms rather than definitions to indicate meaning. With regards to κατάκριμα, most lexica give the gloss “condemnation” seemingly portraying it as an action noun. However, both usage outside the NT and the history of -μα ending neuter nouns (predominantly result-of-action nouns by the time of the NT) mitigate against this understanding. The gloss “condemnation” might then be the result of Latin influence from the action noun condemnatio (to condemn, to bring about condemnation of one). This gloss has caused many biblical exegetes and lexicographers to then gloss the parallel δικαίωμα with the action noun “justification” in Romans 5:16 (Latin influence seems a culprit here as well). Κατάκριμα is rare in Greek literature (2x) and inscriptions (4x), and relatively rare in papyri (30x). It may occur once in the Septuagint (most likely a conflation of κατὰ κρίμα), and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae lists 354 occurrences from the 1st century B.C.E. until the 5th century C.E. (almost all in Christian writings). This study will (1) cover occurrences in Greek literature, papyri, inscriptions, and Christian literature until the time of Hesychius’ lexicon in the 5th/6th century C.E., (2) survey lexical entries throughout history, and (3) interact with any specialized secondary literature addressing κατάκριμα. The goals of this study are (1) to achieve a better understanding of the history of usage, (2) to outline the influences of Latin and earlier lexica upon lexical entries (ancient to modern), and (3) to assemble a more accurate and nuanced lexicographical entry for κατάκριμα than exists in current lexica.

Antiochus' policy in Judea has been aptly defined as carrying a meaningful significance "not only because of the religious and cultural influence of Judaism for which this persecution – and the following Maccabean revolt – proved to be a pivotal moment in history, but also because the episode presents our best-documented example of the tensions between Hellenism and the native traditions in the Near East." The view has even been suggested, that its effects were felt as late as the second century CE, inspiring that carried out by Emperor Hadrian. Both in Antiochus' and in Hadrian times, a military colony, settled by a gentile population, was installed in Jerusalem, a ban on circumcision was issued – whether before, during or after the Bar Kokhba war – and ordinances were enacted against Jewish ancestral practices. The causes which prompted these measures, too, carry some resemblance if they may be identified as a reaction to a problematic political situation. According to Gruen, after having being compelled by Rome to abandon his Egyptian adventure, the introduction of a garrison in Jerusalem and the intimidation of the populace would have announced Antiochus' resumption of control to the diverse peoples nominally under the Seleucid regime. As for Hadrian, the first months of his reign witnessed some kind of rebelliousness in several parts of the Empire, while the Jewish Diaspora uprisings which had started in Trajan's time had not yet been completely quelled. Hadrian's policy in Judea, therefore, would have been meant to prevent the possibility of further armed resistance. Finally, a certain similarity has been observed between the personalities of Antiochus and Hadrian and their enterprises: both of them promoted their own self worship and emphasized the importance of Greek cities and cults, among which a special role was bestowed on that of Olympian Zeus – measures that may have reflected an interest in the unification of the Empire through Hellenism (an evaluation still under discussion). However, that of Antiochus may not have been Hadrian's sole model. Aggressive policies against local cults are well attested in Roman history also. The practice of eradicating cults that functioned as a political or military center of resistance was conceivably longstanding. What happened on the island of Mona in Britain and the suppression of the Druids and the German prophetesses are only the most visible instances of a widespread phenomenon. As for the measures carried out by Hadrian in the wake of the Bar Kokhba war, namely, the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem and from the surrounding area, and the obliteration of the name of the province, Judaea, closely remind us of the policy implemented by leading Roman figures against rebellious peoples and cities. The cases of Carthage and Corinth are but two emblematic antecedents. It therefore appears that several earlier political patterns, both in Hellenistic and in Roman times, may have had an impact on Hadrian's dealings in Judea in the first half of the second century CE.

The hills surrounding the city of Jerusalem create a versatile landscape, scattered with archaeological features which attest to human involvement in the shaping of what we sometimes perceive as the “natural” surrounding. This paper will present the archaeological evidence for the human impact on the city’s rural areas and its importance to the city’s development and sustainability. Our research employs techniques from several fields of study which were integrated into the archeological research. These include different dating methods (14C radiocarbon dating and OSL) as well as micro-archaeology proxies for the identification of the cultivation of various crops (e.g., fossil pollen grains). The image emerging from the archaeological data shows versatile patterns of land-use throughout history. The use of different agricultural systems hints at different subsistence strategies, abilities, and/or outside influences. The implications of these changes through time will be discussed, as well as their potential for furthering our understanding of the city’s past.

One of the main results of the last thirty years in the research of the books of Isaiah and the Psalms is the fact that both are not just collections of individual texts but well organized entities, i.e. compositions. This is nothing unique to these two corpora but applies to each one of the books of the Old Testament. What is instead very special to these two books is the centrality of Zion, the inclusion of non-Israelites into the veneration of YHWH, the singing to God on the one hand and the reservation regarding the sacrificial cult on the other. In various publications of the last years I ventured the idea that temple singers deported to Babylon composed the core of Isaiah 40–55 as their »oratorio of hope«. After the return to Jerusalem this has been connected to the literary heritage of Isaiah ben Amoz and his disciples. In the proposed lecture I would test this hypothesis by analyzing further points of contacts between the subsequent chapters Isaiah 56–66 and the Book of Psalms, especially book IV and V. There seem the be good reasons to suppose that the returned temple singers developed into a guild of scribal experts that made consistent use of texts from the growing book of Isaiah, the Psalms and other parts of the literary heritage of Ancient Israel.

It is well known that early Christian authors often expressed their theological convictions in narrative rather than argumentative form – in the way they selected, framed, and presented their stories about Jesus and the early Christian movement. What is less well studied is how these views were received and transformed when later generations formed their own narratives about Jesus, disciples, and martyrs. This paper identifies discipleship ideals – characteristics of an ideal Christian disciple – in key passages from the apocryphal acts of the apostles John, Peter, and Andrew, and discusses whether these ideals are continuous or discontinuous with similarly expressed discipleship ideals of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Using data compiled from the Tiberias Stylistic Classifier for the Hebrew Bible (https://tiberias.dicta.org.il/#/), this paper assesses the frequency of wayyiqtol and yiqtol verbs respectively in the non-parallel portions of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Daniel. Although it is accepted within the discipline to think in terms of a divide between classical biblical Hebrew and late biblical Hebrew, the syntax of a language evolves over time, and thus it is worthy to examine how the syntax of late biblical Hebrew itself evolves within the books of the post-exilic period. One of the difficulties of tracing the development of late biblical Hebrew from any one of these books to another is their relative brevity; the data pool is small. Many of the telltale markers that distinguish classical biblical Hebrew from late biblical Hebrew do not appear with enough frequency in each book to be able to chart their development from book to book with statistical confidence. Wayyiqtol and yiqtol verbal forms, however, are the most ubiquitous expressions of verbal syntax and thus provide an ample data pool for study. The Tiberias Classifier utilizes the syntactic tagging of the ETCBC IV database, and thus computes data for two forms of wayyiqtol clauses and six forms of yiqtol clauses. Tiberias not only supplies the number of appearances of each form for each book, but also provides a measure of their frequency within each book, and rates their relative significance as telltale markers of that book in a hierarchical scale. Discussion of the data will focus on two issues: 1) the implications for the chronological development of the trend away from wayyiqtol verbs in late biblical literature and greater proliferation of yiqqtol verbs; 2) the implications for the question of shared authorship between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, and the question of shared authorship between Ezra and Nehemiah.

The paper argues that the explicit and implicit references to Ishmael in the covenant text Gen 17 and the birth story of Isaac Gen 21:1-5* do not belong to the earliest layer of the Priestly Abraham story. Rather, the figure of Ishmael was only introduced here through the hand of later (i.e., post-Priestly) editors, who sought to bring the Priestly text in line with the non-Priestly passages referring to Abraham’s firstborn son (i.e., Gen 16; 21:8-21). Since the analysis demonstrates that the Priestly Abraham story was not aware of (or did not care about) the figure of Ishmael in the first place, the paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for the literary history of the Abraham story as a whole.

The Revelation of John is a rich montage drawing upon imagery from the diverse cultures that the author was immersed in. In his vision, John of Patmos describes the experience of the early Christian community living in the midst of the Roman Empire. In the process, he draws upon the myths of the ancient Greeks, the scriptures of the Judaism, the Christian Gospel narratives, and the realities of life under Roman rule in the late first century CE. Revelation 12 incorporates all of these traditions into the narrative of the woman clothed with the sun, who gives birth to a son, a male child, who is snatched away and taken to the throne of God. This paper will focus specifically upon the child in the narrative. I will build upon Kathleen Gallagher Elkins’s study of feminist and childist interpretation, which uses Rev. 12 as a case study to apply both methods to the same text. I will delve further into the issues she defines as central to feminist and childist interpretation: visibility, agency, violence, and consequences. In the process, my paper will examine Hebrew Bible and Gospel antecedents to the child snatched away in Rev. 12. I will also examine two Greek myths, the birth of Apollo and the Hymn to Demeter and Persephone, and focus upon the ways and reasons that the child snatched away alludes to these Greek myths.

Beginning from the end of the fourteenth century and particularly throughout the fifteenth century, the Betä Ewosṭateans were distinguished for their vigorous contention in support of the observance of Sabbath. They argued for this as a Christian tradition that needs to be (re)affirmed in the Ethiopian Church according to the tradition of ‘Apostolic Fathers’ as particularly taught in the Senodos and Didəsqəlya. Despite, the considerable resistance encountered by this movement – and others like it – by the seventeenth century these views were included in the official theological writings of the church. This brief study seeks to describe the role played by this group in the historical and political milieu of Medieval Ethiopia to demonstrate the divisive and cohesive influence of their theology. Towards this end I will make use of primary historical sources as well as tracing theological developments by looking at the translation and indigenous development of biblical interpretation and dogmatic treatise in the period.

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Iphigenia, the mythic daughter of Agamemmnon best known from Euripides’ twin plays, Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris, figures significantly in the earliest Greek and Christian fiction. As Anna Lefteratou has shown, core Iphigenian tropes and plot elements (e.g., the near sacrifice of a virgin, an intervening letter, the recognition of an ostensible stranger, a miraculous escape) reappear in the novels of Chariton, Achilles Tatius, and Heliodorus, as well as the Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Apocryphal Acts of John. Each novelistic appropiation repurposes Iphigenian themes in new ways, such as to convey romantic love, negotiate new juxtapositions of barbarian vs. Greek/civilized identity, and/or to illustrate claims of religious triumphalism. This paper argues that the Gospel of Luke and the canonical Acts of the Apostles, so often segmented from discussions of imperial fiction, convey thorough, thoughtful, and strategic appropriations of Iphigenia myth. The core appropriation, a veritable retelling of Iphigenia among the Taurians, emerges in the Ephesian saga of Acts 19:21-20:1. Both share a plot of a major temple of Artemis and her “god-fallen” statue being threatened by foreigners. Both also share two main messengers representing the Artemis cult, detail choral chanting, turn on the delivery of a letter, enact near/mock sacrifice, and picture deus ex machina final redemption. Acts 17:1-9 contains a briefer account following similar Iphigenian plotlines, as does the story of the Emmaus road theophany in Luke 24:13-35. These clear appropriations also raise interesting possibilities for seeing Iphigenian themes elsewhere in the plot twists and character developments in Luke and Acts.

The spectre of philosophical materialism haunted European thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: in the Christian imagination materialism was widely associated with atheism, paganism, amoralism, and libertinism. More recently, this worldview has been celebrated in some historical scholarship as the intellectual cornerstone of the ‘radical Enlightenment’ and the birth of modern democratic rights and freedoms. Neither interpretation captures the complexity and nuances of those who aligned themselves with this metaphysical stance. By the late eighteenth century, one could easily find confirmation of the worst fears of Christian theologians in the more sensationalist and lascivious underground literature of the age. From Thomas Hobbes onwards, however, professed materialists brought a seriousness of moral purpose to their interpretations of the Bible and the construction of their political theologies, which belied their reputation as dissolute enemies of the Gospel. This paper enters the early modern history of materialism through the biblical hermeneutics of two opposing factions within the so-called radical Enlightenment, both fighting for the moral soul of Europe and its people: the dissenting Enlightenment of the British Unitarian Joseph Priestley, and the militantly atheistic Enlightenment of the ‘coterie holbachique’, spearheaded by the eponymous French aristocrat Baron d’Holbach. The paper will show the limits of metaphysical commitments as a predictor of religious and political judgements, and sketch the afterlives of their conflicting assessments of the Bible.

In 1968, Ben-Zion Watcholder released an article titled, “The Date of the Mekilta De-Rabbi Yishmael,” in which he challenged some basic foundational presuppositions for an early date for the Mekilta. In section II, he cites particular passages in the Mekilta which seem to echo knowledge of the iconoclastic movement of the Byzantine Empire. All of which, leads Wacholder to conclude that the Mekilta de-Rabbi Yishmael (MRI) is a post-talmudic compilation — a medieval, pseudepigraphic forgery, performed by the hand of a single author, sometime during the reigns of Leo III (717-741 CE) and Constantine V (741-775 CE). While, Wacholder’s arguments are indeed provocative, it is not the goal of this paper to pick apart every textual detail he presents to substantiate his final conclusion. That was already accomplished, successfully (in part), by Menachem Kahana in appendix A (pp. 514-20) of his “‘The Critical Edition of Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael’ in the Light of the Geniza Fragments” (1986). Rather, the goal of this paper is to demonstrate the existence of other allusions in the Mekilta that seem to suggest knowledge of an ancient Roman context, sometime between the 2nd and 4th century CE, rather than a Byzantine one. In particular, this paper draws attention to specific Ancient Egyptian and Ancient West Asian customs and myths, as well as archaeological evidence — such as excavated “magical” lamella with inscribed names of deities for lost objects — which suggest the Mekilta’s knowledge of the ancient world, as well as recently excavated synagogue art, which suggests ancient Jewish knowledge of midrashim present in the Mekilta’s interpretation of Exod 13:19 and 14:1-10.

This paper will explore an intertextual reading between the book of Ruth, Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the Hulu TV series inspired by the book. While Atwood references Genesis 30 in the epigraph of her novel, the book of Ruth also lends itself to a reading along The Handmaid’s Tale due to Ruth’s self-declaration as a handmaid in response to Boaz’s question, ‘Who are you?” In addition, Ruth’s setting also matches that of The Handmaid’s Tale, with the dystopian setting, patriarchal social structures, and a theocratic system marked by superficial piety. Ruth’s self-identification as a handmaid and subsequent reading alongside of the character of Offred in Atwood’s novel and the TV series reveals that the ways in which Ruth is an oppressed character. Through the lens of postcolonial critique, a number of factors become evident in the biblical text. While others have noted Ruth’s hybridity, her status as a model minority and a perpetual foreigner, and the ways in which she displays mimicry, I choose to focus on Ruth’s ambivalence and Ruth’s body as a site of colonization. This postcolonial analysis reveals that Ruth is not a passive heroine in the story, but rather resists the colonizing efforts of the text. This decolonial reading then opens up new interpretations of Ruth. In the same way that the TV series offers a more resistant Offred than the original novel did, I too look for a resistant reading of Ruth. This reading considers redemption for Ruth outside of her redemptive purpose in providing a son for Naomi and looks for ways in which Ruth undermines the colonized situation in which she is placed. In this way, the story of Ruth has resonance for today in the same way that Atwood’s novel has re-entered the popular imagination, addressing concerns over what happens when women take back some form of control from a system designed to oppress them?

Mark 14:47 tells an odd episode where Jesus is being arrested and one of his followers, wanting to defend him, cuts off the ear of a slave of the high priest. Jesus doesn’t say or do anything in response to this. There are no teachings in Mark here (or elsewhere) that explicitly affirm non-violence. Is the reader to conclude that there are circumstances where violence might be appropriate? Perhaps Mark 14:47 is one such example? The text provides the reader with no direction on the matter. This story has an interesting shelf life. Presuming Marcan priority, both Matthew and Luke inherited Mark’s odd little tale, and had to make decisions what to do with it. Matthew, seemingly troubled by Mark 14:47, adds a pithy saying: “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:51-52). This effectively removes the ambiguity present in Mark leaving the Matthean reader no room for doubt. Matthew’s addition is ideologically supported by Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:38-42, 43, which makes the case for a non-violent response to opposition explicit. Matthew makes it clear that those who seek to advance their cause through violence, will themselves perish through violence – even if their cause is just. Luke develops the episode in an entirely different way by adding new material to what he finds in Mark. Earlier that evening, just after the Last Supper, Luke’s Jesus tells asks the disciples, “the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:35-36). In response, the disciples realize they have two swords already and show them to Jesus, to which Jesus responds, “it is enough” (Luke 22:38). Jesus’ response is unclear, and this lack of clarity sets the stage what comes later. When Jesus is being arrested, one of his followers asks whether they should use the swords they showed him earlier. Without waiting for an answer, one of them strikes and cuts off the ear. Jesus responds with impatience, “Stop! No more of this!” In Luke the reason why one of his followers starts swinging a sword around is presumably because they believed this is what Jesus wanted. They presumably thought this because of what Jesus had earlier said (Luke 22:36, 38). The reader of Mark’s and Matthew’s versions of this story leave the slave missing an ear. In neither of these Gospels does Jesus heal this unfortunate man. Luke is presumably not satisfied with this and adds a healing. Perhaps Luke’s Jesus heals the slave because Jesus is more implicitly responsible for this violence than is the case in either Mark or Matthew?

This paper will examine several issues concerning the collection and attempted donation of funds from various early Christian assemblies in the northern Mediterranean region to the ekklēsia in Jerusalem: (1) Was Paul was associated with collection efforts for the early Christian assembly in Jerusalem only, or for assemblies in other cities as well, and what does this imply? (2) What different rationales have been provided for the collection, both by Paul himself (1 Cor 16:1–4; Gal 2:10 [?]; 2 Cor 8–9; Rom 15:25–28) and by recent interpreters of Paul? (3) Is the donative effort best characterized as an instance of collective almsgiving? (4) How do donative practices, including but not limited to the Jerusalem donation, relate to the issue of class among their recipients? More specifically, we ask whether and to what extent donative practices within and between early Christian assemblies enabled a class of laborers including Peter, James, and John in Jerusalem, and Paul in the northern Mediterranean, to gain a livelihood, in whole or in part, by extracting surplus value generated by the labor of others.

My paper addresses the question of the transmission of the Book of Daniel in the Second Temple Period through study of the physical, paratextual features of the Dead Sea Daniel manuscripts. This means looking beyond the mere words on the page to rather how the page itself conveys meaning, that is, the so-called ‘new’ or material philology. This paper will provide a brief analysis of each of the eight individual manuscripts, assessing the scribe’s general approach to the text they were writing including preparation for writing, writing practices, and evidence of (secondary) use. These descriptions will then be used to gauge measures of manuscript formality and to discover both trends, as well as notable divergences, in the transmission of the Book of Daniel at this time.

The Hebrew Bible is commonly associated with a religion of the written word: the commanding word of the law, the challenging word of prophecy. Yet the temple singers, with their close contacts with the circles which carried forward and contributed to the traditions which eventuated in the book of Isaiah, demonstrated that the word is not incompatible with other modalities of religious experience and expression, affective and even mystical, given personal and social enactment in joyful liturgies, song, dance, ritual prayer and lament. The beauty of the psalms resounds throughout the book of Isaiah, and the Isaian vision of the Creator God, Lord of nature and history beyond the bounds of Israel, is echoed and joyfully proclaimed by the psalmists.

Hazor presents a unique opportunity to study physical remains in conjunction with biblical texts. Detailed publication of the well-excavated, stratified site allows a reconstruction of the site from its Late Bronze Age settlement that ended in a 13th century B.C.E. conflagration through its Iron I-II settlements, destruction in ca. 732 B.C.E., and abandonment. Divergent biblical texts in Joshua, Judges, and I and II Kings may then be considered in light of the actual events that transpired at the site. Together, the physical remains and the various texts suggest a reconstruction of Israelite traditions, both oral and written, of the conquest and settlement of the site.

The near sacrifice of Isaac presents a traumatic rupture in the family saga of Abraham and Sarah. After the fateful journey to Moriah, the family unit is torn apart. Abraham descends the mountain alone, and father and son never again appear together. Replete with gaps and indeterminacy, the sparse yet hauntingly graphic narrative leaves the audience questioning the motivations and emotions of its main protagonists; what was going through Abraham’s mind? why did he comply? why did God impose such a harsh test, and what was achieved through demanding such obedience? The question of the character of God looms large and is open for multiple interpretations. One interpretation, as expressed within the dystopian, post-apocalyptic TV series The Walking Dead (season 7, episode 1 “The Sacrifice of Isaac”) is that the command to sacrifice is an expression of hegemonic masculinity in which coercion and violence are used as a means of gaining control and submission. Whereas The Walking Dead sustains the image of hegemonic and toxic masculinity, the divine portrayal in Gen 22 is, perhaps, resolved by angelic intervention and divine affirmation. Bringing contemporary trauma theory, the biblical narrative and The Walking Dead into dialogue, this paper explores the possibility of reading Genesis 22 as a post-exilic trauma narrative through which the community explores the paradox of a God who both tests and provides.

Literature Circles are an effective way to engage students in classroom discussion of the biblical text and with challenging secondary literature. Developed in K-12 education (Harvey Daniels, Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, 1994) and proven to be an effective method, Literature Circles are highly adaptable to the college classroom. Offering more than a guided small group discussion, the Literature Circle is a structured, scaffolded activity designed to nurture lifelong readers by fostering curiosity and personal connection to texts. In the elementary education model, students are assigned “roles” for discussion and complete worksheets prior to small group discussion. The worksheets for the corresponding roles (Daniels’ roles are: Discussion Director, Literary Luminary, Connector, Summarizer, Character Coordinator and Word Wizard) prompt students to generate questions and observations specific to their role before gathering for a peer-led discussion. While the role worksheets in their most basic form are effective at generating discussion in an introductory class, the Literature Circle worksheets can also be adapted to prompt students toward discipline-specific concerns at a higher level. This presentation will demonstrate several options for adapting and implementing Literature Circles in both introductory and upper-level biblical studies classes along with assessment techniques.

Pseudo-Philo’s rewriting of Scripture is undergirded throughout by God’s covenant with Abraham, a point observed by scholars of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) since Cohn’s seminal article of 1898. What is missing from the scholarly corpus, however, is both the recognition and examination of Pseudo-Philo’s composite allusion to Genesis 15.6, “And [Abraham] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” This short yet profound statement from the covenant ceremony in Genesis 15 is nearly ubiquitous in early Jewish literature as a explicit citation. The allusion in LAB’s Latin has been modified slightly, but enough that most commentators have overlooked the reference. To complicate matters, the allusion is not located in LAB’s rewritten narrative of Genesis, but is voiced by Joshua during the covenant ceremony of Joshua 24. In LAB 23.5, Pseudo-Philo weaves together a composite allusion including elements of Genesis 11.29; 15.6, and Joshua 24.2-3 in a new speech by God to his people. In light of this state of affairs, my paper argues two related points. First, I go beyond Jacobson and Konrad, who suggest the influence of Genesis 15.6, to demonstrate the presence of a composite allusion, through an examination of the relevant text of LAB 23, Joshua 24, and Genesis 11 and 15. Whilst Genesis 15.6 in LAB is not a verbatim citation, as found in other early Jewish writings, it is masterfully woven into a novel divine speech composed by Pseudo-Philo including key elements from the story of Abraham. Second, both the form of the allusion and its location in the narrative suggest thoroughgoing implications for how we understand the theology of Pseudo-Philo. If LAB is a covenant-saturated work, then the allusion to Genesis 15.6 by God himself demands our attention. This paper contributes to the study of LAB through the identification and elaboration of an overlooked composite allusion to Genesis 15.6 and from early Jewish literature.

This paper shall attempt to examine Micah 2:9 and the traumatic effects of depriving children of their parents against the background of Israel’s social ethics of marginalized minority (poor, homeless aliens, widows and orphans). The family is essentially indispensable bedrock for the development of capacity for devotion and intimacy not only with God and other human beings but also primarily serves as the venue where spiritual and moral values are extended across generations. Micah 2:9 is located within the unit of Micah’s oracle (2:8–11) that describes victims of exploitation and oppression as “my people” (עַמִי) while his opponents play the role of enemy (אוֹיֵב). These enemies are not only greedy and ruthless marauders who despoil their helpless victims and captives (2:8), but also those who undermine Yahweh’s honor as patron of women and children of his people. The crimes of verse 9 cut to the heart of Israel’s social ethics (cf. Ex 22:21–22; Deut 24:17–18) which are given special attention in the prophetic critique of the major administrators of Israel and Judah (Jer 7:6; Hos 5:10; Zech 7:10). Micah’s rhetoric indicates progressive intensification as those less-privileged are taken advantage of. The language is extravagant and the hyperbole communicates God’s outrage at such callous behaviour. Micah underscores that children deprived of parents are victims. Separating children from their homes is tantamount to removing them from their potential to be Yahweh’s image bearer, flourishing in the land that Yahweh has graciously given to his people as a glorious inheritance. This again is an egregious violation; namely, stripping God of his הֲדׇרִי (splendor) by taking away the weak and helpless children, the future of the nation, and robbing them of their destiny. Since the family constitutes a fundamental setting for human development and nurture, the traumatic effects of separating or depriving children of their parents, which could be devastating and lifelong, are of supreme ethical concern. Micah’s rhetoric of children deprived of parents, invites readers to the urgent ethical concerns for compassion and care for those suffering especially, the most vulnerable in society. Truly, the tears and suffering of those whose rights are being violated (to imagine and see children weeping, and parents bereft of their children) speaks.

Since the 1970s, the study of ancient Near Eastern iconography has advanced various aspects of Old Testament research. Despite the many insights gained, the precise nature of the relationship between ancient art and the biblical text has remained somewhat under scrutinized within the fields of iconographic exegesis and archaeological studies. In contrast, the image-text relationship is a prominent and persistent topic of concern within the burgeoning field of visual culture studies. Particularly important is the work of W. J. T. Mitchell. In his volume Picture Theory, Mitchell develops a what he calls the image-text dialectic. This theory posits that divisions between visual and verbal representations are neither static nor stable. Rather, all forms of media exist along a continuum of representational practices that exhibit both visual and verbal characteristics at one and the same time while never being purely image or text. While Mitchell’s image-text dialectic is not intended to be a comprehensive theory that adequately accounts for all visual and verbal interactions across time and culture, it does offer a framework for conceptualizing the nature of the image-text relationship in particular historical and intellectual settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore how Mitchell’s theory can inform understandings of the image-text relationship in the Near Eastern world. Two particular dimensions of ancient visual culture will be considered: the textuality of ANE art as a type of linguistic system and the interactions between inscriptions and iconography on discrete mixed-media artifacts.

This paper uses the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour to examine the ways in which Deuteronomy 16:18–18:22 erects a framework of divine authority within the society it invents. This study argues that as this passage establishes the foundations for legitimacy in the judicial, royal, cultic, and prophetic realms it renders them ultimately dependent upon a not–entirely–explicit concept of divine control. As such, the society created by this passage is made impotent and ultimately inaccessible except through the figure of Yahweh. No official, and indeed nobody who claims membership within this society can be authorized except through conformity with divine will. This construct places the figure of Yahweh at the nexus of an impregnable matrix of power. The result is that the claims made for the society manufactured by this section of Deuteronomy can only be questioned or criticized by the creation of an entirely different framework.

The beginnings of the Books of Hosea and Amos can be seen as a focal point for the composition of the Book of the Twelve. The literary growth of these "early" writings is closely intertwined with the growth of the Book of the Minor Prophets as a whole. Yet, the literary stages as well as a dating of these books are highly disputed. Taking the first of the minor prophets as an example, this paper attempts to interpret selected passages of the book of Hosea against the background of the emergence of the Neo-Assyrian empire. The influence of Assyrian military power and especially the aggressive westward expansion during the reign of Tiglat-Pileser III. has brought fundamental changes upon the small states in the Levant. Hence, it is possible to understand early passages in the book of Hosea as directly reflecting the political turbulences starting with the appearance of the Assyrians on the global scene. Relying heavily on written propaganda, it comes as no surprise that Assyrian presence in the Levant would have influenced the literary production in Israel and Judah. The emergence of the literary kernel of the Book of Hosea (c. 5-9*) and its unconditional prophecy of doom was most likely triggered by the fall of Samaria. Its literary growth and its new addressing to Judah thereby mirrors a process of coping with this disaster. For not only was the Northern kingdom of Israel first truncated, then conquered, dispersed and its cult statue taken as war spoil, a similar situation later also befell its sister nation in the South with the truncation of Judah and the siege of Jerusalem by Sanherib in 701 BCE. So the first literary stages of Hosea can be understood as a theological reappraisal and timely reaction to the historical events. Especially focusing on the divine punishment, this paper will explore how the book of Hosea and its later Judean audience deals with the events of second half of the 8th c. BCE and which theological mechanisms are employed to interpret the behavior of YHWH during the Assyrian presence in Israel and Judah.

Social Identity Theory observes that in-group identity and boundary definition are solidified through adoption of prescriptive group norms. Deviant individuals within the in-group pose a complication by challenging in-group distinctiveness. Subjective group dynamics theory examines the interaction between group members when a member deviates from prescriptive norms. The “black sheep effect” (Marques, Abrams & Serôdio 2001) observes the tendency of in-group members to evaluate other in-group members more harshly than out-group members exhibiting similar behavior. This paper identifies the heuristic value of subjective group dynamics for New Testament interpretation. The social scientific approach is then tested and evaluated using Paul’s response to the immoral man of 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 as a case study. Black sheep effect offers plausible explanation for the absence of in-group bias in Pauline exhortation, demonstrating potential motive for relocation of the immoral man to the outgroup.

Literacy has profoundly affected the history of early Christianity and of individuals in the Jesus movement, yet it received little attention from scholars until the last decade or so. Literacy found only an incidental place in work done on early Christianity; in general historians did not give literacy a prominent place in their efforts to understand social relations or social change. In the past 25 years, social history — interest in studying group behaviour and belief, the everyday activities, ideology, and opportunities of ordinary people — have become prominent, yet literacy still lacks proper acknowledgement. This paper reviews and extends the current perspectives on literacy among early Christians. Though the attitudes of early Christians to texts in general, and to their holy books in particular, was not radically different from that of surrounding society, it can also be shown that in this, as in other domains, the early Christians developed a sense of independence and originality. They did not deem themselves bound by certain cultural and religious traditions/conventions and this permitted them, in many ways, to be innovative. The development and success of early Christianity can, in many ways, be characterised as a religious revolution, and in this vein was the Christian conception of authoritative speech, as well as the status and use of writing. Christianity offered both a less reverential attitude to the written word but also a revolutionary commitment to spoken language. These attitudes resulted in interesting practices associated with authority, leadership roles, diversity in ritual, nuances in self-identification, gender roles and social relations among and between classes.

Pauline scholarship has long been obsessed with questions concerning the origin and reception of the so-called Hingabeformeln (Rom 4:25; 8:32; Gal 1:4; 2:20; Eph 5:2; 1 Tim 2:6; Tit 2:14). Are these formulae entirely or only partially pre-Pauline? Do they derive from primitive exegesis of Isaiah’s fourth servant poem? And, perhaps most importantly, to what extent does Paul embrace the theology encoded in this material? As one might expect, disagreements abound. One issue, however, seems certain: when Paul talks about God “handing over” (παραδίδωμι) his son or about the messiah “handing over himself” ([παρα]δίδωμι ἑαυτόν), the apostle’s concern is precisely the death of Jesus. To say that Jesus “gave himself for our sins” (Gal 1:4) is simply to acknowledge that “he died for our sins.” Indeed, many English translations render παρεδόθη in Rom 4:25 as “[who] was handed over to death,” even though εἰς θάνατoν is not present in the text. Accordingly, this paper sets out to scrutinize the communis opinio that the Hingabeformeln are merely another way for Paul and his interpreters to say that “Christ died for us” – whether one interprets the phrase in a political or sacrificial register. First, I show that the collocation (παρα)δίδωμι ἑαυτόν never operates as convention for death – much less the death of a martyr – in ancient Mediterranean literature. Paul and his early tradents, therefore, would not take for granted the modern equivalence between “he gave himself” and “he died.” Next, I interrogate Hingabeformeln in the context of Paul’s disputed letters – i.e., Eph 5:2, 1 Tim 2:6, and Tit 2:14. In these instances, we find that language of self-giving is remarkably underdetermined. The reason for this, I argue, is not that these writers intend an equivalence between “gave himself” and “died,” but because they assume the act of self-giving entails more than just death, namely, incarnation.

The ongoing excavations in the fifth-century synagogue at Huqoq in lower eastern Galilee have revealed a series of impressive floor mosaics. Among the mosaics discovered at Huqoq, none has elicited more interest than the enigmatic Elephant Mosaic. In our view, the panel depicts the siege of Jerusalem in 132/1 BCE under Antiochus VII Sidetes and the subsequent military alliance between the Seleucid king and the Hasmonaean high priest John Hyrcanus. This historical episode appears in a wide range of extant sources from the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods, from Diodorus Siculus to Josephus to Plutarch, and continued to circulate within the tradition of both classical and Christian historiography throughout the first millennium. The present paper analyzes the use of urban architecture within the panel, in particular the arcade in the middle register whose nine arches frame the armed Judaeans and their leader. In mosaics, representations of cities, including Jerusalem, frequently incorporate colonnaded streets, an indication of their importance in the visual vocabulary of urbanism. Their presence in mosaics reflects the increased significance of the street as a primary site of religious and civic displays in late antiquity. We argue that, within the context of the Elephant Mosaic, the arcade was intended to conjure for the viewer the city of Jerusalem and, moreover, to connect the synagogue building in the village of Huqoq to this renowned setting of momentous events in Jewish history. We consider the role played by colonnaded streets in late antique depictions of Jerusalem, in particular the relationship of the arcade in the middle register of the Elephant Mosaic to Jerusalem in the fifth-century mosaic in the apse of the Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome. The representation of Jerusalem in the church’s apse mosaic offers the Christian viewer an opportunity to visually participate at street level in the religious life of that city and thus feel a sense of kinship with a community whose sacred center was a city located nearly 1500 miles to the east. We argue that the arcade in the Elephant Mosaic served a similar function. Through its visual encomium to the glorious past and built environment of Jerusalem, the Elephant Mosaic made the holy city present to synagogue-goers at the heart of a rural village in the Galilee. The panel, thereby, forged a link between the space of communal worship in this relatively modest village and the wider network of urban centers, both in Palestine and beyond.

This paper offers a reading of Revelation from the cultural context of marble-workers in Roman Ephesus. I begin with a brief introduction to the Ephesian marble economy and the various jobs such a large enterprise demanded. Next, I explore two passages from the cultural context of Ephesian marble-workers – the final “great earthquake” (16:17-21) and John’s description of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:12-27). First, an earthquake destroys not only marble-clad Rome and her imperial provincial cities, such as the seven addressed in chapters 2-3, but also the empire’s source of marble – its mountains (6:17-21). Through the destruction of the imperially enmarbled cities of Asia Minor and the elimination of mountains, John’s God erases the entire imperial marble economy. Second, while other condemned imperial goods from the cargo list (18:11-13) are mentioned in John’s description of the New Jerusalem (21:12-27), marble is left out. John’s New Jerusalem is marbleless. The effect of John’s rhetoric, therefore, is not merely to scorn the marble economy, but through the silent force of omission, to eradicate it. In his eschatological visions of the establishment of God’s world, John erases the livelihood of marble-workers making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to imagine their future in the new city.

The phrase b.ẓl.ḫmt appears often as a restoration of KTU 1.14 ii 12 in El's instructions to Kirta, translated as “in the shade of the tent.” This restoration seems certain given its occurrence in KTU 1.14 iii 55, which is the parallel narrative passage. However, this restoration and the passage in KTU 1.14 iii 55 are the only occasions where the word ḫmt appears in the Ugaritic lexicon and therefore its translation has been debated. Gray, eschewing the notion of “tent” or “pavilion,” opts instead for “pen” or “coop,” viewing the word not as the place for incubation rites or cultic dwelling for people, but rather as a structure where the king went to get “sacrificial animals.” Given its sparse attestation in Ugaritic, the translation “tent,” which is based on related roots elsewhere in Ugaritic and comparative linguistic data, is non-descript. The function of such a word in the Kirta Legend and a more precise understanding of what the word ḫmt connotes would be beneficial for interpreting KTU 1.14 ii 12 and its parallel passage KTU 1.14 iii 55. Various avenues of study, including an examination of related words in Ugaritic, a contextual assessment of the relevant passages in Kirta, and comparative evidence in Geʿez and Arabic (as well as an excursus regarding a proposed cognate in the HB), will be presented. I argue that, although Ugaritic texts are sparse and as a result these local attestations and literary contexts are inconclusive, comparative evidence indicates that the occurrence of ḫmt in KTU 1.14 iii 55 and restored in KTU 1.14 ii 12 likely has the notion of a cultic tent and not a mere “pen” or “coop,” as Gray suggests.

This paper will examine Targum Ruth’s explanation of why the sons of Naomi died in the land of Moab, its relationship with Midrashic traditions, and relevance for dating the exegetical strata of Targum Ruth.

Discovery of a Late Bronze Age temple at Tall al-‘Umayri, Jordan, provides insight into Bronze Age religious practice in the southern Levant. Analysis of the architectural plan and use of space suggests modes of community participation in cultic activity. Improvised clay figurines and a predominance of platter bowls found in several of the rooms indicate worshiper participation in votive and sacral activity. Comparison with contemporary cultic sites elucidates similar ritual behavior at sites typically designated Canaanite.

Sayings of Jesus are all over in Christian writings. They are found in the New Testament gospels, of course. They are also found in canonical material outside of the gospels. They are found in apocryphal gospels, acts, and apocalypses as well as works of early Christian writers. But the papyri, those incomplete fragments of theological tracts, homilies, commentaries, liturgies, hymns, and who knows what else, also contain mention of sayings of Jesus. This paper examines four logia that occur in three relatively early papyri (P.Amh. Gr. 1 2, AD/CE 300–399; P.Iand. 5.69, AD/CE 300–399; and P.Gen. 3.125, AD/CE 150–249). These logia are not cataloged in Stroker's “Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus,” which organizes and presents extracanonical sayings of Jesus from a wide array of sources.

The Acts of Thomas version of Christianity requires complete sexual abstinence even within the bonds of marriage, a requirement treated by his Indian audience as a wholly new concept. Given that the Greco-Roman world was fascinated by all things Indian including their sexual asceticism and given that the Church in India, or elsewhere, apparently did not follow Thomas' call for extreme celibacy, Thomas presents a puzzle. I make sense of this puzzle by looking at how Buddhist stories contain a similar rhetoric of aversion in order to teach acceptance and generosity.

Recent scholarship has convincingly shown that the various references to ‘chains’, to ‘prisons’ and to the apostle being a ‘prisoner’ in Paul’s letters were not meant to be metaphorical, but should rather be understood as many proofs that the apostle suffered several imprisonments in the cities he visited in Asia Minor and Greece. Thus, these mentions should be added to the many cases where, in Acts, Paul is depicted as undergoing law enforcement actions, as in Philippi where the apostle is said to have been put in jail or in Corinth where he is said to have been brought before the governor himself for a hearing—not to mention the long judicial sequence in Judaea of Acts 21-26. Whereas the narrative of Acts suggests that the apostle, when facing repressive measures, had direct contact with prominent representatives of provincial or local authorities (governors, local officials and institutions, members of the local elite), a different picture emerges from the multiple experiences of prisons described in Paul’s letters. In particular, the references to the staff of the governor’s headquarters (which is most probably the meaning of praitorion in Phil 1:13) as well as to the members of the emperor’s household (Phil 4:22) hint at a substantially different social connectivity for Paul during his imprisonments. This paper will address the issue of the discrepancies in the way the experiences of prisons of the apostle are depicted in Acts as opposed to Paul’s letters and will discuss the legal and social context of Paul’s imprisonments in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, relying on evidence other than NT. It will be argued that: 1. The reasons which led local or provincial authorities to take measures against Paul had mainly to do with the basic requirements of law enforcement in local communities of Asia Minor and Greece and were not primarily related to the Christian nature of the apostle’s preaching; for that reason, Paul was considered and treated as any other individual disrupting public order. 2. Contrary to what is suggested in Acts, Paul certainly had few opportunities to have direct access to local officials or to Roman governors to argue his case; Paul’s connectivity, in particular within provincial administration, was limited to people of much lower rank. These remarks will shed additional light on two interrelated issues that are much discussed in recent scholarship: the attention paid to the first Christian groups by local and Roman authorities in the mid-first century, and the intention of the author of Acts in emphasizing the procedural dimension of Paul’s arrests and his connection with high-level people.

Silence is a key feature in the Gospel of Mark, but most attempts to analyze silence get overshadowed by the “Messianic Secret” motif. This provides a monochromatic or simplistic understanding of silence in the gospel. On the contrary, silence is, as Michal Beth Dinkler has argued, “multivalent, contextually-driven, and rhetorically powerful” (2013: 17). This often goes unnoticed in one of the key moments of the gospel—Jesus’ trial (14:53–65)—where Jesus’ silence (14:60–61a) is seen as a seemingly positive action. Morna Hooker went so far as to claim that Jesus’ “silence emphasizes his innocence” (1991: 359). Like Hooker, a majority of commentators fall back on the lack of any formal charge to justify the silence. However, many treatments of this pericope fail to take into account the broader narrative motif of silence or consider the socio-historical implications of failing to reply to an accusation (14:60). This study seeks to better understand Jesus’ silence during his trial by looking at the narrative multivalence and the socio-historical context of honor challenges and ripostes. By comparing Jesus’ silence to other instances of silence in the narrative and attempting to understand this scene as an instance of an unanswered honor challenge, Jesus’ silence is no longer seen as a positive action but instead a further instance of his increasing shame in the Passion Narrative.

This paper was invited for the joint session with the Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom unit. It juxtaposes Paul's ambiguous statement about the opportunity for an enslaved person to be manumitted in 1 Corinthians 7:21 with two sets of texts, one from the Greco-Roman world and one from post-Reconstruction America. Both ancient and modern texts place significant limits on how far formerly enslaved persons can benefit from their labor. In the Greco-Roman world this occurs through the obligations of freedpersons to their former owners, now their patrons. In modern America racial and gender divisions of labor prevent freedpersons from exercising skills they may have acquired while slaves. In both historical contexts the Pauline statement reinscribed the economic vulnerability of the formerly enslaved.

A new study of the inscription on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazor II, king of Sidon, now preserved in Louvre Museum, suggested a new reconstruction of the history of his reign. It will be argued that there was only one expedition in Egypt, at the beginning of his reign, which can be linked with that of the Persian king Cambyses.

I am asking how recent studies in brain signaling and memory intersect with New Testament texts. My analysis moves beyond mental reflection and seeks to engage, at the foundational levels of the brain, recent insights into neural signaling. This brings into play the dynamics of human evolution. The genetic legacy of the brain is subsequently shaped through experience, and this shaping is expressed in the form of neural signaling. These pathways flow naturally into memory and narrativity. Every engagement with a text is a neurological event, a type of remembering and reformulating. Thus, it is clear that we who work in narratives have much to learn from the field of neurology. I wish to demonstrate the interconnection of neurology, narrativity, and iconography in the genealogy of Matthew 1:1-17. Here I seek to move from thinking about the genealogy to thinking, as much as possible, from within the genealogy—to move from the focus on what it says to the question of how and why. This approach unveils the way in which the opening lines of the Gospel of Matthew may sponsor different manifestations of God’s history with Israel. I will employ from brain research the established categories of semantic memory and episodic memory, but I will also propose a new category of iconic memory. I will demonstrate this new realm through two iconic representations of the genealogy—the Byzantine image of Michael Damaskenos and the modern illumination of Donald Jackson. If the category of iconic memory can be sustained by critical analysis, then it represents a contribution from narrative studies to the field of neurology. The genealogy of Jesus, when seen through the intersection of narrative and neurology, may serve as a semantic memory, as an episodic memory, and as an iconic memory. In its function, the genealogy may be compared to a Hebrew Torah scroll. The scroll has semantic value as a revered object, it has episodic value as the story of Israel, and it has iconic value as a window onto a particular form of Jewish experience and identity. The more the semantic value transits to episodic and iconic mode, the more this tradition becomes adaptive, autonoetic (self-aware), and autobiographical. Through these processes, the roll of the dead becomes a scroll of living tradition. Moreover, the genealogy points to a much larger process of remembering. In forthcoming publications I will argue that the entirety of the Gospel of Matthew is shaped by such neural and narrative processes.

Martin Luther never wrote a systematic theology. But in his mature years he did respond to the demands of the students he was training for the reformed ministry for a comprehensive survey of his views of God and the Christian life. He undertook this task by embarking on the gargantuan journey of a line by line commentary on the biblical book of Genesis. For the last ten years of his life Luther lectured twice a week on the book of Genesis, completing the final chapter only months before his death. Luther’s pedagogically and theologically motivated decision to display the coherence of his mature though in the genre of theological exegesis instead of a systematic survey was methodologically significant. Two methodological assumptions for his decision to present his mature theology in exegetical form stand out. First, Luther’s Logos-Christology foregrounds the enscripturated mediation of Christ in Christian life. For Luther studying scripture is a work of familiarizing one’s self and the believing community with the contours of the living voice of Christ that is the essential component of faithful Christian thought and action. Second, teaching Christian faith and belief by following the sequence of divine acts as set out in the narratives of Genesis highlights the ebb and flow of God’s activity. God gives Godself to creatures not as “system” but within the sequences of historical events. Luther’s decision to teach his theology by exegesis thus represents a rejection of the claim that the coherence of theology is best preserved by third order reflective and systematizing description of the intellectual coherence of God and creation. Believing faith is instead best handed on through the imaginative reentry of the details of the complex events of God’s life with the patriarchs. These presumptions allow Luther to read the canonical book of Genesis as encapsulating the essence of the life of faith necessary for believers in all subsequent times and places.

To address the question of what led Jesus to embark on his final and fatal trip to Jerusalem, we must consider the aims of his ministry. At the heart of that ministry was his proclamation of the reign of God, which stood in stark contrast to the unjust and oppressive social, political, economic, and religious realities that he encountered in Galilee. Jesus’ love for others and his conviction that he had a special and unique authority from God to speak and act in his name led him to dedicate himself to teaching and healing those in need and to call on others to follow him, trusting fully in the God he proclaimed so as to be able to live in his same love, free from fear. In order to prepare the disciples closest to him to carry out a ministry similar to his own, he adopted an itinerant lifestyle. This itinerancy not only enabled him to teach his disciples and followers to depend on God to meet their needs, but also helped to keep Jesus out of the reach of those who might seek to arrest him or do him harm. At some point, Jesus evidently came to the conclusion that he had gone as far as he could in accomplishing his objectives both among his followers and the people he had served in Galilee. He must also have believed that prolonging his ministry in Galilee would put his life in greater danger due to the conflict which that ministry was increasingly generating. After reflecting on the options open to him, he apparently decided that he could only hope to accomplish his aims fully by going up to Jerusalem to announce his message regarding God’s reign there and continuing to denounce aggressively the injustices perpetrated by the system imposed by Rome and by the Jewish authorities whom the Romans had established in power. Jesus must have been aware that sooner or later those authorities would seek to silence him by arresting him and perhaps even having him executed. From his perspective, however, if his activity on behalf of others was going to cost him his life at any moment, the best option was to go to Jerusalem to speak out and stand up boldly and openly to those authorities. Only in that way could his life, message, and death have the impact he desired on his followers and the population as a whole, bringing many to trust fully in God as he had so that they might practice freely the type of love he had proclaimed and embodied throughout his ministry, all the way to its end. Although we cannot know what Jesus expected to happen following his death, he appears to have believed that God would not let his death be in vain, but would instead make it the means by which many would be transformed and liberated as they followed him in dedicating themselves to serving God and others in the way that he had.

Interpreters have identified numerous themes in 1 Corinthians 1-4: party strife, conflicts of leadership, human wisdom, baptism-based allegiance. Over the last thirty years, the dominant way of explaining the coherence of these themes has centered around the figure of Apollos and the domain of Greco-Roman rhetoric. Interpreters reduce the four “parties” alluded to in 1:12 to two parties, a Paul party and an Apollos party. They understand “human wisdom” as a reference to the practices and values of Greco-Roman rhetoric. And they impute to the Corinthians a preference for Apollos as a superior orator to Paul. This paper offers a different account of these chapters. It identifies the dominant reading as an “apologetic reading,” which sees Paul defending himself and trying to reassert his preeminence over Apollos. Against this reading, the paper offers an “exemplary reading,” which sees Paul establishing a wisdom of the cross, consisting in a message of cruciformity and embodied in himself and Apollos.

This paper explores the martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch as a ritual-like practice. It is theoretically informed by Frend’s (1965) and Bowersock’s (1995) emphasis on the importance of respectively the Jewish and Roman context for the origin of martyrdom. While highlighting the role of these contexts that structure thought and action, they overlook the role of the martyr as a ritual agent. This study, using Bell’s (1992) ritual theory, interprets the martyrdom of Ignatius as performance, a ritual-like practice. The source material used consists of Ignatius’ letters to the churches, which do not describe his martyrdom but give his anticipation and perspective on it. Bell (:164) distinguishes between three features of performance: multifaceted sensory experience, framing, and a totalizing objectification of values. Performance is about experiencing something. Yet, even when martyrdom is assumed as performance, it may have had non-performative elements. Besides “multi-sensory experience,” the “framing” is another important aspect of martyrdom as performance. The “framing” sets an experience off from routine reality. An actor is ‘framed’ by various elements such as a stage, curtains, tickets, audience, etc. Yet, taken separately any of these elements do not necessarily involve an actor in a theatre production. Curtains may refer to a living room in a home, and tickets may have been purchased for a boat ride. Therefore, the framing refers to the whole set of elements. The “totalizing objectification of values” is done through a “microcosmic portrayal of the macrocosm” (Bell 1997:160). Bell (:160) further comments “since the real world is rarely experienced as a coherently ordered totality, the microcosm constructed on stage purports to provide the experience of a mock-totality, an interpretive appropriation of some greater if elusive totality.” All three elements can be recognized in the martyrdom of Ignatius. “Spectacle,” Bowersock (50) writes, “was an important element in martyrdom in the early Church. . . . No early martyr was taken aside discreetly and executed out of sight, just as no interrogations were conducted in small towns.” Martyrdom was ‘framed’ by various elements such as an amphitheater, audience, wild animals, etc. The “microcosmic portrayal of the macrocosm” is present as well. Ignatius adopted the Hellenistic idea that entities on earth have their counterpart in things in heaven. He assumed a relationship between microcosm and macrocosm and applied this idea to his understanding of the Church and its ministry (Chadwick 172). The earthly Church is a microcosm which reflects a heavenly counterpart, the macrocosm. The key contribution this study seeks to make is help us understand Ignatius’ eagerness for martyrdom. While showing that the martyrdom of Ignatius was primarily a ritual-like practice, this practice is found to be ambiguous. It was not simply an instrument to achieve social integration or the transmission of beliefs. His martyrdom did not resolve the tension within the churches. Ignatius knew that this tension was part of a larger apocalyptic picture, the battle between Christ and Satan. Through ritual-like practice he participated in this battle, employing a “poetics of power” fostering unity of the church.

First articulated by Burton Mack (1996), and maintained through three SBL volumes, the project of Redescribing Christian Origins focused on two themes: providing a social theory of religion with early Christianity as the data and imagining new beginnings for Christianity apart from the Luke-Acts-Eusebius narratives. In many respects, and especially within the Seminar and among its members, this project has succeeded. But to what extent has the redescriptive project affected scholarship outside of the seminar? To what extent can an SBL seminar’s redescription gain traction in and influence a field already oversaturated with publications? Is it even possible to affect our field in such a way? This paper reviews the impact of the Redescribing publications, assesses that impact, and suggests a new location towards which our redescriptive efforts might be focused: the classroom. Redescribing Christian Origins may not be able to impact the field in the ways that we hope, but there is untapped potential in redescribing the ways in which we introduce early Christianity to students. It is here, in the introduction to early Christianity, that I argue our redescribing project can be the most effective.

The Institute of Christian Oriental Research (ICOR) at the Catholic University of America has ‎recently launched a project to catalogue the more than 180 Ethiopic codices in our collection, ‎the majority of which are a part of the Gerald and Barbara Weiner collection of Ethiopian ‎manuscripts. This presentation will describe the process by which the catalogue is being ‎prepared and will give a report on the progress of the project. This will include an exploration ‎of a number of the remarkable manuscripts in this collection. Special attention will be paid to a ‎number of uncommon scribal features as well as to the texts and illuminations contained in the ‎manuscripts.‎

The line between biblical transmission and reception is fluid and open-ended, as new editions of the texts themselves routinely incorporate interpretive elements directly on the page. Such paratextual forms of reception include added glosses, clarifications, “double translations” and section titles, inserted into the text, as well as marginal notations, interlinear translations, footnotes, sidebars, colophons, prefaces and appendices, set before, after, and around it. Such elements appear in a wide range of manuscripts and printed editions from earliest times until today, and often exercise an outsized influence on the text’s interpretation. This paper will focus on the phenomenology of rewriting within such paratextual comments on the Hebrew Bible, with a focus on the case of the sin of Moses (and Aaron) in Numbers 20:12. This verse is famously obscure, condemning Moses and Aaron to die in the wilderness for failing “to trust in me [that is, YHWH], to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites,” without explaining how they failed to do so. This has led to a massive amount of commentary, of various kinds, in various contexts. This paper will compare examples of paratextual commentary on this verse from antiquity to modernity, with a focus on how they reuse and modify the text on which they are commenting. What do they repeat from the verse? What do they omit, rephrase, and add? Such a comparison offers a concrete basis on which to consider the nature of (paratextual) commentary more broadly.

Over a century ago, William M. Ramsay suggested that Paul’s movements in Asia Minor, as reported by Acts, were partly dictated by the region’s physical terrain coupled with the apostle’s propensity to suffer from recurrent malaria. Ramsay’s claim, now largely ignored, is reexamined in this study through a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) approach to assessing malaria risk for travelers on ancient Roman roads. A GIS model for malaria risk in antiquity, based on risk factors refined by contemporary studies, was constructed, refined, and verified against control data obtained in Italy prior to malaria eradication efforts. The resulting model provides a tool for assessing various text sources from antiquity, including travel accounts. An overlay of Roman road data permits assessment of malaria risk to travelers on specific routes in antiquity. In this case-study application is made to the journeys of Paul, specifically to travel decisions by Paul in Acts 13:13-4 and 16:6-10. The model results and related research strongly suggest a reevaluation of Ramsay’s premise, with potential implications for understanding the Acts passages and Pauline studies. This contribution is only one of many possible applications of the model and demonstrates the potential for adapting the technical capabilities of GIS to the task of evaluating nuanced textual sources.

The term and analytical tool of rhetography emerged in the practice of sociorhetorical interpretation (SRI) in the early 21st century to bring the persuasive impact of graphic images prompted by the visual elements of biblical texts into the consideration of interpreters. Rhetography has matured into a critical and initial element in the interpretive analytic of SRI. However, cognitive science, which encouraged the development of rhetography, has expanded to explore how other senses and embodied experiences affect cognition. This paper will propose expanding rhetography to rhetosomatics, broadening the scope of analysis to include all kinds of embodied simulation in our consideration of how sacred texts persuade human beings. The story of the call of Levi in Luke 5:27–39 will serve as a test case for analyzing the role of embodied simulation in the rhetoric of a gospel text.

Beginning with a basic explanation of the halakhic method of interpreting the Jewish Scripture, this paper explores how the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament expanded the purpose and parameters of Sabbath observation as found in Gen 2.1-4, Exod 20.8-11, and Deut 5.12-15 for their respective audiences. By considering 4Q216 vii.5-17, 4Q218 i.1-4, CD x.14-xi.18, and the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 12.1-8, Mark 2.23-28, and Luke 6.1-5 and Matt 12.9-14, Mark 3.1-6, and Luke 6.6-11), we will consider how the observation of sacred time and space serves as an act of renewal that is believed to prepare humanity for eternity. The authors of the DSS and the NT used halakhah to emphasize their perspectives of how the Sabbath law should be observed and practiced within the context of their communities. Both have similar intentions (to follow the example of God for “resting” from work on the Sabbath Day) through a halakhic approach, yet the emphasis seems to be on sanctification (becoming more like God) by pulling away from society and focusing on what cannot be done in the DSS and by embracing society and focusing on what should be cone in the NT. The tentative conclusion is that the authors of the DSS seem to tighten halakhic rules and admonitions for Sabbath conduct as based on their concern for worshipping God in the correct way and on the correct day. On the other hand, Jesus seems to loosen Pharisaic halakhic rules of Sabbath conduct all the while maintaining the integrity of observing the Sabbath. Jesus was not concerned about the calendar. Rather, for Jesus, human need overrides the halakhic prohibitions for the Sabbath.

It was common practice in the ancient world to have both male and female cult functionaries to attend to the needs of gods and goddesses. In Mesopotamia the entu-priestess functioned opposite the en-priest; in Egypt the female heneret entertained the deities while male priests organized their daily meals. Democratic Athens left regal religious functions to the Arkhon Basileus and his citizen wife, the Basilina. Even Rome had its vestal virgins to balance the city flamen. But this paradigm breaks down in the Levant. Unlike Mesopotamia, Syria, or Egypt, there was a palpable dearth of female cult functionaries in Bronze Age Canaan and Iron Age Israel-Judah, as is evident in the texts from Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible. What few female cult functionaries did exist were actively resisted in the texts. This paper examines this lacuna and considers how the absence of women from public religious roles as expressed in the Hebrew Bible is a continuation of earlier, non-monotheistic practice as well as an enforcement thereof. Finally, I consider the impact of this absence in the social status of women.

Accepted paper for the 2019 IBR meeting, History of Interpretation research group

Despite translations such as “foreigner” or “resident alien” which highlight the otherness of the ger, the Hebrew term itself holds no such connotation. In promoting its ethic of love towards the vulnerable, Deuteronomy does not talk of “the foreigner” or “the stranger”, instead using language associated with Israel’s ancestors: ger/guwr. This paper will argue that the choice of the word ger was chosen to help frame the debate about how certain outsiders were to be brought in to the community. Ger does not hold the negative connotations of other words for foreigners and its association with the word guwr is critical to understanding the empathy that is being sought through Deuteronomy’s use of the term ger. In commanding love for the ger, rather than the foreigner or the stranger, Deuteronomy frames the vulnerable outsider in light of Israel’s own experiences, evoking sympathy and prompting action. How we frame the debate in modern times is of equal importance: migrant, immigrant, refugee, foreigner, Mexican, Syrian, European; the language of the debate can be as important as the subject of the debate, and learning from Deuteronomy’s vision for the ger, we can better put forward a positive and persuasive biblical answer to contemporary crises.

Concentrated within Galatians 3:19-4:31 are four different slavery terms Paul uses to describe the Law metaphorically: the Law is a παιδαγωγός (3:24-25), an οἰκονόμος (4:2), an ἐπίτροπος (4:2), and Hagar the παιδίσκη (4:22, 23, 30, 31). Paul’s extended treatment of the Law as a slave has largely gone unnoticed by interpreters of Galatians, who have focused instead on Paul’s images of humanity’s enslavement to the Law. While not discounting the importance of these images in Galatians, this paper also maintains that Paul’s Law-as-slave cluster of metaphors is a heuristic key for interpreting Galatians 3:19-4:31. Paul characterizes the Law as a slave with remarkable consistency, given his tendency elsewhere in his letters to pile up apparently mixed metaphors to make a complex point (cf. 1 Cor 3). This consistency is not linguistic; each Law-as-slave metaphor within the cluster depicts the Law as a different kind of slave with a different title. But this paper suggests that Paul’s Galatian auditors, entrenched in a slave society, would naturally have drawn on their experiences to connect the dots between these images that appear disparate to the modern reader. In doing so, these auditors would have understood the Law not as a menacing overlord (as interpreters are wont to characterize it), but as a vulnerable entity that proved insufficient to give life to the Galatians. Cast as a slave with some measure of influence, the Law may have limited power to figuratively “enslave” humanity. But it remains a slave, an entity under authority.

In this paper, I gather and analyze twenty-three inscriptional examples of calculations of Greek names with numbers, many of which are unknown to most scholars. This evidence suggests that John the prophet uses a standardized form of name calculation that appears in ancient Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt to calculate the name of the beast with numbers (Rev 13:18). In addition, I show through analyses of the archaeological contexts of some of these epigraphic name calculations that the practice was geared towards a group who possessed enough knowledge to calculate the name: the person who calculates the name, typically the person whose name is calculated, and their associates.

One of the important artifacts in the study of Coptic Gnostic and apocryphal literature is the so-called ‘Berlin Gnostic Codex,’ BG 8502, which contains The Gospel of Mary, a short version of The Apocryphon of John, The Wisdom of Jesus Christ, and the Act of Peter. Although this single-quire papyrus codex was acquired and studied by Carl Schmidt even before the twentieth century, it was not published in its entirety until after the Nag Hammadi discovery in 1945, and in some ways this petit codex was and remains overshadowed by the NHC in scholarship. Fine work on the codicology of BG 8502 has been conducted by Schmidt, Till, and Schenke, as well as Robinson, but much work remains to be done, as highlighted by Krutzsch. BG 8502 also assumes new importance today, given the legend of its discovery in a tomb (cf. Nongbri), and the role that its leather cover plays in research into the possible monastic provenance of the NHC (Lundhaug/Jenott). In light of Nongbri’s monograph God’s Library and other recent contributions to codicology, this paper will re-introduce BG 8502 in comparison with other early Christian papyrus codices, asking new questions about its dimensions, binding, folia, ink(s), and—last but not least—its leather cover, which is famously said to contain an autograph testifying to its ownership by a monk.

William Faulkner’s *Light in August* (1932) rewrites the story of Jesus from the Gospels, transforming him into Joe Christmas, a (possibly) mixed-race man passing for white in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. The novel revises particular NT scenes (e.g., the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke; John 12’s account of Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet; Jesus’ cleansing of the temple; his betrayal by Judas; etc.). The points of contact between the Gospels and the novel are clear and become increasingly troubling as the narrative reveals Joe to be a tragically broken, but nonetheless violent and misogynistic criminal. Chapter 19 rewrites Pilate’s condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus. Percy Grimm, a representative of the U.S. government, shoots the fugitive Joe and mutilates his body. He does this under the presumption that Joe is a black man who raped and murdered a white woman, but Joe’s parentage is never established and he did not commit the crimes of which he was accused. (He rather killed in self-defense a woman with whom he had been having an affair.) Students often find the bigoted and brutal violence Joe suffers in this scene tremendously shocking, perhaps because it reveals their own violent expectations, or perhaps even fantasies, by overtly fulfilling them. From Percy’s point-of-view, which the novel may not entirely repudiate, Joe is a villain who gets his due; yet on the other hand, literally every accusation leading to his death proves either untrue or unverifiable, and from the moment of his birth to his lynching, he is as much a victim as a perpetrator of misogynistic violence. Arguably, the vomiting of the lynching’s onlookers materializes the readers’ response to the violence depicted: their appetite for retributive violence becomes over-sated and recoils on itself, making them sick. Faulkner brings his troubling recasting of Jesus’ crucifixion into dialogue with other depictions of brutal violence integrated within various Christian ideological settings. *Light in August* features an abolitionist terrorist who transmits his faith to his children (a version of John Brown), a domestically abusive Calvinist patriarch, a white supremacist prophet, and a “defrocked” clergyman, all of whom overtly reflect on Jesus’ redemptive death. This reflection is particularly important to chapter 19 since Joe Christmas’s lynching so closely parallels Christ’s crucifixion—both, in the end, as a result of false accusations. The scene therefore brings into disturbing focus the violence at the heart of the NT accounts of Jesus. It forces students to question the social, political, and ethical implications of certain Christian theological interpretations of Jesus’ violent death, some of which originate in the Gospels themselves, and to ponder the costs that “Christian” communities might pay for embracing an ideology that centrally celebrates a divinely authorized act of unjust violence. *Light in August* prompts students to consider whether certain traditional interpretations of the passion narrative have the effect of normalizing or even glorifying—creating an appetite for—the kind of brutality that (mostly) black people actually experienced in the United States in the Jim Crow-era South, and beyond.

Accepted paper for the 2019 IBR meeting, Linguistics and the Biblical Text research group

Do inscriptions channel power? In the Islamic world, the written word of the Qur’an induces awe in its beholders. But can qur’anic imagery tell us about the ethical arguments for authority and command? As authors of this study, we argue that qur’anic verses, when inscribed on monuments, act as signposts for power. Our main inquiry in this study was to find out whether our initial assumptions about our argument were valid theoretically. Also, were these assumptions backed by any evidence from actual monumental inscriptions? In light of the immense work on Islamic architecture, we found a chasm in the study of Islamic art. Scholars did not perform a hermeneutical scrutiny of monumental qur’anic inscriptions. Although qur‘anic inscriptions have been studied both in their formal and functional aspects but apart from a few exceptions, their hermeneutical aspects have largely been ignored. Therefore, there is a huge scope for studying the content and the interpretation of qur’anic inscriptions, making our study both methodologically and theoretically valuable. The purpose of this paper is to explore the deployment of qur’anic verses within various types of Islamic monuments, primarily from the Umayyad and early Abbasid eras. We study two monuments: the Nilometer and the Ahmad ibn Tulun Mosque in Egypt. We chose these two sites because they were both embellished between the seventh and ninth centuries CE, making them some of the first Muslim structures to feature qur’anic inscriptions. We raise two questions: Is the content (or meaning) of the inscriptions relevant? And, are qur’anic inscriptions a symbol of power? We argue that qur’anic monumental inscriptions can be mined for justifications of Islamic conquests, and for the transformation of dar al-kufr (sphere of unbelief) into dar al-islam (sphere of Islam).

Most scholars acknowledge that the slave manumission laws in Deut 15:12-18 in some way replace the slave laws of the Covenant Code, found in Ex 21:1-11. The focus of such comparisons is often of the equivalence that Deuteronomy places on the time of service for male and female slaves. While Exodus frees the male slaves after six years, the female slaves are only freed if, having displeased their master, they are redeemed or if their master diminishes their rations. Consequently, lifetime slavery for females is a distinct possibility. In Deuteronomy, though, male and female slaves both go free after six years of service, and they are both to be sent out with flocks, food and wine. What has been overlooked, however, is Deuteronomy’s position on the practice of slave-concubinage. Ex 21 appears to provide that any female slave is subject to slave-concubinage while in slave status and that they could only be freed by redemption, if they displeased their master. Conversely, Deuteronomy has a predilection against unmarried females who have been sexually active. Deuteronomy prefers that sexually active females be married. It will be argued in this paper that Deuteronomy revises Exodus 21 in, not one but, two ways. First, as noted already, Deut 15 caps the time that a female slave is required to serve at six years, like her male counterparts. Second, Deut 15:12:18 and 21:10-14 constructively eliminate the practice of slave-concubinage among female Hebrew slaves altogether. Not only that but Deuteronomy even eliminates the practice of slave-concubinage upon females who have been captured during war. This revision of the Covenant Code meshes well with Deuteronomy’s overarching program of increased humanitarianism as well as its desire for sexually experienced females to be married.

The Tomb of Mnemosyne (c. late 4th century) lies in a necropolis just south of the Daphne Gate of ancient Antioch on the Orontes River. Excavated in a single, two-week season in 1935, the tomb derives its name from the spectacular mosaic pavement found inside of its main chamber, which depicts six female figures poised for the beginning of a funerary banquet. The mosaic’s exclusive depiction of women in a funerary setting makes it unique in the ancient world. I intend to expand upon the description of the mosaic with regard to the serving-wear, the figures represented in the both the central panel and border, and homosocial and aspirational aspects of the women’s self- representation. Furthermore, I believe that previous interpretations of the epigraphic evidence is inconsistent with iconography of the central panel, and I problematize the assumption that the mosaic is a product of a women’s funerary association. In my presentation, I will give an overall assessment of the mosaic pavement, as well as a summary of my findings in line with, or departing from, previous scholarship. I accept the suggestion that the funerary mosaic represents a women’s association, though I am careful neither to overstate the association’s funerary aspects, nor specify the women’s commercial ties. Scholars have asserted that associations in general comprised primarily middle and lower-class members with such commercial ties, while archaeological evidence has shown that these associations frequently included both women and regulations pertaining to funeral rites. The women’s ability to purchase and remodel the Mnemosyne tomb complex speaks to a degree of wealth, a suggestion strengthened by the grave steles found in the tombs connected to the central chamber that primarily depict women in banqueting settings. The sub-elite status of these women is given by the rough quality of the steles themselves, as well as the fact that all of the tiles were repurposed from other mosaic. Furthermore, I suggest that the mosaic is as much convivial as it is aspirational; the wealth displayed in table-wear and costume, the ratio of servants to diners, and the posturing of the guests all speak to a self-representation on the part of the women that emulates the elite and imperial while stressing female kinship. Finally, I hope to expand upon previous descriptions of the mosaic by incorporating previously overlooked archaeological evidence recovered from the site, as well as secondary scholarship on the nature of associations, and identifying troubling features of the mosaic such as the table-wear and status of each figure. In the end, these women chose to depict themselves as enjoying the company of other women, sharing in the bounty of the living while commemorating dead. Their material remains have much to tell us about the nature of female homo-social relationships, autonomy and self-presentation.

Jeremiah is an unlikely subject for children’s literature, but he shows up persistently in various forms of Bible story books beginning in twelfth century France. In every age he is newly fashioned to embody religious ideals, pedagogical principles and the perceived needs of different social classes. The Jeremiahs of this literature continually slip from one persona to another, mirroring and challenging their young readers. As part of the reception history of the prophet, children’s Bibles reflect a range of political and cultural readings that illuminate a multivalent and changing Jeremiah. Jeremiah for young readers began in the twelfth century, in Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica designed for university students between thirteen and sixteen years old. Fusion of biblical and apocryphal traditions into a compelling story created a new Jeremiah that engaged adolescent readers by offering them a prophet who was more magician and hero than stern preacher. By the fifteenth century its many readers had shifted down from university to school children. Medieval youth may have known a dour Jeremiah from stained glass windows and statues in their cathedrals, but in their story Bibles they met a feisty, colorful character. In the seventeenth century Jérémie, as he was called in France, appeared again in a text for school boys. Nicholas Fontaine’s narrative Bible replaced the traditional presentation of Jeremiah as prefiguring of Christ with a bold rebel who began his work at the age of fifteen and was in trouble with the authorities throughout his life. Fontaine wrote from the Bastille, and his feisty Jérémie reflected his own embattled position as a Jansenist charged with treason as well as his pedagogical goal of training his students to resist tyranny. A very different Jérémie inhabited the French countryside, where peddlers sold inexpensive books of Bible stories. In the eighteenth century Rousseau’s writings about education were popularized into guidelines for pedagogy around the time the Sunday school movement started in England. One of its founders presented Jeremiah to her young charges in order “to produce a rational faith, and a right practice.” Her Jeremiah shows no hint of resistance or anger, but is like a prescient adult among naughty children whose foolishness is made apparent to her readers. Nineteenth and early twentieth century American Jeremiahs for children were a moral exemplar, but the morals, like the prophet himself, were shifting. By the end of the century historical-critical scholarship had influenced even children’s Bible stories, though not with scenes “such as would be repulsive to people of taste.” From mid-twentieth century to the present young readers have been encouraged to emulate Jeremiah’s steely courage. From a 1942 comic book to a 2007 Japanese manga Bible Jeremiah is a defiant young man challenging political authority. The paper includes theoretical observations about the use of children’s Bible stories as evidence for all readings of Jeremiah as cultural adaptation.

When students in an introductory New Testament course first encounter the diversity of the representations of Jesus among the four canonical gospels, many are often distressed. It can be challenging to help students negotiate this diversity without minimalizing or trivializing it, and to do so in way that they can relate to. I propose to simulate a brief demonstration of strategies that I have used in my own classroom that students have received positively. First, by having students read two brief newspaper articles that relate the same historical event, but each having their own editorial interest which reflects their respective audiences. This is roughly analogous to what students have to date learned in class about the evangelists. And second, by using myself as an example and the variety of ways perspectives of me differ depending on who I am engaging with at the time. For this latter component I find a bit self-deprecating sense of humor tends to be particularly well-received, injecting a note of levity to a situation which can otherwise be rather discomforting.

This essay examines retrospectively the characteristic interests expressed in the work of the late Jonathan Z. Smith whose advocacy of a method of "redescription" has inspired the work of the Redescribing Christian Origins seminar. Among his many interests, Smith's leading preoccupation was in theorizing the cognitive role that difference plays in making things interesting, leading him to his emphasis on the importance of understanding systems of classification and taxonomy. Smith's theoretical contributions to the study of religion are appreciatively assessed as methods to be employed in the ongoing scholarly project of imagining religion in light of Christian origins.

Romans begins by presenting Paul as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God concerning his Son, the messiah of Israel, through whom the ethne have been called in the new era in which the righteousness of God has appeared apart from the Law. Paul seeks to explain the implications of this revelation in Christ to the gentile Christ-followers in Rome especially as it impinges upon the Law and the Jewish people. Wrong inferences, perversions of Paul’s teaching, e.g. that ‘the Law is sin’ (7.7), that ‘God has rejected his people’ (11.1), have been drawn by some, (3.8). Paul presents these indirectly in diatribe style in chs. 2-11 and constructs his letter around them. These rejected options indicate what Paul opposes, and in contrast to these Paul presents his own alternative pattern of life in Christ for ethne. Paul uses this indirect style to oppose misunderstandings of his gentile mission teaching, and to demonstrate what pattern of life he recommends for the ethne in Christ particularly for those who have conscience problems in relation to food and drink possibly associated with idolatry. Paul stresses that Jesus Christ comes from the Jewish people firstly to affirm the promises to the fathers as well as to enable the ethne to glorify God for his mercy (15.8-9). Since Israel has neither been rejected nor bypassed, customary Jewish patterns of behavior among ethne in Christ are still viable, and what seems ‘good’ to these must not be blasphemed (14.16). Nor is it acceptable for some Christ-followers to view themselves as displacing Israel in the purpose of God (11.19). Paul envisions both a restored Israel and non-Jews rejoicing together in a common worship, and his planned mission to Spain, with the help of the Romans, will work to that goal (15.24).

Study of the relationship of the Book of the Four (Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah) to the Deuteronomistic History is currently underway. As for the book of Amos, scholars have discerned deuteronomistic additions in a few passages. The earliest oracles and sayings of the book have usually thought to have originated with Amos, the mid-eighth-century B.C.E. prophet. Some scholars have supposed that the earliest layer was composed then, and others have suggested that the earliest layer was composed at some time after 722 B.C.E. In this presentation I will examine the relationship of the four major passages in the book of Amos that discuss Israel’s exile to Assyria (Amos 4:1-3; 5:25-27; 6:1-14; and 7:7-17) to the Deuteronomistic History. Many of the texts in these passages are considered to be of the earliest layer of the book. These include Amos 4:1-3; 5:27; much of 6:1-14; and 7:7-8. Some of the rest of the texts are already considered to be of a deuteronomistic layer. Those widely accepted currently are: Amos 5:25-26 and 7:10-17. I will argue that the four Amos passages (4:1-3; 5:25-27; 6:1-14; 7:7-17) are deuteronomistic in their entirety. This means that date-of-composition models for the foundation layer of Amos should be adjusted and that the deuteronomistic layer should now include these four passages. This model will also affect the study of the relationship of the Book of the Four to the Deuteronomistic History. Although the four Amos passages are about Israel’s exile, only Amos 7:10-17 is thought to refer to the Assyrian exile. Deportations that occurred before 722 B.C.E. are considered instead for the other three passages. I will demonstrate that the four Amos passages have long-range historical views similar to those of the books of Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea. I will offer brief comparisons to passages in those books. Those passages also make evident that the four Amos passages blame the Israelite kingship for having caused the exile by it neglect of keeping YHWH’s covenant and commands. The sins described in the four Amos passages primarily belong to the kingship. I will show that the address to the cows of Bashan in Amos 4:1 does not refer to a group of eighth-century wealthy women, but to the kingship. I will also suggest that because Amos 4:1-3; 5:25-27; 6:1-14; and 7:7-17 are deuteronomistic and draw from books such as Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea, they should be ascribed an origination date after 587 B.C.E. The four Amos passages should also be considered as supplements to the Deuteronomistic History.

From the text critical point of view, the different texts of the book of Esther create a complex picture that still needs to be clarified. In particular, some readings of the Vetus Latina seem to be noteworthy especially in comparison with the main textual witnesses (the Masoretic Text, the Old Greek, the so called Alpha Text). With regard to the Book of Esther, Haelewyck counted at least ten readings in which Vetus Latina agrees with the Masoretic Text against the Old Greek and the Alpha Text. In this paper, I would, however, like to focus on those readings where the Vetus Latina is identical with or very close to the Alpha Text against all other texts (VL = AT ≠ MT = OG). For example, I will present the data for the reading "qui est Andicus", parallel to ὅς ἐστι Δύστρος Ξανθικός in Esth A 1; for the reading "magnum", parallel to μεγάλην in Esth 1,9; and the reading "et non adoras Aman?", parallel to καὶ οὐ προσκυνεῖς τὸν Αμαν in Esth 3,3. The said examples and some more will be presented and possible solutions will be offered.

Apocalyptic discourse presented a rich array of resources, some of which prove fundamental to the literary development and theological presentation of Acts. After examining alternative accounts of apocalypticism in ancient texts, this paper identifies discrete topoi, or building blocks, that animate Acts. From the outset Acts apparently defers apocalyptic expectation (1:6-7), but Peter’s speech marks the Holy Spirit’s arrival as a sign of the last days, linking the Spirit’s presence to the resurrection and glorification of Jesus. Dreams and visions, interpreted by Peter as gifts of the Spirit, drive key moments in the narrative, thereby rendering the mission to the nations as manifestation of the Spirit’s end-time work. Although angels are not unique to apocalyptic discourse, angelic speculation frequently occurs in apocalyptic texts, and angels intervene at key moments in Acts. The resurrection of Jesus, an inherently apocalyptic motif, constitutes a critical point of emphasis and controversy in the narrative. Acts is not a literary apocalypse, nor does it voice the keen cultural critique and urgent expectation of the literary apocalypses, yet its fundamental premises and narrative devices identify Acts as an appropriation and interpretation of apocalypticism.

It has often been assumed that one of the primary functions of pseudonymous writing in early Judaism was a desire to legitimize anonymous or little-known works by means of attributing them to earlier, more authoritative figures. Without necessarily denying ‘authorization’ as an aspect of this phenomenon, several recent scholars have presented supplementary models for understanding pseudonymous writing in antiquity that attempt to transcend modern presuppositions around intellectual property and authorial intent (e.g. Hindy Najman, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Eva Mroczek). This essay aims to contribute to that discussion by comparing examples from early Jewish Pseudepigrapha with anthropological and ethnographic studies of contemporary spirit cults around the world where the spirits of dead ancestors are regularly hosted by professional mediums. Though at first glance, the cultural distance between these contexts may seem to prohibit such a comparison, I argue that so-called ‘possession studies’ can be enlightening for the study of early Jewish pseudepigraphy at a theoretical and analogical level. Four connections are highlighted: First, in contrast to popular stereotypes, as practiced in numerous contexts, spirit possession is often a positive and cultivated practice (rather than an affliction or a cause for social alienation). Possession is also often a corporate experience that is central to a community’s religious life. Second, these possession practices are usually regulated by established modes (and not just freeform nonsense). Anthropologist Michael Lambek has characterized this kind of spirit possession as a sophisticated “system of communication” that alludes to and comments on itself—even as it innovates. Third, spirit possession can function as a commentary on the “climate of affairs” for a community or individual. This is especially true in cultures that have experienced colonization. Fourth, spirit possession has been called a non-historiographical mode of describing the past and prescribing the future. It is a way of calling up trusted voices from a culture’s heritage and gaining their wisdom on new situations. It also puts historic figures into conversation with one another, though they were not contemporaries in life. Primary texts discussed include Daniel, Jubilees, and 11QPsa. Theorists include Lesley Sharp, Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús, and Paul C. Johnson.

The three epistles penned by ‘John’ in the New Testament are exciting, if challenging, documents with which to work as they offer a fascinating glimpse into the real-life struggles of early Jesus Followers. And yet, for all the insight these letters provide into the goings-on of such communities, the Johannine epistles are not always read with an eye toward the urban milieu whence they most likely originate. More significantly, what they may say regarding the issue of socio-economic scaling and/or stratification is seldom pursued. Though scholars do occasionally make mention of the presence of wealthy members in the community on the basis of language in 1 John 3.17 and the presence of Gaius and Diotrophes in 3 John, little is said beyond the fact that there might be some ‘wealthy’ church members. Furthermore, no scholar of which I am aware has offered an economic scaling of the church(es) represented in the epistles. To be sure, there are good reasons for this. While the letters clearly bear witness to a concrete struggle in the life of early Jesus Followers, much remains opaque in the letters. Little is known about the author(s?) or the audience, nor is there any location for the communities mentioned. References to specific communities (i.e. the ‘elect lady’ and her ‘sister’ of 2 John) and/or people (Gaius, Diotrophes, Demetrius (3 John) occur, but the particulars of the life of the community remain few and far between. While it may not be possible to say much about stratification in the Johannine community, I would contend it is possible to say something. Thus, in the present study I propose to take what little can be said about the Johannine epistles regarding their socio-economic setting and bring it into conversation with Longenecker’s work on wealth scaling in order to help put as fine a point as possible on what one might ascertain about social stratification in 1–3 John. Indeed, when salient details of the Johannine letters are read in light of Longenecker’s wealth-scale, they can be seen to attest to members in their respective communities that run the gamut from ES4/ES5 to ES7. One catches a glimpse of a stratified group of Jesus Followers, with those in greater economic security responsible for bearing some of the key financial burdens in the community. This comports both with the broader attitude maintained by early Jesus Followers regarding wealth as well as the composition of some Pauline churches that featured a mixture of people from various social strata.

The biblical creation narratives have been a major focus of animal studies, from Derrida’s 1997 address to the Cérisy conference onward. Recently, the work of Hannah Strømmen (2014, 2018) has extended this focus to post-flood narratives about Noah, albeit with an overall synchronic focus on how the P (Gen 9:1-17) and non-P (Gen 9:18-27) might be read in relation to one another. Building on work done on Genesis 1-11 for the Kohlhammer International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament, this paper explores the related and yet distinctly different accounts of human - ‘animal’ difference in the non-P and P strands of the Genesis primeval history, also as they relate to earlier Near Eastern cosmological reflections on the relations of humans to other beings. With Strømmen, but adding a diachronic dimension, this paper will argue that the discourses about humans and other species in the ‘creation’ narratives of Genesis are part of a broader cosmological treatments that extend to the end of the primeval history. This perspective then allows us to perceive these competing discourses about non-human beings as key initial foundations to broader biblical discourses about distinctions among beings and domination, from human-animal to male-female to Israelite-Canaanite and beyond.

Simon Mimouni, Ray Pritz, and Petri Luomanen are the primary authorities on the Jewish Christian sect of the Nazarenes or Nazoreans. Both Mimouni and Pritz have denied a connection between the historical Nazarenes with the Mandaeans of Iraq. All three of the aforementioned scholars have also not incorporated eastern witnesses into their assessment of the Nazarenes, as they primarily focus on Greek and Latin patristic sources. As a corrective, I focus on the Semitic/Eastern witnesses to the Nazarenes; particularly in the Didascalia, the Kerdir Inscription, the Julian Romance, the Toledot Yeshu, the Book of Nestor Ha’Komer, and Quranic/Islamic references to the Nasraya/Notsrim/Nasara. Per the research of Francois de Blois, this paper will argue that the Nazarenes were a historical Jewish Christian group of a Syriac background. The name ‘Nazarene’ came to signify Christianity beyond the boundaries of the Roman empire, particularly by hegemonic forces seeking to denigrate Christians by reminding them of their Jewish origins. This term is also found as a self identification in the literature of the Church of the East, also known as ‘Nestorian’, classic examples being the Julian Romance or Vita of Mar Aba. This Church also retains a number of Jewish practices in terms of its exegesis, demonology, liturgy, scribal-scholastic traditions, and folk religious traditions. The assessments of Petri Luomanen, Annette Yoshiko-Reed (particularly Ch.’s 2,3, & 5 of Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism), Patricia Crone, Guy Stroumsa, and Francois De Blois will form the main theoretical and historical interpretation of the term ‘Nazarene’; while concurrently describing its use in Syriac, Judaic, and Arabic sources.

This paper takes a prompt from Botticelli's 'Mordecai's Weeping', a sixteenth-century Italian painting, which depicts the scene from the scroll of Esther in which Mordecai mourns over the published threat to the Empire's Jews. The paper will challenge the presumed passivity of weeping to explore the complex political claims and implications of public mourning in this and other aesthetic works inspired by Esther 4.

To what end does the strange text of Matthew 24:28 refer to eagles (aetoi): “Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles will be gathered? Some interpreters and translations try to make sense of the sentence by rendering aetoi as vultures (not eagles) and claim it depicts a common scene of vultures feeding on corpses. But various ancient writers are convinced that aetoi (Latin, Aquila) does not mean vulture; the term gyps (Latin, vultur) denotes vultures. Writers spanning Aristotle, Pliny the elder and Aelianus distinguish the two birds consistently with vultures eating carrion and eagles catching their own prey; eagles (aetoi 28x) and corpses (ptoma 21x) never occur together in the Septuagint nor in the rest of the NT nor in the Pseudepigrapha, nor in Philo, Josephus and Plutarch. Significantly, eagles in the Septuagint are commonly associated with imperial powers (16 of 28 uses) namely Assyria, Babylon, Egypt. God uses such powers to inflict punishment and then in turn punishes these empires. In six uses God is the super-eagle who saves from imperial powers. This association of eagles and imperial power is in the first century represented by Rome whether in texts (4 Ezra), on buildings, omens of eagles before battles, on coins, and of course the eagle standards (aquilae) carried into battle at the front of Roman legions that bear an image of eagles because “it is the king and bravest of all the birds; it is regarded by them as a symbol of empire…an omen of victory…a sacred emblem” (Josephus, JW 3.123). No one confuses these eagles with vultures. In this light, the eagles gathered with the corpses in Matt 24:28 in the context of the return of the triumphant son of man suggests a scenario of battle in which the eagles are not actual birds but the standards of Roman legions that represent defeated Roman power. The eagles are “gathered together with the corpses.” Rome, an agent of God’s judgment in the events of 70 is now punished and destroyed at the return of the Son of Man to establish God’s empire. The verb “gathered together” (sunago) regularly appears in Matthew in scenes of eschatological judgment and condemnation. It must be noted, though, that in representing destroyed Rome as eagles gathered with corpses, the Gospel presents God’s triumph through the victorious son of man as a grotesque mimicking and reinscribing of the imperial strategies and worldview that the Gospel resists.

In considering fan culture, the phenomenon can fairly easily be mapped onto pervasive models of the religious. What emerges from this is a novel space for engagement of how fandom reacts to the potentially “heretical” within its own definition of tradition—perhaps most interestingly, how it reacts to such threats from in-universe and real-world threats to established beliefs and texts. This can include new additions to canon, new interpretations of canon, interference by meta-gods (original authors/creators), and the treatment of gods, the deitical, and religion in-universe. By affirming the ways in which fan culture does mirror religion, we are able to then dig deeper into analyzing the interaction of elements of non-fandom religion and/or god-like action within the fandom community, helping us to consider the weight of fan culture as a religious community that operates and sustains itself with a level of integrity well worth serious consideration and further exploration.

According to 2 Kgs 4:8–37, a barren woman from Shunem miraculously gives birth after demonstrating her faithfulness to the prophet Elisha. Later, when the boy becomes sick and dies, the woman once again displays her faithfulness to Elisha, which results in him resurrecting the child. Thus, unlike other miraculous birth narratives in the Hebrew Bible in which the promised child is destined for greatness (e.g., Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph, Samson, or Samuel), the child in this pericope serves no function other than to be born, die, and be resurrected. Using the “Woman in the Refrigerator” trope as an analytical tool, I argue that, due to his complete lack of agency, the text treats this miracle child as a nothing more than a plot mechanism benefitting the central characters, particularly Elisha. Comic book writer Gail Simone first articulated the “Woman in the Refrigerator” syndrome in 1999 to describe a common comic book trope where female characters are injured, killed, or depowered for the sole purpose of developing the male protagonists’ storylines. Since its inception, this trope has gained prominence in feminist critiques of popular culture in the West, particularly in comic book and gaming cultures. Simone named the trope after the death and literal refrigeration of Alexandra DeWitt, the girlfriend of the superhero main character, in Green Lantern #54 (1994). Not a fully-developed character in her own right, Alexandra's death acted as a plot device in the hero’s story, providing the motivation for Green Lantern to confront the villain. In this paper, I use the trope to analyze the child and his role as an innocent victim and plot device in this account. Though the “Woman in the Refrigerator” trope originated with female characters, any character, regardless of gender, can receive such a label. The tragedy of all these characters comes from the lack of agency they possess in their own lives, in their own stories, due to the fact that their plot lines only serve to further the hero’s arc. We, the readers, perceive the boy in 2 Kgs 4:8–37 as an innocent victim because, unlike other miracle children, he lives only to die, in order to highlight the miraculous power of Elisha.

As one who has used the UBS text since its third edition in my days as an undergraduate student until now in its fifth edition as one who teaches such students, I would like to express my personal remarks regarding its format and style as I’ve seen students use the text. There is a reason that the presentation of its text has not changed radically from edition to edition over the years—it has much to commend itself. But as the field of textual criticism advances and new resources become available—most notably the publication of the Editio Critica Maior—some of the original needs of the UBS text are no longer quite as necessary. This presentation will discuss recent and proposed changes to the UBS edition as it affects students learning Greek for the first time, with specific examples from the New Testament.

Clement’s petition on behalf of earthly, political leaders and his exhortation to submit to them in the closing prayer (59–61) has prompted several investigations aimed at parsing his and his community’s relationship with Rome and imperial rule. Was it friendly—as is suggested by his call for Christians (in Rome and Corinth) to submit to their rulers, with no reservations—or is there a counter-imperial subtext to be found therein? This paper will argue that Clement’s subordination of the Christian to secular forms of government fits within his broader rhetorical argument that God has established and ordered the world (e.g., cosmos, nature, society, military, and the church) according to his will and that this order should not be transgressed. By deposing and replacing their presbyters, the Corinthian church has defied God’s order, and it is necessary for them to restore it by reinstating those presbyters. However, Clement’s reasoning from “order” opens his argument up to criticism. Christianity itself was an unsanctioned religion and Christians were known to refuse to participate within the imperial cult. This refusal to conform could be offered up by the Corinthians an example where the Christians in Rome refused to obey their God appointed rulers and were themselves guilty of transgressing the bounds of “order” established by God. Clement navigates this possible charge by emphasizing God’s sole claim to sovereign rule and the Christian’s ultimate submission to him alone. All other rulers exist to exercise power according to his will. He reinforces this cosmology with the nexus of political titles he uses when speaking of or addressing God: God is ὁ μόνος ὕψιστος ἐν ὑψηλοῖς (59.3), εὐεργέτης (59.3), σωτήρ (59.3), βασιλεύς (61.2), κύριος (59.3; 60.1; 61.1, 2), δεσπότης (59.4; 60.3; 61.1, 2), and the giver of peace (60.3). Secular rulers, on the other hand, are υἱοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων (“sons of men”; 61.2) and simply ἄρχοντες καὶ ἡγουμένοι (“those who rule and lead”; 60.4). Thus, Clement avoids entirely epithets such as βασιλεύς, κύριος, or δεσπότης. Within this context, this paper will contend that a large swath of designations used for God in the closing prayer have close ties to the political world and that in their attribution to God there is a counter-imperial subtext that functions as a reminder of where the Christian’s true loyalties lie, even when their rulers transgress their God-appointed bounds (61.2).

In this paper, I argue two points, both of them relating to the way in which Greek Christianity transmitted the text of the Septuagint and relevant to our modern text-critical approach. First, I reflect on the fact that the transmission of the biblical text is an expression of Christian biblical interpretation as valid as (and in fact: more influential than) other forms of exegesis. Buried in text-critical apparatuses and hardly noticed, variant readings of the biblical text in fact inform us of different kinds of Christian interpretation, both reactive and active. Second, I underline that Christian views on the Septuagint have shaped our current text-critical approach to that text in a manner the profoundness of which is not always realized enough. Some modern-day, Western scholarly conceptions of (and tools to deal with) the origins, transmission… of the Septuagint are still very much shaped by the views Early Christianity had on those topics—also those that are now known to be problematic. Referring to the Hexapla and Jewish revisions, I discuss the difficulties (and at time: reluctance) we experience when trying to escape what the late M.L. West called the ‘dogmatic drag’ (i.e., ‘obsolete views go on exercising a pull even after having been discredited, and they put a brake on progress towards a new position’; The Making of the Iliad, Oxford, 2011, p. 16).

Epiphanius’ Panarion is an experiment in writing Christian difference into existence. A hefty work on heresies by a celebrity bishop who provoked strong personal reactions in his own time and ours, it has come to define a modern scholarly category of heresiology. It has also seen an uptick in recent attention, in work including (but not limited to) that by Alain Le Boulluec, Aline Pourkier, Averil Cameron, Andrew Jacobs, Todd Berzon, and David Maldonado-Rivera. The Panarion, however, at least in its full three volumes, never gets much ancient airtime. Heresiologists who explicitly refer to Epiphanius use the anonymous Anacephalaioses, within a short time attached to circulating manuscripts of the longer text. Augustine even thinks that the epitome was Epiphanius’ famous polemical work. And centuries later, when John of Damascus shapes his own extended De Haeresibus around the catalogue, he uses, again, the shorter Anacephalaioses. In this paper, I use the panel focus on the biography of books to unpack the curious discrepancy between the Panarion’s effects and the evidence we have – or rather, that we lack – for its late antique readership. By attention to the Panarion between two historical moments and their different responses to information overload – the late antique and the early modern – I construct a case study that complicates the relationship between the trajectory of a text, its attributed author’s reputation, and its contents. My paper has three brief components. First, I introduce the Panarion and justify understanding it, in its late antique context, as something of a poor fit for wide usage. Second, I note how the work, nevertheless, comes to function as prototypic for heresiography in early modernity. Third, I briefly suggest how this biographic approach helps us theorize not only how texts communicate differently through time, but how the conditions governing text use interface with real and imagined features of the texts in question.

Like Psalm 1, the first chapter of the Writings, Joshua 1 looks back to the Torah while also looking forward to the Former (and Later) Prophets. This paper investigates the dual directionality of Joshua 1 in two ways. First, I examine how the commission of Joshua in ch. 1 draws on both Numbers and Deuteronomy, interweaving their material concerning of Joshua. Second, I argue that the figure of Joshua is intended as a model of legal hermeneutics, interpreting and applying, and thus concretizing, the Torah in specific circumstances. Like Psalm 1, this points to a way in which the Prophets build on and appropriate the Torah.

The Chinese government’s market-based economic strategy has attracted many rural people to urban areas in search of better employment opportunities. However, despite its prosperity, there is wide income disparities in urban cities and many people are living at the subsistence level. Those migrant workers’ lives are bound by the government’s “hukou” migration policy. Some of them need to leave their migrant children in the rural areas as “left-behind children.” In view of this, some churches in China narrowly define evangelism as the making of converts. The parable of the prodigal son (15:11-32) becomes one of the most frequently engaged parables that only focuses on the theme of repentance and forgiveness. The prodigal son represents sinners who are accepted by God; and the older son represents Pharisees who do not understand God’s forgiving grace. However, this traditional interpretation only connects 15:11-32 with the preceding two parables without noticing how it can be related to the subsequent parable of the dishonest manager (16:1-13). Michael Austin challenges this reading by arguing that isolating Luke 15 as one unit would allow the theme of “lost and found” to be the “dominant interpretative criterion.” This reading also misses Luke’s social teaching (14:1-24; 15:1-32; 16:1-9). In this paper, I argue that Luke 15:11-32 and Luke 16:1-13 form a two-part challenge to the Pharisees regarding their use of resources, a challenge that requires active solidarity with those outside the socio-religious boundary, from acceptance to active sharing of resources. In regard to the issue of poverty and migration in China, this paper provides an alternative understanding to the parable of the prodigal son by demonstrating how 16:1-13 can provide an “interpretive clue to the meaning of the prodigal son.” This reading also pushes the church to engage more in society to bring both social and economic transformation. To do that, this paper starts explaining how the “hukou” migration policy has resulted in the issues of poverty and discrimination among migrant workers. Then, in relation to the context of Luke 15-16, I argue that the core issues for some Pharisees are their seeking of self-glory and love of money that establishes a socio-religious boundary between them and the marginalized. Luke 15-16 is then set against the context of the growing tension between Pharisees and Jesus and the two parables (15:11-32; Luke 16:1-13) serve as consecutive responses to the Pharisees in relation to God’s social message. Afterwards, by showing the similarities between the younger son and the dishonest manager, I argue that they are both wise planners who can utilize their social resources to establish relationship with others for future benefit. This ironic appreciation forms the basis of Jesus’s social message that it is important to share the worldly resources with the poor for eschatological benefits. In contrast, the older son ironically fails to demonstrate this solidarity by refusing to join the celebration. The open-ended question from the father appears as a challenge to some Pharisees to break down the socio-religious boundary to align with God’s redemptive purpose.

A programmatic expression of Second Temple piety, Psalm 115 contains a distinctive nexus of theologoumena depicting Israel’s religious life as a drama of gratitude, trust, and praise. The psalm turns on conveying a proper understanding of blessing, which is presented not only as performative speech but an act of divine imitation or mirroring, a means of “replacing” (Andrew Davison) the worshiper and worshiping community in right relation to God and God’s creation.

In its effusive description of the Eshet Chayil, Proverbs 31.10-31 invokes several spaces: the home, fields and vineyards, foreign lands, and city gates. Mention of these is not incidental but fundamental to the work of the passage in promoting its utopian vision. Thus far, attention to the spaces of Proverbs 31 has been limited largely to implications of city gates in characterizing the Eshet Chayil’s husband (e.g., Biwul) and to exploring the extent to which the Eshet Chayil’s occupation of public spaces informs as to the lives of women in antiquity (Lang, Meyers, Yoder). This paper draws upon space theorists Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey, and Tim Cresswell to understand more fully the function of spaces mentioned in Proverbs 31. What ideology do these promote? The spaces mentioned contribute to the text’s construction of gender, as male and female figures occupy distinct locations, either acting or constrained from acting with regard to various tasks and in relation to other persons also present in the spaces. In addition, distinctions in the poem between rural and urban spaces reinforce projections of class, with both peasants and elites asserting their own interests. This study clarifies the power dynamics ongoing between all these groups as asserted via mention of spaces. Understanding the function of spaces in Proverbs 31 also involves noting instances of boundary transgression. What do these accomplish? Liminal spaces produced by such transgressions supply an opportunity to rethink prevailing social structures and systems in light of current conditions. Migration, shifts in leadership, developing urban areas and expanding trade — such challenges or many others could invite conversation within an ancient community regarding how it ought best conduct itself. This paper argues that both reinforcing and renegotiating of social practices is taking place via the mention of spaces in Proverbs 31. The insights produced through analyzing the use of space in Proverbs 31 prompts a new understanding of the poem’s opening question: “An Eshet Chayil, who can find?” She may not be as rare as the rhetorical question would imply. Rather, the struggle to locate this woman represents a community’s effort to discover how best to preserve and exert its own chayil (“strength”).

While many would agree that wisdom can be defined as the skill of living well, few enough have sought to give a comprehensive answer as to the question of what the end result of a life well-lived would look like. If one is to properly understand the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible, and that of Israel’s neighbors, then it is necessary to examine what these documents present as the picture of the life well-lived. This paper seeks to address this question by examining one particular genre of both Israelite and Egyptian Wisdom Literature in an attempt to discern the necessary elements of the good life as presented in theodicean literature. As theodicy presents vivid images of what is wrong with the world, by working backward from these statements, one can discern a vivid picture of what constitutes a life well-lived. Especially as theodicean literature often portrays the sufferer as beyond reproach, this line of inquiry can yield significant insights by examining what has gone wrong for the sufferer. Moreover, by comparing the various conceptions of the good life in the wisdom traditions of Israel and Egypt, one can see how the major concerns of the two cultures represent their respective worldviews. While the Egyptian presentation of theodicy presents the good life as one lived in accordance with maat (and subsequently the sufferer as one unable to experience maat), the Israelite sages present the good life as one lived in congruence with the creation narrative(s) of Genesis 1-2. This paper helps to build a clearer picture of just what the sages of the ancient Near East attempted to achieve through their work and what kind of life their followers could anticipate with careful attention to their words. While theodicy is inherently concerned with violations of the expected natural order, it is nevertheless a valuable enterprise to see how this genre fits into the conversation.

In light of the discoveries of 4Q242 Prayer of Nabonidus and Nabonidus’s Harran stele, scholars generally agree that the narrative tradition of Daniel 4 originally pertained to Nabonidus. Such has also been suggested for other narrative traditions underlying Daniel 2–3. During the compositional development of the book of Daniel, however, Nabonidus was eventually replaced by Nebuchadnezzar. While scholars such as Carol Newsom have offered sound arguments concerning why the Jewish community would have composed stories about Nabonidus, less attention has been given to questions concerning the character substitution from Nabonidus to Nebuchadnezzar. Why did a later redactor(s) choose to ascribe narrative traditions originally about Nabonidus to Nebuchadnezzar, especially considering the ongoing presence of Nabonidus traditions at Qumran? What was the rhetorical and ideological intention behind such a transformation? In other words, what could Nebuchadnezzar "do" for the redactors of Daniel that Nabonidus could not do? This paper, thus, seeks to offer a contribution to these key literary questions. Jan Assmann, in his description of mnemohistory, astutely notes: “The present is ‘haunted’ by the past and the past is modeled, invented, reinvented, and reconstructed by the present.” Analysis of these transformations, in turn, evince the (un)conscious logic that shapes the nature of cultural memory. Haunted by the memory of Nebuchadnezzar, indelibly etched into the psyche of the diasporic Jewish community, innovative portrayals of Nebuchadnezzar began to emerge that effectively reshaped and reimagined the king’s role in their history (e.g., MT Jer 27:5–6; OG Bel 28, 41–42; Judith). Although the Nabonidus traditions may not have derived from the various redactors of Daniel, I argue the transference of Nabonidus to Nebuchadnezzar, mutatis mutandis, affects the same reimagination—viz., reconfiguring the image of Nebuchadnezzar cast in the Deuteronomistic History, Chronicles, and Ezra–Nehemiah. This innovative reimagination would not only offer encouragement to the Jews under Greek hegemony; it would also serve as a foreign king template, so to speak, within which any Gentile king could be inserted while the Jewish community remained under foreign dominion.

The theory of so-called Trito-Isaiah is challenged because it reveals varieties of dissonance in Isa. 56–66 and intertextual interdependence within the final form of the Book of Isaiah. For example, the incompatible themes and tones between chs. 56-59; 63-66 and 60-62 lead scholars to hypothesize different redactional layers or to reconstruct social circumstances to shape the characteristics of the author’s critique. These kinds of approaches easily overlook the possibility of polyphony within a single text, voice, or character. This idea leads us to focus on how the narrator expresses and delivers his internal and external struggle to the reader. The sensitive reader might catch the narrator’s expectation and frustration. For this process of reading, first, if chs. 56–66 could be considered as a literary unit, contradictory statements could be related to the narrator’s self-identity and experience. Second, I will put the narrator of chs. 56-66 within the circumstances between 520 and 515 BCE. His dual message about the temple is that it is deeply related to the context of temple reconstruction, which was encouraged by Haggai and Zechariah. From this point, it is possible to say that the narrator has a different idea about this building project than two prophets. Third, I will try to show how he reveals his ambivalence by using Isaian languages to debate with the other party. Perhaps the narrator, although he was an immigrant Jew who was had immigrated from Babylon, would be related to nonmainstream Yehud politics. This liminality makes him reveal his dual feelings on his social conditions. Fourth, I will consider that the narrator utilizes his social memory of the temple as a frame of reference to interpret his context. Through utilizing these presuppositions, I will analyze Trito-Isaiah’s rhetoric against the temple-building project in chapter 66.

Matthew 2:16-18 records 1) Herod’s massacre of infants and 2) the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15, Rachel weeping for her children. Modern historical-critical and reader-oriented methods, which study the text’s historical origins and its modern readers respectively, fail adequately to address questions about the passage’s meaning and relevance by neglecting its long history of interpretation. In this paper, I focus on three Renaissance painters who have produced visual-exegetical and actualized readings of Matt 2:16-18. I first define visual exegesis and actualization before proceeding to works by Matteo di Giovanni, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and Peter Paul Rubens. These three artists decry violence of European wars in interesting ways, by use of subtle artistic motifs and details. Visual exegesis is a unique requirement for understanding visual representation of Scripture. Contexts, motifs, purpose, artistic limitations, and identities of beholders are all important to understand such works that differ in many ways from textual counterparts. Actualization is the process of reading a passage of Scripture in comparison with present circumstances and application. Three Renaissance artists exegete Matt 2:16-18 visually and actualize the text. Matteo di Giovanni reveals the contemporary fears of the Turks’ invasion of Italy in his depiction of Herod. Not only is the tyrant is depicted massively oversized with a skin tone darker than the victims’, Herod in his second painting is donning a turban. The artwork serves to warn fellow Italians that all is not well in national security. Pieter Brugel the Elder, faithfully represented by the Younger, pictures the massacre in a snowy village of Netherlands. Brugel expresses in his work the Dutch resentment of the oppressive Spanish occupation administration. The imperial insignia on the herald’s tabard and men with red coats, the uniform of the bandes d’ordonnance, the brutal enforcers, is an important clue. In this manner, Brugel contributes to confrontational art common at that time. Peter Paul Rubens borrows from Raphael’s successful combination of two most often-revisited artistic motifs of his era: 1) Leonardo’s “depiction of the savagery of war” and 2) Michelangelo’s “dynamic mastery of the male nude in action,” a common sight in ancient Greek art. What is distinct in Rubens is the figure of Rachel in the second of his paintings on the subject. She is at the center interceding for the victims with arms raised toward heaven. She again appears in another later work of Rubens entitled, The Horrors of War, which is an artistic protest of the Thirty Years’ War. This reprise proves how fluid is the exchange of roles between Rachel and the Unfortunate Europe. In conclusion, these three Renaissance artists reveal the potential of the actualized and visualized text to express opposing opinions concerning the contemporary problems, not just memorialize the past. Specifically, artists’ paintbrush can be a weapon of protest against violence, just as mighty as the pen, which is mightier than the sword.

Increasingly, study of the senses is becoming an element of disability criticism within biblical studies. Hector Avalos in his article “Introducing Sensory Criticism in Biblical Studies” is one of the few to have thoroughly examined the motif of blindness in the Hebrew Bible. According to Avalos, the reader can find in 1 Samuel 3 the stark juxtaposition between Eli, who cannot see what others see, and Samuel, who even hears what others cannot hear; and this juxtaposition represents the Deuteronomistic History’s audio-centric tendency, i.e., the tendency to “valu[e] hearing above sight.” When it comes to understanding God and the world, Avalos contends that sight usually skews reality, whereas hearing leads to correct conclusions. Though the Deuteronomist’s general emphasis on hearing is indeed remarkable, I think that Avalos overstates his case. The narrative of 1 Samuel 1-3 shows that seeing also functions as a channel by which to receive God’s messages. Ironically, this positive representation of sight is most highlighted at the very moment that Eli begins to lose his sight and Samuel sees ‘the vision’ from the deity, a vision, moreover, that shows the demise of Eli’s priesthood. I thus suggest that in this narrative, it is less a matter of either hearing or seeing, but of disability versus the (super)ability to perceive God’s will. “Ability” correlates to an ability to understand the divine will, and disability indicates an inability to do so. Therefore, the loss of senses, though considered a disability in modern society, does not necessarily equate to being a disability for the Deuteronomist. (For the open session)

What is a beast? And what is a being? These questions initiate the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a Hogwarts text book from the fictitious universe created by J. K. Rowling. The book exemplifies that bestiality, monstrosity, and the fantastic are ongoing, significant, and well-attested phenomena, not only in contemporary culture but also in the history of religions (cf. e.g. Cohen 1996). In this paper, I will therefore pose two additional questions: In what ways and why do holy scriptures such as the Qur’an and the Bible contain renderings of beasts and monsters? What are their function? One example of a biblical monster is Leviathan, the dragon that God defeated at the beginning of time (Ps 74, 12–17, cf. Ps 104, 24–28; Is 27, 1). Leviathan represents life-threatening chaos, the chaos called “without form and void”, which God made into order through his creation. Whereas monsters, such as Leviathan, have been studied extensively within Biblical Studies (cf. van Bekkum et al. 2017), the monstrous features of the Qur’an have never been duly investigated by qur’anic scholars. This may be due to the fact that, compared to the Bible, the Qur’an only contains few fantastic beasts (e.g. Q al-Naml 27:39; Q al-Saffat 37:64–68). Besides the so-called ‘beast from the earth (dabba min al-ard)’, mentioned in Surat al-Naml (Q 27:82), which is described in vivid terms in the later Islamic tradition, the qur’anic application of monstrosity mostly pertains to its constant ‘othering’. It is the ‘Other’, embodied by the unbeliever, the ‘associator’, or the hypocrite, that is the monster of the Qur’an. For example, in the polemical metaphor used in Q al-Anfal 8:22: “The worst of beasts is in God’s view the deaf and dumb who do not understand (inna sharra ’l-dawabbi ‘inda llahi ’l-ṣummu ’l-bukmu lladhina la ya‘qiluna).” In this verse, the disabled body, deviating from the cultural model of a human body, is used to condemn the unbelievers’ lack of understanding. Another example of deviation from physical integrity and health occurs in qur’anic descriptions of the so-called tree of Zaqqum: “It is a tree that comes out of the root of hell/Its spathes are like the heads of devils (tal‘uha ka-annahu ru’usu ’l-shayatini)” (Q 37:64–65). Here, the normal borders between humans, animals, and natural phenomena become blurred. This paper will dive into the (lack of) monstrosity in the Qur’an in comparison to the Bible (cf. Brunschvig 1953). Leaving most of the details and typical fantastic features of the beasts to later Islamic traditions, the qur’anic monster is a theoretical one. I will argue that monsters and monstrosity are used in the Qur’an as a didactic and rhetorical tool to explain destabilizing and dangerous bodies and situations where the given qur’anic order is at stake. As is evident in Q 8:22 and Q 37:64–65 cited above, ignorance of the qur’anic religious message or ending up in hell due to wrongdoing constitute such situations. It is also something that should be feared and avoided by the Qur’an’s adherents.

Did Paul Expect His Ex-Pagan Gentiles to Go to Synagogue?

The story of the Ethiopian eunuch, Ebed-Melech, that intersects with one of the stories that narrates the prophet Jeremiah’s imprisonment amidst an imperial context offers intriguing possibilities for developing an multi-layered understanding of resistance. Jeremiah’s survival in this story of incarceration, which mirrors the suffering the people of Judah are experiencing amidst the Babylonian invasion, and will continue to experience during the Exile, is closely connected to the person of the Ethiopian Eunuch who, both in terms of his ethnic and sexual identity, can be considered to be an outsider to the community. Ebed-Melech, who likely had experienced his own share of exclusion and hardship, is the one to notice the injustice done to Jeremiah, and subsequently goes on to rescue Jeremiah before he dies (Jer 37:8-10). This classic story of seemingly powerless individuals resisting violence speaks a word of hope amidst disaster, and opens up the possibility that the people of Judah might survive after all even when things are looking most dire.

Growing organically out of the excavations at Tall Hisban (1968-1976), the project at Tall al-`Umayri (1984 onward), at this point the Madaba Plains Project, immediately yielded up a treasure trove of archaeological and architectural data demanding multiple approaches in the project’s research design. These ranged among a continued quest for biblical connections (even if distanced from the need to prove biblical history connected with the exodus and “conquest”) and expanded anthropological and ethnographic explorations (ancient and modern), along with continued attention to paleobotanical and paleozoological phenomena as well as aDNA research and residue analysis. These goals for historical and social reconstruction have been coupled with a spate of new technologies: enhanced photographic/photogrammetric and 3D scanning processes, and an explosion of sophisticated technological advances in GPR, GPS, and digital data harvesting, storage, and open-source access. Beyond these more traditional concerns, acute land-ownership issues have curtailed all archaeological research onsite and recent impulses in community archaeology have nudged the project toward more regional efforts to protect and preserve the Madaba District’s cultural heritage.

As a Christian minister in Conservative Evangelical circles, I have found that the Biblical Prophetic (and Apocalyptic) Texts have been used to simply “predict the comings of Jesus the Messiah.” This creates a distance between reader and prophet as the texts only “point to” a future fulfilling. However, in my writing, teaching, and ministry I have found connections between IPV, SA, and trauma survivors in reading the prophets as the “venting” of a hurt, and suffering God. Rather than viewing the reader at the end of a “pointed or condemning finger” we place the reader alongside a suffering God who speaks from pain, anger, and emotional trauma. Through this view of the prophets (especially the exilic prophets) readers learn not only empathy for survivors but also feel a sense of trauma and hurt as a bystander or witness to power and violent systems. In this presentation I will discuss our work bridging the prophets (including select prophetic/apocalyptic texts) with congregational members, college students, and survivors who seek to apply the difficult Biblical texts to not only confront oppression, but offer healing to those seeking comfort in faith congregations.

In a marvelous passage on artistry in the wisdom literature, the book of Wisdom describes God as a craftsman (ὁ τεχνίτης) who can be discovered analogously (ἀναλόγως) by contemplating (θεωρεῖν) things existing in nature (cf. Wis 13:1–5). Indeed, the lower cosmos is teleologically ordered toward the contemplation of divine things, and the author argues that no one can be excused for failing to discover the Author of beauty as the first cause of the beauty in things. The passage then shifts toward the craft (τεχνή) of idol-making, which stands in contrast to the Creator’s work that fills all things with power and activity. The idol maker engages in an evil craft (κακότεχνος) not recognizing that his life and breath is on loan from the One who fashioned the foolish idol-maker from the clay of the earth (15:4). But human craft itself is not futile, as it is clear that wisdom is the one who crafts (τεχνῖτις δὲ σοφία) the vessel that passes through the sea through divine providence, as in the time of the ark of salvation (Wis 14:1–7; cf. Gen 7:1ff.). Expositors of the book of Wisdom—Bullard and Hatton, Perdue, Holmes, and Bergsma and Pitre—have traditionally described these chapters as a digression or excursus. I argue that such a label misses the point that is fundamentally central to recognizing the logic of the condemnation of idolatry throughout the latter half of the book. It is precisely creation as craftwork that animates the logic of judgment in sacred history. From this section in Wisdom, this essay exegetes the notion of the craft of creation and how human craft is meant to be a participation in the creative work of God. Because the lower cosmos is meant to be filled with beauty, the essay concludes with an evaluation of the consumptive manipulation of nature. I hope to make a compelling case against the technocratic domination of the lower creation. The most fundamental way the lower creation participates in the common good is by their reflection of the divine wisdom. All beings, inasmuch as they are beings, reflect a manifestation of the divine plan. This, of course, applies preeminently to humans made in imago Dei, but also to other creatures in a lower way. There is something more to the cosmos than mere matter, something there that is something deeper than appropriation and consumption of private goods.

In De Genesi contra Manichaeos (Gn. adv. Man.) Augustine provides an extensive response to familiar Manichaean criticisms of Genesis. Toward the end of the second book, Augustine stops to address the Manichaean interpretation of the Serpent in Genesis 3. For the Manichaeans, Augustine says, the Serpent is Christ (2.26.39). This claim, which seems bizarre given the Manichaean rejection of Genesis, might be explained through the elaborate Manichaean cosmogonic narrative, which allows for different iterations in the struggle between the Light and Darkness. However, in this paper I consider how this interpretation reveals Manichaean exegetical principles and how Augustine conceives of and responds to the Manichaean understanding of Christ. To this end, I will review Manichaean exegesis of the Gospel of John. At several points in his writings, such as in De duabus animabus and Gn. adv. Man, Augustine responds to Manichaean citations of the Gospel of John. Moreover, Manichaeans like Adimantus and Faustus both use John’s Gospel in a positive manner to critique ‘catholic’ interpretation of the Old Testament, particularly Genesis. As the Gospel of John employs some of the same imagery as Genesis, it is this exchange that highlights some aspects of Manichaean exegesis of Genesis and Augustine’s response. Moreover, Manichaean uses of John also reveal how the interpretation of the Serpent reflects contours both of the more extensive Manichaean hermeneutic and Manichaean Christology. Beyond discussing exegetical dimensions of Manichaeism and Augustine, this presentation seeks to provide a new approach to the scholarly debate concerning Augustine’s knowledge of Manichaeism, particularly Manichaean Christology. Decret argued that Augustine had a minimal understanding of Nicene Christianity and a modest knowledge of Manichaean Christology. In relation to this observation, Coyle and van Oort contended Augustine’s knowledge of Manichaeism to be minimal or maximal respectively. Through a consideration of the exegesis of Genesis and John, I argue that we gain more insight into Augustine’s complex diagnosis of Manichaeism.

This paper starts from the observation that the online milieu has become a lively place for scholarly debate, but is still not considered as such in scholarship. Nevertheless, parts of the scholarly debate happen nowadays online, in multimodal productions. To illustrate this new situation, we will take Mark 16 as test-case: one can find online videos of Bart Ehrman or Dan Wallace, commenting the famous enigma of the endings of the second Gospel, whereas the Bible Odyssey SBL project has produced a formal interview by Helen Bond on the topic, with the full transcript (https://www.bibleodyssey.org/tools/video-gallery/w/what-is-the-ending-to-marks-gospel). Can such a material be used in research? Is it quotable in details? Can we consider it as reliable material format from a computing point of view? To these concrete questions, more fundamental questions can be added, since the emergence of multimodal material in research could lead to a deep transformation. Indeed, rhetoric has been progressively withdrawn from academic teaching at the 19th century. Leopold von Ranke’s point of view has won during that century: the historical rhetoric must be cleaned up from all emotional features, considered as subjective intrusions. But this Modern evolution is recent: in Antiquity notably, rhetoric and historical discourse were not separated (see e.g. Lucian of Samosates, How to Write History 49). If multimodal online material invites rhetoric back into exegesis, it means a notable change in our usual way to perceive and produce historical discourse. What does it change for Mk 16 exegesis to have now videos of researchers, with the presence of ethos, pathos and logos, from a rhetorical point of view? To consider this question, this paper will compare what scholars tell about Mk 16 by written and by oral, and evaluate the impact of a multimodal expression on the state of the art of Mk 16.

This presentation concerns the textual history of 1 Enoch and originated in Brill's Textual History of the Bible: Textual History of the Deuterocanonical Scriptures.

The debate on the historical conceptualization of the Hebrew language, as reflected by texts from antiquity, has been ongoing in the last two decades. The specific characteristics of Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) have been a particularly pivotal topic. The starting point for the current lecture is the gap that exists between the ‘traditional’ description of the linguistic features of LBH, on the one hand, and the famous declaration by Nehemiah (13:23-24), namely: “Also in those days, I saw the Judeans (that) had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children, half spoke [in the dialect of] Ashdodian, and they do not speak [in the dialect of] Judean...”, on the other. In order to narrow this gap, we take an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of various syntactic phenomena in LBH. We begin with a brief historical survey of the linguistic milieu in the Southern and Central Territories of Palestine during the Persian Period. As various lines of evidence show, beneath the administrative Aramaic remnants one can uncover dynamic relationships between three Canaanite dialects, which correspond to three main administrative units: Edom – Southern Trans-Jorden Canaanite; Ashdod – Northern Coastal Canaanite; Judah – Central Canaanite. These relationships are then re-interpreted based on a historio-geographic approach (for example, as represented by the work of historian Marc Bloch), that emphasizes the assumed correspondence between the current and the historica states-of-affair in a particular geographic domain. We thus superimpose insights from the modern study of Arabic diglossia in general and the study of the multiglotic milieu of current Palestinian Arabic dialects in particular on the findings from LBH. Our premise is that despite many differences between the ancient and modern periods, there are also aspects of similarity that can be used as a theoretical model for understanding historical processes. Among the central aspects of this comparison are the similarities in the following elements: polyglot communities; language contact between close Semitic languages; a description of the dialects according to geographical, social and ethnic aspects; and the diglottic linguistic continuum (Mesolect) between the canonical language (Acrolect) and colloquial varsities (Basilect). Linguistic evidence for the re-interpretation of the Hebrew data from the Second Temple period is provided from different syntactic structures that function in isoglosses investigated in two written corpora (LBH and Phoenician / Punic). We suggest that these isoglosses are an echo of the language contact that occurred at the level of the colloquial spoken varieties. In accordance with Nehemiah’s declaration about the intense language contact between these varieties, we show that these isoglosses do not occur at the periphery of the linguistic system (as compared to Persian), but rather at the very core of that language – that is, in the morpho-syntactic system.

Zechariah 6:9–15 is a useful test case for the criteria and purpose of inner-biblical allusion because it appears to contain numerous allusions to other biblical texts. In the end, this may simply be a mirage. Nevertheless, the appearance of numerous allusions invites attention to this text as a fecund test case. Moreover, Zechariah 6:9–15 contains serious exegetical difficulties and the possibility of solving these difficulties through inner-biblical allusion is appealing. In the end, the potential allusions may only complicate the exegetical difficulties but the possibility of exegetical assistance from inner-biblical allusion is alluring. Therefore, this paper analyzes five potential allusions in Zechariah 6:9–15. First, it analyzes potential allusion between Zechariah’s “branch/shoot” imagery (6:12–13) and Jeremiah’s “branch/shoot” imagery (Jer 23:5–6; 33:15–17). Second, it analyzes potential allusion between Zechariah’s temple-builder (6:12–13) and the temple-builder in the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:1–16). Third, it analyzes potential allusion between Zechariah’s returned exiles (6:14–15) and Isaiah’s returned exiles (Isa 43:6; 44:26–28; 49:12; 60:4, and 9). Fourth, it analyzes potential allusion between Zechariah 6:9–15 and Psalm 110. Fifth, it analyzes potential allusion between Zechariah 6:13 and Job 40:10 and Psalm 104:1. Each potential instance of inner-biblical allusion is a matter of plausibility. Thus, in this study, I propose a spectrum of plausible allusions. I argue that the allusion to Jeremiah and Isaiah’s branch/shoot language is highly plausible. I argue that the allusion to the Davidic covenant is plausible. I argue that the allusion to Isaiah 43:6; 44:26–28; 49:12; 60:4, and 9 is relatively plausible. I argue that the allusion to Psalm 110 is possible but uncertain. I argue that the allusion to Job 40:10 and Psalm 104:1 is possible but highly tentative. Thus, the graded scale moves from highly plausible on the one end to highly tentative on the other.

In this paper I will use an ecological hermeneutic with a rhetorical critical methodology in order to examine the depiction of women and Land in Jer 3:1-5. I draw connections between the female body and the fertile Land, which are both identified as being polluted and must suffer punishment for this defilement. The Land becomes a metaphor for the woman’s body which, in turn, is symbolic of the social body. As the indiscretions of the people are transferred – in terms of sexual deviance – onto the woman, so the contamination that resulted from the woman’s wrongdoing is carried over onto the Land. I will argue that within the context of this metaphor, pollution should be understood as a violation of property. As the woman’s pollution violates the husband’s right to exclusive possession of his wife’s sexuality, so the Land’s pollution has violated God’s position as supreme deity and sole owner of the Land. My paper will problematize the violent and coercive relationship between God, Land/woman, and people, before outlining an alternative ecological interpretation of these verses, which understands the Land as co-equal partner with God by sharing in the creative process.

This paper explores the links that connected Corinth to the broader Mediterranean, paying particular attention to evidence for trade, mobility and connectivity. The paper looks specifically at descriptions of movement to and from Corinth and, in particular, at evidence for networks of early Christians.

“Votive” has historically served as catchall designation for apparent archaeological excess at ancient and late antique sanctuaries and shrines. The category tends to include terracotta figurines, anatomical body parts, exuvial or personal items, paintings or other images, inscriptions on tablets or stelae, lamps or other such “utilitarian” pieces, “decorative” items such as textiles and mosaics, and any other objects (particularly if small or crude) of unclear or imprecise function. While the breadth of the category presents opportunities for broader comparative analysis, this paper suggests that the under-theorized label reflects a lingering discomfort regarding the precise status, significance, and function of dedications left at religious sites. Such discomfort is perhaps best reflected in the widely-used designation “ex-voto,” favored because it evokes models of exchange and accounts for textual and inscriptional descriptions of individuals offering up items “on account of a vow.” The designation also allows dedications to fit, if somewhat uneasily, within more contemporary, mostly Protestant models of human-divine interactions—wherein the object is rendered secondary, a mere by-product or physical symbol of an elevated, “spiritual” human-divine exchange. This paper offers a new methodological approach to the study of dedications—one that does not simply treat them as external, material expressions of internal states, but more accurately considers the potentiality and efficacy of the objects themselves. Recently, influenced by the theoretical contributions of “New Materialisms” scholarship, Emma-Jayne Graham and Jessica Hughes (among others) have sought to take seriously the capacity of dedications to act as agents or forces. Nevertheless, questions remain about how to best consider dedications’ material-ritual affordances while still maintaining the capaciousness of the broader category—that is, without returning to or reaffirming inherited classification systems based on form or apparent function. This paper argues that an effective strategy lies in considering dedications as socially, materially, and theoretically related a broader class of efficacious objects. Focusing specifically on the material contexts of late antique saints’ shrines (such as St. Artemios in Constantinople, St. Demetrius in Thessalonike, SS Cyrus and John and St. Menas in Egypt, and St. Simeon Stylites in Syria), it suggests that re-situating dedications within a more expansive network of agential objects at these sites—namely relics, icons, and eulogiae—invites new considerations of their distributed agency, social roles, and transformative and mediatory potential. That is, while it is increasingly common to grant dedications deposited in ritual contexts a certain potentiality, scholars still limit such a potentiality to the individual expression of psychological desires to give thanks or record gratitude. This paper contends instead that dedications, as collaborative agents, might facilitate “presence” across time and space (like relics), act as visual and material mediators of human-divine relationships (like icons), and/or be rendered efficacious through association, contact, and exchange (like eulogiae). Such approaches demonstrate how dedications are both ritually-indexed to individual entities, and yet also constituted in relation to other material and human agents, as well as by their social and spatial environments.

The paper explores the shared mythology between ancient and contemporary renderings of the construction of women. While many have recognized the role of the Greek Pygmalion myth in shaping science fiction accounts of men building women, this paper argues that the mythic creation of the biblical Eve also contributes to sci-fi depictions of artificial women. The paper focuses first on what is arguably the first science fiction novel, L’Eve Future by Auguste Villiers d’Ilse-Adam (1886), before turning to more recent science fiction narratives that feature the construction of artificial women. In tracing the common motifs between the biblical account of Eve’s construction and later depictions of artificial women, I argue that past and present instantiations of this cultural myth of women-building reveal the coalescing of male fascination with and fears of women and technology.

From the second century onward, early Christians engaged the pluriformity of textualized Gospels in various ways. This paper explores one dynamic of the early Christian bibliographic imaginary: the metaphoric alignment of a fourfold Gospel with the structure of the physical cosmos. Numerous thinkers employ metaphors drawn from meteorology, geography, music, mathematics, and astronomy in order to theorize a library of Gospel literature consisting of precisely four texts. Famously, Irenaeus of Lyon imagines a fourfold Gospel reflected in the physiognomy of the heavenly beings described by Ezekiel and the Apocalypse of John (A.H. 3.11.8). The enormous reception of evangelist symbols, however, obscures the diverse metaphoric spaces in which a fourfold Gospel is negotiated. Irenaeus himself spends considerable time comparing the fourfold Gospel with the meteorological and geographical quadriformity of a cosmos which is governed by four winds and divided into four zones. Ephrem, Hippolytus, and Cyprian, among others, imagine the Gospels in the figure, at once geographic and biblical, of the four Edenic rivers. Eusebius of Caesarea draws on physical, musical, and mathematical idiom to envision a fourfold Gospel as a “holy τετρακτύς” (H.E. 3.25.1). The Gospels are embedded in the structure of the cosmos just like the four elements, a musical fourth, or the first four positive integers which form the basis for Pythagorean numerical theory. The Eusebian canons (which coordinate Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as a unity) continue this imaginative practice by echoing the visual idiom of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables; the structure of the fourfold Gospel corresponds to the order of the heavenly bodies. As these variegated examples illustrate, an early Christian bibliographic imaginary wove a fourfold Gospel into the fabric of a quadriform cosmos. The bibliographic and the cosmic merge: the fourfold Gospel corresponds to the structure of the universe itself.

Collections of biblical songs and prayers extracted from their contexts in other biblical books and compiled into anthologies are known as biblical odes. The phenomenon is attested in almost every language with Christian literary remains from antiquity and the Middle Ages (Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, and Slavonic). Despite a family resemblance and some relatively stable component texts, collections of biblical odes differ significantly in contents, sequence, and textual form. The various collections might best be characterized as related instances of an anthological phenomenon rather than a single “work.” This paper surveys the textual history of collections of biblical odes, focusing on the relationship between macroform (the selection and sequence of component texts) and microform (specific linguistic content) across languages and textual traditions. This paper is proposed as part of the session on The Textual History of the Bible, vol. 2, and summarizes the author’s research on collections of biblical odes for that volume.

All six possible orders for subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) are attested in Biblical Aramaic, prompting the description of its word order as “free” (Rosenthal 2006: §183). Various proposals have been made as to either the basic (underlying) or dominant (statistically most frequent) order in BA, including SVO (Bauer and Leander 1927; Hayes 1990), VSO (Buth 1987), VSO derived from an underlying SVO (Lambrecht 2001), and both SVO and SOV (Yakubovich 2011). Complicating the analysis of BA word order is the likelihood of interference with Aramaic syntax through contact with other languages, including verb-final Akkadian and Persian (Kutscher 1970; Folmer 1995) as well as Hebrew. In this paper I adopt the scalar classification between subject-prominent and topic-prominent languages suggested by Li and Thompson (1976) to argue that BA has a basic SVO word order that historically developed from VSO (as BH; see Holmstedt 2013), but that it has been influenced towards topic-prominent ordering through the interference of Akkadian and Persian, the latter of which has been identified as a topic-prominent language (Hale 1988). Adopting the theory of pragmatic word order movement from Holmstedt 2014, I illustrate the explanatory sufficiency of my theory through an analysis of part of Daniel 2.

If texts are living only so long as they interact with readers, how can we reconstruct the lives of texts in the ancient near East? The ancient readers of texts can be very difficult to locate because it is difficult to asses the nature of ancient media. If we detect a reference to another text in the Hebrew Bible, for example, should we envision the author as making this reference to a physical text in his capacity as reader or as making a reference to an oral tradition? To combat this difficulty and harness the many source layers that we can perceive in ancient texts, I suggest that we consider ancient redactors as readers who offer evidence of texts as living and who, in their work, dictate the afterlife of a text by fusing it with other sources. This fusion of sources is a textual re-framing that differs between redactional parties and is especially distinct in the Pentateuch. By understanding redactors as readers, we can come to a better understanding of the lives of ancient texts and a better understanding of redactors s individual agents who carry out their work with individual agendas and purposes.

This paper will both some of the connections between the ways in which economic culture has altered religious-practice in both the ancient and modern worlds. These insights will be used as the basis for a response to the sessions papers.

Scholars who study Christian origins now take for granted that when the earliest Christ-followers assembled, particularly at their community suppers, they adopted and adapted the format and customs of the Greco-Roman social meal. This perspective has led to fresh interpretations of both Christian table rituals and depictions of those rituals in Christian texts. With respect to the eucharistic cup, it has been argued, for example, that the cup is a Christian variation of post-supper libation ceremony (e.g., Christian version of a libation in Luke’s version of the Last Supper), even a protest against the custom of libations to the emperor. This paper re-examines the history of Greek wine ceremonies and suggests that the Synoptic language about Jesus taking a cup and sharing it with the disciples closely resembles a toast (πρόποσις). A methodological principle of the paper is to pay close attention to the dating of evidence for meal customs and their evolution through time.

The single most important deficiency in contemporary understandings of the role of Eve in early Jewish and Christian theology is (arguably) a failure to address adequately the traditions that recount Satan’s seduction of Eve. In spite of the widespread presence of these narratives, in Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic writings, they have been very largely overlooked by much contemporary scholarship. This oversight is problematic because these narratives impute to Eve a far worse crime than merely eating the forbidden fruit. She is implicated in a second seduction where her criminality extends to cuckolding Adam with Satan himself, and then bearing Cain, the evil child of her malfeasance. In this ‘seduction narrative’, Adam is not in any way complicit; he is the innocent victim, and Eve comes increasingly to bear responsibility for two primal crimes. While this narrative is certainly present in later Christian sources (cf. the Protevangelium of James 13, ca. 150 CE; Tertullian, Modesty in Apparel Becoming to Women: De cultu feminarum 1.2; cp. 4 Maccabees 18:7-8), it is arguable that it even underlies parts of the New Testament in passages such as 2 Corinthians 11:2-3, 1 Timothy 2:14, and 1 John 3:12. This paper will present some examples of this ‘seduction narrative’ and then argue that this narrative was indeed known to some of the New Testament authors.

Accepted paper for the 2019 IBR meeting, The Relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament research group

This paper takes up the question of Peter’s “conversion”—or “return”—in Luke-Acts. The event is tersely gestured to by the phrase ποτε ἐπιστρέψας in Luke 22:32, but the adverb ποτε leaves open its timing and nature. To complicate matters, Luke maintains a curious silence about Peter’s conversion in the remainder of his double work. In an important study of Luke 22:31–32, Markus Bockmuehl suggests that the timing of this conversion can be pinpointed: it does not occur in Acts 10—Peter’s rooftop vision of the sheet—nor in his subsequent visit to the house of Cornelius. Rather, on analogy with John 21, Peter is converted after the resurrection in the silent report of Luke 24:34 (ὤφθη Σίμωνι). While Bockmuehl’s argument makes an ingenious intervention, his analysis of the Lukan pericope does not fully satisfy in i) its seemingly punctiliar definition of conversion; ii) its narrative analysis of the relationship of Luke 22:31-33 to John 21:20 and Acts 11:10; and iii) its unpacking of the narratological function of Lukan silences. In the first section of this paper, I will argue that Luke’s silence about the timing of Peter’s conversion suggests that the third evangelist has a more expansive process in mind for Peter’s “conversion.” Rather than referring to a single moment of recognition in Luke 24, Luke is thinking of a variety of turns or conversions—not the least of which is Acts 10–11, where Peter is newly enabled to strengthen “the brothers” (Luke 22:32; Acts 10:23; 11:1). To support this view, I will first construct a picture of gradual, philosophical conversion, using the writings of William James, Arthur Darby Nock, and Philo of Alexandria. I will then supplement this picture with the model of conversion proposed by Bernard Lonergan, SJ, in Method in Theology—one in which both “religious” and “intellectual” conversions are subjectively integrated through a process of “psychological conversion,” which unites the other elements. Something akin to this is conveyed in Luke’s account of the conversion of Peter. In a second section of this paper, I will situate Luke’s silence about the “conversion” of Peter within the framework of the larger Lukan silence about Peter’s martyrdom. Presuming that the story was widely known, I will suggest that the participle ἐπιστρέψας (Luke 22:32) might have signaled to Luke’s readers not only Peter’s conversion, but also his “returning” (cf. Luke 2:39) on a number of levels. Here, I consider potential links between Peter’s “return” and i) the martyrological account of Peter’s return to Rome (Acts of Peter 35, ὑπέστρεψεν εἰς Ῥώμην) from the Quo vadis legend, as well as ii) the tradition of the martyred Peter returning spiritually to exhort early Christian communities pseudepigraphically as a living voice in both Acts and 1 Peter 5:1. Just as Luke views Peter’s conversion as a process rather than a point, so Luke negotiates various ways of construing Peter’s return to strengthen the church—not least through his own composition of Petrine speeches.

The abrupt announcement in Jeremiah 31:26 of one who suddenly awakes from a "pleasant sleep" (ûšǝnātî ‘ārǝbâ lî) is a well-known crux in biblical interpretation. It has been subject to numerous emendations over the years, and among scholars who refrain from emending the text, no consensus exists as to its interpretation. So much so, that after reviewing the various exegetical proposals, John Bright concluded simply: "I confess that I am baffled." The central difficulty concerns the identification of the speaker, for which an array of possibilities have been put forward, ranging from the prophet to a redactor to a casual reader scribbling notes in the margins. Notably absent from recent scholarship, however, is perhaps the most straightforward interpretation—namely, that the speaker is the same as the speaker throughout the rest of chapter 31: Yahweh. The eradication of the divine speaker interpretation can be traced back to Heinrich Graf, who in his influential 1862 commentary argued forcefully against an allusion to divine sleep in Jer 31:26. Evidence from Mesopotamian balag-laments and Hittite prayers to the Storm-god, both of which portray divine sleep as an act of divine anger, allow for a rejoinder to the arguments levied by Graf and others. Particularly noteworthy is the characterization of divine sleep in the Hittite text KUB 36.89 as "pleasant, sweet" (šanezzi-) even as it appears as a manifestation of divine anger, which elucidates the long-held problem of characterizing Yahweh's sleep in the context of the exile as ‛ārǝbâ "pleasant, sweet."

Examining the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed raises some interesting questions regarding what elements of their sources Syriac- and Arabic-speaking Christians heard in the Qur’an. In particular, the passage on Jesus’ crucifixion (Q al-Nisa’ 4:157–158) reverberated with Christian articulations of his crucifixion, death, burial, raising, and appearing, though the particular terms employed are unique to Christians and Muslims. Divisions between miaphysites, dyophysites, and Chalcedonian Melkites meant each community worked out their statements of faith to reflect their particular christology, beginning in Greek and Syriac and moving later into Arabic. As these communities were continuing to dispute confessional differences, the circulation of the Qur’an provided not only a new religious framework but a new religious language. The Creed became a topic of discussion in and of itself in polemical engagements, as Muslims critiqued disagreement about the Creed as evidence of Christianity’s defectiveness. Moreover, the Eastern Christian traditions frequently defended their positions through appeals to creedal phrases, yet the particular terms and word order they employed often differed when they wrote against one another in comparison with their writings against Muslims. This study is a preliminary examination of biblical and conciliar creedal formulations of Jesus’ Passion in Syriac and Arabic before and after the dissemination of the Qur’an, in order to better understand how Christians heard the qur’anic crucifixion account in light of their internal disputes over how to express the person of Christ. Before Islam, Christians debated how to phrase who or what nature died on the cross, boiling down to the question of whether or not one could say “God died.” Muslims home in on this intra-Christian controversy as it related to the crucifixion: divine beings do not die; therefore Jesus cannot be divine. However, some Eastern Christians had already come to speak of Jesus dying in his humanity and not dying in his divinity, or dying in his body but not his spirit. Some began to include “he died” in their articulation of the Creed. In this paper, I first outline the terms and formulaic expressions of Jesus’ death, crucifixion, and resurrection in biblical statements (i.e., not narratives) found in the earliest extant Arabic witnesses of 1 Corinthians 15 and the Acts of the Apostles. Next, I examine how Christians formulated the Creed in Syriac and Arabic before the enculturation of the Qur’an in Narsai, Isho‘yahb III, and a contemporary anonymous Syriac text. The remainder of the study focuses on how three Christian authors—Theodore Abu Qurrah, Severus Ibn Muqaffa‘, and Yahya ibn ‘Adi—presented creedal formulae, comparing and contrasting their expressions when speaking with Christians and Muslims. My initial results indicate shifts in terminology and word order reflecting the clear influence of qur’anic Arabic, as well as the reformulation of intra-Christian christological controversies in light of the Qur’an’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion. That some Christians saw it possible to make these changes and arguments calls for a reconsideration of the divide over the crucifixion itself, as Theodore Abu Qurrah exclaimed about the Muslim and Christian position: “We are right both ways!”

In this paper I survey different manifestations of the notion that archaeology, and the images it produces, serve as sources for “illuminat[ing] the Bible” (Thompson 1987). I begin with the major attempts to think about the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and images in the ancient Near East, especially coming from the Fribourg school and its intellectual descendants. I then move to discuss particular instances of objects (recovered archaeologically) that pose challenges to modern conceptualizations of the word-image nexus and to similar conceptions that inform biblical interpretation. These include the Kuntillet Ajrud pithoi, the Kattumuwa Stele, and the statue of Idrimi. I argue from these and other examples that the theoretical attention given to the question of archaeology and biblical history has been slow in coming to the question of biblical word and ancient image. I lay out some possibilities for greater theoretical and methodological rigor in approaching the question, drawing especially on the work of cultural theorists and art historians (e.g., Mitchell 2015, Squire 2009). I conclude with an exploration of the possibility that the relationship between bible and archaeology be figured as a particular case of the set of text-and-image relationships investigated broadly in the academy. In doing so, I point to other attempts to see these relationships at the level of disciplinary discourse, for example, in Art History (e.g., Elsner 2010). Finally, I attempt to lay out some of the ideological and political ramifications that emerge in so viewing this relationship, and how it is implicated in competing epistemologies in biblical studies.

Having worked in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls for over 30 years, I have witnessed many changes in the field. Two of the most profound have been our understanding of the nature and history of the "biblical" text, and challenges to the "Qumran-Essene Hypothesis," first proposed by scholars such as Frank Moore Cross, Roland de Vaux, and J. T. Milik. My paper will survey both of these questions from the earliest days of Scrolls scholarship to our present understanding. Finally, I will discuss future directions for the field, proposing in particular the final elimination of a separate subfield of "Dead Sea Scrolls" and the integration of the Scrolls into all aspects of the history ancient Israel and early Judaism.

The Apocryphon of John is a sustained rewriting and interpretation of Genesis 1-9. Although Moses is explicitly corrected at five points in the text, Genesis’ account of creation is nonetheless the basis for the Apocryphon’s cosmogony and anthropogony. The ambivalent treatment of the biblical text is especially curious in that Moses is only “corrected” at points where there appears to be little disagreement. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the four extant versions of Ap. John (five if you include Irenaeus’ summary of the first third of the text) reveal that the text is evolving over time and in spite of the critiques of Moses, the redactors appear to return to the biblical text. But is the citation of the biblical text and return to the language in Genesis intentional? The 1998 article by Mark Goodacre, “Fatigue in the Synoptics,” in New Testament Studies 44 (1998): 45-58, may offer helpful insights into the question. In the article, Goodacre explores the impact of editorial fatigue when copying texts. He suggests that as copyists worked deeper into texts they would out of familiarity with the original text return to the wording in the source they were copying, even if it created interpretive problems in the resulting text. This paper will examine the possibility of editorial fatigue in the Apocryphon of John’s retelling of the aftermath of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (NHC II 23,32-37). Both the recognition of nakedness in NHC II 23,32–33 and the cursing of the earth in NHC II 23,37 return to the language found in Gen 3:7-10 and Gen 3:17, respectively. If editorial fatigue explains this return, what does this mean for our understanding of the authorship and audience of the Apocryphon? Note to chair: I think that this paper will work for the session on ancient exegesis of Gen 1-3 or for the session devoted to Karen King. My work with the Apocryphon of John was initially inspired by Professor King’s article, “Approaching the Variants of the Apocryphon of John,” in The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 105-37. Many of her books and articles informed the conclusions in my book, The Use of Scripture in the Apocryphon of John: A Diachronic Analysis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017). This paper is an extension of that research.

Painters of miracles: sacred networks, narratives and devotional art in Gargano. The Votive Tablets of Saint Matthew’s Sanctuary

This paper approaches the problem of pain in biblical and later Christian sources in light of current neuroscience of pain and emotion. Modern conceptual categories of “pain” and “emotion” are difficult to differentiate on a biological level. Pain, like emotion, does not “exist” in the body, and does not flow through fixed or discrete circuits or pathways. Rather, pain, like emotion, is a “concept” applied by the mind/brain through prediction and cognition, making meaning of bodily affect, sensed and predicted through the interrelated processes of interoception and nociception, alongside exteroception through bodily senses (e.g., Barrett 2017). To feel pain is a conceptual act, terminology I draw from neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, and is constructed by neurological, psychological, and social forces, including language. This approach to pain and emotion is important for the study of early Christianity and for biblical studies more generally, especially in assessing the past three decades’ attention to pain in the biblical world and the application of more recent conceptual formulations of pain, such as trauma. For example, take the discourse of pain in 2 Corinthians, which has been described as the “painful epistle” or the “therapeutic epistle.” Here, Paul’s lupē looms large, and commentators vary considerably in their interpretation of it, whether it is best rendered as pain, grief, or sorrow. That the Greek word lupē itself incorporates all these meanings, from “bodily” pain to “emotional” sadness, is not a problem for interpretation (Is the pain bodily or emotional? Is lupē better translated as distress or sadness?), but an important window into the conceptual worldview and, thus, lived experience of ancient Christians. It is also not unlike other concepts related to pain and emotion in Greek and Latin (e.g., pathos, passio, dolor), and other ancient languages. The peculiarity lies not in ancient conceptual imprecision, but in modern medicalized concepts of pain. Attention to the overlapping conceptual constructedness of pain and emotion, not to mention related concepts of “thoughts” and “memories,” is relevant to recent historical accounts of martyrology, and to the widely observed changes in pain as a feature of ancient subjectivity or of negotiating imperial power’s encroachment over elite bodies. Scholars of the ancient world may thus be wary of talk of “the body in pain” since the “body” as such does not feel pain; it is the brain (or the mind, or the “person,” as Ariel Glucklich puts it). It should be no surprise that much as emotion forms a matrix for world construction and communication, pain is extraordinarily communicable through language, as Glucklich demonstrates (against assertions of pain’s unique incommunicability). Much as Barrett demonstrates that “[e]motions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world,” pain has incontrovertible power to “make and unmake worlds” (cf. Elaine Scarry). Attention to the neurological, psychological, and conceptual natures of pain and emotion clarifies the way that this construction of worlds played out among ancient Christians.

The Joseph “novella” (as it is often termed by biblical scholars), occupies the last fourteen chapters of Genesis, chapters 37–50. It is a story that punctuates two generations of family disfunction, and follows Jacob’s beloved son Joseph through years of tragedy as narrowly he escapes becoming a victim fratricide only to be sold by his brothers into slavery in a strange land. As if that was not enough, he then finds himself incarcerated for many years for a crime he did not commit. The story of Joseph though does not end with tragedy, but redemption. At the end, the reader finds that Joseph’s life and dreams have purpose, and that not only was the God of his family with him throughout his suffering, but positioned Joseph in such a way that he, his family, and the entire world would be saved by his dreams and talents. It is no wonder that this story is one with which many incarcerated men identify. This paper will discuss the way the Joseph story has become an interpretive lens by which many incarcerated men view their own tragic lives, but also how the story offers hope, allowing them to imagine reconciliation with their families and communities, as well as purpose for post-prison lives.

Recent challenges to ideas of “class” as an analytical category for understanding Galilee at the time of Jesus repeat the similar liberal objections (and interests) that have been made since the nineteenth century: social status was performed in different ways in different contexts and class is, at best, too “reductionist”. While it is clear that people did (and do) self-identify and were (and are) identified according to context, using this approach to define “class” as reductionist and as another identity effectively (and conveniently) avoids the basic materialist sense of the category. If we restore class to its materialist roots in notions of means of production and the socioeconomic relations involved in property, exploitation and struggle, we can instead revitalise its use in the study of Galilee. What this also helps us do is to critique and qualify the discussions (for and against) of class conflict in Galilee beyond speculations of “standard of living” to how urbanisation and significant changes in land use throw up a range of potential reactions. I will highlight this point with particular reference to materialist understandings of so-called “pre-political” millenarianism and its relevance for understanding the historical Jesus.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, enters the biblical narrative burdened by social and economic disadvantages. She is young, poor, and pregnant. The last of these circumstances was severely complicated by the fact that, according to the gospel narrative, she had not yet married Joseph, her betrothed. As Judith S. Musick observes (Young, Poor, and Pregnant: The Psychology of Teenage Motherhood), this combination of hardships creates a certain psychology that engulfs a young woman, leading to the interplay of risk and resilience. The study of these circumstances in the lives of modern teenagers sheds light on the social and psychological burdens that Mary bore. Bearing a child in antiquity was, in itself, perilous. The addition of youth, poverty, and social stigma exacerbated an already dangerous situation. This paper will examine the circumstances that Mary faced, moving from more general to more particular. (1) Female: The ancient world, even more than the modern one, was male-dominated. Women faced disadvantages as a biological accident of birth. (2) Young: In accord with Jewish norms at the time, Mary was almost certainly a teenager, possibly even a pre-teen. This would entail fewer resources and less life experience, although a first century Jewish girl might have a greater communal network than many “young, poor, and pregnant” girls in the modern world. (3) Poor: Even apart from the hardships attending pregnancy, Mary seems to have belonged to a lower echelon of society. While perhaps not a “peasant,” as was sometimes assumed by an earlier generation of scholarship, Mary’s family belonged to the modest economic level of artisans and laborers. (4) Pregnant: In the modern world, pregnancy has attendant risks of illness or death, much more so in the ancient world. It complicated economic and social independence or made them impossible. (5) Engulfed in Scandal: The final circumstance was probably the most challenging in terms of Mary’s psychology and social network. Regardless of the nature of her pregnancy – the Gospel account obviously differing from the social perception – Mary had to deal with the stigma of an irregular and seemingly illicit pregnancy. How was this circumstance like and unlike the dilemma faced by modern women who are “young, poor, and pregnant”? Is this situation ever welcome or empowering? Is Mary’s response one of resistance? reluctance? resignation? resolution? Finally, the psychological categories of guilt and shame will be compared with the anthropological categories of honor and shame. Definitions of and distinctions between these terms will be offered, especially vis-à-vis sexuality and pregnancy. Here I will draw upon the resources of June Price Tangney and Ronda L. Dearing (Shame and Guilt) and the abundant bibliography on honor and shame in biblical interpretation. Which of these social and psychological states did Mary experience, and what was her strategy for dealing with them?

This presentation will review Gail O'Day's contributions to the interpretation of the Gospel of John with special attention to her Commentary on the Gospel of John in the New Interpreter's Bible (1996).

During the 1962 excavations at the synagogue at Ostia, two mold-made terracotta votive statuettes came to light (Ost. Inv. 12540, 12541). Although they were known from archival photographs, they have never been published. Two type-written inventory cards provide the precise context of their discovery in a trench by the door of the passage between the corridor and the meeting hall, beneath the packed-earth level designated as the “fourth surface.” The card of each statuette indicates that it was found together with the other. This paper first presents an iconographical and functional interpretation of the figurines before assessing the significance of their findspot in the synagogue. The first statuette is a representation of a nude, veiled Venus flanked by her sons Eros and Priapus. For this figurine we have identified precise comparanda from contexts dating to the first century C.E. The second statuette is more enigmatic; it is a representation of a barefoot, bareheaded young man wearing a belted tunic. In his left hand he holds a patera and in his right he holds a bucket of fruit (grapes?). He carries a wicker, half-ovoid rucksack on his back. The youthful countenance, the short curly hair, and the belted tunic suggest that this young man represents a Lar. Lares are often depicted carrying a patera and a cornucopia; in this case, a simple bucket of fruit replaces the more elaborate cornucopia. The proximity of these statuettes, discovered in the same context, suggest that they represented part of a group from a lararium. Statuettes of gods and goddesses are frequently in the shrines along with the twin Lares, but Venus is by far the most common. The presence of lararium figurines in an ancient synagogue requires careful examination, because Jewish law prohibited the use of idols. The final portion of the presentation turns to an analysis of the precise find-spot of the statuettes based on a comparison of the stratigraphy we identified in 2011 when the Ostia Synagogue Project excavated in the area adjacent to the trench in which the objects were found. The context in which the statuettes were discovered appears to be a floor that was in use in a very early phase of the building.

The Redescribing Christian Origins seminar has prided itself in “problematizing current consensus views” and “unexamined assumptions” in the field of Christian Origins. But what happens when a consensus or canon begins to form within the seminar itself? One cannot think of Redescribing Christian Origins without the names Burton Mack, J. Z. Smith, Ron Cameron, etc. coming to mind. Not only have these scholars figured prominently as contributors to the sessions and publications themselves, but their work is continually cited throughout in recent years’ sessions. While the impact of these influential scholars should not be understated, emphasizing the contributions or methodologies of the same set of scholars runs the risk of isolating the work of the unit from other contemporary approaches. In other words, if we are always looking back, how can we look forward? While prevalent in other sections of the SBL and the field of Christian Origins in general, gender critical approaches have not been seriously considered in this seminar. This paper reconsiders the original ending of the Gospel of Mark through the lens of gender analysis to demonstrate how effective these types of approaches can be for the overall redescription project of the seminar.

The myriad exegetical issues attending Jesus’ logion at John 7:37-39 cannot be resolved beyond question. They do, however, allow several options for the referent and imagery in this saying that have not been (fully) explored; and in the interests of evoking further discussion this papers suggests three. First, that, when seen in its broader biblical and Johannine contexts, the phrase conventionally rendered ‘from his belly’ (ek tes koilias autou) denotes something proceeding from the loins/womb and refers, not to Christ or the believer, but to the Spirit—that is, ‘from the Spirit’s womb’. Second, that the motif ‘rivers of living water’ derives from what J. van Dijk identified as the ‘chthonic’ (over against Chaoskampf) creation myth and, thereby, thematically coincides with the motif of ‘new birth’ in the phrase ek tes koilias autou. And last, that the juxtaposition of two such disparate motifs (the natal and the chthonic) reflects a dynamic that would later serve as the hallmark of surrealism and is, in fact, not foreign to the Fourth Gospel’s repertoire of images: at John 1:51 Jesus similarly speaks of angels ‘ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’.

Scholars once read the Acts of Paul and Theclas as a “gynocentric” text circulated by female ascetics. In recent decades, they have explored how gender figures in it rhetorically to promote sexual asceticism. Thecla’s gender transformation marks, it has been argued, her social transition moving from a feminized virgin to a masculinized sexual ascetic by the text’s end. What such readings regularly notice, but less regularly account for, are the curious gaps and contradictions around gender and desire that redound in this colorful tale, such as: Thecla’s seeming erotic attachment to Paul; Paul’s initial support for and then sudden and repeated abandonment of Thecla when danger looms; Thecla’s threat that she will “cut her hair” so that Paul might baptize her (a threat that she does not pursue; she is able to baptize herself in a pool of ferocious seals); the text’s repeated (prurient?) attention to Thecla’s nakedness; and the text’s privileging of mother-daughter networks, Thecla and Queen Tryphaena and Thecla and her own mother. The Acts of Paul and Thecla, ultimately, provides a complex commentary on gender and desire. This paper asks: are these narrative tensions a reading of Paul’s own confounding statements on gender and sexuality in 1 Corinthians? Scholars have presumed that Paul’s appearance in this text to be positive, a source of authorization for a gospel of chastity. Thus, Dale Martin argues that Paul appears “to promote a woman-centered, though admittedly androgynous, form of ascetic Christianity set up in direct opposition to the male-dominated, traditional household as promoted…by the Pastoral Epistles” (Sex and the Single Savior, 116). On this account, the Acts of Paul and Thecla cuts through the tensions in Paul’s discourse by emphasizing his pro-ascetic statements, where texts like 1 Timothy amplify Paul’s concessions to marriage. This paper considers the Acts of Paul and Thecla as participating in a more complicated hermeneutic, which can be traced in other contemporaneous early Christian texts. Benjamin Dunning’s Specters of Paul reveals how a series of early Christian readers of Paul’s letters grappled with the apostle’s tensive constructions of sexual difference, ultimately leaving their own accounts of difference unresolved. Taking a somewhat different approach to Dunning, I suggest that the Acts of Paul and Thecla reads Paul, but perhaps not in a complementary way. Considering whether satirizing the apostle was its initial design, I show that certainly some early readers of the text understood it as engaging with and exposing Paul’s discourse on eroticism and gender as ambiguous, so as to undermine it. The paper offers initial conclusions about what sustained this satirical reading (one that can account for this narrative’s circulation independent of the larger Acts of Paul). Tertullian’s use of Paul’s letters in his inter-communal debates about gender and sexuality provides historical clues as to what motivated the drive to present Paul not as an authority, as scholars have often assumed, but rather as a caricature.

The field of gender and ancient Israel has come a long way in the last forty years, incorporating many different methodological twists and literary turns. Perspectives vary as to the rightful focus of investigations, questioning whether the “objects” of study should be actual ancient women and their material culture or the ideologies of gender inscribed in the textual record. In the last several years, artifacts have resumed an important role in these inquiries but in a new way. Instead of using artifacts merely to reconstruct the lives of ancient women, studies have increasingly adopted theories from the fields of visual studies and material religion to approach artifacts as structuring agents that create and influence human identities. Borrowing theoretical positions from Bourdieu and other modern theorists, these approaches purportedly bypass the tricky task of reconstructing ancient women’s intentions and interiors, using, instead, the formal characteristics of objects to establish how individuals would be structured by them. While these methods are producing creative research, now is the moment to investigate their theoretical underpinnings more thoroughly, lest we inadvertently cloak an overly positivistic historiographic enterprise in an aura of theoretical mystery. To that end, this paper will briefly review the main approaches to material culture in the study of history and gender, summarizing some of the primary historiographic problems. The paper will then discuss the influence of material religion in the field and the necessary baseline of data needed to do this analysis well. Finally, the paper will use the case of figurines to illustrate some of the pitfalls that could emerge when either the data are too weak or the methods too undertheorized to accomplish the goals of analysis.

BM 40474 was published by Irving Finkel (1999), translated again by Foster (2005), and re-edited by Oshima (2011). The tablet contains the prayer of Nabû-šuma-ukīn the son of Nebuchadnezzar II. This text promises to be an informative parallel to the biblical psalms. Past research in comparing Mesopotamian prayers with the biblical psalms of lament has often focused on the incantation-prayers, a group of prayers that were used in a variety of rituals by ritual specialists, like the āšipu. There are some important differences between the incantation-prayer corpus and the biblical psalms that make BM 40474 such an interesting parallel. Although both incantation-prayers and the biblical psalms are often put in the first-person voice of the supplicant, they understand their origins in very different ways. The incantation-prayers are considered to be part of āšipūtu, revealed to humankind by the gods; whereas many of the biblical psalms are assumed to have their genesis in specific situations in the life of King David. BM 40474 claims, like the psalms, to be used by a royal figure at a specific biographical moment. BM 40474 indicates the existence of a genre of prayer that was composed for and tied to specific life situations that was different than the mere personalization of incantation-prayers. Additionally, the biblical psalms often mention human enemies, unlike incantation-prayers which, if they talk about other human beings, refer to them as witches and warlocks, users of black magic. In BM 40474, however, human adversaries are front and center, not for their use of illicit magic, but for their deceit and slander. Even though this was ostensibly used for a specific situation in Nabû-šuma-ukīn’s life, the description and language are vague enough to be applicable elsewhere. This paper will explore the points of contrast and comparison between BM 40474 and the biblical psalms of laments. In particular, this cuneiform parallel may offer a closer glimpse at the genre that the editors of the Book of Psalms had in mind as they attached so many prayers to King David.

Sarai and Abram’s ill-fated journey into Egypt in Genesis 12 and 20, and the possibility of scandal swirling around Sarai’s body as a result of that journey, is deeply problematic. What, exactly, happened to Sarai in Pharaoh’s house? If such silence is difficult for the modern commentator, it was deafening for the ancient mindset that guarded the female body and its would-be progeny with a jealous gaze. My purpose is to examine 1QapGen’s embellishments of the biblical accounts, especially the new poem dedicated to a description of the minutiae of Sarai’s body. From the perspective of body theory and new materialism, this expanded description of Sarai’s body is most telling. Scholars such as Elizabeth Grosz and Samantha Frost have destabilized the entrenched mind/body dualism—a dualism that strips from the body any superior value—by demonstrating each body’s agency in its specific environment. And indeed, in the Genesis Apocryphon, the human body generally and the female body especially function as the central plot point at every turn. It is the needs of the body—survival—that necessitate the journey to Egypt and Abram’s deception. It is the possible danger posed to Sarai’s body that triggers exegetical maneuvering. And it is a description of Sarai’s body that assists in assuaging androcentric angst. Theorizing the body as an agent in its historical and literary contexts clarifies not only the characters’ movement within the story but also their movement across multi-generational retellings.

A marginal, though nevertheless lively, debate has ensued over the last three decades concerning the meaning of the term προστάτις in Rom 16:2. The debate is found explicitly in articles and commentaries on Romans and has factored into the wider controversy of the roles of women in churches established by Paul and, by extension, women’s roles in churches today. But one can also observe a more implicit debate, or perhaps trajectory, that has taken place in the understanding of this term in the major Greek New Testament lexicons and Bible translations, where various meanings and renderings betray its ambiguity. In this paper, I will trace and evaluate the history of the treatment of προστάτις in several major Greek lexicons to demonstrate how they have contributed to the present scholarly consensus on this term—that is, how they have over time narrowed the possible senses this word can have through separation from its masculine counterpart and through elimination of potential senses. Then, based on my own lexicographical analysis of the term, I will demonstrate that the various senses that προστάτις could take on in Hellenistic Greek have not all been fairly considered. To accomplish this, I first show how scholarship on the patron-client relationship in antiquity has come to dominate the discussion of προστάτις and that this in some ways has obscured the possible senses of this term. Then, I will argue that one rendering of the term is just as viable as the other renderings that have enjoyed popularity—namely, “protectress” or “guardian,” which bears significant implications on the interpretation of Rom 16:2 and the particularities of Phoebe’s relationship to Paul. These matters, too, will be briefly explored. As methodological parameters for this study, I will assume a lexical monosemic bias—that is, the notion that words, rather than being polysemous (i.e., having multiple inherent meanings), have a single, highly abstract meaning, but where this meaning can be modulated to assume different senses according to how words are contextualized and routinely used by language communities. Further, the concepts of text semantics and thematic formations as developed by systemic-functional linguist Jay Lemke will be employed as interpretive tools to socially locate the potential meaning of προστάτις in the context of Paul’s recommendation of Phoebe to the church in Rome.

This paper will argue that Isa 65:25 is a passage that dialogues with the earlier Isa 11:6-9 and Gen 3:14. Although the intertextual links with Isa 11:6-9 are clear, scholars do not agree on an intertextual link of Isa 65:25 with Gen 3:14. The paper will argue that there is indeed a link between these two passages, not only because the combination of “serpent + dust” appears only in Gen 3:14/Isa 65:25 – Micah 7:17 does not apply here because the parallel line “like the crawling things” suggests that “the snake” should be taken as a collective plural, thus speaking of “snakes” in general – but also because of a shared view of the “snake” as a symbol of evil. The author of Isa 65:25, therefore, while dialoguing with Isa 11:6-9, has an eye on Gen 3:14. The paper will argue (following Childs) that Isa 65 is an “… eschatological return to the primordial age.” This return is made explicit in the insertion of “as for the serpent, dust will be its food,” which is lacking in Isa 11:6-9. The paper will then finish with diachronic considerations, advancing that Isa 65:25 post-dates Isa 11:6-9 and that its scribe comes from the same circles as the one who composed Gen 3:14. The main difference between the two circles is that in Gen 3:14 the snake “eats dust” as the result of a curse imposition, while Isa 65:25 envisions a new creation in which the snake appears subjugated from the start, certainly as a symbol of the defeat of evil. Bibliography Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL; Louisville: John Knox Press, 2001). Odil Hannes Steck, “: '... ein kleiner Knabe kann sie leiten': Beobachtungen zum Tierfrieden in Jesaja 11,6-8 und 65,25” in Alttestamentlicher Glaube und biblische Theologie: Festschrift für Horst Dietrich Preuss zum 65 Geburtstag (1992): 104-113. Robert Martin-Achard, “L' espérance des croyants d'Israël face a là mort selon Esaïe 65,16c-25 et selon Daniel 12,1-2,” Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses 59:3/4 (1979): 439-451.

This paper analyses how forms of embodied experiences (i.e., vices and virtues) are personified as demons or other spiritual beings in second- and early third-century Christian texts. This interpretative step was a new development in the ontological understanding of demonic and angelic beings in Judaism and Christianity. The Shepherd of Hermas, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Origen’s Homilies on Joshua all reify specific psychological processes as spiritual beings. These three works build in various ways on Second Temple Jewish conceptualizations of evil and demonic beings, creating a collection of non-human forces that influence the individual. These authors are arguably theorising and theologising similar situations to those that led to the Rabbinic idea of two yetzerim, yet postulate a fundamentally different ontological solution. They focus on the imagery of a human mind that should remain neutral, yet is constantly under the influence of non-human, demonified vices, and as such these three texts represent an important step in the conceptualisation of evil in ancient Christianity. In this paper, I explore the link between texts and experience by examining the way evil spirits are presented as the personification of vices in early Christian texts. I also contrast and compare the ways these three specific authors uniquely undertake this ontological task. For instance, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs locates demons in specific parts of the human body, the Shepherd of Hermas creates a dualistic system of mutually incompatible, reified spiritual beings, and Origen creates a hierarchy of vice-demons. An exploration of these texts will give us deeper insight into the diverse ways ancient Christians conceived of the nature and characteristics of demonic beings, offering a nuanced understanding of their demonology that has not previously been considered.

Studying possible conceptions of nature in literature and iconography requires methodological considerations; it is an interdisciplinary, hermeneutical endeavour. Besides the question of whether one can speak about a concept of nature while respecting the ‘Eigenbegrifflichkeit’, there is the epistemological task of outlining the requirements for approaching the perception of our ancient fellow human beings. This paper considers feasibility of studying the ancients’ perception of natural phenomena and possibly their sense of symbolism paired with it by taking the perspective of the text—image—artefact connection, as interdisciplinary studied in cognitive science, art history, archaeology and their applications in biblical studies.

This paper presents two novel linguistic indicators for the identification of literary text types in the Hebrew Bible: clause length and part of speech distribution. It uses corpus-based linguistic methods to study the distinctiveness of Biblical Hebrew poetry. Since the twelfth century it is argued that the “shortness of the verses […] is the marked characteristic of the greater part of [Psalms, Proverbs, and Job]” (Wickes 1881, 8–9). In a first experiment, I describe how clause length and clause length consistency predict how poetic texts are with far more explanatory power and more intuitive results than verse length or line length. Although verse length sets books such as Job, Proverbs, and Psalms apart from the remainder of the corpus, it only captures poeticity to a very limited extent. Clause length and clause length consistency are more fine-grained, linguistic measures: clause length is an inherent linguistic property of the text and not the transmission process. Clause length reflects both syntactic and semantic complexity and it varies with the informative or imaginative goals of a text. This experiment distinguishes predominantly poetic literary text types from non-poetic texts. In a second experiment, I present the results of a promising method that uses parts of speech to identify literary text types. This model extracts meaningful correlations between specific parts of speech and specific text types. These correlations are visualised into higher-dimensional spaces that allow the researcher to visibly distinguish text types from each other whilst also obtaining crucial data about the linguistic features that make up the core elements of the Bible’s genres. This innovative approach has multiple advantages over and against often used linguistic features in Biblical genre theory. The linguistic features of both experiments have significant exploratory and explanatory power.

An apocalyptic scene or discourse may be defined as the direct unveiling or disclosure of divine secrets to a human being. The word “direct” in this definition refers to visions, dreams, or pronouncements by a heavenly intermediary. The secrets revealed may be purely heavenly in nature, such as a glimpse of God’s glory, or they may be heavenly realities with correlative components or effects on earth. Apocalypticism then is not extra-historical or a-historical but seeks to understand history in light of the divine plan. From this perspective, Acts includes many apocalyptic moments of direct revelation. This paper investigates appearances by angels and the visionary experiences of characters in Acts, considering the political dimensions of these apocalyptic elements in the narrative.

In the introduction to his new translation of the Hebrew Bible, Robert Alter is quite explicit about the task he set himself: “The present translation is an experiment in re-presenting the Bible in a language that conveys with some precision the semantic nuances and the lively orchestration of literary effects of the Hebrew and at the same time has stylistic and rhythmic integrity as literary English.” Alter explains this in more detail in the introduction and in his book The Art of Bible Translation, with explicit criticisms of other English translations. This paper will explore Alter’s own norms for translation and how he has applied them, with special attention to Hebrew and English word order, as well as what Bible translators can learn from Alter’s translation.

Whereas the topic of emotions in the Book of Esther has been thoroughly studied, the correlation between emotions and leadership needs some further scrutiny. Moreover, the paper will analyse how the MT portrayed the promotion procedure as applied to Haman and Mordecai and how respectively the Old Greek rendered and the AT reworked these promotion procedures.

Leonard Greenspoon and Septuagint Studies

Joshua 1:4 describes the so-called Euphratic Israel, an idealistic territory that we encounter in Gen 15:18 for the first time. It is repeated in Deut 1:7 but does not occur very often in the Hebrew Bible. In the book of Joshua, it is the only occurrence. All other descriptions of the land differ from it. There is another peculiarity in Joshua 1. Within this chapter, we encounter two perspectives. “The other side of the Jordan” can refer to the territory to the west of the Jordan but also to that to the east of this river. Can territorial depictions and perspectives betray anything about the redaction-history of Joshua 1 within its smaller and wider context?

It is a remarkable though rarely remarked fact that the verbal paradigms supplied in grammars are not Tiberian Hebrew. As Gesenius notes, to take on example, the hithpael should properly be renamed the hithpaal based on the Tiberian data. How to resolve such confusion is the burden of this paper. Among the big facts of Tiberian Hebrew phonology, those facts that a theory worthy of consideration must address directly, the biggest is the characteristic pausal alternations. It is not simply that an actual Tiberian paradigm would consist of pausal forms only, since a native speaker would assuredly produce a pausal form in isolation. It is not simply that the pausal forms are necessarily both derivationally and historically primary. Crucially, it is the pausal phonology that maintains phonemic contrasts that are subsequently lost when pause is lost. Thus, another big fact is that there is necessarily at least a fourfold phonemic contrast among Tiberian Hebrew vowels: /i, e, o, u/. On this view, there is no Canaanite Shift, rather there is the loss of the contrastive low front vowel *e in pause. The second part of the paper examines specifically the pausal alternations in the third person of the past tense. On the basis of the facts outlined, the seemingly arbitrary vowel reflexes in the qal stative, piel and hithpa'al are shown to be perfectly regular. Arising from the confusion is instead a robust lexico-semantic contrast. In addition to the regular alternations of a binyan and its characteristic vowel, there is revealed a class of verbal roots that cuts across the binyanim, characterized by an invariant [e] = /i/. Here the Tiberian Hebrew piel provides extensive and systematic evidence for the lexical contrast, which naturally extends to the hithpaal. In conclusion, the interaction of the phonological and lexical classes identified in the Tiberian Hebrew piel past tense is briefly considered in light of Ernst Jenni's study of the lexical classification in the Hebrew piel.

Book Five of the Psalter is an interesting collection of psalms. After the opening Psalm 107, celebrating God’s rescue of humanity from various dangerous situations, psalms attributed to David appear again after a virtual absence since Book Two. These Davidic psalms (Pss 108-110 and 138-145) “frame” a grouping of festival psalms that are introduced by two brief alphabetic acrostics (Pss 111 and 112). Seemingly tucked away just after the Songs of Ascents (Pss 120-134), and before the resumption of psalms of David, lie Psalms 135-137, two magnificent community hymns followed by a heartfelt community lament. This essay will explore the role of these psalms in the “shape” and “shaping” of the story of the Psalter. It will conclude that the psalms offer a highly stylized recitation of Israel’s history that made a world for the postexilic community, recounting Yahweh’s work in creation, summarizing the Pentateuchal stories of the ancestors (Pss 135-136) and providing a snapshot of exilic life in Babylon (Ps 137). Their assurance of Yahweh’s presence and provisions allow David, in Psalms 138-145, to lead the people in blessing, praise, and thanks to the sovereign God.

This paper investigates how modern scholars characterize Yahweh and Aššur in order to explore a network of unstated assumptions that implicitly informs comparative studies. Already in the late 19th century scholars adduced similarities in ancient portraits of the two gods, including: (1) an association with a centralized cult city (Jerusalem and Aššur, respectively); (2) social distancing from other deities and supernatural beings (apparent in, e.g., their respective bachelorhood); (3) the use of martial imagery to figure each god. More recently, scholars have explored how texts from Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah directly engage Assyrian imperial ideology in their characterization of Yahweh. Despite a general consensus on these points of similarity and even direct dependence, scholars evaluate the personalities of the two gods very differently. Aššur’s elevation over other deities is seen as a simple reflection of the Assyrian empire, making him, in essence, a hypostasis of the human Assyrian king. By contrast, Yahweh’s similar elevation is seen as a form of abstract transcendence over the political realm. This characterization of a terrestrial Aššur and transcendent Yahweh provides a concrete example of how our comparative method remains implicitly indebted to an Orientalist paradigm in which Assyrians were viewed as incapable of abstract or creative thought. In addition, the continued characterization of Yahweh as transcendent reveals an aesthetic preference even among secular scholars for monotheistic religions. I conclude that responsible comparative work requires critically engaging our own social and historical context to avoid prejudicing our selection and analysis of data.

The main characteristics of the Masorah of the Cairo Codex of the Prophets in Perez-Castro's edition will be explained. Moreover, it will be shown in a practical way how to use it.

The sixth-century pilgrimage church of Bir Ftouha at Carthage was excavated systematically from 1994–1999, which is when the majority of extant mosaic pavements within the nave and auxiliary liturgical spaces, such as the baptistery, were discovered. However, several of the finest figural examples from the eastern end of the church, most likely from the peristyle adjacent to the baptistery, had already been removed after they were discovered by accident in 1895 and subsequently excavated by Paul Gauckler in 1897. Those fragments—now distributed between French and Tunisian collections—show scenes of confronted deer (one stag, one doe) either kneeling or standing before the mountain of paradise, drinking from the four rivers of paradise that flow outward across the implied landscape of Eden. The fragments, though small, suggest a recurring theme of the Garden of Eden in or around the baptismal space at Bir Ftouha. And with the more systematic excavations of the late-1990s, a far more comprehensive picture of early Christian theological and iconographical tropes in the eastern end of the church can be reconstructed. The deer and rivers of paradise motifs were integrated strategically into a patchwork of other singular motifs of flowers, birds and other animals, and kantharos or krater fountains on the floor that functioned as synecdoches of paradise. The eastern mosaics within the church, therefore, offered to pilgrims receiving baptism at the church a processional roadmap that connected the space of the baptistery—where baptismal initiates were cast as new Adams and Eves in a prelapsarian Garden of Eden—to the adjacent nave and likely also the location of the high altar, where they would have received their first eucharist after the ritual initiation. Using Gauckler’s archival reports, the archaeological investigations of the 1990s, and comparative studies of paradisiacal motifs in other contemporaneous Tunisian baptisteries, this paper seeks to elucidate a comprehensive ritual program within the visual repertoire of Bir Ftouha.

This paper analyses how ancient readers with a Hellenistic education could understand Jesus’s words and deeds in John 6. Jesus is described not only as a new Moses but as an ideal sage in the early Roman Imperial period. Many of Johannine Jesus’s characteristics point this out. He is the one who renounces the glorification of men and rulers (6:15; Plutarch, Virt. prof. 77e), while his opponents, like the sophists, seek human recognition (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 55.7). For this reason, Jesus resignates as the people want to make him king (6:15) and later he appears again to offer men the “true bread”, thus to bring them to the knowledge of the truth. Like Platonic Socrates, Johannine Jesus compares physical hunger and thirst with the mental states of ignorance and folly (Resp. 9.587; Plutarch, Virt. prof. 77a-c.) and reveals the truth by engaging his interlocutors in cooperative argumentative dialogue. Similarly, Jesus appears as a physician in a literal (6:2) and metaphorical sense (12:40) for he offers his body and flesh as a medicine that prevents its partakers from dying (6:54) in a time when philosophy is described as medicine leading to immortality (Philo, Opif. 77) and the philosopher becomes as a doctor according to the Socratic model (Plato, Resp. 4.444c–d; Plutarch, Tu. san. 122c-e.; Musonius, Diatr. 3.61–65) This profile fits the author’s (or authors’) intention to transcend boundaries between ritual-material and abstract-spiritual reality in the Bread of Life Speech. The author offers an amalgam of biblical, ritual and philosophical elements similar to the Logos-sophical speculations of Philo. The divine Logos is understood by Philo as Manna (Her 79.191; Leg. 3:175) or as a metaphorical drink of the soul (Leg. 2:86; Somn. 2:249) for the soul needs heavenly foods and contemplation (Leg. 3:162). However, Philo did not exclude rituals from contemplative life but interpreted them philosophically. This is due to the fact that mixed forms of philosophical religion emerged in the Roman Imperial era (Luipold 2009) where the combination of philosophical life with participation in the rituals can be observed and material reality is understood in more positive way (Plutarch, Septem sap. conv. 146b-164d; Philodemus, De pietate (pars i), 26–27). Against this backdrop, it is not necessary to omit parts of chapter 6 as later additions or to prefer only one interpretation of John 6:51–58, either in relation to the practice of the communal meal or with regard to the role of the Spirit or faith in Christ. The author of John 6 delivers an amalgam that combines diverse biblical, ritual and theosophical aspects and simultaneously creates new ideas. The reflections in Jn 6 combine revelatory-historical and metaphorical concepts in a more radical way than the one that can be attested in the works of Plutarch or Philo. The Johannine amalgam can be conventionally described as a form of „cultural hybridity” as it transcends the dichotomy between philosophy and religion or the trichotomy between Hellenism, Early Christianity and Judaism and provides new concepts with a solid Christological foundation.

The portrayal of gender in the many fascinating texts of ancient Christian North Africa may seem to have an exemplar ad nauseam in the narrative Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis. After all, with an enthusiasm received by modern scholars as nearly voyeuristic, this early third-century account depicts the suffering of two female martyrs in multiple graphic scenes. Such portrayals initially could appear to participate in the generic suffering-as-subversion motif so often ascribed to early Christian martyr accounts. Within such an interpretation, the female martyrs’ bodies go on exhibition as insubordinate displays of ‘manly’ endurance. The Passio as a whole, however, may complicate the matter: the construction of gender throughout its narrative is far from a dichromatic activity. Instead, as was the case within the account’s wider social contexts, gender inherently and inextricably occupied another paradigm: that of socio-economic status. That is, for example, the body and experiences of the female slave are simply not perceived or portrayed in the same way as the body and experiences of the female matron. When the Passio narrative is examined within these wider frameworks, several different constructions of gender, particularly that of the female, can be observed. There are no straightforward presentations of ‘the suffering of the female body’, but distinct portrayals of distinct females. There is no one interpretation of the victory of the suffering woman in this text, but divergent interpretive explanations of the endurance of different women. This paper will present such a reading by addressing various scenes in the Passio that reveal intriguing contrasts between the narrator’s depictions of the suffering of two women, Perpetua and Felicitas. This exploration draws from and can contribute to various interrelated conversations among scholars, not only regarding early Christian identities within the constellations of their cultural settings, particularly socio-economic norms, but also (more broadly) gender studies in antiquity.

One hundred years ago, Albrecht Alt reconstructed a Judahite counteroffensive during the Syro-Ephraimite War on the basis of Hos 5:8–10, which begins “Blow the horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah.” By dividing the verses into short separate oracles and with the help of some textual emendations, Alt was able to reconstruct a series of events during this alleged campaign that took place over the course of several months. Alt also traced Hosea’s reaction to these events, as Judah (rightly) retook its former Benjaminite territory from Israel, but then shortly thereafter (wrongly) pressed on into historically Ephraimite territory. While no scholar follows Alt in all of the particulars of his reconstruction, his work has served as the starting point for almost any examination of the passage since then and his general conclusion that these verses represent a Judahite campaign into the Northern Kingdom during the Syro-Ephraimite War remains the majority position. This paper explores three issues regarding this alleged campaign and the biblical texts used to support its existence: First, it lays out the evidence that any such counteroffensive ever existed and concludes that the campaign is spun entirely out of these three verses in Hosea, circumstantial evidence, and scholarly speculation. Second, the paper proposes an alternative date for the oracle, during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah, which better aligns with the general picture of the historical relationship between Judah and Israel over the course of the second half of the eighth century. Finally, it explores methodological issues at play in using prophetic oracles as historical data, especially how the originally oral nature of prophecy and the scribal activity that transformed oral performance into written text impacts how we are to conceive of the phenomenon of written prophecy and in what ways we can and cannot (or at least should not) use it for historical purposes.

For the past two years, Aristeas has marked the end of his week with a communal meal, surrounded by fellow textile workers in the city of Ephesus. The meal itself is nothing special—bread, olives, and wine constitute the spread—but the conviviality that Aristeas enjoys in these weekly association meetings has begun to make him feel like he has a support network again. Of course he has always had his partner, Cornelia, at his side: they met as teens and were manumitted ten years ago when their master died. This was around the time that the Emperor Nero assumed the throne. Those first few years after the passing of their pater were rough, but they managed to scrape by using the skills they had acquired as slaves. They quickly found employment in the textile industry, with Aristeas working as a wool weaver and Cornelia as a seamstress. Three years ago, Aristeas and Cornelia moved to Ephesus with their son in tow. Aristeas, chatty and outgoing, became well acquainted with the other weavers in town, and he soon joined the local association of textile workers, finding great collegiality in this fold. The pater of the association is a generous and well respected man, and he reminds Aristeas of his former master. Aristeas is hopeful that being a member of this association will enable him to steadily increase his earnings and provide support for his son’s education. Meanwhile, Aristeas’ partner, Cornelia, has found a new support network as well. In seeking treatment for chronic abdominal pain, Cornelia has met Phoebe, a local healer. Phoebe has largely alleviated Cornelia’s pain by calling upon the power of a god known as Jesus Christ. Cornelia, thankful for this respite from her physical infirmity, has begun giving thanks to this deity, along with other gods, at the start of every morning. Aristeas typically joins her, happy to be “in Christ,” given what this god has done for Cornelia’s chronic pain. In this paper I elaborate further on Aristeas’ daily life and religious behaviors, drawing upon first century sources such as Paul’s letters and inscriptions produced by voluntary associations in Asia Minor to construct the historically plausible but fictitious character of Aristeas. Then I use the character of Aristeas to analyze 1) the impact of religious self-identifications on the behaviors of everyday people living in the early Roman imperial period, and 2) the variability of the norms that everyday people associated with their religious self-identifications. In particular, I argue that while certainly there were everyday people in the first century CE who identified themselves as brothers in Christ, these people’s religious practices and behaviors were often barely distinguishable from people who did not identify as Christ followers. Moreover, I argue that the norms and behaviors that everyday people associated with their religious self-identifications as Christ followers varied in comparison to one another, and in comparison with the experts and specialists who sought to prescribe, maintain, and clarify the boundaries of their respective religious groups.

The past forty years have witnessed an upsurge in the formation of apocalyptic new religious movements (NRMs) as well as the resurgence of robust apocalypticism in mainstream religions worldwide. Many of these NRMs have engaged in ultra-violent behaviour or else have been involved in violent public situations. Likewise, many resurgent apocalyptic streams have bonded with nativist political movements that comprehend the world in apocalyptic categories, which can translate to violent action. In both cases, this kind of violence is apocalyptic violence, i.e., harmful actions and responses in consequence of an apocalyptic worldview. Although the overlap of violence and apocalyptic religious groups has been the subject of much good scholarship (especially historical case-studies), the epistemological roots of apocalyptic violence remains poorly understood. This paper, the first of two parts, explores apocalyptically motivated violence in NRMs, with special reference to i) its basis in the underlying worldview and ii) its social contexts as part of a contemporary global “apocalyptic shift,” which since 2001 has been progressively increasing in scope and degree (DiTommaso 2019).

This paper explores the visual semantics of carved and molded faces from 8th – 4th century BCE Levantine and Mediterranean Phoenician sites, drawing on extant terracotta masks, anthropoid sarcophagi, carved stelae, and other image-material. In particular, Simeon Chavel’s 2012 study on “The Face of God and the Etiquette of Eye-Contact: Visitation, Pilgrimage, and Prophetic Vision in Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Imagination” serves as a jumping-off point for this analysis. Chavel’s work explores, as he puts it, “the trouble with God’s face” through textual witnesses from biblical and rabbinic corpora. Though Chavel explicitly works to imagine the range of Israelite artifacts that may have been the source of encounters between worshipper and deity, he ultimately concludes that social etiquette and court encounters likely served as the rich source of referents at play in references to looking (or not looking) at the face of Yahweh. To the Phoenicianist, however, the Iron Age Levant seems to offer a material landscape rife with powerful disembodied or emphasized faces—the faces of gods, an array of transformative masks, and the idealized faces of the elite dead, to name a few. This study goes beyond a typology of iconographic features to think more broadly about the religious aesthetic of the face, offering a tangible glimpse into how Levantine worshippers imagined and interacted with unseen beings in the Iron Age II-III periods.

Title: The Joban Animal Menagerie: Parents, Killers, Negligence, and Thriving In this paper I examine the role of animals in the book of Job, focusing on the wild and contradictory creatures in the divine speech (chs. 38–40; with special attention to the ostrich in 39:13–18, the hawk in 39:26–30, and other images of animals as parents with children). Few books in the Hebrew Bible focus on animals the way that Job does, and close analysis of the book reveals an animal narrative that tracks closely with Job’s own life and the fate of Israel in the post-exilic period of Job’s composition. Though many analyses of the divine speech are simply content to notice God’s obvious mastery over nature, most have stopped short of naming the profound literary and ideological indeterminacy created in these chapters, which, through its strange cocktail of beauty and cruelty, asserts a vision of animal nature that compares humans and animals in surprising ways. Because the Divine Speech is so directly concerned with providing resounding statements on animal behavior, I conclude that it is most appropriate to read the speech not as an avoidance of the key moral questions at stake (as many readers assert) but rather as the most direct engagement with the book’s central metaphors, i.e., the ecological world that serves as a cipher for the human body as well as the broader Israelite community. In addition to literary analysis, I frame my argument within a discussion of animal iconography relevant to Job chs. 38–40, as well as a historical argument about the composition and early reception of the book of Job as an ecological text in the early post-exilic period of resettlement in the land.

The deep engagement with Israel’s scriptures evident throughout Hebrews has ensured that this aspect of the epistle has been thoroughly treated by commentators in every age. The subject has been explored from all angles, with substantial and valuable studies available on everything from the nature of the author’s textual sources to his characteristic exegetical techniques, and from his overall understanding of scripture to the theological and rhetorical functions of specific citations. This paper aims to navigate a way through this almost bewildering wealth of material by drawing out from it the key areas of current debate and highlighting any potentially significant new approaches. It will set the scene, therefore, for the wider discussion in this session of Hebrews’ intertextual connections with the OT and Jewish Literature, by asking what scholars are saying now about how Hebrews uses scripture, and what they might be saying about this in the future.

In his commentary On the Titles of the Psalms, Gregory of Nyssa weaves together the musicality of the psalms, the human body, and the universe to adumbrate the notions of ascent which are more fully developed in his mature mystical writings. This paper argues that the Nyssen reappropriates elements of Pythagorean, Platonic, and Neoplatonic thought into a theological framework wherein music is intrinsic to God’s creation, ordering both the macrocosm and the microcosm. As Gregory sees it, the praise of God is both the beginning and end of humanity’s journey; even in its fallen state, humanity still possesses an affinity for music at the individual level: the body manifests it, the mind perceives it, and the soul pursues it. The Psalter guides this pursuit into l’expérience mystique: its order directs the soul’s ascent, its text instructs the reader in virtue, and its music reveals the psalms’ loftier signification.

Interpreters consistently romanticize the little slave girl in 2 Kgs 5,focusing on her wish in v 3: “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” Verse 3 presents “the public transcript” (that is, the Deuteronomistic view) of the little girl’s situation: accept your punishment and “pray for the welfare of the city where I have sent you” (Jer 29:7). The text does not tell us why she suggests a cure for Naaman. This gap in the text invites us to speculate as to the reason. It is in this gap and in the space between verse 2 (describing her status as captive) and verse 3 (her wish for Namaan’s healing) that we find “the hidden transcript” of the text and a glimpse of the trauma of war. However, because she believes in Elisha’s power to heal her master, the little slave girl is put on a pedestal by most commentators and the hidden transcript is obscured. The little girl in these interpretations seems to tell the exiles what they yearn to hear – that God works across national boundaries for restoration. The hidden transcript here suggests that her voice has been co-opted to make a theological point about God’s sovereignty over all political power. I contend that the point is made at the little girl’s expense; her trauma is glossed over in subservience to a larger purpose: survival. I want to read 2 Kings 5 with “interruption” (Fewell) through the lens of trauma studies for the sake of children at the Mexican border. Perhaps the little girl’s wish for Namaan expresses her adaptation to an abusive environment. So often we desire to see in biblical characters what we want to see in ourselves. My fear is that the little girl’s tiny shoulders cannot bear the weight of the expectations we have placed upon them, and that our unrealistic demands for resiliency from those like her who struggle with trauma today can make developing resiliency more difficult.

This paper examines the strange re-emergence of Ancient Near East gods in two famous contemporary white evangelical works of supernatural speculative fiction: William Paul Young’s The Shack and Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness. These novels’ divine beings are not just contemporary analogs of ANE gods, but are actually their historical descendants. In crafting their respective popular theodicies, Young and Peretti have inadvertently rediscovered the ancient Israelite polytheism of three millennia ago, for the simple reason that justifying the gods’ ways to humans is an easier task than justifying God’s ways to humans. Young’s novel is a modern day theodicy that tells the tale of a man’s loss of faith when his daughter is kidnapped, abused, and murdered. When he returns to the scene of the crime years later he discovers not the murderer but an unusually multicultural Christian Trinity who help him accept his ignorance about questions of free will, evil, and God’s justice and goodness. Though the Father says they are not “three gods,” the divine beings proliferate into five persons, as a Native American man as God the Father is added, and, in an allusion to Job, Sophia (Wisdom) is discovered underground in a cave to counsel him. Peretti’s similarly-bestselling This Present Darkness is premised on an evangelical theology of “spiritual warfare” and “territorial spirits,” in which a town in the Midwest slowly becomes aware that New Age gurus and psychology professors are inviting “Ba’al Rafar,” a demon lieutenant of Satan, to have dominion over their region. Through prayer, the evangelicals in the town, “the saints of God,” must power angelic defenders to beat back the demons and reclaim their spiritual territory. I examine these novels through the lens of historical-critical Bible scholarship and ANE studies to see the way in which, as Mark Smith and Daniel Boyarin’s works attest, both the Trinity and angels are historically descended from the traces of the gods of an ancient Israelite polytheism. As monotheizing reformers collapsed the pantheon into a single God, merging El and YHWH, the other gods were disappeared or demoted to angels. But traces remained, as is seen in ancient apocalyptic theology in Daniel of the “Son of Man” and named patron / territorial angels, as well as the lingering imagery of Two Powers in Heaven, Metatron, the apotheosis of Wisdom, the Word, and others. Both novels, in different but significant ways, undo the monotheism that had caused such problems for theodicy, and which initially prompted a “retreat” into “semipolytheism […] when a semidivine being of demonic nature was introduced” (James Crenshaw). In The Shack, the array of renewed divine beings of the expanded Trinity work to distribute responsibility for the problem of evil embodied in the murder of Mack’s daughter. In This Present Darkness, the angels and demons who had been demoted from godhood return as named divine beings who have supernatural agency and power, and whose combat displaces and makes more abstract the distant monotheistic God who becomes less directly responsible for human suffering.

Often in the apocryphal acts, Jesus appears on the scene in a new form or in multiple forms simultaneously. This polymorphic depiction of Jesus, as it shows up in the apocryphal acts, is thought to be a development of the Gospel’s nascent polymorphic tendency. In turn, the Gospel writers themselves are thought to be influenced by the various metamorphoses undertaken by gods in Greek literature. The possibility of Jewish origins for the phenomenon, however, remains largely unexplored by scholars, if not outright denied. This paper seeks to disrupt the notion that Greek sources are the sole influence on early Christian polymorphic depictions. I accomplish this by comparing the polymorphic depiction of Jesus in the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of Cannibals with the depiction of angels assuming very human-like forms in the Jewish novels of Tobit, the Testament of Abraham, and Joseph and Aseneth. The payoff of this strategy is two-fold. First, the literary development of anthropomorphic angels in the novels is often overlooked in favor of the more supernatural and otherworldly depictions of angels that become popular in the Second Temple Period. Taken together, the examples of angels assuming human form in these novels show a development of the concrete anthropomorphic depictions of divine or semi-divine beings present in the Hebrew Bible. Second, the anthropomorphic characterization of divine beings in these texts help us populate the world of ideas wherein Christian authors strove to depict Jesus. Consideration of a human-like class of angelic characters in the ancient Jewish novels can help to fill in the landscape of the type of divine beings Christian writers might have known. By collecting these examples of divine beings that appear as humans, we not only see the development of a literary thread that traces back to the anthropomorphic angel encounters in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis; we also see how the sometimes startlingly human depiction of the post-resurrection Jesus in the apocryphal acts is not necessarily foreign to the Christian writers’ Jewish literary roots.

Demons or devils feature extensively in the Qur’an, with the noun shaytan, from the same root as the Hebrew sh-th-n, occurring 88 times in 36 surahs. In addition to references to generic demons or devils, the Qur’an also shows clear affinity with Jewish and Christian traditions in its association of a singular, definite figure, al-Shaytan, with the same figure who led Adam and Eve astray in the Garden (Q al-Baqarah 2:36; al-A‘raf 7:20, 22, 27; Ta Ha 20:120), and who represents evil personified (Q 2:186, 208, 268, 275; Al‘Imran 3:36, 155, 175; al-Nisa’ 4:38; al-Ma’idah 5:90; al-Anfal 8:11; Yusuf 12:5; al-Nahl 16:98; al-Isra’ 17:53; Maryam 19:44; al-Fatir 35:6; Ya Sin 36:60; Fussilat 41:36; al-Zukhruf 43:62; al-Mujadalah 58:10, 19). After his expulsion from heaven (where he is known as Iblis), for refusing to bow before Adam (Q 2:34; 7:11; 15:31–32; 17:61; al-Kahf 18:50; 20:116; Sad 38:74–75), he attempts to lead believers astray (Q 4:60, 83, 120; 5:91; al-An‘am 6:43, 68, 142; 7:175; 8:48; Ibrahim 14:22; al-Nur 24:21; al-Furqan 25:29; al-‘Ankabut 29:38; Luqman 31:21; Muhammad 47:25; al-Hashr 59:16). Besides the story of Adam and his wife in the Garden (Q 2:35–37; 7:19–35; 20:117–121), there are a number of other biblical characters who appear in the Qur’an in connection with al-shaytan/ shayatin – Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Q 2:102; al-Anbiya’ 21:82; al-Naml 27:24; Saba’ 34:12–13, 38:37; 27:24); Joseph (Q 12:42, 100); Moses (Q al-Qasas 28:15), and Job (Q 38:41) – which reflect or even mirror, specific (extra-)biblical texts and traditions and thus constitute key evidence for the reception history of Jewish and Christian traditions about demons. With this in mind, this paper will outline the following details about qur’anic demons: -The terminology used to refer to them; -Their nature(s), characteristics, and activities; -Their appearance in narratives that reflect specific Jewish/Christian texts. It will do this from the point of view of the Qur’an as a repository of Jewish and Christian lore, ask what this tells us about the reception history of such texts, and analyze the value of the Qur’an as a reflection of (extra-)biblical traditions.

The debate over the eschatological nature of Muhammad and his movement has a long history. Most recently, Stephen Shoemaker has argued forcefully that he was a fully eschatological preacher, one who envisioned the world coming to an end in his own lifetime. This paper draws on late antique studies of eschatology to argue that the Qur’an’s eschatological discourse must be seen in a more multifaceted and contingent way. Specifically, it is necessary to distinguish between a strict and a loose sense of eschatology. Following Gustav Hölscher, the former entails “that grand drama of the end times in which worldly time comes to an end and a new eternal time of salvation dawns.” Contrastingly, a loose eschatology is an end that does not involve the destruction of the cosmos or the ultimate cessation of history but rather inaugurates a new era of fundamental difference that remains within the existing temporal framework. The most obvious parallel to “loose eschatology” in the Qur’an is the punishment narratives, which can be understood as God intervening in history to punish those who disobey Him, inaugurating a time of righteousness. This theorization allows us to better understand the early Islamic movement’s eschatological mode. Instead of Muhammad preaching that the end of the world was coming in his lifetime, we should understand his eschatological traditions as referencing a coming upheaval that will essentially change the existing order. Thus, in Q Maryam 19:75, a distinction is made between “the Punishment” and “the Hour”: “when they are confronted with what they have been warned about—either the Punishment or the Hour (imma 'l-‘adhabah wa-imma 'l-sa‘atah)—they will realize who is worse situated and who has the weakest forces.” These events should be held distinct: the “Punishment” is a this-worldly eschaton that anticipates but does not coincide with “the Hour,” the ultimate end of history. This distinction is echoed in a number of places in the Qur’an, most directly in Q al-An‘am 6:40, al-Hajj 22:55, and al-Sajdah 32:21. Finally, having developed the notion of “loose eschatology,” I contend that we may have some support for this theory in early sources. In particular, it seems that the Battle of Badr was remembered by Islamic tradition as an eschatological event in this loose sense. Examining the traces of this memory in the exegetical literature shows that the Qur’an combined two eschatological timeframes—one, an immediate, communal punishment, and the other, an end to history and occasioning of final judgment—in a flexible way that was able to shift with changes in the fortunes of the early community.

Forced migration and exile are foundational experiences for Jewish life in the Diaspora. The book of Esther details the complexities of diasporic living not only for the Jews, but for young girls forced to migrate from their native homelands spanning from India to Ethiopia, to the Persian Empire’s power center, Susa. In this paper, I will argue that attention to forced migrations in the book of Esther illuminates the establishment of a sexual trafficking economy by Persian imperial subjects. Persian officials make strategic use of anxieties over gender and sexuality in order to legally engage in forced migration and sexual trafficking as they gather, abduct, and transport countless minority/minoritized girls across national borders for the king’s sexually pleasure. In the process of migration, national, home, and bodily borders are crossed as the girls are transported from their native provinces to Susa; from their homes to the king’s palace; and from harem, to the king’s bedroom, to another harem as the king sexually exploits the girls each night, for several years. After Esther is chosen as queen, the nameless girls remain in exile as they are not permitted to return to their homes of origin but remain in the king’s palace, a violent and unsafe space, where they experience prolonged exposure to threat, trafficking, and trauma. Parallel to the experiences of contemporary minority/minoritized subjects from Asian and African geographies, the girls in the narrative world are exploited based on gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and class, intersectional oppressions that leads to heightened vulnerability to sexual trafficking. Forced migration thus materializes as threats to bodily, sexual, physical, spatial, and psychological security and constitutes collective trauma for minoritized female bodies from these locations and places

This paper celebrates the career of Karen L. King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School.

How did Christians in rural regions perceive and present their communities in late antiquity and the Middle Ages? Christian identities have been studied mostly through elite forms of cultural production and expressions heretofore. Pointing out the need for the study of rural Christianities, some scholars have recently turned to texts and material culture to discover manifestations of Christianity in regions far from major urban centers in antiquity. In this talk, I approach the question of “Christian identity” through the lens of monastic patronage in rural northern Mesopotamia. In light of local historiography, hagiography, epigraphy, and architecture, I argue that Christian families cultivated local monastic identities by means of patronage of buildings in the region. And they competed with one another through such patronages. This analysis shifts our focus from theological disagreements and confines of parishes as paradigms of community-formation, and nuances our understanding of Christians’ self-understandings and self-representations in rural landscapes.

The present paper interrogates literary and material evidence from monastic communities in the late antique eastern Mediterranean to address a specific question: how did the built environments of monasteries help to shape the emotional experiences of their occupants? I argue that the formation and practice of monastic “affective piety” (how one should feel towards God) was intimately entwined with the texts and paintings displayed on the floors, walls, and niches of the spaces in which monastics lived. Drawing on late antique monastic self-help literature in Greek and Coptic, I argue first that a primary goal of monastic affective piety was the cultivation of “fear” towards God as eschatological Judge. The paper highlights how exhortations to mobilize “fear” towards God that instructed monastics to meditate on the end of their lives, the final judgment before the throne of God, and the punishments allotted to those in hell created affective “scenes” that monastics could visualize to cultivate feelings of fear. Such scenes, I contend, were widespread not only in monastic literature, but also in the material environment in which monastics dwelt, insofar as monastics were “primed” by their audiovisual surroundings to experience the same scenes of fear emphasized in monastic literature. In arguing for this assertion, the paper turns to a particular material context, the Monastery of Apa Jeremiah in Lower Egypt, active from the fifth to ninth centuries. On the one hand, inscriptions and dipinti on the floors and walls of this monastery point to a pressing and continual awareness of the final judgment that accumulated in the material record over time. Monastics wrote prayers for the souls of others (or themselves) on the surfaces around them, and in turn such highly visible prayers were viewed by other monastics, prompting the inscription or painting of additional prayers on the walls of the monastery. Finally, the paper argues that the emphasis on the final judgment found in the literary and epigraphic records also influenced how monastics viewed the depictions of Christ enthroned which adorned many of the apsidal prayer niches situated in the eastern walls of monastic cells. Without discounting other interpretations of these apse paintings, I argue that in their local context they were most likely to have been experienced by monastics kneeling or standing before them as depictions of Christ as eschatological Judge.

Psalm 71 is possibly the only psalm written by an old man. It has also been long ignored in the literature and often discounted in commentaries as an amalgam of short phrases. In this paper, I will argue that Psalm 71 has an internal integrity and individuality that speaks into some of the issues facing our ageing population today. For many, old age is a time of vulnerability and despair. Physical, cognitive and mental decline can leave the ageing individual at the mercy of others – family, friends and staff employed to care for them. In a western society that values independence, self-reliance and agency, these losses are often magnified. However, old age is also often a time of spiritual and emotional growth. It can be a time of reflection on all the blessings and fortunate times of a life lived in faith. It can be an opportunity to think deeply about one’s relationship with God and to prepare for the next part of the journey. These themes are both present in this poem of lament that allows us to hear both the vulnerability of old age and the spiritual fortitude that has been developed over many years. The psalmist can be seen to swing between the negativity of fear and the positivity born of praise. In this way, it gives us a template to deal with our own fluctuating emotions and the language of hope and despair. The psalms, as liturgical poetry, allow us to connect with the concerns and fears that are often hidden or dismissed in Christian cultures that encourage a focus on blessing and wealth. The ‘I’ of the psalmist’s voice can be heard as our own in this plea to connect with ‘thou.’ The strength of God is contrasted with the weakness of humanity. Although the psalmist was almost certainly a man, I will also consider how this psalm is heard differently when it comes from the voice of an older woman. I will consider the way biblical poetry can cross the gender divide and provide a voice for many members of our faith communities. The language, metaphors and imagery will be considered for the way it includes or excludes vulnerable listeners. Finally, this paper will propose that in terms of considering the psalms it is just as important to consider what is being heard, as what is actually being said within the psalter.

Ever since its conception, the UBS Greek New Testament has been claiming to be a critical Greek text edition prepared primarily for translators. This promotional tag has its strongest appeal particularly to those who are on the ground working with translation teams worldwide. But what exactly makes the UBSGNT the Greek text edition for Bible translators? What’s in it that’s not found in other Greek text editions available in the market today? With all the textual and paratextual features historically integrated throughout all its editions (including those that are no longer in use), what picture of a translator being targeted emerges? Accordingly, with the rapidly changing contexts of Bible translation globally, this paper will probe alongside the profile of Bible translation teams in the field, particularly from the global South, who are actually using UBSGNT in their translation task, to assess the adequacy (if not relevance) of the current features of UBSGNT.

A series of excavations by archaeologists of the Israel Antiquities Authority in and around Jerusalem and two newly discovered inscriptions regarding Hadrian's visit to the province in 130 CE revive the discussion regarding the local circumstances preceding the Imperial advent and the impact of the subsequent foundation of Colonia Aelia Capitolina. In this lecture I will present a synthesis of these new materials with well-known historical sources and less-known papyri and inscriptions. The evidence suggests that Jerusalem, before the foundation of the colony, was a legionary camp surrounded by satellite civilian settlements that belonged to different administrative units. Some of these settlements can now be mapped and their administrative roles can be postulated. The occupants of these settlements were Jews, Christians (with bishops of Jewish descent), soldiers, veterans and their families. All seem to have reached some sort of modus vivendi, in a process reminiscent of the "Middle Ground" model pertaining to the formation of colonial societies. Regardless of whether Hadrian decided to establish a colony in Jerusalem before or after the Bar Kokhba Revolt, his decision undoubtedly handed Jerusalem over to the soldiers, the veterans, and their wives and children, at the price of offsetting the delicate equilibrium reached over the years with the Jewish population. This was the first time in the history of Judea that the Roman Army directly influenced the processes of urbanization. I will argue that this, as precedent, signaled the end of the so called "Jewish Region" in Judea and the demise of its toparchy system, thus opening the way for the completion of the urbanization of the province.

The Book of Chronicles opens with the genealogy of Adam, which leads directly into other genealogical material found in Genesis, and throughout Chronicles are citations and references to various Pentateuchal laws and parenetic material. Moreover, there are multiple references throughout the book to the “Torah of Moses” and the “Torah of Yahweh”, which are occasionally combined with the citation formula “as it is written in.” The question of the form of the Pentateuch presumed by Chronicles and the authority it held for the Chronicler needs to consider not only the overt mentions of the Torah of Moses or Yahweh, but also the references to acts performed in accordance to what was “commanded to Moses”, as well the range of Pentateuchal citations and references in Chronicles. For instance, which Pentateuchal passages are cited, and which are not, and what citations occur in Chronicles’ Sondergut? Pressing methodological questions arise in evaluating implications of the purported citations and intertextual references. For example, to what degree does lack of reference imply intentional disregard of Pentateuchal material or motifs, and in which cases is it feasible that the material was not available to the Chronicler and represents post-Chronistic development within the Pentateuch? Furthermore, does the selection of citations indicate what was authoritative in the eyes of the Chronicler, while what was not considered authoritative was left out? Or might the references have been selected at random in order to impart to Chronicles the authority of the work revered as the “Torah of Moses”?

Scholars have compared the scholarship on magic to riding a rather rickety bicycle; we continue to make progress in understanding ancient magic as we pedal forward working with the evidence, but every once in a while we need to stop and do some maintenance on the bicycle itself, our definition of the category of magic. We always start with etic definitions, with the presuppositions we bring to any inquiry from our own culture and upbringing. Ultimately, we end up with etic definitions as well, since we cannot analyze another culture as though we were part of it. For the modern scholar, ‘magic’ is always an etic category, formulated for the purposes of analyzing and understanding the ancient world. We cannot do without definitions altogether; any attempt to do so just ends up bringing back in implicit – and therefore unexamined – etic definitions. However, we can come up with better etic definitions if we look to the way the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean world made their own emic definitions and drew their own categories. If we refine our intuitive modern etic definitions with reference to the evidence for the ancient emic classifications, the bicycle may still end up a bit wobbly, but we will be able to make better progress. To begin with, magic is not a thing, but a way of talking about things. It is thus a ‘discourse’, like sexuality, or religion, or science, or literature, and the label of ‘magic’ thus depends on who is doing the labeling. When we speak of ‘magic’, therefore, we should always explain: ‘magic for whom?’. Any specific piece of evidence from the ancient Mediterranean world provides an example of magic for that particular person, from one particular perspective. To speak of ‘magic in the ancient Mediterranean world’ is thus to refer (loosely) to the whole range of things that various people in those cultures during those times could label as magic. I therefore propose that: Magic is a discourse pertaining to non-normative ritualized activity, in which the deviation from the norm is most often marked in terms of the perceived efficacy of the act, the familiarity of the performance within the cultural tradition, the ends for which the act is performed, or the social location of the performer. Each piece of this definition needs unpacking, and its usefulness can be demonstrated through a closer examination of some of the evidence for that most famous of ancient magical tricks, drawing down the moon. This act is explicitly labeled magic by some of the earliest sources, and many different examples of this Thessalian trick appear throughout the entire range of the evidence. The examples stress different aspects of the non-normativity of the act: some the social location of the performers, some the non-normative ends for which it is performed, some for the weirdness of the performance, and others for the extraordinary power and efficacy of the rite.

John Chrysostom has often been described as a moralist, and a Stoic one at that. But can this Christian preacher’s moral teaching be described as Stoic, when biblical exegesis forms the greater part of his work? Chrysostom’s 'Quod nemo laeditur nisi a se ipso' is a fitting test case for this question, since the treatise is a sustained reflection upon the pseudo-Stoic dictum “no one can be harmed unless he harms himself,” and at the same time is taken up primarily with exegesis and re-narration of Old Testament narratives. It has been claimed that this treatise is mostly Stoic and contains hardly any genuinely Christian teaching; the biblical narratives employed are instead molded to the whims of this apparently Stoic preacher. However, this paper will argue that the influence instead runs in the opposite direction: this Stoic moral teaching becomes so thoroughly incorporated into the Christian commentary tradition that it ceases to be Stoic in any meaningful sense. Instead, like other moral gnomai found throughout Chrysostom’s works, the phrase “no one is harmed unless he harms himself” functions as a distillation of scriptural narratives, thus transforming the dictum into a single, now distinctly Christian, moral teaching. Further, Chrysostom puts forward the phrase to be used as a sort of spiritual exercise: one that is both metonymic—standing in for these extended biblical narratives—and mnemonic—serving as a pithy reminder of the narratives which might otherwise prove difficult to recall. Thus, as one is confronted with a disturbing circumstance, by recalling the phrase “no one can be harmed unless he harms himself,” one is reminded of the expanse of biblical narratives which all witness to this same truth. In this way, the gnomic expression is packed full of scriptural—and not Stoic—meaning. In addition to this more constructive argument, it is noted that the Stoic “backgrounds” which are so often the hallmark of contemporary patristic scholarship are less helpful in this case because (1) Chrysostom’s thought does not engage with Stoic teaching in any significant way, and (2) many Stoic teachings, such as this one, had long since ceased to be Stoic, and had been thoroughly assimilated into the thought of various other philosophical schools. Thus, rather than arguing that Chrysostom Stoicizes, and so does violence to, the biblical narratives which he interprets, this paper will show how this moral teaching becomes Christianized, as Chrysostom baptizes it in the waters of the Christian scriptural commentary tradition.

Imagine – no ‘Works of Law’! Struggling with ‘Erga nomou’ in Changing Times and Places

In 49 BCE, while levying troops in Ephesus, the consul Lentulus Crus exempted Jews from serving in them. A group of six documents preserved by Josephus in AJ 14 relate to this decision, including three slightly different copies of the edict itself (AJ 14.228f., 234, 238ff.) and three documents that refer to it (14.230, 231f., 236f.). The documents themselves present a tangle of textual problems, owing in part to a complicated history of transmission that began before they came into Josephus’ hands. They also present three questions concerning Lentulus’ decision that can be clarified (I will argue) by considering these documents in the context of what we know about the Roman dilectus, or military levy. First, Lentulus exempts from service in the legions πολῖται Ῥωμαίων Ἰουδαῖοι (‘Jewish citizens of Rome’). Doubt has been expressed whether these were Roman citizens in the full juridical sense by (e.g.) Troiani (1994, 14) and Pucci Ben Zeev (1998, 151-3). Lentulus, however, was in Asia raising citizen legions in which only Roman citizens normally were eligible to serve. A second problem is how wide the exemption was meant to apply. Lentulus mentions only Ephesus, but the letter of Ampius Balbus refers to this decision applying to 'the Jews of Asia'. Gruen (2002, 294 n. 15) and Pucci Ben Zeev (1998, 164) explained this as an error on the part of either Balbus or a copiest (cf. also Juster (1914, 144)). But that is probably unnecessary: to judge from Polybius’ description (6.19-20) of the Roman dilectus, citizens were required to report from far and wide, so citizens from outside of Ephesus were expected to report. Indeed, Lentulus’ reference to Ephesus in his edict refers to the place where the dilectus was held, not the residency of exemptees. Third, and finally, considering Lentulus’ exemption within the context of the dilectus highlights the strangeness of the document introduced as a 'Decree of Delos' (AJ 14.231), which reports official instructions not to harass the Jews because of the exemption. The document cannot come from Delos (Eilers, 2005), but the concern over the possibility of a negative reaction outside Ephesus would nonetheless be noteworthy. I will argue the document comes from Ephesus itself. All this goes to reinforce the important observation of Rajak (1984, 112ff.) that the exemption was not meant to be a universal ruling applicable henceforth. Again, the context of the dilectus implies that Lentulus’ decision applied only to this particular levy. Eilers, C. 2005. "A Decree of Delos Concerning the Jews?" SCI 24, 65-74. Gruen, E. S. 2002. Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans. Harvard. Juster, J. 1914. Les Juifs Dans L'empire Romain. Geuthner. Pucci Ben Zeev, M. 1998. Jewish Rights in the Roman World. Mohr Siebeck. Rajak, T. 1984. "Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?" JRS 74, 107-123. Ritter, B. J. 2015. Judeans in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire. Brill. Troiani, L. 1994. "The πολιτεία of Israel," in F. Parente and J. Sievers, eds., Essays in Memory of Morton Smith, 11-22. Brill.

The Qur’an makes ample reference to God’s many acts of revelation. We may regard wahy as revelation to a prophet, while tanzil is a broader category of revelation to humankind. Revelation to mankind includes various objects (scripture, water from the heavens; wages; etc.) There is ample modern literature on the biblical and Judeo-Christian echoes of these qur’anic passages, but little to nothing about its more ancient female, pagan structure and imagery. The male or female characteristic of these objects, often gleaned from their very names, are too rich in meaning to ignore. This presentation examines three cases where revelation takes place through a female vessel, and where the vessel is accompanied by two female helpers. The first case is that of the God’s “tranquility” or (female) “dwelling” (Arab. sakinah; Q al-Tawbah 9:26; al-Fath 48:4-26; cf. Q al-‘Imran 3:154). Finding His believers in duress and homeless God sends down his sakinah within which they find tranquility after battle. This is the same tranquility found in a man’s “dwelling” within his wife (Q al-Rum 30:21), the dwelling of birds in a tree, and the dwelling of divinity among its people in rabbinic literature (Heb. shekinah) and echoed in Matthew 18:20. The second case is the parallel story of the Qur’an’s revelation and the birth of Christ (Q al-Qadr 97). God’s revelation is planted deep in Mary’s womb, as it is planted deep in the “night of darkness” (laylat al-qadr; cf. Aram. qdr). Out of this darkness emerges a constellation “brighter than a thousand moons” (khayr min alf shahr; cf. Aram. h-y-r; sh-h-r). This discussion leads to the third case, the revelation of the Qur’an in the “month of Ramadan” (shahr ramadan), the ninth month of the Arabian calendar. That is to say the Qur’an is formed over a nine month period, as Jesus did in Mary’s womb and coinciding with the harvest season or rebirth of the earth. Through this presentation, I argue that the Qur’an’s story of its own creation is composite, reflecting more ‘recent’ Judeo-Christian counterparts, but also ancient pagan imagery hard-coded into its Arabic language. The most ancient layer in this story, I argue, is the imagery of the goddess Allat/Ishtar: the winged goddess (crane) of the heavens, the morning and evening star, and the resurrector of the earth (Tammuz).

Students better retain content when they have actively engaged a topic, synthesized and evaluated material related to that subject, and “chunked” the new information into coherent, interconnected structures. In this presentation I offer a teaching tactic that requires active engagement, synthesis, evaluation, and “chunking.” I call it a “Top Five.” The tactic begins with students’ individual engagement with a new subject. After completing an assigned reading, students are asked to identify the top five most important things to know about that topic, person, or text. Students move from #5 down to #1 following specific formatting guidelines that help them see that presentation matters in a document. The assignment not only requires students to identify important information, but also to summarize that information in their own words and rank it. The initial part of this assignment thus develops the skills of information retrieval, synthesis, and evaluation. Students then bring their “Top Fives” to class wherein they further engage the content with their peers and the professor in various ways. The presentation outlines several options for further engaging students’ “Top Fives” in class. One way to do so is by means of a “Snowballing Discussion.” This discussion method has individuals join into pairs, present their “Top Fives” to one another, and then create a new “Top Five” for their pair. Students are asked not simply to pick three pieces of information from one person’s “Top Five” and two from another’s, but rather are to find ways that they can further synthesize items in their respective lists. Pairs then join another pair to form quads and create another new “Top Five,” before these quads join together for the final synthesis of a new “Top Five” in groups of eight. There are several pedagogical advantages to this tactic. First, the assignment asks students individually to evaluate and “chunk” new information into units that are more memorable. Second, centering class time around students’ “Top Fives” allows for supplementation through peer modeling and instructor correction. Third, the assignment creates a natural segue to both discussion of and instruction on a given topic. And fourth, the tactic is highly versatile. It can be employed in a variety of contexts for a variety of topics. I have used it for introducing biblical books in New Testament Overview classes, as well as for introducing new religious or theological concepts in introductory Theology and Religious Studies courses. The presentation will itself be demonstrated in my “Top Five” format. This format mirrors how I often provide instruction following students’ individual completion of the assignment and peer engagement in the classroom. By presenting the tactic as a “Top Five” I will articulate both the instructions for the tactic and also the various pedagogical advantages that it offers.

Why teach courses on the Qur’an in colleges and universities? An obvious answer to this question is “to learn more about he Qur’an.” But a more complex and specific answer must consider details. To what extent does institutional context matter, or even personal taste? What does it mean to learn about the Qur’an as an undergraduate student? In my experience teaching courses on the Qur’an over the past several years, I continually negotiate how much emphasis to put on the text versus the context: institutional context, current events, cultural baggage that each student (and instructor) brings to the course, and how the study of the Qur’an fits within the study of Islam, religion, or even the humanities more broadly. This presentation will focus on a particular liberal arts context at a Jesuit Catholic college and consider challenges and questions that arise as a result of my own learning and teaching goals, which include equipping students with skills and awareness to build compassion and work toward social justice. Through sharing a number of assignments and learning activities, in conversation with scholarship on teaching and learning, this presentation argues that courses on the Qur’an can offers students both a deep engagement with the text itself—with attention to language, hermeneutics—as well as an inroad to any number of disciplinary vantage points such as literature, history, theology, and art.

Autobiographical narratives in the authentic letters of Paul are an interpretive crux in any effort to write a biography of the historical Paul. In this paper, I consider various fundamental questions and literary dynamics in relation to the autobiographical segments of Philippians. I propose that to whatever extent we separate the writing Paul from the self-represented Paul, the distillation that remains is still something other than the sort of historical fact that would satisfy the exigencies and expectations of modern biography. My argument is not that the project of writing a biography of the historical Paul is untenable, but that Paul’s own autobiographical narratives in his letters force us to think differently about the nature of any such biography and of the historical Paul it seeks to elucidate. The speaking subject of a letter seems more accessible than the authors of so many other genres. Self-narratives within a letter, therefore, seem to provide a degree of transparency rivaled only by a personal diary. However, even though New Testament scholars have discerned a single authorial hand behind the authentic letters of Paul, that is not the same thing as knowing the actual historical person responsible for writing those letters. Critics agree that Paul does not write autobiography for its own sake but rather actively patterns and presents himself in particular ways relative to his audiences so that he can employ his autobiography in some fashion pertinent to his argument and purpose. But taking such a position requires already knowing the writer behind these statements. What, then, is the basis of that knowledge? If each autobiographical vignette is a performance and thus provisional, then what is ultimately the subject of any biography we write? In his autobiographical statements Paul must, of necessity, write himself as an other. His self becomes a character subjected to a narrative emplotment. In these vignettes, various narrative aspects (e.g., character-narration, characterization, focalization, time, selection) intersect and mutually shape one another. The reliability of a character-narrator is tremendously ambiguous by virtue of the fact that it is at once both within and outside of the story. If we recognize that Paul’s depictions of others in his letters likely does not match what they would say about themselves, what impact does this have on our understanding of what he says about himself? My paper illustrates ways in which the Paul inscribed by the writer of Philippians complicates the Paul described in any subsequent biography because his own writing often resists the sort of stable and consistent subject we associate with the genre of autobiography. I argue that these dynamics have important implications and consequences for writing any reconstruction of the historical Paul.

Blessings are palpable in both biblical accounts and contemporary African contexts. Blessings are more than polite niceties or kind words with spiritual undertones; they are imbued with phenomenological effectiveness and empowered by the fundamental nature of a God who blesses. The ontological efficacy—transmitted through words—is life-giving. This research goes beyond previous intercultural analysis of biblical curses in an African context and focuses on developing the other side of the blessing and cursing conceptual word pair in poetry. This project curates a “red thread” of women’s blessing in biblical Hebrew poetry (select examples include: Gen 2:23; Ruth 1:16–17; 1 Sam 2:1-10; Prov 1:8–9; 31:10–31; Song 8:6–7). An intercultural dialogue regarding African blessings creates a harmony with representative biblical poetry, developing a fuller understanding of women’s ways of blessing.

My 2011 book The Matter of the Text: Material Engagements between Luke and the Five Senses (Sheffield Phoenix) drew on new materialist theory, in particular the work of Jane Bennett (Vibrant Matter) and Carl Knappett and Lambros Malafouris (Material Agency) to consider the hermeneutic implications of engaging with the biblical texts as matter. In that work, I underscored the unique materiality of any instantiation of a text – whether papyrus, parchment, codex, thin bible paper, light and shade on screen, and so on – and asked how we might read a text with its materiality, and material agency, in mind. The Matter of the Text performed readings of selected texts from the Gospel of Luke, using the senses as hermeneutic keys for mediating and finding connections between the text as matter and the text as word, to the extent that such distinctions make sense in relation to the material turn. In this paper, I build on that earlier work and focus on the materiality of breath. The breath is encoded in languages and texts, for example, through the quality of letters/characters, punctuation, space. David Abram (The Spell of the Sensuous) refers, for instance, to the pointing in Hebrew as the ‘written’ breath. I argue that attentiveness to matter situates human bodies and textuality in their more-than-human contexts, where breath like the senses, acts as mediator of human and other-than-human material relations and knowing. The breath connects human bodies with their habitats, with air and atmosphere, with the ecological exigencies of climate and pollution. Breath is a key concept for a new materialist evaluation and explication, for example, of the Earth Bible ecojustice principle of voice and the related ecological hermeneutic of retrieval. Orality studies and performance criticism have implications also for exploring the materiality of breath in relation to reading biblical texts. Texts as oral performances are ‘brought to life’ through the material medium of breath. With reference to Theodore Hiebert on ruach (‘Air, the First Sacred Thing’ in Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics, ed. Habel and Trudinger), William Bryant Logan (Air: The Restless Shaper of the World), Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann (eds, Material Ecocriticism) and Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman (eds., Material Feminisms), and the work of Elaine Wainwright on habitat (Habitat, Human and Holy), this paper explores the materiality of breath as a way of engaging with the materiality of a text against a contemporary background where air and atmosphere are often strained. I offer a reading of Luke 4:16–30 from the perspective of the interlinked materialities of breath and text, arguing for a multilayered approach to reading that attends to the markers of breath in the reader, the ways the text affects the reader’s breath, the characters’ breath, and the way the text might speak into the strained breath of a climate change and pollution affected Earth.

The task of dating biblical texts is widely recognized as a difficult one, and the specific problem of dating individual psalms presents even greater challenges. Unlike many biblical books, the Psalter lacks many of the common elements necessary for dating texts—dateable events, people, and places. Despite such difficulties, the field of inner-biblical exegesis and allusion, with regard to the Psalter, demands the need for scholars to date psalms to a general era, or at least a relative standing to a source text. The present paper represents a modest contribution towards meeting the present challenge of dating psalms by evaluating the present dating methodologies practiced on individual psalms and proposing a methodological approach for the responsible application of dating evidence. The paper begins with a discussion of common pitfalls that frequently plague scholarly attempts at dating texts, such as, overreaching conclusions from limited data, and failure to collect all available evidence. Following this, the discussion turns towards evaluating evidence within the Psalter that serves as an indicator of date. Naturally, datable vocabulary and syntax play an important role in this process. And though recent volumes—such as Hendel and Joosten, How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?: A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study, Hurvitz, Dictionary of Late Biblical Hebrew, and Gar and Fassberg, A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew—have re-established the validity of Early, Transitional, and Late Biblical Hebrew, identification of such elements in a psalm need further evaluation before they are considered as evidence for determining a text’s date. Together with linguistic contributions to dating texts, the present study evaluates additional components—for example, a psalm’s genre, and the identification of literary dependencies—that determine a psalm’s date. In conclusion, the present paper outlines a process and guidelines for the responsible dating of psalms. Furthermore, it reasserts the idea that despite the challenges of dating psalms, the task remains a worthwhile endeavor for the benefits of furthering the field of inner-biblical allusion and exegesis.

This study contends that the Fourth Evangelist portrays Jesus as the patron par excellence in the farewell discourse of John. The presentation will focus on the usage of φίλος in John 15:13–16, suggesting that the term conveys a regent who is obedient to a king. Thus, the role of Jesus’ friend is one of subordination, not equality. This best explains the saying “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends (John 15.13).” An examination of Roman patron-client relationships suggests that Jesus is portrayed as a patron in John 15. Patrons, especially high-ranking officials, often gave clients the honorary designation of “friends.” Such friends were not equals, but subordinate to their patrons in loyal obedience (cf. John 15:14, 16). After Jesus’ self-designation as lord (13:14), the discourse of John 14–15 is characterized by calls to obedience and loyalty, in accordance with their subordinate relationship. The phenomenon of patrons acting as brokers further bolsters the argument that Jesus is portrayed as a patron. Brokers gave clients access to otherwise inaccessible favors and services from another patron. With Jesus’ farewell discourse emphasizing oneness with the Father and affirming himself as the only way to the Father (14:1–14), he promises to broker the Spirit from the Father and (14:16) and declares that the Father will give his friends whatever they ask for in his name (15:16). In addition, a patron-client relationship often resulted from a master manumitting a slave. Becoming freedmen, former slaves became clients of their former master, providing services out of willful reciprocity. This type of patronage is consistent with Jesus’ saying “I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends (John 15:15).” Again, such friends are not equals, for they obey his commands (15:14) and maintain a relationship of loyalty. Furthermore, Roman patronage language points to Jesus as a royal patron with regents who act in his place. Recent numismatic studies demonstrate the prevalence of φίλ- terms like ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙΣΑΡ on Roman provincial coinage, which publicized the relationship of local regents to the emperor. This is reflected in Pilate’s designation as φίλος τοῦ Καίσαρος in John 19:12. In accordance with the Gospel’s purpose for its hearers to believe that Jesus is the Messiah (20:31), the content leading up to John 15 emphasizes Jesus as the king. After his anointing (12:1–8) and triumphal entry (12:12–19), the disciples are commissioned to obey and bear fruit in his absence (14:15–16; 15:16). These elements support the notion that “friend of Jesus” is a title for a subordinate who acts in the king’s place. With language consistent with reciprocal patron-client relationships in John 15:13–16, Jesus declares that his act of love is greatest. His ultimate sacrifice on behalf of subordinates makes Jesus’ patronage greater than Caesar’s. Thus, the evangelist urges loyalty to Jesus, the patron par excellence.

Gender and, often along with it, body and race emerge in texts of the Hebrew Bible through speech acts. I would like to show how on the one hand philological research and on the other hand so called metacritical theories like gender/feminist studies and cultural anthropology shed light on the way texts create and delineate between genders and races. The restraint concerning metacritcal tools and theories like gender or others as sensory perception may be confronted by a through philological analysis. As a showcase shall serve the Hebrew term niddah which undergoes a dramatic change in the Hebrew Bible. niddah is coined as a technical term for the cultic condition into which women are placed by their menstrual cycle in the so called priestly literature. In later literature it adopts a polemical overtone and draws boundaries along gender, religious and ethnic lines. Hence, I shall argue that metacritical theories and terms help us to unravel the category the text implicitly or explicitly makes use of like gender, body and race.

Caleb and the Territory of Judah

By her bequeathing us her family archive of 35 legal documents (dated from 94-132 CE), Babatha is the Judean woman about whom we know most in the first two centuries CE. Born around 100 CE, she was probably captured or killed by the Romans in 135 CE in a cave near En-Gedi where she was hiding with other Judean fugitives at the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt. She lived in Maoza, a town devoted to date cultivation on the south eastern shore of the Dead in the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, just across the border from Judea. Although we do not know if she ever visited Jerusalem, it is unlikely that a Judean patriot like her would never have walked the 150 kms to Jerusalem, a comfortable three day journey. From her archive we have unrivalled evidence for the life of a Judean woman of this period: her (second) wedding contract, the document by which she registered her property in the Roman census of 127 CE and various documents evidencing her second husband’s financial fecklessness and the trouble this got her into. Most revealing are the documents relating to two suits in which she was involved in the period 125-131 CE: hers against the trustees of the estate of her infant son by her first husband for inadequate maintenance and the suit against her by her second husband’s relatives when she distrained some of his property when he died. Using the methodology of archival ethnography, we are able to create a reasonably complex portrait of a highly competent and tenacious woman exposed to opportunities and challenges, devoted to her husband(s) and son, and loyal unto death to the sacred traditions of her people. Surely she exulted to hold Bar Kokhba’s coins ‘for the freedom of Jerusalem.’

When studying the reception history of the Bible, should students be asked to suspend judgement on a particular interpretation for the sake of the pedagogical goals of the course? Or is their Judgement essential to the process of learning and understanding? I have, in the course of teaching surveys on reception history, asked students to put aside questions of right interpretation and wrong interpretation, and to instead ask: What is this particular interpreter doing with the Bible? What are they responding to? How do they contribute to the life of the Bible and the biblical tradition in their historical moment? This has been especially important when students are first exposed to a form of interpretation that is from a biblical tradition they have had little knowledge of, such as rabbinic Midrash for some Christian students. I have, however, come to see this method as unsustainable. The week of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh my class was assigned a Reformation-era reading with overt notes of anti-Judaism. My own inability to withhold judgement that day in class exposed the flaw in my approach. I have since recognized that asking students deny their own “historically effected consciousness” contradicts what we have come to understand about the role of social and theological location in the hermeneutical process. This paper will explore the pedagogical puzzle of right interpretation and wrong interpretation. In particular, it will consider the approach outlined by Gary Weissman, who argues for an embrace of student misreading of texts for the sake of the process of understanding in his book The Writer in the Well. “Misreadings” Weissman argues, “can be interpreted as creative responses to troublesome or curious aspects of a text that other readers—particularly those more versed in literature and literary analysis—disregard in order to write cohesive and compelling interpretations.” The suggestion that such misreadings can be productive is a provocative approach, and its application to biblical studies presents special challenges, but this paper will argue for its relevance to the pedagogical puzzle at hand.

Martin Luther’s rejection of the Epistle of James is very well known to students of church history. His statement about James being an epistle of straw, for example, has become part of common knowledge in introductory church history courses. Although Luther’s hostility toward James is well known, few are aware that similar hostility was shown much earlier toward James and the epistle bearing his name. Since the mid-nineteenth century, patristic scholars such as Angelo Mai, Adolf von Harnack and Charles Gore have recognized that in his Commentary on Galatians Marius Victorinus, the first known commentator on Paul in the West (ca. 280/290-365), penned the most hostile statements against James the Brother of the Lord ever expressed by a Christian author before Martin Luther. Although Victorinus’ anti-Jacobean sentiments have been well known to scholars of fourth-century Christianity, the impact of those negative sentiments has yet to be fully explored. Before the past two decades, scholars either maintained without demonstration that Victorinus was not read by his younger contemporaries (i.e., Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Augustine) who also commented on Paul, or scholars simply refused to fully engage this question by carefully comparing their commentaries on Galatians to detect any influence of Victorinus’ commentary. In this paper, I will argue that not only did Ambrosiaster and Jerome read Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians, but I will also argue that Victorinus’ criticisms of James and key soteriological ideas in his epistle shaped the use these two younger contemporaries of Victorinus made of the Epistle of James in their commentaries on Galatians. By first establishing that Ambrosiaster and Jerome both used Victorinus, I will demonstrate that their reclaiming of James’ orthodox status and episcopal office within the early church was a significant milestone in the further integration of the Epistle of James among the canonical authorities recognized by the Western Church (Ambrosiaster and Jerome were at one point spiritual leaders within the Roman community). For it was in the second half of the fourth century that the local Church of Rome began to recognize the canonical status of the Epistle of James. Before this point, this epistle struggled to gain wide acceptance in the local Roman Church. Jerome and Ambrosiater’s rejection of Victorinus’ anti-Jacobean sentiments can be viewed as a prelude to the Roman Church’s acceptance of James shortly thereafter into its canon by Pope Innocent. Moreover, Ambrosiater and Jerome’s use of the Epistle of James reveals the unintended impact of Victorinus’ original critiques of James. Victorinus’ critique prompted them to reject Victorinus’ strict understanding of justification by faith alone, that is, a belief that justification is not obtained by any works whatsoever, including a Christian’s good works, and accepted the place of good works within the process of salvation. Despite Victorinus’ vigorous attempts to discredit the spiritual authority of James and the epistle bearing his name, these two younger Western contemporaries made deliberate efforts at re-incorporating the Epistle of James into the conversation about the fuller scriptural message concerning human salvation, faith and good works.

Motherhood was the most highly valued role of women in the ancient Greek and Byzantine world, yet two of the most visible lived experiences of mothers, pregnancy and breastfeeding, are not prominent in the surviving visual record. This is particularly surprising when considering the Byzantine cult of Mary who was praised as the Mother of God, and therefore a powerful intercessor and protector of the faithful. The surviving literary record includes frequent references to biblical pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, including Mary; and recent research suggests that in the Greek-speaking Byzantine world mothers would often breastfeed their children up to 3 years old. Depictions of Mary pregnant or breastfeeding would have been relatable and potent visualizations of the theology of the Incarnation and of Mary’s role as a loving and compassionate mother of all. So why are such images so rare in the surviving visual record? This paper examines literary and visual evidence to suggest that an answer to this intriguing question must consider dominant patriarchal attitudes that censored female agency and power since antiquity. In the ancient Greek world, the male-dominated establishment considered children and the wealth of the household as the property of men and saw women only as stewards rather than as sources of life and wealth in their own right. Images of women pregnant and breastfeeding, therefore literally generating, briefly “owning”, and independently nurturing their husband’s children might have been avoided because they could have conferred special agency and empowerment to mothers. Indeed, the usual scholarly justification for the absence of pregnant women from the visual record as protection against the evil eye is not particularly convincing. If visibility was of concern, protective symbols could have been used around pregnant women to invoke a successful term. At the same time, breastfeeding was a widely practiced maternal activity. In fact, recent scholarly claims about breastfeeding as limited primarily to wet nurses are not supported by the textual record and socioeconomic considerations. Yet despite the importance of maternal breastfeeding, the nurturing nature of female breasts was marginalized in the visual record while their sexual connotations were given prominence. Similar patriarchal notions about the role of women survived in the Byzantine world, where the male-dominated Church establishment often worked to distance Mary from all other women, even though women themselves could have looked up to her as an empowering and relatable model. The so-called Blachernitissa iconography popular from the 12th century onwards (Virgin orans with a medallion of Christ on her bosom) can be considered a multivalent symbolic representation of Mary both pregnant and unlike other women. Literal images of the Virgin pregnant or breastfeeding remained rare in Byzantium, while they proliferated in Western Europe form the 12th-16th centuries. The paper focuses on the cult of Mary in the context of a broader sociocultural and visual tradition regarding motherhood, with roots in antiquity, and attempts to explain why certain lived female experiences at home and in the street did not gain the visibility they deserve in Byzantine Christianity.

This paper looks at the character of Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, and reads her as a critique of the misogyny in the David story. In a patriarchal society where women derive power from their family position (and a royal woman from her relationship with a ruling man), as secondary wife (pilegesh) of Saul Rizpah may once have held a measure of influence, though she is not mentioned in the narrative at that point. However, when we first hear of her in the narrative, her husband has died, making Rizpah’s status precarious. In her initial appearance (2 Samuel 3:7), Rizpah is not granted any words by the narrator and is also denied any action, but is instead acted upon. Rizpah is a powerless secondary wife of a deceased king who is at the center of a power struggle for the kingship in Israel. A pawn in the hands of powerful men, she would have been left a disgraced woman (perhaps cloistered as David’s concubines violated by his son become later in the story). Yet, in her second appearance in the narrative (2 Samuel 21) Rizpah emerges as instrumental to Israel's salvation. Heroically watching over the corpses of those slain by the Gibeonites, throughout the heat of the summer, Rizpah functions as a rebuke to David’s failures and shames him into action. Furthermore, this forgotten and neglected character functions to show God’s concern for the victim and the powerless. It is Rizpah’s actions, and not David’s, that initiate a change the course of this narrative. Rizpah will be read as one of several women (and not the first Saulide) in the narrative of 1–2 Samuel who act to save David and his monarchy.

Houses are not only shelters from the elements; they accommodate households and families of various types, sizes and social configurations, and therefore embody a variety of social and cognitive aspects. The built environment allows for certain types of social activities and interactions, and therefore structure the inhabitants' perceptions. This clearly seems to be the case in Iron Age Israel. In this period a house of a very rigid plan – known as the four-room house – became very dominant, and this rigidity in itself might hint at its social importance. The social significance of the house as a social unit is also exemplified by the language – the word for the physical, structure, or "house" is also used to designate a "family" and even larger kinship units. The issue was addressed at length by a number of scholars, including Shlomo Bunimovitz and myself, and we argued that this house was a microcosmos of the Israelite world, serving as a window into all aspects of Israelite society, from family structure and wealth, to ethnicity, cosmology, perceptions of space, and even notions of social justice. Temples, which served as the dwelling of gods, had always fascinated scholarship, and consequently received an un-proportional amount of studies. While Iron Age Israelite temples are a rare phenomenon, both the textual information on Solomon's temple and the finds at the temple of Arad (until recently the only Iron II Israelite temples excavated, and the only one whose full plan is clear) had received much attention. While some had suggested that Arad temple bore some resemblance to the period's dwellings, the differences are clearly more striking. An analysis of the dwellings of the mortals and the dwelling(s) of Israel's God, in light of the understandings gained from previous studies, reveals that they transmitted different, and even opposing messages regarding hierarchy, purity, and exclusivity. These insights help to clarify the way many members of the Israelite society understood the differences between the realms of the holy and the profane, which in turn appear to present a complementary picture of the way they perceived the world.

The Coptic translation of the OT, there is no doubt, was made on the basis of the Septuagint. As we have a number of important manuscripts in different literary dialects of Coptic which obviously antedate the famous Greek pandect bibles B, S, A, they are, of course, very interesting for the textual history of the OT. Since the Greek manuscript record is rather sparse for the early 4th century, it is still largely not clear which were the Greek Vorlagen for the Coptic versions. The few available text critical studies on the Coptic versions have revealed so far that some Coptic texts show a close relationship to the oldest available Greek LXX text (Minor Prophets, Job), while others (Jer, Lam) show clearly the influence of a recension, which must have used Origine’s Hexapla, regularly giving variant readings which deviate e.g. from the text of Codex Vaticanus (B). The biggest obstacle for a more detailed picture of the Coptic versions is the extreme dispersal and fragmentation of the manuscripts. However, a positive aspect of this is that new textual witnesses keep appearing to add to this picture.

This paper considers how Late Antique biblical retellings compare to the “source text” of the Hebrew Bible. It draws upon my dissertation, which investigates constructions of biblical mothers and motherhood in Jewish art and literature in Late Antiquity. In this project, I ask how these texts “think with” biblical mothers in an attempt to re-articulate gender roles and Jewish identity in a way that was meaningful in the multicultural and pluralistic Late Antique world. Part and parcel of this project is a careful comparison of the constructions of biblical mothers in post-biblical literature with their constructions in the Hebrew Bible. These comparisons reveal how retellings of biblical mothers in different Late Antique communities reveal wider beliefs, assumptions, and anxieties about gender, family, and Jewish identity. In this project, comparison is accomplished through the methodology of reception history. Reception history examines the “afterlives” of texts, which are given new meanings in different times and places in history. In Late Antiquity, Jewish communities found themselves in a precarious position in relation to the majority culture in which they were located. The production of texts (both written and visual) that retold biblical narratives provided an imaginative space for Jewish self-definition over and against hegemonic forces. Ancient authors lighted upon biblical mothers as rich sites for retelling: biblical narratives established mothers as protective figures who would intercede on behalf of their children, and biblical retellings expanded mothers’ roles to include resistance against outside forces which threatened the safety of Jewish communities and the integrity of Jewish identity. This paper will begin with a brief overview of my project as a whole, including methodological considerations. I will then provide a “case study” in which I compare Rachel as a bereaved mother in Genesis and Jeremiah with the reception of Rachel in the Late Antique rabbinic text Lamentations Rabbah. I will ultimately argue that the rabbis depicted Rachel as capable of interceding with God on Israel’s behalf precisely because of the power she had as a grieving mother. This comparison contributes to our understanding of the community which created Lamentations Rabbah in Late Antiquity.

This paper takes a close look at two miniature scrolls published by J.T. Milik as tefillin (4Q147) and mezuzah (Mur 5). Milik was unable to decipher these two texts. Still he classified them as tefillin/mezuzah, because they were inscribed in a minuscule script and folded. The preliminary edition of 4Q147 has just been published in DSD 26, whereas a tentative reading of Mur 5 will see light in the forthcoming issue of RevQ. Since none of the two texts contains the passages from Exod and/or Deut one would be expect to find in a tefillin/mezuzah, this paper asks whether these are tefillin/mezuzot or rather unique specimen of Second Temple Jewish written amulets.

Sacrifice appears in numerous forms throughout the Hebrew Bible. It is the cornerstone of the priestly pentateuchal source, appears in selected episodes in Samuel-Kings, is the subject of debate and, at times, derision in the prophets, and is woven into the poetry of the psalms. For the most part, scholars who have studied these texts related to sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible have used them to reconstruct images of ancient Israelite cultic practices at various stages of its history. In other words, the question most asked of sacrificial texts in the Bible has been a historical one: what can we know about actual religious practice in ancient Israel? Yet, the value of these texts is not in recovering praxis, but is rather epistemological: how did these authors think about and represent sacrifice? In other words, the literary representation of sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible should be used to learn about thinking, not doing. Quite unlike ritual tablets from Ugarit or sacrificial lists from Carthage, sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible appears in the midst of narrative stories, prophetic speeches, and poetry. It appears as part of divine instruction, poetic parallelism, prophetic visi