The author of 1 Peter addresses his audience as ‘aliens’ and ‘sojourners’ (1:1; 2:11). The sense depicted by the author’s use of the adjectives πάροικος and παρεπίδημος (2:11) is to be determined especially in the context of the adjective ἐκλεκτός in 1:2 and 2:9. In Ethiopian diaspora spaces, 1 Peter has been interpreted to mitigate the challenges of living as foreigners or the liminal space of naturalized citizens and second generation diaspora. Such readings have been used to negotiate an identity and a sense of (non)belongingness centred on a social imaginary that reinterprets forced or voluntary migration as unfolding in accordance with the will of God. This is underpinned by the notion of the divine election of Ethiopians for a missional task in the host society. Migration is thus seen as a divinely decreed missional tool which involves a re-imagining and appropriation of 1 Peter’s historical situation. While infusing everyday existence with hope, significance and a sense of value, such a reading also indicates a worldview which regards Ethiopia as a significant global agent for God’s mission. This finds further support in divine promises in the Bible which Ethiopians perceive as being eschatologically significant and specifically targeted towards Ethiopia (cf. for eg. Psalm 68:31). The belief is also echoed by prominent and influential preachers who cite prophecies to articulate God’s intention to use Ethiopian migrants to proclaim the Gospel to the West. However, the role 1 Peter plays in such contexts has not been explored. Towards this end, I will explore the role 1 Peter’s language of ‘aliens’ and ‘sojourners’ plays, its Ethiopian diaspora interpretation and the significance of the text in the construction of a social imaginary that reconceptualises migration and engages the notion of belongingness in diaspora settings. I will also look at how 1 Peter is used to inform and negotiate sojourner identities and social practices of (non)belonging among the Ethiopian diaspora in light of the notion of divine election for a missional task.

The second chapter of the Gospel of John begins with the chronological marker τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ. The episode following contains the first of the Johannine σημεία, Jesus’s transformation of water into wine at a wedding feast. There are no outside markers of time to which the reference may be attached. Several explanations for this phrase have been proposed, but I find each of them ultimately unsatisfactory. Instead, I propose that the phrase τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ is an intertextual allusion to LXX Genesis 1:9–13, inviting the reader to compare the miracle of water-to-wine with the third day of creation, on which the waters are divided, land appears, and plant life is produced. This ties into larger themes of a new creation found in the Fourth Gospel. To argue this, I first explore the concrete and theological uses of temporal markers in the Gospel. Following this, I survey and evaluate previous interpretations of the phrase marker τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ in 2:1. Though I ultimately reject these suggestions, I make use of the connections that some of them draw between the episode and creation. After exploring the creation motifs in the Gospel, I offer a comparative reading between Genesis 1:9–13 and John 2:1–11 to demonstrate similarities in vocabulary and themes. The action in both narratives centers around the transportation and division of water, results in the production of vegetative matter, and the final product is declared to be “good.” The intertextual and thematic relationship between the two passages is strong. Having established the intertextual basis for my claims, I draw on the theories of Gérard Genette and J.R. Daniel Kirk. Genette’s category of hypertextuality can elucidate the possible intent of this radical transposition of the Genesis story—suggesting that the Evangelist aims to import the cosmic significance of creation into the ministry of Jesus. Additionally, Kirk’s model of narrative transformation demonstrates the simultaneous continuity and transformation of action and roles between the two passages. To conclude, I draw some applications for Johannine studies from this proposition. This study offers an important example of the Fourth Gospel’s creative and variegated incorporation of the Hebrew Bible. It also grounds the “first of the signs” (2:11) of the Gospel in a scriptural background, suggesting that a similar framework may be useful for interpreting other of the seven miracle stories. As I argue, this recasting of Genesis does not represent the supersession of the original creation, but rather the continuance of its process and ends. As the water formed in the first creation finds new essence and purpose as the banquet’s wine, so too does the rest of creation find new essence and purpose in the life and sacrifice of Jesus.

As one of the earliest apologists for the Christian faith, Justin Martyr utilized a defense of his beliefs by comparison with the common myths about the gods and heroes in circulation in Greek- and Latin-speaking communities. Famously saying that Jesus’ miraculous life and return to life were not so different from the stories of the sons of Zeus, Justin not only claimed that the Christians were not so different from his opponents in terms of stories they told, but that those Gentile stories were corruptions introduced by demonic forces. However, how Justin supported his claims about the truth of Christian stories is dependent on his epistemology. In other words, how did Justin claim to know that the Christian claims of the life of Jesus were not myths (μῦθοι) but the gospel truth, while the Greek stories of Zeus and other gods were demonic myths imitating the true story? As Justin was philosophically trained in several schools before his conversion, a comparison between how he determines the truth and falsehood in stories about Jesus versus that of non-Christians illustrates both how Justin understood myth as well as how he constructed his own history of the life of Jesus that was not a myth. As reconstructed especially from his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin does not perform so much of a historical analysis for the claims that Jesus rose from the dead or was born of a virgin, but he depends on exegetical readings of the Old Testament and the alleged miracles within his contemporary Christian community. This is also his support for the gospels (“the memoirs of the apostles”), not as eye-witness testimonies, but as theologically true stories. This is particularly born out in Justin’s additions to the Nativity, such as the origins of the Magi from Damascus. If Justin believed he could demonstrate historical events from exegesis, then perhaps Justin thought the “memoirs of the apostles” did the same. Such an epistemic position may reflect how early Christians understood the Gospels generally, and it may help elucidate inter-Christian arguments in the earliest centuries of the religion.

There is an interesting shared overlap which the books of Ecclesiastes and Ben Sira exhibit with respect to the subjects of secrecy and esotericism. It is noted in scholarship that Ben Sira displays a rather more explicitly polemical stance towards this subject, cautioning its addressees that “what is hidden is not your concern” (Sir 3:22) and that “many are the conceits of human beings, evil imaginations led them astray” (Sir 3:24). This is taken as indicative that Ben Sira stands in an immediate opposition to apocalyptic thinking, against which it places its orientations and innovations from within the sapiential tradition. At the same time, the book characterises wisdom as something which is revealed from God (Sir 1:6-10) and God as revealing secrets (Sir 42:19). Indeed, it has been suggested that there are not only connections between Ben Sira and the apocalyptic tradition on a literary level, but also in relation to the social function of the sources in question. Of particular interest in this paper, then, is the question as to the specific nature of the relationship with apocalypticism which manifests itself in Ben Sira. Here the discussion of broader dynamics of (anti-)apocalypticism in the Second Temple Period can be meaningful, which seeks to characterise the negotiation of apocalyptic thinking not as a binary arrangement of proposition and opposition, or of continuity and discontinuity, but as a multiperspectival, nuanced negotiation and critique of ideas. This negotiation, further, is not understood as an independent discourse in ancient Judaism, but rather one which is profoundly embedded in a variety of literary and intellectual settings of the literature of this period, in the present case the wisdom tradition. Within reasonable historical proximity to Ben Sira there is further discussion of this Spannungsfeld in another wisdom text, namely the book of Ecclesiastes. In it, a central intellectual problem which recurs in a substantial number of instances, is humanity’s inability to find out (מצא) things about the order of the world and the human condition (especially Eccl 3:11, 7:14, 7:24, 8:17, 12:10), thereby delimiting the realm about which the book’s intended audience can reasonably reflect for themselves. Further, the book contains a critique of recourse to esoteric speculation, as expressed through dreams and revelation by angels – both central elements to apocalyptic thinking in the Second Temple Period – in Eccl 4:17-5:6. This paper seeks to contrast the discussion of the topos of hiddenness and knowledge in Ben Sira and Ecclesiastes, aiming to establish in which ways both texts participated in (anti-)apocalyptic discourses of their time, and how the similarities and variations of their approaches towards this subject can be mutually illuminating for scholarship. This discussion can be a helpful contribution to the function as well as literary and historical embeddedness of these elements of wisdom in Second Temple Judaism.

Forms of positive rhetoric such as “we will make it through,” “we are not driven to despair,” “this is our time,” “we shall prevail,” offer potential pathways to inspire faith, hope, courage, and resistance among the oppressed, the marginalized, and the displaced. Likewise, the exhortation of Paul in II Corinthians 4 peddles positive choices to the Corinthians on the benefits of belonging under the power of God (Hart and Daughton, 2005). However, despite their intent to inspire resilience, these conventional formulations oversimplify multifaceted sociopolitical, cultural, and economic realities and contexts. Thereby, substantiating such existing systems of oppression and inequality. I argue that in translating an anti-imperial/sympathetic Paul into postcolonial and neocolonial contexts, his rhetorical interests and modifications on the relationship existing between him, the Corinthians, and the opponents in Corinth become concerning. The rhetorical strategy allows for the re-imposition of imperial standards of demarcation where there are only victors and the vanquished, with the rhetor always as the victor. It also further erases the contiguity of the power and agency in resistance to socioeconomic and political status/class. Therefore, I assess how his rhetorical adaptations inform intricate dynamics of power, resistance, social identity, and socioeconomic status. I explore this argument by surveying the idea and concept of redemption and salvation in ancient societies within the Greco-Roman Empire, with focus on dualistic association of terms and concepts such as light versus darkness, faith versus unbelief, courage versus timidity, and victory versus adversity. I evaluate these terms in relation to the material and symbolic culture of ancient Corinth, with attention paid to their influence on the actions and interactions within the text. I also assess how these terms frame the symbolic universe within which Paul relates to the Corinthians and his opponents in Corinth and how it blends or clashes with the symbolic universe in Corinth. Accordingly, this system of historicization sheds more light on Paul’s ideology within its context, as it characterizes his choice of words, forms of persuasion, and structural meaning intended for the Corinthian communities. Consequently, it also offers a contextual framework for undertaking a comparative analysis with contemporary neocolonial and postcolonial contexts. Furthermore, a key point of understanding the rhetoric of Paul in II Corinthian 4 involves highlighting the Corinthian funding project embarked on by Paul on behalf of the Jerusalem community. Thus, I investigate how the contended subject of Paul’s presence and absence among the Corinthians fuels his messages on reconciliation. I also examine the ways through which subtle dynamics of power and hierarchical developments determine the level and extent of Corinthian oversight in the Jerusalem funding project.

In this paper, I situate Paul’s discourse on the Law in Gal. 3:19-4:11 in the context of Stoic ethics. I examine Seneca’s discourse on precepts, doctrine, and virtue to Paul’s discourse on the relationship between Christ and Jewish Law. I will first very briefly describe the Stoic value system. The Stoics argue that virtue is the only thing that matters for a human to achieve their telos, or eudaimonia, which according to the Stoics is life according to nature. Once the Stoic value system is in place, I will examine the two letters Seneca’s Epistulae Morales. Each of these letters ask two fundamental questions. Letter 94 asks, are praecepta superfluous? Do precepts have a purpose? Seneca answers that laws are guides that contribute to virtue. Laws are not virtuous in se, but the presence of laws suggest justice and prudence. Letter 95 then asks, can precepts produce a good man? Seneca answers that precepts are ineffectual unless they flow out from the general theory of moral principles, which consists in the decreta (doctrines/principles). For Seneca, praecepta point to the decreta, but praecepta cannot make one virtuous. After we understand how a Stoic ethicist, like Seneca, reasons about law and virtue, we might better understand how Paul reasons theologically about Christ and the Jewish Law in Gal. 3.19-4.11. Up until this point in Galatians, there seems to be a dual problem between the Abrahamic promise and Torah: 1) it does not give the blessing to the Gentiles, and 2) it does not bring the new covenant to Israel. Further, the Law could not give life (v.21) nor the Spirit, but the inheritance came through the promise (v.18). The promise is given through Christ (v.15-18), and the seed (i.e. Christ) solves this dual problem by accomplishing both the blessing for the Gentiles and the new covenant for Israel. This makes it seem like the Law is opposed to the Messiah because it contributes nothing to salvation. Only Christ contributes to salvation, then why did God give the Law in the first place? In other words, Paul asks the same question as Seneca, did God give the law in vain (Is the Law superfluous?). This has been the argument up to Gal. 3:19. I will argue that Paul reasons similarly to Seneca. In Gal. 3:19-25, Paul says that the Law is our pedagogue to Christ. This means that the Law points us to Christ. The Law is our guide, but the Law in se cannot procure salvation. Only Christ procures salvation (Gal. 4:1-11), his telos (Cf. Rom. 6:22-23).

According to Jer 34:7, Lachish and Azekah “were the only fortified cities of Judah that remained” during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. This brief notification about the military operations of this period appears to be corroborated by a number of archeological and epigraphical evidence from various Judean sites, notably the Lachish ostraca. The literary evidence of these letters seem to indicate a dating between the two Babylonian attacks against Judah (597 and 587/6). More precisely, the contents of Letter IV allude to the last years of Judah’s struggles against the Babylonians before the fall of 587/6, “we are watching for the signal-stations [משאת] of Lachish…because we do not see (the signals of) Azekah.” Thus, while the letters do not explicitly mention the Babylonian invasion of Judah, their graphic literary character provide some insight into the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar and into the social political conditions of this critical last decade. Curiously, some of the Lachish letters contain references to an unnamed prophet (הנבא). While the precise identity of this prophet is disputed, the fact that a prophet is even mentioned in these ostraca may provide some helpful hint regarding prophetic activity in ancient Israel, especially in the final days of the Judahite kingdom. In view of scholarly speculations regarding the identity of the anonymous prophet of the Lachish letters, this paper will argue that Jeremiah appears more likely to fit the description than any other prophet of this period.

There is a widespread practice of localized worship of small groups of gods across the ancient Mediterranean. Following my forthcoming book, The Origins of the Corinthian Christ Group, the first part of this paper will explore this social practice both generally and then move to discuss Corinth, in particular, with an eye towards reimagining how local Corinthians might have received Paul’s appeals for adherence to his god(s)—father, Lord Jesus Christ, and pneuma. The paper will argue that adherence to and worship of Paul’s small group of divine figures would have been similar to the practice of adhering to and worshipping small groups of gods in Corinth. That familiarity of practice would have initially attracted the audience to take up Paul’s appeal, resulting in the formation and growth of an assembly of Christ followers. Inherent in this argument is the assertion that conversion to monotheism was not a driving force in Paul’s appeals to his audiences. We will then discuss the possibilities of a similar analysis and reconsideration of the origins of other Pauline assemblies, such as the ones in Philippi and Thessalonica.

The undeniable ubiquity of Moses in the New Testament text calls attention to a distinct intertextual theme designed to evoke Pentateuchal imagery, history, and theology. This phenomenon emerges in the Johannine and Pauline writings which both summon Moses out of Sinai to serve their respective Christological purposes. A correlation of Mosaic intertextuality in both writings can be clearly identified in their use of the Law-Glory motif, prompting pertinent questions. Why does John introduce Moses so early in his gospel? Why is Paul captivated by Moses’ veil as he attempts to authenticate his apostolic calling and ministry? Why do both authors specifically appeal to Law and glory in the Sainai event to establish Christ’s supremacy? With a play on Kristeva's definition of intertextuality (Kristeva, 1986), I will attempt to explicate the ‘mosaic’ of Mosaic echoes in John 1:14-18 and 2 Cor 3:7-18, by utilizing exegetical intertextuality (Berkley, 2000). Moses is not merely ‘echoed,’ rather he is purposefully invoked with the singular aim of transposing all he represents with all that Christ embodies. Grace replaces Law, a new glory replaces the old, blindness replaces beholding, and transformation replaces condemnation. The exegetical rereading and reconfiguring of Moses in these two passages unveil a multifaceted intertextual mosaic of glory, gazing, covenant, grace, truth, Law, divine self-disclosure, divine revelation, and personal transformation. John and Paul’s readers are compelled to move beyond the veiled Moses, the life-giving limitations of the Law, and the now obsolete glory. Christ has superseded Moses – all are now called to gaze upon a new transforming glory.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at different find spots throughout the Judaean Desert. Several important archives were found at the ‘Cave of Letters’ in Nahal Hever in 1961. This includes the archive of Babatha: a wealthy Jewish widow who left a private collection of about 35 manuscripts written in a variety of languages. A particularly remarkable group of manuscripts from this archive concerns the Nabataean papyri. These are the most substantial and best-preserved Nabataean manuscripts that have survived from antiquity. The Nabataean manuscripts have not been utilized to their full potential. All the Nabataean manuscripts originate from sites in the Judaean Desert that were identified as Jewish (Qumran, Nahal Hever, Murabbaʿat), but the presence of these Nabataean texts within Jewish collections is still poorly understood. What is especially lacking is a comprehensive examination of the material characteristics of these manuscripts together with a textual analysis of the compositions they bear. In this paper, I will focus on the script, materiality, language, type of texts or literature, and contents of the Nabataean manuscripts in order to analyse various aspects of the social and cultural circumstances under which they were produced, used, and transmitted. In particular, this paper aims to shed light on our understanding of Jewish-Nabataean contacts. The manuscript P. Yadin 6 may provide a case in point. There is nothing Nabataean about the content of this document. It concerns the agreement that one Jewish man will act as a tenant of the land of another Jew. The two witnesses involved bear Jewish names as well. However, both the script and language of the papyrus are distinctly Nabataean. This suggests that Jews did not only use Nabataean to communicate with Nabataeans, but under some circumstances adopted it for communication among each other. Which considerations motivated these men to draw up this document in Nabataean, while most written legal discourse was either in Hebrew or Jewish Aramaic? What do manuscripts like P. Yadin 6 indicate about the multilingual social milieu of Roman Judaea? This paper aims to contribute to our broader understanding of the groups behind the Dead Sea Scrolls from two related perspectives: First, the Nabataean documents offer the opportunity to study the specific, local contexts in which Jews and Nabataeans interacted with each other. Second, the presence of these Nabataean manuscripts can challenge our conceptualisations and models of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection or collections as a whole.

Petitions, in which persons lodge official complaints against their opponents, are numerous among documentary papyri. Many of these documents mention slaves or deal with slavery-related matters in everyday life including slave ownership disputes, violence towards slaves and slaveholders, and cases of slave disobedience or disloyalty, among others. The paper will discuss how slavery-related issues in these documents can shed further light on Paul’s metaphor of slavery in Romans 6. In particular, what insights might these documents provide on how Paul and his addressees understood the metaphor? There Paul constructs the image of slaves whose key characteristic is obedience (Rom 16:16–17). They also have to present themselves as slaves to a new master (Rom 6:16, 19–20), whose gift surpasses the wage of the former master (Rom 6:23). The paper brings this Pauline image of slaves into conversation with petitions that concern slave disobedience, slave ownership disputes, disputes over a third party’s use of a slave, and violence towards slaves (e.g., P.Meyer 8; P.Münch. 3.74; P.Ryl. 2.144; SB 24.16257; P.Oxy. 81120; P.Turner 41; P.Oxy.Hels. 26). In so doing, it discusses how Paul’s addressees, including slaves and slave owners, might have made sense of the metaphor in light of everyday experiences and how far the metaphor may accurately represent the real life situation of slaves in antiquity.

The Bible is swarming with serpents – from the introductory chapters of the Book of Genesis, through numerous hymns in the Books of Psalms, to the memorable verses of the Book of Revelation. Early Christian artists adopted several ophiographic narratives from the Hebrew tradition – specifically, the story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-7); the trampling of the lion and the dragon (Psalm 90/91:13); and Daniel killing the Dragon of Babylon (Bel and the Dragon, 23-27). Beginning in the fourth century, these subjects appeared regularly on carved sarcophagi, catacomb murals, moulded pottery, and gold glass. The extant codicological material informs us that, at least in the 500s, this practice expanded to illuminated manuscripts (Vienna Genesis). How extensively were serpents represented in Early Medieval (500-1000) manuscript illumination? Which Biblical ophiographic narratives were the most popular? How did the Biblical manuscript ophiographic miscellany compare to the corresponding repertoire of the period’s other artistic media? Serpents appeared in Early Medieval manuscript illumination in different manifestations and served various functions – from the purely decorative, as in the case of historiated initials (Gellone Sacramentary) or other ornamental devices (Gospels of Saint-Thierry) – to the substantial or even essential, as in the cases of tractates on astronomy (Leiden Aratea), natural history (Bern Physiologus), or pharmacology (Vienna Dioscurides). A separate category includes the archaicising depictions of cavalry dragon-standards (Golden Psalter of St. Gallen). The depictions of Biblical serpents in the illuminated manuscripts of the period can be assigned to one of seven iconographic clusters: (1) the Fall of Man (serpent entwining the Tree of Knowledge); (2) the Flood (a pair of snakes in the Ark); (3) Mosaic lore (turning staffs into serpents during the competition with the Pharaoh’s magicians); (4) the trampling of the beasts; (5) the Psalmic cycle (from Phinehas pleading to God beside the serpent-entwined tree to the righteous confronting the winged, fire-breathing serpent); (6) the Christological cycle (including the serpent-entwined Cross); and (7) the Apocalyptic cycle (the great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, etc.). Along with the visually stunning tenth-century Escorial, Morgan, Valcavado, Gerona, and Urgell Beati, two ninth-century manuscripts occupy an exceptional place in the history of Biblical ophiography – the Stuttgart Psalter (nine miniatures) and the Utrecht Psalter (ten miniatures). The most notable “absentees” in ophiographic manuscript illumination before 1000 are Moses “experimenting” under the divine guidance with the staff turning it into a serpent and back (Exodus 4:1-5) and the Brazen Serpent (Numbers 21:4-9) – subjects that were both very popular after 1100. Daniel and the Dragon resurge after a long artistic hiatus only in the 1300s.

The convergence of biblical narratives and popular culture presents a rich area of study, offering insights into how ancient texts are appropriated and reimagined in modern contexts. One notable example of this conjunction is found in the widely popular and critically acclaimed sitcom Seinfeld, episode “The Seven” (S7E13), which provides a unique lens through which to examine this phenomenon. The episode draws upon the well-known biblical story of king Solomon’s judgment between the two women claiming to be the mother of the same child in 1 Kings 3:16–28. More specifically, in the episode, main protagonists Elaine and Kramer find themselves embroiled in a dispute over a bicycle, with Newman – in true Solomonic fashion – having to arbitrate between the two. Gathering its primary data through close examination of relevant scenes and dialogue in "The Seven," identifying instances where the biblical narrative is referenced and reinterpreted, and using the analytical framework of L. Cushing-Stahlberg – focused on the notions of approach, stance and filter – for describing the dynamic between the ‘telling’ and ‘re-telling’ (cf. Sustaining Fictions: Intertextuality, Midrash, Translation, and the Literary Afterlife of the Bible), the paper seeks to explore how Seinfeld, a quintessential example of popular culture, reinterprets and recontextualizes the biblical story, highlighting the ways in which the ancient narrative is adapted to fit the comedic tone and sensibilities of contemporary television. Moreover, the paper examines how the re-telling relates to and builds on previous visual re-presentations of the pertinent biblical story. Through close textual analysis and reception history, the paper will identify both parallels and divergences between the ancient text and its comedic re-telling, examining how humor is employed to engage with religious themes. In doing so, the paper contributes to the academic discourse on the re-use of the Bible in popular culture, providing insights into the dynamics of adaptation and reinterpretation in comedic settings. In broader terms, the paper also holds implications for our understanding of religious themes in secular contexts, particularly the significant role humor plays in shaping interpretations of sacred texts. By delving into the reception of biblical narratives in contemporary media, the paper enriches the scholarly discourse on the Bible’s use, impact, and influence in popular culture.

Drawing on Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural trauma theory (Alexander 2012; Alexander et al. 2004; Eyerman, Alexander, and Breese 2011), this paper asserts that Lamentations expresses the result of the Judahite community’s cultural trauma process after the 587 BCE fall of Jerusalem. Lamentations’ unique structure resists a straightforward interpretation: the book consists of five poems—four of which are alphabetic acrostics—that present neither a unanimous account nor an obvious progression of events. Rather, Lamentations’ acrostic form functionally unifies yet also distinguishes the five poems, suggesting that Lamentations is made up of discrete units with their own attendant perspectives that also constitute a larger, internally-dialoguing whole. Thus, the acrostic evidence and, more significantly, the application of cultural trauma theory strongly contests the two main predilections within Lamentations scholarship—espousing a certain “center” poem that supersedes the others or asserting that the poems are irreconcilably contrary to each other—and instead commends a third alternative that simultaneously holds together the unifying, dialoguing whole and the idiosyncratic, discrete parts. This paper proposes a framework, informed by cultural trauma theory, to better understand the book’s literary form and social value within the Judahite community. To demonstrate this, I will consider (1) the poems’ distinctives, focusing particularly on the differences between the first two poems—which have at times been seen as forming discrete section (e.g., O’Connor 2002: 30–31; Mandolfo 2007)—, and (2) the poems’ over-arching themes and stances which connect them together. This analysis aims to show how Lamentations draws together a range of experiences within one community across its distinct poems by placing different perspectives side-by-side and allowing them to converse; by so doing, the book effects the emergence of a common Judahite identity among those affected by Jerusalem’s destruction. The whole collection of Lamentations thus comprises the Judahite’s cultural trauma narrative (cf. Boase 2017, 2022; Berman 2023). Lamentations is a “narrative” that draws together, across the poems, the different specific experiences of the members of the community, without requiring that these differences be collapsed in order to artificially create unity. Thus, Lamentations attests that in the face of cultural trauma, unity does not require homogeneity, but, rather, unity can be found amidst diversity.

The account in Genesis 23, which centers on the death and burial of Sarah, was initially considered the foundational layer of the priestly source in the early stages of research (Pg). However, as time has passed, this assertion has encountered challenges, and the prevailing perspective now suggests that a significant portion of the narrative represents a post-Priestly expansion (23:3-20). My paper aims to bolster the argument that the narrative comprises both a priestly source and a subsequent post-priestly expansion, although not to the extent proposed by earlier scholars. Furthermore, my paper endeavors to pinpoint the literary connections between the story of acquiring the threshing floor from Arnon the Jebusite in 1 Chronicles 21 and the account of Abraham obtaining the burial cave.

The Book of Mulling, dating from the late 8th or early 9th c. CE, is an Irish pocket gospel book, a classification which differentiates these smaller books from the larger and more elaborate insular gospel books such as the Book of Kells. Now housed in the Trinity College Dublin Library (TCD MS 60), the book is named after St Moling, who founded a community in what is now St Mullin’s, County Carlow, Ireland, and whose name occurs in the colophon. The book includes the text of the four Gospels, canon tables, a letter from Jerome, prayers, and a liturgical service. We also find illuminations of the evangelists, decorated initials, as well as an intriguing colophon. This study explores how both the content and material elements of this small book point to its social life in early medieval Ireland. For example, the inclusion of canon tables and a liturgical service alongside the gospels may point to the book’s use in both study and liturgical contexts. The book is also written in a more informal insular miniscule script, and seems to reflect the work of several different hands, suggesting that it was added to over time. Further, each gospel now in the Book of Mulling was written on a separate quire, and evidence suggests that they may not always have been bound. Several centuries later, an ornate shrine for the book was commissioned, indicating its emerging status as an iconic book and indeed a relic text. Taken together, a picture emerges of a surprisingly eventful biography of this small pocket Gospel book in early medieval Ireland.

While B.H. Streeter made considerable contributions to the Synoptic Hypothesis among literary scholars worldwide in his 1924 magnum opus, The Four Gospels, his treatment of the Johannine tradition suffers from undue speculation, overlooking also a number of literary facts. In particular, Streeter, along with Bacon, Schwartz, and others followed blindly the critically flawed 1888 essay of Carl de Boor, on the “so-called early death of John,” whereas Philip Sidetes and George Hamartolos neither claimed that, nor believed that, with both following Eusebius in stating that John the Apostle died in Ephesus, after Domitian (d. 96 CE). As a consequence, Streeter assumed that the Johannine narrative originated from a Hellenistic mystical vision, theologizing Mark and to a lesser degree, Luke. The facts, however, reveal that 92% of John’s text has no Markan parallels, and every similarity is also different, with departures most often being devoid of theological flourishes but referencing grounded particulars. Streeter then conjectures that John’s contacts with Luke reflect John’s dependence, but to a lesser degree, assuming John’s late finalization. The critically-telling question, though, focuses not on why John coincides with Luke, but conversely, why the Johannine-Lukan similarities reflect Luke’s departures from Mark in Johannine directions. Such was the question of Lamar Cribbs, followed by D. Moody Smith and others, accounting for these literary facts in the most critically plausible manner: the facts of Luke’s departures from Mark in Johannine directions augurs compellingly that Streeter was wrong. Noting over six dozen cases, in twelve categories, where Luke departs from Mark in Johannine directions, the literary facts point to the Johannine tradition—likely in its formative stages—may indeed have served as one of Luke’s sources (perhaps even signaled in Luke 1:2), expressing gratitude for what has been received from “eyewitnesses and servants of the Word.” While not all of Cribbs’s views are equally compelling, the literary facts support his view of Luke’s dependence on John versus Streeter’s conjectures based upon critically flawed speculations.

The books of Revelation and 4 Ezra both offer particular framings of the events surrounding the end times, couched in intertextual references to the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish apocalyptic narratives. Scholarship has debated at length the textual and historical contexts of these narratives. However, this paper seeks to argue for another layer of interpretation: apocalypticism as a trauma response. Frechette and Boase argue that “biblical interpreters recognize manifold aspects of trauma, which include not only the immediate effects of events or ongoing situations but also mechanisms that facilitate survival, recovery, and resilience.” In light of this understanding, this paper argues that in the face of social injustice and upheaval, both Revelation and 4 Ezra use the events of their apocalypse, namely their Messiah figures, as “mechanisms of survival, recovery and resilience”. I argue that the authors construct these figures as a response to social trauma, invoking Messiahs uniquely equipped to bear witness to the suffering faced by their respective communities but with the ability also to intervene and enact justice or judgement. I offer a reading of social trauma that recognises the impact of historic persecution on apocalyptic narratives, irrespective of whether the author experienced persecution in their reality. In doing so, I seek to explore the far-reaching implications of trauma on the internal reality of Revelation and 4 Ezra, situating these texts within the broader conversations on the hermeneutics of trauma and inviting readers to see these texts in a new light.

The COVID-19 epidemic has presented substantial issues for the worldwide higher education sector. The pandemic also presented an excellent chance to analyze areas of failure, success, and prospective development. Some undertook a desktop study, drawing on government and academic sources when feasible, but the discipline of religious studies lacks a dedicated examination of the pandemic's effects and outcomes. The development of the teaching of religious studies after the pandemic, as well as the lessons learned that could potentially guide future advancements in online classroom teaching, have gotten little attention. It is the purpose of this proposed paper to fill that void. This paper will examine how the global COVID-19 pandemic led to the shift to online teaching in the field of Biblical studies, as well as the challenges that teachers and students in seminaries faced, using direct analyses of government and institutional data, meta-analyses of relevant publications, and interviews with practitioners in selected universities across different denominations around the world—a process that took nearly two years to complete. This research intends to give practical solutions for improving online pedagogy in Biblical studies by conducting a thorough evaluation of the adaptations and innovations created throughout this time period, using the lessons gained to overcome the inherent obstacles of online education. In addition to the lines of research above, I am also bringing the unique perspective of a Biblical Scholar who is involved in the development of tools that aid the teaching of biblical languages and is also a current executive committee member of the Special Interests Group of Information Technology Education of the Association for Computing Machinery. The paper will conclude with suggestions of tried, cost-effective, and easy-to-implement strategies that are informed by the lessons learned during COVID and that leverage the post-pandemic evolution in Biblical Studies that have been tried and validated in different institutions globally.

At late antique monasteries, monks lived together, worked together, and ate together. Studies of monastic meals have tended to foreground questions about ascetic dietary regimes—primarily, what foods monks did not eat. Much of this work reflects the implicit assumption that monastic spirituality, and Christian asceticism broadly, involved a denial of materiality. Yet mealtimes in these contexts were not merely for receiving sustenance. Rather, meals and their material settings were also sites through which social dispositions were cultivated and reproduced. For this reason, refectories—the spaces where monks ate—are fertile ground for interrogating the formation of monastic subjectivities. In this paper, I turn to the refectory at the Egyptian monastery of Apa Jeremias at Saqqara to consider how this eating space interpellated the community within a biblical lineage, and in doing so, how it communicated to its monastic users/diners a promise of an eschatological inheritance. These attachments, I argue, were cultivated through inscriptional practices that operated in tandem with the refectory’s iconographic program and architectural layout, as well as patterns of movement enacted in the space. Such architectural features and spatialized performances worked together to assure the monk that, through his membership in the monastery and his participation in the labor of feeding the community, he was part of a temporally expansive genealogy—one blessed through the ancestral lines of Abraham and Christ. In advancing this argument, I show how the monastic refectory served as a site of kin-making.

The book of 3 Maccabees is considered a Hellenistic period literary fiction produced by a Jewish author likely in a Greco-Egyptian context, perhaps Alexandria. The work was likely composed originally in Greek, displays knowledge of the machinations of the Hellenistic royal court in Egypt, and presents a complex argument for Jewish identity in a Greco-Egyptian context. In this paper, I argue that the festival described in 3 Maccabees 6-7, which the narrative explains was established in response to God’s intervention to save the Jewish community from mass execution, is in fact a soteria, that is a salvation festival in the style of those established by Greek poleis and associations. Comparison to the form and content of well-known Greek soteriai celebrated by Hellenistic Greek communities in the same time period around the eastern Mediterranean reveals similarities with the festival described in 3 Maccabees. Analysis of the festival in its narrative context suggests the author of 3 Maccabees was familiar with the form, content, and significance of the Greek soteria, adapting it for the literary and ideological purposes of the Jewish narrative. Taken together, this analysis uncovers an overlooked feature of 3 Maccabee’s Greek cultural embeddedness and considers the significance of intercultural influences on the development of Jewish festivals in the Hellenistic period.

The question of Onesimus’s manumission in Paul’s letter to Philemon runs perennially amongst interpreters despite the dismissal by some as a hopelessly “intractable” question. This paper modestly aims to demonstrate how a Cognitive Linguistic (CL) approach to the letter contributes to the question of manumission. A two-stage argument is presented that yields linguistic evidence in support of a manumissive position of Paul’s communicative intent. First, I propose the sentence comprising verses 15-16 constitutes the “peak” of the discourse based on Ronald Longacre’s criterion of a “zone of turbulence” in the surface structure. At the peak, I suggest Paul purposefully slows down the processing of the discourse through several discourse devices so as not to allow Philemon to miss the most distinct update in his mental representation: Onesimus is no longer a slave but a beloved brother. Following, the second stage utilizes cognitive grammar (CG) and, more specifically, a Source-Path-Goal (SPG) schema to offer a description of the adverbial modifier οὐκέτι ὡς δοῦλον ἀλλʼ ὑπὲρ δοῦλον, ἀδελφὸν ἀγαπητόν. Since this constituent in the peak profiles Onesimus in relation to his enslavement status, it is especially pertinent to the question of manumission. Onesimus, the trajector (TR), is spatially profiled as moving beyond the landmark (LM) of δοῦλον (i.e., enslaved) and to the landmark of ἀδελφὸν ἀγαπητόν (beloved brother). The result of the construction is a construal of discontinuity with respect to Onesimus’s enslavement: no longer a slave but beyond a slave, a beloved brother. The paper concludes by exploring how the linguistic evidence presented could integrate into a full reading of the letter of Philemon. While manumissive readings offer the most coherency with respect to the analysis, the best reading also accounts for Onesimus’s new status—beloved brother. Thus, I conclude Stephen E. Young’s recent “Returning Brother Theory” offers the most coherent account: Philemon sent Onesimus to Paul in prison, where he was converted to Christianity; now, Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon, with the intention of his embrace as a full member of God’s family. This paper represents a modified version of an article currently in revision with the Journal for the Study of the New Testament (JSNT).

The notion of cult centralization was an important component of the Keunen-Graf-Wellhausen reconstruction of Pentateuchal origins, which became dominant in the nineteenth century. Doubts about the role of centralization in Deuteronomy were forcefully expressed over a century ago by Adam C. Welch and Theodor Oestreicher independently. While most scholars believed those doubts had been adequately addressed and the role of cult centralization in Deuteronomy 12 settled, questions resurfaced in the past decade about the grammatical and syntactical details of Deuteronomy 12 (especially vv. 5 and 13-14) and in particular, whether this text mandates cult centralization or not. Another challenge has recently appeared on a grander scale related to the book’s alleged connection with the time of Josiah and the overall agenda of Deuteronomy’s core as that of so-called nucleation rather than centralization. This paper will take up this recent proposal in order to consider whether its claims should merit further consideration by scholars working on the interpretation of Deuteronomy.

Qohelet and Esther stand as late, unconventional text within the biblical canon, introducing perspective that challenge traditional norms and prompt theological and religious contemplation for both ancient and contemporary audiences. Despite their significance, these texts have been subject to widespread misunderstanding, particularly within modern Christian audiences. Similarly, Naoki Urasawa's acclaimed manga “Monster,” serialized from 1994 to 2001, is celebrated for its unconventional narrative and unexpected twists, posing challenges to contemporary perspectives on life's intrinsic value and the scope of individual agency. “Monster” follows the gripping narrative of a neurosurgeon-turned-vigilante’s journey to stop a brilliant yet malevolent serial killer whom he once saved, delving into themes of morality, identity, and the nature of evil. Since its initial publication, “Monster” has sparked a diverse and conflicting interpretations, and it has been the subject of numerous published philosophical and psychological essays. While “Monster” diverges from the ancient religious context of Esther and Qohelet, it unexpectedly shares common ground with them. “Monster's” narrative parallels that of Esther, and the philosophical inquiries in the manga align closely with Qohelet's reflections. Both Esther and "Monster” are told through the perspective of an outsider placed in a role of power who must navigate a hostile, foreign environment, with themes centered around state violence, genocide, and manipulation in the political sphere. While evil is embodied in the vile Haman, the Monster in “Monster” is not necessarily a person, but it is a concept that the villain Johan Liebert embodies. Concurrently, Qohelet and "Monster” engage in similar existential inquiries about life's intrinsic value and the extent of one's agency in shaping destiny, weaving these themes together in complex and often conflicting ways. “Monster” portrays diverse perspectives, including existential nihilism, naive humanism, and supremacism, while echoing Qohelet's wisdom on life's transient nature, equality in death, and the unpredictability of fate. This article aims not merely to draw comparisons between these shared themes but to delve deeper into a comprehensive understanding of these ostensibly misunderstood texts. Employing “Monster” as a tool for analysis, this article seeks to illuminate the connections between Esther and Qohelet, particularly concerning the value of life and whose lives are considered significant. This abstract is intended to be submitted to the SBL's themed session “Bible and Murder Mystery” or the Bible and Pop Culture's open session.

Amidst the planet's contemporary global biodiversity crisis, rewilding has become an increasingly popular approach which aims to help address reverse this decline in species diversity. Through the resumption of natural processes and reintroduction of missing elements of an ecosystem, rewilding aims to allow an ecosystem to function effectively without human intervention. This paper aims to explore potential connections between the Bible and this rewilding approach to see how it may be a fruitful concept by which to interpret some biblical passages. Through a reading of Isaiah 13:20-23, this paper will suggest that many of the issues and debates surrounding the practice of rewilding can be found in this biblical passage and may assist contemporary interpreters with interpreting the various dynamics within the text.

Scholarship on Biblical Hebrew constituent order focuses almost exclusively on the pre-verbal domain, i.e., fronting, and the associated discourse-pragmatic effects. The post-verbal domain has been largely ignored (Lode 1984 and 1989 are notable exceptions) – perhaps for lack explanatory frameworks in the linguistic literature, or even for lack of foreseen exegetical payoff – despite being the most populated area of a typical BH verbal clause. Principles of post-verbal processing have been observed cross-linguistically by generativists (Hawkins 1994, 2004, 2014, 2022; Richards 2010, 2016) and functionalists (Wasow 2002, 2022) alike, including ‘end weight,’ ‘discourse activation,’ ‘semantic dependency,’ and ‘disambiguation.’ All of these principles are readily observed in the BH data, as typologically expected. Nevertheless, they often compete with each other in cases where, e.g., end weight dictates that a ‘heavier’ constituent be postponed, but disambiguation rules that too much distance would produce confusion, so it should be placed earlier in the clause. Though the post-verbal domain does not (always) address the same concerns which have been developed for the so-called ‘left-periphery’ of the clause, viz. information structure, information status does indeed play a role post-verbally in the case of discourse activation. Where none of the processing principles are at play, there are often interactional and ‘focal’ motivations, which keen readers should be aware of as they interpret the informational contours of the utterance in question. Furthermore, semantic dependency hints at entrenched VP constructions, the repeated observation of which enriches our understanding of Biblical Hebrew as a language generally, and more particularly the relationship between head and arguments in the VP. Finally, positioning for dismbiguation where at odds with other processing principles sheds light on the author’s concern for successful communication and the suppression of potentially misleading syntax. In this paper, I explore examples of the principles of processing before offering a number of examples of post-verbal focal functions, constructions emerging from semantic dependency, and light shed by disambiguation. With access to typologically-sound models of information status and online processing on the one hand, and the exegetical payoff in the case of pragmatically motivated syntactic configurations and disambiguation on the other, it is hoped that this pilot study will play a part in fostering more widespread research into the post-verbal domain.

Exploring the Theosis Process through the figure of Moses in the Works of Philo of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius

This paper examines the stories of Tamar, Esther, and Vashti in 2 Samuel 13 and the Book of Esther, dissecting their complex objections to violence and patriarchy through the lens of Afro-Caribbean feminism. Tamar's fortitude in the face of her brother Amnon's attack paves the way for a study of feminist resistance in biblical settings This feminist resistance also includes the forms of protest exhibited by Esther and Vashti. The term "body protesting," which was first used by Michelle Alexandre, serves as a crucial framework for analysing these acts of resistance. The conversation about how women use their bodies as vehicles for expressions of liberation and transformation is informed by Alexandre's article, "Dancehalls, Masquerades, Body Protest and the Law: The Female Body as a Redemptive Tool Against Trinidad and Tobago's Gender-Biased Laws." The use of body protesting by Afro-Caribbean women during cultural events, which takes the form of provocative dance moves and clothing, is a powerful form of resistance against attempts to control, erase identity, and oppress. This paper’s central questions serve as its directives: First, it aims to examine the various ways that Caribbean women and these Biblical women participate in body protests and analyse the subtleties of their defiance of patriarchal standards. Finally, the paper explores the defensive potential of body protesting and body autonomy, looking at how these strategies aim to protect women from patriarchy and violence, which are persistent threats to both biblical and Caribbean women. To contribute to a more nuanced understanding of feminist struggles in various cultural and biblical contexts, the paper frames these questions within the framework of the intersectional feminist perspective of Caribbean women.

There are 475 place names in the Hebrew Bible. Most of them are found in the Book of Joshua, and the rest are spread throughout the other books of the Hebrew Bible. In this paper, I will examine the attitude of Onkelos towards place names in the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy). Does Onkelos translate these names, change them, or give them in their original form? Is the targum consistent? What were Onkelos's sources? This examination will also include a comparison with other targumic traditions.

Using unpublished archives from the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva and the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, this paper relates the history of Orthodox Christianity’s initial entrance into and ongoing place in Jewish-Christian dialogue. After briefly recounting the post-WWII origins of modern Jewish-Christian dialogue, from which Orthodox Christians were almost entirely absent, we examine the story of direct attempts by the WCC, primarily in the early 1970s, to fill the “Orthodox gap.” These attempts, however, generally failed, not because Orthodox representatives at the time were resistant to dialogue with Jews per se, but because they were resistant to pursuing such a dialogue with the same political and theological assumptions with which it had unfolded elsewhere. In fact, around the same time, Orthodox Christians, under the sponsorship of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, began their own bilateral relationship with Jews, outside of the auspices of the WCC. Surveying the history of these bilateral meetings, from their beginnings in 1976 to the most recent in 2022, this paper concludes with an analysis of what the “official” Orthodox Christian-Jewish bilateral relationship has thus far achieved and what it still lacks.

The Book of Ezekiel is well-known for its vehement polemic against the worship of idols. Traditionally, these references have been understood in relation to the aniconic ban on representing Yahweh found in the Pentateuch’s legal texts which are primarily concerned with the representational status of these illicit cult objects. This paper offers an alternative approach to conceptualizing idolatry in Ezekiel focused instead on the materiality of idols and their capacity to captivate, enchant, and seduce their viewers. This paper reevaluates Ezekiel’s idol-problem as one concerned generally with improper viewing habits and specifically with the beguiling, affective power accorded to these image-things. In tracing the thingliness of idols and their ocular ensnarement, I underscore a relationship between sight and desire essential to Ezekiel’s formulation of idolatry as a form of visual infidelity. I suggest that infidelity serves as a more precise framework for conceptualizing Ezekiel’s critiques of idolatry as well as Yahweh’s response to it. Lastly, rather than understanding idolatry in Ezekiel as an explicit transgression of Pentateuchal laws, I show that idolatry is carefully mapped onto a system of impurity and defilement defined by the deity’s sense of sight. Inasmuch as Ezekiel embeds multiple levels of viewing in its treatment of idol worship, the work provides an illuminating test-case for exploring the power, limits, and dangers of seeing within the religious imagination of biblical writers.

As can be seen from the “Preface” signed by Francesco Gabrieli (1904 - 1996) to the translation of "Il Corano" (1967), in the early 1950’s Martino Mario Moreno (1892 – 1964) was working on the translation of the Qur'an into Italian in his office in Beirut. Indeed, between 1952 and 1958, Moreno was the head of the Italian cultural mission in Beirut (1952 - 1956), a city where he taught as a university professor between 1954 and 1957. Those who knew him wrote that he spoke Arabic fluently and elegantly (M. Nallino, "Ricordo di Martino Mario Moreno", 1964), a skill that led him to the desire to translate the Qur'an. However, the publication of the translation was posthumous. Indeed, in Italy during those years, another great Arabist was working on translating the Qur’an: Alessandro Bausani (1921 - 1988). In 1955, Bausani published with Sansoni, a publishing house in Florence, what still remains one of the most important tools for studying and working on the Quranic text in the Italian university and academic field. Bausani’s publication overshadowed Moreno’s work at the time, whose translation was published posthumously at the request of Gabrieli in 1967, inaugurating the "Classici delle Religioni" series by the UTET publishing house. Despite the unfortunate editorial events, Moreno’s translation is noteworthy for its scientific rigor, comparable to that of Bausani. It is a complete translation that guides the reader through the individual chapters. The text consists of a “Preface” signed by Gabrieli, an “Introduction” by Moreno, the translation of the chapters, and a substantial apparatus of notes. What makes this work more accessible to the public compared to Bausani’s is the thematic division presented by Moreno within the individual Quranic chapters. The translator also drew on classical exegetical studies and the translations of his predecessors. Regarding the Italian translations, it is worth noting the use of Luigi Bonelli’s translation (1929), perhaps the only valid Italian translation published in the twentieth century before Bausani and Moreno. This analysis aims to present the strengths and weaknesses of Moreno’s translation, emphasizing that the lack of success achieved by the latter is solely due to the unfortunate timing with which the translator concluded his work.

This comparative study aims to isolate and analyze similar healing reports found in the New Testament (NT) and the writings of the Desert Fathers (DFs, corpus of writing) to identify similarities, differences, and patterns between healing narratives in these two sources. Specifically, this study examines the Apophthegmata partum (and, if space allows, additional writings such as those of Rufinus Aquileia and John Moschus will be included) among the desert fathers (individuals). The focus will be on comparing the similar healing accounts in the Gospel of Matthew with those found in the selected writings of the DFs. These texts will be analyzed to identify types of healing, phenomena (including methods, actions, and results), similarities, differences, and patterns surrounding similar miraculous healing stories among these sources. Non-healing miracles will not be included in this study.

The story of Deborah in Judges 4 appears anomalous in its broader context—a smaller Israelite militia led by a prophetess, defeats a superior Canaanite army equipped with advanced weaponry in battle, but this story is not so different. The surrounding narratives also recount the Israelites’ victory over formidable adversaries in a similar fashion. These stories do not merely tell of unexpected victories or defiance against the odds, but also portray how YHWH intervened in the lives of these people to bring about his victory. The story of Deborah is on the same continuum; however, the theme in Judges 4 seems to align with the Day of YHWH motif found in the post-exilic literature and the Book of the Twelve. According to previous research, most scholars agree that the Day of YHWH is a time of YHWH’s action, usually battle against YHWH’s enemies. The story of Deborah includes elements such as the gathering of enemies in the valley, preparing for the battle on a mountain, being led by a figure symbolizing the presence of God, and more importantly, the Joelian up-side-down characteristics, all of which constitute what the Day of YHWH is. These elements in Judges 4, as some scholars have argued, point to a potential aspect that was prevailing in the ancient Near East, theomachy. The allusion to the Day of YHWH was not merely about the Israelites gaining the ability to fight their enemies and attributing the victory to YHWH. The story is framed similarly to the Exodus narrative of crossing the sea through dry shod, depicting civilians facing a well-trained official army and chariots, with chaotic water and songs of victory suggesting that YHWH would directly combat his enemies. In this paper, I argue that the story of Deborah employed mythic elements to describe theomachy, in which YHWH would directly combat and subdue his foes through Deborah the prophetess to deliver the Israelites from their enemies.

An oft-noted characteristic of Ethiopian Christianity is its distinctively Jewish nature. More so than many other expressions of Christianity, the Ethiopian Church embraces ancient Jewish practices, language and theology. Since the beginning of the Christian movement, the question of this religion’s relationship to its Jewish forebearers has been central to its life and doctrine. This paper will explore the development of the unique vision of Jewish-Christian practice in the Ethiopian tradition through the writings of one of the earliest-attested authors from this region: Giyorgis of Sägla. In the early-fifteenth century, Giyorgis commissioned the writing of one of the greatest classics in the history of Geʿez literature, the Mäṣḥäfä Mǝsṭir (“Book of Mystery”). This massive theological tome is an apologetic work meant to catechize members of the monastic community and provide theological instruction in a liturgical context. While the Mäṣḥäfä Mǝsṭir addresses a variety of theological topics ranging from the Trinity to eschatology, the most central issue in the text is the relationship between the First and New Covenants. The practical backdrop to this question was the Sabbath controversy that consumed much of the Ethiopian Church and Empire during the first half of the fifteenth-century. Indeed, Giyorgis’ theology of the covenants with Israel and the Church became normative for subsequent theologians and emperors. Giyorgis’ approach to the issue of Sabbath observance was a direct extension of his theology of the Law and the Gospel. This paper will explore the articulation of Giyorgis’ vision of the First and New Covenants and how this was both influenced by and shaped the Ethiopian Church and Empire at a pivotal point in the history of Ethiopian Jewish-Christian relations.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

If the language within the Gospel of Judas is compared with contemporary medical treatises or passages found within Greco-Roman writings that are dealing with general physiological material, would there be a significant connection? What would one discover? Would there be greater clarity in understanding the Gospel of Judas? The central thesis of this essay is that the theological language of the Gospel of Judas relies heavily upon physiological metaphors and a general corporeal understanding of ancient medicine. Further, an understanding of commonplace physiological language as exemplified within Greco-Roman literature provides clarity in understanding some of the more difficult passages found within the Gospel of Judas. To be specific, the GosJud 43.16 is understood with greater clarity when the physiological language is appreciated.

The story of Saul is a tragic affair. From 1 Sam 16:14 until his last explicit bout in 19:9, an evil spirit repeatedly plagues Saul. The origins and identity of Saul’s attacker have long remained a murky question. Demons, mental illnesses, divine abandonment, and semantic oversight have all been proposed as answers to the quandary around the entity tormenting Saul. Yet none of these current views offer an entirely satisfying interpretation of the entity that afflicted Saul and how it relates to every nuance of the passage. Recently, multiple articles have approached 1 Sam 16:14-23 comparing the evil spirit to demons from Mesopotamia. Near Eastern medical diagnostic texts often attribute various maladies to these demonic entities. One scholar proposes that this spirit afflicting Saul reflects the actions of a rabiṣu or an utukku. Anne Marie Kitz recently contended that Saul suffered from a rabiṣu-type entity. Instead, I tread the latter path and submit through a saturation of comparisons that yet another underworld denizen bore the responsibility for Saul’s affliction, an utukku, a ghost. Throughout the ancient world, the deceased were considered potent enough to harm the living. While there is some debate about whether ancient Israel viewed the dead as dangerous, the laws against necromancy and the archaeological evidence demonstrating Israel’s care for the dead suggest that, to some, the dead were potentially powerful. In Saul’s case, the text of 1 Samuel already associates Israel’s first king with the dead, once explicitly and twice more implicitly. Saul’s malady in 1 Sam 16:14-23 finds a cousin in Mesopotamian ghost-illness medical texts. I contend that Saul’s symptoms, etiology, diagnosis, and treatment suggest that Saul suffered from a ghost-induced illness. In brief, Saul’s identifiable symptoms - terror, incapacitation, and an altered mental state - are analogous to the experiences of those afflicted with ghost-induced illnesses. The etiology of Saul’s illness shares commonalities; both can result from earning the ire of the divine. Saul’s diagnosis employs a set phrase to describe his affliction, which aligns with a comparable Near Eastern categorization of a ghost-induced illness. Finally, Saul’s treatment by musical therapy is a legitimate practice found to alleviate these illnesses, especially in a Levantine context. As a ghost-induced illness, the previous proposals for understanding Saul’s tormenting entity can converge in a manner that recognizes a separate terrorizing entity sent by Yahweh, described in Near Eastern medical terms, all while remaining closer to the cultural milieu of ancient Israel.

This paper is part of a larger exploration of Augustine's reception of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a commonplace that the humble Jesus of the gospels gives way to the exalted "Christ" by the fifth century. Most scholarly work on Augustine and Jesus has focused on his technical doctrine of Christology the polemical and apologetic uses of the Gospel stories. This paper will argue that Augustine retained a strong sense of the humanity of Jesus and deepened this aspect of the Jesus tradition through the psychological insights afforded by his Christological readings of the Psalms.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

The reception of Flavius Josephus’ works is full of apparent incongruities. Josephus’ writings were originally penned in Greek, yet most of the ancient manuscript evidence exists in other languages. Josephus was fully ensconced within the Jewish/Judean cultural milieu of the first century, yet the Jewish culture-purveyors of subsequent centuries (i.e. rabbis) apparently ignored him on purpose. What are we to make of the (arguably) most successful Jewish historian of all time, whose legacy has largely been a Christian one and whose scribal positionality in the late first century was that of immigrant, captive, foreigner? In short, what are we to make of Flavius Josephus’ reception history? Modern scholarship has largely approached this question in specialized pockets rather than in broad relief. One can find more capacious attempts, for example in Heinz Schreckenberg’s 1972 Die Flavius-Josephus-Tradition in Antike und Mittelalter or as resonated de facto within the sweeping 1984 project of Louis H. Feldman: Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937-1980). More recently, handbook-style projects have dealt with Josephus’ reception from many angles (for example, the 2016 A Companion to Josephus, edited by Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers). What would be helpful, for scholarship and beyond, is an integrated approach to Josephus’ reception, which is to say Josephus’ meaning (and meanings) and impact(s) within the world over the past two millennia. Martin Goodman’s 2019 book, Josephus’s The Jewish War: A Biography, does this work with regard to Josephus’ Jewish War. This paper marks a movement toward a broader treatment of the reception of Josephus and his writings writ large across regions, languages, time periods, and peoples. By engaging with the history of scholarship vis-à-vis Josephus’ reception, drawing upon important recent theories pertaining to Rezeptionsgeschichte and related concepts, interacting with more popular voices like Malcolm Gladwell, and drawing upon Josephus’ textual afterlives in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic, Yiddish, and more, this paper seeks to move toward a fuller understanding of what Josephus and his writings are, have been, and can be within the Anthroposphere.

The Apocalypse has become a subject of spectacularization in modern and contemporary times, but the roots of this phenomenon go far back, arguably to the beginning of the genre. The present paper explores this topic by making use of the concept of theatricailty as a pervasive feature of Mediterranean society and culture in the early Roman period. The ultimate goal will be a contribution to understanding the reception and success of apocalyptic texts and images.

Following opening statements on the fleeting, ephemeral (hebel) nature of all things, Qoheleth’s first sustained discussion is a notably bleak reflection on the diurnal rhythms, meteorological patterns, and hydrologic cycles observed in nature (1:2–11). These natural images are instructive for Qoheleth, suggesting by their unvarying repetition that all human exertion is similarly futile and repetitive—“There is nothing new under the sun.” At one level, this text corresponds with a wider trend of a pedagogical use of the observation of nature in wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible and beyond (e.g. 1 Kgs 5:9–14; Prov 6:6–8; 30:24–31; Job 12:7–10, 14:7–12, 35:11, 37:14). Yet, Qoheleth’s application of such observation of the functioning of the cycles of the natural world contrasts with most of these other texts in its distinctly pessimistic interpretation and application of the witness of nature for humanity. This paper examines the thesis that Qoheleth’s application of natural observation in this passage is a conscious reversal of the more constructive didactic and exhortatory applications of such sources elsewhere in so-called wisdom literature and beyond. Such contrasts between Qoheleth’s use of various elements of more optimistic wisdom literature have often been discussed (see e.g. Krüger 2004: 22–24; Seow 1997: 67–69), and some of the earliest readers of Qoheleth already emphasized the book’s potency for the contemplatio naturae (Blowers 2020: 37–38), but the specific intersection of these contexts in Qoheleth’s use of natural imagery in its opening discourse merits further analysis and appreciation. By acknowledging and employing the widespread trope of reflection on the lessons to be observed in the natural world surrounding humanity, Qoheleth engages wisdom traditions critically through an established and respected type of discourse that is employed in the service of an atypical conclusion.

This paper begins by briefly reviewing the history of modern Manichaean studies for its pendulum-like swings between different interpretive frameworks, dominated by the drive to place Manichaeism in relation to other traditions and communities. Given that Manichaeism is an extinct tradition, it has been typically consigned to the role of handmaiden to the study of other, living traditions, and at risk of being dissolved into disjecta membra used as needed in those fields. The paper then turns to a characterization of where things stand today in the field, after a half century of concerted effort to define Manichaeism as an integral subject worthy of study in its own right. Today we are able to identify a series of formative actions or events centered initially in Aramaic-speaking Mesopotamia that gave rise to discourses and practices that we study as “Manichaean.” Yet, in light of trends in the study of other major religious -isms, where various implicit essentialisms have been rightly challenged, is there a historical reality suitably labeled “Manichaeism” at all, and how should we characterize it? Finally, the paper proceeds to raise questions about our responsibility to the people of the past we study. Without surrendering our right to critically examine the claims embedded in the voices of past communities in comparison to other evidence, how do we keep from subjecting the real people of the past to our current favored theories and interpretations, in a kind of historiographic colonialism?

There are many options for avoiding challenging texts when preaching, but is avoidance the best way? Said differently, what are we modeling from the pulpit if we preach around, rather than through, difficult texts? In this paper I will address the household code in Colossians with a focus on the instructions to slaves and masters, suggesting a manner of preaching today that is every bit as contextual as the household code itself was in its day. I recently finished authoring a commentary on Colossians and Philemon in a new series aimed at serving the global pentecostal and charismatic church; authors “preach” through texts for their community(ies) and tradition(s). As a pentecostal myself, I write from within a tradition with a high view of Scripture, a burgeoning interest in the historical-cultural world of the Bible, and a commitment to the Spirit’s often surprising work in us and our world today. How might the Spirit speak through an ancient text regarding Mediterranean slavery to an audience who lives under its own slavery narratives and, for the US, has lived through the racial reckoning of the past several years? How might we honor the Pauline legacy and authority of Scripture while also asking the pointed questions that are necessary in our time? In and for my own context (not every context), I suggest a possible answer.

The form and appearance of early Hebrew Bible codices (10–11th centuries) was very traditional. The consonantal text? Standardized. The vocalization? Largely standardized. The layout? Again, largely standardized. The considerable similarities shared by the 100+ model codices of the period make it difficult to date and localize these Bible manuscripts. Moreover, a not insignificant number of these codices contain dubious colophons. As a result, researchers know very little about the early lives of these manuscripts with certainty—nor are there external means for evaluating claims made on the basis of paleography, codicology, the colophons, or accent and vocalization signs. In order to change the present state of affairs, one must find salient points of difference between the codices that can be measured in a statistically rigorous way. One such method is vis-à-vis the Masoretic notes. These notes are spread out across the leaves of a Bible codex and are, moreover, one of the few parts of a codex whose form was not prescribed. The question arises, then, if genetic affiliations between manuscripts can be determined based upon Masoretic note coherence. The present study seeks to answer this question. Ca. 43,000 Masoretic notes from 111 Bible codices were collated from seven text subsections. The resultant data were sufficient to create similarity ratios that could be used, in turn, to cluster the codices hierarchically, thereby creating a dendrogram of the codices based upon the Masorah. The takeaway? There is a cluster of closely connected manuscripts, and then there are a number of manuscripts with much lower levels of similarity—a sort of cloud around the highly focused center. The Aleppo Codex, long considered by scholars to be the best representative of the Tiberian Masorah, is at the center of the closely connected manuscripts. Thus, the present data largely confirm what has already been argued elsewhere regarding A. Many other early manuscripts frequently cited by scholars, such as the Leningrad Codex, the Cairo Codex, Or. 4445, Sassoon 507, and Sassoon 1053, are not part of this center grouping, however. In this way the present study both confirms part of what has been previously accepted by scholars while simultaneously calling other parts of it into question.

This panel aims to showcase some of the recent investigations into the Septuagint vocabulary that are conducted according to the methodology of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint (HTLS). HTLS is a collective and interdisciplinary project, a multi-volume dictionary on the most significant terms or word groups attested in the Septuagint Bible. Each term is analyzed within six sections: Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greek; papyri and inscriptions; the Septuagint and its Hebrew equivalents; Jewish literature in Greek; the New Testament; and early Christian literature. The aim is to investigate meanings, usages, and possible semantic evolutions of these significant words. Therefore, HTLS is a useful tool for the in-depth study of the Septuagint from both philological, historical, and exegetical perspectives. HTLS plans to release four volumes for the Mohr Siebeck publishing house in Tübingen. The first volume, which includes over 150 articles on terms beginning with the letters from alpha to gamma, was made available in 2020. The second volume, which includes the letters delta to iota, is in preparation.

The Significance of Archeological Discoveries for an Assessment of the Background of the Bar Kokhba War Miriam Ben Zeev Hofman, Ben Gurion University Built on Mount Moriah, where Jewish tradition places the binding of Isaac, Jerusalem had from ancient times been the seat of Jewish sovereignty, the home site of the rulers, the location of its legislative councils and courts and the center of Jewish worship and national identity. The First and then the Second Temple had been destroyed, but their site continued to remain holy in the people’s perception, and mourning and fasts were annually held in mournful memory of events leading to or following the destruction of the Temple. During the reign of Emperor Hadrian, Jewish Jerusalem disappeared, and in its place a Roman colony, called Aelia Capitolina, was established, to which the Jews were denied access. This was often regarded as a result of the Bar Kokhba War, since Eusebius (HE, 4, 6, 1-4) mentions Hadrian’s founding of Aelia Capitolina after his account of the Bar Kokhba War, implying that it was one of its consequences. In fact, until recent times no precise date for the creation of the new colony was available. A new assessment is now possible thanks to the results of the recent archeological excavations. Those led by Hanan Eshel ז"ל in the El-Jai Cave in Nahal Mikhmash in the late nineties uncovered a hoard including Bar Kokhba coins along with coins representing the founding of Aelia Capitolina, which means that the foundation of the colony did not follow the Bar Kokhba War but was either contemporary or earlier. Then, during the excavations carried out in the Old City of Jerusalem, the right-hand side of an inscription was found, published by Ecker and Cotton in 2018, which mentions a building of the new colony, erected in honor of Hadrian during his third consulate and fourteenth tribunicia potestas, namely, sometime between December 10, 129 and December 9, 130. This means that the colony had already being founded two years before the beginning of the Bar Kokhba War. Moreover, the findings retrieved during the excavations carried out in the north-western part of the Western Wall Plaza of the Old City of Jerusalem under the direction of Alexander Onn and Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, allow us to establish that the preliminary works on Aelia Capitolina started earlier, at some point in the 120s, namely, about a decade before the beginning of the Bar Kokhba War. This means that the founding of Aelia Capitolina cannot be considered a consequence of the Bar Kokhba War, but rather as one of its possible causes, as Cassius Dio already observed in the third century CE.

Since the times of Heinrich Ewald, scholars have been debating the formation and intention of the Elohistic Psalter, in particular the unusual assemblage of divine names in this collection. New arguments were raised in recent years about this phenomenon, mainly supporting the option that it is a deliberately designed collection with a purposeful choice of the divine name Elohim. In this paper I examine these new proposals and argue again for the older, classical position, about a scribal replacement of the Tetragram throughout this collection. I will examine ideas from the following fields: the redaction of the Psalter; material philology and the capacity of ancient scrolls; Mesopotamian and Levantine analogies to the Elohistic Psalter; the history and phenomenology of Judean religion; scribal practices with regard to the divine name, and more.

In the corpus of the Persian Martyr Acts, hereafter PMA, there are several different biblical tropes, which have led scholars to question the appropriate blend of historical material from literary artistry. The Persians, who typically play the part of antagonist in the martyr acts, highlight the pagan/non-Christian ‘other’ in the texts where their actions and motives are infused with images from the Hebrew Bible. These actions help to demarcate certain religious and identity boundaries for both the Persian kings and elites as well as the Christians they are persecuting. Many readers of the PMA ask where the line is between the Biblical imagination of Persia and the historical Sasanian Persia where these acts take place? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining the imaginings of Persia found in Daniel and Esther, to highlight how the Christians of the PMA formulate their identity and their religious boundaries in times of conflict with the political authorities in Sasanian Persia. Drawing from the scholarship of P. Devos, Lucas Van Rompay, Victor Saxer, along with others, this paper will examine the classic martyrological themes present in Danielic literature as the basis for the cultural imagination presented in the PMA. This paper then hopes to go beyond that by way of the Persian tropes found in Esther to show what other Biblical imaginings of Persia can be helpful for understanding Christian identity in the PMA. By drawing attention to the Persian antagonists in these texts, the reader will be alerted to the way that these Christian martyr acts are setting their own religious and ethnic identities through sacred story against the other groups in late antique Sasanian Persia.

This paper uses Kathryn Tanner’s theory of human cultures to discuss how the story of Philip’s conflict with the Jewish leaders of the city of Nikatera (Acts Phil. 5–7) recycles story material from the New Testament Gospels by replacing the protagonist Jesus with his follower Philip, and to analyze what new norms and ideals the updated story is advocating. The motif of recycling Gospel stories with a new protagonist is recurrent in the anonymous fourth- or fifth-century collection of apostle stories known as the Acts of Philip, where the protagonist is acknowledged by a voice from heaven (3.3), encounters a Galilean widow carrying out her only son (1.1), and attempts to get by on no food except that of doing God’s will (4.3). Such parallels are often pointed out in scholarly literature, but rarely discussed in detail. This paper is focused on one particular story (Acts Phil. 5–7), where Philip goes through a luminous transformation (5.22), finds himself in conflict with Jewish figures of authority (6.1–3), and is threatened with violence (6.5–6). Using Kathryn Tanner’s theory of human cultures as sets of behavior patterns upheld and transformed by the continuous interplay between behavior and consensus actions in social groups, Ι will observe how the characters of the story use various types of consensus efforts including threats of violence to control each other’s behavior. This analysis will allow me to discern what norms and ideals the updated story is advocating, and what is gained by reframing the story with Philip as the protagonist.

While some studies on slavery in the early Roman Empire (e.g., Scheidel 1997) and slavery in early Christianity (e.g., Glancy 2002) have argued that captives were not a major source of slaves in the early Empire, the enslavement of prisoners of war nonetheless became a ubiquitous image in visual and literary media. Historians like Josephus and Plutarch show a marked interest in the spoils of war, while the Sebastion at Aphrodisias and the Arch of Titus at Rome cast their dramas of victory with captives in bonds. Against the backdrop of everyday slavery, these images of prisoners of war captured literary and artistic imaginations. This paper takes up these observations and considers the liminality and intersectionality of incarceration and enslavement practices that gave purchase to these imaginations—that is, the ambiguity of a prisoner of war being both imprisoned and enslaved. In what ways was a prisoner of war incarcerated? In what ways enslaved? Rather than treating slavery as a monolithic “institution,” what happens when we view it as a site of social practices (Schatzki 2002)—a site that could intersect with the practices and meanings of incarceration? To pursue this question, it is argued that the character of Παῦλος ὁ δέσμιος τοῦ Χριστοῦ in the Letter to the Ephesians (Eph 3:1) represents this very ambiguity in metaphorical terms. That is, the Pauline metaphor of enslavement was re-figured in terms of Paul’s incarceration, recasting the Apostle as the spoil of divine warfare. To substantiate the possibility of this reading, this paper looks at a variety of texts and visual images where enslaved persons are represented with bonds and where incarceration appears fungible with enslavement. Next, it considers how social practices of incarceration and enslavement might have meshed together. Finally, turning to Ephesians as a window into Pauline theology, it considers how these social practices might change the way we understand not only the epithet ὁ δέσμιος τοῦ Χριστοῦ but also how the letter participates in what Chris de Wet has called early Christian “doulology” (de Wet 2015).

The first part of this paper will address one of the primary objections to dating the Letter of James prior to the death of James the Just in 62: namely, that the absence of certain attestation for the letter prior to Origen indicates a later date of composition. We will consider other instances of substantial temporal distance between probable composition and earliest attestation. The second part will advance a plausible historical scenario from which an "early James" might have originated.

The catechetical creed was an unusual verbal artifact—at once present and absent. In this paper, I turn to examples from early Christian history to illustrate the contours of what I will call the disappearing creed. I discuss not only how various Christian writers struggled to articulate the creed but also how manuscript tradition grappled with that same difficulty.

The Miscellanies are one of the strangest text-critical problems of Samuel–Kings. Found in the Septuagint after 1 Kings 2:35 and 2:46, they consist of two large pluses of 14 and 11 verses respectively. The pluses consist of loosely connected elements, seemingly gathered from the main story of Solomon (1 Kings 3–11), structured around his wisdom, building activities and extensive wealth. Due to their unique nature the Miscellanies have baffled scholars. Proposed solutions range from editing done in Greek after the translation was done (Montgomery, Gooding, Van Keulen), to a different Hebrew Vorlage, translating a text which either developed from the one reflected by the MT (Tov, Polak, Talshir) or one that developed into the MT (Trebolle-Barrera, Schenker, Darshan, Piquer-Otero). Most current scholars tend to agree with the idea of a Hebrew origin for the Miscellanies, but other than that no consensus on the Miscellanies has been reached. In an attempt to find a solution for understanding the Miscellanies, this paper wants to propose a new and unique perspective. All previous scholars have attempted to relate the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint (LXX) and the proto-Masoretic Text (MT) to each other, proposing that the Miscellanies were either added at a late stage to the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX or deleted from the proto-MT. In this paper I will defend the hypothesis that neither happened. Instead, I will argue that the Miscellanies were a part from the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX, but never of the proto-MT, proposing that these two textual forms existed parallel to each other. Using several examples from the Miscellanies, I will attempt to show that the proto-MT borrowed from the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX and integrated the Miscellanies almost completely into its own narrative about Solomon. At the same time, the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX did the same thing and partially integrated the Miscellanies. However, in their integration they changed much more than the MT did. At the same time, I will argue that the integration of the Miscellanies into the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX had an impact on their integration into the proto-MT, at least one doublet in the MT.

This proposal examines the pervasive influence of imperial nations on colonized cultures, with a focus on the role of visual objects as mediators of power dynamics. Emphasizing the aesthetic power of these objects, I explore how viewers negotiate between admiration and awareness of their political function, affecting resistance or submission to imperial ideology. Aphrodisias, purportedly a free city of the Roman Empire, paradoxically showcases reliefs emphasizing complete subjugation, revealing an ambivalent relationship between the Empire and its subjects. I argue that the spatial design of the monument and the cultural-visual codes materialized through the reliefs point to a creation of the Self mediated by imperial rhetoric. Drawing from Tonio Hölscher’s study on the visual culture of the Greco-Roman world sharing some sentiments with new materialists, along with Michel de Certeau’s notion of appropriation and spatiality, all reveal that this ambivalence is inevitable. Images possessed a specific essence of materiality—one that compels individuals to be present and to participate with those visual objects by walking through the monument. On the other hand, the visual objects reaffirm cultural norms as they substantiate and make tangible concepts of reality. All of these elements factor into the continual authority over the imperial subject, albeit most of the process is self-inflicted.

Peter’s Pentecost speech, quoting from Joel, suggests the inclusion of a wide variety of people: male and female, young and old, enslaved and free (Acts 2:16–21; cf. Joel 3:1–5 LXX). Indeed, Peter proclaims that “all flesh” would receive God’s spirit (Acts 2:17; cf. Joel 3:1 LXX), and that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21; cf. Joel 3:5 LXX). And yet, a small change in Peter’s quotation of Joel might limit this seeming inclusion of all people. Whereas Joel proclaims, “Your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions” (Joel 3:1 LXX), Peter proclaims, “Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17). While many scholars do not comment on potential implications of Luke’s transposition of “young men” and “old men,” others argue that perhaps this change—placing young men first—could reflect Luke’s view that young people are to be privileged over older adults (e.g., Blumhofer 2016: 509–10; Spencer 2005: 35). A similar argument is often made regarding Luke 1:17, in which Gabriel states that John would “turn the hearts of parents to their children,” without naming that the hearts of children would be turned to their parents (cf. Mal 4:6). Such a reading of Luke-Acts, in which Luke’s narratives seem to uplift youth over older age, has implications not only for how we view age in Luke-Acts but also how we view Judaism in these texts, since scholarship sometimes equates older characters in Luke-Acts with the Jews and younger characters with the gentiles. In this paper, I will argue that Luke’s transposition of “young men” and “old men” does not suggest an ageist or supersessionist interpretation of Joel, but rather fits within Luke’s general framework when quoting from Septuagintal texts, as Luke’s quotations often include small changes to Septuagintal texts. Further, Luke’s narratives are often flexible in ordering pairs or lists, sometimes placing emphasis on the first person, and other times placing emphasis on the last person. After arguing against the dominant interpretation (that this transposition serves to uplift young people), I will explore various other potential reasons for this change: perhaps, for example, this transposition serves the purpose of harmonizing with other LXX texts, or placing the ages in chronological order, or highlighting the role of older adults in the church community. Ultimately, I argue that the focus of Peter’s speech is on the inclusion of both young and old, rather than an uplifting of one group over the other—and in turn, this age-inclusive focus can be seen throughout the rest of Acts, which highlights both young men and elders.

Forthcoming

Naming as a Female Role in the Household Religion of Ancient Israel? In his 2012 publication, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant, coauthored with Rüdiger Schmitt, Rainer Albertz suggested that “The naming of a child in ancient Israel seems to have been considered a special occasion … commonly celebrated with a family feast.” During this feast, he writes, the mother would “present her baby proudly and … tell of her physical and religious experiences during the dramatic process of birth,” further suggesting that “it probably would have been on this joyful day, at the end of the mother’s time of impurity that the naming of the child was celebrated.” He further connects the content of the name directly to the mother’s experience in pregnancy and birthing, arguing for a dominant role of the mother in the conception as well as the bestowal of the name. This paper challenges this view, and allied views of women’s role in naming. It questions the widely accepted notion that women had a dominant role in naming. It critiques Albertz’s reconstruction of the naming feast and questions how it might relate to women’s household rituals and piety as well as to “family and household religion.”It also critiques the dual attribution of the content of the names to the mother’s experience in birthing and to the biblical Psalms as expressions of domestic religious piety.

The Coptic Life of Aaron, recently republished in a critical edition by Dijkstra and van der Vliet (Brill, 2020) is among the most interesting and sophisticated works of late antique Coptic hagiography. The work depicts the lives of numerous ascetics (Apa Aaron in particular) who resided in the southernmost reaches of Egypt during the fourth and fifth centuries. The text itself, likely written sometime in the sixth century, contributes to the prominence of hagiographies memorializing Upper Egypt’s monastic heritage. Featured within this text are three episodes related to the inundation, the Nile’s annual flood season, which was essential for Egyptian agriculture. In the Life of Aaron, the Coptic ⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ (“inundation”; from the Greek verb ἀναβαίνω, “to go up”) is consistently coordinated with the Greek noun ἀνάπαυσις (“repose, rest”), which in this text means “relief for the poor.” Phonologically and lexically the words are similar enough to have resulted in what seems to be a copyist error at l. 132 (i.e., ⲉⲧⲃⲉ ⲧⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ ⲛ̄ⲛ̄ⲣⲱⲙⲉ ‘for the inundation of the people’ instead of ⲉⲧⲃⲉ ⲧⲁⲛⲁⲡⲁⲩⲥⲓⲥ ⲛ̄ⲛ̄ⲣⲱⲙⲉ, ‘for the relief of the people’). Why is the phonologically similar ⲁⲛⲁⲡⲁⲩⲥⲓⲥ used in association with ⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ in the Coptic Life of Aaron? Other (heterophonic) Greek and Coptic nouns could have been easily used, avoiding confusion based on phonological similarity. What might this lexical choice tell us about how Coptic Christians in late antiquity viewed the ⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ? In Coptic hagiographical literature, this lexical association may reveal that the ⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ was conceptualized by Upper Egyptian Christians primarily as a cause of relief for the poor. Coptic authors thus wrote about the ⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ and the local Holy Man’s power over it to assert his (and his God’s) concern for (and salvation of) the local poor. In this paper, I will examine how the Coptic Life of Aaron follows this literary tradition and deviates from it. By analyzing the collocation of ⲁⲛⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲥ and ⲁⲛⲁⲡⲁⲩⲥⲓⲥ in the Coptic Life of Aaron in the context of wider Coptic literary culture, I will show how Upper Egyptian Christians conceptualized the inundation and how this text stands out in such traditions.

What do we mean when we say a text is “touching”? Or that it deals with “touchy” subjects? Or that it might be a “touch stone” for something important? Such expressions point towards the reception of texts in readers’ experience. But are such expressions metaphorical, only, or do they invite a bodily correlation? When one is touched by a text, does one feel it, on the surface of the skin or in the roiling of the guts? When one navigates a touchy subject, does the body recoil, is it felt in the bones? In such texts as Psalms and Song of Songs, it seems that writers anticipate the bodily connection; in fact, one might infer that they depend on it. Is there a way, then, to read intentionally with the bodily senses, to cultivate a somatic response that mirrors the senses within? What would such a programme achieve? This paper plays with these ideas and bodily configurations in order to foreground the sensate in both the reading process (the reception of the text) and the thematic and experiential contents of the texts themselves. Song of Songs texts (which are well-known as “touchy-feely” erotic poems) are a natural go-to for such a project, but so are other highly emotive genres, such as lament psalms, which implicate the body and all of its senses and feelings. It won’t escape notice that most of these types of touches—even the readerly ones where interpreters find texts “touching”—are more interested in, or construct, certain gendered types of bodies and experiences more than others. Reading with queer affect theorists, then, as well as intersecting with scholarship on religion and the senses, this paper considers how touch prescribes a certain type of response in textual subject and reader alike, that both inscribes gender norms and at the same time creates fissures for reading outside of those norms, to assert queer possibilities for undermining typical biblical hegemonies.

The “fast food” establishments in Pompeii (e.g., cauponae, thermopolia), with their scents and sights of cooking meats—lamb, chicken, fish—or snails, and garum (fish paste); along with olives, figs, grapes, and dates, oats, lentils, and beans, lured potential customers, shaped flows of foot traffic through the city, and facilitated the development of micro-level, more or less transient, social groupings: people dined together, talked, drank wine, solicited votes, rolled dice, purchased sexual services, formed love triangles, quarreled, and sometimes fought. Street, neighborhood, and business interacted; harvested plants, slaughtered animals, and living humans merged, as the latter transformed and consumed the former; business owners, slaves, and retainers served and entertained customers; neighbors and travelers, natives and foreigners formed bonds or antipathies, durative or ephemeral: Pompeii’s fast food establishments put intersectionality on public display.

The Cave 1 Daniel fragments have a complicated and intriguing history. They were clandestinely recovered, then smuggled first out of Palestine and later across the Atlantic. Thus, they are inextricably linked to the antiquities market and the trade of ancient religious artifacts. Some of the fragments remain in the possession of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the United States until today, while others were “gifted” to Trever, the scholar who first photographed them, and were later sold to a private collector in Norway. Tracing this history raises several important questions, regarding not only the rights of ownership of the manuscripts but also to what extent they can be confidently connected to Qumran Cave 1. This varied history has also greatly impacted the availability of the fragments for scholarly study and highlights the need for better conservation methods.

Since the influential studies of Jonas Greenfield (1967/1978) and Eduard Kutscher (1970), philological analysis of P.13446 “The Words of Ahiqar” (TAD C1.1) has made sharp distinctions between the narrative portions (sheets A–D) and the proverbial instructions (sheets, E–L), with the generic differences also delineating dialectical differences. Thus, the argument goes that “Ahiqar” as a textual construct is a combination of a much-earlier sayings collection – a section whose precise date, provenance, and dialect are still debated, but are generally assigned to some part of Aram during the 9th-7th c. BCE – with a much later frame narrative that evinces a classic Reichsaramäisch, likely of the 7th or 6th c. BCE. The effect of such a division has been that the 5th c. Elephantine manuscript itself has hardly been treated as a singular exemplar. Admittedly the join between the narrative sections and the sayings is not extant, but orthographic and material analyses have made certain that the sayings-columns belong to the same hand and document as the narrative. To be sure, more thorough analyses of Elephantine Aramaic (or Aramaic of the Achaemenid period more broadly) has taken place (e.g., Folmer, Muraoka/Porten, Gzella), wherein the Ahiqar manuscript is regularly (i.e., unmarked) noted. However, when it comes to analyses of the Aramaic of Ahiqar, the now half-century presumption of a clear and decisive dialectical difference between the story and the sayings has been left unquestioned. This presentation, informed by the more recent developments in the study of Aramaic philology, seeks, therefore, to offer some initial responses to this presumed status quaetionis of the divided Ahiqar. In particular, it reviews the key issues under discussion in Greenfield and Kutscher, which were repeated, expanded, and adapted by later critics (e.g., Kottsieper 1990) concerning dialectical difference with regard to: (a) dissimilation of emphatics; (b) nasalization and/or the degeminating of /n/; (c) the mem-prefix in non-G infinitives; (d) specific lexical features. It will be shown that the degree of difference between the “two” sections of the Ahiqar papyrus are much less significant that has been presumed, leading to the paper’s preliminary conclusion that they do not, in fact, attest to distinct dialects. Rather, more significant differences can be detected on the level of syntax; a reflex of the generic difference to be sure, but hardly an indicator of a distinctive (geographic) provenance or date.

It is now over a decade since the Biblical Literature and Hermeneutics of Trauma section began at SBL and eight since the publication of Through the Lens of Trauma which compiled many of the early papers presented in the unit. Since its inception, the unit has, to varying degrees, maintained a focus on the impact of differing theories on textual interpretation. Four dominant theorists or schools of thought that have influenced the field: classical literary trauma theory, centred on the deconstructivist theorization of the Caruth school; the school of thought associated with Jeffrey Alexander and colleagues, often referred to as cultural trauma theory; the increasingly utilised work of Vamik Volkan on chosen traumas and the intergenerational transmission of trauma; and the more marginal work of Ronald Granofsky who explores the symbolic possibilities of trauma novels. All too often, however, (and I would include my early work in this group), trauma readings rely on an amalgamation of elements from two or more of these approaches. The result can be a level of theoretical incoherence or confusion. Using Jeremiah 18 as a case study, I draw on my journey from trauma theory bowerbird toward a more considered purism, to argue that for trauma readings to mature, we need to grapple more fully with the distinctive assumptions and epistemological frameworks of the differing approaches.

This paper will discuss how women preachers’ memoirs and biographies during the Second Great Awakening use the book of Jonah to justify their right to preach. Nancy Towle (1796–1876), Elleanor Knight (1799–1822), Salome Lincoln (1807–1841), and Jarena Lee (1873–1864) use Jonah to defend their right to preach, paralleling their own resistance to their call to preach with Jonah’s resistance to prophesy to Nineveh. The memoirs and biographies of female preachers function as apologies for their right to preach. Biblical women serve as the foundation for their right to preach. For example, Nancy Towle points to women who speak to their communities. If a woman in the Bible can speak to their community, then Christian women can preach. Towle, Knight, Lincoln, and Lee interweave their story with Jonah’s story when they describe the consequences for their resistance to preach. Nancy Towle uses Jonah’s wish for death (Jonah 4:8) to describe the inner turmoil she experiences when she refused to preach. The misery she experiences by not preaching emphasizes that her ministry comes from God, and not from her own self-glorification. Knight, Lincoln, and Lee all invoke Jonah’s flight to Tarshish to describe their own resistance to preach. When Elleanor Knight resisted the duty she felt to speak to the church, she describes that she felt like Jonah and wanted to go to another place to escape her call, like how Jonah escaped God’s call when he fled to Tarshish. In Salome Lincoln’s biography, written by Almond Davis, Lincoln did not believe that a woman should preach. In denying her divine call, like Jonah, Lincoln had fled from God’s presence. By not preaching, Lincoln had set herself outside of God’s favor. Jarena Lee’s story further emphasizes how women negotiated their right to preach. During a lackluster sermon on Jonah 2:9, Lee stood up and began to preach. She describes herself as Jonah, because she had been resisting God’s calling, and she preached to those who were as guilty as the Ninevites. Lee preached in her pew; she did not go to the pulpit. This space emphasizes another means women use to justify their right to preach. They did not want to become clergy; they only wanted to preach. By not claiming the space reserved for clergy, Lee negotiates an attainable level of authority for herself. The use of Jonah in Towle’s, Knight’s, and Lee’s memoirs and Lincoln’s biography demonstrate how women used the Bible to assert their authority. By preaching, these women transgressed social norms. They all parallel their resistance to their call to preach with Jonah’s resistance. In doing so, these women emphasize that they did not choose to preach. God called them to preach, and when they resisted, like Jonah, they experienced God’s punishment.

The paper analyzes the topos of the reversal of fortunes found in the 8th-century BCE Deir ‘Alla inscription, written in a dialect of Aramaic, by placing it in the Stream of Tradition. The theme is attested in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek literatures. To see a noble clothed in rags is a topos in Egyptian literature describing general upheaval, overturning the status of rich and poor and radical deterioration of the conditions of living. The Deir ʿAlla text reports a prophecy of doom by Balaam son of Beor, “the man who saw the gods (ʾlhn).” He announced social upheaval, and the reversal of fortunes. In the ruin of the land, the powerful ones will be demoted, In l. 9 “instead of the ewes, it is the staff that is lead”; ll. 12-13: “for the prince (lnš’) a girdle of threads” (lnšʾ. ʾzr. qrn, DNWSI 2: 763 nš’ “ruler, chief”; McCarter 1980: 56 qûrîm “threads” Isa 59:5, 6); “the respected one (now) respects (others) and the one who gave respect is (now) re[spected]” (Hackett 1984: 29). The last statement finds an earlier parallel in the Egyptian “Complaints of Khakheperre-Sonb”: “He who used to give commands is (now) one to whom commands are given” (COS I.44 Shupak 2003: 106). It dates from the 18th Dynasty (1580-1200 BCE) and is closely related to the “Admonitions of Ipuwer.” It elaborates on the theme of national distress, anarchy and social upheaval. The latter, composed during the First Intermediate period (ca. 2000 BCE), also dating to the 18th or 19th Dynasty, is concerned with ordeals and calamities of the times. The sage states: “Behold, the possessors of robes are (now) in rags, He who never wove for himself is (now) the possessor of fine linen.” (COS I: 42 Shupak 2003: 96). In Mesopotamia, at about the same time, this literary topos appears in a Sumerian letter of the Forlorn Commander (or Scholar?) where Aba-Indasa writes to King Šulgi (2094-2047 BCE) of Ur: “In my own city, where I used to dress in fine clothing, I am forced to wear dirty rags” l. 20, (Michalowski 2011: 305). In Ezek 21:26, the prophet repeats the same literary topos of social upheaval, “Remove the turban, take off the crown, things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, abase that which is high” (cf. Ezek 7:27). The Kilamuwa Aramaic inscription from Zinjirli Sam’al ca. 830 BCE, describes the positive reversal of fortunes: “Whoever from his childhood had never seen linen, now in my days wore byssos” (COS 2.31, Lawson Younger 2003: 148). In the 5th-century BCE comedies of Aristophanes in Athens, one finds the paradise-like reversal of fortunes in the return of the “Golden Age” of social justice (Luria 1929: 425). Lysistrata, 772 “All woes shall then have ending and great Zeus the Thunderer shall put above what was below before.”

In recent years, there has been a growing focus on Septuagint (LXX) lexicography, unveiling both the introduction of new terms and the evolution of meanings or applications of existing ones. Within this current research trend, this paper will focus on terms associated with the concept of “life,” including ζωή, ζάω, ζῳογονέω, ζωοποιέω, and ζωοποίησις. It will first elucidate these nouns and verbs in their meanings and uses before delving into instances where the LXX employs these terms, by diverging from the supposed Hebrew Vorlage. Additionally, this paper will highlight new or specific uses of these terms within the LXX, alongside any neologisms present. Through this examination, the study aims to enrich our understanding of the linguistic context of the LXX and to shed light on some of its exegetical features.

Early Jesus adherents are well-known for reading each other’s mail. Throughout the first few centuries of Christian collectives developing and spreading across the ancient Mediterranean, Jesus adherents sent, received, and shared letters with one another, often writing collectively from one assembly to another, (co)writing to an assembly, or writing from one individual to another. Studies on the production and circulation of letters by Jesus adherents in the ancient Mediterranean tend to focus either on how the first audience of a specific letter may have reacted to the text in their historical context, or on how a letter was incorporated into early Christian letter collections, codices, liturgies, or early canon lists from the second to the fourth centuries. Between an epistle’s original or first audience and its placement in a collection of early Christian literature are a few steps in an epistle’s extended biography—namely, its rereading within the recipient community and its distribution to other readers and communities. The latter of these two steps is more easily recognizable and discoverable in early Christian literature since Jesus adherents often requested the circulation of letters (and other books) between communities. However, the rereading of a particular letter within its recipient community is often overlooked, even though such rereading seems to be significant to the eventual codification and reverence given to texts like the Pauline epistles. Why would early Jesus adherents reread their mail? What does it mean not only to share one’s mail with other Christian collectives, but to continually return to pieces of mail that the collective itself had received in the years, decades, or centuries before? What effect might the rereading of mail within its recipient community have, and for whom did it matter? The epistolary repertoire of Corinth—and especially between Corinth and Rome—are a rarity in how they preserve a small glimpse into (re)reading culture within a single community over the span of roughly 120 years. My exploration will be broken into three parts. First, I will survey reading practices in Christian collectives of the first two centuries CE in order to lay the groundwork for understanding the rereading of mail in a single community. Second, I will explore how some ancient Mediterranean authors discussed the purpose of rereading and what value encountering a text multiple times might have. Finally, I will turn to the extended Corinthian correspondence of the first two centuries CE (1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 1 Clement, Soter of Rome’s letter preserved by Dionysius of Corinth) in order to consider how the social reality of a “Corinthian church” is constantly under constructed and in need of maintenance and reshaping.

This panel aims to showcase some of the recent investigations into the Septuagint vocabulary that are conducted according to the methodology of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint (HTLS). HTLS is a collective and interdisciplinary project, a multi-volume dictionary on the most significant terms or word groups attested in the Septuagint Bible. Each term is analyzed within six sections: Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greek; papyri and inscriptions; the Septuagint and its Hebrew equivalents; Jewish literature in Greek; the New Testament; and early Christian literature. The aim is to investigate meanings, usages, and possible semantic evolutions of these significant words. Therefore, HTLS is a useful tool for the in-depth study of the Septuagint from both philological, historical, and exegetical perspectives. HTLS plans to release four volumes for the Mohr Siebeck publishing house in Tübingen. The first volume, which includes over 150 articles on terms beginning with the letters from alpha to gamma, was made available in 2020. The second volume, which includes the letters delta to iota, is in preparation.

Both in the book of Judith and in its reception, the decapitation of Holofernes plays a pivotal role. This paper investigates the decapitation in the context of other similar scenes in Jewish narrative storytelling. Using a multiple masculinity approach, this study argues that these stories about the infliction of head trauma both establish Israel as a seemingly un-masculine character, and depict Israel’s opponents as typically masculine figures. They then flip these depictions on their head, revealing that the initial impression was wrong. As a result, they destabilize what it means to be masculine and reinvent Israel’s identity in the process.

The ancient Israelites had an experience and conceptualization of an interior and invisible self and an exterior visible body that were distinct but related realities. This mind-body dualism appears to be a human universal, although how cultures further subcategorize ‘mind’ varies widely. For example, the reason-emotion distinction in Western culture does not appear clearly in biblical literature. All humans perceive minds and bodies as different. The neural systems that perceive our own bodies and minds are not integrated in the brain, and our minds become aware of them as different realities. As we look at others, we can see only their bodies, but people across cultures strive to predict other’s behavior through theory of mind and mentalization (reading the minds of others). The blend of pregnancy-birth and thought-action appears in Hebrew to articulate the idea that interior mental states shape external actions. Modern psychological research has rightly highlighted the integration of mind and body, and the present paper assumes cognitive linguistics, embodied cognition, and related areas of psychological science. The conceptual integration of mind and body must overcome an intuitive sense of dualism that shapes both biblical and Western understandings of humans. The present paper will correlate biblical Hebrew texts on the self with modern psychological research on how humans experience and conceptualize the human person in a context of growing misunderstanding of human psychology in the biblical field (e.g., denial of dualism and interiority in Hebrew thought).

Modern theories of ritual sacrifice have traditionally centered on violence and death. F.S. Naiden (Smoke Signals for the Gods) has exposed the extent to which religious scholars and anthropologists have worked backwards from Jesus’s crucifixion and in so doing, have imported strands of Christian atonement theology (especially aspects of penal substitution) into ancient Mediterranean sacrifice. As Naiden and other specialists in ancient Mediterranean religions have demonstrated, however, ritual sacrifice operates primarily within the bounds of gift exchange, in which the slaughter of a sacrificial victim is, at best, an ancillary feature of the ritual. Death is not the main event, as it were. In this paper, I wish to challenge the assumption that the function of sacrificial imagery in ancient Jewish martyrdom literature is to encode the martyr’s death as her/his sacrifice. This assumption, I will argue, has its origins in the quest to find a Jewish (i.e., “pre-Christian”) concept of sacrifice-as-death (and as punishment for sin), to which New Testament scholars may then appeal as the “background” to understanding Jesus’s death. My contention is that the sacrificial imagery in early Jewish martyrdom traditions operates by a traditional theology of sacrifice—namely, that sacrifice encodes the worshippers gifting themselves back to the life-giving God and thus functions to attract and maintain the divine presence (e.g., Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and Temple, 51–73). After surveying instances of this theology in ancient Jewish literature (e.g., Philo, Let. Aris., LAB), I examine how it influences discourses on the death of martyrs and other righteous suffers (e.g., Wis 3:5–8; Pr Azar; b. Ber. 61b). My conclusion is that the writers of this literature deploy sacrificial imagery as a rhetorical device to underscore that the God of Israel accepts the gift of the martyr: not death but whole devotion of the self.

On the heels of the Revolutionary War and the signing of the Treaty of Big Tree, Seneca nation experienced some of its darkest days—the onset of American colonization. Ray Fadden describes it as “a time when they were so oppressed by the greed and duplicity of white people who swarmed about them that they had all but given up the struggle for national existence and resigned themselves to forgetfulness in the rum bottle.” Chief Ganiodaiio, more commonly known as Handsome Lake, emerged during this time as a prophet and seer. Through a series of visionary warnings, Ganiodaiio is given a set of teachings that urge the Senecas to abandon the ways of the white people and to return to a Native lifestyle. In a surprisingly unique scene, Ganiodaiio encounters a wounded Jesus on one of his journeys. In fact, the wounds he sees are so fresh that Ganiodaiio describes them as still wet with blood. The two offer a few pleasantries before Jesus warns: “I tried to tell them the will of the Creator. See what they did to me. These wounds are still raw.” Jesus’s message to Ganiodaiio is clear. The ways of white people are bloody. John of Patmos, in the book of Revelation, encounters a similar vision of Jesus: a bloodied and slaughtered lamb. Four times John depicts Jesus as a slaughtered lamb (5:6, 9, 12; 13:8) and four times he references his blood (1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11). Rome, it seems, is just as violent as the American colonizers. John likewise warns his audience about the dangers of assimilation and implores his people to withdraw from all forms of imperial participation. This paper explores how both John of Patmos and Ganiodaiio draw on a particular tradition of a Jesus—a bloody Jesus—to negotiate their colonization. I argue that their visions of a wounded Jesus remind their respective audiences that they must not forget or look away from the wounds of those who have suffered violence at the hands of empire. Neither John nor Ganiodaiio want their audiences to forget that Jesus died a violent death at the hands of imperial powers. Post-resurrection, his wounds are still visible. Assimilation is risky business. For John of Patmos and Ganiodaiio, the world is a bloody mess.

It has long been recognized that the Pentateuchal Priestly source uses a distinctive expression to describe the making of covenants: to establish (hqym) a covenant, compared to the more common idiom of “cutting” (krt) a covenant. However, there is another peculiarity associated with P’s use of this expression: it makes use of the same hiphil verb as an idiom used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, but it uses it in a different sense. The Priestly expression hqym bryt means to establish a new covenant, but elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible hqym is used to describe the “upholding” or later enactment of a promise that has already been made. In this paper, I will discuss the distinctiveness of the Priestly idiom, which is underscored by boundary cases in the Holiness Code and Ezekiel, and connect the semantic challenges of the Priestly and non-Priestly expressions with another linguistic phenomenon: the gradual replacement of the hiphil hqym with the piel verb qyym in expressions related to the completion of speech-acts in later forms of Hebrew. On a methodological level, I will argue for the use of conceptual metaphors not only as windows into the conceptual landscapes of the speakers of an ancient language, but also as potential markers of diachronic change.

This paper aims to read comparatively, and generatively, the human social subject from the perspective of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and Reshe’s Negative Psychoanalysis for the Living Dead (2023) aiming to shed a different light on the former: What does the Epistle to the Romans look like when “salvation” is suspended? For both writers there is no cure for the lack at the core of the human subject. Following Stendhal and the Paul within Judaism school, this paper starts from the position that Paul points to the universal lack at the core of humans as a way to counteract Gentile pride over their Jewish siblings. This paper will read Paul’s argument about “dying with Christ”(6:8) within a Jewish Apocalyptic framework, where he is calling the Gentiles et al to show mercy (12:1) to one another as God has done (11:32, ἐλεήσῃ). This passing of death to life with Christ frees the subject to be faithful and just across differences (6:18). Reading Romans 6, the subject is not free to make a heroic choice for justice, but rather, the death-drive frees the subject to experience a variety of affects stuck to certain cultural objects allowing the subject to take up various cultural positions. As Reshe articulates, “There is no subject at the beginning. The subject only exists in a negative dialectical relationship to society. This implies that there is no nonsocial subject, no subject prior to socialisation. The subject is always already a social subject.” The subject exists (or insists) at the point where both the subject and society are illusive. “Self only exists in this process of prosocial self-negation.” The freed subject happens parallel to the death-drive. In Paul’s formulation, subjects “having been set free from sin, [have] become slaves to righteousness,” (6:18) or living faithfully and righteously with one another. The negativity of the death-drive makes possible the way a variety of affects may stick to social artifacts and rituals. Opening one’s self to the surprise and danger of the other, especially with the (self-)negating force of the death-drive is foundational to the formation of the subject. When the inclusion of difference is risky business, subjecthood becomes momentarily possible. The ability to reduce the stickiness of singular affects with respect to their objects (i.e., how a Jew or Gentile feels about Torah) in order to experience a variety of affects in relation to common objects (Paul making a positive case for Torah to Gentiles in Romans 5-7) is key to this universal subject. Such a subjecthood offers a painful freedom to the individual without much benefit for the subject. Yet, such a subject would be easier to live with for the other.

Jesus is mocked (and physically abused) several times in the synoptic passion narratives. When he is already crucified, ironic utterances such as, “Come down from the cross, if you are the son of God!” (Matt 27:39; cf. Mark 15:31–32; Luke 23:25–36) question his identity. In this paper, I analyze the motif of mockery in the synoptic passion narratives against the background of mockery in the Septuagint and in ancient rhetorical and philosophical texts. I show that the texts of the Gospels undermine mockery in three ways: through intertextual allusion, irony and the absence of the victim’s response. These three textual functions have the effect that mockery recoils on the offender, which is consistent with the exposure of the mockers in Wisdom literature and Quintilian’s assessment that, “in the courts as elsewhere it is regarded as inhuman to hit a man when he is down, either because he is the innocent victim of misfortune or because such attacks may recoil on those who make them” (Quint. Inst. 6,3,28). The comparison of speech acts of mockery in the Gospels with ancient sources is illuminated by Judith Butler’s actualization of speech act theory. She emphasizes the gap between a speech act and its effect, thus offering a way to undermine violent speech that can be compared to the textual representations of mockery in the Gospels.

[For topic B] The Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1–9) is often described as the most difficult of Jesus’s parables to interpret. In particular, Jesus’s command to make friends from worldly wealth has appeared morally reprehensible to readers across the centuries. Especially in the Greco-Roman world, the utilitarian friendships arising from such an arrangement were often regarded as inferior to those based on virtue and shared between social equals (e.g., Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.3; Cicero, De amic. 9.29; 13.46–47; 27.100). From an economic perspective, however, the equal friendships idealized by Aristotle and Cicero perpetuate the concentration of wealth among those who already possess it. One encounters a different approach to utility and friendship in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, where seemingly crass application of economic reasoning to personal friendships both motivates moral transformation (Danzig 2017) and encourages the flow of resources to people who need them (Berkel 2010). Jesus’s command to make friends from worldly wealth in Luke 16:9 functions similarly. At the same time, the friendships in Xenophon’s Memorabilia and the Parable of the Unjust Steward are not perfectly parallel. In the former, sharing material resources establishes “friendships” that are in fact patron-client relationships. Such relationships theoretically facilitated the flow of material resources from wealthy patrons to poor clients (Verboven 2002), but the friendships established in the Parable of the Unjust Steward break the mold of patron-client relationships. These non-patronage friendships offer an alternative system for promoting the flow of material resources to people of lower status.

The 2020 onset of the Covid-19 pandemic changed the world as we know it, reminding the world of the destructive power of disease, the frailty of life, and the value of human connection. This presentation will use the famous threefold hermeneutical division—the world behind the text, the world within the text, and the world in front of the text—as a point of departure for exploring how our collective experience of the pandemic has affected how readers perceive biblical texts about disease, death, and disconnection and how the biblical studies classroom can capitalize on the shared pandemic experience to help students connect with a wider range of biblical texts and the ideas expressed within them. First, we will look at three specific texts that portray the experience of disease and its concomitant social isolation: the law governing communicable diseases (Leviticus 13–14), the prayer of the despondent sick person (Psalm 38), and the healing of the leper at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry (Mark 1:40–45). Second, we will explore how the world behind these three texts overlaps with the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, we will look at how students can build on their pandemic experience to engage biblical texts and the salient themes present in them and so develop not only their biblical knowledge but also their capacity for solidarity, compassion, and emotional intelligence.

This is an approved presentation of the Institute for Biblical Research.

Here I wish to trace the various lives of a single manuscript—the “cut Bible” of John G. Fee, who, along with Matilda Fee, founded Berea College. At the base of the story is a rather typical King James Bible, printed in Philadelphia in the early 1800s. This Bible, noteworthy for what it contained and for what it did not contain, went through a sequence of identities. In its first life, it was the Bible at the center of a slaveholding family, that of John Fee, Sr. of Kentucky, who signed the Bible. Among the objects found in this Bible was a short family history and a slave list. In its second stage of life, the Bible became the property of his estranged son, John G. Fee, who was an abolitionist minister. John G. Fee signed the Bible and marked two passages in pencil, both serving as potential names for the new college he envisioned. During this period, John G. Fee cut out some forty passages from the Bible. In its third stage of life the Bible served as a family heirloom. Its history was traced from generation to generation in a note in the Bible. In its fourth stage Fee’s family gave the Bible to the archives of Berea College in its centennial year. From this transition, two new traits emerged. First, the Bible was now cited as evidence of Fee’s radical abolitionist stance, bolstered by the story that he removed all the passages supporting slavery. Secondly, the Bible became a part of the academic rituals of the college, leading the faculty procession for opening ceremonies and for graduation. In its fifth stage, the Bible was subjected to page-by-page analysis by a biblical scholar. The cut passages were examined and recorded, then the legend of cut slave passages laid to rest. A variety of passages with differing themes were shown to be cut, likely for use in teaching and preaching. Thus, the passages were likely not purged, but collected for use. In its fifth stage, the Bible was saved from an amateurish plan to clean it. The cut passages and the added notes were photographed, digitized, and published. The Fee Cut Bible was then taken out of circulation, but still used, bound in ribbon within a protective box, for college ceremonies.

This paper is a comparative analysis of valuations of virility in circumstances pertaining to the worship of various ancient Mediterranean mother goddesses, with relative focus on Cybele in Greek and Roman (as Magna Mater) cultural contexts. Divergent valuations within individual cultic manifestations are readily apparent in the form of close associates of the goddess: her male lion companions, symbols of pronounced virility, and, in stark contrast, her galli or eunuch priests, who seemingly autonomously had forfeited their virility through self-emasculation for sake of devotion to her. The goddess maintained dominance over both sets of associates, thus suggesting in disparate but complementary ways transference of functional aspects of virility to the goddess herself. Such ambiguity with regard to the relationship of gender to questions of virility is similarly suggested by the origin myths of the goddess and her consort, Attis (and parallels), and of the interconnection between goddess and consort. Divergent valuations of virility are also readily apparent in the perspectives of outside observers. In both Greek and Roman cultural contexts, the evidence indicates high valuation of virility, such that the phenomenon of the eunuch priesthood was considered objectionable or even abhorrent, as made clear by Roman legislation prohibiting such practice by citizens until centuries after the official introduction in 204 bce of Cybele (as Magna Mater) into the state pantheon. Authors such as Catullus, Lucretius, Juvenal, Lucian, and Apuleius scorned these practices, thereby indicating high valuation of virility from the general perspectives of their cultures. And yet, as mother goddess worship persisted, the ancient patterns tended to survive and to be revitalized. The establishment in Rome under Claudius of the March observances of Magna Mater, culminating in the day of blood (dies sanguinis), enhanced legitimation and cultural acceptance of the rite of self-emasculation and of the galli’s behavior. The taurobolium and cribolium, first attested in the second century ce, involved transference quite literally of virility to the goddess, with the offering of the animals’ vires as embodied in their testicles. Phenomena involving ancient Mediterranean mother goddess worship was geographically and historically diverse and the evidence is spotty, but the general tendency seems to have involved maintenance of equilibrium with regard to the goddess and valuation of virility, and to her own functional aspects thereof.

Scholars have long debated whether IOUNIAN (Acc. s.) in Rom 16:7 was female or male, but have hardly ever inquired into her legal status as enslaved, freed, or freeborn. The Latin name, preserved here in Greek, would have been the normal form for designating a woman whom a man named Junius or a woman named Junia had manumitted. Junia and Junius were nomina, that is, family or clan names for the gens Iunia, the most well-known example to today’s readers being M(arcus) Junius Brutus. While interpreters have only very rarely considered IOULIAN (Acc. s.) to be male, very few have seen her as a woman freed by a member of the gens Iulia. Other names in Romans 16 could also indicate servile origin (Nereus, Hermes, Persis, Ampliatus, Herodion, Tryphosa, Tryphaina; and possibly Asynkritos, Patrobas, Andronikos, and Philologos, on which see Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus [2003; German original, 1989]), which correlates with the high percentage of enslaved and freedpersons in 1st-C. Rome. In this paper, I first explain the Roman naming system for freeborn, freed, and enslaved persons, which helps to understand why Junia and Julia were likely freedwomen. Then I turn to the types of work that Junia and Julia may have been forced to do during their time in slavery. As women in an urban setting belonging to possibly elite persons, they might have served, for example, as a hairdresser, a cook, a wetnurse, or a reader. A hairdresser, ornatrix, would also serve as personal attendant. A reader, Latin lectrix, would read aloud to her mistress or master. A wetnurse would nurse their “owner’s” infant. In closing, I place Paul’s terming Junia “outstanding among the apostles” in the broader context of leadership by persons of enslaved origin in early communities of Christ-believers.

Where is it really “written” (γέγραπται) that the Messiah must (1) suffer, (2) rise from the dead on the third day, and that (3) repentance must be preached to all nations in his name (Luke 24:44–47; cf. 24:25–27)? Despite the foundational importance of this claim for early Christianity and for Luke’s Gospel in particular, the precise scriptural intertexts to which Luke’s Jesus appeals in these episodes have long proved evasive to scholars. The Lukan Sign of Jonah (11:29–32) has likewise proven an enigma, often functioning for scholars merely as a window onto Q rather than as an integral piece of Luke’s Christology and scriptural interpretation. Today most commentators hold that it refers exclusively to Jonah’s preaching. However, a neglected thread of patristic interpretation ties these two Lukan texts together, identifying the Sign of Jonah with the entire sequence claimed by the risen Jesus to be written of the Messiah: death, resurrection on the third day, and the subsequent proclamation of repentance to all nations. This paper briefly traces this neglected patristic view in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, Hilary’s Commentary on Matthew, Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron, and the ps.-Chrysostomic Quod mari similis sit haec vita. Then, it uncovers neglected verbal connections between Greek Jonah, the Sign of Jonah pericope, and the dominical opening of the Scriptures (Luke 24:44–47) which reinforce this patristic opinion. Concluding that Greek Jonah (via the Sign of Jonah pericope) is the key intertext for the Lukan Jesus’s opening of the scriptures, this paper recovers and re-presents a patristic view of Luke’s Sign of Jonah different from any on offer in contemporary scholarship. These conclusions demonstrate (1) the influence of Jesus of Nazareth’s inheritance and reading of Israel’s scriptures on their reception in early Christianity; (2) the importance of typological approaches to scriptural narrative for early Christian kerygmatic claims; and (3) the influence of the Greek OT on early Christian scriptural interpretation.

While Augustine’s impact upon Western theology, and later medieval formulations of mystical theology, remains uncontested, whether or not Augustine himself was a mystic has been a live question. This paper will examine the mystical thought in Augustine, focusing on his vision in Ostia in Confessions 9, and will propose a brief synthesis of the main themes in his oeuvre that are associated with his mystical thought. These main themes include: the three stages of Plotinian ascent, the vision of God and sensory language in describing divine union, the integration of the affect and intellect, and the ecclesial and Christological context. It has been contended, among other reasons, that the absence of the language of divine union in Augustine excludes him from the category of a mystic. This paper will posit that Augustine deliberately avoided the Plotinian language of union in his works, and will propose that the topic of the vision of God replaced the language of union in his formulations. If this is so, then Augustine’s references to his own conceptualization of union in his own choice of sensory and ecclesial language would imply a deep focus on traditional themes in Christian mysticism, rather than their absence. This paper will argue that Augustine not only laid the groundwork for future medieval mystical theology, but was himself a mystic, who not only had, but believed that all Christians could have, deeply spiritual and personal experiences of God. This study will investigate the background and context of spirituality and mysticism in Augustine, as well as explore the topic of defining mysticism. An analysis of the vision in Ostia will focus on the major themes of the three stages of Plotinian ascent, the language of divine union, the vision of God, the use of sensory language, the use of a holistic approach integrating the affect and the Incarnation, and the Christological and ecclesiological context of union with God. This study will demonstrate that: Augustine’s approach is highly integrative of both affect and intellect; that he has recounted more than one personal mystical experience, and furthermore, that ordinary mystical experiences do not need to entail exceptional experiences of religious ecstasy; that the concept expressed by the term “union” is conveyed in different language choices; and that Augustine deliberately avoided an interpretation of union outside the ecclesial context for multiple reasons. This study will suggest that Augustine was exceptionally mystical, and highly concentrated upon achieving, understanding, and helping others to attain union with God, and will then suggest avenues for further research. Augustine has been understood as “the Father of Mysticism,” and much evidence supports the proposition that he did have a direct experience of God.

It has been said that Proverbs “shows no awareness of the social problems and conflicts which are so evident in the teaching of the pre-exilic prophets.” [1] However, this paper will demonstrate that Proverbs in fact does exhibit acute awareness of these social problems and conflicts and that it endeavors for change by utilizing a particular pedagogical strategy and theological lens. Through an examination of terms of wealth, poverty, power, and powerlessness in Proverbs 28–29 and an exegetical look at the compositional framing sayings of this collection, this paper will propose particular social settings for the collection and argue that Proverbs 28–29 reflects an attentiveness to these settings in its instruction. The social settings observed in Proverbs 28–29 can provide insight for interpretation and for gaining further insight on potential pedagogical strategies employed in the collection for inspiration, motivation, and instruction. The paper approaches the question of social settings from two angles. First, it will examine the צדיק/רשׁע sayings which frame the collection in Proverbs 28–29 to determine if there are any insights into the social setting at a redactional level. To accomplish this, I will address how certain sayings in Proverbs 28–29, which have an inherent act-and-consequence lens, relate to the wicked/just contrasts and their implied social settings. Second, I will further examine all the terms within this collection that relate to wealth, poverty and power and will consider what those terms, and the sayings that house them, communicate about the social realities behind the text. One important tool for this study comes from a new and significant understanding of the concept of deeds that carry inherent consequences which can be seen in the text. Launching from Klaus Koch’s theory of Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang,[2] I have developed a viable alternative to divine retribution in the Hebrew Bible called the Deed-Destiny nexus (DDN). Building off of my previous research, which through close exegetical work in Proverbs and Hosea demonstrated the presence of this conceptual framework in the biblical text, I come to the question of wealth and poverty in Proverbs 28–29 with a new pedagogical and hermeneutical perspective. This paper contends that the DDN perspective, directed towards an audience of middle-ground socio-economic status would thus serve as a powerful motivational and pedagogical tool for social change. [1]R.N. Whybray, Wealth and Poverty in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1990) 22–23, fn2 [2] Klaus Koch, “Gibt es ein Vergeltungsdogma im Alten Testament?“ in Um Das Prinzip Der Vergeltung in Religion Und Recht Des Alten Testaments. Koch, Klaus, ed. Wege Der Forschung, Band Cxxv, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972); James Crenshaw, ed. Theodicy in the Old Testament, Issues in Religion and Theology, 4 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).

The Vulgate of Judith, like that of Tobit, is said by Jerome to have been translated from a "Chaldean" (i.e. Aramaic) Vorlage. The Vulgate version of these deuterocanonical books do in fact convey unique readings, and these readings significantly reshape both works. However, it has been shown that both works are "also" revisions of the Old Latin versions of these books. Specifically in the case of Judith, an emblematic example of the reception of a unique OL reading occurs in Jdt 10:5 Vg. As the heroine prepares to leave for the Assyrian camp, she "loads" her maid with choice food to take with her. Judith's food in the OL and Vg also includes "cheese." At first sight, this element seems merely prosaic, apparently irrelevant to the story, even in the Vulgate. However, in the process of rediscovering the ancient Jewish apocrypha in the Middle Ages, including Judith, the unique reading of Jdt 10:5 Vg has a remarkable impact. The Vulgate version of Judith is in fact reworked in the composition of various medieval Hebrew versions of the story and many other midrashim. These medieval texts mark a turning point in the way the Jewish festival of Hannukah is celebrated to this day. In this paper we will discuss the reception and impact of a unique Latin reading of Judith in medieval Judaism via Jerome's Vulgate. To this end, we will first discuss from a text-critical point of view the development, meaning and significance of Jdt 10:5 Vg in relation to the textual tradition of Judith. Secondly, we will assess the reception of this Vulgate reading of Judith in the medieval Hebrew texts and its impact on these versions. The reception of the Vulgate within Judaism in the often turbulent times of the Middle Ages illustrates a contrasting aspect of the Jewish-Christian relations in this period.

This paper and presentation seeks to explore different ways in which professors can engage with their asynchronous online students in a more holistic manner. Online students have three general areas of need in their educational experience: 1) community with their professors and peers, 2) connection with God and with others outside the virtual world and 3) clarity in assignment instructions and feedback. Although professors may think they are simply looking at and engaging a screen, whether it is a learning management system, Zoom, Teams, or another form of virtual meeting spaces, there is a different person on the receiving end, looking at their own screen. They have their own story, dreams, goals, life circumstances, and reasons for pursuing higher education. As professors, it is our responsibility to create opportunities and spaces where students can be engaged in a more holistic manner.

In the lament poetry of Jeremiah and in Lamentations, the speaker is often unnamed or unclear, and multiple scholars have attempted to decipher the subject of the action. Rabbinic readings of Jeremiah have interpreted the ambiguity of the subject strategically, with numerous texts casting God as speaker or prime subject, and others instead naming Jeremiah. For the rabbis, the lack of clarity about the identity of the speaker or messenger becomes a part of the message itself. Is God or Jeremiah speaking, mourning, weeping, suffering? A number of rabbinic texts would answer that it is both. These readings sit comfortably with the ambiguity of the speaker instead of trying to parse out who is speaking to the exclusion of the other. This paper will examine one such text from Eichah Zuta’s interpretation of Lamentations 1:2 in which the rabbis identify God with Jeremiah and vice versa. It considers how the rabbis use that ambiguity as the basis for their theological interpretation of God’s actions; the unnamed speaker of the biblical text can serve as a rhetorical device for making a theological point. The paper argues that the deeply personal nature of Jeremiah’s prophetic message allows the rabbis to render a more intimate portrayal of God as well. When Jeremiah expresses his emotions, the rabbis understand it to also convey the emotions of God. Jeremiah grieves over the pending devastation of his homeland but ultimately is the one to administer the cup of wrath to Jerusalem, as he does in the biblical text, enacting divine judgment. God, having just forced Jeremiah to do this against his will, immediately raises a lament and ultimately goes into exile alongside Israel; the section ends with God’s assertion that he will not rejoice again until Israel is brought back from exile. For the rabbis, God’s wrath is mitigated by his literary identification with Jeremiah and with the people. Eichah Zuta, moreover, highlights the literary potential that lament brings to a theological reading of the Hebrew Bible. The ambiguities of the poetic language in Jeremiah’s lament and the book of Lamentations portrays a suffering and sorrowing deity, a God who mourns with Jeremiah the devastation of Jerusalem even as he is the cause of that devastation, and who bears alongside Israel the judgment that Jeremiah pours out.

For open session. The examination of the quantitative dimensions of Jewish existence outside their native land during the Hellenistic era presents inherent methodological challenges. However, it is widely acknowledged that a significant proportion, and potentially the majority, of the Jewish diaspora populace found themselves in this situation as a result of enslavement or forced relocation. Surprisingly, the implications of this reality for Jewish life in the diaspora have received only limited attention in previous scholarship. Yet, for the thousands of Jews residing as slaves in non-Jewish households, their circumstances likely imposed limitations on various aspects of Jewish observance, including the observance of the Sabbath and the ability to partake in religious pilgrimages. Additionally, historical sources indicate that the preservation of certain Jewish dietary practices was severely constrained within the context of slavery under non-Jewish ownership. In such isolated circumstances, a Jewish way of life would have necessitated negotiation in accordance with the prevailing living conditions. This paper aims to investigate, through a meticulous examination of diverse documentary and literary sources, the implications of these circumstances for our comprehension of diaspora Judaism. While certain conclusions must be drawn from general sources on ancient slavery, explicit insights into the challenges of negotiating Jewish life while in a state of slavery can be derived from the works of Josephus and Philo.

It has long been recognized that the title “the Egyptian Gospel” or “Gospel of the Egyptians” found in the colophon of one version of the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (NHC III 69,6) is a secondary addition, and that the work’s proper title is precisely the one that designates it a “holy book” (hiera biblos / jôôme etouaab) of the Great Invisible Spirit. Little scholarly attention has so far been lavished on the notion of a “holy book” and what it means for our understanding of the text. For Jews and Christians, hiera biblos was a designation for the Bible, for the latter group also including the New Testament. In Greek religion, hierai bibloi are generally the written versions of hieroi logoi, containing cult-myths and/or rituals, and very often indicating secret texts pertaining to mystery cults; their authors are nearly exclusively either anonymous or legendary figures, such as Orpheus. So too, in our text the author is purportedly the patriarch Seth himself who placed it in a mountain for it to be discovered only at the end of times, and the text contains both a myth of creation and the establishment of the immovable race of Seth, as well as baptismal hymns for ritual use.

This paper explores the peculiar function of the adjective θεόπνευστος in the formation of the Pauline corpus. The notion of divine inspiration in 2 Tim 3:16 refers to the Scriptures themselves, in contrast to the custom in other sources that focus on the inspiration of authors who lend authority to the texts they write (Mos. 2,290–291; 2 Pet 3:18–21). While most commentators note the uniqueness of θεόπνευστος in the New Testament, they overlook its coincidence with a new way of characterizing scriptural inspiration. The concept of inspiration is usually considered a locus classicus in 2 Timothy, all the more so in the eschatological context of 2 Tim 3. However, it is no longer the inspiration of the author that ensures the quality of the text. Instead, it is the divine inspiration of the text that serves to equip someone, the “person of God” (2 Tim 3:17; τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος). How does one explain this shift? To answer this question, this paper will first show that ancient conceptions of inspiration generally emphasize the way in which exceptional people are divinely inspired. Second, it will present the other occurrences of θεόπνευστος (Sib. Or. 5,308,406; Ps.-Phoc. 129; T. Ab. A. 20:11), which show that, with the exception of the Pseudo-Phocylides occurrence, the term may be closely related to the change from authors to texts described in 2 Timothy. Third, it will conclude that the author uses a new word - θεόπνευστος - to deal with the appearance of a collection of Pauline letters whose status as normative writings becomes more significant than that of Paul himself.

In the opening chapter of Samuel, readers meet multiple characters, two of which take center stage for the scene: Hannah and Eli. Hannah, desperate due to her barrenness and the taunting she receives from Peninnah, presents herself before the LORD. As she cries out to the LORD, Eli, who sits nearby and observes her, presumes that she is drunk. Readers, however, know that she is rather expressing her deep longing and her trust in the LORD to hear her and to answer her. The situation thus requires interpretation. Readers, having been guided by the narrator thus far, interpret Hannah’s actions positively, while Eli interprets them negatively. His interpretation might seem sensible or at least sympathetic to readers in the “real world”; what else might her actions possibly demonstrate? However, this interpretation takes place within a particular narrative world. How does his interpretation fit within that frame of reference? This paper will explore how the narrative constraints to this opening scene push readers toward a more maximal interpretation of the narrator’s characterization of Hannah and Eli. Within the narrative of Samuel, Hannah’s thoughts, statements, and actions reveal her to be one who deeply trusts the LORD not only to be able to address her situation but to be willing to do so. Within this narrative, she knows something that she might not be expected to know. Likewise, Eli’s thoughts, statements, and actions reveal him to be one who is out of sync with and ignorant of the agenda of the LORD. Despite his priestly status, he does not perceive the things of God that are taking place around him. He does not know something that he should know. The narrator's presentation of these characters therefore opens readers to the priorities of the subsequent narrative. Those who are attuned to the presence of the LORD tend to have insight into the things of which they should be ignorant, and those who are out of sync with or oppositional to the presence of the LORD tend to lack insight where they should have it.

In his al-Kashshaf, the 6th/12th century exegete al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1144) notes the presence of a relatively obscure rhetorical feature in the Qur’an called al-laff wa’l-nashr (featured in a 1968 study by Wansbrough). This feature takes two main forms: (i) a form of chiasmus where correlations are established between two sets of nouns and adjectives; and (ii) a form of ‘double reading’, where a clause must be understood in two different ways simultaneously. This rhetorical device, originally called ‘tafsir’, first emerged in studies of secular rhetoric, but was then identified in 5th/11th century as being present in Q. 28 (al-Qasas) 73. Al-Zamakhshari’s identification only a few decades later of two further examples, in Q. 2 (al-Baqara) 185 and Q. 30 (al-Rum) 23, shows that he was responding to recent developments in the study of Arabic language and rhetoric. By the time al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505) wrote his K. al-Itqan fi ‘ulum al-Qur’an, the number of examples of al-laff wa’l-nashr had expanded to eight, now including: Q. 2 (al-Baqara) 111, 187 and 214; Q. 3 (Al ‘Imran) 106-107; Q. 17 (al-Isra’) 29; and Q. 93 (al-Duha’) 6-11. After a brief overview of the rhetorical device and the examples found in the Qur’an by al-Zamakhshari and al-Suyuti, this paper will provide a survey of tafsir works from the intervening period to see the extent of the reception of this rhetorical device. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210), who relies fairly heavily on al-Zamkhshari’s al-Kashshaf (even though disagreeing with him on many aspects of theology), does not refer to the device in his Mafatih al-ghayb; raising the question of how this device was used and the extent to which al-Zamakhshari’s identification of al-laff wa’l-nashr was received in the tafsir tradition that came after him. Are certain types of exegetes more likely to discuss al-laff wa’l-nashr? Or is the interest in the device broader? At what point in time do we see the examples cited by al-Suyuti emerge in the tafsir tradition? With only eight examples identified in the Qur’an, the relative obscurity of al-laff wa’l-nashr presents us with an interesting opportunity to see how the tafsir tradition developed between the 12th and 15th centuries and the connections made between different works of tafsir. It may even be possible to trace ‘genealogies’ of tafsir and to understand who was reading whom. Wansbrough, John, “Arabic rhetoric and Qur’anic exegesis,” BSOAS 31 (1968): 469-85

Initial study of water-based Egyptian magic and execration rituals and water-based ritual texts in Exodus suggests a possible relationship between the two. We present an exploration into this relationship with a goal for identifying key similarities and differences between the two collections, and the implications that such connections might have for our interpretation of the biblical texts. The Exodus narratives contain numerous accounts of signs, wonders, and ritual power, with Exodus 32 being one of the more infamous. In many instances, water plays an important role in the mechanics of the act of magic or as a result of the wonder itself. Additionally, there appears to be a relationship between water-based Egyptian magic and execration rituals and the ritual/magical use of water in Exodus 32. We present an exploration into this topic that will first consider Exodus 32 in the context of other Pentateuchal water-based texts (e.g., poured water in Exodus 4, water turned into blood in Exodus 7, crossing the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14, water from a struck rock in Exodus 15, and beyond Exodus, the ordeal that involves mixing dirt and ink in water in Numbers 5). Similarly, there are many occurrences in ancient Egypt of magical practice involving the use of water. The spells from the Pyramid Texts, the ‘Crossing of the Lake’ ritual, healing texts, stories from the Westcar Papyrus, and the use of the Horus cippi are evidence of such connection between magic and water. In considering the similarities and differences between these Pentateuchal and Egyptian texts and the place that Exodus 32 occupies within that context, we intend to present an interpretation of the Golden Calf narrative that is better informed than it would be if considered with a more limited contextual scope. Source criticism and literary issues are noted when relevant but are not the central focus of this research. Overall, this paper suggests that water is not just a detail of the narratives but can be situated in the context of magic/ritual (namely, with many points of interest with ancient Egyptian magic).

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the ancient dossier of evidence usually called “Gnostic” is the lengthy descriptions of the celestial world as a place populated by “aeons” (literally “eternities”), sometimes referred to a “pleroma” (“fullness”). Put simply, we know that the Gnostics liked to talk about aeons and fullnesses. Most scholarship on the Gnostic aeons has focused on the question of its relationship to Hellenistic and late ancient deities named “aeon” in contexts as diverse as Mithraism, the Hermetica, and the Greek Magical Papyri. While such studies can be erudite, they have proven unable to establish any clear link between the Gnostic aeonologies and the various “aeon” deities of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. The origin of the Gnostic aeons remains mysterious, as does the function of this terminology. This paper will focus on the function of aeons in Irenaeus’s dossier on the thought of the Valentinian Ptolemy; the Valentinian Tripartite Tractate found in the Coptic manuscript Nag Hammadi Codex I; and the Secret Book of John, with reference to Middle Platonic debate about the Plato’s Theory of Forms. It will be argued that aeons do what Platonic Forms do: offer immaterial, invisible causes for material, visible phenomena. Such an evaluation invites us to revisit A. D. Nock’s old dictum that Gnosticism is “Platonism run wild,” especially with respect to recent research on Plotinus’s relationship with Gnostic literature, especially treatise 33 (Ennead 2.9).

I use a few methods to implement Lang’s small teaching philosophy in my biblical studies classes, which I would like to share with others in a presentation with handouts. First, in order to initiate belonging, in the first class I ask students to find a permanent seat by the end of that week. I then create a seating chart using their names and I memorize it. For the rest of the semester, I refer to students by name during class time, even in classes with 30 students. Another way I increase student belonging is to highlight during class the university sport teams who won recently or will compete that week and congratulate students participating in that sport. I also incorporate in the first 2 weeks multiple practice sessions. I demonstrate a skill in a 5-minute session and students follow along on their computers if desired. I demo how to use the Canvas site, how to access the library’s online materials, how to use the Logos software for assignments, and how to cite properly to avoid plagiarism. Regarding retrieval practice, I use end-of-week in-class low-stakes short-answer and multiple-choice quizzes that require retrieval of red-colored key ideas and facts from the lectures and previous material to incorporate interleaving as well. After the quiz, I show a PPT slide of the questions and ask for students to give their answers to each and then reveal the correct answers. I require two high-stakes cumulative exams that incorporate these quiz questions. I also have students complete multiple in-class group activity worksheets that require practicing and connecting, such as ordering the events of Jesus’ Passion Week and locating the events on a map of Jerusalem. One weekly assignment combines interleaving, connecting, practicing, and explaining. I have students complete a 4-Part Berean Response, completing the first one in-class together for clarity. It requires students to read the assigned biblical passage in two translations and note observations. Then, students connect the passage to prior learning. Then, they research what a scholar said about the passage and include two quotes and a correct citation. Lastly, they reflect on the passage and its meaning to them. In the next class session, they form small groups (which I mix up every time to encourage belonging), introduce themselves, and explain to each other their responses. A popular assignment which utilizes explaining is a student in-class report. I require students to select a biblical passage and present in 7-10 minutes different ways the scripture is manifested in our culture, from posters to songs to tattoos. Lastly, I lead a Messianic Passover Seder Service during one final class in order to connect all the previous learning and inspire the students.

Christianity frequently fixates on a philosophical “gospel” based on creedal confirmations and predictable liturgies. This emphasis on belief and worship has so obscured the messianic message that few question why Christian hymns and traditional “gospel” songs are more concerned with praise and worship than social transformation and community empowerment. Despite this troubling lacuna in the church’s hymnody, the urgency of Jesus’ gospel has been preserved in its purest form in a continuous prophetic canon that includes the phenomenal ministries of Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye. As the recent Bob Marley biopic portrayed, the righteous Rastafarian was committed to the mission of liberation and justice. Biblical themes permeate his powerful anthems as he “Chant[s] down Babylon” while challenging humanity to engage in the serious work of building an equitable society based on “One Love.” A contemporary of Marley, Marvin Gaye arguably produced the most significant gospel album of all time with his 1971 prophetic offering, “What’s Going On”? Firmly focused on our fractured communities, Gaye fuses lamentation with hope as he encourages us to love each other because “God is Love.” While neither bore the credentials in which academics so often place their pride, both Marley and Gaye have proven themselves to be competent interpreters of the text. These social prophets remind us that the Gospel that Jesus promoted is unconcerned about Christian “orthodoxy,” as it compels humanity to commit to a future where a ubiquitous and empowering love permeates every living being.

Matthew’s two scriptural quotations in his parable discourse (13:1–52) appear to relate to Jews exclusively: 13:14–15 (Isa 6:9–10) and 13:35 (Ps 78:2 [OG 77:2]). These quotations immediately concern the Jewish crowds. Yet an intratextual examination of Matthew reveals that both quotations may also allude to Gentile incorporation into God’s people. To demonstrate my argument, I first summarise how multiple of Matthew’s other quotations (e.g., 4:14–16; 12:17–21) generate an “ungrammaticality”: this is “a contradiction in the flow of the narrative that requires of the reader a ‘second reading’ that penetrates to the ungrammaticality’s ‘significance’” (Riffaterre, 1978). Despite referring to Jews, several factors indicate that these quotations also allude to Gentiles. Second, I explain how the verb ἰάομαι, present in “I will heal them” in 13:15 (quoting OG Isa 6:10), only occurs elsewhere in Matthew regarding healing of Gentiles (Matt 8:5–13; 15:21–28). The linguistic and thematic connections between these two passages suggest that Matthew employs ἰάομαι to link these healings with “I will heal them” in 13:15. Third, I argue that Matthew connects his quotation in 13:35—of Psalm 78:2 (OG 77:2)—with the final judgement scene of 25:31–46, which concerns Gentiles (either primarily or exclusively). Not only does the closing phrase ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου appear in both passages (and nowhere else in Matthew), but Jesus’ ensuing description of “the end of the age” (13:40–50) shares significant features with 25:31–46. These quotations thereby generate an “ungrammaticality”: despite concerning Jewish reception of Jesus’ teaching in the context of his mission to Jews only (cf. 10:6), these quotations, for the re-reader, also anticipate Gentile inclusion. This paper thus accords with attempts to interpret Matthew’s Gospel as a fundamentally Jewish text that sees Gentiles as being incorporated into God’s people (e.g., Runesson, 2016).

Negative references to “the Jews” punctuate John’s Gospel, one of the church’s most loved texts. Though spilled ink fills reams of volumes on John’s portrayal of the Ioudaioi character group in biblical scholarship, the preacher has little space for providing the detailed background on highly complicated questions related to translation debates and to the long history of Christian anti-Judaism. Yet allowing the polemical cadence of “the Jews” to sound from the pulpit without some exegetical clarification and ethical discussion may affirm and perpetuate dangerous ideas and biases. This paper will provide exegetical reflections on John’s rhetorical use of “the Jews” and discuss homiletical strategies for concisely addressing the wider scholarly debates while pastorally engaging congregations with such a richly textured Gospel.

The so-called Cyprianic Plague erupted during the reign of Trebonianus Gallus (251-253 CE) and continued to terrorize the Mediterranean for over two decades. For early Christians, the timing could hardly have been worse: the disease had immediately followed the Decian persecution (249-251 CE) and was synchronous with its ensuing complications. Cyprian of Carthage’s De mortalitate (ca. 253 CE) offers a window into the disease’s deleterious effects on the human person as well as a Christian bishop’s attempt at guiding his flock by inculcating in them a robust confidence in post-mortem glory. In the De mortalitate, Cyprian endeavors to both rebuke and exhort those who had been debilitated by the devastating pair of a persecution and a pandemic. He chides his congregation for its lack of trust in Christ’s promises, asserting that Christians are destined to rule with their Lord in a world without pain or death. Therefore, if the joys of paradise are a certainty, why are some so downcast and incapable of action? Indeed, Cyprian claims, Christians ought instead to arm themselves with steadfast, unshakable joy despite the horrendous display of human frailty and anguish around them. The whole of the De mortalitate is dedicated to rebuking, consoling, and exhorting the congregation through the promised kingdom and resurrection. Despite its unique circumstances, the sermon’s engagement with a Christian afterlife and its implications for the living has not yet been fully explored. Scholars have usually focused either on the text’s historical witness to the exclusion of its theological content or have highlighted its lack of empathy for the grieving and the downtrodden. This essay argues that a close reading together with an awareness of the historical context yields a different conclusion. In fact, the De mortalitate can instead be read as a concerned rebuke and a sharp exhortation towards joyful trust in God and readiness to do good during a devastating crisis. To accomplish this, the sermon inculcates a robust ‘logic of the resurrection’ by means of biblical exemplars and passionate declarations of the unending, more-than-certain glory of the world to come. Cyprian’s eschatology turns the disease on its head, transforming it into an invaluable opportunity for the demonstration of Christian faith.

It is often said that “God is the source of holiness.” But across the tabernacle account, human agency plays a primary role in making the holy place holy. This paper explores the complex interactions of agencies in sanctifying the tabernacle - relations of divine and human agency, part and whole, speech and action. What is involved in the making of holiness? Exod 29.43-44 is the only place in the tabernacle account to explicitly identify God as an agent of sanctification. But the referent of the verses is open to different interpretations, each of which expresses a different relation to Moses’s sanctifying agency. These different possibilities reflect a complex compositional history, but they also reveal different models for conceiving sanctification. Does divine sanctification precede Moses’s sanctification (Exod 40) or respond to it (Lev 9)? Does Exod 29.44 rearticulate the sanctification in v. 43 or describe something different? Is Moses the means of divine sanctification? These verses in Exod 29 involve a distinction between sanctification of the tabernacle as a whole and sanctification of its individual parts. I will ask about the relations of part and whole in sanctification. In the priestly ordination in Exod 29 and Lev 8 sanctification is likewise identified with both the ritual as a whole and several distinct acts of clothing, anointing, and sacrificial ritual, and the whole event is itself repeated over seven days. Each part is in and of itself sanctifying and yet its status as such reflects its participation in a sanctifying whole. Conversely, I will explore moments where the sanctification of the whole is not yet ‘complete’ and somehow distinct from the sanctification of individual parts. To identify the moment of ‘becoming holy’ becomes a difficult, if not misguided, task. Finally, I will address the dynamic relation of speech and action in sanctification. In several places commands to sanctify or declarations of holiness are themselves construed as acts of sanctification. Are God’s commands to sanctify the tabernacle acts of divine sanctification? I will explore the complex interdependency of speech and action. Command requires fulfilment in action, but the sanctifying quality of an action may rely on its relation to a prior sanctifying command. Sanctification emerges from this discussion as something irreducible to particular actions or concrete events, to any particular moment of ‘making holy’. Instead, it has a contextual dimension. It is a way of signally the role of varied events and agencies in contributing to holy status of the tabernacle and priesthood. This offers a starting point to recognise the range of distinct inflections the root קדש can take, that accounts for these not as separate ‘senses’ but as part of a dynamic concept of holiness.

This paper utilizes an intertextual methodology to examine the the story of Rachel (Genesis 29-31) alongside that of Michal (1 Samuel 14,18-19; 2 Sam 3). These stories bear striking similarities, with over 20 overt intersections between the two narratives. For example, in each case, there is a bride price stated, of which the potential husbands pay double; one daughter is promised, while another is given. Later in both narratives, the father-in-law is angry and jealous of his son-in-law and desires to harm him, but is warned away through divine communication. Meanwhile, both sons-in-law refrain from harming their fathers-in-law, and sneak away. Each woman utilizes the teraphim on behalf of her husband, and ultimately, there is a transfer of power that follows the teraphim. While many of these (and other) elements are harmonically parallel, there are some areas in which the narratives contrast. Through looking in depth at these narratives, this paper argues that the text indicates that treatment of the women determines the ultimate success or failure of a progenitor’s line; moreover, the actions of the women determine who ends up with the leadership authority. In performing this analysis, this paper also posits that an intertextual approach facilitates the highlighting of the female characters, which elicits new readings from the text.

Targum Onkelos exemplifies Flesher and Chilton’s definition of Targum: “a translation that combines a highly literal rendering of the original text with material added into the translation in a seamless manner.” Onkelos’s literality extends to employment of grammatical forms in Aramaic that match those used in the Hebrew Bible source text. Such close formal correspondence is achievable in Aramaic translation due to the similarity of Hebrew and Aramaic as cognate Northwest Semitic languages. Yet one structural feature of the Hebrew verbal system is absent in Aramaic: the Niphal N stem. Hence every employment of the Hebrew Niphal requires a substitute rather than a formal equivalent. These substitutes appear in every productive stem in Jewish Literary Aramaic, namely Peal G, Ithpeel tG, Pael D, Ithpaal tD, Aphel C, and Ittaphal tC. The closest functional match to the Hebrew Niphal among these Aramaic verb stems is the Ithpeel tG, the derived mediopassive reflexive voice stem related to the active voice stem Peal G. However, the Ithpeel tG only accounts for about half of the Hebrew Niphal verbs in Aramaic translation. Perhaps unexpectedly, the active voice Aramaic verb stems translate the Hebrew Niphal in over a quarter of cases. The present study analyzes Targum Onkelos’s rendering of the Hebrew Niphal stem, further developing understanding of Onkelos’s translation technique. Furthermore, through analysis of this isolated feature of dissimilarity between two otherwise very similar languages, the results provide a useful case study to the burgeoning field of translation studies: a case of “literalistic” translation when formal correspondence is impossible.

When completed, the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) will represent an important milestone in the study of the text of the New Testament. With its use of the Coherence-based Genealogical Method, the ECM will represent the most comprehensive view of the history and evolution of the New Testament text. The published volumes of the ECM provide more reliable textual data than anything previously published, but there are a few intentional omissions. One of these omissions involves the nomina sacra. In both their printed and digital formats, the volumes of the ECM published to date have not noted whether witnesses write a word in its abbreviated or plene form. For this presentation I examine three groups of manuscripts in Mark to determine whether the omission of nomina sacra in the ECM ignores important genealogical data. I conclude that the nomina sacra are not an accurate predictor of genealogical groupings, although in individual cases they can provide insight regarding a witness’s ancestors. Previous work on the nomina sacra have shown that certain words were almost universally abbreviated, while others attest more variation between the abbreviated and plene forms (e.g., Roberts, 1979; Hurtado, 1998; Charlesworth, 2006; Overcash, 2019). For this study, I hypothesized that a profile of common renderings of words like πνεῦμα, μήτηρ, ἄνθρωπος, and υἱὸς would be indicative of overall genealogical similarity. If this were true, two witnesses shown by the CBGM to be closely related would be expected to attest similar choices regarding when to write these words fully and when to abbreviate. To test this hypothesis, I examine three groups of witnesses that the CBGM shows to be closely related in Mark: Family 1, Family 13, and 1216 and its descendants. For the witnesses in these groups I check each passage that includes one of the four abovementioned words and note whether it is written plene or as a nomen sacrum. I then compare the intra-group agreements to the inter-group agreements to determine whether, within each group, there is a greater percentage of agreement in abbreviation. While some group members did show strong agreements, the intra-group agreement was not significantly higher than the inter-group agreement. Overall agreement was thus not a predictor of agreement in abbreviation. I conclude with a few examples of varying abbreviation tendencies within single manuscripts. In Codex Koridethi, μήτηρ is only abbreviated in Luke and John, where the manuscript’s text is most like the Majority Text. In the Leicester Codex, πνεῦμα is always abbreviated in the Gospels, but in Acts it is written plene when referring to unclean spirits. These small shifts could point to a change in exemplar or ancestor, but they do not warrant the inclusion of nomina sacra in the ECM.

Many scholars have noted that the anti-monarchical speech of Samuel in 1 Samuel 8:10–18 is fulfilled in the activities of royals in Samuel-Kings (Baldwin 2008; Youngblood 2009; Arnold 2003). Several scholars have also noted that Samuel’s speech portrays a severing of traditional kinship ties in favor of national allegiance (Murphy 2010). Building upon these studies, I examine Saul and David in relationship with Samuel’s warning to underscore the breakdown of the household in 1¬–2 Samuel. Samuel warns that the children of the Israelite families will be taken from their household and pressed into royal service while the narratives of Saul and David demonstrate royals who are distanced from their fathers’ households and from their own households. This begins with each future king being portrayed as separated from their father’s household, even when they are children or youths, and disconnected from the innerworkings of their own household, to the detriment of their relationships with their sons and their dynastic security. Thus, Samuel’s speech shows the destructive nature of royal power on the people’s households and the narratives show the destruction of the royal household caused by the separation of the king (or future king) from his biological household. To demonstrate this, I will examine the forced change in roles for the community’s sons and daughters by the future king. Next, I will explore the parallels between the childhood and anointing stories of Saul and David and then compare the interactions between Saul and Jonathan and between David and Absalom. In each of these narratives the king (or future king) is presented as aloof from the household that he is supposed to be a part of or leading. The taking of the population’s sons and daughters by the king coincides with the neglect of his own household, which results in a fractured relationship between the king and the heir apparent.

The imminent arrival of the Hour or final Judgment constitutes a fundamental theme in both Christian and Islamic teachings, emphasizing the anticipation of a climactic event. A shared element in the eschatological narratives of these traditions is the presence of the Beast of the Earth. Referenced in the Book of Revelation (Chapter 13) in Christianity and the Qur’ān (Sūra 27:82) in Islam, this enigmatic figure is traditionally regarded as a precursor to the impending Hour. In Islamic tradition, the Beast (Dābba in Arabic) is considered a divine sign, possessing two distinctive attributes associated with the prophets Solomon and Moses. These attributes, namely the seal of Solomon and the rod of Moses, empower their possessors to wield divine authority over natural and human forces. The Beast’s assigned role involves marking believers and unbelievers with discernible signs, illuminating the faces of the former with the rod and imprinting the noses of the latter with the seal. The correlation between the Beast and its mark finds resonance in the Book of Revelation (13:16-17), where a similar division is depicted: individuals, irrespective of their social status, are marked on their right hand or forehead. The mark of the Beast serves as a discerning factor within God’s chosen people, signifying salvation for those who maintain their faith and condemning others to imminent destruction. This paper seeks to explore the theological and eschatological dimensions surrounding the mark of the Beast, posing questions regarding the authority behind the Beast’s actions, the permanence of the mark once applied, and the subsequent eschatological implications for the marked individuals. Drawing on the descriptions of the Beast in both Christian and Islamic traditions, the article aims to formulate hypotheses that shed light on the multifaceted interpretations of this intriguing eschatological symbol.

NT Greek manuscripts underwent textual transformations in Late Antiquity that enabled them to allow non-linear access to their users. Among the most popular segmentation technologies that Greek manuscripts adopted were the development of chapter systems where the biblical text was segmented into small units, keyed with a number on the margin, each chapter was assigned a title, and then all chapters were indexed in a table of contents. Greek manuscripts containing the gospels adopted the Eusebian canon tables and the Old Kephalaia system to divide the text while Acts and the NT epistles adopted the so-called Euthalian apparatus. In the seventh century, Andrew of Caesarea developed a similar system for the book of Revelation dividing the text into 24 books and 72 chapters. This paper explores the functions of the Andrew’s chapter system in light of the textual revolutions regarding segmentation taking place across the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity. As such, building on the work of Allen (2020) and Coogan (2021), it argues that Andrew’s chapter system was useful to inscribe the canonical status of Revelation in the manuscripts themselves, given that by the time of its creation all sub-corpora within the NT already had a paratextual system of chapter divisions, thereby creating the impression that for a book to be Scripture it needed to have a chapter system embedded in its manuscripts. The absence of such a device in Revelation’s manuscript suggested that the book was not Scripture. Thus, Andrew not only defended Revelation’s canonicity at the outset of his commentary and through the interpretation of the book, but also through enabling Revelation’s manuscript to look like Scriptural manuscripts from other texts within the NT. Further, Andrew’s chapter system enabled readers to access portions of the text as needed (i.e. non-linear access). Before the implementation of Andrew’s chapter system, non-linear access to Revelation was not always possible (cf. P47 and א) which hindered its reading and interpretation. By providing non-linear access, Andrew facilitated the reading of Revelation in liturgical and pedagogical settings, embedding it in the life of the church, thereby exemplifying the usefulness of this late canonical member. Moreover, since many manuscripts not only contained the text of Revelation and the Andrew’s chapter system but also Andrew’s commentary, readers could easily locate a passage from Revelation and its orthodox interpretation, facilitating the use of Revelation by the church and securing its place as a canonical book. Finally, the titles given to Revelation’s chapters by Andrew interpreted the contents of the book and elevated certain topics for its readers. For instance, the titles of Rev 12 emphasized from the outset the topic of the persecution of the church while downplaying the Christological implications of the passage.

Practical theology is an infrequent conversation partner in contextual biblical interpretation, but the two often overlap in aims and methods. Seeking more collaboration, this paper will first present a working typology of approaches to the intersection of biblical studies and practical theology as academic disciplines, focusing on works that explicitly name the two disciplines (or their subfields, such as religious education, pastoral care, Pauline studies, postcolonial biblical criticism, etc.) as conversation partners. The paper will then demonstrate one of the approaches, reading a lament psalm in the context of migratory grief among transnational youth. Approaches range from mostly text-focused on one side of the spectrum to mostly community-focused on the other. The following examples are illustrative, not exhaustive. On the text-focused side are approaches that take the biblical text as their starting point and move toward appropriation in living communities (examples: Walter Brueggemann, Ellen Davis). On the community-focused side are approaches that take living communities as their starting point and move toward interpretations of the biblical text (examples: Anne Wimberly, Andrew Rogers). The most creative work, however, seems to be in the spaces between. It includes the following: - Intercultural hermeneutics approaches, which use tools of both biblical scholarship and qualitative research to study interpretations of local reading groups in different cultural contexts (examples: edited volumes by Hans de Wit and colleagues); - Contextual Bible Study approaches, which start with the concerns and interests of “ordinary readers” and use the historical and literary tools of biblical scholarship to collaborate with ordinary readers in (re)interpreting their context (examples: the work Gerald West and participants in this unit); - “Connected” approaches, which specifically seek to “bridge” the disciplinary and methodological between biblical studies and practical theology, often through works co-authored by biblical scholars and practical theologians (examples: the work of Denise Dombkowski Hopkins and Michael Koppel); - “Cross-trained” approaches, an emerging form of scholarship that takes biblical studies alongside lived experience as a source for doing practical theology, and exemplified in the work of scholars with training in both disciplines at the doctoral level (examples: Emily Peck and other mid- or early-career scholars). A cross-trained approach to psalms of lament (as well as other biblical texts) would consider the ways in which ancient and present-day situations might be related or comparable, as well as ways that literary aspects of the biblical text evoke current lived experience. The result, ideally, is mutual interpretation—not only how lament might help transnational youth interpret their experiences of migratory grief, but also how their experience might shape a reading of lament.

Interpretations of the flood story appeared widely in biblical and Second Temple Jewish literature as a strategy for decoding the meaning of contemporary disasters and foretelling the shape of expected apocalyptic ends. In many of these texts, the figure of Noah is celebrated as a righteous model who exemplified how to survive and save during cataclysmic times. Today, the flood story continues to be read by journalists, scholars, and communities of faith alike as a prototype for various anticipated apocalypses, usually for the implied purpose of spurring positive action. This presentation explores ancient and modern construction of the category of “apocalypse” by comparing accounts of Noah in Second Temple Jewish literature with contemporary interpretations that connect the flood story to the urgent threat of climate change. This exercise reveals three major discontinuities: 1) Human caused climate change is not inevitable, unlike the flood in ancient accounts. 2) While Noah and his family were spared, today those who are “righteous” with respect will not be saved. In fact, populations who stand to lose the most from climate change are often contributing the least to its causes. Moreover, those best positioned to cushion themselves from the disastrous effects of climate change are those who are currently profiting the most from environmental destruction. 3) In the flood account, God intervenes in sending the flood as a response to human behavior. In contrast, in order to prevent further destruction due to climate change, humans must make the intervention ourselves and change our own behavior.

Mark 7 bear witness to sharp discussion between Jesus and fellow religious leaders over purity concerns related to food and eating preparation. What begins as a dialogue over proper preparation cascades into a broad ranging critique from Jesus, coupled with the a potentially startling editorial interjection on the part of the evangelist regarding dietary laws generally. While there are many aspects to this passage raising questions about the Evangelist's relationship to Judaism, one aspect scholars have not sufficiently explored is the potential use of humor that shapes the tone of the pericope and its rhetorical efficacy in maligning food and dietary customs the Evangelist dislikes. Using the General Theory of Verbal alongside ancient comedic comparanda that illuminate the place of scatological humor in Greco-Roman culture, I will demonstrate that the Evangelist's rhetoric was quite possibly intended as a humorous way of denigrating practices of ritual purity. Furthermore, I will explore the unique ways in which this type of humor augments the rhetorical impact of the pericope, as it minimizes sacred traditions by linking them with the farcical and grotesque.

In this paper I will investigate the historical, cultural, and religious effects of a particular type of rural mobility connected to a specific sacred space, during a timespan spreading from Early Middle Ages to Modernity. The theoretical background of this investigation is the acknowledgement that ritual practices, narrated memories, and mobility experiences, often connected to material objects of veneration, play an agentic role in the process of formation, transformation, and adaptation of a sacred place. They both influence, and are influenced by, individuals and groups who, separately and collectively, gather as pilgrims in a sacred place for devotional purposes. Traveling to/from a single sanctuary, in fact, pilgrims negotiate not only their religious experiences, but also cultural, historical, social stimuli: a dynamic relationship can be established between them, their specific needs, the objects sacred to them, and the history of the places themselves. Such phenomena are particularly evident in some rural sanctuaries of the Mediterranean area, attended by a specific type of “itinerant devotees”: the transhumant shepherds and their animals. From this perspective, an interesting case-study is represented by the sanctuary of Matthew the Apostle, located in the promontory of Gargano (Apulia, Italy), which stretches into the Adriatic Sea, representing the famous “spur” of the Italian boot. In this area, human and animal mobility, and specifically the practice of transhumance, has been crucial since the Roman times, and exerted continuously a great impact on ritual practices, cultic traditions, mobility networks. At the very beginning of its history, the sanctuary was a Benedictine abbey entitled to St. John the Baptist, while in 1578 it was converted into a Franciscan convent and dedicated to Matthew the Apostle. The new dedication resulted from the translation, and re-location in the church of the convent, of a wooden statue and a miracle-working-relic, acknowledged as St. Matthew’s “molar tooth”. The relic was considered a source of protection against rabid dogs and a healing device for both animals and humans; it was especially honored by the shepherds engaged in transhumant travels with their cattle and flocks. As a result of these changes, this sacred place underwent a devotional, ritual, cultural and also architectonical adaptation: instead of being mainly a stopover point for the pilgrims on the crossroads of Gargano, it became itself a pilgrimage target for quite a large number of devotees. Thus, it became a lively center of pilgrimage, a setting for cross-cultural exchanges, a place of integration of individuals and groups through participation in and engagement with landscape, shared religious experiences, performative practices, narratives, objects, and animals.

On first glance, the construction of both “animal” and “woman” categories in the Gen 2:4-3:24 Eden story foregrounds elements typical of domesticating societies: a focus on the destiny of humans to domesticate nature, division of humans from other animals, and a construction of females that is ultimately subservient to males and oriented around reproduction. Yet, as work by Brian Kolia (especially “Eve, the Serpent, and a Samoan Love Story” 2019) has shown, new reading possibilities emerge when one rereads the Eden story in relation to traditions of nonwestern cultures less oriented toward domesticating domination of nonhuman animals. This paper builds on Kolia’s talanoa (and feminist rereadings of the text), arguing that some features of the Eden story make it come as close as the Bible does to nonwestern accounts of animal subjectivity and gender ambiguity. Ultimately the Eden story ends with domesticating domination: the lifelong vocation of a male human of farming the soil, his rule over a woman destined for many pregnancies, and the separation of both—as kin (“bone from my bones, flesh from my flesh” 2:23a)—from the animals whom the human names and thus implicitly dominates at the outset (2:20). Indeed, even the woman is eventually named like the animals, having her name called “Eve” in recognition of her reproductive role as “the mother of all that live” (3:20). Yet this is not all. As Viveiros de Castro noted in his classic 1998 article on “Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism” “if there is a virtually universal Amerindian notion, it is that of an original state of undifferentiation between humans and animals…myths tell how animals lost the qualities inherited or retained by humans.” In this respect, the snake of the Eden story queers the animal-human divide in sharing numerous characteristics often thought unique to humanity: superlative cleverness (3:1a), speech (3:1b-5), and an implicit upright posture (cf. 3:14). The story features this human-like snake attempting an alliance with the woman, speaking truly of the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit and successfully initiating her journey toward adult “knowledge of good and evil” by getting her to eat it. God then interrupts this alliance by forcing the snake to the ground and putting enmity between the snake and the woman (3:14), and we never hear from the snake again. But these and other aspects of the Eden story preserve subversive memories of a better world that preceded domestication within a largely domestication-dominated Bible. The current domestication system and associated gender hierarchy is a decline from an original state of undifferentiation, both of (some) animals and humans and of men and women. Moreover, parallel to many nonwestern societies, all are presented as kin, together “descendants of heaven and earth” (2:4a).

As scholars have argued, and as my own experience attests, the Museum of the Bible’s (MOTB) presentations and discourse presuppose something like a singular collection of writings that one could label “the Bible.” Indeed, based on my personal visit, writings and statements by representatives of the MOTB presume not only a stable identity but also that the Bible is univocal in its message and that it makes self-referential claims. Yet, as several MOTB critics have argued, the presence of varieties of textual manuscripts and canonical arrangements may make it more accurate to write and speak not of “the Bible” but of multiple Bibles, or combinations of texts that communities regard as scripture. Although those critics are correct concerning biblical texts and traditions, such critical responses—much like the MOTB literature itself—often operate with unexamined theories of identity. Specifically, discourse in and around the MOTB often presumes that the identity of a thing is constituted by its (material) parts. Yet, if one uses a relational or social theory of identity, then the identity of “the Bible” cannot be accounted for by its parts alone. Rather, one could acknowledge that an entity can be characterized by change and multiplicity and still refer to it with a singular identifier. In this case, one could identify collections of texts, while recognizing the collections’ fluidity and multiplicity, under the singular label of "the Bible,” on the basis of it being identified as such by various communities. My aim in raising this point is not part of an effort to establish the “correct” identity of “the Bible” but to offer two points of consideration for discussions about the MOTB and related conversations. First, in this discussion, I will highlight the importance of recognizing and establishing how participants in these conversations conceive of identity in any given case. Second, I will bring attention to how such claims and counterclaims about “the Bible” are based not only in unstated theories of identity but also often derive from unacknowledged uses of knowledge and power.

To be added asap.

This paper reinterprets Pilate’s handwashing and declaration of innocence as he consigns Jesus to be crucified (Matt 27:24-26). Commentators commonly appeal to Deut 21:1-9 to underscore Pilate’s declaration of innocence. But neither Jesus nor Pilate is innocent. Jesus is guilty as an unsanctioned popular king. Pilate has performed his duty as a Roman governor in maintaining imperial order. There are 14 points of difference between Matthew’s scene and Deuteronomy 21. And an examination of over 90 uses of the adjective translated “innocent” shows its most common meaning to be unpunished and without penalty. I argue that Pilate’s handwashing and declaration operate along an axis not of guilt and innocence but of pollution and purification. Pilate encounters two pollutants or sources of “matter out of place” (Mary Douglas). Jesus represents disorder and threat to imperial order. And Pilate has been close to death and is at risk from the vengeful spirits of one who is violently killed that may need appeasing. He performs handwashing as a ritual of cleansing and purifying from these two pollutants. He is unpunished by his Roman masters because he has maintained imperial order in the province. And the ritual appeases vengeful spirits and ensures he is without penalty. He has completed a successful and effective act of governing.

In a recent study, I argued for a new approach to biblical prophetic literature that takes its ancient Near Eastern context into serious consideration and illustrated that approach with a new analysis of Jeremiah 30-33 (Daniel E. Carver, “Biblical Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context: A New Interpretation of Jeremiah 30–33” JBL 142/2 (2023): pp. 267-287). In this study, I take that same approach to the prophecies regarding Jehoiachin and his offspring in Jeremiah 22:24-30 and Haggai 2:20-23. These passages, and especially how they relate to each other as well as other passages of Scripture in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, have long troubled interpreters. But this new approach enables an analysis of these passages that has the power to explain what of these prophecies was fulfilled and what of these prophecies was cancelled as well as how they can be distinguished with attention to the language used and the cultural and theological conceptions surrounding divinatory communication of the time. I also argue, based on other Old Testament/Hebrew Bible passages, the reason that certain of the prophecies in Jeremiah 22:24-30 and Haggai 2:20-23 were cancelled. Ultimately, this study offers a new, alternative interpretation of these passages that best accords with the language and conceptual context of these passages.

This paper introduces rationale, goals, and plans of the 3-years consultation 'Biblical Studies and Spiritual Care: Intersections of Pastoral Praxis and Biblical Hermeneutics', focusing in particular on the state of art of the specific topic of 2024: the context of healthcare.

In this paper, I will present results from a research project on the Bible in Middle Byzantine Hagiography (Cologne/Leuven, financed since Oct. 2022 by the Thyssen Foundation). A number of Greek Lives of Saints from the eighth to tenth centuries were scanned for biblical citations and allusions. The textual data are made available through www.biblindex.org and are at the disposal of biblical scholars. In my presentation I will show what those citations can offer to students of the Septuagint, in terms of reception, interpretation and textual criticism.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

This paper reads Jer 20:7–18 counterpoetically alongside Cho Se-hŭi’s “A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball” (translated by Chun Kyung-ja). Of the Confessions, Jer 20:7–18 is perhaps the only Confession read alongside more postmodern and critical methodologies, particularly feminist, queer, and trauma lenses (Rhiannon Graybill, Julianna Claassens, Ken Stone, for instance). This paper seeks to add to the current repertoire of critical readings. Simultaneously, in following in previous scholarship’s footsteps and in recognising the shortcomings of historical-critical and Eurocentric methods in grappling with this difficult text, this paper seeks to read Jer 20:7–18 counterpoetically in light of transpacific realities. As defined by Huang Yunte, a transpacific scholar, counterpoetics is a critique and a revisioning of “material possession and discursive abstraction reinforce each other,” hovering “between the literal and the metaphoric, the historical and the mimetic” and “turns away from any meta-discourse on the transpacific” (Huang, Transpacific Imaginations, 4–5). As such, this paper, in reading Jer 20:7–18 alongside Cho’s short story, illuminates the motifs of affective horror and total collapse—physical, spiritual, ecological, social—in coloniality present in this Confession. By affective horror, I mean to push the bounds of the concept of horror beyond the consumeristic and commodified as often exemplified in film (Dracula, Frankenstein, to name a few) to explore horror as a socially produced affect, a sociopolitical sentiment of potential dissent, and an apocalyptic emotive classification of the gap occurring between what is seen, what is perceived, and what can be reasoned—in short, a culmination of aesthetics, affect, sensuality, trauma, emotion, and violence. This counterpoetic reading elucidates, in other words, the horrifying nature of what it means to be an embedded subject in coloniality under the threat of multiple empires.

In recent decades, scholars have continued to probe what it means to see Paul “within Judaism.” Such studies are a necessary corrective to earlier scholarship that treats Paul as an exception who stands out against his Jewish “background,” which does not and cannot include him. But, as Jennifer Eyl has observed, issues emerge when Paul “within Judaism” comes to look like Paul “only within Judaism.” In this case, Paul is rightly seen as an expression of early Jewishness, but Judaism itself is still treated an exception that stands out against other ancient Mediterranean religion. The danger is no longer to isolate Paul, but, as Jonathan Z. Smith put it, to “insulate” him within Judaism, protected from “pagan contaminations” or “pagan perversions” that would ostensibly render his Jewish life and message somehow less Jewish. In response, scholars have increasingly begun to probe what it means to see Paul and his Judaism “within paganism,” as it were, rather than against it or apart from it. That is to say, it is taken for granted that Paul lived and died a Jew within Judaism, but, precisely as such, it is further insisted that he, like other early Jews, actively participated in wider social practices involving the gods that were otherwise common among Greeks, Romans, and other non-Jews, no less than Jews themselves. In this paper, I theorise a burgeoning new approach to the study of Paul “within paganism,” including its wider scholarly context, the contribution it makes to that context, how it does it, and why we need it.

Did a mother expect a reward for enduring the pain of childbirth? The idiomatic expression, “laboring in vain,” which is attributed to several mothers in the Septuagint and Pseudepigrapha, suggests that they did. With the backdrop of labor pains presented as a portion of Eve’s punishment for disobedience in Genesis 3, this paper will examine the literary contexts within which mothers lamented “laboring in vain” for now deceased adult children. Job’s wife in LXX and in the Testament of Job describes her deceased sons and daughters as “the pangs and pains of my womb with whom I toiled with hardships in vain” (LXX Job 2:9, T.Job 24:2). In Fourth Maccabees, the stalwart mother of seven sons threatened with torture and death is lauded for enduring a test “more bitter” than the “birth pangs” she suffered on their behalf (4 Macc 15:16). Her strength as a mother is contrasted to a hypothetical “faint-hearted woman” whom the author of Fourth Maccabees imagines giving full voice to her maternal frustrations. The faint-hearted mother would lament “seven empty pregnancies,” “seven profitless ten-month periods, and fruitless givings of suck, and miserable nursings.” Unlike the faithful Maccabean mother, the faint-hearted mother would lash out against her sons, saying, “To no purpose, for your sakes, O sons, have I endured many pangs and the more difficult anxieties of rearing” (4 Macc. 16:7-8). This paper will examine the idiomatic expression of mothers who claim to have “labored in vain” in order to elucidate the literary contexts for these laments and to delineate what these ancient mothers expected as a reward for having endured dangerous pregnancies and painful labors.

This paper will argue that the reference to “beasts” in Mark’s account of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness alludes to the “beastly” nature of the rulers and kingdoms of the present age, over against which Jesus, as the Son of Man, contrasts his own rule (see 10.42-45). The background for understanding this allusion is the vision of Daniel 7 which describes four beasts rising up out of the sea, representing four kings, whose rule is ultimately taken away in favor of the Son of Man who is given everlasting dominion. The beast imagery of Daniel 7 is itself reflective of the judgment of Nebuchadnezzar who, due to his pride, is reduced to the status of a beast (it is of interest that apart from Mark 1.13 the only other appearance in the Greek Bible of someone being “with the beasts” is the description of Nebuchadnezzar in LXX Dan. 4.15, 17, 33). Mark’s introduction to Jesus in 1.1-15 places emphasis on a kingship that is strikingly different. The “good news” of this “Son of God” stands in marked contrast to the cynical use of “good news” in Roman imperial propaganda. At his baptism, as Jesus arises from the water, he is identified as the anointed son against whom the kings of the earth set themselves (Psalm 2) and the servant of Yahweh who will bring justice to the nations (Isaiah 42). Following his baptism the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness. There he is tempted by Satan. The nature of the temptation is not described apart from the statement that “he was with the beasts,” suggesting that he is tempted at the level of choosing to exercise his messianic rule in a bestial fashion (this allusion is possibly the source of the temptation, found in Matthew and Luke, of the devil offering Jesus the kingdoms of the world and their glory if he would but worship him). Jesus passes this test and is thus prepared to announce the coming of the kingdom of God and all that entails. The paper will follow a literary-theological approach to Mark, exploring how the good news centered in Jesus relates to the manner in which he exercises power and authority — not in a self-serving way normally followed by kings, but rather as one who seeks the benefit of others. The discussion will also examine the three other occasions in Mark where Jesus is tempted, noting how each relates to the nature of his kingship.

Primary metaphors, whether we know it or not, are very much part of our everyday thinking. They are universal and ingrained into our thinking and communication because these metaphors are motivated by our physiological experiences which are consistent across time, space, and cultures. For example, the well-known conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEAT is a primary metaphor because our minds and bodies have from our earliest years associated how anger entails raised bodied temperatures. These associated perceptions and experiences do not predict primary metaphors (e.g., HAPPY IS UP/SAD IS DOWN) but can explain why primary metaphors seem to span cultures and times. Another important phenomenon with primary metaphor regards how our bodily experiences may also trigger the source domain of these primary metaphors (e.g., sadness, joy, anger, etc.). For example, while angry people become hotter, it seems that experiencing heat can more easily induce anger on account of our primary metaphors. This paper hopes to offer biblical scholarship in metaphor more tools for interpreting metaphor by showcasing how primary metaphor operates in the poetry of Lamentations 2. It specifically examines how SADNESS IS LOWLINESS is used to engender sorrow in its readers in the depiction Jerusalem and its inhabitants during the Babylonian siege. This paper has three sections. First, it surveys the concept of primary metaphor, reviewing experimental data on how embodied experiences and primary metaphors are processed by our bodies. Second, it surveys the poem of Lamentations 2, arguing for how its lowliness imagery is purposeful. Third, using the primary metaphor SADNESS IS LOWLINESS, it analyzes how chapter 2’s lowly imagery interacts with the poem’s other metaphors, poetic structure, and the lyric devices of voicing and apostrophe in order to elicit another layer of mourning and sorrow in the poem’s readers beyond the poem’s tragic content.

Meaning-focused output in L2, the second of Paul Nation’s “Four Strands,” performs important functions in second-language acquisition (SLA). It is the course activity that learners typically find most intimidating, however, particularly if their previous language-learning experiences exclusively involved the grammar-translation method (GTM). At my institution, fourteen learners with four or five previous semesters of GTM biblical Hebrew (BH) were enrolled in a two-week, intensive Winterim course entitled “Biblical Hebrew as Communication.” L2 output in BH was completely new to them. A graded, step-by-step approach exposed them first to Hebrew songs, then to useful phrases such as “I don’t understand” and “What does that mean?”, short texts for memorizing, brief but meaningful exchanges (“Hebrew Cocktail Party”), Total Physical Response (TPR) activities in which they graduated to giving the commands themselves, and discussion in BH of simple stories. The L2 output “strand” of the course led to their developing and presenting short, original BH dramas in teams. While learners continue to find it challenging to produce original L2 output, the goals of a lowered “affective filter” and increased learner autonomy were achieved. Several of these learners are now evangelistic in their enthusiasm for communicative approaches to learning BH.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

Can 2nd millennium sources from the ancient Near East help us evaluate aspects of premonarchic Israel preserved in the narrative traditions of the Hebrew Bible? Almost one century ago, the answer was overwhelmingly affirmative among leading biblical scholars. Times, however, have changed. In the current state of affairs, drawing upon 2nd millennium sources to shed light on the history of early Israel is—at best—misguided and—at worst—“totally unfounded.” Everything in the biblical traditions can (and should) be understood in light of sources from the 1st millennium BCE. This paper revisits the question of “2nd millennium sources and the Bible” through three concise comparisons of biblical traditions with cuneiform sources from the Amorite world of Mari—1) Jacob and Laban’s covenant (Gen 31:43–54) in light of FM 8 34; 2) Jephthah’s land dispute (Judg 11:12–28) in light of ARM 28 95, A.2730; and 3) Gideon’s fleece divination (Judg 6:36–40) in light of ARM 26/1 96, 142, 160. Additionally, reference to comparable cuneiform sources from the 2nd millennium will be made where relevant. This comparative analysis seeks to go beyond mere ahistorical analogy (phenomenology), on the one hand, without making quixotic claims of an erstwhile genetic connection between the Amorites of Mari and the people of early Israel (homology), on the other hand. The reality is somewhere in between. At a time when biblical scholarship increasingly regards the biblical traditions of premonarchic Israel as simply a product of later times of writing, this study invites further discussion of possible links with older cultural settings.

In this paper, I will compare and contrast Job's responses to the experience of devastation found in Job 1:20–21 and 3:1–26 with emphasis on the adequacies and inadequacies of ritual, liturgy, and lament for responding to, bearing witness to, and working through the experience of trauma. I will argue that Job's initial ritual and liturgical responses to trauma are helpful first responses to unspeakable suffering that necessarily give way to fuller expressions of pain. As might be expected of a trauma victim, Job initially fails to fully experience the sudden and overwhelming loss of all that is his, including his children. And it is only belatedly, after seven days and nights of haunted silence, that he can begin to give expression to the shattering of the world and, thereby, begin the hard journey of working through his trauma.

Why does Yahweh respond to David’s census with a plague in 2 Sam 24? Apart from the fact that censuses do not always provoke divine wrath in biblical literature, David in this particular instance is “incited,” or perhaps better, “goaded” to undertake this count by none other than Yahweh himself. No explicit explanation is provided for the incitement (and why a census would be something incited), but Joab’s response in verse 3b makes clear that taking a census is a dangerous task: “Why would my lord want to do such a thing?” Joab’s wish, expressed in v. 3a hints as to why the census is dangerous in the first place: “May Yahweh your god increase the number of the people a hundredfold...!” Joab’s wish is a prophylactic effort at neutralizing the dangerous effect of David’s command. Drawing on comparative Near Eastern and biblical literature, I show that the narrative draws on a well-established association between a deity’s power and the size of the populace, and argue that this forms the key to understanding the connection between census and plague. David’s census offended Yahweh by diminishing his stature: he challenged Yahweh’s claim that he would make the Israelites too numerous to count. I suggest further that Joab’s prophylactic wish has resonances that reach as far back as the patriarchal promise as well as to Moses’ claim in Deut 1 that the people were too numerous for him to handle on his own. In both Gen 15:5–6 and Deut 1, the numerous people are a tangible sign of Yahweh’s power–the larger the populace, the more powerful the deity. By attending to the characterization of Yahweh as well as to David’s actions, the paper shows that the issue is not the census itself but the presumption that one could challenge God’s authority in this way.

A breastfeeding hermeneutic is a hybrid interpretive lens rooted in the experience or knowledge of breastfeeding. It is a mutual, corporeal, communal and relational hermeneutic aimed at centering life-giving processes which are otherwise dismissed. Like all hermeneutics, it is one of the many tools in a toolbox to be utilized in interpreting different types of biblical texts. A breastfeeding hermeneutic can be a powerful lens that provides new insights particularly into texts where childbirth and motherhood is a theme. A re-reading of biblical texts from this perspective provides new entry points to texts that have traditionally been approached from an androcentric worldview. This paper will articulate a breastfeeding hermeneutic and embody the communal nature of this lens, based on the breastfeeding experiences of its author. Informed by the nursing practices of Dalit women in India, in this paper, I will explore Isaiah 49:15 to delineate the presentation of God as a breastfeeding mother. This offers an alternative to the presentation of YHWH as a hypermasculine warrior, husband, father, king, master, and Lord. The author will reimagine the being of YHWH as a life-nourishing and life-giving breastfeeding mother, opening new ways to imagine God's interaction with ancient and contemporary contexts.

Since the publication of the work of Abraham Malherbe, the thesis that Paul traveled the ancient Roman empire as a popular moral philosopher has enabled readers to situate the apostle to the gentiles more realistically within the social fabric of antiquity (see esp. Stowers, Wendt, and Ullucci). Moreover, interpreters have positioned Paul within contemporaneous intellectual currents, as Troels Engberg-Pedersen has done by comparing Paul’s letters and Stoic thought. Paul certainly seems to have traded on Stoic moral and metaphysical ideas, but ancient philosophy varied exceptionally; Stoicism was prevalent, yes, but Platonism experienced a resurgence in the first centuries BCE and CE. Did this resurgence influence Paul and his letters? I aim to argue in this paper that this is interpretively plausible. Paul moved within a cohort of ancient thinkers who thought adaptably and eclectically, but a few immovably central ideas seem to have animated him. That the resurrection of Jesus confirmed him to be the messiah and signaled the pneumatic transformation of the nations served as the foremost of these. This pneumatic transformation may be characterized in Platonic terms as assimilation to Christ, as Stowers has argued at a theoretical level, lamenting the tendency of Pauline interpreters to caricature Platonism and as a result to reject it as an influence on the apostle (Stowers 2015). Moving from theory to exegesis: one way to describe this pneumatic transformation or Christological assimilation would be “justification”, the process by which believers are made “just”. Plato writes about justice diversely: as an administrative task of government (Gorg. 465c); as the pattern of each rendering others their due (Rep. 331e); and as doing the work that is proper to oneself (Rep. 433a; cf. 353a–b). Usually the first of these (which is not distinctively Platonic) dominates in Pauline interpretation, but the third may offer more clarity in certain texts. One example is 2 Cor 5:20–21, which reads, “We urge you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, in order that we might become the justice of God.” Here, the pneumatic gentile amalgamates a characteristic of the divine, or to put it another way, is assimilated to God. The human being “reconciled” (to use the Pauline term) to God is fundamentally changed. For Paul, this suggests that human beings become capable of doing divine things: justice, self-control, faith, hope, and love to name a few. The exposition of the apocalyptic ethical capability of formerly sinful gentiles called for the apostle to draw on every philosophical resource available to him: the prophecies of Second Temple Judaism, the metaphysics of Stoicism and possibly—as I seek to demonstrate in the paper proposed here—of Platonism, as well.

In the book of Nahum, one finds a dramatic portrayal of the downfall of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, that includes vivid descriptions of the enemy that justify such violence. Even though the Hebrew word for hatred (sn’) is not used in Nahum, this short book seethes with anger (ḥrh) as encapsulated in the portrayal of Israel’s God as an angry and vengeful God (for the close connection between anger and hate in the Hebrew Bible, cf. Deena Grant’s recent exploration on a prototype approach to these emotions, Routledge, 2023). In conversation with Ofer Zur’s fascinating article, “The Love of Hating: The Psychology of Enmity,” this paper will investigate the process of making a foe that involves specific language and imagery that is used to forge an enemy (them) that has to be destroyed to secure the safety of the community (us). Throughout the ages, such language forms an intrinsic part of war propaganda, including “the creation of enemy images to strip the enemy of its human, domestic and individual characteristics” (p. 362). Attention to enmity or hate in the book of Nahum helps us not only to understand better this most violent of books in the Hebrew Bible but also the human capacity and propensity to create enemies. In a world where our future well-being will depend on our ability to differentiate between actual threats and threats we conjure up in our minds, attention to the human concern of enmity is more critical than ever.

Tim Hogue’s work in The Ten Commandments: Monuments of Memory, Belief, and Interpretation convincingly highlights royal presencing in monumental inscriptions and their echoes in the biblical Decalogues. This multimodal performative framework is also useful for analyzing the political authority of treaty inscriptions, which similarly frame their messages as the voice of the king. I will highlight the role of royal scribes in performing Hittite and Neo-Assyrian treaties, in order to 1) examine the multimodal impacts of ritual performance on the target audience and 2) to propose that scribal performance was a vector by which an ideology of political textuality was transmitted to later biblical literature. The biblical passages of Josh 8:30-35, 2 Kgs 23:1-3, and Neh 8 illustrate reception of this textual ideology by narrating scenes of multimodal textual performance to a target audience. This mode of textual performance claims an everlasting and binding political authority.

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What light, if any, do later accounts from Josephus about the wives of Simon and John Hyrcanus, shed on women whose lives would have overlapped with the events described in 1 Maccabees as well as with the production and then promulgation of this deuterocanonical text? This presentation queries the historicity of the Josephan accounts and their provenience but also explores the potential of the stories to restore voices of women for the purpose of contemporary hermeneutics. While the authenticity of the narratives about the wives of Simon and John may be questioned, historical research on women in the ancient Mediterranean world makes clear that women (along with other family members) were taken hostage in conflicts among ruling elite and that women (for example, in Ptolemaic contexts) held leadership roles. The possibility for women associated with the descendants of Mattathias to have impacted family relationships and political events while remaining invisible in the narrative of 1 Maccabees merits our investigation and analysis.

The Siloam tunnel inscription (henceforth SI) is reasonably well preserved, and the text is fairly clear, and yet it is utterly mysterious. It was carefully and professionally executed, yet it is hidden inside the tunnel, in the dark, where no one could have seen it. Why put all this effort into the SI, and then hide it from view? This puzzle is widely acknowledged, but, curiously, rarely addressed directly: scholars often mention the mystery in passing, and then move on to other matters. I propose a solution to the puzzle. The key, I argue, is to identify the intended audience of the SI. To do this, it is useful to look at the kind of texts where the audience is known: dialogue. Work on dialogue has demonstrated that the content of the speaker’s contributions reflects her beliefs about what the addressee already knows or wishes to know. What does the audience of the SI already know? And what does it wish to know? It is clear that the intended audience of the SI already knows the background information. The SI doesn’t bother to say who commissioned the tunnel, when, why, or how, because this information is assumed to be already known to the audience. If, as many believe, the purpose of the inscription were to commemorate the digging of the tunnel, such details surely would have been mentioned. In contrast, the SI describes at some length the successful culmination of the project, including technical details, so the audience doesn’t know and is clearly interested in this information. Therefore, we are looking for someone who: (1) Knew the background of the project; (2) wanted to know how the work ended, including the technical details; but (3) didn’t know these things; (4) had access to the SI, hidden in a place where nobody goes; and (5) was able to read it in total darkness. The first two requirements are obviously satisfied by the workers themselves, who knew the background of the project and were interested in its completion. But why would a worker not know how the project ended? One possibility is that this worker was not present at the end of the project. I suggest that this was because he died in an accident, and the author of the SI considered such a person to have some supernatural presence in the tunnel, able and willing to read this information. Indeed, the recently dead were believed to have a presence at the place where they died (Osborne 2011), so they would be able to satisfy the last two requirements. The SI was, therefore, addressed to one or more workers who died in an accident. It was not intended to commemorate the tunnel project for posterity, but rather to let a fellow worker know that his death was not in vain and the project ended successfully. With this in mind, a close reading of the SI (including the mysterious word “zdh”) suggests that it might contain a description of the fatal accident.

Several mythological heroes from ancient West Asia exhibit a blatant disregard for rules and etiquette. The goddess Inana perhaps most embodies this role – she is often praised for her transgressive behavior, and in the myth known as Enki and the World Order, Enki establishes as one of her roles to create what should not be created and destroy what should not be destroyed. The great hero Gilgamesh is similarly portrayed as innately transgressive; his eponymous epic opens with an account of just how unbearable he was to the people of Uruk. A third unbridled hero may be found in the biblical character of Jacob, who repeatedly attempts to rise above his station through unfair play, even in utero. The heroes’ transgressions do not go unnoticed, however. In this paper, I demonstrate how myths regarding all three heroes employ a similar narrative pattern to different effects. Ea attempts to reign in Inana, Anu tries to tame Gilgamesh, and Elohim seeks to humble Jacob. These three events, found in the Agušaya Hymn (also known as Ea and Ṣāltu), the Gilgamesh Epic (SB I:63 – II:115; Penn tablet: 135-239), and Genesis 32 and Hosea 12, respectively, share common plot features. A deity disapproves of the hero’s behavior, creates a being of equal power to tame the hero, and sends it off to engage the hero in a style of hand-to-hand combat that mirrors the hero’s transgressive qualities. In all three myths the hero is nearly evenly matched, but ultimately comes out on top, perhaps with injury, but also with a prize. In two of the three stories (Inana and Jacob), this includes a new name. Despite the shared narrative pattern (and likely dependance between texts), all three myths have their own localized context and depict differing results for the heroes and their divinely created combatants.

My paper considers the intersection of movement, language, and identity formation in Ostrogothic Italy. More specifically, I examine how language was used to construct of categories of identity in the works of Cassiodorus Senator (d. c. 585 CE), who as quaestor, magister officiorum and ultimately praefectus praetorio, was responsible for much of the official correspondence of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy (498-554 CE). The Ostrogoths are widely regarded as the most ‘Roman’ of the successor kingdoms. Having migrated to Italy and ultimately conquered the peninsula under their king Theoderic, the Ostrogoths preserved many of the Roman structures of governance including the Senate. However, they were also newly arrived ‘barbarian’ outsiders and heterodox Christians in the eyes of the Roman church and many Italians. As one of the leading Roman politicians working for the Ostrogothic kings, Cassiodorus attempted to politically legitimize the Ostrogoths in the eyes of Italian elites who reasonably could have been wary of ‘barbarian heretics’ who now controlled Italy. To counter this view, Cassiodorus’s letters and other works rhetorically constructing categories of identity that ignored religious confession and instead found commonalities between Ostrogoth and Italian. One surprising example is his use of ‘foreigner’ (aliena, peregrinus, gentes, and exteri), which serve a schismogenic purpose – that is, it rhetorically defined and thereby created an in-group by contrasting this in-group with an out-group, here ‘foreigners.’ Importantly, the in-group consists not only of the Ostrogoths, but it also non-Gothic Italians and people living in the Ostrogothic provinces, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. The members of the out-group – the ‘foreigners’ – are other barbarians and the East Romans. The language of foreignness is also used to subtly reinforce the Roman and imperial nature of the Ostrogothic state, which Cassiodorus depicts as a staunch defender of Italian – and Christian – interests. Taken together, this study represents an important intervention in the scholarship of identity formation in Late Antiquity, Christian rhetoric and polemic, and the history Italy in the sixth century.

The oral traditions of Moana communities throughout Oceania include numerous stories recounting human and divine interactions with Sea Creatures in days gone by. Bearing in mind these traditions, this paper uses a Samoan framework of tausua (‘to dig’ or ‘to tease’) to re-read the relationship between God and the Leviathan in Job 41. In doing this, we explore the Samoan idea of ta’alo (playfulness) as characterising God’s encounter with the Sea Creature. By closely reading Job 41 through a tausua lens, we explore ideas of delight and enjoyment that denote relationality in this passage. The flipside to this tausua orientation, of course, is that playfulness can also function as a coping mechanism. For many Pasifika communities, tausua works to help deal with trauma. Thus, alongside the playful, we explore the ta’alo between God and the Sea Creature as a trauma response, where these characters play out their shared experience of being isolated and Othered as figures of fear, horror, violence, and abjection. In sharing both joy and trauma, God and the Sea Creature destabilise traditional western assumptions which uphold rigid ontological distinctions between God and animals, challenging colonial ideas of animal agency, subjectivity, justice, and morality.

Jude identifies his opponents as those who “defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones” (Jude 8 NRSV). He also describes them as “these dreamers” (οὗτοι ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι). Given how closely 2 Peter parallels Jude in the description of these opponents, their biblical parallels, and their fate, the omission of this characteristic, “dreamers,” is striking. The absence of this description in 2 Peter is made more striking by the inclusion of visionary events elsewhere in the epistle. While Jude does not claim any particular visionary or revelatory authority for himself, 2 Peter does: first, when he professes that Jesus Christ has “made clear” that he (Peter) will soon die (2 Pet 1:14); and second, when he affirms that information he shares with his readers came from his own “eyewitness” experience of Jesus’s “majesty” (2 Pet 1:16). After situating these statements from 2 Peter within the broader context of Jewish and other Greco-Roman epiphanies and dream-visions, I will use 2 Peter and Jude as a test-case for examining the conclusions of Margaret M. Mitchell’s “Epiphanic Evolutions in Earliest Christianity.” In a special issue of the journal Illinois Classical Studies (2004), titled Divine Epiphanies in the Ancient World, Mitchell contributed an important article in which she worked “to trace an inner-Christian development in epiphanic traditions” focusing on what she called the “epiphanic logic” inherent in a variety of early Christian literature. Beginning with Paul and then tracing trajectories through the Synoptic Gospels, Deutero-Paulines, and Pastorals, Mitchell argues for an “epiphanic evolution” among Christ-followers. This evolution begins with Paul portraying himself as the last to whom Christ appeared and then develops in such a way that later Christians encounter the divine primarily through texts. In other words, Mitchell presents a kind of Weberian evolution of epiphanies, in which an early charismatic experience becomes routinized into a textual encounter. Epistles such as 2 Peter and Jude were not considered in Mitchell’s study, but they suggest that the development of an early Christian epiphanic discourse was, in fact, more complicated. Pierre Bourdieu, in his “Legitimation and Structured Interests in Weber’s Sociology of Religion,” argued that charisma should not be understood as the property of an individual, but rather as found in the relationship between the “prophet” and the “laity” typically arising in “periods of crisis or perceived crisis.” This allows for other forms of routinization of dream-visions that do not prohibit or dissolve such experiences, but affirms them while constraining them. I will show how authors such as 2 Peter anticipated the ongoing Christian experience of mediated manifestations of the divine while simultaneously navigating the problem of the revelatory-authority implied by such encounters.

In several passages of Greek Ecclesiastes, the future indicative and the aorist subjunctive appear alongside each other in seemingly identical grammatical contexts and corresponding to the same Hebrew verbal form (typically a yiqtol form). This inflectional alternation has been noted in passing by several commentators, but its extent and the reasons for its occurrence in Greek Ecclesiastes have not been studied in any detail and consequently remain poorly understood. In this paper, I will offer a more precise description of the functional merging between the aorist subjunctive and the future indicative in Greek Ecclesiastes and contextualise this within the history of the Postclassical Greek verbal system. This will enable us to better interpret the semantic significance of inflectional choices in the translation and to characterise the translation profile of Greek Ecclesiastes more accurately. The paper begins by categorising the various instances of the future indicative and the aorist subjunctive in Greek Ecclesiastes according to their specific functions within the discourse context. Examples are given of the most common uses, focusing mainly on chapters 7 and 12, which feature a high number of both future and subjunctive verb forms. The functional ranges of the verbal forms are then compared to determine which functions seem to be common to both, and which are restricted to one or the other. This facilitates a more precise description of the extent of the functional merging between the two forms and what (if any) semantic distinction exists between them in Greek Ecclesiastes. The second part of the paper contextualises the patterns of usage in Greek Ecclesiastes within Postclassical Greek. Using comparative data from documentary and literary sources, I assess how far the data in Greek Ecclesiastes correspond to wider patterns of usage in Greek of the Roman period (when Ecclesiastes was translated). I then situate this within the historical restructuring of the Greek verbal system in the Postclassical period. Finally, I consider the implications of this evidence for how we characterise the Greek translation of Ecclesiastes, both as a Greek text and as a witness to ancient interpretation of the Hebrew.

This paper is a retrospective auto-critical review of "When You Were Gentiles": Specters of Ethnicity in Roman Corinth and Paul's Corinthian Correspondence (Yale, 2014). Each presenter on this panel has been tasked with reflecting on their own first book, responding to such questions as: What are the intellectual contributions do you think have held up over time? What might you have changed in retrospect? What self-critiques can you offer that would be helpful for less established scholars to hear as they confront writing their own books? How has your thinking developed over time? How did your first book lead you (or not!) toward subsequent publications? Given your scholarly trajectory and reflections on your first book, what are your observations on the process of knowledge production over time?

Among the many topics up for debate in Johannine scholarship, few would argue against the existence of a gospel prologue in John 1:1-18. Further, interpreters of the Gospel of John generally agree on this prologue’s hymnic quality, offering various explanations for the prose material about John that occurs iinvv. 6-8, 15. In the face of this broad consensus, P. J. Williams published an important text critical study arguing that John 1:1-18 is “not the prologue of John” (“Not the Prologue of John, JSNT 33 (2011): 375-386). By this, Williams meant that early manuscripts and interpreters alike did not recognize a break after John 1:18. Far more likely, according to Williams, is that the textual archetype contained a division after John 1:5 (383). In 2015, Martinus de Boers built on Williams’s work to show how John 1:1-5 could function well as the original prologue of the gospel. However, de Boers does not include a discussion of the interpretive implications for the rest of the gospel of this shorter prologue. This paper builds on the interpretive trajectory of Williams and de Boers, especially responding to Williams’s critique that modern scholars have not undertaken the interpretive task with a minimally marked text. I explore three possible implications of reading with a shorter prologue and the “gospel proper” beginning in John 1:6. The first concerns the Fourth Gospel’s relationship with the synoptic gospels. A shorter prologue would indicate a closer alignment with the synoptic gospels insofar as the narrative would begin with the introduction of John the Baptist, much like the synoptic traditions. A second related implication concerns the characterization of John. For example, I argue that John’s strangely negative response to the priests’ and Levites’ query in John 1:19 makes more sense following on a positive testimony about Jesus running at least through 1:17. Finally, reading through the lens of a minimally marked text (that is, not assuming John 1:18 is the Prologue) has implications for theories about gospel composition. Putting aside the theory of the incorporation of a logos hymn that was then disrupted in multiple places, I explore the possibility of reading John 1:6-36 as an opening narrative about John, albeit one infused with same “we” voice in 1:14 that appears in chapter 21:24.

This paper is a survey of common valency patterns and alternations in Biblical Hebrew. It draws on the methodology of the ValPal project (https://valpal.info/) and is based on a selection of moderate to high frequency verbs. Alternations discussed include partitive, null object, reflexive and reciprocal, causal, and passive. Typological issues addressed include the distinction between "coded" and "uncoded" alternations, especially with respect to the system of binyanim, the question of basic valency orientation of Biblical Hebrew, and issues of diachrony.

Micah 4:4 offers a vision of peace and prosperity in which everyone “shall sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” Given the prophetic invocation of divine judgment woven throughout Micah, one can easily read this as an eschatological promise that offers nothing but gratuitous hope for supernatural fulfillment. Alternatively, Walter Brueggemann argues that the text offers a “poetic promise,” and “a practice of imagination which presents an unthinkable, underived future” (1981, 190). Yet, by reading Micah through the ecojustice principles of interconnectedness and mutual custodianship informed by modern environmental justice, one finds that Micah 4 offers a realistic vision of a community that practices environmental justice. Literarily, the vision of Micah 4 is situated amidst an analysis of unjust social conditions and calls to reform both national and international structures. It offers an analysis and critique of the systems that thwart the formation of this ideal community. This paper begins by placing the ecojustice principles of interconnectedness and mutual custodianship into conversation with insights from the modern environmental justice movement to illuminate the ways that Micah’s vision requires not only a just distribution of environmental benefits and burdens—in the form of land, water, labor, and leisure—but also an enduring relationship between a people and a particular place in the world. Next, it explores Micah’s intersectional analysis of how internal social issues of class, gender, age, and religious structures contribute to disparities in both social power and ecological (in)justices. Then it examines Micah’s alternative to the extractive royal system that contributes to environmental injustices through the book’s treatment of war, empire, and national defense. Finally, the paper discusses contemporary implications of this reading, arguing that Micah can be read as a prophetic critique of an environmentally unjust society and a practical plan for reforms that can build a just society in which each can both eat of their own vines and figs and have the leisure to sit under them as well.

The proposed paper seeks to offer a comprehensive analysis of the much-debated Priestly Blessing, exploring its historical development, literary formation, and varied usage within Ancient Israel and the Ancient Near East. Moreover, it aims to address a notable gap in scholarship, particularly from both Hebrew Bible and Assyriology perspectives. Commencing with an examination of the Priestly Blessing as depicted in Numbers 6:24 - 26, the paper delves into its semantics, genre, and structural elements. It then traces the diachronic development of this formula, from its origins in oral tradition to its epistolary use and then to its eventual incorporation into liturgical/apotropaic context, all of which are supported by inscriptional and textual evidence written in Hebrew, Akkadian, and other Semitic languages that parallel the biblical text. The evidence for this through survey will find ground in sources such as the Kuntillat ʿAjrud inscription, the Akkadian Letter of Takuḫlina, the Keteph Hinnom scrolls, among others. Additionally, the paper will note biblical passages along with the Aramaic Targum, Rabbinic, and Qumran literature which present allusions to and interpretations of the formula, mainly in the Book of Malachi and the Psalms, the Community Rule (1QS), the Sifre and Babylonian Talmud Tractate Soṭah. The second part of the paper introduces the Cyrus Cylinder inscription, which has rightfully been compared to biblical compositions such as Isaiah. However, this paper contends that the inscription offers further illuminating comparative evidence, as it contains a two-line literary unit that encodes a “narrativized” form of the Priestly Blessing, marking the first recognized parallel from the exilic period onwards. This section starts of by presenting the context and history of the inscription’s literary formation, as well as aligning its structure – focusing on lines 18-19. The comparative analysis relies on both lexical identification and motif similarities, highlighting shared language such as "shine face upon," "bless," and "keep/praise," not only in comparison to the Priestly Blessing in Numbers 6 but also in relation to the rest of Semitic language-written parallels. Additionally, the paper emphasizes the theme of blessing within the inscription, particularly its apotropaic theme of protection against evil, a motif that, as we will bring to evidence, holds significance in the history of the Priestly Blessing. The overarching goal of this comparative analysis is to deepen our comprehension of the literary composition of both Hebrew and Akkadian texts, while also elucidating the techniques and framework employed by diverse scribal schools, while integrating the formula into the literary works they produced. The Cyrus Cylinder presents such an innovative case, as it was written under the Babylonian shadow in the beginning of the Persian Period, a period that needless to say, represents a pivotal point in biblical compositional history.

This thesis project primarily focuses on Pauline metaphors of slavery. The investigation into the metaphor linking the believer, understood as a slave, to God may seem surprising: it adopts an oppressive reality to convey a message of freedom and hope. When examining these statements, it is primarily their theological significance that is explored. The emphasis lies on the allegorical aspect rather than the material dimension. However, upon closer examination of Pauline anthropology, he does not advocate for an escape from the world or the body. To clarify this point further, it does not seem that Paul is placing particular emphasis on the world to come at the expense of the present world. While there are certainly ambivalences, dualities, and paradoxes, they do not entail a rejection of various worldly realities. Moreover, considering that slaves constituted a significant portion of the communities Paul addressed, the reception of his message carries significant stakes. So, to what extent is it possible to interpret these metaphors of slavery as a message of freedom and hope for "things to come," while also seeing them as a message of emancipation in the materiality of enslaved and alienated bodies? This inquiry necessitates an approach that presupposes, above all, a hermeneutical responsibility on the part of those engaging with the biblical text: to place the biblical content back into its context while updating interpretations to resonate with contemporary understanding. It also requires the application of hermeneutical theories that facilitate a fruitful reinterpretation. Judith Butler's political theory of language, with its focus on agency, repetition, understanding the body as a site of resistance, and drawing from Derrida's work, appears promising. This is an attempt we would like to submit with this intervention.

The definitional feature of biblical acrostic poems is the successive appearance of letters of the alphabet, following an established abecedarian sequence, in the initial position of the opening words of poetic units. Other alphabetic devices may also appear in these poems, however, albeit less consistently. One such device is the further repetition of the initial acrostic letter within the stanza, which Joseph L. Justiss has termed “alphabetic alliteration” (“Identifying Alphabetic Compositions in the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Peter C. W. Ho,” VT 2023, 8). Alphabetic alliteration has received only minimal discussion in secondary literature about biblical acrostic poems. Perhaps most notably, Benjamin D. Giffone observes that Ps 9:2-3, an aleph stanza, includes five cohortative verbs with initial aleph, while three words beginning with tav appear in the first half of Ps 10:17, a tav stanza. Based on these data, he concludes that such alliteration serves to emphasize the beginning and end of the poem (“A ‘Perfect’ Poem: The Use of the Qatal Verbal Form in the Biblical Acrostics,” HS 51 [2010]: 56-57). This paper identifies examples of alphabetic alliteration in Lamentations 1-4 and discusses their aesthetic effects. The device occurs throughout the book’s acrostic poems, in some cases taking distinctive forms. For instance, the threefold repetition of the acrostic letter at the head of each of couplet within the stanzas of Lam 3--a structure found only elsewhere in Ps 119--should be considered a form of alphabetic alliteration, since only the first couplet of each stanza need begin with the acrostic letter to establish the form, as in chs. 1, 2 and 4. In addition, several poetic lines in Lamentations use cognate formations, usually a finite verb paired with an infinitive or accusative from the same root, to facilitate repetition of the acrostic letter (1:2, 8; 3:52; 4:17, 18). In terms of effects, alphabetic alliteration in Lamentations reinforces the structural function of the acrostic; following Giffone’s observation, it notably appears near the beginning or ends of the poems (bet and tav stanzas in Lam 1; aleph and bet stanzas in Lam 2; aleph and shin stanzas in Lam 4). Because consonance is a sonic effect, alphabetic alliteration adds an aural dimension to the otherwise primarily graphic convention of the acrostic. Moreover, alphabetic alliteration in Lamentations sometimes involves the acrostic letter of the following stanza, in which case it contributes to the poem’s forward movement. Perhaps most interestingly, acrostic alliteration reinforces the alternative pe-ayin abecedarian sequence in Lam 4:16-18, almost as if the poet anticipated the temptation for later scribes to “correct” the poem to the more usual ayin-pe order, which in fact happens in several of the versions. By way of conclusion, this paper will revisit and clarify the disputed idea of “alphabetic thinking”--or, as I prefer, “alphabetic play”--in biblical acrostic poems.

Despite the exceptional amount of ink spilled on the topic, the authorship, genre, and function of the prologue of the Fourth Gospel remains one of the central riddles of New Testament studies. Logically, much depends on whether the prologue was written before, simultaneously with, or after the core of the Gospel was written. Even if one sides with the growing critical consensus that the prologue is “of a piece” with and original to the plan of the Fourth Evangelist, the question of its place in the final form of our received text of the Gospel and its role in guiding the reader through the Johannine “parade of images” that follows admits of various interpretations. This paper develops the thesis proposed by Harold Attridge (2019) that for some ancient readers in the Johannine circle, and perhaps for the Fourth Evangelist himself, John’s prologue functioned, at least partially, as the “hypothesis” of a Classical tragedy or comedy. Such “hypotheses,” which were attached to dramatic works for a variety of reasons, include a plot summary and various other bits of information, and come down to us in at least three different forms. Of particular interest are the hypotheses attributed to Aristophanes of Byzantium (ca. 257–180 BCE), head of the library in Alexandria after Eratosthenes (P.Oxy. 1241, ii). Even if not all of these extant hypotheses are authentic, the formulaic contents of the Aristophanean hypothesis shed light on the Johannine prologue and help to explain its tenses, topics, organization, and role in shaping the reader’s experience of the New Testament’s most dramatic Gospel.

In Matt 10, Jesus prescribes a radical program in his discourse on discipleship, affirming the inevitability of persecution (10:16–23) and calling for the giving up of life (10:38). The teaching makes stark demands of the Twelve, who stand in for all disciples, a group which scholars (e.g. U. Luz 1983; J. Kingsbury 1986; J. Brown 2002) have long wrestled to understand within Matthew’s gospel. Jesus’s commands appear discontinuous with their demonstrated ability. The Matthean vision of discipleship requires that Matt 10 be interpreted in the light of Matt 11 and Jesus’s self-identification as one like personified Wisdom. Scholars have long taken Matt 11:19 and 11:25–30 as inviting consideration of Jesus in comparison with Wisdom in early Jewish texts (e.g. Proverbs, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon). Scholarship on Jesus’s abiding presence in Matthew (e.g. D. Kupp 1996; M. Konradt 2020; M. Bockmuehl 2022) has suggested that Jesus’s presence provides a key for understanding the evangelist’s conception of discipleship. In dialogue with this previous scholarly work, I argue that Matt 10 and 11 together present a picture in which Jesus relates to his disciples in a manner comparable to Wisdom. As evidence for the argument, I provide a narrative critical analysis of Matt 9:35–11:30 and a comparison of Jesus’s deeds and words with those of personified Wisdom. I identify multiple parallels in 9:35–11:30 (e.g. Matt 9:35–36 // 10:6–7; 10:14–15 // Matt 11:20–24; Matt 10:32–33 // Matt 11:25–27) that define the disciples’ response to Jesus as mimetic—their deeds are his deeds. As Matt 10:1 makes clear, Jesus himself grants the disciples the capacity to perform the deeds he commands. Jesus’s relationship with the disciples goes beyond an invitation from him to behave like him. In Matt 10:24–25 and 40, Jesus explicitly identifies himself with his disciples. The mimetic element and the conflation of identity of the disciples and Jesus takes on new significance in the light of Jesus’s self-identification as one like Wisdom in Matt 11:19 and 11:25–30. Dialoguing with scholarship on Wisdom and its relation to Matthew’s Christology (e.g. J. Dunn 1980; C. Deutsch 1990, 1996; E. Günther 2020), I endeavor to show that those who have Jesus’s presence among them (i.e. the disciples) receive benefits associated with Wisdom, including life (cf. Prov 8:35–36; Wis 6:17–20; Matt 10:37–39), knowledge of God (cf. Wis 9:9–18; Matt 11:25–27), and rest under a kindly yoke (cf. Sir 6:23–31; Matt 11:28–30). Like Wisdom, Jesus calls for his disciples to come to him and upon their association with him grants them the capability to achieve what he has instructed them, namely, performing his deeds.

Many scholars and activists have recognized Psalm 104 for its potential to inspire an ecological vision for the creation. A primary feature of the psalm that draws such attention is the way it seems to decenter humanity in its catalog of animals and their place in the created order (e.g. vv. 19-23). In this paper I will explore another, perhaps more significant characteristic of the poem for an ecological reading, namely, its presentation of the creation, and particularly its remotest regions, as a sanctuary of the creator. Hebrew Bible scholars broadly agree that biblical depictions of the creation arise from an understanding of the cosmos as a macrocosm of the temple or tabernacle. In the case of Psalm 104, however, this understanding is more assumed than demonstrated. Apart from the general depictions of the heavens as a tent (v. 2) and the earth as a building with a foundation (v. 5), scholars have identified few explicit depictions of the cosmos as a temple. I will argue that verses 16-18, which depict the remote, uncultivated parts of the earth, contains allusions to the Jerusalem temple that enhance the understanding of the cosmos as temple in the psalm. Identification of the “trees of the LORD” (reading with MT) as “the cedars of Lebanon that he planted” (v. 16) is perhaps such an allusion (see the association of cedars of Lebanon with the temple in e.g. Ps 92:13-14 [Eng. 12-13]). Most intriguing, however, is the depiction of birds building nests (verbal root qnn) and the stork having “its home” (bethah) in the trees for verse 17 shares much of this language with Ps 84:4 (Eng. 3), a psalm that celebrates the beauty and life-giving character of the temple. This reading of Psalm 104 fills out what is already a clear emphasis in the psalm of the creator’s providential care for all creatures, including the mysterious creatures of the sea (v. 26). I will suggest that further exploration of the theme of “cosmos as temple” in the Hebrew Bible has potential for advancing ecological readings of biblical texts with Psalm 104 serving as a prime example.

The Coptic Gnostic treatise known as the “Untitled Text” of the Bruce Codex is, still to this day, one of the most neglected texts in Gnostic literature. One of the reasons is because of the complex system it develops, a cosmology characterized by seemingly countless heaven-containing-heavens, populated by innumerable entities with interchangeable epithets. Another reason is certainly because of the apparent lack of structure in the text, making it extremely difficult for the reader to follow the author in his exposition. But writers in Antiquity did not compose such treatises in a random way: they always followed literary models, which they often adapted to suit their specific needs. This paper aims to unlock the literary structure of the "Untitled Text", first by looking closely at what we can determine to be the main sections of the treatise and at the way they are linked with one another, then by comparing the treatise with other texts of the same nature. Our objective is that a better understanding of the structure of the Untitled Text will help in understanding the function of the text and the content itself.

In a 1996 article Philip Alexander argued that 1QS specifically is a “manual of instruction” for the Maskil to prepare the figure for his duties in community life. Carol Newsom (2004) later made a similar observation, leaving the matter open as to whether this interpretation should apply only to 1QS or to Serekh ha-Yahad (S) more generally. While Alexander and Newsom may well be correct regarding 1QS, the notion that S represents a manual of instruction for the Maskil in the case of one or more of the other manuscripts of the work remains to be proven. Much recent work on the pluriformity of the S-tradition reinforces the methodological principle that each manuscript of S must be interpreted individually before generalizations regarding the tradition can be made. Moreover, it is not self-evident that “manual of instruction” needs to mean exactly the same thing for each manuscript if the idea is applied as a generalization of the S-tradition. The present paper will examine 4Q259-4Q319 (4QSe-4QOtot) to define its function. Although I do argue that this manuscript could be described as a “manual of instruction” in the sense intended by Alexander and Newsom, I seek to characterize what such a description means for this manuscript as precisely as the evidence allows. Focusing on the Statutes of the Maskil (4Q259 3:6b-4:6a) and the subsequent calendrical material (4Q319 4:6b ff.), I contend that the function of the manuscript is to inculcate within the Maskilim of the community the knowledge of the cosmic order instituted by God at the time of creation. This knowledge encompasses not only inter-communal hierarchies and the legal regulations of the community by which these are governed, but also the principles governing the cycles and passing of time. Indeed, understanding the periodization of time allows the Maskil to properly determine the legal stipulations incumbent upon the community during any given period of time as defined by the Maskil (see 4Q259 3:8b-10a). In light of these responsibilities mandated for Maskilim, I interpret the manuscript’s calendrical material as providing a model for how the Maskil ought to understand the principles of the cosmic order underlying the flow of time. Such principles include especially the priestly courses, by which much of the calendrical material present in the manuscript is structured. By comparing the calendrical material of 4Q319 to the “historical” texts 4Q331-4Q333, which correlate historical events and personages with priestly courses, I claim that 4Q319 may plausibly have supplied Maskilim with a model by which to demarcate historical periods and to map their present and that of the community within the overall flow of time as dictated by the cosmic order. Such a model would allow Maskilim to better perform the duties described above.

Who were the early Christians? The diversity of early Christianity defies a simple answer. Nevertheless, a few possible answers to the question can be excluded. The Epistle to Diognetus 5.1-2 excludes common criteria of group identity: geography, language, and customs. In its first few decades Christianity grew beyond a Palestinian-situated, Aramaic-speaking, culturally-Jewish religion. Early Christian countries, languages, and customs became so diverse as to be irrelevant to the question of identity. What was central to early Christians was their association with Jesus. The lexicon defines Χριστιανός as “one who is associated with Christ, a Christ-partisan.” This is obviously true: Christians were closely aligned with Christ. But this definition omits the affective element: devotion. Larry Hurtado has shown in various publications that devotion to Jesus went well beyond ideological alignment. It was a heartfelt devotion that shaped one’s beliefs and practices. Three factors are pertinent to this devotion: (1) The view of Christianity as a third race, is implicit in 1 Peter and Diognetus and increasingly explicit in Martyrdom of Polycarp, pseudo-Cyprian, and Tertullian. Christians were distinguished from Greeks both by beliefs and practices. And despite Christianity’s shared traditions with Judaism, early on they came to think of themselves as something other than Jews. Thus “third race” language reflects identity by negation: whatever Christians were, they were not pagans or Jews. Many others had religious devotion, but that of Christians somehow differed. (2) The second factor that contributed to Christian identity was the experience of persecution and martyrdom. Such vulnerability was a consequence of Christians’ non-negotiable devotion to Jesus. This is evident in the prominence of the confession “Christianus/a sum” in the context of martyr acts. As Daniel Boyarin has observed, this confession is early, persistent, and pervasive. From the martyr’s side, it was the ultimate witness; from the authorities’ side, it was a confession of criminality. (3) Finally, since most early Christians were not persecuted or martyred, how did that experience contribute to group identity? Modern scholarship often uses the language “local and sporadic” to describe persecution and martyrdom. This is not a corrective to the portrait given by Eusebius, but in fact describes it. Eusebius frequently talks about times when “the church was at peace.” Persecution was local and sporadic, but by the late first century, the threat of persecution would have been widespread. The Roman justice system was accusatorial, not investigative. All that was needed for Christians to be imperiled was an accuser. Christians did not view themselves as universally harassed and martyred, but as persons whose devotion to Jesus made them vulnerable to harassment and martyrdom. These experiences were secondary effects of their identity, not primary characteristics.

A number of the best-known English translations of the Hebrew Bible are based primarily on the Masoretic Text (MT). Nevertheless, when facing a textual issue, perhaps due to a perceived difficulty in MT itself, or when presented with the promise of a better more authoritative wording (one that is closer to the original), Bible translators sometimes turn to other ancient sources and adopt variants into the background text of their translations. It is natural for them to turn first to the Hebrew texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls for evidence for an earlier or better text than MT, but in the particular case of Ezra-Nehemiah, very little direct textual evidence can be drawn from the scrolls. Thus, the text of the Septuagint becomes especially important. In this paper, the author will seek to isolate several textual cases in which English translations diverge from MT on textual grounds and instead favor a text that is found or suggested in the Septuagint. An attempt will likewise be made to weigh up the text-critical significance that is accorded to 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras from the Septuagint at these points of influence. While taking a predominantly descriptive approach, the paper will also leave room for considering best practice, especially when thinking of the next generation of Bible translations prepared for the public.

In the following paper, I reread instances of the prophets’ references to land and water in light of African biblical scholarship, arguing that the prophetic texts highlight land and water’s agency as they act as extensions of YHWH and YHWH’s prophet in meting out divine judgment. Focal passages include Jeremiah 3, Hosea 4, and Amos 4, in which the land mourns, experiences drought, and/or ceases its production. While the contemporary scholarly consensus acknowledges interconnection among YHWH, human creation, and nonhuman creation within the prophetic corpus, current scholarship often presents nonhuman creation as a mere victim of humankind’s wrongdoings in these texts. This paper counters that presentation through dialogue with African indigenous wisdom and African biblical scholarship; the insights of Madipoane Masenya, Musa Dube, and Paul Leshota, among others, direct the reader’s attention to the agency that land and water exert despite or in the midst of their sufferings. In so doing, this reading more fully illumines these prophetic texts by highlighting both the agency of land and water and the polyvocality of the prophets’ natural imagery. This paper incorporates ecological criticism, comparative hermeneutics, and biblical poetics. Additionally, it engages the insights of an explicitly contextual criticism, namely African biblical criticism, as a corrective to the Euro-American perspective that often overlooks the agency of nonhuman creation and that, at times, struggles with concurrent characterizations within a given text.

There are only a handful of Ethiopian-born people who are venerated as saints in both the Ethiopian Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions. The most interesting in terms of narrative and mythos is Kaleb of Aksum, known in Brazil as Santo Elesbão. For Kaleb’s life and hagiography holds a unique narrative of subversive power between both distinct contexts in which he is venerated. In the Ethiopian tradition, he is a monastic king who ultimately discards all worldly possessions and all claims to power so that he might show the kingship of God over the land rather than any human monarch. Then nearly a thousand years later, across the Atlantic Ocean, the story of this Ethiopian king is picked up by the fraternities of Catholic slaves in Brazil, who use the iconography of this newly venerated saint to promote a narrative in which God stands on the side of the oppressed and perhaps even finds a victorious warrior, an almost biblical judge from the line of Solomon (traditionally the Aksumite kingship traced their lineage to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba), with a skin color and ancestry that mirrored their own. There is currently a common narrative within the larger confines of church history which paints Christianity as a White religion that was used by Europeans to further subjugate and control enslaved populations. However, such narratives overlook stories like that of Santo Elesbão, who was not only an exemplary model of Christian authority in Africa nearly a millennium before the transatlantic slave trade began, but whose hagiography catalyzed Christian resistance to slavery within enslaved communities.

This paper is situated in the neocolonial context of global capitalism and its impact on the lives of women in margins working in the globalised economies of the world. Taking a postcolonial gendered lens in the reading of the book of Ruth, this paper foregrounds the agency of women from global south and utilises them as a theology-generating agency. By engaging in a decolonial methodology of knowledge production and in doing theology with women in margins, this paper critiques the influence of western lens for the non-western people, specifically women from the Global South. It furthers contests the polemic and passive narratives in wo/men’s and gender studies that have for long focussed on the male/masculine power over women (Schüssler Fiorenza 2014: 9, 10). By bringing into dialogue the work of post-colonial feminist scholars and feminist theologians, this paper analyses the complex realities and intersectional experiences of the dominated, oppressed and marginalised women who risk their lives to migrate and work to pursue their dreams and aspirations of “life in abundance”. This paper presents the views of postcolonial feminist scholars to analyse the anti-trafficking narratives that shape public policy and discourse. It further engages with a theology of work to promote the rights of women to decent work. By centring the voices and knowledge of trafficked and migrant working women from the global south who have for long been sidelined in biblical studies, this paper will present a decolonial approach to knowledge production through feminist and participatory research processes. A decolonial feminist reading of Ruth from the perspective of trafficked and migrant working women brings forward the need to dismantle the paternalistic stereotypical constructs of women as victims and passive beings. When women and communities in margins tell their stories, issues of power, domination, oppression, subordination along with narratives of agency, liberation, empowerment and transformation come forward. This paper acknowledges people in margins as the best knowers of their lived realities and contexts. Race, class, heteronormativity, ethnicity, religion, colonialism, and other structures of domination are included in the intersectional analysis of women’s embodied experiences in this paper. Women’s embodied experiences and theology is produced and presented here to influence public theology and policy to promote the rights and dignity of women workers in the informal economy. The paper concludes with the assertion that if we are engaged in God’s mission of “creating new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65: 17-25), then it is vital to bring the voices and aspirations of communities in margins to the centre of biblical studies in order to dismantle oppressive systems and structures that keep them in margins.

One of the growing trends in Hebrew Bible research relates to issues of authorship and attribution. Significant studies include the works of Hindy Najman (2003), Jed Wyrick (2004), Eva Mroczek (2016, 2021), Thomas Bolin (2017), Jacqueline Vayntrub (2018), Nathan Mastnjak (2023) and others. Moving away from early notions of “(pious) fraud” or false attributions, these scholars have proposed models of authorship and pseudepigrapha that take seriously the dynamics in the texts themselves, as historically contingent, material objects. In this line of inquiry, one recurring idea that has been used to structure much of the discussion is the Foucauldian notion of “discourses tied to founders” (Foucault 1969). The basic idea is that attributions can be understood as a way of creating continuity with a founding father without implying that this founding father wrote all (if anything) of the literary works belonging to such a discourse. In this paper, I will discuss this notion in light of recent research on authorship in the ‘book’ of Isaiah (Davage 2022). More specifically, I will argue that the Foucauldian notion makes sense primarily in a Greek trajectory, where most works are related to a named author, but less so in a Mesopotamian trajectory (to which much of the Hebrew Bible belongs), where works are regularly transmitted without such a name. Looking at Isaiah 1:1 (and 2:1; 13:1), it will be argued that this paratext was originally not added to relate the ‘book’ to a “founding father”—it had little to do with questions of origins—but rather partook in a distributive construction of authorship where it functioned as a fence around the discourse, demarcating it from other prophetic works. Nonetheless, in the late Second Temple period and the first centuries CE, Isa 1:1 came to be reinterpreted in light of a growing influence of the Greek trajectory on Hebrew Bible literature, so that Isaiah was eventually recast as an originator.

The chief theological subject matter of the Thessalonian correspondence, it is generally recognised, is eschatology, in particular the imminent parousia and the ‘Day of the Lord,’ and apocalyptic signs thereof. Alongside this central theological topic, the letters display a clear concern for ethical/pastoral instruction of various kinds. This is particularly clear in 1 Thessalonians 4–5, where Paul sandwiches a discussion of apparently quotidian ethical matters (sexual behaviour and work) between his prayer for the Thessalonians at the Lord’s coming (3.13) and a detailed discussion of the suddenness of that event, all of which concludes with his exhortation to “encourage one another with these words” (4.18; cf. 5.11). The seemingly awkward juxtaposition of apocalyptic eschatology and ethical instruction here, and throughout the Thessalonian letters, raises the question of the relationship between these two themes in Paul’s thought. A common approach to this question, at least since Martin Dibelius and Albert Schweitzer, is to interpret Paul’s exhortations to the church in Thessalonica as a highly contingent Interimsethik: ‘emergency measures’ for a world about to end. Against such views (or extending beyond them), I will argue that Paul’s ethical reasoning has a much more coherent and intrinsically eschatological rationale. Far from being simply his ‘last things,’ Paul’s apocalyptic eschatology is the first movement of his ethics, its founding theological resource. A challenge for such an eschatologically resourced ethics is the question of continuity. If Paul’s ethical reasoning is rooted in the parousia and the world to come, what account can he give of the continuity of this present world, or indeed of the individual human life? Without a robust account of such continuity, Pauline ethics seems necessarily to return to being an ad hoc series of emergency measures. Responding to this challenge, and taking the Thessalonian letters as a test case, this paper will offer a theological consideration of the parousia, and how Paul’s apparently discontinuous apocalyptic hope for the imminent coming of Christ is also the proper dogmatic location in which to establish the continuity of creation. It is from this christological and eschatological framework that Pauline ethics takes its shape.

Within the narrative of Abram and Sarai’s sojourn in Egypt (Gen 12:10–20), there is a notable gap that is left open: If Pharaoh was made to believe that Sarai was Abram’s sister, how did he come to realize that Sarai was indeed Abram’s wife? In its rewriting of the narrative, Genesis Apocryphon fills the gap by having Lot intervene as Abram is summoned to pray for Pharaoh, stating, “Abram, my uncle, cannot pray over the king while his wife Sarai is with him! Now go and tell the king that he should send his wife away from himself to her husband; then he (Abram) will pray over him so that he might live” (1QapGen 20.22–23; Machiela 2009). Previous scholarship has noted how the latter half of Lot’s speech aligns with God’s instruction to Abimelech in Gen 20:7a (Fitzmyer 2004; Jurgens 2019; Snyder 2015), yet little attention has been paid to the opening of Lot’s statement. This paper suggests that the author of Genesis Apocryphon modeled Lot’s full statement on the words of Dinah’s brothers in Gen 34:14–16. In addition to providing a comparative analysis of the statements in 1QapGen 20.22–23 and Gen 34:14–16, the paper will attend to the similarities and differences between the broader narratives in which the statements are found. Having noted signs of Genesis Apocryphon’s literary dependence on Genesis 34, the paper will discuss the implications the connection has for the characterization of Lot and Abram within Genesis Apocryphon’s account of their sojourn in Egypt.

The qurʾānic discourse underscores a special status for the households (ahl or ahl al-bayt) of prophets, exemplified by the attribution of blessing and purity to the ahl al-bayt of Abraham (Q 11:73) and Muḥammad (Q 33:33). However, a similar portrayal of Moses’ family in the Qurʾān has remained unexplored. In this paper, I investigate the depiction of Moses’ family within the Qurʾān and analyze its intertextuality with the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature. I argue that the qurʾānic discourse subtly emphasizes Moses’ family by presenting them alongside Aaron as witnesses to Moses’ revelation—an allegory for the status of the family of the Prophet Muḥammad. The qurʾānic narrative of theophany to Moses at the burning tree (Q 20:8–36; 27:7–12; 28:22–35; Rubin 2014; Galadari 2024) occurs during his journey with his family, which includes his wife Zipporah and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer (Exod 2:15–22; 18:3–4). Notably, in this event, Moses’ family is implicitly enveloped in the divine blessing (barakah) bestowed upon those in the vicinity of the tree (Q 27:7–8). This placement of Moses’ family contrasts with the biblical account of the burning bush, where Moses experiences the theophany while tending alone his father-in-law’s flocks (Exod 3:1–3), resulting in his subsequent journey to Egypt with his family (Exod 4:20). In the qurʾānic theophany scene, while much of the communication occurs between God and Moses, there are instances where God addresses Moses and Aaron together (Q 20:43–47; 25:36; 26:15–17), and they jointly respond to Him (Q 20:45). This observation is coherent with the implied joining of Aaron to Moses on the mountain in Q 19:52–53 and the explicit mention of both figures appearing on the Mountain of God in the Hebrew Bible (Exod 4:14–15, 27–28). However, in the biblical account, Moses is the intermediator of God’s message to Aaron and puts “words in his mouth” (Exod 4:15). These notions entail the presence of five individuals in the qurʾānic portrayal of Moses’ revelation in the sacred valley of ṭuwā (Q 20:12; 79:16): Moses, Aaron, Zipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer. It is worth noting that besides Moses’ wife and two sons, Aaron is also identified as his ahl (Q 20:29). The Qurʾān often presents biblical characters and stories with underlying typological themes (Zwettler 1990; Stewart 2000, 2016; Neuwirth 2010, 2022; Griffith 2013). Particularly, this qurʾānic scene may have served as a typology for Muḥammad’s gathering of his family, consisting of ʿAlī, Fāṭimah, Ḥasan, and Ḥusayn under his cloak to constitute the five purified aṣḥāb al-kisāʾ (Q 33:33) who also participated in the event of mubāhilah (3:61).

Recent literary and theological readings of 1 Kings 22 have drawn various conclusions regarding the moral characterisation of God implied by the narrative's so-called "divine deception." Some scholars have argued that Yhwh's commissioning of the lying spirit to mislead Ahab points to a "dark side" of the God of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Brueggemann 1997, Barton 2010). Others have attempted to show how the narrative is compatible with the wider attestation to Yhwh's trustworthiness in biblical literature (e.g., Seow 1999, Williams 2002), or even how it positively describes Yhwh's compassion or patience offered to an obstinate king (Moberly 2003, Miller 2014). However, less attention has been given in the discussion thus far to the complex challenges involved in defining and analysing the concept of "deception" as it applies to this text. Recent studies on deception in biblical narrative (Prouser 1991, Williams 2001, Newkirk 2015) have demonstrated the usefulness of applying a nuanced definition of deception drawn from moral philosophy (such as that of Bok 1978) in a biblical context. More recent studies (Weiss 2017, Davies 2022) have gone even further in drawing on moral-philosophical arguments for and against lying to probe ethical aspects of biblical deception narratives. Building on these prior studies, my paper will use insights from moral philosophy in order to explore the dynamics of the so-called "deception" of 1 Kings 22. First, I draw on the work of contemporary moral philosopher James E. Mahon (2016) who summarises the traditional philosophical definition of deception as "to intentionally cause to have a false belief that is known or believed to be false." Comparing the narrative of 1 Kings 22 to this definition raises the suggestion that Ahab was not in fact deceived, since he is characterised as not accepting the false prophecy as true (vv. 16, 30). Second, in conversation with the philosophical point that not every false statement is deceptive (e.g., consider obvious untruths not intended to be believed), I argue that 1 Kings 22 does not suggest that Yhwh intended for the spirit's lies to be believed true by Ahab, since the king is also given the contents of the vision through Micaiah (vv. 19-23). Rather, this pattern of an initial false statement followed immediately by the truth to achieve a rhetorical impact aligns this text with other pedagogical deceptions, providing philosophical support to strengthen a connection with the juridical parables of 2 Sam 12:1-7 and 1 Kgs 20:39-42 which others have noted (e.g., Moberly 2003). Based on this comparison, I argue that Yhwh's actions in 1 Kings 22 are examples of this mode of deception which was acceptable within prophetic circles according to the authors of these texts. The implication is that care must be taken in assuming that all forms of deception carry equally negative moral connotations.

The great Isaiah scroll (1QIsaa) is the most extensive manuscript to be found in Qumran, documenting all sixty-six chapters of the book of Isaiah. Since the discovery of the scroll, the research engages the question of the number of scribes responsible for its production. This paper introduces an innovative method for assessing this question. The proposed method leverages mathematical modeling to investigate the distribution of orthographic variations within 1QIsaa. Statistical experiments done by computational algorithms reaffirm the division of 1QIsaa into two sections, each attributed to a different scribe. Remarkably, the experiments point to a unique orthographic style in the first 11 columns of the scroll. Statistical analysis shows that this style differs significantly from the rest of the scroll, challenging conventional scholarship and suggesting an involvement of a previously unnoticed third scribe in the scroll production. The method is a powerful tool for identifying distinct orthographic styles in ancient manuscripts. It opens the door to the intriguing possibility of a third, hitherto unknown scribe contributing to the scroll’s production. This interdisciplinary approach, bridging mathematics and the humanities, exemplifies the potential of digital humanities to unravel the mysteries of ancient manuscripts and enrich our understanding of history and culture.

Ancient Jewish and Christian texts often portray wild animals (thēria) as a source of danger and a reason for fear. Many texts proclaim a hero’s ability to overcome animals through physical prowess, spiritual excellence, or both. In this paper, I will explore the portrayal of wild animals as part of Satan’s workforce in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Based on this I will extrapolate implications for the interpretation of wild animals in the wider ancient Jewish and early Christian literary landscape. In the Testaments of Judah and Gad, both patriarchs are described as being extremely good at killing non-human animals (and Judah is skilled at killing human animals as well). Common readings of these narratives depend on the reception of David’s shepherding skill (1 Samuel 17:34) and general promises that the Lord will protect chosen persons from animals (Psalm 91:9–13, Mark 1:13). Yet, in other testaments wild animals are arguably not non-human animals at all. They are supernatural forces of evil. In several prophetic or eschatological passages wild animals are equated to the spirits of deceit, and even outside of these future-oriented passages we see this interpretation: Benjamin promises his sons that neighbourly love will protect them against bestial scheming. Through this conceptualisation of wild animals as servants of Satan, I will re-explore the narratives of Judah and Gad’s beast slaying — discussing whether these might better be read as descriptions of exorcistic or apotropaic activity. Based on this examination of the portrayal of animals in The Testaments, I will make some suggestions for other texts that might also be re-read in this light.

(submitting for the SHG panel) The translation of anthropomorphisms has been recently revisited in the context of the so-called “Septuagint-theology”. Ongoing discussion suggests that the question of LXX’s stance towards anthropomorphisms entails further questions regarding the language, cultural identity and ideology of the translator. Yet, a priori prescriptive ideas often transpire research about LXX’s presumed anti-anthropomorphism. In this optics, every deviance is considered exegesis, every anthropomorphism translated non-literally an anti-anthropomorphism. Being closely associated to the body, the divine senses offer an outlook on how God interacts and perceives in a bodily, say, anthropomorphic manner. I address God’s hearing in LXX-Pentateuch. One detail stands out in the translation of God’s senses in LXX-Pentateuch: many of the verbs are prefixed (ἐφοράω, ἐπακούω, ἔπειμι). I focus on ἐπακούω and show, firstly, how the translators draw on Classical Greek imagery, where the verb is used of deities attending to prayers directed at them, transpiring in its use in 3rd century BCE papyri with prayer formularies or the technical term ἐπήκοος used in inscriptions of the wider Mediterranean area. Secondly, I wish to show how the LXX-translators reinvent this highly technical term, by insisting on the prefix ἐπ-. Rhodes (2022) remarked: “prepositions reflect the way we profile our perceptions” – can the prefix of this sensory verb reveal how the translators perceived God’s anthropomorphic, sensory hearing? Should the prefixed ἐπί be understood as “malefactive/destructive” (Luraghi, 2003; Horn, 2016)? Does it imply a specific spatial orientation of God (Somolinos, 2013)? This paper has three scopes: (1) To interact with recent scholarship on LXX-theology, focusing on God’s senses as an instance of anthropomorphisms; (2) To situate the use of ἐπακούω in LXX-Pentateuch within the broader history of Greek; (3) To contribute to the recent exploration of the role of prefixes/prepositions in Koinè Greek (Ross & Rudge, 2022), examining how the prefixed sensory verb ἐπακούω might express certain perceptions of the translator(s).

This essay explores the connection between knowledge and pride as developed in the work of St. Paul and Augustine. Both authors use distinctly spatial metaphors to convey the moral and epistemic deficiency of pride. For Paul, pride is an empty inflation that creates an obstruction for other people (1 Cor. 8:1-13). Like an untoward rock, prideful knowledge trips the other and hinders them from running the race. Pride is, therefore, a fundamental lack of self and other awareness, such that its inflation harms the other and blinds the self from seeing the humble Christ as Lord. It is this latter, visual, dimension that Augustine develops in City of God. By attending to the language and metaphors of height—being lifted-up or being made low—and light—stepping into the darkness or gazing at the light—Augustine pictures pride as a matter of limited visibility. Pride’s ethical privation manifests in a privation of sight—a lack of knowledge. Through the use of these metaphors, we see that both Paul and Augustine maintain a close relation between knowledge and goodness. I conclude by noting some implications this has for Christian Theology.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which old age functions as a discourse (i.e., gerontology) in late ancient Christianity. In other words, how is old age utilised as a religious discourse in the shaping of Christian thought and behaviour, and what could the consequences of such a discursive appropriation have been for those who were physically elderly. After providing a brief and orienting discussion about what we characterise as "old age" in late antiquity, the paper proceeds to examine the various discursive utilisations (including the use of exempla) of old age in religious discourse, specifically relating to: a) authority and power; b) sexuality and asceticism; and, c) the experience and implications of mortality. The paper hopes to contribute further to the development of the study of aging and old age in late antiquity.

The book of Jonah opens with God’s command to go to Nineveh, but Jonah immediately flees in the opposite direction without explanation. While readers have often interpreted Jonah as a negative exemplar of moral failure, this paper approaches Jonah’s agonies and futile actions through a trauma informed reading, focusing specifically on the experience of moral injury. This builds on the previous work of Boase and Agnew (2016) and Graybill, Kaltner, and McKenzie (2023), which also explored Jonah through trauma theory. But where previous studies have focused largely on the psychological and physiological responses of shock, silence, self-isolation, and suicidal behaviours in response to traumatic events, this paper examines more specifically the violation of conscience, the loss of confidence in (divine) moral authority, and the collapse of the just world hypothesis that characterise traumatic moral injury. Moral injury has emerged as a field of study often focused on the experience of war veterans. While some expressions of military post traumatic stress follow the paradigms of involuntary memories, hyper-vigilance, and triggered panic due to exposure to extreme violence, more recently there has been an effort to understand other psychic trauma that does not necessarily result from physical danger. This has been described instead as moral injury—the crisis brought about by an unravelling of the individual’s moral beliefs and expectations (Pederson, 2021). This alternative approach to a trauma informed reading emphasises different dimensions of the text. Jonah is caught between two moral evils—disobedience of God and participation in the preservation of Israel’s mortal enemy. In this reading, Nineveh is not a cypher for foreignness, but a threat to Israel’s existence in anticipation of the Assyrian invasion. Jonah’s attempts to escape this moral conflict are thwarted when God forces him to participate in Nineveh’s salvation, contributing to Israel’s destruction. This violation, both of Jonah’s conscience and of his moral self-determination, undermines his trust in God’s moral authority, as manifest in his arguments with God. This moral injury dissolves Jonah’s confidence in the just world hypothesis, leading to his rage and suicidal ideation. This reading understands this collapse not, as it is often interpreted, as the disintegration of a rigid legalistic theological tradition, but as the destruction of an overarching framework of meaning. This trauma informed reading of Jonah through the lens of moral injury, in turn, offers a different perspective on the ambiguities of the narrative. The story’s tensions, irresolution, and interpretive possibilities may serve as a literary mimesis of the fragmentation of meaning in the aftermath of moral injury. At the same time, the elusiveness of the text also suggests the possibility of therapeutic rereading as a model for healing after trauma.

Military martyrdom or warrior sainthood has wielded significant religious influence within Christianity since its formative centuries, shaping religious beliefs, discourse, and societal attitudes. Early Christians highlighted the impact of local and widespread persecutions inflicted by Rome upon Christians during the third century, as evidenced by surviving literary and visual sources. Particularly those documenting the periods of persecution under rulers such as Valerian, Diocletian, and later Julian, not only attest to the existence of Christian soldiers within the Roman army but also illuminate the prevalent veneration practices observed among both the Christian elite and the laity. However, contemporary academic scholarship has predominantly focused on a limited selection of Byzantine warrior saints, largely neglecting extensive exploration of warrior saints across early and late antiquity. Investigations into the cult of saints and visual depictions of military martyrs, typically situated within the realms of archaeology and art history, have primarily operated at a descriptive level, and have suffered from a lack of critical examination. Moreover, scholarly attention has primarily centered on the cult of saints within the Latin West. Nevertheless, among the earliest and most authoritative works concerning soldier saints is Gregory of Nyssa's "Theodore the Recruit," dating back to the latter half of the fourth century. Theodore's renown transcended the confines of Cappadocia in Anatolia, swiftly spreading to regions such as Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Ethiopia, and the Balkans, as attested to in Georgian and Armenian Christian literature. As the cults of military saints spread to diverse geographic regions, they underwent adaptation processes that involved assimilating regional characteristics, as evidenced in literary works such as 'passio' and 'miracula'. These texts facilitated the propagation of the cult over time, emphasizing its remarkable, salvific, and apotropaic attributes. Consequently, a proliferation of regional iterations emerged, each reflecting linguistic and cultural distinctions. This presentation advocates for a novel approach to the study of saint martyrs and their cults, moving beyond the confines of archaeology and art history to engage with the earliest available sources. It seeks to explore the formation and evolution of lesser-studied Eastern saint martyrs and their cults, demonstrating their prominence in both early and late antiquity while emphasizing their significant contributions to orthodox Christianity.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

The paper examines the etiological employment of the etymologies of the name of Eve as early interpretative trajectories forecasting the later Greek patristic interpretative method. The etymologies are considered as reception instances of the Hexaemeron and paradise accounts of Genesis, and precursors to the later Greek patristic Genesis commentary. The analysis is framed by Mediterranean cultural naming practices as well as antique perceptions on the meaning and significance of names. Name-giving in the Bible has traditionally been associated with the quality of discernment and authority. Meanings of names were seen to propel the biblical narratives and reveal the nature, fate, and personality traits of a character. The etymologies function as narrative tools, providing etiologies through linguistic puns, wordplays, and palindromes. Names as hypograms are frequent in the exegetical genres. In the process of the interpretative adaptation of received biblical narrative traditions and through the strategic use of recurring language and symbols, the exegete creates a network of interconnected ideas. By embedding the unifying cryptonym, the exegete aims to provoke a transformation in the traditional framework. As a trooping technique, etymologies grant poetic license in the representation of gendered imagery, or gendered characters attached to the figure of Eve. The analysis focuses on the interplay of three etymological cases deriving from the Aggadah, Gnostic, and Apologist literature. Each case represents a different pole within the interpretative discourse continuum, preconditioning the further development of the typological identifications of the early Apologists and Origen, concluding with the Philocalic response and the Cappadocian Fathers. The suggested mapping of the discourse indicates a trans-linguistic scriptural story world characterized by the perceived intertextuality of original and translated biblical texts. In this context, the early Fathers’ appeal to typology as interpretative tool is understood as a middle ground between excessive allegorizing and symbolism, mediating the historical and figural understandings. Figural and historical readings of the figure of Eve hark back to the Genesis creation accounts, the twofold creation of the image-bearing humanity, and the existential humanity, the complex interpretative relation between “image” and “likeness.” Typology thus recognizes the Scripture as a “mixed” narrative with the Christocentric typological readings of Eve standing for individuality and humanity expanding to gendered imagery and character.

For the Roman Catholic Church, the Bible is an authoritative text. Church officials often use the Bible when crafting documents, statements, and proclamations that become part of church “teachings.” This appeal to the Bible bolsters arguments and gives credibility to certain church policies that are socially controlling in support of hegemonic structures, narratives, and social norms. This paper explores select church documents focused on reproductive rights, sexual orientation, and the role and identity of women in society to demonstrate how, through the use of the doctrinal paradigm, church officials continue to weaponize the Bible, thereby sustaining a culture of compliance, conformity, and colonization. The way church officials utilize the Bible feeds the fundamentalism of the Protestant Christian right and the Catholic Christian right whose positions, belief systems, and in some cases, monetary contributions are directly shaping American politics and social policies that counteract gender justice.

This study delves into the prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite in Helaman 13:5-6 of the Book of Mormon. This fills a critical gap in biblical scholarship by analyzing these prophecies through Hebrew literary forms such as parallelism, epistrophe, anaphora, and simploce. It addresses the question of how these ancient rhetorical techniques are utilized by Samuel, probing their role in deepening the theological and emotional resonance of the text and linking the Book of Mormon to ancient scriptural traditions. While previous research has thoroughly examined these literary forms in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures, contributions by scholars like Robert Alter and Adele Berlin and a similar focus have been lacking in Book of Mormon studies. This research aims to illuminate the literary sophistication of the Book of Mormon, showcasing its roots in ancient Near Eastern literary traditions, thereby enriching theological understanding and offering fresh perspectives on the text’s significance in modern Restoration communities. Employing comparative literary analysis, the study juxtaposes the rhetorical devices in Helaman 13:5-6 with those found in the Hebrew Bible, engaging in detailed textual analysis to interpret the use of Hebrew poetics in the Book of Mormon. The findings reveal that Samuel the Lamanite’s prophecies demonstrate a complex use of ancient literary forms, imparting a profound emotional and rhetorical impact that affirms the scriptural integrity of the Book of Mormon and deepens the understanding of its theological messages. By recognizing these literary forms, the study enhances appreciation for the Book of Mormon’s literary craftsmanship and asserts its rightful place within ancient scriptural traditions, urging a reevaluation of its literary and theological significance in the broader academic discourse.

The Elohistic Psalter is an enigma. Its origins are obscure and its relationship to other corpora is unclear. Generations of scholars have looked at largely the same evidence, while reaching remarkably different conclusions. Is the Elohistic nature of the Psalter the result of find-replace editorial activity? Perhaps vice-versa, or something else entirely? How can the phenomenon of duplicate Psalms be explained? I will assess the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to the determination of literary dependence and the identification of editorial activity. Several parallels between the Elohistic Psalter and other texts in the Bible (e.g., Psalms 57, 60 || Psalm 108) and the ancient Near East (e.g., the Deir 'Alla inscription) will be evaluated with these considerations in mind.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

Several hagiographic and historiographic sources, including the Acts of Miles, the Acts of the Synod of the Eastern Syriac Church of the 424, and the Chronicle of Arbela attest to the intriguing story of Papa Bar Aggai, a bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in the early 4th c. These texts discuss Papa’s clash with some Persian bishops who had questioned his authority over the bishoprics of Persia, and this conflict results in Papa’s temporary deposition. However, Papa is restored to his see because Western political and religious leaders intervened on his behalf. This paper investigates an understudied group of texts from the Papa Bar Aggai literary tradition: a probably sixth-century collection of letters that feature Papa’s apocryphal correspondence with influential figures like the Empress Helena, Eusebius of Rome, Judah Kyriakos of Jerusalem, Ephrem, and Jacob of Nisibis. This collection attests to the critical role of the figure of Papa Bar Aggai in formulating an episcopal lineage of the Church of the East. This paper reveals the portrait of Papa that emerges from the Epistolary collection. It shows how he, as catholicos, is presented as a type of prophetic figure, unfairly accused and deposed, yet vindicated by the “Western” Empire and Christianity. It explores the possibility that the story of Papa and his conflicts with his contemporaries may have given sixth-century bishops a myth or narrative to assert their authority at a time in the sixth century when ecclesiastical politics and conflicts threatened to undermine it. This paper traces thus the outworking of Papa’s memory in historiographical, hagiographical, and epistolary sources of the Church of the East.

A cursory read of the NT Gospels promptly reveals that the Fourth Evangelist’s depiction of John the Baptist differs significantly from the synoptic portrayal. While there is some overlap, such as his baptism and designation as the voice from Isaiah 40:3, many differences abound, including the content of his message, his primary identity, the nature of his baptism, and his dissociation from Elijah in the Fourth Gospel. While there appear to be two rather dissimilar portrayals, this paper argues that more continuity than has typically been recognized exists between John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel and the tradition of the Synoptics: the Fourth Evangelist does not recreate John the Baptist but theologically interprets his person and message. For the most part, and as a reason for the discrepancies, conversations have centered around constructing a Baptist community that the Fourth Evangelist was trying to refute, or else some have removed this account almost entirely from these historical reconstructions, noting the Gospel of John’s Christian concerns. There are exceptions to this within scholarship, but the separation between John “the Baptist” in the Synotpics and John “the Witness” in the Fourth Gospel has created varying streams in Baptist research that result in disparate treatments. In this paper, I will begin with a survey of recent discussions concerning John the Baptist, then move to how scholars have seen John’s role and message in the Fourth Gospel. These assessments lead to the crux of my argument: the Fourth Evangelist sought to present John the Baptist not as wholly removed from the recurrent synoptic portrait but as a theological interpretation of his role and function from that portrait. I will demonstrate this by comparing the aforementioned differences of John in these narratives, showing how the synoptic account led to that in the Gospel of John. In this paper, I do not aim to harmonize John the Baptist’s portrayal between these narratives; instead, I suggest that the Fourth Evangelist worked from knowledge of the Baptist and interpreted his message and ministry theologically. That the portrayal of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel attends to Christian interests is precisely the point, as I contend that the Fourth Evangelist was aware of Baptist tradition and, as he does with many other aspects of his Gospel, chose to craft the words and actions of the Baptist not apart from tradition but as a reflective interpretation of it. This paper reexamines the contribution of the Fourth Gospel’s portrait to conversations about John the Baptist, inviting the Fourth Evangelist back into conversations concerning broader Baptist tradition.

Houghton Syriac 86, kept in the special collections at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, is a convolute of texts written in Syro-Arabic Garshūni. The colophon identifies its scribe as a certain Yūnān of Bayt al-Qārūshī, a Syriac Orthodox Christian who wrote the manuscript in 1890. Among other texts, the manuscript includes a complete copy of the Book of the Rolls or Arabic Apocalypse of Peter (occupying 135 folia) and selections of an Arabic translation of Bar Hebraeus’ Book of the Rays (occupying 21 folia). Houghton Syriac 86 has received little attention either in general or as a participant in the textual traditions of these works. Indeed, there has been almost no Western scholarly analysis of one of the most striking scribal practices on display in this manuscript, that of script-switching between Syro-Arabic Garshūni and standard Arabic script by the same scribe in the same text. This paper draws attention to how Houghton Syriac 86 reflects its scribe’s theological project in the process of copying, altering, and excerpting these two works. In so doing, it will situate its witness of the Arabic Apocalypse of Peter among the three recensions of the work proposed by Georg Graf while identifying some points of significant variation, suggesting that Yūnān saw his reproduction of this text as participating in a living tradition. Similarly, this paper will examine which parts of the Book of the Rays are excerpted and whether they share common themes or concerns. Finally, this paper argues that the script-switching in Houghton Syriac 86 provides important evidence for Yūnān’s relative familiarity with the Syriac and Arabic scripts and his (or his patron’s) aesthetic preferences. Perhaps most notably, there is evidence that Yūnān used script-switching to theological ends. Namely, potentially controversial elements of texts like the Book of the Rolls are written using standard Arabic script, which may have concealed their meanings to Yūnān’s immediate audience or other Christians primarily familiar with the Syriac script or language. In this way, Houghton Syriac 86 emerges as an important witness to Syriac Orthodox scribal culture and to the vitality of Syriac and Arabic theological and apocryphal traditions in the 19th century.

This paper will argue that there is an alarming dearth of engagement with medieval exegesis in recent scholarship on the Apostle Paul, and that these medieval thinkers often anticipated supposedly recent developments. First, the paper will survey how thoroughly these interpreters are being ignored. Massive tomes and commentaries with a thousand modern sources regularly contain only a few fleeting allusions to one or two medieval works. Field-shaping studies on the apostle’s thought have no interaction with anyone between Augustine and Luther. Book indices reveal a systemic defect, as volumes typically include only an index for “modern” sources and an index for “ancient” sources. There is literally no place for the Middle Ages. Exemplifying the above gaps are seminal works by Sanders, Dunn, Moo, Martyn, Watson, Wright, and Barclay, et al. The SBL Annual Meeting itself betrays this lacuna: in the rich and growing body of more than 150 program units, there is not a single reference to anything or anyone in the Middle Ages. Rarely do any SBL papers address this time period, although the Christian Theology and the Bible unit has provided some welcome exceptions (e.g. Chopp’s paper in 2022). Second, this paper will highlight several prominent movements in the last sixty years of Pauline scholarship and will explore how their arguments were anticipated in overlooked medieval works. This portion will address recently contentious topics such as justification, grace, the so-called new perspective(s), the meaning of δικαι- language, and the Mosaic law. It will be seen that many of these debates could have been clarified or curtailed if medieval interpreters (with their hermeneutical tools) had been invited to the table. Most notable will be the Thomist parallels in John Barclay’s magisterial Paul and the Gift, widely considered the most important publication on Paul in the last decade. A small cadre of scholars have identified these parallels, but very few have attended to the loudest echoes between Barclay’s contribution and medieval theologies of grace, namely in matters such as convenientia and meritum de congruo. The absence of Aquinas and others (e.g. Abelard, Lombard, Lyra) from Paul and the Gift is emblematic of the ongoing breach between Bible and theology in the specialized academy, particularly when one recognizes that Barclay is as engaged in bridging this gap as any New Testament scholar. A Protestant-Catholic divide also seems to be at play. The paper will close by reflecting on what this erasure of a millennium may reveal for readers of Paul and for the guild as a whole. It constitutes a strike against our putative interest in ecumenism and reception history, and it raises difficult questions about the effects of publishing industry incentives on the Great Conversation that scriptural study is supposed to embody.

Jesus laments over Jerusalem: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! But you were unwilling.” (Matt 23:37 / Luke 13:34). He compares himself to a (domesticated!) female bird who has more success protecting her young than he does protecting Jerusalem. That this passage proved difficult for early church commentators is shown in how they deal it with. Many remove the motif of failure and have Christ gather Christian believers instead of Jews. Others focus on the weakness of the hen as a symbol of the incarnation, or on the death of the chicken as a metaphor for the death of Christ. Some feel the need to explain that it is by no means inappropriate to speak of Jesus as a maternal figure, thus implying that there was a contemporaneous view that the Messiah cannot have female qualities and that this view had to be countered. There is even some debate as to whether God, Jesus, and future resurrected believers, (will) have wings! Jesus’ “chicken wings” in the gospels thus provided much food for thought and potential for interpretation, as the domesticated hen was apparently not an ideal animal metaphor for Christ and needed some heavy allegorical seasoning to make it palatable. I will explore the various ways in which ancient commentators interpreted the image of a poultry Messiah.

This paper is a comparative study of the language of conversion in the New Testament and Nag Hammadi, especially The Gospel of Philip, The Paraphrase of Shem, The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, The Teachings of Silvanus, and Zostrianos. In particular, several common topoi of conversion are identified, including rebirth, spiritual death and resurrection, baptism, the put-off put-on motif, sanctification, the indwelling spirit, divine union, eternal life, and others. These striking New Testament parallels are explored, particularly in the Pauline Epistles. The comparative study identifies areas of convergence and divergence in the language and understanding of conversion between Nag Hammadi and the Gnostics and the New Testament and early Christianity.

This presentation argues that David’s second procession before Hashem’s ark in 2 Samuel 6 is both profoundly genderqueer and inescapably tied to the king’s social standing. Previous scholarship has often justified David’s actions as cultically appropriate but have missed the ways that David’s actions eschew hegemonic masculine norms, possibly because David suffers no permanent repercussions to his hegemonic standing, instead receiving divine approval of his performance before the ark. 2 Samuel 6 appears to have been completely overlooked by biblical masculinity studies and is the subject of only limited research in queer biblical studies, which has not fully explored David’s transgressive/expansive gender performativity. Building on my PhD thesis, “The Sanctification of the Queer Body: Genderfluidity as an Expression of Holiness in 2 Samuel 6,” I look to address this gap in scholarship using queer theory, masculinity studies, and anthropology. Gender expansive and transgressive individuals are well documented in ancient Levantine and Mesopotamian cultic ritual with their existence providing an implicit affirmation of binary gender, particularly hegemonic masculinity, since they tend to perform liminality within strict boundaries, on the behalf of hegemony. This presentation argues that David’s dress and dance function similarly, as the only appropriate religious response to Hashem’s hyper-masculinity – there can be no competition between the king of Israel and the king of the universe. David’s gender performativity shifts from masculine coded to both masculine and feminine coded after the murder of Uzzah, a change to which Hashem responds favorably, reinforcing the cultic suitability of David’s genderfluid performativity. The narrator uses Michal’s criticism to voice their unease and place boundaries around David’s actions, regulating their disruptive effects, and reinforcing its cultic necessity and divine approval. This reading has significant implications for both depictions of David as a hegemonic masculine archetype and for future trans/queer readings of cultic performativity, since it establishes a criteria through which even hegemonic men may perform genderfluidity while in proximity to Hashem, with Hashem’s full approval, a possibility that has often been dismissed as unlikely.

The recent 50th anniversary of Mumbo Jumbo’s 1972 publication is an opportunity to reconsider Ishmael Reed’s prescience and insight. The novel presents an unusual kind of theodicy: a (meta)theodicy interrogating the identity of the Abrahamic God and examining how monotheizing religions underpin a history of imperial violence and control that cause undeserved suffering for colonized people. Although its mode is satiric and humorous, Reed is deeply interested in how religious violence and intolerance are shaped by the questions that he, Toni Morrison (in The Bluest Eye) and Cornell West (in Prophesy, Deliverance!) raised in the 1970s about divine plurality and African religious survivals: of whether there are many gods, or a God with many faces. Drawing on historical scholarship on the Bible and ancient Near East religions, this paper unpacks Mumbo Jumbo’s backstory of the primordial struggle between polytheism and monotheism, and its consequence for theodicy. Reed’s novel was prophetic, it turns out, in its suggestion that monotheism was born out of a polytheism that it transformed and repressed. I review some of the historical scholarship about ancient Israel’s pantheon of gods, and how its primordial polytheism was suppressed through “methods of monotheism” employed by Biblical writers that included (to use Mark Smith’s terms) divine absorption and amalgamation, cultural memory and cultural amnesia. While God’s inheritance from deities like El and Baal are well-known, Reed suggested a further dependence on the Egyptian god Set – which has likewise become a tantalizing possibility in Biblical studies. This paper by a (white) professor of American literature reviews Reed’s anticolonial politics in light of scholarship on ancient Israelite polytheism and ANE gods. I argue that for Reed, decolonization may entail recognizing the way the Biblical God has been amalgamated from the repertoires (to use Theodore Lewis’s term) and networks of pagan deities. Reed’s understanding of God’s repertoire is as empirical as Lewis’s (in The Origin and Character of God) but moves in a different direction: Reed begins with God’s most powerful historical followers and moves backward to infer the character of the deity based on His followers’ actions and words. Thus, in Mumbo Jumbo, God’s character is largely absorbed from Set’s repertoire as the first divine disciplinarian: a desire for order, cultural supremacy, bodily sanctity, enthusiasm for authority, and the suppression of other ways of thinking and being. Egyptologist Jan Assmann’s work suggests that this might be historically plausible, with the Hyksos invasion of Egypt possibly conveying Set’s repertoire to Baal, to be later conferred onto God through Baal’s influence on YHWH’s character. Whether these tantalizing historical influences occurred or not, Reed’s anticolonial novel insists on the need of the colonized to theologize based on their communal, historical experience of suffering under Christian empire.

Innana and Eve: Re-reading Genesis 3:16 in Light of Sacred Marriage Cultic Texts For centuries Genesis 3:16 has been used to keep women in their place. Both Jewish and Christian traditions, heavily influenced by Greek thought, have interpreted this passage as pointing to woman’s inherent moral depravation, her power to seduce man provoking own downfall, and the need for man, therefore, to keep woman in check and rule over her. Yet, one wonders how such a degrading interpretation of woman could have emerged from a scripture which, just one chapter before (Genesis 2), celebrated woman’s redemptive power as his ezer kenegdo. If we are to remain faithful to the intention of the text (Does God go back on his word?) we need more than ever to revisit Genesis 3:16 with a hermeneutical lens that is not suspicious of woman. This paper proposes a radical re-reading of the curse of Genesis 3:16 as a redemptive rather than a punitive moment. This will entail that the two key concepts “rule” (mashal) and “desire” (teshuqa) be re-interpreted, in light of Ancient Near-Eastern text and culture rather than through a Greek philosophical lens. Samuel Noah Kramer has himself observed the inter-textual connections that exist between the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern cultic texts, notably the literature surrounding the worship of the Goddess Inanna. Our explorations will take us to Samuel Kramer’s translation of “The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi” in light of which we will attempt to re-interpret Genesis 3:16. Striking to us (and to our listeners), will be the connection in the “Courtship of Innana and Dumuzi” text between sexual intimacy and the bestowing upon the man of rulership (symbolized by the throne, scepter and dais that is given him on the morning of their wedding night). Even more striking are the parallels between the “Courtship” text and Genesis 3:16 where we find a stunningly similar reciprocal connection between sexual desire (teshuqa) and rulership (mashal). Does it not then become possible then to re-interpret Genesis 3:16 as containing vestiges of Sacred Marriage cultic texts and as describing, as in the “Courtship” text, a scene of enthronization of man as he emerges from intimate contact with the woman? The remarkable parallels between the two scriptures invite us to do so, thereby shedding a powerful new light on Genesis 3:16, one that reveals woman, not as responsible for the downfall of man, but, on the contrary, as an agent of elevation of man to his royal destiny. Thus, in a masterful redemptive move on the part of the Creator, man finds himself, in Genesis 3:16, restored to his original status of rulership and woman given back her powerful role as the ezer of man.

Among the variety of views on wealth found in texts of the Hebrew Bible, there are some texts which seem to portray an unembarrassed narration of unequal wealth and its accumulation, even associating this with virtuous character and divine blessing. This diversity challenges attempts to construct a comprehensive ethic of biblical opposition to inequality of wealth, despite other biblical texts which appear much more radical. There is an obvious tension between the idea of wealth as a sign of divine blessing, and a portrayal of economic inequality as a evidence of personal or national moral error. In this paper, I propose that in some instances where inequality or abundance of wealth is portrayed positively, the same texts in their current form put forward restraint as an appropriately virtuous response. This is to be distinguished from radical critiques of inequality. I locate the advancing of restraint as an appropriate virtue in the context of inequality within the textual development of the Hebrew Bible, and in the context of the economic development of urban and rural settings in pre- and post-exilic Judah in particular which formed part of the setting in which the Hebrew Bible was developed. Urbanisation, in conjunction with imperial domination and the associated extraction of economic surpluses, offers historical context for particular forms of wealth inequality, and their connection with power structures in the ancient Levantine world. The biblical texts, though, do not narrate that economic history in analytical detail, instead offering theological accounts of both wealth and poverty that arise from those settings. The texts which advance the virtue of restraint also locate restraint in a theological framing, rather than being motivated by economic outcomes. Read this way, these texts offer a plausible and modest response to the observable forms of human wealth inequality that arose in the context of urbanisation and imperial domination in the ancient Near East. Restraint offers modern readers a demonstration of a creative theological response to economic challenge.

When Christians developed their exegetical techniques, they were well aware of non-Christian philology and its use for philosophical purposes. Allegorization, e.g., was used by Platonists and by Christians. The function of allegorization, however, differed substantially: Plutarch and Porphyry, e.g., used allegorization in order to make religious traditions of all cultures compatible with their own Platonic thought. For Porphyry, this included mythical texts (Homer), non-Christian cultures (Egyptians, Chaldaeans etc.), non-textual traditions (Saturnalia etc.) and even statues of gods/goddesses. By this, Porphyry defended the traditional cults. Origen’s use of allegorization did not share this intention. For him, only one religious tradition was acceptable as subject of allegorization, that of the Hebrews, and by this, he put aside the religious customs of Second-temple Judaism. Allegorization served as a tool to connect the OT to Christ as the unique way to salvation. Beside allegorization, literal reading was crucial. Porphyry, e.g., interpreted the first part of Plato’s Timaeus allegorically, but understood the subsequent story about the creation of the world as a cosmological text. This “physical” approach included some re-interpretations that were close to figural readings. E.g. the temporal sequence of the Timaeus story was considered to be a didactical trick that elucidates the ontological dependence of the cosmos upon God. Christians encountered this interpretation of the Timaeus by their claim that Gen. 1 would be the more reliable source. This caused an exegetical discourse about Gen. 1 in the mid-fourth century that interpreted the text mainly literally (Eusebius of Emesa, Acacius of Caesarea, Ephraem, Diodore). While in this discourse Origen was marginalized, he was rediscovered by people such as Didymus in his Commentary on Genesis where he combined a literal and a figural reading. In this context, the literal interpretation of Gen. 1 developed into two directions: a) In his Homilies on the Hexaemeron, Basil of Caesarea combined a literal understanding of Gen. 1 with moral exhortations. Literal reading did not exclude a deeper sense and edifying applications to the audience. b) The understanding of Gen. 1 as a cosmographical text caused the so-called “Antiochene cosmology” that picked up Archaic world-views (even denying results of contemporaneous physics, e.g., about the earth as sphere). The comparison with Platonic exegetical approaches shows that the Christian development of figural and literal interpretations of the Bible in the 4th c. CE was a major step in a cultural change when Christianity more and more claimed to be the only reliable source for truth, peace, and justice in the Roman Empire from the late 4th c. CE onwards.

The epithet “first” is applied to Yahweh several times in Isaiah 41-48, always in contexts where his power to fulfill his decrees is emphasized (41:4; 44:6-7; 48:12-16). Meanwhile, Egyptian oracular amuletic decrees frequently contain the epithet “one who began coming into existence.” A reading of this epithet in the context of Egyptian religion suggests that it was emphasized in divine decrees because the “first god” was believed to have unparalleled power to fulfill decrees. This association may merely reflect the common cognitive context for Egyptian and Israelite religion. However, Christopher Hays has recently shown that Isaiah 45 contains polemic directed at the Egyptian god Amun, who is one of the most popular deities named in Egyptian oracular decrees. Lists of epithets in oracular amuletic decrees may be the mechanism by which knowledge about Amun was mediated to the audience and author of Isaiah 41-48, and thus the theme of Yahweh as “first” may also represent polemic against Amun.

As a fantasy TV series steeped in 1980s nostalgia, Stranger Things rehashes the anxious Zeitgeist of the time regarding the imaginative role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). During the so-called “Satanic Panic,” parents were concerned that D&D would introduce their kids to the occult and Satanism. This fear recurs throughout Stranger Things, and not least in Season 4 (set in 1986), where it is also conflated with concerns related to drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll as embodied in the character, Eddie Munson. In this presentation, I begin by highlighting how rock music was vilified in the films, Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982; dir. John Taylor) and Hell’s Bells: The Dangers of Rock ‘N’ Roll (1989; dir. Eric Holmberg and Erik Hollander), and Frank Garlock’s book, The Big Beat: A Rock Blast (1971). Then I demonstrate that Stranger Things Season 4 directly subverts conservative religious criticism about Rock ‘N Roll. Specifically, I argue that the show contravenes the allegation that rock music was not only another cause of youth rebellion, but, more sinisterly, a source of demonic influence. This is seen not least through the way that Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” and Eddie’s performance of “Master of Puppets” by Metallica (1986) in the Upside Down serve to subvert the evil machinations of Vecna. We see within ancient Jewish tradition a sense that music, and particularly the lyre, was powerful enough to ward off evil spirits (1 Sam. 16.14–16; cf. 16:23; 18:10; 19:9–10), and it was even regarded as a deity in ancient Ugarit (cf. KTU 1.47:32; 1.118:31). In Greek mythology, Orpheus played the lyre to ward off the enchanting songs of the Sirens and to put Cerberus to sleep while traveling to the Underworld (cf. Virgil, Georgics IV.453–484; Athenaeus, Deipn. XIII.597b–c). Jewish and Christian traditions also reflect the positive capacity of musical instrumentation to invite the presence of the divine Spirit (2 Chron. 5:13b–14; Eph. 5.18–21; Romanos the Melodist, Kontakion on the Three Youths §25), and transform mundane settings into sacred space (e.g., Philo, De Plantione 26). By looking at this background in the light of Stranger Things deploys rock music – in distinction to the classical music (“Clair de Lune” by Claude DeBussey [1905]) playing in the “listening room” at Pennhurst Memorial Hospital when they first learn of music’s effect on Vecna’s curse – it is clear that the show subverts religious expectations regarding the negative influence of Rock music by giving it an apotropaic function in the fight against evil. While the show itself does not offer religious reflections on the true nature of Rock ‘n’ Roll, it invites it through the frequent references and allusions to demons, Satan, and hell in Season 4. To paraphrase Jesus in Matthew 12.24–28, then, if Rock is the Devil’s music, then how could it be used to fight Satan?

The Chronicle of Zuqnin, completed shortly after the year 775, includes an episode about a Manichaean festival in Harran. In this annual festival, the anonymous author of the chronicle says, Manichaeans used to sacrifice a human and use his head for divination purposes. The vivid, almost gothic, details about how the Manichaeans prepared the sacrifice render this episode a striking example of heresiographic imagination. This story has in fact been studied as an instance of anti-Manichaean rhetoric within the frame of broader Christian heresiography in a number of works. In this paper, by shifting the focus from the main story to the way it ends, I will argue that it was used by the author of the Chronicle of Zuqnin to reflect on the precarity due to the changing rules of dhimma (protection) under early Islamic government in the Jazira.

Can there be–and should there be–an intersectional feminist approach to translating σάρξ in the letters of Paul? What is the relationship between gendered and racialized understandings of σάρξ in Pauline texts, and how do these intersect with constructions of sexuality and concepts of desire? This paper explores these complex questions in and around the translation of σάρξ in Galatians 5:16-26. A polysemous approach to σάρξ in the Pauline letters dominates in the history of interpretation and sometimes can be seen in translation. For example, the Common English Bible (2011) translates σάρξ as a kinship term related to descent (“genealogy”) in Romans 4:1b and as a moral term related to individual desires in Galatians 5:19 (“selfish motives”). In Paul and Diversity, A New Perspective on Σάρξ and Resilience in Galatians (2023), Linda Joelsson has recently argued for a monosemous understanding of σάρξ that would keep all translations of that word within a kinship semiotic domain. Working within a New Perspective/Paul Within Judaism paradigm, the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5 is thus interpreted collectively and as referring to Gentiles. Joelsson’s proposal recognizes and seeks to counter the ways that flesh’s semiotic domain has given σάρξ a meaning that has caused great harm. Indeed, fleshly/bodily understandings and translations of σάρξ have been in place for nearly all of Christian history, and their legacy has been felt worldwide by people marginalized by race, gender, and/or sexuality, providing rationale to oppressor classes for their continued marginalization of a fleshly Other. Drawing on insights from poststructural understandings of language, feminist translation, and the debates about the appropriate translation of Ἰουδαῖοι in Paul, this paper will explore the possibilities and limitations of a feminist intersectional approach to translating σάρξ, as well as of translation itself as a strategy for mitigating harm.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

The lack of direct reference to Persian imperial characters in the DHC is unsurprising, given the periodization of the past within the books of Joshua-Kings ends with the divided monarchy and the conversion of Judah to a Neo-Babylonian province. Its subject matter is pre-Persian. Nevertheless, aspects of its depiction of the reign of Solomon may be informed by contemporaneous Achaemenid imperial grandeur. The decision to focus on Judah’s past as part of a twelve-tribe Israelite identity, followed by its independence from the kingdom of Israel before once again assuming an Israelite identity in the post-monarchic setting of Yehud, reflects growing, localized intra-regional and intra-provincial rivalries for entitlement to define membership in or as Israel while also explaining the loss of Judahite independence, which eventually paved the way for the development of the concept of Israel as a religious identity that could blend or become merged with Judean identity. The lack of interest in the Achaemenid context is likely due to what were perceived to be more pressing concerns over a formerly agreed common Israelite identity that was becoming contested within temple and administrative circles in Yehud and Samerina than complaints about how imperial policies were negatively impacting the Judean economy or quality of life. The Judean literati felt their past, which was shared in common to some degree with the Samarians, was the place to wage a battle they thought they could win, not the contemporaneous relations both provinces shared with their imperial rulers.

Early Christian gospels don’t offer a clear account of time and only rarely directly address the readers or their place in time. Temporality and the location of the reader in narrative gospels emerge from the process of emplotment, weaving together successions of events (past, present, future) with an implied point of view and multiple teleologies (narrative, eschatological and rhetorical). Even in non-narrative gospels, such as Thomas, rhetorical and eschatological teleologies are woven with an implied point of view to situate the reader in the world. The present essay illuminates three modes of emplotting the reader in three different gospel works, Mark, Judas, and Thomas. In all cases, the interweaving of teleology and point of view serves to locate the reader within the scope of divinely appointed time. Through such narrative and rhetorical technques, these gospels, read repeatedly in Christian gatherings, shaped the identity of early Christians, helping to “articulate [their] existences” (de Certeau) in the world.

Portrayals of the mother of Jesus are typically thought to differ greatly between John and the synoptics. In John, Jesus’s mother remains unnamed. She comes into the narrative with little introduction and no mention of a birth story, yet she prompts Jesus to perform his first miracle and witnesses him on the cross. Surprisingly, no major scholars have attempted to understand the portrayal of the mother of Jesus in the Gospel of John with the assumption that the evangelist knew and used the synoptics. This paper will argue that John’s evangelist incorporated material about the mother of Jesus from both Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels. First, I will analyze the ways Luke adds material about Mary, the mother of Jesus, and omits parts of Mark’s portrayals of the mother of Jesus, specifically in Mark 3:20–21, 31–34, and Luke 8:19–21. Next, I will analyze John’s account of this story in 7:1–10 and how it coheres with elements of Luke’s and Mark’s accounts. Second, I will focus on Luke and John’s coherencies in their portrayals of Jesus’s mother. I propose that John’s evangelist builds upon the portrayal of the mother of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel based on small details Luke includes about Mary but does not fully develop. When read this way, John’s portrayal of the mother of Jesus fits within the narrative structure Luke creates. Luke’s Gospel introduces Mary during Jesus’s conception, birth, and childhood and offhandedly includes Mary in Acts when all of Jesus’s disciples gather together (Luke 1:26–38, 2:17–19, 33–35, 51, Acts 1:14). Meanwhile, John’s Gospel builds off the content of this initial introduction of Mary to create a plausible story of her setting in motion Jesus’s first miracle (John 2:1–12). In addition, John’s evangelist develops a prophecy that Mary is given in Luke to justify her inclusion at the crucifixion. In the end, a more polished, narrative chronology emerges where it makes sense for Mary to be found in the upper room in Acts. If this is the case, the similarities in the portrayals of the mother of Jesus in Luke’s and John’s Gospels and their editing of the Markan story support the controversial assumption that John’s evangelist knew and used the Gospel of Luke.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is not the only question that the story of Cain and Abel raises. The way the story obscures characters’ motives and expectations has led interpreters since antiquity to puzzle over the details of the story to widely different effect. Alongside the explicit problem of fratricide and murder, interpreters dealt with an implicit question about the capriciousness of the deity: why did God look at Abel’s offering and not Cain’s? While there is no definitive explanation for God’s actions in the story, I bring my ethical commitment to vegetarianism as a means for attending to God’s pattern of behavior in the story. I specifically use the phrase “eat life, not death” as an ethical directive to analyze the text. The directive to eat life leads me to notice that despite being the creator of life a few chapters prior, God is one who is aroused by death. Reading the Cain and Abel story as folklore through vegetarian experience, the tale details a man moving from naïve vegetarianism to meat eating in the pursuit of a God who is primarily stimulated by death.

Recent years have seen a significant shift in biblical studies in the study of time. Previous approaches rooted in Orientalism claimed that the biblical authors possessed no (abstract) concept of time. The latter have given way to what we might call a temporal turn. Within this turn, scholars focused on linguistic and semantic questions (Jenni, Barr, Wilch, Brin); underlying ideas of history (Grund, Momigliano, Kosmin, Krüger); and, conceptually, considering either a (simplistic) binary order between linear and cyclical time (Boman, Pedersen) or a differentiation between kairos vs. chronos (von Rad). Contemporary exegetical work has expanded the textual basis and conceptual frameworks concerning the reconstruction of biblical notions of time (Janowski, Najman, Bakker, Schmidt). Studies of the Book of Proverbs, however, have not yet been integrated within this broader approach, remaining in the shadow of Ecclesiastes and Ben Sira. This paper examines the temporal dimension of collections of meshalim in Proverbs as an entangled composition in two ways. First, I develop a reading practice of proverbial wisdom that considers closely the temporal dimension of repetition and contradiction and their qualitative differences. To understand sayings such as Prov 15:23 or Prov 25:11 and their awareness of proverbial time-sensitivity shift of focus is necessary: from a quantitative analysis of repetition (Snell and Heim) and its interpretation as mere literary seams to a qualitative one. Borrowing Mieke Bal’s theory of framing as a temporal activity and Christine Roy Yoder’s reframing of contradiction and repetition as aesthetic strategies, I argue for a poetics of iterative wisdom. This approach is based on increased attentiveness, a time-sensitive reading that allows non-linear compositional techniques to become more visible. Second, I put this approach to the test, considering ideas of time in Prov 10:1–22:16. I consider particular cases of repetition that engender contradictions across Prov 10:1–15:32(33) and Prov 16:1–22:16 (10:13 and 19:29; 10:15 and 18:11; 11:13 and 20:19) in their respective contexts. A time-sensitive analysis of anthological wisdom offers new perspectives on how the two subcollections relate to one another on the background of (self-)critical sapiential thought and the effects of difference in form (and content). The enterprise of doing wisdom becomes a temporal one: a “fitting” proverb is not only about its correct context, but its proper timing (Eccl 3:1–8).

In a famous exchange of letters quoted in First Maccabees and Josephus’ Antiquities, the King of Sparta, Areus I, reported his recent discovery that both Spartans and Jews shared descent from Abraham and therefore should connect diplomatically. In his long-delayed answer to that letter, the Jewish high priest Jonathan claimed not only that the Jews knew already of that kinship but also included the Spartans and other kin in their prayers. As outlandish as it may seem to the modern observer, it was accepted as obvious in antiquity that distant peoples might share a common ancestry, and the purported kinship between Sparta and Jews was just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pairings. In this case, as in many of those, it became a diplomatic tool and the presumed kinship had probably originally been fictional, as is the case here. What is interesting here is that we can track the process by which a fictive tradition became real to later generations: Areus (whether historical or fictional) claims to have learned of the shared ancestry from a γραφή (‘document’, ‘text’, ‘written account’: 1M 12. 20; AJ 12. 226), perhaps referring to an actual text containing some mythic account connecting the two peoples. After a long interval, Jonathan (whether historical or fictional) answered the Spartans, who in turn answered Simon. Once these letters began circulating, however, the tradition became historical without regard for the historicity of these documents or their contents. Thus, it is not surprising that we find further evidence of the tradition, for example in the report in Second Maccabees (5. 9) that in 170 BCE the deposed high priest Jason took his final refuge at Sparta ‘on account of their kinship’ (διὰ τὴν συγγένειαν). Later traces of the connection can be found in the warm reception that Eurycles of Sparta received in Herod’s court ‘on account of his homeland’, which seems to allude to the kinship, as does the striking name Ben-Lakonia attested for a family of rabbis known to be active in second century CE. The argument, however, is that we can see a glimpse here of how such traditions could created, which is, I suggest, a more interesting and important question than whether any given document in the series is to be regarded as ‘fictious’ or ‘authentic’ or ‘constructed’ (that is, a forged documents that reflects a real tradition).

James M. Lang opens Small Teaching by emphasizing the importance of retrieval practice. Describing the “retrieval effect,” he writes, “If you want to retrieve knowledge from your memory, you have to practice retrieving knowledge from your memory.” The more opportunities that students have to practice retrieving information, the better they will be at doing so and storing it in their long-term memories. In this presentation, I offer three small-teaching interventions for retrieval practice that I have implemented in both in-person, undergraduate biblical studies classes, as well as online-asynchronous seminary courses. First, I describe the low-stakes, writing-and-recall exercises that open my in-person classes. Not only do these exercises contribute to the ritual or liturgy of the classroom experience, but they also leverage the first five minutes of class as a productive and transitional learning time. Second, I overview “lecture pauses” that appear in my online, asynchronous courses. Inspired by the practical suggestions in Gail Taylor Rice’s book, Hitting Pauses: 65 Lecture Breaks to Refresh and Reinforce Learning, nearly every video introducing content in my asynchronous courses requires that students pause the video and engage in some kind of activity, which most usually involves retrieval practice. Third, and finally, I overview the quizzing and multiple-choice testing methods utilized in my courses that are inspired both by the philosophy of ungrading and Michelle D. Miller’s book, Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology. Working from James Lang’s principle in Small Teaching that tests and quizzes are really just memory exercises, quizzes and multiple-choice tests in all of my courses can be taken an unlimited number of times.

This presentation will discuss biblical quotations in Jewish amulets from late antiquity Palestine. These amulets, made of small engraved pieces of metal, were produced and used by Jews from the fourth to the seventh centuries for protection, healing, and exorcism. In addition to incantations and spells, a common element in the amulets was the use of biblical references to gain magical power. In this presentation I will review the biblical sources cited in the amulets, consider the various ways in which they are exploited to gain power, and discuss further observations that can be drawn from this topic, such as the Masoretic tradition and the Aramaic Targum in Late Antique Palestine.

In the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, there are several instances where prophetic writing shifts to prayer writing. These written prayers—framed as speech directed to Yhwh—are very similar to the type of prayer material found in the book of Psalms. In the process of moving prophetic traditions into prophetic books, scribes creatively assembled, arranged, and expanded their material. In the process of copying and editing prophetic writings, scribes drew from available prayer writings, which was evidently more extensive than the amount of prayer currently available in the book of Psalms. These various prayer writings found in the prophets are not just transcriptions of orally circulating prayers, but are reflective of an interest by scribes in copying written prayer. I will focus on three examples in this paper: 1) the inserted prayers found in Nahum 1, Jonah 2, Habakkuk 3, 2) the presence of anti-witchcraft imagery in the prayer material found in Micah 7, and 3) the complete lack of prayer traditions in the book of Ezekiel. In at least the first case, prayers are present which were not composed for the purpose of inclusion in their current context, suggesting a previous setting for composition: Nahum 1:2-8 is a half of an acrostic prayer, Jonah 2 introduces narrative elements not found in the rest of the book, and Habakkuk 3 is based around an older hymnic discourse. All of these examples of editing and collecting are evidence of scribal activity after the exile, in the Persian period or later, in the same time frame as the earliest collections of the Psalms. These examples of prayer (or lack thereof) in the prophetic books demonstrate the scope and type of written prayer material available to scribes in the Persian period, speak to the identity of the scribes of these books, and suggest the various uses of prayer by these scribes. Their familiarity with these prayers was not merely related to their proximity to centers of worship, but rather to their knowledge of prayers as texts. I will argue that those scribes who introduced these prayer elements doubled as ritual specialists, involved in both the performance and written production of prayer.

In Late Antiquity, Christian liturgy gradually imported elements from the Vision of Isaiah into the rite and ecclesial art in ways that augmented the religious experience of communicants. This paper takes an interdisciplinary examination of selected details of this historical development, bringing together readings of liturgical texts, ancient authors who theorized about vision, iconographic analysis of visual artworks, and aspects of religious experience discussed by Frances Flannery, Colleen Schantz, Laura Nasrallah, and Thomas Mathews. The narrative of Isaiah 6:1-8 itself describes a religious experience characterized by marked emotional states (fear, awe, despair), purification, transformation (fear giving way to confidence), and bestowal of a divine commission. The ritual and visual incorporation of this text into early Christian liturgy utilized it as a paradigm for the theology and experience of eucharist. Ecclesial spaces decorated with images of the enthroned Christ surrounded by seraphim and inscriptions of their thrice-holy hymn (the Trisagion or Sanctus) mirrored the actual singing of the hymn of Isa 6:3 (Rev 4:8) in the liturgy, underscoring notions (articulated in liturgical commentaries) that worship on earth mirrored and participated with heavenly worship around the throne of God. These images joined depictions of Isaiah receiving the coal from the seraph’s tongs and related biblical subjects in Byzantine church apses, on liturgical implements and textiles, and in illuminated manuscripts and icons, characterizing the church altar as the throne of God and Isaiah as a model of the communicant — as the coal had touched Isaiah’s lips, purifying him by its heavenly fire, the eucharistic elements likewise touched the lips of worshipers and sanctified them by communion with the divine presence (some liturgies, hymns, commentaries, and works of art made explicit reference to Isa 6:7: “This has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out”). The visual art used in the liturgical reception of Isaiah’s vision was particularly relevant to religious experience — ancient theories of vision held that image and viewer experienced a kind of contact in which the viewing activity could bring about the viewer’s assimilation to the object or person(s) viewed. Liturgical art enabled a practice of seeing the divine and a mimetic reenactment of Isaiah’s transformative experience. The visual experience collaborated with other embodied experiences (auditory, kinetic, olfactory, gustatory, affective) in an immersive, multisensory ritual, fostering communion with the divine, personal transformation, and the formation and maintenance of religious identity.

Luke 5 tells the story of a man living with paralysis who is brought by other men to meet Jesus, only to be thwarted by the crowd in the way. The other men dismantle a roof to lower the man down in front of Jesus. Jesus responds to the whole scene with an unprompted proclamation of forgiveness of sins. The gathered crowd responds to Jesus’ statement with incredulity and accusation. Jesus responds to the crowd by healing the man to prove he has the power to forgive sins. The man picks up his bed and leaves, reportedly praising God. The crowd then changes their tune, amazed by what they’ve just witnessed. The typical focus is on a few features of the story: Jesus’ authority to forgive sins, Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees, and the collective nature of faith as demonstrated by the man’s companions. Using disability studies and Imperial Criticism as avenues of inquiry, I will focus on the man who is paralyzed, and exercise informed imagination to fill in his characterization. Assuming a certain amount of verisimilitude with actual people in the ancient world, I focalize the man by exploring potential somatic and social circumstances that contributed to or were complicated by his paralysis. I also want stress the silence of the man; he is brought before Jesus by other people. Did he want to go to Jesus? Did the nature of his paralysis prevent him from physical protest? What reasons might the man have for wishing to remain paralyzed? What good, if any, did Jesus’ healing do for the man? By exploring the impaired man as a character worthy of analysis in his own right, my reading will de-center Jesus and highlight the various ways that people with paralysis may have experienced life in the Roman Empire.

As corporeal beings, humans experience and recognize the world through the senses like in sexual contact with the other. The latter is also expressed succinctly in one of the Biblical-Hebrew formulations for sexual contact: jda "to know, to experience". Ways of knowing and sexuality are overlayed, which implies a relation of sexuality to the senses as seeing, tasting and touching. For that reason, Meir Maul argues that sexuality is part of the human sensory system through which we have access to the world. The paper shall reconsider this thesis with a focus on the creation myth in Genesis 2-3 because it is pivotal to understand the role of the senses in myths of origin as the cultural anthropologists David Howes and Constance Claasen argue. The tree of knowledge appealing to the senses promises insight into good and evil and the incorporation of its fruit changes the self-perception. What does it imply that Gen 3 describes cognition as grasping and eating? The first act of knowing beyond Eden is intercourse: “The man knew Eve his wife” (Gen. 4:1). The knowing of the male human being recalls the female desire to acquire knowledge of good and evil. In general, jda is mostly used with a male subject to denote sexual intercourse. Still, in some instances the verb stands with a female subject, notably referring to non-virgins (Num 31). Jephthah’s daughter is portrayed as “she had not experienced a man” (Judg 11:39). Does this attribute her sexual agency negatively and exclude her from (what kind of) knowing? Hence, I shall scrutinize in how far ways of knowing are gendered, how cognition is related to the senses and what kind of cognition sexuality produces.

The authentic writings of Philoxenus of Mabbug appear to have been almost unknown in the Ethiopic tradition, with a spuriously attributed prayer and Dāḏīšo‘ Qaṭrāyā’s Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers being the only texts to circulate throughout the Horn of Africa under his name. Although originating in Syriac, these both entered the tradition via Arabic intermediaries, with that of the latter work only antedating the fourteenth-century Ethiopic translation by a few decades according to its widely misinterpreted colophon. While these widely disseminated spurious writings form the base of Philoxenus’ fame in the Horn of Africa, a fragment of one of his authentic works, the Commentary of the Evangelists Matthew and Luke, was also translated into Ge‘ez. Only slightly younger than this fragment’s two surviving Syriac witnesses, its unique early-fourteenth-century Ethiopic exemplar displays a number of significant divergences from the published Syriac text and suggests a probable broader Egyptian reception for part of Philoxenus’ corpus.

Translation Studies scholars Hans Vermeer and Katharina Reiß characterized translation as a form of human interaction (Vermeer and Reiß 1984, Nord 2013). Kobus Marais theorizes translation to include the interactions of humans and “more than humans” engaging in bio-semiotic work to constrain meaning-making potential (2019, 163). Marais argues that translation can be viewed as negentropic work, that is, socio-cultural meaning-making work that seeks to counteract the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In this paper, I apply Marais’ notion of translation to evaluate previous meaning-making translation work that I participated in with professional Bible translators and ordinary groups of people living in northern Ghana. Elsewhere, I have argued that one of the constraints on meaning-making is Achille Mbembe’s notion of entanglement as applied to African time, space, and bodies (2024). Marais makes a similar argument. Different sectors of bodies in a community are differently entangled in African time and space. Therefore, they translate differently, especially if their (re-)translations of a tradition are motivated by what Kenneth Ngwa calls a “life-enhancing” logic (2022). Several years ago, a group of professional Bible translators, including myself, facilitated a series of Contextual Bible Studies with different sectors of their community around the texts of Job and Ruth. This was negentropic translational work. In 2023, I did a brief survey with my colleagues to evaluate how our previous work of engaging in multi-sectoral translational meaning-making dialogue for liberation in their community continues to affect how they make meaning today. What do they remember? How do they re-member? What constraints and entanglements win out in translators' minds and bodies as they produce official translations to be used in churches? What further negentropic work needs to be done? What “accountabilities” would professional translators need to produce translated texts that are consciously open to being re-translated from different sectoral viewpoints for life-enhancing ends? What “loyalties” would professional translators need to constrain them in a way that foregrounds what is life-enhancing for different sectors of their community, even when those sectors’ perspectives and expressions conflict with each other? How do audience awareness and accountabilities factor? What factors need to be in place to facilitate professional Bible translators producing “official” re-translations that express the realities that meaning-making and meaning-taking in biblical tradition have been and remain contested?

It is a well-known truism of Johannine study that Origen, one of the earliest interpreters of the Gospel, was forced to agree with Celsus that the Gospels were of poor literary quality. Less remembered is Origen's statement that the Gospel of John is replete with complex rhetorical devices, such as paradoxes, that would be of great value for the reader to consider. Even in this same early interpreter, we have evidence of both promise and peril for any judgment rendered on the quality of the Gospel's writing. The reason is that the Second Sophistic altered and shaped the literary expectations of readers in that era (esp second and third centuries CE). The purpose of this paper, then, is to ask this question: What was it like to be a reader in the Second Sophistic? What were the literary expectations one would expect to find? And how would they connect/disconnect a reader from the Gospel of John? To answer these questions, this paper will not look for parallels between John and Second Sophistic authors such as Lucian and Dio Chrysostom (i.e., try to connect John to them). Instead, this paper will look at Second Sophistic authors in an attempt to connect their world to their reading of John's narrative. The hope is that this approach will help us to better understand what an early reading of the Gospel 'felt' like and give further insight into the reception of the Fourth Gospel in the second and third centuries. This paper will open with an introduction to the Second Sophistic, followed by a survey of literary strategies (including especially narrative structuring and use of rhetorical devices) that predominated that era. The second half of the paper we will devote to connecting those strategies to John--reading John through the lenses of these key Second Sophistic qualities. The paper will conclude with a brief investigation of what readers did and didn't look for during the Second Sophistic, and how these impacted the reception of John both in early Christian communities as well as among late antique commentators.

There were no state borders with bureaucratic agencies that monitored and controlled the mobility of people during the Roman age. Although Rome did not have a legal immigration enforcement agency, something similar did emerge and the forced movement of people was enacted through various decrees and imperial orders known as “banishment” or “exile.” The Roman judicial system included exile along with the death sentence and monetary fines as forms of punishment. But at the end of the Republic, Cicero himself wondered about the practice of exile. Cicero affirms that the Romans utilized exile as a form of punishment for those who found themselves in precarious political and legal situations (De dom. su. 27). There were a variety of other people who experienced this same unfortunate circumstance that forced them to uproot their entire lives and leave Rome. But what does it mean to be an “exile” in ancient Rome? Is this Rome’s immigration control? And how does Rome’s immigration control help us understand the New Testament’s description of strangers and foreigners in passages such as Matthew 24:31-46 and 1 Peter 1:11; 2:11, passages that are championed by immigration rights activist and minoritized scholars? As this essay will argue, the practice of exile was an early form of immigration control that expelled those whom Rome found undesirable, even if they were Roman citizens or innocent of an alleged crime. This essay will also explore the difficulties of understanding Roman banishments by focusing on its development from the end of the Roman Republic to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Specifically, we will review the writings of Appian, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius who provide insights to the use and development of imperial banishments. By also drawing on the insights from classical scholars such as Jo-Marie Claassen, Gordon Kelly, and Laurens Tacoma, I will conclude with an overall synthesis on the politics of exile in the Roman age. As we will find, understanding the politics of exile in the Roman age enhances our reading of the New Testament and contemporary challenges with draconian U.S. immigration law.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

This paper suggests that the anthropological model presented by David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins’ in their books On Kings and The New Science of the Enchanted Universe, developed largely through examination of African and Mesopotamian kingship myths, provides a new and productive way to frame some of the more perplexing actions of Jesus in New Testament writings. In Early Christian writings, people in authority, and particularly the figure of Jesus, are sometimes characterized as acting in specifically transgressive ways. That is, they act in a manner that is presented as unusual or shocking in its deviation from expectations of normal or correct behaviour. Examples are easily found but include such scenes as Matthew 8 where Jesus orders that traditional burial obligations not be adhered to, or Matthew 12 as he denies the request of his mother to receive him. Incidents of this type are sometimes explained as demarcating a separation of Jesus from traditionally Jewish ways of living in the world. While this can and has been used as part of theological arguments suggesting Jesus’ behaviour as described in the gospel narratives were intended to serve as templates for the way Christians should live, the framework set forth primarily in On Kings provides an alternate explanation for the authors’ inclusion of these stories and how early Christians may have understood the transgressive behaviours. Within the examples that will be examined, the theme of transgression as accompanying leadership or kingship can be viewed as a trope that signifies an individual’s holding of divine or metahuman favour or even their own status as metahuman. In a world where metahuman agents are constantly present and active in human affairs, worldly power does not emerge and cannot be maintained without the sanction of such metahuman agents. This means that accounts of transgressive behaviour or messaging in Christian writings, along with whatever other narrative roles those accounts might serve, function as purposeful and powerful authorizing strategies used by gospel authors- these incidents are indicators that signal to the reader that Jesus himself is divine, divinely inspired, or at least has God’s permission to be doing what he is doing. Additionally, considering gospel narratives alongside African kingship mythology serves to defamiliarize these accounts and allow us to read them in new ways that are set apart from traditional interpretations.

In Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4, Paul discusses various gifts granted to the community. However, in Ephesians 4, Paul diverges from the pattern present in Romans and 1 Corinthians. Paul does not imagine, as he does in his undisputed letters, that the Spirit gives gifts in the form of skills or abilities such as teaching, encouragement, and tongues, for example. Rather, Jesus gives people (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers) for the betterment of the community. Expounding on the significance of this difference, I argue that in Ephesians 4:11-12, Paul intended to speak of ministers and leaders in the ekklesia metaphorically as slaves. In Ephesians 4:8, Paul cites Psalm 68:18 and interprets its meaning Christologically, wherein the victory refers to the victory of Christ, and the spoils of war refer to Christ’s gifts to the community of his followers. These “gifts” are people, those who have responsibilities of leadership. Thus, this metaphor serves a similar purpose to that of the gift passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians, wherein Paul emphasizes the humility of those with special gifts or roles in the ekklesia. This metaphorical understanding of the gifts coheres well with the themes and content of Ephesians in which Paul understands God as a patron who gives blessings to God’s people. Servants of the ekklesia are part of the great bounty of God’s blessings, a theme introduced at the beginning of the letter. Paul also understands God as victor, with Jesus ruling over all powers (both heavenly and earthly) and instituting a new realm of citizens (both Jew and Gentile) as God’s household. The theme of this rule threads through Ephesians and identifies the ekklesia as the body politic over which Jesus rules. Therefore, Paul envisions Jesus’ rule over a citizen body in which those with leadership roles occupy the position of slaves in God’s household. This paper further explores how this metaphor of slavery interacts with Paul’s theology in his undisputed letters, such as Romans.

The Qumran War Scroll prescribes various inscriptions to be written on battle trumpets, banners, shields, and javelins at various phases of the eschatological war against the sons of darkness (1QM 3–6, 9). These include not only identifiers of military units, but also slogans invoking divine assistance in battle and expressing gratitude for success. But, we might ask, what does the act of writing on these objects achieve? Alex P. Jassen and Andrew R. Krause both suggest that the inscriptions serve a magical function as either aggressive illocutions (Jassen 2016) or apotropaic prayers (Krause 2020). This study contributes to the discussion about the magical function of the inscriptions in 1QM in four ways. First, specialists of ancient magic show that the act and presence of writing is magically potent and we will interpret the War Scroll’s inscribed implements as examples of this phenomenon. Second, we suggest that the formularies serve diverse magical functions and so we present a typology of the various functionalities based on Daniel Schwemer’s four categories of magic. Third, we investigate the most relevant crosscultural analogues regarding inscribed weaponry and instruments from the ancient Mediterranean and West Asia. Fourth, beyond recognizing that the inscriptions serve as implicit prayers, as noted by others, we reflect on how writing functions as an act of prayer.

Iron Age I Israel consisted of small villages, with little to no evidence for political centralization, which only began in the tenth century (or later). Similarly, during this period, the cities and villages in the northern valleys were culturally separate from the villagers in the Samarian and Judean highlands, and similar points can be made about peoples in other niches of what becomes Israel. And yet, biblical historiography presents Israel as a united political entity from the very beginning. In the book of Joshua, we see this both in the Deuteronomistic material, which presents a united conquest, and in the Priestly material, which presents a united lottery. In both cases, Joshua—or Joshua plus Elazar the priest—rules the people like a king. In the book of Judges, accounts of local skirmishes in the pre-monarchic period are revised and reframed with language that implies a united national front. A similar usage underscores the depiction of Israelite wars in the time of Samuel, with the unlikely picture of a politically independent polity, led by a prophet, looking for a king. What we see in these texts are attempts to foreground a later pan-Israelite concept that developed in the monarchic period (at the earliest). By the time the biblical texts were composed, the idea had become so engrained that each author or school of authors made use of it after their own fashion. The paper will suggest when and why this idea first developed and trace how it was received in the various schools (primarily Priestly and Deuteronomistic) responsible for the biblical text.

The proposed paper will present and evaluate the use of legal rhetoric in the apologetic writings of Patristic Period authors, such as Aristides, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Athenagoras of Athens. Legal rhetoric, of course, employs the conventions of juridical reasoning, legal criteria, and legal argumentation in order to persuade a potentially skeptical or hostile audience. The writings of the early Apologists were frequently appeals to representatives of the Roman State and addressed accusations brought against the nascent sect of Christianity by those outside the faith. For example, Tertullian, who tradition holds was trained as lawyer, addressed his Apologeticus to provincial governors of the Empire. In the work, he utilizes legal rhetoric to build a case for religious toleration of Christianity, based upon notions of justice as equal treatment before the law. In the process he makes the case that the law is not merely an extension of the whims of the powerful, but follows logically only in accordance with principles of evenhandedness and fair-dealing. In demonstrating that Roman law, as practiced with respect to Christians, has to this point been arbitrary and hypocritical in its application, Tertullian maintains that the lack of religious liberty afforded to Christians makes a mockery of the Roman legal system. The presuppositions which undergird these rhetorical moves call for deeper exploration regarding the philosophical/ metaphysical foundations of the Apologists’ conception(s) of law and its function. These necessarily relate to some shared conception of the givenness of legal reasoning, the usefulness of legal rhetoric in demonstrating its principles, and perhaps ultimately to the notion of nature or God as ultimate giver and arbiter of justice.

The measurement of sacred space appears throughout several texts at Qumran, most notably the Temple Scroll and New Jerusalem. Scholars have typically analyzed these detailed measurements with respect to similar texts in the Pentateuch and book of Ezekiel in order to compare temple ideologies and theologies. While the differing constructions of sacred space certainly contribute to such ideologies, these texts are also participating in a genre of late first millennium compositions that record dimensions of major cultic complexes as a way of participating in what Eleanor Robson has called “divine quantification.” I will revisit a passage of New Jerusalem to explore how narrativized architectural blueprints can shed light on aspects of both mathematical thought and broader literary trends in the late Hellenistic period

This paper demonstrates how within the Song of Songs lies a hitherto undiscovered case of allusive paronomasia (a phenomenon in which a later text alludes to an earlier text but which also involves inner biblical wordplay—in this case by deliberately recalling and recreating specific sounds in the earlier text; this is essentially a form of phonological wordplay). There is a Hebrew phrase in Song of Songs 2:15 ’ehezu-lanu shu’alim “catch for us the little foxes” which has generated numerous and diverse interpretations over the centuries. What has gone unrecognized thus far is the existence of an intrinsic literary connection to another equally enigmatic phrase ‎mah-ttehezu bashulammith “Why will you look on the Shulamit?” (7:1b). The connection lies in the form of allusive paronomasia in the latter text. This wordplay significantly impacts the interpretation of the Song of Songs as a whole. This presentation will demonstrate the steps used to identify the presence of this particular case of allusive paronomasia between the two phrases. By building upon recent contributions, such as those of Jonathan Kline (2016) and Isaac Kalimi (2018), which deal with cases of allusive paronomasia, three methodological criteria will be resorted to in order to show how these phenomena can be identified: the metathesis of consonants which produce the variant sound; the proximity of texts involved in the reading; and legitimate function which governs the phenomenon. With the help of presentational visual aids, I will first show how, in using poetic metathesis, the poet has created the allusive paronomasia in 7:1 by reordering consonants found in the sentence in 2:15 in a particular pattern but which also creates intelligible words in the latter. Next, the probability of Song 7:1 alluding to 2:15 will be discussed in terms of proximity. Although paronomasia was traditionally seen to present itself as a localized phenomenon, occurring within the same sentence, several researchers such as Kline have demonstrated its existence on a wider level, operating at great textual distances and functioning as a marker of allusion. Finally, in terms of function, various previous interpretations that have been put forward for both enigmatic phrases found in Song 2:15 and 7:1 will be discussed briefly. Based upon existing research, another suggestion will be offered here, for the first time, as to how the allusive paronomasia works between these two enigmatic sentences in the Song of Songs. Although the summarized discussion of this final criterion of function is better served as part of a longer examination, the first two criteria, that of the technical rearrangement of consonants/sounds and the proximity of reading, already provide a convincing formal arrangement with which to identify this particular case of phonological wordplay in the Song of Songs.

Past decades have seen a rising interest amongst scholars in uncovering the historical John the Baptist (Webb 1991; Taylor 1997; Murphy 2003; Marcus 2018). Of particular interest is how the historical John’s baptism in the river Jordan, detailed in the canonical Gospels and Josephus’s Antiquities, relates to Jewish water immersion practices during the Second Temple period (e.g., Kazen 2002). This paper, by contrast, examines the role of John’s baptism (Matt 3:1–10) within the narrative world of Matthew’s Gospel itself, as it relates to matters of purity and purification. Approaching Matthew’s Gospel as a Second Temple Jewish text, this paper draws together classic (Milgrom 1991–2001) and innovative (Klawans 2000) scholarship on purity/impurity in ancient Judaism with key primary source evidence pertaining to water immersion rituals in biblical (Lev 14–17; Num 19; Isa 1) and Second Temple literature (1QS; Jdt 12; Sib. Or. 4). I argue that, in alignment with the tendency among Second Temple Jews to adapt, expand, or diverge from biblical purity laws in everyday practice, John in Matthew 3 uses immersion in the Jordan as one-step in a multi-step ritual of purification for impurity arising from sin. Here, I follow closely the thesis forwarded by Jonathan Klawans (2000) concerning the historical John’s baptism, which I demonstrate, through discussion of key Matthean passages (Matt 15, 23), is equally true of John’s baptism in Matthew. The paper seeks to challenge interpretations of John’s immersion in Matthew as a rite of purification from ritual forms of impurity or as a rite of initiation. In so doing, I demonstrate the importance of John’s baptism to the Gospel’s wider concern for impurity arising from sin, thereby making a significant contribution to studies on purity/impurity in Matthew’s Gospel (Runesson 2013; Thiessen 2020; Wassén 2020) in which the theme of baptism receives minor attention.

The relationship between word order and syntax in New Testament Greek (NTG), on one hand, and the meaning of the text, on the other, continues to be an important field for New Testament interpretation. In a previous paper, I argued that a new method was needed to identify the purpose for patterns of word order and syntax and to account for variance from those patterns on a strictly linguistic basis. Using Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) and building upon the work of Stanley Porter, Andrew Pitts, Ray Van Neste, and others, the proposed method analyzes every section, clause, and word group according to their type and function downward along the rank scale. The Pastoral Epistles (PE) were chosen as a test case for applying this method due to their similarity in content, genre, and register. Initial results were presented that demonstrated the consistency of the method within the PE, outlined the rhetorical functions for variation from established patterns as found in the PE, and proposed additional steps forward. In this paper, then, I hope to offer the next step for utilizing and refining the method in two stages. First, the linguistic profiles for each letter will be compiled, presenting the established patterns of word order and syntax, according to the method, downward along the rank scale for each letter individually. Second, the linguistic profiles for the letters of the PE will be compared to one another to determine areas of congruence and of difference between them. This will provide discussion of which patterns show enough minor variance within the PE to warrant larger investigation for NTG, which patterns have no variance and thereby lack an evident alternative choice, and which patterns show too much variance to be considered for further analysis. This paper will contribute to the study of the PE and NTG in at least three ways. First, it will demonstrate the full results of applying the proposed method to the PE by presenting the linguistic profiles for those letters. Second, it will refine the proposed method by comparing the profiles of the PE to one another, allowing for the identification of specific word order and clausal patterns that might contribute to further study of word order for NTG. Third, it will propose next steps for refining the method and analyzing the potential impact of identified patterns for further study of register and intertextual comparison beyond the PE.

The aim for this paper is to equip teachers of Biblical Hebrew to enable first semester Hebrew students to produce communicative acts in the target language (Biblical Hebrew). First, the paper briefly introduces the general nature of communication and general classes of L2 output. Second, the bulk of the paper presents output activities that students can perform and allow both teachers and students to measure student language acquisition progress. Specific examples will be given that teachers can use directly in their courses or modify as they see fit. Finally, the paper concludes with suggestions for teachers with little or no experience teaching communicatively to develop skills.

Discerning the economic levels in the Roman Empire contemporaneous with the early Jesus movement has been a challenge. Although modern societies base economic classes on either annual income or net worth, such measurements are usually unavailable for the ancient economy. Hence, social historians have constructed—helpful though often speculative—models such as the Lenski model of agrarian societies (drawn from information deriving from ancient Europe to China) or the Scheidel-Friesen model for the Roman Empire as a whole, estimating subsistence security based on Gross Domestic Product in the mid-second century CE. My presentation will offer a new way of economically classifying—and even envisioning—ancient persons. I will focus on Judea in the late second temple period in studying three cemeteries: Jericho, Giv’at ha-Mivtar (Jerusalem), and Qumran. The pathological examination of the skeletal remains, the inscriptions (where existing on the ossuaries), and the construction of the tombs, themselves, will inform in mapping three levels of economic security for working-class or laboring (i.e., “middling level” and subsistence level) persons which may then serve as a model for ancient Israel as a whole.

John Malalas’ sixth century Chronicle plots divine salvific history on a peculiar chronology that counterintuitively places the Parousia during Jesus’ lifetime in an effort to play down Syriac Christian millennialist fears that the end of the sixth millennium, with its concomitant disasters, was approaching. As former beneficiaries of God’s covenant, Jews play an important role in his account. Once God's chosen people, they become abandoned, and replaced by Christians. One way that Malalas tracks this path is via the status of Jerusalem, its temple, priests, and holy vessels. An examination of his account of Jerusalem demonstrates an interesting connection between that city and the province of Syria, and especially to its capital and Malalas' beloved home city of Antioch. As God’s favor of the Jews deteriorates in the Second Temple Period, we can trace a flow of holy objects and holy people from Jerusalem to Antioch. This trajectory reaches its climax with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE and the transfer of the Cherubim to Antioch. At that point even pre-Christian Roman Antioch comes to replace Jerusalem as God’s favored city. This defeat of Jews notwithstanding, many Christians expected that Jews would return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple before Jesus' return. Malalas' description of later Jewish victimhood in the Antiochene riots of 491 and 507, both within a year of millennial expectations, demonstrates the continued status of Jews as victims, and implicitly emphasizes the ongoing Christian defeat of Judaism in the very city that had come to replace Jerusalem, which itself had now become a Christian city. This paper traces and explores the connection between Jerusalem and Antioch in the context of Malalas' larger use of Jews.

"As She Has Done, Do to Her" (Jer 50:29): Violence and Gendered Imagery in Jeremiah 50-51

Over the last several centuries much has been written about the Latin text of Codex Boernerianus as scholars have suggested a variety of theories regarding the nature and purpose of the Latin text. While some have noted its close relationship to the Old Latin tradition, others have noted that it also has much in common with the Vulgate tradition. Some have posited that it is simply a translation of the Greek text of Boernerianus, and others have suggested that it should be regarded as a significant Latin witness. Several scholars have noted that it might have had a pedagogical function meant to serve as a teaching tool and/or study guide for the Greek text noting that there are often multiple alternative Latin readings given to correspond to a single Greek word. Yet, there are still few satisfying conclusions. In this paper, digital transcriptions of the Latin text of Codex Boernerianus in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and 1 Timothy have been collated against the Stuttgart Vulgate. The points of divergence were then compared to several Old Latin witnesses as well as to the Greek text of Boernerianus. This analysis explores and sheds new light on the Latin text of Codex Boernerianus and its relationship to the Old Latin tradition as well as the Vulgate.

Ten years from now, what do you want students to take away from your course? In his book, What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain describes the importance of preparing to teach by asking “What big questions will my course help students answer?” (p. 50). Then, Bain argues, we must begin with the end in mind and let the “big ideas” that we want students to grasp or wrestle with shape the course. Beginning with these “big ideas” can also be a meaningful source of motivation for both students and ourselves as professors (Lang, Small Teaching, p. 169). This paper will explore the development of big ideas for a biblical literature course, incorporating those big ideas into course design, and creating an end-of-semester big ideas assignment to foster student reflection on their overall learning in the course.

The book of Job has been read and re-read countless times. A frequent observation is the absence of God until the very end (chps 38-41). Many scholars have focused on the hiddenness of God from a variety of angles: Evil & the Hiddenness of God; Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason; The Hiddenness Argument as a Challenge to Belief in God; Christ and the Hiddenness of God; The Hiddenness of God in Combat, etc. How does Trauma Theory help us think about the hiddenness of God? How does trauma impact one’s belief in God? The book of Job provides fertile soil for analyzing a variety of responses to God’s absence in the midst of trauma. Key to comprehending the significance of the book is Job’s response to the God speeches. Why and how do the God speeches cause a blameless and upright Job to repent in dust and ashes? Many possibilities will be explored in this paper – the astute conference attendee will leave with more questions than answers – and with several new avenues for research.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

Current work in the neurocognitive field of emotions illumines Paul’s strategy behind choosing joy in Philippians. Writing from prison, Paul describes the cultivation of emotional habits that help him discern (and survive) his own situation, interpret the emotional motivations of others, and offer the community in Philippi a way to draw on the strength of their collective body in Christ. In other words, when viewed from a neurocognitive understanding of emotions, Paul’s “epistolary language” of suffering and joy functions as a critical community building strategy. This strategy is existential. Paul cultivates emotional habits of love and joy that balance his real suffering and effectively can help him survive hardship in prison. He encourages the Philippians to continue to share his love and joy for their survival together. The strategy is also communal; shared emotional habits build communities in the same way habits of embodied ritual build communities. Perhaps even more fascinating is the possibility that emotions can be shared among individuals to balance out the suffering and joy of a “body” of people such as a Christ body. This paper draws on philosopher Robert Solomon’s study of emotions in the field of cognitive psychology to understand emotions as processes for discerning and choosing that become neurological habits in our minds. Psychiatrist Anna Lembke explores what happens when neurological habits become addictive. Her work on the pain and pleasure principle behind addiction helps us understand how Paul’s deep suffering (pain, loss, desire, wanting) in prison seeks and finds equilibrium in the experience of real joy (pleasure, reward, fulfillment). Finally, psychologist Resmaa Menakem’s group work on healing embodied trauma can show us how the mind, emotions and body work together, find healing and restored wholeness together. Furthermore, Menakem reminds us that we must not read Paul (or understand ourselves) as one individual. Healing the mind, emotions and body happens when they participate in a mutually committed social body, a community. For Paul, this community is the Christ body. Choosing the emotional-dispositional habits of Christ’s mind that Paul practices and urges the Philippians to practice with him, is more than a strategy for surviving suffering in prison it is a strategy for participating in the saving body of Christ.

Once considered essential to a proper formulation of syntactic analysis, in recent years the argument-adjunct distinction (AAD) has been subject to serious questioning. While some linguists now reject its usefulness, others still rely upon it. In bringing the Andersen-Forbes database to one of its major checkpoints, I have sought to overcome the criticisms advanced against the AAD. Three enhancements of method have been advanced and applied across the entire Hebrew Bible: 1) introduction of a decision tree to explicate situations where the AAD appears irresolvable, 2) use of analytic methods to identify and justify ‘alternate arguments,’ and 3) use of verb classes to overcome the daunting issue of sparsely realized roots. In this paper, I review the various problems associated with the AAD and then report the outcomes of applying the methodology outlined across the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible.

Translations of early Christian writings in late antiquity were not simply a matter of chance. They required a great investment of resources, both to produce the translation and to have it copied. The example of John Chrysostom is a case in point. His biblical commentaries are massive, including as many as eighty-eight homilies. To produce a translation of just one of these must have been an immense undertaking. The fact that Syriac communities in the fifth and sixth centuries translated over ten of his commentaries testifies to the interest he must have held. But who produced these translations? And what made Chrysostom’s works so important? Two remarkable features of a manuscript dating to 584 help address these questions. The manuscript in question is London, British Library, Add. 12160 (fol. 1–108) which forms the third of three volumes containing the Syriac translation of Chrysostom’s Commentary on First Corinthians. First, the scribe finished copying the text of the commentary with a few folios to spare. He did not let this space go to waste, adding seven texts related to the commentary itself, its Syriac translation, the production of the manuscript, and its initial deposit in a library. These end materials offer a window into the network of individuals needed to produce and distribute a translation of such magnitude. They may even suggest that the patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church played a role in these affairs. Second, six marginal notes were added to the manuscript shortly after it was produced. Each note relates to the Julianist controversy, a debate that began in the 520s over the incorruptibility of Christ’s body before the resurrection. While Chrysostom died over a century before the debate took off, the author of these marginalia saw his works as a resource for arguing against the Julianists. Indeed, quotations from the same commentary are found in the writings of the main protagonists of the debate in the 520s as well as in an anti-Julianist florilegium produced perhaps not long after the manuscript. The two distinctive features of this manuscript offer insight into the connection between translations and doctrinal conflicts. The translation seems to have been supported by or at least produced with the knowledge of the upper echelons of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The correspondence between the marginalia and texts related to the Julianist controversy suggest that one reason such translations were undertaken was to identify additional materials to address divisive theological disagreements.

In Daniel 10:19 the angelus revelator bids Daniel peace (שלום לך). This standard expression of greeting perplexes commentators because the angel has already been speaking to Daniel since verse 11. The phrase is therefore interpreted atypically as angelic words of reassurance. However, a few commentators have noticed duplicated features throughout the chapter and have identified them as doublets (plural and disconnected). On closer inspection, the following presentation will identify further repetitions and propose the presence of one, large-scale, all-encompassing doublet in Daniel 10. Mapping this doublet sensibly places the 10:19 greeting (שלום לך) at the beginning of the second iteration of the angel's speech to Daniel. Contrasting the two versions exposes early, divergent interpretive pathways and reveals several independent additions that help mask the repetition. Significantly, in one parallel, an Aramaic idiom has been incorrectly rendered in Hebrew in two different ways, suggesting the existence of an Aramaic core text that was expanded and translated into two separate Hebrew traditions before being combined into the present form of chapter 10.

Charlotte Mason (1842–1923) was a British educator and educational philosopher notable for founding the Parent's National Educational Union (PNEU), publishing The Parents’ Review, and establishing a teacher’s college in Ambleside, England, which is now part of the University of Cumbria. Her obituary in The Times notes that Mason’s “personal influence was probably more widespread than that of any educationist of her time.” While her work focused largely on educational theory and practice, the philosophy she draws on is deeply rooted in her Christian faith. She wrote the influential 6-volume Home Education Series (1886–1922) in addition to a series of biblically-inspired verse, The Saviour of the World (1908–1914). Her ideas remain influential for many educators, particularly in the United States. Mason articulates both her methodology for biblical interpretation through her pedagogical texts and examples in her more popular level work, such as The Saviour of the World. This paper focuses on the method of biblical interpretation Mason offered to educators and on examples of her interpretation of the Gospel of John. While often considered a traditionalist in her approach to the Bible, this paper argues that she displays strong sympathy for modernist approaches, including higher criticism, while maintaining a generally literalist approach to Old and New Testament texts. At the same time, she argues that texts she interprets as “non-literal” maintain their devotional significance. The paper further traces several philosophical influences in her approach to the Bible, notably Emerson and Ruskin. Emerson’s influence is seen in Mason’s emphasis on the interpreter’s reliance on his or her own faculties and on the importance of a person’s character in reading. Ruskin’s influence is present in Mason’s view of the Bible as part of a network of formational sources and on the significance of the beauty and literariness of the Bible.

Of the many and various characters of the Hebrew Scriptures, few have enjoyed such dynamic afterlives in the writings of later Judaism and Christianity as Abel. In the book of Hebrews, Abel is twice alluded to, but with a terseness that invites investigation. In Hebrews 11:4 the author enigmatically asserts that Abel, though having died, still speaks. Abel is mentioned again in the climatic verse of the Sinai/Zion comparison (Heb 12:18-24). In 12:24b, the author states that the readers have come to the sprinkled blood of Jesus, which speaks better than (the blood of) Abel. The connecting link between the two passages is the mention of Abel’s speech. Of what does Abel speak? And how does his speech compare with that of Jesus’s blood? This paper seeks to clarify the contrast between Jesus’s and Abel’s speech in Hebrews 11:4 and 12:24b through intertextual comparison with the Hellenistic interpretive tradition represented by Philo. Building on David Moffitt’s interpretive work in Hebrews, this paper understands the speech of Jesus’s blood as shorthand for the offer of participation in the eschatological promises, including embodied, resurrection-life patterned after the resurrection-life of Jesus. The question, then, is why in 12:24b the author compares the blood of Jesus, which speaks of post-mortem benefits for the faithful, with (the blood of) Abel. The answer suggested by the interpretive tradition found in such texts as Wisdom of Solomon, Life of Adam and Eve, the Ascension of Isaiah, but most prominently in Philo, is that Abel stands as the first representative of the incorporeal post-mortem reward enjoyed by the faithful. In Philo’s interpretation of Genesis 4:10, Abel is the archetype of the virtuous soul, and his blood stands for the vivifying force of the soul which continues on after death in an immortal life with God. After his death, Abel lives a disembodied (ἀσώματοι), immortal life with God. The proof of his continued life with God is his blood’s conversing with God after his murder. Thus, for Philo, Abel’s pilgrimage towards God is the pattern which other righteous souls follow. This interpretation of Abel’s speech sheds light on Hebrews’ terse references of Abel’s blood speaking in Hebrews 12:24b. The mention of Abel in Hebrews 11:4 and 12:24b evokes the tradition of associating Abel with the hope of the righteous—a post-mortem, disembodied life with God. It is this conception of post-mortem existence which Hebrews compares with the resurrection-life secured by the blood of Jesus. By culminating his comparison between Sinai and Zion with a comparison between the blood of Jesus and (the blood of) Abel, the author juxtaposes the disembodied post-mortem life of Hellenistic Jewish interpretation with the “better” embodied, resurrection-life in which believers in the new covenant hope.

At Heb. 13:15, Auctor exhorts his audience to bear up the “sacrifice of praise” (θυσιαν αινεσεως; hereafter TO/SP). While liturgical scholars commonly take this term as a reference to the Eucharist, critical biblical scholars restrict its range of possible interpretations too tightly to permit such a reading. Critical scholars say that the following apposition—“that is, the fruit of lips”—requires understanding the TO/SP as a ‘spontaneous’ act of ‘oral’ praise, and support this reading with what they find to be an generally anti-ritual and specifically anti-Levitical message of Hebrews. This paper offers three exegetical arguments that would permit taking the TO/SP to refer to a material, ritual form of liturgical worship like the Eucharist: First, it compares the θυσιαν αινεσεως to the “thanksgiving offering,” a liturgical concept that is called by the same name at Lev. 7:12 in the LXX. Attention to the development and reconfiguration of the “thanksgiving offering” across the OT and the literature of Second Temple Judaism (e.g. 1QS; PsSol) demonstrates a pre-existing relationship between the TO/SP and the “fruit of lips,” and addresses the so-called ‘problem’ of the apposition at Heb. 13:15. Second, it suggests that Auctor has already alluded to the “thanksgiving offering” in his quotation of Ps. 22:22 at Heb. 2:12. Before 13:15 depicts Jesus as the one through whom the audience bears up their TO/SP, 2:12 has characterized Jesus’ humanity by quoting a Psalm that depicts a man bearing up a TO/SP. Third, it argues that Hebrews’ Epiclesis (13:1-25) does not reject the Levitical world, but takes and reconfigures its elements as it develops its own, positive liturgical theology. It reads Auctor’s description of Jesus as “outside the camp” (v. 13) as an allusion to the blasphemer of Lev. 24:10-23, who blasphemes “the Name” within the camp and suffers a shameful death outside it. Meanwhile, Hebrews depicts its audience as a new cult of reproach-bearing which also praises the “name” (v. 15) of the one who was put to death “outside the camp.” By this reading, Hebrews does not offer a supersessionist, anti-ritual theology of worship. Rather, it offers a concrete, conceptually thick invitation to reflect on Jesus’ priesthood and Christian Eucharistic worship within the conceptual framework of this Jewish, and Levitical, liturgical form. While biblical scholarship has established that Hebrews presents Jesus as an eschatological high priest, and as a Singing Champion, this paper considers Jesus as a Singing Celebrant, and as an archetypal president of a royal thanksgiving offering (cf. Pss. 66, 118) in remembrance of God’s having delivered him from death.

Many scholars maintain that the relationship between the story of Esther and the festival of Purim as presented in MT Esther is secondary, and that the two elements were originally distinct. However, no consensus has been reached regarding the textual contours of the pre-Purim Esther story. David Clines argued that the original, “proto-MT” story comprised of Esther 1—8, and that Esther 9—10 constitutes a series of successive additions. In contrast, Fox argued that Esther 1—8 does not comprise a fully coherent narrative, and that Esther 9—10 is a necessary and integral continuation of the previous material. To gain access to the pre-Purim Esther story, Fox turned to the Greek Alpha-Text of Esther, and isolated a “proto-Alpha Text,” which did not speak of Purim. He then compared and contrasted MT Esther, taken as a unity, with the pre-Purim narrative of proto-AT. Most contemporary scholars have accepted Fox’s critique of Clines, and accordingly refrain from reconstructing a pre-Purim narrative in the MT. At the same time, many have rejected or expressed reservations about Fox’s reconstruction and use of the proto-AT as background to the MT. In this paper, I offer a new reconstruction of a pre-Purim MT narrative, which involves the removal not only of Esther 9—10, but also of Esther 3:10, 12—15; 4:3 and 8:2—14, 17. This story was essentially centered around Susa alone. It did not portray Haman sending letters throughout the empire calling on its citizens to annihilate the Jews on the thirteenth of Adar, eleven months later (Esther 3:12—15). This depiction strains the story’s credibility. Why would anyone seeking to annihilate an entire people limit himself to a single day, and set the time for it so far away? Rather, the original story proceeded on the assumption that Haman would destroy the Jews as soon as he could, by whatever means necessary, and that he would devote as much time as necessary to get the job done. The secondary material in Esther 3 and 8 was added so that there would be a single day of the destruction of the Jews, that could then be reversed into a day of Jewish victory, and celebrated as Purim (Esther 9). The pre-Purim narrative ended simply with the hanging of Haman, the exaltation of Mordechai, and the one-time celebration of the Susans and the Jews (Esther 8:15—16). The story, in this form, had a minimum of violence, and coincides naturally with similar Persian-era court-narratives of Jewish orientation.

Invited panelists (a) offer a rich discussion of the major contributions of a significant historian in Jesus research, and (b) put their work in conversation with contemporary trends in Jesus scholarship.

The sixth-century Epistle of Dionysius to Timothy on the Death of the Apostles Peter and Paul purports to be an emotional letter from Dionysius the Areopagite to the apostle Timothy that gives the former’s eyewitness testimony to the recent martyrdoms of both Peter and—especially—Paul in Rome. This pseudonymous text, originally produced in Greek (not extant), is preserved in a spectrum of late antique and medieval languages, but apart from the collection of its various versions in a critical edition in 2021, the text has received little analysis. My paper offers one of the first explorations of this little-tapped text in its Syriac translation, likely the oldest extant version, in order to situate it in its rhetorical, historical, and liturgical context. I argue that by using the classical rhetorical technique of ethopoiia and the genre of lament to recount the historical memory of Peter's and—especially—Paul’s martyrdoms, the author seeks both to honor Paul with his account and to cultivate an affective devotion to the saint in consumers of the text. Because the text appears to have little to no theological agenda, I eschew scholarly theories of forgery as an explanation for the pseudepigraphal authorial claim. Instead, due to the highly affective tendencies of the text, I situate the author’s use of a fictitious first-person perspective within the ancient Greek rhetorical exercise of ethopoiia, speech-in character intended to mimic the emotions and characters of historical figures in given situations. The structure of the text, including contrasts between past and present, second-person addresses to the subject, language of being orphaned, and various woes follow the pattern of lament speeches prescribed by classical rhetorical theorists, meant to express the author’s own emotions and to reproduce them in the audience. The author, then, was not merely re-narrating Paul’s martyrdom—an account already found in multiple versions in late antiquity; rather, he was creatively strengthening devotion to Paul by using rhetorical techniques to pull the emotional cords of his audience’s hearts. My work thus thinks less about the theological content of apocrypha and how it is authorized by pseudepigraphal authorial claims, and instead it focuses on the rhetorical, practical, and devotional context in which the text was situated.

My last paper for SBL’s Pentateuch section (November 2022) contrasted the scribal methodologies of supplementation and counter-writing through an examination of Genesis 25-28. It highlighted the fundamentally different attitudes and motivations underlying these two editorial practices, and identified certain telltale signs that can help scholars distinguish between them when retracing the text’s development. In this paper, I will turn my attention to differentiating between supplementation and coordination, focusing now on Genesis 1-5. Once we recognize that additional bridging material has been imposed secondarily onto the text, how can we best determine whether it is designed to support the expansion of a single baseline text with newly composed material or whether it instead reflects an attempt to align two originally separate preexisting literary traditions that are being merged together into the same document? Needless to say, the answer to that question has tremendous implications on scholarly models for the development of biblical books and the relationships between its contributing authors. And perhaps no case is more critical than the opening of the Pentateuch itself. After all, the first five chapters of Genesis offer at least three possible book starts: (a) the current beginning of the book in Genesis 1:1 (most commonly attributed to the Priestly work [P] or to a later Holiness stratum [H]), (b) the seeming restart of creation in Genesis 2:4b (classically assigned to the Yahwistic author [J], or designated more generically as simply non-Priestly [non-P]), and (c) the opening to a self-titled “Sefer Toledot Adam” in Genesis 5:1 (often considered to be part of the Priestly writings or a source incorporated by P). Modern scholars are generally agreed that the three pericopes that these beginnings introduce likely hail from different hands, but their relationships with one another have been hotly debated: which of them were added directly onto their surroundings to expand the narrative, and which already existed in a separate form before being aligned with one another in a combined text? To make this determination, this paper will concentrate on the transition passages of Genesis 2:4a and Genesis 5:1-3, analyzing the indications therein that betray evidence of supplementation or coordination. It is hoped that the results of this study will aid in identifying the markers of these two different scribal practices, while also helping to clarify which scholarly model of the Pentateuch’s formation best accounts for the data at hand in the opening chapters of Genesis.

This paper explores connections between Phil 2 and the Johannine Prologue.

Did foodways matter to John of Patmos? When approaching this question, scholarship on the book of Revelation tends to center on opposition to eating “food sacrificed to idols” (eidōlothyta; Rev. 2:14, 20)—a reflection, perhaps, of John’s own halakhic scruples. Less discussed are references to what I call “divinely sourced food” in the letters to the seven ekkēlsia of Asia Minor (Rev. 2–3). What do sources of food such as the “tree of life” (Rev 2:7), and “hidden manna” (Rev 2:17) mean? Do they relate in some way to criticism of eidōlothyta and of figures, such as “Jezebel,” associated with “food sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:20)? This paper proceeds in two main parts. It first considers allusions to divinely sourced food within John’s social context. In line with much recent scholarship on Revelation, I take prophetic rivalry, not persecution, as the setting of the book. Heaven-sent food might seem fitting in a book of visions, but how do they bolster John’s claims over against rivals such as “Jezebel”? The paper next expands into early Christian interpretations of Revelation, focusing on the shadowy figure of Papias, whose millennialist expectations of a “corporeal” kingdom of rich wine, bread, and fruit proved controversial. In a conclusion we consider the persona of John of Patmos as an artless witness to otherworldly things, including food. Revelation’s “Son of Man” tells John to write what he sees (Rev. 1:11, 19); John in turn seals the integrity of the book with a final curse (Rev. 22:18–19). According to Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 5.33.3–4) and Eusebius (HE 3.39.1), John relayed to Papias the teachings of Jesus about a lush coming kingdom. In the Apocalypse, John even tastes heaven’s strange bounty for himself. Obeying heaven’s command, John eats a bittersweet “little scroll” from a giant angel’s hand (Rev. 10:8–10). The analysis will inevitably raise vexing questions of intention and historical background that cannot be answered satisfactorily. But attention to divinely sourced food in Revelation and beyond may help to expose the clockworks of early Christian authority as well as shed new light on early Christian debates over the book of Revelation.

The ancient Persian/Achaemenid empire is often hailed as diverse and generally accepting and/or tolerant of cultures, generously accommodating of difference. In some biblical books, especially in the “return” migrations seen in Ezra/Nehemiah, this empire is applauded as such and understood to be generally benevolent. However, a more divergent view of this empire may be seen in the book of Esther. Although this could be argued due to the pogrom that runs the conflict at the center of the book itself, enacted through another deracinated group cozied up to the parodied King, another aspect has been only briefly brushed by in other discussions on what occurs in the first edict of the book as Vashti is banished from the King, and male dominance is threatened and enshrined in law: that of the potential erasure of the “mother-tongue” in households in every province. Using, then, current critiques of the “multicultural” and “superdiversity” frameworks in modern migration studies, the paper will attend to how one might understand the Persian empire as more insidious in their ideological approach to their universal, far-reaching power that scholars have only reproduced. Not only this, but then in reckoning with the edict, intermarriage, and the death of mother-tongues for subsequent generations in both Esther and Ezra, how might we understand the layers of appeal for such an edict not to simply establish patriarchy, but also naturalize an essentialist, singular language?

In 2 Kings 11, Joash emerges from the temple to become king of Judah as a seven year old child. He narrowly escapes death during infancy thanks to the quick thinking of Jehosheba who hides him in a room in the house of the Lord with a wet nurse. They keep him hidden for six years before Jehoiada conducts a coup against Athaliah. In this paper, I examine how this literary presentation of Joash fits within the rhetorical agenda of 1-2 Kings. I begin by analyzing Joash’s role in the passage itself. While he is an almost entirely passive character in the story, all of the action revolves around his survival, emergence from the temple, and installment as king. I consider the threat posed by Athaliah’s vengeful attack on the house of David and Jehosheba’s quick actions that saved the child. I draw out the significance of the well-known connection between Joash’s and Moses’s survival in infancy. Additionally, I consider the comparisons between Joash and Josiah: two of Judah’s child-kings. Ultimately, I suggest that Joash’s story acts as the culmination of an imperiled-child motif that runs throughout 1-2 Kings. His story constitutes the final installment in a series of type-scenes throughout the book involving imperiled children, their mothers, and men of God. As the climactic occurrence of these type-scenes, I argue that Joash’s survival contributes to our understanding of 1-2 Kings’ rhetorical agenda. Since Joash constitutes the last surviving Davidic heir, his emergence from the temple as a child under the tutelage of the priest functions as an ideal paradigm in the book’s vision for Judah’s future.

In this paper, I will address the large-scale contributions that the volume From Nomadism to Monarchy? provides to Levantine archaeology and biblical studies, particularly related to the transition from the LB to Iron I. Responding to the earlier volume, From Nomadism to Monarchy, this book addresses important questions related to the social, economic, religious, and cultural changes dating to the transition from the Late Bronze to Iron I in the Southern Levant. I will offer my assessment of where I see the new contributions to the field and address areas where there may be points for further consideration.

Biblical history is one of the most important elements of Syriac historiography: every writing that examines questions typically addressed by universal history begins with accounts from the Old Testament. From Creation to the Incarnation, this part of human history is equally covered in all major Syriac historiographical works. While the foundational sources for these accounts are largely uniform across different writings, they yield diverse narratives. The biblical past serves as a construction set, allowing each author to craft a unique historical narrative tailored to their specific purposes, highlighting relevant elements while sidelining others less significant. In this paper, I aim to analyze the usage of biblical narratives in the historiographical writing “The Book of the Main Points” by the 7th-century East Syrian author Yoḥannān bar Penkāyē. Specifically, I will focus on the figure of Balaam and his prophecy, exploring his significance within Bar Penkāyē’s historical framework. Balaam’s prophecy is the first one in a lengthy series of prophecies anticipating the second stage of world history, heralding the advent of Jesus Christ. Bar Penkāyē assigns great importance to this episode, regarding it as the first prophecy about Jesus. Why did Bar Penkāyē select it? What role does Balaam play in Syriac historiography? What insights does it offer into the use of biblical history within historical narratives? Are there parallels to be found in neighboring historiographical traditions?

‘Just as a body is one and has many parts, all the many parts being one body, so also Christ’. Thus reads the introduction in 1 Corinthians 12:12 to Paul’s extended metaphor of the ‘body of Christ’. Through this metaphor, Paul argues that a diversity of individual members is necessary for the unity of the ‘body’, the community of those ‘in Christ’. In scholarship on the ‘body of Christ’ metaphors, however, little attention is paid to the reality of embodied diversity of individuals within the communities to which Paul wrote, and the ways in which they may have made meaning with Paul’s ‘body’ metaphors. This neglect of embodied diversity, in particular in relation to gender, of Paul’s hearers and readers in Corinth and their meaning-making results in interpretations of Paul’s ‘body of Christ’ metaphors which risk homogenising individuality rather than affirming bodily diversity. Moreover, such neglect risks reinforcing perceptions of Paul as the determinative meaning-maker in (or even over) the Corinthian community, rather than situating him properly as one meaning-maker amongst many. This paper, predicated on the integral nature of embodiment to meaning-making (as proposed by cognitive metaphor theorists), reconsiders women’s lives in the Corinthian community in order plausibly to imagine what meanings they may have made from Paul’s ‘body’ metaphors. As women, the embodied experiences that they may have brought to these metaphors were different than men’s, and different than Paul’s – potentially resulting in different meanings than his. For example: might a woman, who had heard that ‘the head of every woman is man’ (11:2) and who might have a range of experiences related to this statement, have heard the contrast between ‘head’ and ‘foot’ (12:21) differently than Paul may have heard himself? This paper prompts us to ask this and related questions of the ‘body of Christ’ metaphors of 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, recognising that embodied diversity within the interpretive community results in a potential diversity of meanings made with Paul’s metaphors – a diversity which resituates Paul as one meaning-maker in conversation with the women of Corinth.

How much would it have cost Paul to buy the Septuagint? The question is put anachronistically, of course. There was not yet a finalized canon of Israel’s scriptures, much less those scriptures in a standardized Greek translation. Nevertheless, it can serve well as a heuristic question, since there was a recognizable body of sacred books in Greek that the Septuagint approximates. And it is a question that holds interest, since it meaningfully bears on how early Christians and first-century Jews interacted with their holy writings. Book ownership was also a marker of elite status in Roman antiquity, whether of an individual’s wealth or a religious community’s wealth. No one has tried their hand at answering this precise question, however, despite the benefits that might accrue. Indeed, many scholars have contented themselves with impressionistic assertions, whether it be that the price was “exorbitant” or, at the other end, “trivial.” Some have pursued related questions, though. Richards (Letter Writing, 166–69), for example, has estimated the cost for Paul to write letters, but his expenses include several drafts and duplicate copies. Both Bar-Ilan (in Mikra, 36) and Toorn (Scribal Culture, 16–20) list 80–120 denarii as the likely price of a Torah scroll, but this is in Hebrew and on parchment. Bagnall (Christian Books, ch. 3, esp. 57) provides a range of figures (depending on the quality of material and script) for the full Christian Bible, in codex form, in later imperial times. Still others have suggested figures for individual books, such as Hebrew Isaiah (Millard, Reading and Writing, 165). The analysis that is closest to my query is that of Skeat (“Length of Roll,” 173–75), who calculates the cost of the Pauline Epistles in 𝔓46 in both codex and roll form. We also have some firm evidence to compare to, such as Martial’s Epigrams being found at a book market for two (cheap edition) to five (deluxe) denarii (Shiner, Proclaiming, 13; other examples in Bagnall, Christian Books, 51–52). From these related studies we can derive a methodology that yields a reasonable estimate. In the first century, a complete copy of the books that would become the Septuagint, written on papyrus rolls in a middle-quality hand, would likely sum to 667 drachmae, give or take 30%. This is about two years of skilled labor or perhaps $127,000 in today’s American dollars.

The archaeology of Jerusalem has focused mostly on its early moments of foundation or it hey days, just before its destruction by the Babylonians at 586 BCE. This is due to methodological limitations, mainly our ability to recognize the beginning or the ending of moments and difficulty to note the actual processes. However, recent developments in the way archaeology is being conducted in Jerusalem has brought to light remains that are dating to the late 9th and early 8th centuries BCE. This article will include a presentation of the recent finds from the city. This will be followed by a discussion of the city’s nature during the 8th century BCE. A special emphasis will be placed on describing changes in the city’s layout that took place during the middle of the century, probably as the result of the earthquake that is mentioned on the book of Amos.

The discussion of authorship in the Book of Isaiah is directly related to the question of the redactional processes in the Book of Isaiah. Here, the thesis developed by Susan Gillingham and Ulrich Berges of assuming Levitical temple singers for the tradents in Isa 40-55 seems to emerge as a consensus in research. On a less researched level, however, is the question of the tradents for Proto-Isaiah, although the beginnings of the book are attested well in Isa 8:16-18 and Isa 30:8 itself. The following paper therefore aims to a) revisit the question of the social milieu of Isaiah's disciples, b) discuss these findings with the temple singer thesis for Isa 40-55 and c) evaluate them for Isaiah 1-39.

This paper explores the parallels between the cost of discipleship according to different accounts in the Gospels and the rabbinic commentaries on the Shemaʿ. The parallels suggest that the rabbinic commentaries concerning the Shemaʿ that were later compiled might have had their roots in Jewish teachings that were familiar to the Gospels’ authors, and thus, can perhaps be traced back to Second Temple Judaism. The method of intertextuality used echoes that of Michael Fishbane (1985) and Jeffrey Leonard (2008) on identifying inner-biblical allusions and exegeses. According to the Gospels, the cost of discipleship includes denying the self, selling all possessions to give to the poor, carrying one’s cross, and losing oneself for the sake of God, even to the point of martyrdom. This has become known within the Christian tradition as imitatio Christi, where some Gospel narratives emphasize the need to follow Jesus’s example of suffering and self-denial to attain eternal life. Some of the Gospel narratives also specifically invoke the Shemaʿ as a requirement for eternal life. Is there a commonality between the cost of discipleship and the Shemaʿ, according to the Gospels? Later rabbinic literature can provide us with some context. The Mishnah interprets “with all your soul” in the Shemaʿ as “even if God is taking your soul,” or unto death. This interpretation is further expanded by a Talmudic story about R. Akiva’s martyrdom. The same Mishnah also interprets “with all your strength” as “with all your money,” emphasizing the importance of giving to the poor. Rabbinic literature also interprets “with all your heart” as self-denial, reinforcing the idea of giving up oneself for the sake of God. Even certain parallel nuances can be spotted between some of the Gospel narratives and rabbinic teachings. For example, Luke 9:23 specifically mentions that the cost of discipleship is in denying oneself and carrying their cross “daily”. How can one carry their crosses “daily” and die “daily”? This teaching parallels the Tosefta’s elaboration of the Mishnaic commentary on the Shemaʿ by suggesting that “with all your self (soul)” not only means even as God is taking one’s self (soul), but also cites the verse, “Because of you we are being killed all day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter” [Psalm 44:22]. Sifre Devarim, a tannaitic midrash on Deuteronomy, also cites this verse to explain the commandment, “with all your self (soul),” but narrates a rhetorical question, “And how are we killed the entire day?” It is unlikely that the later rabbinic literature were influenced by the Gospels, especially since the connections and parallels are very subtle. However, with a deeper analysis, a connection can perhaps be made. Thus, the Gospels might include some of the earliest literary evidence for certain rabbinic teachings, some of which can perhaps trace themselves back to Second Temple Judaism.

Nearly every interpreter of Mark uses the word “paradox” to describe some aspect of his story about Jesus, but these tend to cluster especially around the passion narrative. This paper argues that Jesus’ passion is, indeed, a paradox for Mark, and seeks to explore the notion of paradox itself and see how that concept can help shed light on Mark’s theology. Specifically, I will attempt to articulate the significance of Mark’s theology of paradox by drawing on the insights of Rudolf Bultmann’s notion of “paradoxical identity.” After surveying an analysis of paradox by the Harvard philosopher W. V. Quine and highlighting the way antinomy (true paradox) differs from dramatic irony, I will explore several instances of antinomy in Mark’s passion: how Mark depicts Jesus offering salvation by power in weakness (15:32-34, 39), how God is present in absence (15:34), and how Jesus is presented as resurrected while remaining crucified (16:6). We will then compare the ways in which other Gospels (both canonical and non-canonical) offer non-paradoxical depictions of Jesus’ death, highlighting how Mark’s depiction of Jesus’ death offers a unique contribution to New Testament portrayals. We will then analyze Bultmann’s concept of “paradoxical identity” in his writings about Jesus’ incarnation in John and his theological understanding of divine action, which I will argue are both examples of Quinian antinomy. Finally, I will end by exploring how antinomy plays a unique role in Mark’s Gospel, suggesting that the notion of paradox is for Mark not incidental but central to his theological understanding of the saving significance of Jesus’ death.

In the 125th year of the birth of modern Zionism (1897), there is much of the biblical message to celebrate: a sovereign Jewish nation on the ancestral land, the ingathering of the exiles, Jewish identity revival, and, no less of a miracle, the triumphant rapprochement in Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations. From the birth of Zionism to today, religious tropes have dominated Israeli society and continue to be appropriated by Israeli politicians and pundits with a zeal matched only by the ancient prophets. This presentation will reflect upon the early iterations of that rhetoric brought into play by the socialist Zionists. It will then explore that rhetoric being brought into play today by the full spectrum of the Israeli political movements, whether those advocates are the secular and modern orthodox in support of a more liberal leaning society or ultra-orthodox leaning to the more conservative vision of tomorrow’s Israel.

Athaliah is a complicated site of gendered analysis. Being the only female sovereign over Israel or Judah in the Hebrew Bible, interpreters have devoted so much energy to her that the discrete generational waves of feminist interpretation can be traced through the material reading her. It is only fitting, then, that the character of Athaliah would be a productive site for the current wave of intersectional feminist interpretation, especially those from the Asian American context. This paper draws on Asian American theorist Anne A. Cheng to illuminate the complex gender dynamics underlying the portrayal of Athaliah from a specifically Asian American gendered subjectivity. I use Cheng’s theorization of Asian American femininity, or “yellow femininity,” and particularly her concept of “ornamentalism” to elucidate the narrative’s uncanny and bizarre portrait of ancient Israel’s only woman regnant as perihuman. This dehumanizing strategy objectifies her as a mere ornament that is both consumable and disposable, conditions of being with which Asian American women are all too familiar. In conclusion, I identify methodological continuities between this paper and previous projects in feminist Asian American biblical interpretation to reflect on the indispensability of the wider Asian American Studies academic community to constructing a hermeneutic native to our context.

In his 2021 publication, Undinge, the contemporary philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes the current era as, “ein Übergang vom Zeitalter der Dinge zum Zeitalter der Undinge.” These “Non-Things” (English translation, 2022) are replacing material things in an increasing manner, severing the human connectedness with a materially created world, and leaving humans detached from a reality grounded in tangible items as well as from each other. In contemporary parlance, the expression “consuming content” perfectly encapsulates the vacuousness of the phenomenon described by Han. However, the consumption of non-things that leave one unsatisfied and hungry is hardly a modern invention. The Book of the Twelve employs the theme repeatedly. For example, in Micah 6:14 the nation is described as eating but not being satisfied, their stomachs remaining empty. Haggai extends the food metaphor to include drink, clothing and wages when describing pursuits that leave the nation unsatisfied (1:6). And, Hosea employs this theme quite literally when describing the nation consuming a “non-thing” as it is “eating the fruit of deception” (10:13). The language around food and eating is deeply rooted in materiality, but the Book of the Twelve repeatedly divorces the language of food from its substance, thereby creating a literary landscape in which words that denote materiality come to imply want. In such a literary setting the created world is unable to substantially satiate humans, the nation is rendered ungrounded. This gains further importance within the overall message of judgment and restoration in the Book of the Twelve. Byung-Chul Han’s philosophical approach to “non-things” provides a welcome lens through which to revisit the use of food language which fails to satiate.

Irenaeus of Lyon is largely regarded as an anti-allegorical reader of scripture. This anti-allegorical bent is brought into sharp relief within his eschatology, which famously renders the apocalyptic prophecy of Revelation along millenarian lines. As Irenaeus remarks concerning the advent of New Jerusalem in Adv. haer. 5.35.2, "nothing is able to be allegorized (nihil allegorizari potest)." At the same time, mirroring the Greco-Roman conceptions of prophetic utterance and mantic speech found among his contemporaries, Irenaeus consistently reminds his readers that prophecy as such remains opaque prior to its fulfillment. As a result, his exegesis is chronologically inflected; the prophetic ambiguities of law and the prophets are read figurally even as eschatological interpretation adheres closely to the letter of the text. In order to provide a more complete account of Irenaeus’ exegetical methodology, this paper considers the operative conception of prophecy undergirding Irenaeus’ anti-allegorical remarks. In the first part, I consider contemporary conceptions of mantic speech as found in the works of Plutarch of Chaeronea, which methodologically align allegorical reading and the interpretation of prophecy. In the second, I analyze Adv. haer. 3.21, wherein Irenaeus argues that Christ's birth from a virgin was simultaneously “unexpected” (inopinatus) and declared in advance, a paradox which, he contends, finds coherence in that divine agency which both promises a sign and brings about its fulfillment. Building upon this analysis, I demonstrate that this same argumentation attends the explicit censure of allegorical interpretation found in passages like Adv. haer. 5.35.2. In sum, I contend, under Irenaeus' conception of the term, allegorical reading necessarily confines divine agency within the limits of human capacity, with respect to both cognition and accomplishment. In due course, I consider the extent to which this construal of allegory and Irenaeus' eschatological literalism might be mutually qualifying.

4Q502 is highly fragmentary in form, consisting of over 340 fragments written on papyrus in a Middle-Hasmonean hand. Edited by Maurice Baillet (1982), the latter noticed the recurring liturgical style, such as the use of the formula ברוך אל ישראל or the common use of the root הל״ל (to glorify). Along with the repeating use of the Hebrew root שמ״ח (to rejoice), the repeating mentions of a female protagonist, and the recurring language of procreation, Baillet concluded that the fragments preserve remnants of an ancient Jewish marriage ceremony. Furthermore, the examination of common fiber patterns led Baillet to identify several distant joins. Based on these material considerations and other philological factors, he tentatively clustered 24 fragments into three groups, suggesting that each originates from a distinct part of the scroll. Although almost 40 years have passed since the publication of Baillet’s edition, only limited progress has been achieved regarding materiality and the reconstruction of the scroll. Apart from Baillet’s preliminary analysis and relatively brief discussions by Eibert Tigchelaar (2004) and Daniel Falk (2014), most fragments still lack a clear material context. Recently, I presented new material evidence that offers a new material reconstruction of 20 consecutive lines of text, with several new joins and readings (Gayer, in preparation). While my recent work focused on the material aspects of the composition, the suggested paper will complement the work, focusing mainly on the socio-religious aspects of the new reconstruction. Additional new joins and new readings will also be discussed. Together, the new material reveals elements that strengthen the claim that the composition presents a wedding ceremony, illuminating social aspects of the service, such as the communal meal, the role of Creation in the ritual, and the function of key figures within it. In addition, the connection of 4Q502 with compositions of the Yahad, such as the Community Rule (S), Daily Prayers (4Q503), and Instruction, will be discussed, highlighting the social role of 4Q502 within the circles of the Yahad.

At the 2023 SBL Meetings I argued that the epistle of James was written by James, the brother of John. One of the consequences of that proposal is that James is much earlier than is usually suggested. In this presentation I will discuss the internal evidence from the epistle of James that supports that early date.

Abstract: Sebastian Brock claims that three scholia from RA 1175 at Pss 86:5, 88:43, and 131:4 provide indisputable proof that the Aristarchean signs were included in the Fifth Column of Origen's Hexapla. These scholia and several in 1 and 3 Kingdoms will be re-evaluated for their testimony to the Hexapla.

The book of Judges is replete with narratives featuring individual Israelite tribes and their interactions with each other. While such inter-tribal interactions are particularly prominent in the Judah-focused opening of the book in Judg 1 and in the narratives featuring Ephraim, Judah, Dan, and Benjamin in the “appendices” to the book in Judg 17–18 and 19–21, the central chapters of the book (Judg 3–12) also feature a number of narratives thematizing inter-tribal cooperation, most famously the Song of Deborah (esp. Judg 5:14–18). This paper will consider to what extent the theme of tribal solidarity has shaped the present structure of Judg 3–12 and how individual narratives within these chapters praising or critiquing the role of particular regions (or cities) contribute to the book of Judges’ project of “nation-building.”

In the winters of 2014 and 2015 core samples were taken from the plaster linings of eight of the main large pools excavated at the archaeological site of Shikmona, on the northern coast of Israel within the confines of the municipality of modern-day Haifa. In their construction these structures are clearly closely concentrated industrial pools. The purpose of this sampling was to gain further insights into the function and possibly the processes associated with these ancient installations by undertaking a fossil pollen analysis of these sixteen plaster samples (two sample cores were taken from each of the eight pools selected for this study). The laboratory extraction and subsequent analysis of these pollen samples from Shikmona revealed that there is a very strong probabilty that they were primarily utilized for soaking flax stems during the retting stage of processing flax fibers into tow; a necessary step prior to the final stage of weaving them into linen. The fuller picture that the results of these sixteen samples provide us with can be characterized as both expected and unexpected. An inclusive look at the layout of these pools and the fossil pollen recovered from the plasters lining them gives us a unique perspective of the economy underlining the coastal trading city state of the Shikmona in the Greco-Roman period. The fact that the pools stretch under the later Byzantine Basilica, allows us to approximately date the pools to the period that proceeds it (1st through 3rd century CE). What follows is a final report on the sixteen fossil pollen samples taken from all eight of the pools sampled from the Greco-Roman period at Shikmona, Israel.

A grammatical superlative of superlatives, τὰ πάντα begs the theological question: Is there anything beyond the bounds of “all things”? This paper explores this question in conversation with ancient Greek literature including Septuagint and New Testament. When reading and interpreting the New Testament and the Septuagint (especially wisdom literature), the emphatic scope of the articulated neuter plural can be lost, as τὰ πάντα occurs with some regularity in a variety of NT texts (35x). When read against the backdrop of ancient Greek literature, however, it becomes clear that τὰ πάντα is not thrown about willy-nilly but employed relatively rarely and with cosmic specificity. These textual explorations provide a foundation for pondering interpretive, theological trajectories.

In the Hebrew Bible the human body often appears as a "constellative unit", a whole composed of different physical and social parts. Just as the body is seen as a composite of limbs, organs and their functions, so people are integrated into different relationships and roles through which they are socially determined. In the psalms, individual elements of the body can be singled out and personified, they can become the object of human and divine attention, and they can even enter into a dialogue with the speaker and/or with God. In my paper I will focus on the nepeš (throat) and show, using the example of the St Alban's Psalter (12th century England), how the nepeš/soul was used to illustrate the subjective experience of the praying persons described in the psalm. In the anthropological concepts of the Hebrew Bible, nepeš can refer to a person's vitality, neediness, desire, or to the whole living person. But there is no "soul" that is independent of or outlives the body. This aspect is added by the Greek psyche, and continued in the Latin anima, which regard the soul as an independent, spiritual part of the human being that can leave and outlive the body. It is striking, that the St. Alban’s Psalter does not focus on the soul leaving the body at the moment of death. Rather, the initials at the beginning of each psalm frequently show the praying person - dressed according to their social status - and their soul - a smaller, often naked figure - before God, to illustrate the complex situation described in the psalm. Similar to the constellative technique used in the Hebrew Psalms, the illustrations of a praying person and their soul reveal different aspects of the praying person. The social role and the subjective, bodily experience of the person in prayer, their vulnerability, suffering and fear, but also their hope and desire, are portrayed side by side.

In reflecting on Deuteronomy, John Van Seters mentions that the book portrays Moses as “the supreme religious charismatic.” This description of Moses needs to be fleshed out to understand the validity of the claim. Van Seters highlights Moses’ role as exhortatory preaching prophet, as intercessor, and as one who suffers on behalf of the people. While recent scholarship has explored role of charisma in Exodus and Numbers (Frevel, 2018), this paper will show how Max Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership can be applied to Deuteronomy’s portrayal of Moses. It will explain how all religious authority comes to be concentrated in the character of Moses, which is why his office cannot be passed on to a person in the next generation. Instead, the charismatic authority of Moses comes to be embodied in the book of Deuteronomy, rather than in a human being. Weber’s concept of the “routinization of charisma” thus describes the “canonization of Mosaic charisma.” The charisma of Moses becomes the basis for the canonization process, in which the authority of the man is transferred to the authority of the book.

Biblical Studies is a discipline concerned with reading. We read texts, we write about them, and we read what others have written about them. But before interpretation begins to take place, a highly complex processing of letters on a page has already occurred. Yet there remains a largely unacknowledged population amongst scholars: those for whom that process differs from what is considered normative. Discussions about the inclusion of students with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLDs) is prevalent in education, and much-needed research about disability in the Bible is flourishing — but what about scholars of the Bible who have been diagnosed with SLDs (e.g Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia, etc.)? What does it mean for someone to read a text when they read “wrong?” Written from the perspective of a scholar with an early diagnosis of multiple SLDs, this paper will argue that biblical studies, as a discipline, has systemically favored one type of reading — namely, that which education systems have declared standard based on how so-called “neurotypical” individuals read English texts. Drawing upon recent research from the field of brain sciences, it will be demonstrated how favoring one type of reading is both an issue of inclusivity and puts limits on our collective understanding of the texts which are at the center of our research — which were written in an entirely different culture of reading. Finally, a phenomenological approach to reading biblical texts, as defined by Alexander Samely, will be offered as a way forward. This methodologically rigorous approach, which forces the scholar to reflect on their process of reading, intrinsically creates an inclusive conversation, enables us to work more effectively with texts in different languages, and subsequently heightens our understanding of biblical texts.

This presentation explores the significance and potential applications of intersectionality as a tool for analysing social and power dynamics that underlie literary representations of human mobility in ancient Jewish texts. We begin with a brief introduction to intersectionality and specifically highlight its transformative potential as a lens for historical inquiry in the field of biblical studies and beyond. Thereafter, we discuss the potential applications of intersectionality as for literary representations of human mobility in ancient Jewish texts. We argue that an intersectional approach compels the researcher to address previously overlooked aspects of identity and to move beyond single-axis approaches to identity. Although the relevance of social stratification may seem self-evident, intersectionality adds theoretical rigour to the analysis of ancient sources by bringing intersecting differences and questions of power to the forefront of research and by enabling us to explicate and better understand the relational nature of identity. This point is demonstrated by an investigation into the composition of Josephus’ household (Life 5, 415–416, 426–427; cf. War 5.419) in the years leading up to and following his move to Rome. Scholars often acknowledge the pivotal importance of the latter relocation in terms of Josephus’ life and career, but in doing so they tend to (re)articulate Josephus’ position as an individual elite Jewish male with strong connections to the imperial court in Rome. Meanwhile, our analysis aims to draw attention to a previously overlooked aspect of Josephus’ life: the people closest to Josephus and particularly the women with whom he had sexual relations—both consensual and forced—on the way to and in Rome. To gain a more nuanced understanding of Josephus’ position as a Jewish intellectual in ancient Rome, it is necessary to view him as a migrant and a member of a socially diverse, multicultural household rather than an individual acting alone or solely dependent on his powerful friends and allies. We argue that the selected perspective allows for a more nuanced understanding of Josephus’ experiences and interactions within the Roman metropolis and beyond. It is evident that our perception of Josephus as an ancient Mediterranean thinker and writer changes when we place him within a system of power dynamics where he is recognised as both being dependent upon the more powerful and exploiting those who are positioned as socio-economically inferior to him, thereby reinforcing oppressive systems.

Stylometric analysis has long been employed as a valuable tool in studying early Christian literature, offering insights into authorship, genre, and textual evolution (esp. D. Mealand and P. Walters). This paper argues for using character-n-grams instead of traditional methods like syntactic features, content, or high-frequency words in stylometric studies of New Testament and Ancient Greek texts, as proposed by M. Kestemont in 2014. Although commonly used, these approaches often miss nuances and language complexities. Character-n-grams, on the other hand, offer a more granular and versatile approach by analyzing sequences of characters of varying lengths. This allows for a finer-grained examination of textual features, including syntax, morphology, and lexical choice, which are crucial in identifying authorial patterns and distinguishing between multiple authors or textual traditions. Not only does this approach enhance the sensitivity to stylistic variations, but it also improves the robustness and reliability of stylometric analyses, which is particularly valuable when traditional methods yield inconclusive results or misattributions. Moreover, character-n-grams offer flexibility in accommodating texts of varying lengths and genres, making them particularly suitable for studying fragmentary or heterogeneous corpora and shorter texts. Through computational experiments and case studies on the Gospels, Luke-Acts, the Letters of Paul, and the writings of Philo and Josephus, I demonstrate and discuss the effectiveness of character-n-grams in accurately delineating authorial styles, tracing textual influences, and discerning patterns of authorship and transmission across different periods and genres.

“Because I heard your brother Joseph saying to my father Pharaoh about you: ‘they’re not my brothers–they’re the brood of my father’s slave-women (τέκνα παιδισκῶν τοῦ πατρός μού). I’m going to wait until the old man pops off, then I’ll wipe them off the earth — them and their offspring! — because we will not be joint-heirs (συγκληρονομήσωσι) with whores’ whelps (τέκνα παιδισκῶν).” (Aseneth 24:8, author’s translation) With these words, the Son of Pharaoh deceives Dan, Gad, Naphtali and Asher, convincing them to betray their family and join him in his treasonous plot to seize both Egypt’s throne and Aseneth, wife of Joseph. This scene comes from Aseneth, a first century BCE Greco-Jewish novel which centres Aseneth, the Egyptian daughter of Pentephres. In addition to references to Aseneth in Genesis (Gen 41:45, 50; As. 1:3-4, 21:9), stories about Jacob’s children appear in Aseneth’s structure and thematic content (e.g., Joseph’s divination, near-assault, and rise to prominence in Egypt (Gen 39-41; As. 1:1, 4:9-10, 22:1), and the rape of Dinah (Gen 34; As. 23:2, 14)). Moreover, scholarship has demonstrated the intertextuality between Aseneth and other chapters in Genesis (e.g., the matriarchs’ beauty, Gen 29:17). Building on these studies, this paper argues that the psychological violence and imbalanced socio-economic dynamics on display in As. 24:8 alludes to Sara and Abraham’s treatment of Hagar and Ishmael in Gen 21:9-14. When read together, this intertext amplifies anxieties about household status, belonging in family and society, and safety as strangers holding complex subordinate statuses in a “host” land. This hitherto unexplored intertext between As. 24:8 and Gen 21:10 emphasises the power dynamics within family structures and their direct connections to political structures, the continued precarity of enslaved women and their children, the complexity of ethnicity within these structures, and the exploitation that could result from these situations. At Gen 21:10, Sara demands of Abraham: “Throw-out this slave-woman and her son, for the son of a slave-woman (ὁ υἱὸς τῆς παιδίσκης) shall not inherit (κληρονομήσει) with my son Isaak.” In reusing Sara’s language, the Son of Pharaoh equates Bilah and Zilpah with Hagar, and layers new meaning over pre-existing parallels: all three are enslaved women used as unconsenting surrogates by their female enslavers (Gen 30:3-5, 9-13), but Hagar is explicitly said to be ethnically other. As an enslaved Egyptian woman, she was presumably forced to leave her homeland (16:1-3). Sara’s demand robs Hagar of her “home” again, all to ensure her and her son’s household status. Equally unsure of his socio-political status, the Egyptian prince plays on the fears of foreign Hebrew men, sons of enslaved women. The reference to Gen 21 in As. 24 highlights the precarity of home when those in power feel threatened.

Much has been written about the power of the tongue in Proverbs. Rarely, however, have scholars considered speaking in Proverbs as a sense, alongside hearing, touching, tasting or other sensory modalities. Taking Avrahami's (2012) argument that ancient Israelites elaborated speaking as a sensory modality as a starting point--and sensory anthropology and conceptual metaphor theory as methodological guides--this paper asks what we might gain from thinking of speaking in Proverbs as a sensory faculty. I first elicit from several passages in Proverbs one indigenous Israelite conception of speaking as flowing water. I then illustrate how we can understand certain other passages from the vantage point of this conceptual framework. Specifically, I suggest that Proverbs evinces a view in which speech organs (tongue, mouth, palate, lips) give shape to spoken words, given the latter's fluidity. I conclude by showing how examining speaking in Proverbs as a sensory modality points to a view of the materiality of the spoken word and the embodied nature of speech.

The paper centres on interpreting “love and sexual imagery” based on the Song of Songs (SoS) 7:9-8:4. The biblical context of the ancient Near East (or West Asia) is engaged intentionally in correspondence with that of Southeast Asian in general, with Malaysia in particular. Asians are reserved in their speaking about love and sexuality. This however, does not mean that Asians do not speak about love and sexuality at all. The SoS speaks about love and sex boldly. The language is indirect but beautiful. The depiction of love, desires, and sexual imaginations are enveloped in the richness of garden imagery which appeals to the five senses of human, encompassing flora and fauna, fragrance and spices, food and drink, all of which put together to harmonize the love between the two lovers in the Song of Songs. Likewise, some local food in Malaysia garners meanings in terms of its variety, order, color, and its preparation, all of which have profound significance with regards to the cultural belief of the local people. The paper attempts to illustrates two local examples, one from the East Malaysian indigenous culture and the other from the West Malaysia Baba-Nyonya culture particularly from the state of Malacca. The paper asserts that the imageries and their significance should be taken more seriously, both in the biblical context and the reader’s present context.

Already in the 17th century, John Lightfoot suggested that the phrase “you have heard that it was said… but I say to you” in the antitheses of the Gospel of Matthew (5:21-48) parallels language employed in rabbinic literature. Years later, Solomon Schechter remarked that this Gospel expression originally had something to do with the midrashic formula “I understand… but scripture teaches” (שומע אני... תלמוד לומר). In the 20th century, scholars posited and disputed similar affinities, typically without significant philological substantiation. Since the 1980s the debate on this topic has been mostly dormant. In this paper I reawaken the conversation and suggest that advances in our understanding of the tannaitic midrashim – primarily from the work of Azzan Yadin-Israel and Ishay Rosen-Zvi – unlock new dimensions to the link between the expression “I understand… but scripture teaches” in the Rabbi Ishmael collections and the phrase “you have heard that it was said… but I say to you” from Matthew. Yadin-Israel and Rosen-Zvi’s studies of the root ש.מ.ע in tannaitic midrashim reveal that frequently the verb marks an interpretation of a verse largely devoid of context. The same can be said for the phrase in the antitheses, which rejects the literal sense of commandments in favor of an interpretation focused on interiority (e.g., anger is equated with murder). Moreover, Yadin-Israel’s observations about the differences between שומע אני in the Ishmaelean midrashim and יכול in the Akivan midrashim further nuance our understanding of the overlap between the former formulation and Jesus’ language. Whereas שומע אני introduces a plausible interpretation, יכול structures “introduce detailed legal scenarios not rooted in the language of the verse” (Yadin-Israel, 55). Like the Rabbi Ishmael type interpretations, in the antitheses the original reading is typically equivalent to, or close to, a strict local reading of the passage – do not murder, do not commit adultery, etc. More significantly, the שומע אני interpretations are rejected by the introduction of a different verse (in contrast to יכול structures that reintroduce the original verse to refute the posited interpretation). I argue that a similar phenomenon appears in the antitheses, most of which draw upon other Pentateuchal verses (or interpretations associated with different verses) to reject the original reading of the base verse. These observations from recent studies in tannaitic midrashim allow us to better understand the exegetical nature of the antitheses in the Gospel of Matthew and how they fit within ancient Jewish hermeneutics.

Scholars of NT have traditionally denied the existence of early texts in which Christ is presented through the language of Jewish angelology. As such, the phenomenon mostly known as “angelomorphic Christology” is not only often overlooked but also denied in principle by a number of influential scholars for whom the idea of Christ taking the form of an angel seems improbable. On the other hand, some late twentieth-century scholars attempted, with some degree of success, to gather the evidence in favor of angelomorphic Christologies in early Christianity, often turning their attention to the Apocalypse of John as a key source of such Christological formulation. Within this last and more recent camp, scholars have repeatedly debated three key passages: 1:13–16, 14:14–20, and 19:11–16. Given the redundancy of the scholarly evidence, and therefore the unfruitfulness of this endeavor, here I propose a different source of argument in favor of an angelomorphic Christology in Revelation, that is, chapter 12:1–12. I will show that in Rev 12 the child boy who is persecuted along with his mother by the dragon is meant to be seen as being one and the same with the archangel Michael. I will first argue that key features in Rev 12––the woman being persecuted by the beast and the battle among the celestial beings––might have not been at all strange for ancient readers since all around the Mediterranean there are various similar stories of women being persecuted by mythological monsters. Building on the work of Yarbro Collins, who systematized these stories into a single category (named by her as “combat myth”), I will argue that Rev 12 follows a similar literary pattern in which the child boy persecuted in the womb of his mother grows up to defeat the monstrous dragon. I will then propose that Michael’s victory over the dragon (v.7) ought to be read in connection with the imagery of the “blood of the Lamb” (v.11) as different ways to represent Jesus’ death at the cross. In order to elucidate the synergism happening between the image of Michael defeating the dragon and the image of the blood of the Lamb, I will turn my attention to the widespread ancient notion that what happens in heaven is a reflection of the things happening on earth. Finally, I will demonstrate that by conflating the image of Michael and Christ we avoid an internal theological inconsistency in which crucial motifs that inform the entire narrative of Revelation and are closely associated with characterizations of God and the Lamb throughout the book (such as salvation, power, the kingdom of God, and the authority of Christ) would then be dependent on the victory of an angel.

A response to the sessions on Editorial Fatigue. Along with the featured papers, an extended version of this response will be published with a collected volume on Editorial Fatigue (in preparation).

Ephesians is noteworthy for its repeated deployment of images involving human development. In Ephesians, the multi-ethnic church is portrayed as a “new human” (2:15) and a “body” (2:16; 4:4, 12, 16; 5:23, 30), which is undergoing tremendous growth until it attains “mature manhood” and possesses “the stature of the fullness of Christ” (4:13–16). In the meantime, individual believers are called to advance beyond spiritual infancy (4:14) now that they have “learned Christ,” have taken off “the old human,” and have “put on the new human” (4:20–24), which “renews” their minds and adorns them with Spirit-wrought virtues (4:25–5:21) and protective divine weaponry (6:10–18). The soteriological and ecclesial significance of these terms and texts has long been appreciated. Lacking, however, is a scholarly attempt to assemble these discreet images into a coherent portrait of Christian maturation. A clearer picture begins to emerge once it is realized that this collage of metaphors draws upon ancient conceptions of human development. While Paul’s contemporaries used an array of terms to construct their varied and nuanced versions of the human lifecycle, there nonetheless existed within the Greco-Roman world a basic shared understanding of the continuums according to which the average male and the average female advanced from one life stage to another. For example, all males began life as an infant/child and ended life as an old man, the latter stage often beginning in the late forties or fifties. Further, the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood occurred in the mid-teens, as determined by the male’s father or guardian. This moment of coming-of-age was symbolized through the removal of the child’s toga praetexta and its replacement with the toga virilis—representing the boy’s attainment of citizenship, his right to join the army, and his right to marry. Despite having officially reached adulthood, however, full maturity (ὁ τέλειος ἀνήρ) was not considered to have been attained until 25–30 years of age, when the man had grown facial hair, had developed muscle tone, and had ridden himself of the vices inherent to youth (ὁ νεανίας). Only at this time was the man admitted to the senate and eligible for public office. Nearly all these developmental milestones are represented in some fashion within Paul’s discourse in Ephesians and can be arranged to form a coherent vision of Christian maturation. This paper will reconstruct Ephesians’ implied lifecycle continuum, arguing that Paul deployed key developmental terminology within the letter in order to show that new life in Christ marks the believer’s transition from an existence defined by infancy to that which signifies initial (though not final) adulthood—a liminal stage that implies one’s right to engage in spiritual combat as well as one’s need to continue advancing towards full maturity.

For the 2024 SBL Josephus Seminar Session I want to suggest a paper on Agrippa I. in Josephus’ Antiquities 19, with special focus on his relationship to Caligula and his role during the transmission of power to Claudius. Josephus portraits Agrippa I. as the last Jewish king of the Herodian kingdom, catering to the needs of the Romans and the Jews of the Roman Empire respectively. Especially his extraordinarily good relationship to the family of the Julio-Claudians is striking. Agrippa I. is capable of using his connections to the Roman emperors to the benefit of not only his personal gain of power and influence, but also to protect the Jewish communities – with missing mention of the pogrom in Alexandria in 38 CE comes as a surprise to the informed readers in this regard. Philo of Alexandria gives us a quite different insight not only into the pogrom of 38 CE but also paint Agrippa I. quite differently, compared to Josephus. My paper wants to take a closer look at how Josephus constructs the narrative figure Agrippa I. in his Antiquities; how does he paint the king as Roman and Jewish simultaneously, without discrediting him as too Roman or not Jewish enough? How credible is his role during the accession of Claudius and what is it insinuating within the broader context of Jewish-Roman relations and the imperial power structures of Josephus’ times? The paper aims at uncovering the different layers of Agrippa’s I. portrait in Josephus and connecting it to the political context of the time.

Hebrew Bible manuscripts contains spaces known as parshiyyot, which separate units of text. Any deviation in matters of parshiyyot would render a Torah scroll invalid for liturgical use. Parshiyyot were also considered an essential element of the biblical text represented in codices. This paper will explore ways in which scribes modified parshiyyot in both Torah scrolls and codices. Some of these modifications fixed scribal errors while others were part of a process of stamping out alternative textual traditions, especially in favor of Maimonides’s list of parshiyyot, which he based on the Aleppo Codex.

This study is a survey of mem-prefix deverbal nouns (“mem-nominals”). Deverbal nouns are, by definition, nouns derived from verbs. In English, these are readily apparent in words like “nominalization” where the suffix -ation attaches to the verb “nominalize.” With this definition, deverbal nouns in Biblical Hebrew would need to be a noun formed from a verb, and since verbs can only be formed through the binyan system, deverbal nouns would have to be nouns derived from a root that has already combined with a particular binyan. I suggest that the mem prefix that we see in a word like מָבוֹא is used as a derivational affix to derive a noun from a verb. It does not, therefore, combine directly with the root בוא, but it combines with a verb already found in a particular binyan, namely the infinitive בּוֹא. The meaning of these derived nouns can then be predicted on the basis of the meaning of the root, the binyan, and the mem prefix. Mem-nominals vary based on several parameters. First, they exhibit the classic distinction between event-readings and non-event readings (first investigated extensively in Grimshaw 1990 and given various names in the literature). The word מָבוֹא, for example, refers to the event of coming in Ezek 33:31 and a location in Judg 1:25. Second, mem-nominals may form nouns that are highly polysemous if the verb from which the noun is derived has multiple senses. Following Melloni (2011), I show that even for highly polysemous words like מִשְׁפָּט all the senses can be divided into three basic categories: event-readings, entity-in-state readings, and sense extensions (see the analysis in Grasso 2022). Third, mem-nominals derived from the same root exhibit meaning differences based on the underlying binyan the root has combined with first. For example, I argue that מַחֲבֵא is derived from Hiphil and refers to a shelter (i.e. a place that causes someone to be hidden) whereas מַחֲבֹא is derived from Pa’al and refers to any location where someone is hidden. Finally, mem-nominals with an underlying verb that takes accusative case are occasionally used with the direct object marker אֵת (e.g. Amos 4:11). For each of the features discussed, I present all the mem-nominals that fall into the category. This broad survey demonstrates the range of meaning of mem-nominals and how to compositionally derive their meanings, giving us a better understanding of Biblical Hebrew’s system of derivational morphology.

Rabbinic sources edited before the rise of Islam generally identify the four kingdoms of the book of Daniel as Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The Roman empire (Edom or Esau) refers both to pagan Rome and Christian Rome. After the seventh century some rabbinic texts begin to include references to Islamic society (Ishmael). The visionary depictions of human kingdoms in Daniel 2, 7, and 11 gave ample opportunity for Medieval Jewish interpreters to reflect on their experiences with Christian and Muslim empires. In the tenth century, Saadia Gaon (882-942) and Karaite commentator Yefet ben Eli (fl. late 900's) continue to see the fourth kingdom of Daniel 2 and 7 as Edom (Christian Rome), but each also finds a way to incorporate Ishmael (Muslim rule) into the description of the fourth kingdom, generating new exegesis of the texts and invoking fresh historical memories. Abraham bar Hiyya (died c. 1136), who lived in Spain under Christian rule, yet close to Muslim territory, was conversant in both cultures. He wrote a work called Megillat ha-Megalleh ('Scroll of the Revealer') in which he applied details of Daniel 11 to the histories, beliefs, and practices of Christians and Muslims, as he understood them. His treatment of Christianity is clearly influenced by the events of the First Crusade. An important exegetical development took place with Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1089-1164), who was educated in Muslim Spain, but after c. 1140 traveled extensively in Christian Europe. Ibn Ezra identified the fourth kingdom as Ishmael, but he also give considerable attention to Christianity and especially the emperor Constantine. The accounts of the various world powers in the book of Daniel have long provided readers the opportunity to reflect on history through a religious lens. Medieval Jewish exegesis of Daniel offers insights into some of the book's major themes and also into Jewish interpretations of history. This paper will illustrate how the readings of Daniel offered by these figures reflect the attitudes and historical awareness of their times, but also function as genuine elucidation of the details of the text.

Ever since B. H. Roberts, the traditional LDS scholarly view is that when Joseph encountered known biblical material on the Nephite plates, he used the King James Version text as a baseline for his translation of the Book of Mormon but changed that text when it differed from what was on the plates. This has led scholars who believe the Book of Mormon to be a translation as well as those who believe it to be a composition to look for evidence for or against translation within the changes that Joseph made to these biblical passages embedded in the Book of Mormon. However, both of these groups are likely looking in the wrong place, because biblical scholars typically look for evidence of translation within identifiable seams in the narrative portion of a text rather than in its embedded biblical quotations. This presentation will use a series of deliberate methodologies in order to recognize critical seams in the Book of Mormon narrative by comparing the changes Joseph made to the large blocks of biblical passages to competing material within the narrative. Doing so will reveal two different voices that characterize Joseph’s activity. His selection voice was triggered by Nephite authorial references to quoting biblical material, and Joseph reacted by selecting King James Version passages to represent that material. This voice simply borrows King James language, reacts to the English forms of the text, and reflects post-exilic final forms of the biblical text. In contrast, Joseph’s translation voice in the narrative uses non-KJV language, appears to contain translation residue from interaction with a different language, and reflects earlier forms of the biblical text that align with pre-exilic models. As we carefully distinguish between these two different voices in Nephite explanations for why they quoted biblical texts (such as in Nephi’s explanation for his use of Isaiah 48–49), we can see these seams at work, identify better reflections of pre-exilic scripture in the Book of Mormon, and begin to answer serious diachronic concerns about the relationship of the Book of Mormon to the King James Version text.

The story of Hagar the Egyptian surrogate of the matriarch Sarah appears in two versions, one in Genesis 16 and the other in Genesis 21. Scholars tend to regard these versions as two compositions from two written sources, conventionally identified as J and E; and/or as two orally transmitted versions of a common earlier narrative. I suggest that the two stories are built upon two different narrative patterns. The version in Genesis 16, which has a parallel in plot to an Egyptian tale from the mid-second millennium, conforms to the general scheme of what I call the fugitive hero pattern. It is the only story of this type from the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible in which a female is the main protagonist. The narrative in Genesis 21 does not reflect this pattern. Interpreting Genesis 16 as a fugitive hero story enables us to explain a number of elements in the brief narrative that have puzzled readers or that have gone largely overlooked. The parallel to the story of the exodus from Egypt, which has already been observed, both reinforces the identification as a fugitive hero narrative and explains its contextual embedding in Genesis.

The Exodus traditions belonging to the Hebrew Bible promote an ecotheological reflection and/or an eco-spirituality, instigating in their listeners or readers a greater environmental consciousness. Sometimes in a poetic-narrative way, sometimes in a legal way, they insist on understandings and practical attitudes that aim at both the recognition of nature as the word of God and the preservation of flora and fauna. Against this horizon, it is also recognized that food, besides accompanying human beings throughout their lives, links them to nature. In this sense, as part of the Exodus traditions, the "unleavened bread" is an important symbol. Therefore, an investigation of this food is planned in this research, looking for its materiality and representativeness. With this, the ecotheological dimensions of unleavened bread and/or the proposal for a liberating eco-spirituality inherent to it will gain visibility. The research proposed here falls within the scope of ecological hermeneutics, that is, the green reading of biblical texts.

The text of Isaiah 60-62 unfolds a poignant narrative marked by profound trauma of contesting space – an experience etched in the historical context of the post-exilic Yehud. The trauma extends beyond the physical displacement, seeping into the spiritual and emotional realms, challenging the very core of their identity. This paper seeks to unravel the layers of trauma embedded in the contestation for space in Isaiah 60-62, exploring how historical upheaval traverses with the prophetic voice to articulate the collective suffering of a displaced group of people. A literary, contextual, and historical methodology will be applied. Integrated insights from trauma studies will be used as a multidisciplinary approach to engage with these texts. The aim is furthermore, through the prism of trauma theory, to discuss the nuances of contestation and to probe a redemptive counter space that emerges in response to the collective despair. By combining these methodologies, comprehensive insight can be gained in the trauma of contesting space on Isaiah 60-62, appreciating its historical, literary, theological, and traumatic dimensions. The navigation of contested spaces as it is intertwined with an understanding of trauma, will offer insights into the enduring human quest for restoration and avid resilience amid the ruins of the post-exilic period.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

A wide range of Christian observances testify to the belief that the presence of Christ is mediated by scripture with protective and healing effects. In order to gain a rounded picture of early Christian culture, these need to be considered alongside formal liturgical usage. Portions of scripture have been carried by humans and attached to livestock to give protection from natural harms. Verses have been carved upon lintels to safeguard houses. Such uses intensify the moral and spiritual significance of scripture rather than diminish them. Narrative accounts describe Gospel books being placed by beds or under the head during sleep to promote recovery from ailments, with the latter confirmed by physical wear to book pages. The specific texts that were used tended to reflect the condition from which recovery was sought, whereas during later periods, particular texts such as the Gospel incipits came to be used for multiple purposes.

This paper discusses the use of biblical allusions in the poetic description of ulcers in Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s poem "Hălo ʾɛṣdaq bəʾoməri ki ʾămåråw" (Am I wrong to say that his words). Solomon ibn Gabirol was an 11th-century Jewish poet and philosopher who worked in medieval Spain under Muslim rule. He is one of the key figures of the golden age of Hebrew literature in Al-Andalus. The poetry of this period was an outstanding phenomenon in the history of Jewish literature in the Diaspora. Its development resulted from the specific socio-cultural conditions that fostered the literary activity of the Jewish elite in medieval Spain: the thriving court culture, the phenomenon of artistic patronage, and, above all, the engagement of Jewish intellectuals in linguistic studies of Biblical texts. These studies fostered the attempts on the part of poets to imitate the golden standards of biblical language in their own writings, which went hand in hand with the adaptation of the style of secular Arabic poetry. The combination of these seemingly contradictory elements was reflected in the creative use of biblical allusions. Fragments of biblical verses were artfully woven into the poems and integrated into the new poetic context, often contradicting or undermining their original meaning. In many cases in secular poetry, they created playful and surprising contrast between the seriousness or the sacredness of their original context and the poetic situation presented in the new one. Ibn Gabirol suffered from multiple health conditions; including ulcers on his legs, which ultimately left him weakened and confined to his bed.". In the poem "Hălo ʾɛṣdaq bəʾoməri ki ʾămåråw" (Am I wrong to say that his words), he explains his failure to pay a family member a visit due to his deteriorating health. The description of the ulcers featured in the poem is interwoven with an unexpected variety of biblical allusions. The two lesions are likened (among other things) to the fruit produced by the righteous (Psalm 92:15), to the images of unleavened cakes baking in the oven (Exodus 12:39), and to Jacob and Esau wrestling in their mother’s womb (Genesis 25:22). The poet even goes as far as to name the largest of the ulcers Gedaliah and Ishmael, after the two Judean exilarchs from the Babylonian period, known from the book of Jeremiah. Through the analysis of Gabirol’s use of Biblical imagery in the poem, I wish to explore his strategy of transforming his experience of illness into poetry by means of dark humor, bitter irony, and grotesque.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

James 2:2 is interesting in that it is the only reference to gold rings in the New Testament. In fact, χρυσοδακτύλιος was likely coined by the author of the epistle, as it appears to occur elsewhere in extant Greek literature only in later commentaries on Jas 2:2. Nevertheless, both gold (e.g., Matt 10:9; 23:17; Acts 17:29; 1 Cor 3:12; Jas 5:3) and adorning oneself with gold (1 Tim 2:9; 1 Pet 3:3) do occur more frequently in the NT. This paper seeks to shed light on the man with a gold ring in Jas 2:2 by examining gold and gold rings/jewelry in the Greco-Roman milieu of the Epistle of James. What was the economic value of gold around the first century CE? What did wearing a gold ring signify in the ancient Greco-Roman world? What are the social dynamics associated with wearing gold jewelry in the Greco-Roman world, and how do these associations of gold with wealth and status shed light on the social dynamics at play between the rich and the poor in the Epistle of James? Why did the author of the epistle believe that the fellowship of Christ-followers should not show favoritism to the man with the gold ring on his finger?

Every year, three weeks before the beginning of Lent, the Syro-Malabar Church of St. Mary’s in Kuravilangad, in the Indian state of Kerala, hosts a dramatic reenactment of the prophet Jonah’s flight from God. A 40-foot replica of the ship on which Jonah fled is heaved to-and-fro, simulating the storm that pitched the prophet into the belly of the great fish. The ceremony happens during a three day fast in which the Christian community atones for its sins throughout the year, crying out as one: “Lord, have mercy on us! Lord, accept our rogation! Lord, be reconciled with Your servants!” The words of their rogation are spoken in Syriac. For the origins of the Fast of Nineveh lie in the Syriac-speaking Church of the East in the sixth or seventh century CE. Despite its remarkable centrality in Syriac-speaking traditions, there has never been a sustained and historically nuanced investigation of the origins of this ritual, excepting a few brief articles that touch on the subject (Lane). This paper will fill that gap, surveying a variety of Syriac and Arabic texts from the fourth to tenth centuries to illuminate the beginning of the Fast of Nineveh at the intersection of three major developments in Syriac Christian culture. The first is a tradition of supercessionist readings of the Book of Jonah, a tradition which begins with Ephrem the Syrian’s monumental memra On the Ninevites and Jonah in the fourth century. This lengthy work of “rewritten Bible” structures itself around an unfavorable contrast between the sincere repentance of the Ninevite “gentiles” and the insincere and indolent lifestyle of contemporary Israelites—to Jonah’s great embarrassment. Yet Ephrem ends the memra by insisting that his own congregation is even more insincere in their own repentance. This points to the second development which lies behind the Fast of Nineveh: a growing tradition of performative penitence on occasions when God’s anger was thought to be manifest in famine, earthquake, war, or disease. Both the supercessionist and the performative-penitential strands are visible in sixth century memre on Jonah by Jacob of Serugh and Narsai of Nisibis. The third and final development that produced the Fast of Nineveh was the advent of bubonic plague in modern Iraq. An obscure body of Christian-Arabic sources demonstrates that the mortality wrought by the plague was so traumatic that the Catholicos of the Church of the East in Seleucia-Ctesiphon established an annual day of atonement—on the model of the Ninevites of old—in hopes of averting this evident torrent of divine anger. The result (ironically given the supercessionist reading tradition of the Book of Jonah) was the closest thing that Christian tradition has ever produced to the Jewish ritual of Yom Kippur.

This paper is a retrospective auto-critical review of Between Moses and Plato. Individual and Society in Deuteronomy and Ancient Greek Law (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004). Each presenter on this panel has been tasked with reflecting on their own first book, responding to such questions as: What are the intellectual contributions do you think have held up over time? What might you have changed in retrospect? What self-critiques can you offer that would be helpful for less established scholars to hear as they confront writing their own books? How has your thinking developed over time? How did your first book lead you (or not!) toward subsequent publications? Given your scholarly trajectory and reflections on your first book, what are your observations on the process of knowledge production over time?

Within the field of refugee studies, Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi has highlighted the emerging consensus that narratives are key in allowing refugees and asylees to regain agency in their personal and political existence. This paper aims to highlight interpretive frameworks of biblical scriptures deployed by Congolese Christians who have a refugee resettlement experience to their practices of local placemaking in central Kentucky through exploring their personal narratives. Situated within the context of the security and humanitarian apparatus of migrant governance (Tazzioli 2020) in the US State Department’s “Reception and Placement” program (the vehicle for their resettlement to the United States), the paper interrogates how the themes of reception history and situational place-worlds such as refugee camps and resettlement sites indicate entangled phenomenological processes engendering senses of place and lived religion. The paper draws from cultural sociology, critical refugee studies, and African biblical hermeneutics to contribute to emergent post/de-colonial analyses of biblical texts and religious practice in neocolonial diaspora contexts. Particular focus will be given to centering the narratives presented by the Congolese Christians and how they appropriate the biblical texts to their lived situation in the analysis.

In this paper I argue that in John’s Apocalypse, chapter 6 and 19 should be interpreted together and John uses a well-known single equestrian rider image from the ancient cultural context to replace the Roman Equites and cults of the rider-god and deified emperor. The interconnected nature of the two chapters is evidenced by the lists of 6:15, 13:16 and 19:18. Revelation 6 is the opening vision of the judgment of God upon the inhabitants of the earth and specifically those described in the list and Revelation 19 ushers in their final judgements with the coming of the true Commander and King of kings. Using the visual exegesis adapted from socio-rhetorical interpretation I argue that connections can be made between Revelation 6 and 19’s horsemen and specific representations of the Roman Equites, Generals, deified emperors, and rider-gods in the visual culture of the first century CE. Revelation 6 are rider-gods, Generals and Equites of God’s heavenly order, bringing divine judgement to the earth and their different jurisdictions: victory, warfare, economy, trade, and the afterlife. Revelation 19:11-16 introduces the audience to a vision of Christ as a military Commander and deified emperor. He is a rider-god and beyond human, with eyes like blazing fire and a sword coming from his mouth. He is a Commander followed by the armies of heaven, coming to rule the nations with a rod of iron. John’s Apocalypse therefore draws on the ancient context of the rider-god and Roman imperial imagery to portray the four horsemen of Revelation 6 as commissioned Equite Generals and the portrait of Christ in Revelation 19 as an equestrian conqueror akin to the deified emperors. In doing so, John gives the audience of Asia Minor a hope for a future where God would bring justice to all the atrocities that the Roman order had imposed upon them. He opposes dominant Roman imperial ideologies and rider-god cults and posits Christ and God’s heavenly order as the true rulers, Generals and Commanders of heaven, earth and the afterlife.

Jesus’s cry from the cross has long troubled interpreters and raised the question of whether the vocalization of Psalm 22:1—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15:34)—signals an experience of divine abandonment or functions as a declaration of confidence in God. Scholars’ positions largely hinge on whether the ancient audience would be likely to interpret Mark 15:34 considering Psalm 22 as a whole (which does end with confidence in God’s deliverance) in mind. Without challenging the validity of this common attention to the quotation of Psalm 22:1, this paper shifts the angle of analysis. Specifically, I seek to account for how Greco-Roman audiences less familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures could have construed Mark’s depiction of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Greco-Roman biographies and histories often depict their subjects as enjoying a particularly close relationship with a deity, who enabled their success. Yet this claim of divine benefaction becomes problematic in cases when the protagonist experienced an untimely end, raising questions of the deity’s efficacy. Biographical accounts of Galba and Domitian, for instance, navigate this theological quagmire by depicting what Olivier Hekster (2010) has termed a “reverse epiphany,” wherein the respective deities whose favor the emperors claimed abandon them prior to their deaths (similar accounts exist of Hector and Mark Antony, among others). Throughout the Gospel narrative, Mark repeatedly characterizes Jesus as one aligned with and enjoying the divine favor and empowerment of the God of Israel, such that in two decisive epiphanic moments God speaks, indicating his pleasure in his son and commanding obedience to him (1:11; 9:7). In this paper I argue that Mark constructs the crucifixion narrative in a manner that would lead the audience to conclude that Jesus’s cry of dereliction signals the divine abandonment which enabled his death, an interpretation that Mark’s subsequent narration of the resurrection then subverts.

A female biblical character goes from being a heroic symbol of liberation for the people of Israel to a symbol of dangerous female sexuality: The story of the widow Judith, who uses her beauty and cleverness to avert a life-threatening situation to her people and defeat their enemies, has found rich echoes in Jewish and Christian cultural history alike ever since the second century BE, culminating in a rich productivity of texts and images in the Middle Ages. While my colleague Dr. Gal Sela’s paper proposal “Is There a Jewish Apocrypha? Yeal, Judith and the Uncanny” deals with Jewish folklore tales, I would like to shed some light on Christian Apocrypha, or more precisely: the image of Judith in Christian literature and art from the 11th century onwards, including two Medieval High German poems that have never been translated to neither Modern German or English so far. The book of Judith is a prime example for Entangled Traditions – the interplay between different media as going back and forth, with a constant re-contextualization across boundaries of religion, time, and geographic region to fit into new social, political, and historical settings over centuries. The paper shows the different symbolic values that have been inscribed into Judith (and how this changed the perception of hers) as an ongoing process which is still in development, for example in social media.

The territorial extension of the Second Jewish Revolt (132-136), particularly in Galilee, has been the subject of intense debate for over half a century, with no consensus emerging. Proponents of Galilean participation in the revolt (e.g., Eck, Shivtiel, Leibner) have long been at odds with the proponents of a revolt confined to Judea or even south of Jerusalem (e.g., Büchler, Foerster, Herr, Mor). The interpretation of Jewish (Pap. Mur. 43; Rabbinic texts), Christian, and Roman literary sources diverges among the scholars, particularly as regards the location of the sites cited. Inscriptions and the discovery of numerous refuge-caves in Galilee have also been analyzed in different ways. A bronze coin discovered at Sepphoris and another unearthed at Kfar a-Rama have been dated to the Second Jewish Revolt but refer to the First Jewish Revolt. In contrast, the Khirbet Ḥaman coins’ treasure published in 2009 is contemporary with the Second Jewish Revolt, since the silver denarii are dated between 119 and 138 during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. But no coins were minted by the rebels. During the archaeological excavation of Khirbet Bet Netofa, in the Galilee, led by David Hamidovic (University of Lausanne) in 2023, several coins dating from the period of the Second Jewish Revolt were unearthed. One of these is exceptional: a Hadrian aureus - known from only four other examples - found in a refuge-cave. The archaeological data collected in and around this refuge-cave allow us to contextualize this coin and thus make a fresh contribution to the debate on whether or not Galilee participated in the Second Jewish Revolt.

The corpus of the Former Prophets concludes with a scene of changing clothes, as the fate of Jehoiachin king of Judah at the hands of Evil-merodach of Babylon is related. What are the personal, and national, implications of this one-off experience for the king, prior to the acknowledgment of his ongoing provision? This paper will seek to place 2 Kgs 25:27-30 into the broader trope of clothing in the Former Prophets. We will give attention to the characterisation of Jehoiachin as well as of Judah as communicated in this brief vignette. Specifically, we will examine the question of the agency of the re-clothing of Jehoiachin: was it Evil-merodach who re-clothed him, or did Jehoiachin re-clothe himself? Following on from this, we will explore the implications for the trajectory of Jehoiachin’s identity, and consider the appearance of clothing in other character final-scenes in the Former Prophets. Drawing upon work on clothing imagery from the beginning of the Former Prophets, in the book of Joshua, we will also consider the implications upon national identity revealed through Jehoiachin’s change of wardrobe. Is there indeed an element of freedom and restoration being communicated, or rather a further demonstration of being dominated by a foreign power? Are Jehoiachin’s enhanced personal benefits and the national status of Judah aligned, or are they in fact inverse reflections of one another? This paper will employ elements of literary/narrative criticism, along with discourse analysis, attention to the interpretive significance of the Masoretic accents, and intertextual concerns as we pursue determining the narrative significance of the clothing reference in this pericope.

Hardly anything is as resilient as a scholarly consensus. At least one discerns this impression when considering the linguistic practices of Christ followers at Rome in the first three centuries. Already Adolf von Harnack repeated the widespread observation back in his time that in “Rome […] Christianity at first spread among the Greek population and retained Greek as its language.” (Mission II, 1908: 241). This statement differs only in nuances from a recent dictum of Thomas A. Robinson: The “church in Rome, originally Green in language, and migrant in character, became Latin” during the third century. (Welborn and Harrison (eds.), The First Urban Churches 6: Rome, 2021: 215). But is the ‘church of Rome’ migrant in character and therefore Greek in language? And when the church later becomes 'local', that is Romanised, uses therefore Latin? Do the few extant writings penned in Greek and later in Latin permit to draw such conclusion? Or put it more abstractly: Can we simply equate the language used in literature with the language used in cultic and everyday interactions within communities? Does material evidence like inscriptions support this claim? And how is this rather monolithic picture relates to the ‘pagan’ evidence, which, by contrast, suggests disturbingly high levels of Latinization among the migrant population and rather marginal use of native languages? On a more theoretical level, how can we use the scattered evidence to draw methodologically solid consequences? The aim of this presentation is to problematise this centuries old scholarly consensus. It will begin with brief status quaestionis which will be contrasted to the material and ‘pagan’ evidence. By bringing modern migration theory and migrant language studies into conversation, it attempts to draft a preliminary methodological framework to approach everyday language useage of ancient Christian communities. By doing so, it aims to bring much needed complexity into a so far rather binary world and reflect upon a largely understudied aspect of early Christian life.

Enrique Dussel’s Ética de La Liberación (Ethics of Liberation) provides a clarion call to the flourishing of human communities in all of their particularity. In this sense, he creates a universally applicable, yet locally grounded ethic that serves as a bulwark against imperial discourses and the reshaping of the universal to the service of any material condition that serves imperial goals. While Dussel’s project is effective in his ethical paradigm, his historical account of the development of imperial entanglements with ethics is decidedly problematic. Specifically, his portrayal of Ancient Israel’s exodus from Egypt reinscribes the very problem he seeks to avoid. Dussel compresses and conflates history in light of the biblical Exodus narrative to create an anachronistic historical tradition outside of the complications of ancient empire. The result is an ostensibly anti-imperial narrative of liberation that functionally affirms the anti-indigenous violence of ancient Israelite conquest. In so doing, Dussel both obscures the complex nature of the biblical narrative with respect to empire and contributes to a Christian interpretive agenda that imperils the wellbeing of the very indigenous communities for which his paradigm advocates.

The Christian Gospel of John, with its striking prologue, became central to the high Christology at the heart of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic credal formulas that would shape the Christian faith for all time. In terms of Jewish thought and faith perspectives, however, it could hardly be less relevant, or so it would seem. Surprisingly, a number of parallels may be discerned between John’s Gospel and certain ancient Jewish approaches to messianism. It has in fact been argued that the messianic imagery conveyed by the Gospel, alluding to an exalted, preexistent figure, present from the beginning of creation, was not an outgrowth of early Christian (proto-Trinitarian) theology, but of ancient Jewish messianism itself. Is the prologue of John indeed broadly congruent with the evolving dimensions of Jewish messianic thought, aspects of which were deemphasized over the centuries if not completely forgotten, or does it violate the essence of Israelite monotheism, which has no room for the worship of any created being or spiritual entities, from angels to the Messiah, as divine figures or manifestations?

This paper calls for careful consideration of the ethnographic connotations of ancient phenomena often designated “magic” as performed by “magicians” (especially μάγος, μαγεία, μαγικός) and for the retirement of English terms related to “magic” in the study of antiquity altogether. Deployment of such terms obscures precisely the ostensibly foreign and specifically “Persian” aura which attended references to Magians and Magian skill (better terms) as well as the commonly adopted ancient theory that Magian practices had disseminated throughout the ancient Mediterranean world (to places like Egypt and Syria-Judea) from Persia itself. I demonstrate this with reference to Greek ethnographic writing on Persian Magians and through a case study of Pliny the Elder, Apuleius, Origen, and pseudo-Clement.

In the recent trend to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus, his attitude toward the purity codes are difficult to explain. Does Jesus follow Jewish purity traditions? In Luke’s gospel, Jesus seems to ignore defilement as he handles the dead (8:54), touches people with scale disease (17:11-19) and heals a woman with an abnormal blood flow via his clothes (8:43-48). These activities represent the three primary categories of impurity of the Torah (death, scale disease, and bodily discharges). New Testament scholars are divided on the significance of Jesus’ actions. Some think that Jesus routinely purified himself after contracting impurity (see Fredriksen 1995; Chilton 1997). Wassén notes the impracticality of avoiding “inescapable” impurity (2016). Kazen claims Jesus shows indifference to impurity (2002). Many scholars believe that Jesus implicitly dismissed the Jewish system of ritual purity (e.g. Selvidge 1984; Borg 1994; cf. Stettler 2004) and this view has garnered serious critique (see Levine 1996). Some scholars argue Jesus offered a new, “inverse,” paradigm for purification by transforming impurity into purity (Holmen 2011; cf. also Hodges/Poirier 2011-12; Ermakov 2014). I will evaluate these competing viewpoints using available Jewish sources, including the Torah, Dead Sea Scrolls, early rabbinic traditions, and archaeological findings. I will argue that maintaining ritual impurity was a widespread concern in first century Palestine. In the scant information on purity in Luke, Jesus does not violate the law although he disagrees with Pharisees on customary practice. In the debates of Acts 15, no one refers to Jesus for support. The key to understanding impurity/purity matters in Luke lies in a larger paradigm: the polar forces of holiness and impurity. The term “impure,” rare in Luke’s gospel, refers to impure spirits (e.g 9:42, τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ). “Holy,” often refers to Jesus and the spirit of God (e.g. 4:1, πλήρης πνεύματος ἁγίου “full of the holy spirit”; even impure spirits acknowledge Jesus as ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ, “the holy one of God,” 4:34; cf. 1:35). Holiness, according to Leviticus, requires ritual purity (Lev 11-15) as well as ethical goodness (Lev 18-20; cf. Milgrom 2000). While ritual purification is easily accomplished for routine impurities, severe ritual impurities first require healing. Similarly, impure spirits require exorcism. Luke presents Jesus as a holy person who can bring this kind of blessing and even chooses to do so in holy time (13:11; Thiessen 2020). Jesus’ interaction with impure spirits and hopelessly impure people releases holy power (6:19). He does not establish a new system of purity structures. He calls his followers to “be holy as God is holy” not just by separation from ritual impurity (Lev 11:45) but by ethical goodness (Lev 19:2), which in Luke’s version reads, “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” (6:36).

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

That Mark’s gospel is a gospel of failure is hardly a new interpretation. It is intuitive to readers that the site of this failure is the violent passion narrative, a trauma which leads directly to the absence of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in the original ending of Mark (16:8). The death of Jesus was too much to bear, fitting the classic definition of trauma as an event that overwhelms the psyche and is impossible for the subject to fully internalize. Thus, the absence of the resurrected Jesus confirms the overwhelmingness of the trauma in Mark’s account. Trauma theory, though, complicates a linear etiological relationship between the seemingly traumatic event and its visible symptom. Freud notes that an event only becomes traumatic retrospectively and as part of a series of events. The trauma is “felt” in the later, everyday event rather than the first, overwhelming moment. Starting with Freud and moving through the development of his principle of Nachträglichkeit or “afterwardsness” by Cathy Caruth, Slavoj Žižek, and Ryan Engley, I suggest in this paper a reconfiguration of trauma, memory, and seriality in Mark’s gospel. Reading Mark’s narrative serially uncovers a narrative that retroactively foregrounds the trauma of the disciples’ failure by means of the trauma of the death of Jesus. The cuts that make the series, the narrative hinges of Mark’s gospel, are the three passion predictions (8:31-33; 9:30-32; 10:33-37). Here Mark punctuates his otherwise rolling narrative with extradiegetic cuts that (re)traumatize the audience with the anticipation of the forthcoming passion. Mark contextualizes the trauma of the death of Jesus to be remembered as the trauma of the failure of the disciples. I argue in this paper that trauma theory uncovers how the serial nature of Mark’s gospel reconfigures the relationship between the passion predictions, the passion narrative and the absent resurrection.

Of all the systems of symbols woven through the fabric of the Bible—the struggle against the monsters of chaos, the sacrifice of the firstborn, salvation through the kinsman-redeemer—it can be argued that none figure more prominently than the Exodus. And of the complex of images that make up that symbology—desert and mountain, altar and tabernacle, rock and water and manna—few carry more metaphoric weight than the pillar of cloud and fire. The text develops a compound of components that together form an evocative image that represents not only the presence of the divine in the house of Israel, but also establishes one of the critical blessings God provides--to lead and give light to humankind. This image can also be seen as a type of the future advent of the divine in Israel: though references to the image of the pillar of cloud and fire are less explicit in the New Testament, they are no less powerful and evocative, for a close reading finds the same symbols present and functioning in the same way—as a representation of both the divine and the gift of divine illumination, fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. Remarkably, pillar imagery also appears prominently in scripture recognized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price—where it performs the same emblematic and typological function. This paper charts the evolution of the symbol of the cloudy, fiery pillar through the Old Testament; elucidates its presence in the New; illustrates its appearance and defines its purpose in Latter-day Saint (LDS) scripture; and ultimately demonstrates that the figure occurs there often enough and in the same contexts as in the Bible to establish a firm intertextual as well as typological link between all these tomes. This in turn provides a striking example of how LDS scripture builds on and buttresses the common Christian canon, and works together with the Bible to shed additional light on the nature and manifestation of the divine.

In Leviticus 25, the author details the practices of יובל, the Jubilee, a regularized process of debt-cancelation and property restoration. Recent scholarship has argued for the plausibility of these institutions by comparing them to royal edicts in the Old Babylonian and earlier periods, which cancelled debt and freed those bound in debt-slavery. This essay similarly argues for the plausibility of the Jubilee institutions by comparing the conditions described in Leviticus 25 to the conditions among the exilic Judahite communities in Babylonia. The Judahites who were brought to Babylonia in the exile were settled as šušānu-tenants on lands granted to them by the king. The king directed them to develop the land, and they were charged rent for use of the land based on an assessment of future crop-yields from those fields. Because the king retained ultimate ownership of the lands, those who fell into poverty could not sell the land. Rather, people were often forced to take out personal loans to meet rent- or tax-obligations. These debt-notes were negotiated based on future crop-yields, normally assuming the repayment of the principle and 20% interest. If conditions worsened, the šušānu-tenants could sell future use of the land—again, based on an assessment of future yield of grain or dates from those fields. In the Jubilee legislation the Israelites are presented with similar circumstances: God, who takes the place of the king, explicitly asserts his ultimate ownership of the land (Lev 25:23). The Israelites are defined as גרים ותושבים, “resident aliens” on the land, a status largely analogous to the šušānu-tenants. As such, “selling the land” is not conceived of as a permanent sale of the property itself, and the purchase price is not based on the market-value of the land. As in Babylonia, selling the land involved a sum based on a valuation of the future agricultural yield from use of that land (Lev 25:14–16). The Babylonian material thus reveals an economic system that operated much like what Leviticus 25 describes. The debts cancelled in the Jubilee were personal loans, the forgiveness of which assumes a loss on the part of the lender. This is precisely what would happen whenever a Babylonian king issued a debt-cancellation decree. The Jubilee vision is not one of socioeconomic equality, but of a periodic leveling of socioeconomic conditions, a measure understood to establish a more rightly-ordered social condition.

The Mandaeans of southern Iraq and Iran are the only Gnostic sect to survive from antiquity. Their literature, written in an eastern dialect of Aramaic (Mandaic), is a treasure trove of prayers, myths, and ritual commentaries, some of which date to late antiquity. In this paper, I will encourage the investigation of Mandaean texts and artifacts by scholars of Syriac Christianity and raise questions regarding points of contact between Syriac Christianity and Mandaeism. While Mandaean studies remains an obscure topic even among scholars of late antique religion, that limited scholarly interest has largely remained focused on their origins. Scholars continue to debate whether Mandaeism was an offshoot of Judaism dating from the first century, a reforming new religious movement of Mesopotamian pagans from late antiquity, or some kind of synthesis of these traditions. While the question of origins is certainly valuable, it has consumed much of the attention scholars have given to the Mandaeans. Instead of focusing on the origins of Mandaeism, this paper will propose several points of contact between Syriac Christianity and Mandaeism in late antiquity that would benefit from further inquiry. The first point of contact is that of language—although the dialect is different, with proper resources, scholars familiar with Syriac can learn to read Mandaic without much difficulty. I will introduce the Mandaic script and offer a brief survey of Mandaean sacred literature. I will then discuss the Mandaic incantation bowls found in Iraq. These bowls offer the best early evidence for the existence of the Mandaeans and demonstrate that Christians, Mandaeans, Jews, and others lived in close proximity to one another in southern Mesopotamia and shared common magical practices. Next, I will call attention to some of the parallels in the theological language and imagery used by Syriac Christians and Mandaeans. Comparative study offers the potential to enrich our understanding of both traditions, even if we avoid the question of influence. Finally, I will discuss the extensive polemic against the religious practices of the Church of the East (particularly its asceticism) found in early Mandaean sources. As it is rare to find (extant) anti-Christian polemic from late antiquity, this polemic clearly merits further study. While this paper will be far from comprehensive, I hope it serves as an invitation for my peers in Syriac studies to explore the Mandaeans and their literature in conversation with our own field. Such exploration would not only advance our understanding of religion in late antique Mesopotamia but also bring attention to a small religious community fighting for survival today.

Disability criticism must constantly negotiate the gap between discourse and materiality(Garland-Thomson 1997, 2014;Kafer 2013; Price 2024). Bodies exist in multifarious particularity, which language and culture both take from and add to, collapsing them into manageable categories and imbuing them with extra meaning. Across cultures we find common types of language to describe bodies—disability terms that attribute deviance and construct the physical other, gentle circumlocutions that attempt to blunt the force of that othering, and precise descriptions and diagnoses for the practical work of medicine, for example—but the relationship between the language and the bodies it describes is often vague and ambiguous without extensive cultural knowledge. The interpretation of ancient texts is particularly fraught, because they provide so many examples of language but few sure connections with material embodiment. This paper addresses two significant uncertainties in the interpretation of blindness and visual impairment in texts from the ancient Middle East. It begins with the surprisingly diverse vocabulary of Akkadian and its implications. Akkadian texts employ several terms that are conventionally translated “blind,” including ḫuppudu and lā nāṭilu, written syllabically or with a profusion of logograms including IGI.NU.TUKU, IGI.NU.GAL2, IGI.BAL, and IGI.NU. All of these logograms combine IGI, the sign for “eye” or “to see,” with some kind of negation and/or verbal complement. This is quite different from Sumerian and Northwest Semitic languages (including Classical Hebrew), which tend to have a single word for a vision disability but also sometimes use descriptive phrases. Do different Akkadian terms reflect distinctions in meaning, and if so, how? Do they reflect distinctions in physical embodiment, or in social status, or both? The second question approaches the relationship between language and bodies from another angle. Observing the multiplicity of occupations attested for people labeled “blind” in Mesopotamian administrative documents, several cuneiformists have suggested that the label could be used metaphorically to mean “untrained” or “novice,” rather than literally disabled (Diemel 1928; Garelli, Charpin, and Durand 1982). Though this is no longer a majority position, it is worth asking how we could determine if it were true, or true in some cases but not in others.

The meaning and function of Acts 20:28 is controversial to this day. Scholars have paid special attention to the term ὁ ἴδιος as a nominalised adjective: Is “the Own” a metonymy for God’s “own son” (cf. Romans 3:25; Jos. Ant. 13.40)? Is it the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “yachid” (the “only,” “beloved,” cf. Gen 22:16; Romans 8:32)? Alongside the Jewish sources, what evidence can be gained from pagan documentary sources? This paper analyses Acts 20:28 from a papyrological and conceptual metaphorical perspective. The first step is to determine the semantic capacity of the term ὁ ἴδιος (“the Own”). The emphasis here is on analysing the relational usage of ὁ ἴδιος. Referring to documentary sources of the Imperial age, it will be shown that the expression occurs in the contexts of both parent-child and master-slave relationships. The second step takes a conceptual metaphorical perspective in examining whether there are signs in Acts 20:28 that Luke also had these relationships in mind, as can be inferred from the documentary papyri. In light of such elements as κύριος, ὁ ἴδιος, διά (+ gen.) and περιποιέομαι, it is plausible that ancient oikonomics, especially the field of chrematistics and slave ownership, is a leading “source domain” of the metaphor Acts 20:28, in addition to the background of father-son relationship and “endearment” that is usually recognised (for the pagan background cf. Cuvigny). Following this thesis, Luke constructed an ambiguous metaphor with the aim of explaining the relationship between God (“the Lord”), Jesus (“the Own”) and the Ekklesia (God’s “acquired descendants” and God’s “acquired property”). With this approach my paper contributes to the research on metaphors in Luke-Acts; it demonstrates the echoes of Greco-Roman concepts of slavery in the New Testament; and it adds to the debate on Christology in Acts, showing that by portraying Jesus as “the Own”, Luke’s intent was to characterise the pre-Easter Jesus both as God’s son, and functionally, as His servant.

The setting of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in Luke 9:10-17 is often considered by scholars to be troublesome. According to Luke 9:10, the narrative takes place in “a city (πόλιν) called Bethsaida.” In the first century CE, Bethsaida was located in Gaulanitis on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. This specific identification is unique to Luke’s gospel. However, in Luke 9:12, the twelve disciples come to Jesus and tell him to send the crowd away for provisions and lodging because they are located in “a deserted place” (ἐν ἐρήμῳ τόπῳ). For many scholars, these two details about the setting of the Feeding of the Five Thousand are conflicting, as one cannot seemingly be in Bethsaida and “a deserted place” at the same time. In an attempt to resolve this perceived difficulty, scholars commonly cite Luke 9:10-17 as evidence of the author of Luke’s ignorance of Palestinian geography and/or of his “editorial fatigue.” This essay will argue against such readings of the passage by demonstrating that the Lukan setting of the Feeding of the Five Thousand is coherent when one considers the language of the passage in relation to the geographical, historical, and archaeological contexts of first-century CE Bethsaida.

A common feature of personal letters on papyrus was the writing of an address on the back of the folded letter (Ziemann found 137 addresses in his broader sample of 214 private papyrus letters dated to between 200 BC to AD 200; at Oxyrhynchus our count is similar: 141 addresses in a sample of 221 letters). This address was both an instruction and an aide-memoire for the letter carrier. It was the last thing written by the sender (or their scribe) before handing the letter over to the carrier. It would also be the first thing the recipient saw and would have a role in establishing the initial expectations of the recipient. This paper discusses the various forms of the address used – variants of the basic form with an imperative – ‘deliver - ἀπόδος (this letter)’; a name in the dative (sometimes with additional descriptors added); and a ‘from’ clause (generally using παρά, or sometimes ἀπό). The form of the external address is discussed in relation to a) the correlation between the content of the external address and the internal opening of the letter; b) the different hands within the letter; and c) the observable connection between fuller forms of the external address and the distance which the letter travelled. This study contributes to our understanding of epistolary communication in antiquity, it also raises questions and possibilities concerning aspects of epistolary communication within early Christianity.

One method of dealing with the anonymity of the Book of Hebrews, dating back to at least Origen but also reflected among modern scholars (Attridge 1989, 5; Eisenbaum 2005, 217), is to disclaim any possibility of discovering its origin. Meanwhile, Origen also offers an intriguing authorial possibility that migrated to Alexandria along with the text of Hebrews: one Clement of Rome, understood as the primary authority underlying 1 Clement. Although this theory has received little attention recently, and Origen’s scriptural assertions must often be taken with a grain of salt, this paper unfurls the probative value of Clementine authorship of Hebrews by triangulating its soteriological perspective alongside 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas. Their authors are commonly understood to overlap from Herm. Vis. 2.4.3 [8.3], but the possibility of social discord or rivalry between them is rarely entertained (Jeffers 1991). However, a scriptura non grata like Hermas’s Shepherd required an official response, ideally on the “recycled” authority of Roman Christian tradition. Thus, I argue that Clement—or someone both uncannily aligned with the perspective of 1 Clement and interested in positioning himself within the Pauline legacy (Rothschild 2009)—writes the treatise now known as Hebrews in a shared late-first century Roman context of rampant dipsychia as an official riposte to the Jesus-averse soteriology of Hermas, who preferred to emphasize the cultivation of virtues for the purpose of salvation (Herm. Vis. 3.8.1-8 [16.1-8]) in a situation where eschatological immediacy had waned and associated Pauline assertions (e.g., Rom. 10.9) had begun to lose credulity. With attention to shared patterns of exegesis from the Septuagint, affinities of rhetorical style and moral exhortation, and Pauline characterizations of Jesus common to both 1 Clement and Hebrews, I portray Hebrews as a Clementine production intended as a superior—indeed, “apostolic”—message in response to an intrusive Roman visionary.

Most agree that the word παλιγγενεσία in Matthew 19:28 signifies some sort of renewal at the eschaton. Some have argued that it refers to Israel’s restoration when God establishes his kingdom on earth (Gundry; 1982). Others have suggested that it denotes “resurrection” (Derrett; 1984; Luz; 2001). Still others have argued that the word is simply a synonym that refers to the age to come (cf. Mark 10:30), which will replace the current one at the parousia (Schweizer; 1978; Burnett; 1983). Finally, a fourth view, notably argued by David Sim in his influential 1993 JSNT article, suggests that παλιγγενεσία refers not only to the new age but also to a literal destruction and recreation of the cosmos (i.e., a new creation) (Sim; 1993; Pennington; 2008; Keener 2009). This paper agrees with the latter view and seeks to build on it by arguing that Matthew, when read in conversation with texts such as 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, seems to be operating within the typical Jewish eschatological expectation that Endzeit gleicht Urzeit (Reed; 2016; Gunkel; 1895), wherein Jewish interpreters as early as the third century BCE began to derive their eschatology from Pentateuchal protology. This belief helped form the worldview of many Second Temple Jews and caused them to anticipate that God would restore the conditions of Genesis 1–2 by first bringing about cataclysmic divine judgment upon the earth analogous to the flood (Gen 6–9). And this shared expectation for the future is ostensibly why Matthew chose to use παλιγγενεσία. Already in the Hebrew Bible there is imagery of a new heaven and new earth replacing the current created order (Isa 65:17; 66:22), where the nation’s restoration and return from exile is pictured in paradisaic terms (Isa 51:3; Ezek 36:35). And this perhaps served as some of the “raw material” out of which Second Temple writers would develop their own ideas about the restoration of God’s people and creation (Hanson; 1975; Collins; 2016).

Gregory of Nyssa’s apophatic perspective has been recognized as unique among apophatic theologies, as Nyssa makes his gnoseological distinction between the divine persons and the substance, not between the economic and immanent Trinity. This so-called “Nyssian Apophatism” aligns with Gregory’s theology of inspiration, both which are developed in response to Eunomius’ theory of language. Much of the scholarship has focused on the Christological aspects of Nyssian apophatism, discussing how God can and does “speak” through the person of Christ. However, the question of the role of the Holy Spirit in divine inspiration—particularly in relationship to his larger apophatic theology—remains unclear. Examining Nyssa’s description of inspiration as “unspoken groanings” in which the Holy Spirit indicates his will to the “secret thinking of the heart,” I connect this account of inspiration to his larger apophatic framework. In my first part of my paper, I present Nyssian apophatism with its emphasis on person, drawing on the scholarship of Giulio Maspero. From there, my second part connects his apophatism to his theology of inspiration, contending that the person of Holy Spirit has an epistemological function to reveal the incomprehensible God into human language. My conclusion is that Nyssa’s apophatic account of the person underlies his account of inspiration. By discussing Nyssa’s theology of inspiration within his unique apophatism, I situate Nyssa’s claims within the larger apophatic tradition developing during Ancient Christian discourse. Furthermore, by highlighting the role of the person of the Holy Spirit, my paper connects Nyssa’s understanding of inspiration within the developing concept of person evident in Cappadocian thought. In this way, I demonstrate how Nyssa’s theology of inspiration is in continuity with the larger philosophical developments of the fourth century.

The memrâ, or metric homily, is one of the most distinctive genres of Syriac literature. Over time, it came to be the ordinary vehicle of exegetical exposition and doctrinal debate. Yet little is known about its origins which I seek to explore by paying close attention to performance. While madrāšê (often characterized as hymns) are short and rely mostly on terse images and the evocative power of allusions, memrê often span hundreds of verses, indulging in expansive narrative, colorful visualization, and vivid description (ekphrasis). Chiseled works of literature, they nevertheless bear all the marks of repeated oral performance. And while obviously works of religious oratory, they should, I believe, be understood as heirs to the ancient rhapsodic tradition, often regaling listeners with spine-chilling, hair-raising stories: Late Antique entertainment at its best. I propose Ephrem’s Memrâ on the Repentance of the Ninevites as a case in point and I suggest that it should be read as an epic poem. This needs to be justified over against the formal and material criteria given by Aristotle by which this genre has typically been defined. In what I propose, I follow literary critics who study epic as a cross-cultural phenomenon and treat it as a “heuristic tool for comparative evaluation rather than an inviolate, archetypal reality” (J. Foley 2005). The very bare-bones description of epic as a cultural artifact dealing with “kings and wars” (H. Foley 2005, following Virgil’s ‘arma virumque cano’), fits Ephrem’s memrâ like hand in glove. Applying this lens to the verse homily on Jonah and the Ninevites allows us to perceive the extraordinary dexterity of Ephrem as a cultural critic. In line with the epic tradition, his subject are battles and heroes, but the concept of heroism (strongly gendered as manliness, ga[n]bbārûtâ) undergoes a profound transformation. Traditional, war waging, individualistic heroism, embodied in Nineveh, “the mother of heroes” (SNin 525), is spiritually smashed to pieces. But the deconstruction is followed by a reconstruction on new terms. Ephrem’s listeners are not constrained, for being believers, to give up the thrill of epic narrative, nor for being educated in the faith, the pleasure of being entertained. The English poet John Dryden once wrote: “A heroic poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest work which the soul of man is capable to perform. The design of it is to form the mind to heroic virtue by example.” That is precisely, as I hope to show, what Ephrem has achieved in this memrâ.

Recent narrative analyses of the Elijah cycle of 1–2 Kings have focused on his apparent contrast with the literary presentation of Moses in the Pentateuch. They have pointed out that, while Moses intercedes for Israel on Horeb after the people’s idolatry (Exod 32–34), Elijah encounters Yhwh on the same mountain and does not intercede (1 Kgs 19), but rather indicts the nation’s unfaithfulness and is concerned only for himself. That Elijah’s journey to Horeb in 1 Kgs 19 is patterned after the Moses narratives is largely undisputed, and the contrast these scholars observe is implicitly correct. However, these studies have universally failed to account for the later development of the Elijah tradition that portrays him, not as a self-absorbed failure, but as a heroic agent of Israel’s restoration. The relationship between these conflicting literary presentations of Elijah has yet to be established. In this paper I argue that Elijah is indeed portrayed in the Kings cycle as a prophet like Moses, in line with Yhwh’s promise to send such a prophet in Deut 18. At the same time, the stated assumption regarding this prophet is that the people will listen to him (Deut 18:15–19). I argue that, to the view of a post-Deuteronomistic redactor composing the extant Elijah cycle, the exile has made clear that the people failed to listen to every Mosaic prophet who appeared. Elijah must therefore be portrayed as a failure in order to account for the exile in the Deuteronomistic storyline. To this post-exilic perspective, further, it is precisely Elijah’s failure that leaves room for continued hope. It is only if the promised Mosaic role was not fulfilled in the past that the post-exilic communities may continue to look for a prophet still coming in the future. It is this future role, in turn, that is assigned by later tradition to the returning Elijah, who will finally succeed in restoring Israel. Thus, I argue that Elijah’s failure in the Kings cycle is not intended to portray him as a literary foil to Moses, but that it is rather an exegetical and rhetorical strategy that allows for the hope of his return and future success.

In the Roman period, common verbal and visual motifs that expressed the inevitability of death were memento mori, or “reminders of death.” Literally translated as “remember you must die,” these memento mori often pictured a skeleton reclining, wine in hand. Sometimes there were displays of memento mori at dinner parties, presumably to serve as an Epicurean invitation to guests to “live it up” because “life is short.” The motif of a deceased figure in recline was also prominent in Roman funerary iconography, serving in part the purpose of expressing the permeability of the barriers between the world of the living and the world of the dead. In funerary portraits, images of the deceased may lift their wine cup to us from their eternal banqueting couch, where the deceased person is pictured rather than a skeleton figure. These motifs expressed by the memento mori imagery and its literal translation call to mind three particular moments in the life of Jesus: his encounter with the Gadarene demoniacs at the tombs (Matt 8:28-9:1), his preparation for burial by the woman with the alabaster jar (Matt 26:7-12), and the Last Supper (Matt 26:17-30). This paper aims to show that the Gospel of Matthew situates Jesus in the liminal space between the living and the dead prior to his death and resurrection by enacting the Roman motif of memento mori at the three aforementioned literary moments leading up to those events. Comparanda will include Roman funerary portraiture, epigraphy, architecture, and iconography, as well as Roman rituals around handling the material body of the deceased (funus).

Disability studies scholars have identified the NT miracle stories as “texts of terror” for the physically disabled, conflating spiritual and physical “wholeness” and demanding bodily transformation as evidence for connection with God. Similarly, the story of Mary and Martha, is a text of terror for women and for the mentally disabled and neurodiverse. Much of the recent Feminist and Womanist scholarly conversation around Mary and Martha in Luke 10 has turned upon the nature of Martha’s work, largely under the influence of the history of interpretation of the passage. The crux of the passage, however, hinges not on whether Martha was in the kitchen or doing ministry, but on her labor dispute and Jesus’ response. In order to undermine that millennia old tradition of using the disabled body as something to “think with,” this paper will contextualize Martha’s “worry and distraction” with respect to her servile labor, and the need to manage “many things.” This paper will draw upon ancient medical literature, philosophical texts, and narratives that describe worried, effeminate and enslaved bodies in order to demonstrate the ties between the female body, worry, anxiety, and enslaved labor in antiquity. In antiquity Martha’s worry was the expected consequence of the labor that was assigned to women and enslaved persons. In this regard Luke’s gospel is using Martha’s body to “think with,” but Martha’s worry is not a spiritual deficit, it is the disability that is manufactured by unjust labor structures that purposefully assign worry to some bodies and not others.

Within the Ethiopian and Eritrean context, book inventories and donation notes are found primarily in the blank spaces of gospel books. Despite their humble appearance, these sources represent a well-developed tradition of knowledge organization, which, when correctly analyzed, offer important insights into the emergence and transmission of different works, as shown in recent years by Ted Erho, Alessandro Bausi, and others. Importantly for this paper, in a cultural context where most manuscripts postdate the fifteenth century, book inventories and donation notes also afford us a precious window onto the shelves of long-lost libraries, thereby facilitating the investigation of their contents, their size, and their evolving composition. Yet book inventories and donation notes are not straight-forward sources: one must place each in its historical, literary, and material context to fully grasp its contents. In this paper, which has emerged out of my ongoing research at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at Universität Hamburg, I will demonstrate the promising possibilities and different challenges that the systematic study of medieval book inventories and donation notes entails. As I will show, book inventories and donation notes can contribute not only to our knowledge of individual works but also of the intellectual and material culture of medieval Ethiopia on a more general level. In particular, this paper will draw on these sources to describe the intellectual profile of a ‘typical’ medieval library. In addition, this paper will illustrate that, when studied in conjunction with literary sources and extant manuscripts, book inventories and donation notes can provide insights into how Ethiopian and Eritrean libraries evolved over time in response to shifting values and crises.

Response

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

In commentaries on Galatians, both ancient and modern interpreters have described Paul as "upset," "acerbic," "indignant," and "biting and aggressive." Paul’s rhetoric is, in short, angry. Seldom, however, do commentators elaborate on how anger was expressed in ancient rhetoric or what angry rhetoric was intended to accomplish. In the first part of this paper, I locate Paul’s angry rhetoric within its ancient Greco-Roman context. I do so by comparing aspects of Galatians with teachings on angry rhetoric from figures like Aristotle, Quintilian, and Cicero. These comparisons suggest that Paul intended the recipients of his letter to recognize his anger, using known rhetorical devices and approaches to convey his anger literarily. Moreover, the ancient rhetoricians may help us clarify why Paul is angry, toward whom Paul’s anger is directed, and what his angry epistle was meant to do for his audience. The second part of this paper considers how Paul’s angry rhetoric squares with his condemnation of θυμοί in 5:19–21. Turning once again to Greco-Roman sources, I ask how Paul’s use of anger and his condemnation of θυμοί can coexist by comparing Galatians with other ancient discussions about the morality of anger. This was a topic of great interest during Paul’s lifetime, not least to the philosopher Seneca. How did Paul’s use of anger and condemnation of θυμοί fit into the broader ancient discourse about morally managing one’s anger? In sum, this paper offers an account of Paul’s "apostolic" anger as displayed rhetorically in Galatians, considering it within ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric and morality.

This paper is part of a "books-in-conversation" panel themed around "the Vulnerable Bible," featuring three recent books: Andrew Jacobs's Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible (Cambridge, 2024), Jill Hicks-Keeton's Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves (Fortress, 2023), and Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg's The Closed Book: How the Rabbis Taught the Jews (Not) to Read the Bible (Princeton, 2023). Panelists will reflect and build on how these books intersect on the theme of vulnerability - “the Bible” as vulnerable, for example, to ambivalence, textual "corruption," instability, moral critique, unknowns about manuscript dating and manuscript "discovery," and porous canon boundaries.

It is generally acknowledged that translation involves interpretation and is, therefore, the first level of commentary. Just as aspects of the social contexts and various compositional strategies of original authors are discernible in texts, so the settings of translators and their approaches to rendering their source texts are reflected in the results of their endeavours. The Septuagint is the earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible into a non-Semitic language (i.e., Greek) — the product of what was arguably the first major translation product involving religious literature in history. As an artifact of a particular segment of Hellenistic culture, it provides a window on the Judaism of that period and on the socio-linguistic and theological factors associated with that faith community’s interpretation of its Scriptures. This paper will focus on some of solutions devised by the translator of Genesis to the problems inherent in rendering the source text into the target language and on the interpretative dynamics that are evident in the Old Greek version of this book.

The Paul we find in the Book of Acts fits a pattern of a philosophical hero. He repeatedly emerges in a new location with his bold and truthful message, proclaims it without reservations and gains both sympathizers and opponents. The actions of the latter usually cause Paul to flee or even suffer harm. Yet even the worst beatings and imprisonments (such as befit a great philosopher in the hands of the ignorant masses!) seem to be of little consequence: Harm done on his body has no lasting effect and has little bearing on his status or choice of strategy in the next location. The big picture is one of inevitable success and harmonious progress. As such, many scholars today hold serious (and justified) reservations about Acts as a source for information about the historical Paul, who comes across much more complex and conflicted in his letters. Yet this is not the whole story. In this paper, I seek to disturb the reading of Acts as a complete success story and point out certain ambiguities present in the narrative that might point to historical realities under the Lukan gloss. I will be looking at the characterization of Paul in Acts through the lens of popular morality in the Roman Empire, aided by findings of postcolonial theorists. In Roman popular moral thought as outlaid by e.g. Teresa Morgan, one of the core concerns is finding ad hoc means of survival rather than setting high ethical principles. In the context of a hierarchical Empire, the most important skill was often to know the limits of one’s agency in any given situation and to avoid the suffering caused by the displeasure of those higher up in the social strata. By taking examples from Acts 9, 17 and 19, I will demonstrate how this is detectable in Acts as well. While danger is an inevitable part of a bold proclaimer’s life, avoidance of suffering whenever possible emerges as the norm, both for the sake of the individual and the continuation of Paul’s mission. This in turn results often in even trickster-like underdog negotiation that characterizes many under-privileged groups in Empires past and present. Acts presents us with a hero attuned (with varying success) to life as a “pestilent fellow” (Acts 24:5) in the eyes of those with agency to do him harm. In such circumstances Paul usually manages to deliver his message and escape unharmed but is occasionally outmaneuvered by forces stronger than him. This ambiguity and interplay of skillful navigation and tragic realism offers new and interesting avenues to make Acts relevant in a novel way in the historical characterization of Paul the Apostle.

“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.” When audiences first read these words on the title card of The Blair Witch Project (1999), many believed them to be true. The film appeared to confirm this belief: documentary interviews, unknown actors, shaky footage, and frequent fourth-wall breaks impressed upon viewers that what they were witnessing was not a mere work of fiction, or “based on a true story,” but a documentation of actual events. The final days of Heather, Mike, and Josh felt immediate and genuine, and the unseen evil that claimed them seemed a more real and present threat than any conventional movie monster. The unprecedented success of The Blair Witch Project heralded a new cinematic phenomenon, “found footage horror.” In a found footage horror film, Shellie McMurdo writes, “the camera must exist diegetically within the narrative and be acknowledged as such, and the events must be presented as being part of, rather than adjacent or similar to, the audience’s reality.” The phenomenon endures today, sometimes employing more emergent technologies, as in Host (2020) and Deadstream (2022), or merely exerting its influence on unconventional horrors like We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) and Skinamarink (2022). In the most effective examples, the formal and narrative elements of found footage create a uniquely immersive experience for the viewer, a sense of urgency that collapses the distance between spectator and spectacle, audience and event, reality and text. While found footage has roots in “mockumentary” films of the 1980s and 1990s, and scholars trace its origins to the epistolary format of gothic literature, this paper argues that the subgenre is anticipated by a far older type of discovered manuscript: ancient Southwest Asian “pious frauds,” whose biblical exemplar is the Book of Deuteronomy. The paper explores how Deuteronomy’s rhetorical strategies act as a diegetic camera, how its peculiar view of history collapses the distance between audience and event, how its theological imperatives create a sense of urgency and present threat, and how the account of its “discovery” and reception in the time of Josiah parallels the framing devices and real-world evaluations of found footage horror films. By reading the Bible with found footage, by placing pious and impious frauds in conversation, we can more fully appreciate the ways in which texts affectively engage their readers/viewers, and in which readers/viewers cognitively negotiate the boundaries between reality and text.

The comparison between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint in Psalm 113(G) // 114-115(M) suggests a shared Hebrew Vorlage. The slight quantitative discrepancies may stem from attempts to enhance style or clarify implicit meanings. However, significant qualitative differences, particularly in verb tense, result in two distinct literary directions. The current reading of the Septuagint strongly resembles a new edition, whether the translators were aware of this fact or not. The presentation will highlight this phenomenon, which underscores a frequent reality in the study of textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible.

Although online instruction has existed since the advent of the Internet, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the widespread normalization of virtual methods. Amidst restrictions of the face-to-face time that students have with their instructors and teaching assistants, there are numerous resources and strategies that biblical studies courses can leverage to fill the gap. In addition to synchronous video sessions, instructors can tap into the power of video content to nurture students' intellectual growth. I will demonstrate video-driven instruction with the example of teaching Beginning Greek, reviewing and critiquing existing material, and envisioning possibilities for future content. I will demonstrate that video-based learning can either supplement other methods or serve as the primary method of teaching course content. While not a substitution for face-to-face learning or students' efforts, video instruction can nurture engagement with course material and be inclusive of students who either learn best in audio-visual ways or are affected by visual impairment or loss.

Scholarship has missed the thoroughgoing use of Dan 7 woven through Acts 1:1–11. While some scholars have noted the resonance with Jesus’s ascension on a cloud in vv. 9–10 to the Son of Man’s arrival in Dan 7:13, further connections are usually unnoticed in the secondary literature. The focus on the crucial statement of Acts 1:8 and its intertextual resonances has occluded the importance of Dan 7 as an intertextual resonance in Acts 1, particularly in vv. 6–7 and 9–11. The confusion surrounding the disciples’ question in Acts 1:6 is, in part, because the connections to Dan 7 are not recognized. I propose that the disciples’ question in Acts 1:6 is a question of timing, and Jesus’s response recognizes it as such. The issue that Jesus explicitly addresses is not the nature of the kingdom of God, but of when the restoration of the kingdom will come to pass, specifically the promises of a kingdom to the Son of Man and the holy ones of the Most High in Dan 7:13–28, after the times and seasons of the beasts in Dan 7:12 are finished. The mention of the cloud in the account of Jesus’s ascension in Acts 1:9–11 is not a passing mention connected with generic theophanic imagery, but the climactic final event that follows this exchange with language and imagery that is drawn straight from Dan 7:13. The intertextual resonance with Dan 7 provides a crucial piece in the interpretation of Acts 1 that has been overlooked in the usual readings of the text. Recognizing the importance of the events of Dan 7 for the disciples’ question and Jesus’s answer augments the well-established importance of the commission of Acts 1:8. The times and seasons of Dan 7:12 provide a lexical foundation for the hendiadys of “times or seasons” in Acts 1:7, and the Danielic chronology of the events surrounding the arrival of the everlasting kingdom are a better explanation for the disciples’ question and Jesus’s answer than a more general restoration eschatology.

A prosodic word (ω) is the domain of word stress. In many languages, an orthographic word may be composed of a lexical word preceded or followed by a short function word the whole of which is dominated by a single main stress. A lexical word along with a contiguous, orthographically distinct function word may constitute a prosodic word. A long function word, a “higher-order” function word, or a complex of function words orthographically distinct or not may constitute a prosodic word. A long orthographic word, for example, compounds in languages which make use of them, may consist of two or more prosodic words. Words without word stress are known as phonological clitics. Patterns of prosodic word delimitation in RT (the tradition of recitation recorded in MT) have yet to be studied in a way that fully takes into account advances in the field of linguistics. In this paper, a systematic comparison of patterns of ω delimitation in MT Hebrew, DSS Hebrew, and Epigraphic Hebrew is offered. The cross-linguistic commonplace known as the Rhythm Rule is used to elucidate patterns of ω delimitation in all three corpora. Syntactic and phonological clisis are carefully distinguished. A research program is outlined.

The Lamentations (Enkomia) of Great and Holy Saturday, the liturgical poem employed in the Slavic Churches in the commemoration of Christ’s entombment and descent into Hell, is a text clearly invested in tying the events of the Paschal Mystery to the imagery of Israel and Israel’s symbols of military triumph. Despite the beloved status of this medieval liturgical poem in the Holy Week celebrations of so many Orthodox communities, there has been no systematic treatment of it from a distinctly Scriptural and hermeneutical perspective. This paper provides such an analysis of those specific moments of the Enkomia in which Christ is depicted as the warrior-hero of Israel’s Scriptures. These types are not the central focus of the liturgy, but constitute the main way in which the Enkomia exegetizes the Old Testament text and proposes the Paschal Mystery as the fulfillment of former prophetic signs. The Enkomia (Stasis A, stanza 38) declare that Christ “slept in the flesh” as a lion but “arose as a lion cub (skumnos),” making clear reference to LXX Genesis 49:9 in its description of Judah as a lion/lion cub. Stasis B, verse 59 describes Christ crushing the teeth of the beast, making reference to LXX Psalm 57:7 and the crushing of the lion’s teeth. In Stasis B, stanza 1 Christ is described as destroying (syntribo) the power of the enemy by having His hands outspread in reference to LXX Exodus 17:8-13 where by Moses spreading his hands the Amalekites are destroyed (tribo). Explicit reference to Joshua is again made in Stasis B, stanza 45 where Christ is described as “casting down the prince (archegon) of darkness” just as Joshua did before (prin) him. In addition to these direct references the Enkomia are populated with the angelic hosts who primarily act as witnesses to the extraordinary events of the Paschal Mystery, the death of the God-Christ, the burial, and the descent. In this way Christ is demonstrated to be the Lord of Sabaoth according to the prophetic title. These warrior types allow the faithful to enter into the twofold meditation of which the entire poem consists– Christ in the Tomb in the flesh even as he is conquering Hell, the divine human natures are implicated in both– with the fulfillment of Israelite types in mind.

Interpreters continue to debate the rationale and referents behind Paul’s allegorizing of the Sarah and Hagar narratives in Gal 4:21–31. The allegorized figures of Sarah and Hagar have been variously interpreted as two early Christ-believing missions (Martyn, 1996), two Abrahamic covenants (Das, 2016), or respective Jewish and Gentile “childbearing covenants” (Heinsch, 2022). The allegory itself has been predominantly viewed as an addendum or extraneous proof rather than an essential component of the overarching argument. Nevertheless, a few interpreters have noted important parallels between Gal 3:6ff. and Gal 4:21–31 and argued that the latter is an expansion of the former (Witherington, 1998; Watson, 2004). Expanding on the insights of the minority, I argue that Paul’s argument from Gal 3:1ff. has been laying the groundwork for his allegorical reading of the Genesis narratives in Gal 4:21–31. Drawing upon the work of Margaret M. Mitchell (2010), I will situate Paul’s exegetical practices in what Mitchell calls the agonistic paradigm of interpretation, in which students were trained in the use of varied exegetical topoi intended to turn texts in favor of one’s position and against that of one’s opponent. First, I delineate the rhetorical situation addressed in the epistle, namely, a particular reading of the Abrahamic covenantal narratives championed by Paul’s opponents. Secondly, I explore how key proofs in Gal 3:1ff. pave the way for Paul’s allegory. Finally, I show how Gal 4:21–31 builds upon Paul’s earlier arguments and provides him with the central textual proof he needs.

In his catalog of Pauline resonances in the Fourth Gospel, Albert Barnett (1941) suggested that that one could explain the “typology” of John 6:51 on the basis of 1 Corinthians 10:3–4, but he did not elaborate on this interesting proposal. In the intervening years, similarities between the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6 and Paul’s reading of the Pentateuchal wilderness narratives in 1 Corinthians 10 have received little attention from commentators. Both authors draw comparisons between Christ and the heavenly manna via eucharistic symbolism (John 6:32–35; 1 Cor 10:3); describe Christ or the elements as a higher brōma/brōsis and poma/posis (John 6:55; 1 Cor 10:3–4); and portray a group of Abraham’s descendants “grumbling” (gogguzō) despite their reception of divine sustenance (John 6:41, 61; 1 Cor 10:10). I contend that viewing John 6 through the lens of 1 Corinthians 10 clarifies the Johannine episode’s narrative arc and its rationale. In 1 Cor 10:1–11, Paul enumerates the ways that the majority of the wilderness generation (en tois pleiosin, v. 5) failed to obey their deity despite his abundant provision. The Johannine “Jews” replicate this pattern in John 6: though they received food in miraculous fashion, they demand additional signs before believing in Jesus (vv. 25–30), and the crowds and many of his own disciples—the majority of the discourse’s audience—reject him. The author’s reproduction of this pattern here also illuminates the long-noted puzzle of the crowd’s constituency in John 6:25ff. (Brown, 1966; Köstenberger, 2004). I conclude with reflections on the Johannine author and his use of his sources. “John” draws upon Paul’s creative intertextual associations while molding them in light of his own rhetorical aims and the needs of his narrative. One need not envision John as a slavish Pauline imitator to identify connections between his work and Paul’s (Keith, 2021). On the contrary, like Paul before him, John proves himself a keen interpreter and inventive adaptor of his sources.

Apocalyptic narratives have been studied extensively in their various historical contexts: Theologians and historians have investigated early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic narratives and their reception within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Scholars from the Humanities and the Social Sciences have examined later apocalyptic movements and traditions, and literature and media scholars have paid attention to various contemporary manifestations of apocalyptic motifs. Recently, a research team from Copenhagen and Aarhus (Jesper Høgenhaven, Melissa Sayyad Bach, and Armin W. Geertz) has developed an Embodied Cognition approach to End Time Narratives (ETNs). The use of this broader term (ETNs rather than “apocalyptic texts”) is deliberate. ETNs include a wide span of narratives from different historical, cultural, and religious contexts, depicting the catastrophic collapse of the (cosmic, social, and/or moral) world order. We have created a neurocognitive model tailored to the analysis of ETNs. The model focuses on ETNs’ their potential effects on recipients. The underlying hypothesis is that certain features of the narrative structure and design of ETNs that are apt to elicit specific bodily, emotional, and mental reactions. In order to elicit the potential effects of the passage, we apply an Enactive Reading approach, searching for textual cues that are apt to prompt neurocognitive mechanisms in the recipients. We believe that our model has potential to unlock the texts on this fundamental level, and that using the model can sharpen and refine our abilities to detect those features in the narratives that are most likely to impact recipients. This paper will explore how the model can be applied to narratives with an apocalyptic worldview, focusing on selected passages from Visions of Amram and the Aramaic Levi Document as test cases. Jesper Høgenhaven Professor of the Old Testament at the Faculty of Theology, the University of Copenhagen (2007-) and Principal Investigator on AMRAM (Apocalypticism: Manuscripts, Rewriting, and Authority Management at Qumran), 3 years research project funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark (2021-). Has published extensively on prophetic texts in the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Recently published: Høgenhaven, Jesper. 2020. The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 132. Leiden: Brill.  

In this paper, I show how Paul’s portrayal of porneia in 1 Cor 5–7 participates in his rhetoric of Romanormativity—a rhetoric I have established pervades Romans (Hoke 2021) and 1 Thessalonians 4–5 (Hoke 2019). Scholars (e.g., Reno 2021, Wheeler-Reed & Knust 2018, and Marchal 2023) have established how Paul’s use and condemnation of porneia aligns with Roman sexual norms, especially in terms of self-control (egkrateia). I continue to analyze Paul’s use of porneia alongside these Roman sexual norms that, in addition to self-control, also pivot around axes of agency and penetration (“Romosexuality”). I argue that Paul’s urgent pleas to dissociate from porneia align with Roman norms in ways that continue his theological portrayal of Christ-followers as better Romans than other foreigners—as seen in his racialized association of porneia with ethnē in 1 Cor 5:1 (cf. 1 Thess 4:3). In mapping Paul’s rhetoric of porneia in terms of his wider Romanormativity, I compare ancient rhetoric of porneia with contemporary discussions of “slut shaming.” Reno (2021) shows how first-century writers used porneia as a metonymy for sexual incontinence. This is, I argue, akin to how, today, terms like “slut” have become derogative for not only sex work, specifically, but also any “promiscuous” sexual behavior, most of which deviates from contemporary white cisheteropatriarchal norms. This means that, when used pejoratively, the term is disproportionately applied to women and queer folks. Through this comparison, I home in on how Paul’s use of porneia participates in the wider slut-shaming discourse of Roman imperialism in order to craft Christ-followers as Romanormative—i.e., morally superior Romans vis-à-vis those “slutty” (porneia-practicing) Others. But what about the so-called “sluts” whom Paul shames and silences? Drawing from contemporary queer and feminist reappropriations of the term (and acknowledging important contestations and complications around reclaiming terms like “slut”), I search for the not-so-silent sluts around Corinth: the queer wo/men whose sexual practices, ethics, and theologies Paul contests. I draw upon Levin-Richardson’s (2019) work on the agency of enslaved sex workers in Pompeii’s purpose-built brothel, as well as Hartman’s (2019) suggestion that porneia might be a “feature” of queer Corinthian theology and Marchal’s (2023) discussion of “willful and wayward” wo/men in Corinth. In decentering Paul and centering queer wo/men, I insist that how we talk about both the vilification and the agency of folks associated with porneia matters in era that persistently slut-shames the queerest of wo/men.

The ratification of the Sinai covenant in Exodus 24:3-8 contains a ritual with no clear parallel. Most central, and confusing, to this rite is the use of “covenant-blood” (דם הברית, dam-habbərît) and its sprinkling on the Israelites. Interpretations are typically monovalent and conclude that the blood ritual either imputes holiness (Nicholson), formalizes a conditional father-son relationship (Hahn), or is a ritualized self-imprecation akin to Genesis 15 (Milgrom). Unfortunately, these interpretations either neglect the symbolism associated with the specific sacrifices or fail to account for the rite's meaning in its narrative context. To bridge that interpretive gap this paper undertakes a ritual analysis of Exodus 24:3-8 to determine the function and theological meaning of three key features in the rite. These features are (1) the Sinai covenant, (2) blood, (3) the burnt offering and the fellowship offering. This paper concludes by interpreting the blood ritual of Exodus 24:3-8 in the narrative context of the Pentateuch.

The function of mouth-washing in Mesopotamian rituals has been broadly recognized as pertinent to the purification of the prophet’s lips in Isa 6. Comparative studies like that of Victor Hurowitz have focused on Isaiah’s vision in relation to extispicy performed by bārû-priests for discerning divine judgments. The implications of this relationship are significant to the judicial discourses and the role of knowledge throughout the canonical text of Isaiah. Considering relevant comparative material while maintaining focus on the function of purification in Isa 6 highlights a different but equally pertinent aspect of Isaiah’s vision. The role of purification within the narrative framing of the vision calls attention to the importance of sense-organs. The setting of the heavenly temple highlights the impurity of the prophet and his people (vv. 1-3), while the purification of the prophet establishes his eligibility to listen and speak within the heavenly court (vv. 4-7). Though these two elements are commonly recognized, it has been overlooked that the commission received by the prophet suggests a relationship between impurity and dysfunctional sense-organs (vv. 8-13). In both the Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamian literature, ritual purification is a means of enabling a relationship between mundane and heavenly objects or creatures. Prominent examples of this include the purification of bārû-priests prior to divination or mīs pî/pīt pî performed by ašipu-priests to divinize cult statues. Purification rituals are a means of reclassification for cultic function (i.e., consecration) to bring the heavenly and the mundane into relation, and the purification of Isaiah’s lips is no exception. Isaiah’s cleansing constitutes his classification as an agent of the heavenly court, enabling him to listen to and speak before Adonai as well as to report the divine judgement to the people. This decree shifts attention from the prophet’s ability to the insufficiency of the people’s sense-organs. While the uncomfortable imperative to disrupt the understanding of the people is of concern, one must not overlook that the prophet is to accomplish this task by obscuring their senses or forget the prophet’s recognition of the people’s unclean lips. There is strong precedent in Mesopotamian material for associating mouth-purity with active sense-organs, especially in the Ninevite and Babylonian mīs pî/pīt pî ritual texts and related incantations. The relationship between the prophet’s mouth-purity and his ability to listen and speak within the heavenly court suggests a connection between the people’s impure lips and their inability to see, hear, and understand. Further, the dynamics of mouth-purity and sensory function evidenced in both Isa 6 and mīs pî/pīt pî rituals have significant implications for interpreting other portions of the canonical text, especially the idol polemic of Isaiah 40-48.

When Jesus and his disciples gather for a final meal in Mark 14, Jesus uses this meal as an occasion to make several pronouncements. The first of these is that one of those who is eating with him will hand him over. The reason or motivation of this person is not specified, but the fact that it is one of the Twelve is emphasized (14:20). Then, Jesus says, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to the one by whom the Son of Man is handed over! It would have been better for this one never to have been born” (14:21). This statement pairs two central themes of Mark’s passion narrative: the writings of scripture and Jesus’s role as a prophet, in this case, pronouncing “woe” on the one who hands him over. This paper examines the interplay of both prophetic and scriptural witness to articulate better the impact of both on Mark’s theology, and particularly the portrayal of Jesus and Judas.

Typically, biblical scholars’ interest in ancient New Testament manuscripts focuses on reconstructing ancient texts and placing manuscripts in their earliest book-historical contexts. However, Thomas Ingmire and David Annwn’s “Against the Odds” artist book captures one biblical manuscript’s aesthetic potency. The book focuses on the St. John’s Fragment (P52), which contains portions of John 18:31-33 and 37-38. Since the 1930s, this fragment has been famed as the earliest extant New Testament manuscript, often dated to the first half of the second century. This fragment, then, is often caught up in discourses which legitimize the Bible’s historicity and authenticity. In their book, however, Welsh poet David Annwn’s verses wondering at the papyrus and calligrapher Thomas Ingmire’s creative recreation of the fragment combine to create a different kind of awe: a poetic reflection on the fragility of this papyrus’s survival. Ingmire and Annwn certainly do evoke a sense of wonder at the antiquity of this manuscript, its temporal proximity to Jesus, and its possible role in authenticating the historicity of earliest Christian traditions. Yet even as the fragment offers a glimpse into history, they remind us how much knowledge is lost and how much guesswork goes into historical reconstruction. Annwn’s lyrics speak of the suspected syntax, the reconstructed writing, which any scholar of the fragment must engage. Ingmire begins the book with a drawing of the Greek text, reminding most readers of the most basic gap between contemporary believers and this fragment: the language barrier. “Against the Odds” emphasizes the gaps in knowledge lying between this fragment and today’s sanitized English printed Bibles which do not convey the interpretive choices of translation, the hypotheses underlying critical Greek editions, the strangeness and ignorance of the ancient text which should elicit humility from readers. Yet their manuscript trades one form of awe for another. Annwn and Ingmire are not interested in how this papyrus can prove a theological agenda of Gospel authenticity, but they are interested in the fragment itself: its anonymous scribe, his trained script, his sharpened reed. As David Parker, Larry Hurtado, Jennifer Knust, and other New Testament textual scholars have suggested, biblical manuscripts themselves tell their own stories, as do the fortuitous chains of events which lead them to arrive in our century intact. Rather than speaking with Jesus through the fragment, Ingmire and Annwn speak to the fragment itself, and to its scribe. If theologically, as John affirms, “in the beginning was the Word,” Ingmire and Annwn remind us that historically, in the beginning were the words, words penned by scribes on bits of papyrus.

Like James Lang describes in his work Small Teaching, I used to think teaching small components of a larger assignment throughout a large segment of a semester was solid pedagogy. As an instructor, I could envision the final product and deliberately walked my students through each step of an exegesis paper in a biblical interpretation course. Even textbooks tend to facilitate preparation for literary marathon running rather than discussing multiple literary running events in terms of application. Whereas such an approach aligned with my course objectives, this was not the best way to provide my students with frequent feedback and opportunities to hone their skills. I adapted my course syllabi to provide my students with ample opportunities for practice. This meant rethinking assignments and assessments. In this presentation, I will discuss adjustments made in course design for a biblical interpretation course, share course materials, and present student feedback. Takeaways will include suggestions for implementing practice in a variety of courses.

Upon his appointment as bishop in c. 460CE, Faustus of Riez was faced with the difficult challenge of both forging an ecclesiastical history for the nascent see, while also justifying his presence as a non-native bishop. Faustus accomplishes these tasks, I argue, in part through the delivery of his De Sancto Maximo (Eus. Gal. Serm. 35), a sermon dedicated to the life and accomplishments of his recently deceased predecessor Maximus. The sermon is preserved as part of the Eusebius Gallicanus collection, an often overlooked and critically understudied “handbook” for Gallic preachers. Though some scholars (Bailey 2006, 2010; Leroy 1954) have produced work on the collection, this paper represents the first substantial study of Faustus’ use of scripture and broader rhetorical agenda in the De Sancto Maximo. The first section briefly situates the sermon in the historical and ecclesiastical milieu of Southern Gaul during the middle of the 5th century. As bishop of a nascent see, Faustus was forced to both construct an ecclesiastical tradition based purely off his and his immediate predecessor Maximus’ activities as well as justify his status as a foreigner from the island monastery at Lérins. The second, and most substantial, portion of the paper deals with Faustus’ manipulation of scripture and invocation of biblical precedent as a means of exculpation, both for himself and Maximus, as well as a means of solidifying the portrayal of Maximus as the holy founder of the see of Riez. Through comparisons with the Old Testament patriarchs, Faustus finds justification for both his and Maximus’ status as foreigners as well as their individual acts of abandonment. The itinerant stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, provide the ideal rhetorical opportunity for Faustus, who uses these figures both as scriptural precedent for his own flight as well as a biblical model for the familial connection Faustus draws between himself, Maximus, and the broader religious community of Riez. Similarly, through allusions to the Gospel of Matthew, Faustus equivocates Peter and Maximus as holy men who establish their respective first churches, a notion corroborated by archaeological work at the city (Borgard 2014). The third section turns from rhetoric as a means of exculpation to rhetoric as a means of canonization. Falling in line with the recent work of Fruchtman (2023), this paper argues that, despite the absence of miracles in the narrative, Faustus argues for the canonization of the “martyr” Maximus, drawing both on scriptural precedent as well as broader hagiographical tropes and diction. Such analyses illuminate the deeply embedded rhetorical techniques interwoven in the De Sancto Maximo, highlighting both the pragmatic challenges of forging a nascent see as well as potential anxieties between a foreign bishop and his now local religious community.

Isaiah 65:17-25 envisions the new Jerusalem as a place where “[t]hey will build houses and live in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit” (Isa 65:21). This same poetic pairing of building/planting and living/eating recurs throughout many prophetic books. To build a house and live in it, or to plant a vineyard and eat its fruit, indicates settledness and safety, particularly for a people who have experienced displacement and conquest. To do the work of building and planting without enjoying their results is a sign of curse—one that appears, for example, in curse formulations in the book of Deuteronomy, as well as in the book of Amos, where the wealthy who have exploited the poor will find that they are unable to enjoy the things they have worked to acquire. This paper will argue that the phrase “to build houses and live in them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit” is a metonym for the ethics of work reflected across the Hebrew Bible. The poetic couplet evokes both a shared memory of enslavement and the looming specter of military defeat in order to craft a vision for a just labor economy in which people’s work is expended toward their own flourishing and toward the flourishing of their communities. Far from being an “every man for himself” approach to productivity, which assumes that one must work in order to flourish, the recurring poetic phrase emphasizes that workers—both individually and collectively—should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In this framework, the practices of work and sabbath can be equally accessible to both the wealthy and the poor, providing a shared foundation for economic justice. The paper will trace the appearances of the “build houses and live in them” couplets in the Hebrew Bible, giving particular attention to the metaphorical fields and poetic contexts with which the phrase interacts, as well as to the moments in ancient Israelite history reflected in those appearances. The result is a broadly consistent—though not thoroughly systematic—biblical vision of just labor for rich and poor alike.

This proposed paper applies the concept of narrative focalization to reconcile and consolidate the micro-narratives found in Galatians 3:13-14 and 4:3-6, as famously analyzed by Richard B. Hays. Despite previous debate concerning whether these passages contain seemingly distinct and contradictory narratives within the broader context of Paul's epistle, my paper seeks to demonstrate how a cognitive linguistic approach, specifically through the lens of narrative focalization, can offer a cohesive understanding of these passages. Narrative focalization, a term coined by Gerard Genette, refers to the perspective through which a narrative is presented. It encompasses who sees, who narrates, and from what vantage point the story is told. In the context of Galatians, applying this concept allows us to discern the underlying unity between the two micro-narratives, despite their apparent disparities. Galatians 3:13-14 speaks of Christ's redemptive act on the cross, emphasizing the blessing of Abraham extending to the Gentiles and the reception of the Spirit through faith. In contrast, Galatians 4:3-6 shifts focus to the theme of adoption as sons through God sending His Son and Spirit into our hearts, seemingly implying salvation through the sending of Christ rather than the death of Christ as in 3:13-14. The juxtaposition of these narratives raises questions about the continuity and coherence of Paul's theological argumentation. By analyzing the narrative focalization in these passages, my paper will argue that the apparent differences are a result of shifting viewpoints within the narrative structure. This approach allows us to appreciate the nuanced way in which Paul constructs his argument, using different facets of the same theological truth to address varied aspects of the Galatians' situation and concerns. Furthermore, this paper will explore how cognitive linguistics, particularly the study of viewpoint and perspective in narrative, can enrich our understanding of biblical texts. By examining how focalization shapes the reader's perception of the narrative, we gain insights into the rhetorical strategies employed by biblical authors. In conclusion, this paper proposes that a cognitive linguistic approach to narrative focalization provides a valuable framework for reconciling and unifying the micro-narratives in Galatians. This perspective not only resolves the apparent contradictions between Galatians 3:13-14 and 4:3-6 but also offers a deeper understanding of Paul's theological intentions and rhetorical skill.

As Ulysses responds to the epic tradition, Luke-Acts responds to the Isaianic tradition, engaging through its characters in an extended conversation with the prophet. In the course of this exchange, the narrator of Luke-Acts creatively recontextualizes the prophet, both transferring and transforming Isaiah’s message to further his own grand epic concerning “a light to the Gentiles” (Isa 42:6; 49:6 in Lk 2:32 and Acts 13:47). This paper will probe two very different scenes in this two-volume work, Jesus reading Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth (Lk 4:16-30) and the Eunuch reading Isaiah on the desolate road (Acts 8:26-40). The goal will be to showcase the narrator’s intertextual appropriation of the prophet while also demonstrating the *intra*textual value of juxtaposing these two dissimilar but mutually illuminating episodes. Employing a literary-critical analysis of Luke-Acts, this paper will first situate the story of the Eunuch narratologically, discussing the author’s nuanced characterization as well as his manner of guiding the reader, through an intradiegetic embedded narrative; a story within the story. The strategy of embedding a story within a story is a common narrative technique referred to as “framing.” The embedded story may be a complete narrative or a story fragment, a “micronarrative” without a developed plot. The inner story generally illuminates characters or events in the outer story through symbolic representation, analogy, or contrast. Significant for this study, the story of Jesus reading Isaiah in Nazareth and the Eunuch reading Isaiah on the desolate road represent the only instances in Luke-Acts of a character within the story reading a story. In the scene in Nazareth, the reader (Jesus) implies that the story he is reading refers to himself. The parallels (to be discussed) between Jesus reading in the synagogue and the eunuch reading on the desolate road suggest that the storyteller of Luke-Acts is pursuing a similar course in both, making Luke 4 paradigmatic for Acts 8. These texts offer a model for how this storyteller deploys embedded narratives and deepens our understanding of intertextuality in Luke-Acts.

The Catholic epistles have consistently been mined for information about the historical Jesus. Since the rise of Social Memory Theory in Biblical Scholarship, this trend has seen new impulses and a renewed quest for eyewitness memory, testimony, and, in turn, the defense of the authenticity of the letters. The paper will show that memory theory allows for a broader approach than historical questions. Building on the insights of Huebenthal's "Gedächtnistheorie und Neues Testament" (2022) it will use examples from different letters and show how the letters can fruitfully be read as memory texts from the third and fourth generation of early Christianity and how they make use of particular characteristics of social and collective memory and bridge the Floating Gap in order to connect to the founding events of Christianity and thus provide a stable tradition for Christian identity construction(s) in their respective times and contexts.

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) is one of the nineteenth-century women whose innovative interpretations of Gen 1–3 challenged traditional views of Eve, women’s roles, and God. Eddy drew on Eve’s example in Gen 3:13 to empower women in ministry. She commended rather than condemned Eve. Two decades before Elizabeth Cady Stanton challenged both the subordination of women and conceptions of God as solely masculine in her comments on Gen 1:26–28 in “The Woman’s Bible” (1895), Eddy did so in her chapter titled “Creation” in the first edition of “Science and Health” (1875). From the third through the fifteenth editions (1881–1885), Eddy employed feminine pronouns for Spirit in her interpretation of Gen 1. References to the image of God (Gen 1:26–27) pervaded Eddy’s preaching, teaching, and writing. In her correspondence, she highlighted this theme to challenge slavery, inspire, comfort, and heal. Aspects of Eddy’s interpretation of Gen 1–3 paralleled the exegesis of other women biblical interpreters. A comparative analysis of the interpretations of Gen 1–3 by Eddy, her childhood pastors, and other nineteenth-century women demonstrates that what most distinguishes Eddy’s exegesis of these creation texts is her interpretation of Gen 1:26–27 through the lens of John 4:24 as a foundation for Christian healing. This paper explores Eddy’s interpretation of Gen 1–3 in her correspondence, Genesis manuscript, editions of and edits to “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” and additional writings. I analyze Eddy’s exegesis within the history of interpretation of Genesis in the nineteenth century, including her references to source criticism, scientific discovery, and social reform. I draw on archival materials from The Mary Baker Eddy Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, New Hampshire Historical Society, Longyear Museum, Harvard Divinity School Library, and Congregational Library and Archives to illumine and contextualize Eddy’s interpretation of Gen 1–3.

Biblical theology as such was conceived and primarily practiced by Protestants and did not strongly feature in Catholic scholarship for reasons historical and dogmatic. Recently, biblical theology has entered the mainstream of Catholic publishing in America. I compare this movement with Evangelical biblical theology, with which it shares much in common, and with the 20th-century ressourcement theology, which provides its theological warrant if not its theory or methods. I present some specific problems in this movement which illustrate the methodological problems inherent in biblical theology more broadly.

Much research has been conducted regarding πίστις; however, it seems little directed effort has been dedicated to analyzing the explicit lack of πίστις. Mark uses the term ἀπιστία to describe the unbelief of both Jesus’s opponents and his followers in his narrative, begging the question of whether belief allows room for unbelief. Through this study, I combine Teresa Morgan’s definition of πίστις as ‘relationship’ (Roman Faith and Christian Faith, 2015) and the argument of Bruce Malina and others that Mark presents Jesus’ use of πίστις in the context of patronage relationships, then apply this lens to the Markan passages addressing ἀπιστία to determine the distinctions between the ἀπιστία of the two groups. I discover that while Jesus’s followers have already recognized their powerlessness and established πίστις relationships of patronage with Jesus, his opponents continuously refuse to relinquish their own power and authority in order to do so. Within their πίστις relationships, his followers are able to wrestle with the doubt, fear, and misunderstanding stemming from their ἀπιστία without being rejected. Alternatively, Jesus’s opponents refuse to enter into a πίστις relationship of patronage with Jesus, eventually leading to their ultimate display of ἀπιστία––humiliating Jesus through his trial and crucifixion to secure their own power and authority.

The paper will discuss the dating of 2 Peter with a special focus on parallels between 2 Peter and several second-century apologetical texts, especially the Kerygma Petri and the Apology of Aristides.

The Gospel of Peter, a second-century text found at Akhmim, Egypt, in 1886-1887, details Jesus’s trial, death, and resurrection with surprising new narrative details. Before its discovery, Eusebius mentions the Gospel of Peter’s docetic nature in his Ecclesiastical History (6.12). In this text, Eusebius rejects the Gospel of Peter as acceptable scripture for liturgical settings. In addition to including potentially docetic elements, the author of the Gospel of Peter makes numerous changes to Jesus’s passion narratives seen in the canonical accounts. Peter rewords Jesus’s cry from the cross (v. 19), includes witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection (v. 35-36), and describes a giant, talking cross accompanying Jesus during his resurrection appearance (v. 39). In addition, Peter heightens the miraculous elements of Jesus’s resurrection and the anti-Jewish rhetoric in this narrative. Although numerous scholars have successfully shown that the Gospel of Peter displays increased anti-Jewish rhetoric, many have not discussed how Peter accomplishes this affectively and rhetorically. Instead, an affective-rhetorical analysis of Peter’s passion narrative illustrates that grief is the proper reception of Jesus’s death and resurrection, and the Jews, by enacting and threatening physical violence, prevent Jesus’s disciples from appropriately responding to his death and resurrection. Peter accomplishes this by re-characterizing Pilate as a protector from, rather than a perpetrator of, violence. Peter juxtaposes misdirected fear with appropriate grief and distress to demonstrate that fear should be directed towards the Jews while grief is the appropriate response to Jesus’s death and resurrection. In this paper, I briefly define my affective-rhetorical framework and discuss Peter’s familiarity with the canonical passion narratives. I next explore how an inclusio highlights Pilate’s role as a protector. I examine how Peter employs irony and fear to indict the Jews for Jesus’s death and for preventing Jesus’s disciples from mourning. Finally, I illustrate that Peter uses grief to display the proper reception of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research.

Early Christians ritualized marriage, particularly the marital sexual relation. And yet, scholarship on early Christianity has tended to come to the opposite conclusion and instead emphasize only a small fraction of “heretical” Christians ritualized sex, even of the marital variety. This conclusion has been fueled by the disciplinary division which separates the “gnostic” and “heretical” texts of the Nag Hammadi codices into the relatively isolated subfields of Nag Hammadi Studies or Gnostic Studies. This scholarly division has had a detrimental impact on the study of early Christian marriage. For example, the Gospel of Philip, despite its clearly ritualized nuptial and sexual language, has been excluded from studies on “orthodox” Christian marriage. And this gospel’s exclusion from studies on Christian marriage has helped further the misconception that the ritualization of marriage and marital sex was not part of the process by which “respectable” Christians came to Christianize marriage within the first three centuries of Christianity. And yet, scholars of early Christian marriage cannot entirely be blamed for the Gospel of Philip’s exclusion from their studies of Christian marital practices. Afterall, Nag Hammadi scholars have concluded that the highly ritualized marital and sexual imagery in the Gospel of Philip is nothing more than metaphor. In many instances, this has served as a well-intentioned attempt by Nag Hammadi scholars to protect the Gospel of Philip from being identified as a “sexually deviant” text of the variety that only exists in the exaggerated accounts of the heresiologists. Because again, after all, scholars of Christian marriage and sex have concluded that well-behaved, “orthodox” Christians never engaged in the ritualization of sex, even within the bond of marriage. This situation has resulted in a type of circular impasse in which research on the ritualization Christian marriage and sex can only be advanced by eschewing the categorical division of heresy and orthodox. This paper addresses some of the challenges that I have encountered in adapting this methodological approach, while also highlighting how it has helped me to uncover that Christians of all varieties (ex. Tertullian, Clement, Novatian, Gospel of Philip, etc.) not only advocated for the ritualization of marriage (including sex), but actually saw it as a key to their efforts to Christianize marriage.

God as a Divine Warrior is a well-known motif within the ancient world and Israel’s Scriptures. In numerous places, YHWH is depicted similarly to other deities, namely as a storm god and a well-armed, conquering warrior who inflicts destruction on the enemies of their worshipers. Psalm 18 (along with its parallel in 2 Samuel 22) is a fitting example wherein the psalmist formulates his praise of YHWH using the divine warrior motif. There is, however, a strange description of YHWH that seemingly departs from this motif: “your gentleness made me great” (Ps. 18:35 ESV). For ‘gentleness, the MT reads Wəʿanwat̲k̲ā (וְעַנְוַתְךָ), whose apparent root is from either ʿnh–III orʿnw meaning to be afflicted or poor. Elsewhere the nominal form means humility or meekness (e.g., Prov. 15:33; 18:12; 22:4; Zeph 2:3). The parallel passage in 2 Sam 22:36 reads Waʿănōt̲ək̲ā (וַעֲנֹתְךָ), a Qal infinitive construct fromʿnw–I which can mean “to answer.” Thus, the NIV’s translation of “your help” relies on this understanding, suggesting that YHWH’s answer or response to the psalmist’s cries has made him great. Yet, the ancient versions of both passages attest to no fewer than nine different renderings. The problem is only exacerbated when looking at the diverse translations in the secondary literature. Drawing on a range of examples from Israel’s Scriptures and other ancient Near Eastern texts, I suggest that this text-critical issue is better understood as an interpretive problem that wrestles with the apparent incongruity between humility/meekness and the martial power of a divine warrior. I will argue that rather than an aberration, humility and meekness are essential attributes to YHWH’s depiction as a divine warrior.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

During the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Baylonian eras, Aramaic remained mostly restricted as lingua franca to an elite group of learned scribes and diplomats. Only later, in the Persian era, was Aramaic gradually adopted by all classes of certain population groups within the vast Persian empire. Other groups and regions, however, were more resistant to the imposition of Aramaic. The proposed paper examines different socio-historical factors that either favored the widespread adoption of Aramaic or hindered this process. The question is investigated on the basis of the private letters from Hermopolis, letters and contracts from Elephantine, manuscripts from Wadi Daliyeh, inscriptions from Gerizim and biblical texts (in particular, Ezra and Nehemiah).

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

Bible translators have offered a close approximation of the meaning of biblical passages in alternative versions and languages. However, the challenge of accurately translating a text and conveying the original meaning to another language is exemplified in biblical translated versions. This is because translations have historically been conducted within the confines of cultural and social norms as well as hierarchical power dynamics that have influenced interpretations, particularly in Africa. By highlighting the challenge of translation and colonial ideologies of supremacy in the King James translation of the Bible (the most popular version in Africa), this paper aims to explore the Greek word “ἐθνικός in Galatians 1:16” in the King James Version which is translated as ‘heathen’ instead of “people of the land” or “the indigenous people.” Next, the paper will examine how this kind of translation and understanding became incorporated into African Bible translations, particularly the Hausa Bible translation. In other words, the paper argues that the impact of this translation and the reinforcement of colonial ideologies of supremacy is evident in African Bible translations and among African people. Additionally, such translations and misinterpretations of biblical texts mislead the understanding of power in African Christianity. Even though the primary goal of Bible translation seems to be conversion, the process of Bible translation fulfilled the ideology of Euro-Western colonization, power dynamics, and the politics of domination and hierarchy. In conclusion, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on decolonization, cultural identity, and linguistic integrity in Africa.

Numerous theories endeavor to elucidate the origins and perpetuation of poverty within the early Roman Empire. Yet, these theories often overlook the integral role of the belief systems held by both the affluent and the impoverished. Such belief systems serve as linchpins in perpetuating the socioeconomic disparities characteristic of the era. According to New Institutional Economic (NIE) theory, the formal mechanisms governing resource allocation necessitate the accompaniment of informal rules, including values and norms, to sustain the prevailing system. Under the dual influences of formal and informal rules, individuals' belief systems undergo profound alterations. This paper endeavors to shed light on how the integration of cognitive science within Douglass North's NIE model, utilizing socio-rhetorical interpretation (SRI) as an analytical framework, can enrich our understanding of belief systems prevalent in the early Roman Empire. Comprising two main sections, the paper first explores how cognitive science illuminates the impact of both formal and informal rules of the Roman economy on belief systems. Subsequently, various texts from the Gospel of Luke pertaining to individuals of differing socioeconomic strata serve as illustrative examples in this analysis.

A response to James Maxey by a scholar of Biblical Performance Criticism.

In the mid-twentieth century, “creativity” as an idea was born in the field of psychology. In 1950, the President of the American Psychological Association, J. P. Guilford, gave a keynote address with a now-famous call for research into creativity, which he defined as “the abilities that are most characteristic of creative people.” He posed the idea of creativity as a problem of personality and individual characteristics, which set the stage for generations of research that focus on the brains and habits of creative individuals. Such formulations of “creativity” have historically been exclusive by gender and other dimensions of social location, often privileging individual men of certain status. How do we theorize or counter-theorize creativity for ancient contexts and texts, especially for a body of literature that privileges community and tradition? Because creativity is not explicitly theorized by these texts, this paper probes literary images and metaphors for verbal and aesthetic production to establish a range of conceptual models, paying particular attention to the poetry of the psalms.

In the historiography of the Hebrew Bible, Canaanites have often been relegated to the background, serving as an auxiliary to ancient Israel and Judah. While scholarly discussions on Canaanites have shifted to recognizing Israel’s shared “Canaanite” past (Smith 2002), a “culture-historical paradigm,” as practiced in archaeology, continues to produce a Canaanite Other in relation to other named groups in the ancient Levant. The significant challenges of identifying nameless material remains necessitate coming to terms with the literature and other textual records that inform the minds of those who label the artifacts. This, in turn, creates an “interpretive inheritance” that will accommodate a particular definition of a certain named identity in ethnic terms or otherwise (Sherratt 2005). Yet, just as the meaning of “Israel” continued to evolve in ancient historiography, the question of what defines Canaanite defies a singular answer. Drawing on field studies at three museums that exhibit material objects carrying a Canaanite label or description in public display, this paper analyzes emerging discourses in historicizing Canaanites. This analysis considers what medieval historian Patrick Geary called the “double subjectivity” of the observer and the observed in social sciences (Geary 2015). The museums studied include the Ancient Levant Gallary of the British Museum, the Levant Gallary of the Louvre, and the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The Judeans living on Elephantine in the 5th century BCE lived in a delicate balance of identity and social position. By ancestry, they were Judean: maintaining cultural connections to their homeland. By location, the community was Egyptian: living their entire lives in Egypt, owning property, and engaging in personal and business relationships with local Egyptians. By allegiance, the community was Persian: serving as a military garrison, protecting the central Persian government's interests at the empire's boundary, and receiving salaries and support from the Persian administration in exchange. Many studies of this community have tended to emphasize their connection to their Levantine homeland, but few have undertaken an analysis of the complex intersection of identities as being both Egyptian residents and Persian personnel. By engaging with the work of post-colonial theorists like Homi Bhaba and Stewart Hall as well as expanding on work regarding Judean identity in Egypt done by scholars like Karel Van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and others, this paper will explore the dynamic relationship between the Judean community at Elephantine and the three major cultures which shaped their existence. This paper will utilize a close examination of the primary textual evidence at Elephantine, primarily the Yedaniah Archive (TAD A4.1-10), to reconstruct a series of events at the end of the 5th century that demonstrate a shift in Judean identity to more closely reflect their Persian allegiance. This shift in identity sparked the ire of the local Egyptian population, leading to the destruction of the Judean military installation, including their temple to YHW. The confluence of identities at Judean Elephantine, and particularly the shift in the way they navigated those identities, gives insight both into the difficulties facing diasporic Judean communities in the Achaemenid period as well as into Persian relationships with minority groups in the administration of their vast empire.

Sociorhetorical interpretation (SRI) creates an interdisciplinary space in which an interpreter brings insights from multiple disciplines and approaches to examine textures of a given biblical text and to articulate its rhetorical force that emerge from the interplay of these textures. Using this sociorhetorical analytic, this paper aims to offer a new reading of 1 Timothy 3:1–7 especially by bringing three scholarly discussions that have not been brought together to interpret 1 Timothy 3. First, while ἐπίσκοπος is a common and malleable term for office (in a more political sense for a state or a social-organization sense for associations), a few New Testament interpreters have mentioned—in passing—the term’s possible connotations of financial supervision. Second, numismatists and historians of Greek and Roman antiquity have pointed out that the genitive participle ἐπιμεληθέντος is among the technical formulae in coins and inscriptions from Roman provinces that could indicate the person in charge of funding and executing the production, although the use of this verb in New Testament writings does not usually draw the historians’ attention. Third, there are New Testament scholars who have developed sophisticated methodology in studying numismatics to broaden and enrich Greek lexicography, whereas these terms (ἐπίσκοπος and ἐπιμελέομαι) have not been extensively discussed yet. In exploring textures of 1 Timothy 3:1–7 in light of the convergence of these three scholarly discourses, this paper does not claim that this is the only correct reading of 1 Timothy 3, or that the overseers of this cultic association in Ephesus actually participated in the production of provincial coins. This study rather opens up new ways to appreciate the text’s rhetorical force, fully considering the semantic possibilities of ἐπίσκοπος and ἐπιμελέομαι, as well as the rich social intertexture and rhetography of the passage.

Shame. Simply encountering the word can elicit embodied and emotional reactions. Affect theory invites us to attune to the forces of relationality that shape the world, and that includes emotions. In this presentation, I explore shame at work in, around, and through the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11. Working with Sara Ahmed’s social "sociality of emotions" model (Ahmed 2014), I ask how shame circulates within the narrative and consider how it produces social boundaries that might appear stable or essential. Following Joseph Marchal (Black and Koosed 2019), I move from narrative to interpretive world to tease out the subtle or sometimes silent role shame may play in readers’ work. Particularly, I consider how shame may operate for queer readers of biblical texts and explore hermeneutical possibilities for such readers. Here I turn to Eve Sedgwick (2003) to examine the affective potentialities of her paranoid and reparative reading strategies for biblical interpretation from the margins.

Many have noted that Malachi is a book marked by cultic and covenantal language. However, Malachi is also marked by familial and domestic language, often in surprising sections of the book. For example, the dispute in Mal 1:6-2:9 appears centered on cultic malpractice surrounding priests and their defiled offerings. However, this indictment is situated within the operating metaphor of familial hierarchy: This illicit cultic activity is repugnant to God because God is the “head of household” (patron?) who has had honor stolen by subordinates, honor that was stolen through a lack of care and prestige in sacrificial materials, sacrificial materials that may be attached to some degree of feasting. That is to say, has something been missed in too narrowly focusing on this indictment’s “cultic” aspects at the expense of mapping the broader social implications surrounding the ameliorated foodstuffs of this infraction? This investigation begins by suggesting the grounds for such questioning lay in what is absent in this indictment. Malachi is also noted for its use of, or allusion to, other traditions in the Hebrew Scriptures, a fact demonstrated by Jonathan Gibson’s Covenant Continuity and Fidelity: A Study of Inner-biblical Allusion and Exegesis in Malachi. One wonders, then, why this dispute fails to mention the illicit cultic activity of Aaron’s sons in Lev. 10:11-13. Put differently: If cultic fidelity was the singular focus of this indictment, why would a book known for its use of Pentateuchal traditions, a book concerned with the cultic fidelity of Aaronic and Levitical priests, a book loaded with familial and covenantal language, not include the story of Aaron’s sons offering illegitimate sacrificial materials within a section about cultic practice involving sacrifice and fire at the Lord’s “temple?” Instead, this indictment appears to allude to the sacrifice of the firstborn animals found in Deut. 15:19-23, a section involving (lesser) communal feasting. What follows will be a treatment of this indictment of cultic impurity with an eye to the role of food and feasting. What would it mean for the social fabric of these beleaguered, post-exilic, people to offer sub-optimal butchery for their offerings? What sort of theological change occurs when seeing God as the patron, and thus the one receiving the gifts of the subordinates and the one responsible for an abundant setting, of this lackluster feast? Are these two things working in tandem in this indictment to catalyze a more fully baked national identity in post-exilic Jehud?

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

In many Christian traditions, the Apostle Paul becomes more authoritative than Jesus. Paul’s teachings on sexuality, care for (restricting/denying) self, and care for (policing) others become muddled with other writings attributed to him. This paper examines Paul against Paul and Paul against Jesus to consider how to engage reproductive justice conversations with those who would refute them by citing other proof texts, especially those attributed to Paul’s restrictive writings. More importantly, this paper will propose how to provide safe and caring spaces where people can make decisions about their own bodies without the judgement so often associated with Pauline texts. To pit Paul against Paul, this paper will be deeply grounded in the lens of Christ as described in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Social Statement on Sexism: “When scriptural passages are unclear or even contradictory, this Lutheran reading suggests that Christ, as God’s gift of forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life, is the lens through which such passages are to be read.” This notion of using Christ’s love and grace as the lens to read Pauline passages aids individuals to consider what flourishing and abundant life means for themselves and their bodies. In the face of rising Christian nationalism and restrictive reproductive policies, it is important for people to consider what reproductive justice can mean for them and that reproductive justice can be a positive notion in a landscape filled with judgmental language, including language attributed to Paul. In reading both helpful and harmful language from Paul, it is essential to interpret these writings through the lens of Christ, especially in regards to Romans 8:38-39. One of the most liberating words a person can hear in making choices for themselves, their families, and their own bodies is, “Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Josephus's works are virtually our only source describing a number of flesh-and-blood messiah and prophet figures in the first century CE. Scholarship frequently notes how these popular figures act in ways that "rhyme" with figures in ancient Israel's past (Horsley 1987; Allison 1999; Mason 2000). For instance, the prophet Theudas claims he will part the waters of the Jordan before taking back Judea from Rome, a "sign" modeled on the exodus and conquest traditions of Moses and Joshua (Ant. 2.97). A longstanding question, however, is whether these figures performed their social identities in ways that would align with Israel's past heroes, or if this is simply a rhetorical invention on the part of Josephus. This paper reexamines the links between these leaders of popular movements and Israel's past heroes. In so doing, I also aim to reexamine the lines between historiography and lived history. My contention is that, though Josephus does indeed narrativize his messianic and prophetic characters according to scriptural tropes, their actions may nonetheless have their basis in lived history, since Josephus's primarily Roman audience would be unlikely to pick up on these allusions. I begin by examining the instances of historical "scripting" in Josephus, and by noting a pattern: upstart messiah figures generally modeled their careers on David, and sign prophets on Moses. I then zero in on three episodes that have heretofore escaped notice and point away from being Josephan creations; that is, they would not have been created by Josephus because they are incongruous with the above pattern. For instance, Theudas's beheading by the Romans matches the script of the David-Goliath episode rather than the Moses cycle. I conclude by reflecting on how Josephus blurs the lines between fiction and historiography. The upshot is that, though Josephus shapes these figures as impersonators of Israel's past heroes, the resonances between the messianic and prophetic figures are more probably instances of life imitating art, rather than the inverse--they are indeed stranger than fiction.

Despite centuries of exegetical engagement, interpretation of Paul’s thorn remains a contentious debate. This paper brings Paul’s infamous thorn into conversation with Jewish apocalyptic writings, presenting a reading of Paul’s thorn as a malevolent cosmic force that has inserted itself into Paul and cohabitates within him alongside the spirit of Christ. I argue that Paul’s thorn is best understood as an experience of present suffering that he interprets from within his Jewish apocalyptic context, as illuminated by a particular set of Jewish apocalyptic writings (The Book of the Watchers, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, and The Treatise of the Two Spirits). I contend these works present three distinct perspectives on suffering. Here I employ a heuristic model to categorize these perspectives as Enochic, Adamic, and Deterministic, with Watchers, 4 Ezra/2 Baruch, and The Treatise as representative of these perspectives respectively. This paper therefore begins with a survey of these proposed perspectives and their relation to suffering, demonstrating that while Jewish apocalyptic perspectives are not univocal, they inextricably link human suffering to the presence of evil in the cosmos. Next, the paper offers a close reading of 2 Cor 12:7 that demonstrates where these three apocalyptic perspectives emerge in Paul’s account of suffering the thorn. While one’s interpretive choices tend forefront some more prominently than others this need not be the case, as it is possible—and indeed preferable—to allow space for multiple apocalyptic perspective to exist, even if in tension with one another. Ultimately, this paper considers a blend of the Enochic and the Deterministic traditions to be the most prominent in 2 Cor 12:7 and arguing that in this framework, Paul characterizes his thorn as a malevolent cosmic force that cohabitates within him alongside the spirit of Christ, causing suffering in the present time.

It has become a scholarly cliché that one of the major discontinuities distinguishing the earliest strata of the Jesus tradition from subsequent Christian reflection concerns the interminably embattled expression “Son of Man”, a title which—as the story goes—soon fades from view and becomes reduced to theological abstraction (referring merely to Christ’s humanity). This is only half true. Here I draw recent scholarship on the Son of Man in Daniel and its reception in early Judaism (Part I) into dialogue with the fourth-century writings of Tyconius of Carthage (Part II). Numerous scholars have argued that the figure of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 appears as a collective representative of the whole people of Israel. Daniel is, moreover, the Hebrew Bible’s first and only clear witness to an idea of post mortem vindication and exaltation that is irreducibly both individual and communal—in a word, to “resurrection”. In his recently reconstructed Exposition of the Apocalypse, Tyconius similarly interprets the Son of Man in Revelation as a corporate figure of the vindication and exaltation of all the suffering righteous, for whom the life of Jesus becomes preeminently representative. Furthermore, Tyconius’s reading of this Son of Man imagery profoundly influenced Augustine’s notion of the totus christus, suggesting, I argue, much deeper continuities than previously thought between early Jewish and early Christian ways of receiving the figure of the Son of Man as a locus for expressing human redemption at once personal, corporate, and stronger than death.

In recent years, Joshua 9 has been read in the light of settler colonialism, with the Gibeonites as indigenous people colonised by the Israelites as foreign invaders. While such a comparison is valuable for contextual interpretation and reader-response approaches, its use in historical-critical approaches obscures the narrative’s complex textual development and political historical context. As demonstrated by Christoph Berner, at the earlier layers of the text, the Gibeonites and Israelites are pictured as treaty allies, and only through later redaction do the Gibeonites become maligned subjugated servants. Additionally, while archaeologically we know there was little difference between the Israelites and Gibeonites both arising in Canaan, both experienced a long history of invasion and occupation by outside empires. So what initiated the change in narrative representation between these two groups? We propose recontextualising the development of Joshua 9 as itself a product of ancient West Asian imperialism, and in particular Persian-period imperial domination and administration. The portrayal of others’ subjugation is a tool of agency, as the Judean experience of Persian subjugation forms the context for the development of a text, which in turn portrays the subjugation of the Gibeonites by tribal Israel as an imperial power fantasy. We draw on Christoph Berner’s redaction-critical analysis of Josh 9, and locate ברית within its own conceptual development as part of the development of the text during the Persian period. From this, we problematise the straightforward equation of Gibeonites as indigenous and Israelites as foreign colonisers, but instead use postcolonial theories to interrogate the adoption and adaption of imperial ideology by dominated people groups over/against others under imperial hegemony. What was once a narrative describing local alliance becomes a buy-in to imperial power mechanisms through ideological othering and narrative subjugation. This reflects the renegotiation of overlapping group identities in the shifting social realities under different forms of imperial administration, between (pre?)exilic Judah and post-exilic Yehud. In summary, we locate Josh 9’s narrative in a more complex status as the product of Persian imperial domination, as well as reflecting imperial modes of power as a form of identity assertion.

“Nobody normal ever accomplished anything meaningful in this world.” Jonathan Byers’ words from the first episode of Stranger Things 2 are an effective summary of Netflix’s smash-hit show, but they just as successfully summarise the events of the canonical gospels. The story of a supernatural saviour figure in a cosmic battle against evil while supported by a group of friends from the social margins, the gospels have more in common with the plot of Stranger Things than may be immediately apparent. The purpose of this paper is not to argue that Stranger Things is a type of biblical reception, though. Rather, it makes the case that its biblical resonances allow Stranger Things to function as a new lens through which the content of these familiar accounts can be reconsidered. This paper explores the ways in which the experience of violence, grief, and trauma under patriarchy is exemplified in Stranger Things and the Gospels. It argues that the parallel characterizations of Max Mayfield and Mary Magdalene offer an illuminating case study for exploring the social and epistemological paradigm of patriarchy and the lived experience of those who do not conform to its constraints. Having introduced the Christian-cultured patriarchy endemic in the 1980s America of Stranger Things and the New Testament, the paper frames canonical accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion and the MindFlayer/Vecna arc as supernatural horror stories. Against this backdrop, it uses three episodes to illuminate how violence, grief, and trauma are gendered under patriarchy. The first example considers how violence is experienced by Max and the Magdalene; both are marginalized by the social hierarchies of patriarchy, and both witness extreme physical violence against fraternal figures (Billy and Jesus). The next example contrasts the public grief of the Magdalene in John 20 with Max’s private mourning and flashbacks in Season 4 in exploring the motif of grieving women as attendant at the graves of those they have lost. The final example examines the demon possession and social demonization both characters experience (per Luke 8:2 and Vecna’s mind control), and the manifestation of trauma in their isolation and incredulity. Ultimately, it makes the case that reading these two characters in dialogue, can allow us to benefit from greater insight into the biblical text and the enduring ways its themes are culturally encoded. Thinking with its biblical resonances allows Stranger Things to become a lens through which the real-world implications of the intersection of trauma and patriarchy can be scrutinized.

In Ezra-Nehemiah studies, scholarship has rigorously and helpfully explored links between Ezra-Nehemiah and Pentateuchal traditions, ranging from its narrative portions to its legal portions. As a moment of collective embarking, Ezra-Nehemiah portrays a new exodus. As a story of communal adjustment to life in the land, Ezra-Nehemiah depicts the application of Deuteronomic codes. However, the connection between Ezra-Nehemiah and the patriarchal stories of Genesis has received less attention. This paper, then, offers an initial exploration of intertextual links between the migration-(re)settlement stories in Genesis and Ezra-Nehemiah as an attempt to start closing this gap. At the outset, I will highlight the marked similarities between the texts: migrations out of Mesopotamia and toward a promised homeland, building altars within Canaan, repeated conflicts with native residents, questions surrounding appropriate marriage partners, attempts to secure a/the seed, and finally, agreements to send away foreign wives and their children. With this extensive web of connections in place, I will then consider how these texts may play mutually illuminating roles for each other, particularly in terms of how they might have helped shape the identity of the Judean community in the Restoration Period.

Language and joy do not mix well. A world filled with pain and suffering stifles the voicing of joy. What’s more, joy “can seem disquieting, even offensive.” Poet Christian Wiman wonders how it is that we can “speak of joy amid such ubiquitous injustice.” He offers no simple solution, but instead, presents a collection of one hundred modern poems on joy—a poetic testimony of resistance (Yale 2017). My paper aims to show the shape of the language of joy. I begin by surveying the poems in Wiman’s collection, culling the poetic features and moves that shine a light on joy. I then turn to the Psalter and interrogate its poetry. What metaphors are used? How is suffering juxtaposed with joy in these poems? Is joy rendered triumphal, ephemeral, or both? How does the poet relate to joy temporally? Is it present, past, or on the horizon of tomorrow? How does a poet use lineation in relation to joy? Is joy the anticipation of something else or is it climactic? Answers to these questions give us a sense of the language of joy, both in Psalms and modern poetry. As such, this paper provides both an understanding and an appreciation of the “disquieting” nature of joy.

In disability performance, artists manipulate the dynamic of something Garland-Thomson terms the “stare and tell” ritual. Artists stare back, she proposes. They work with the gazes they receive according to their agenda, holding dynamic agency. I show that in Judg 16, women and the disabled Samson manipulate the “stare and tell” ritual, as they subvert stares and control starers. They are not only objects of vision but orchestrators of vision. They choose what other people see or do not see; they manipulate bodyminds by controlling what others see and how others see them. Using the contemporary concept of the “whore gaze” and sex worker narratives, I read the sex worker of Judg 16 attentive to how she controls Samson’s eyes for her benefit. It is precisely her marginalized status as a woman and as a sex worker that gives her this ability; she holds Samson’s gaze with her own power. Delilah also has visual agency to control Samson. The lords of the Philistines command her to see where Samson’s great strength lies, and she does so, wresting control from him with her words.

Forthcoming

Recent scholarship identifies Genesis as a repository of collective memory rather than simply a book or representing any particular ideology. The authors of Genesis transfer their contemporary view of themselves and the other nations back to the normative beginnings of the nations on earth when they connect their current neighbors to the Primeval and Patriarchal stories. By doing so, their view and perspective become universal and normative, another ideological technique used to justify the view, perspective, and treatment of Israel’s/Judah’s neighbors. Jacob functions as a national symbol in Jacob’s narratives, and readers can quickly and accurately define his relationship with his neighbors Esau/Edom and Laban/Aram. The various puns within the Jacob cycle do, in fact, point to the ‘geo-political’ issues that stand behind these narratives and function as a political allegory. Henceforth, the notion of deception or the perspective of a trickster traditionally associated with interpreting these narratives lacks significance when considering it in its entirety. Therefore, it is the contention of this paper that geo-political concerns are the backdrop behind the familial and interpersonal relationship of Jacob’s story. Jacob and Esau are not merely two personalities; they embody two communities and two nations. Jacob receives the blessing as a means to access prosperity, power, fertility, and admittance of more resources with a futuristic vision. However, Isaac identified Jacob as the “Voice of Jacob and hands of Esau,” which is a powerful symbol that serves as a potent emblem of hybrid identity and the state of being betwixt and betweenness, which resonates with Asian American second generations, possessing both brown skin and an American ethos. Therefore, this paper uses postcolonial methodology to read the text Gen. 27:22 and devolve the racial construction and identity categorization with particular reference to the “coconut Generation (refers to the second-generation Asian Indians in Western Caucasian cultures who are brown on the outside, white on the inside)” and discuss postcolonial themes like hybridity, liminality, and the in-between space of the Asian and Asian American identity and predicament. This paper argues that 1) there are multiple textual and circumstantial evidence to see Jacob’s narrative beyond a mere trickster narrative/deception story, 2) the portrayal of Esau and Jacob as two nations, and the physical characteristics of these characters in the story helps us to read the story contemporary context of migration, 3) Jacob’s double identity resonates Asian American sensibility and struggles for identity in North America 4) “voice of Jacob and hands of Esau” is a profound symbol appropriate to any immigrant community, who are racialized and minoritized or categorized based on their appearance/skin color (visible identity markers) and preclude them from being accepted as “just American.”

This study conducts a linguistic analysis of Peter's speech in Acts 2, specifically focusing on information structure analysis, a methodology within Systemic Functional Linguistics developed by Stanley E. Porter and Matthew B. O'Donnell for examining Biblical Greek. The primary objective of the study is to discern the central emphasis of Peter's discourse in Acts 2 through structural scrutiny of the speech. Traditionally, scholars have approached this text with various theological perspectives, employing a top-down methodology, resulting in diverse theological interpretations of its main themes and the author's intentions behind the text. In contrast, this study advocates for a bottom-up analysis, investigating the clause level, paragraph level, and discourse level focal points of Peter's speech. The analysis reveals five major topics, with particular emphasis on the second and third units of the discourse, which articulate the author's primary concern: "God raised Jesus."

The peoples of Latin America were introduced to the Bible as an instrument of conquest and legitimation of slavery. History willed that, once assimilated by the people, the Bible would become an instrument of liberation and resistance. In this regard, the Second Vatican Council, especially for the Catholic world, played a decisive role, helping to put the Bible in the hands of the people. In the recent last decade, however, the Bible has become, to a large extent, once again an instrument of domination. An instrument for imposing a unique reading to justify an extremist and partisan ideology, causing Christians to fight blindly for ideas, to the point of provoking social ruptures and deep wounds in families. Recently, in my country (Brazil), a ridiculous Bill began started to move through the National Congress that wants to prohibit any changes to the Bible, as if the Bible already had not been altered for almost two thousand years. In the same vein, the Pastoral Version of the Bible of Paulus publishing house, after forty years of its existence, began to suffer a violent persecution on social networks. That is, it seems that we are really going back to the times of conquest. It is necessary, therefore, to resume the popular biblical study. And instead of party ideology, we must once again put the person at the center of attention in social relations, especially the most vulnerable and excluded person from society. It is necessary to return to dialogue, to love of neighbor, to respect for all people. It is time for a new preferential option for the poor (Pixley, 1986). This time, broader and more inclusive, with a biblical hermeneutic, where the suffering person is once again the center of attention. Where service and gratuity are the drivers of social relations (Hinkelammert, 2023). It is necessary to return to biblical circles, to street groups, where bread and the Word are shared in community, with a communitarian ethic (Dussel, 1987). It is necessary to rescue the image of God, which has been distorted by partisan political interests. I believe that Bible study, in a critical and constructive way, in communities, groups, churches and parishes is the best way, perhaps the only way, to rescue the image of God that has been falsified. As Carlos Mesters says in his recent article on Job: “Job discovers that his rebellion and struggle against suffering were not against God, but rather against the image of God that falsified people's consciences and destroyed coexistence" (Mesters, 2023, p. 11). Because, after all, God continues to speak to his people today. It is urgent to know how and where to listen him.

Handbook Contributor

Matthean scholarship over the last four decades has made a strong case for viewing the first gospel within the framework of the Jewish world of the first century CE, and some have regarded it as a sectarian representation within that milieu. Understanding the role of Matthew in the development of anti-Judaism and antisemitism in the western Christian tradition has been confused by a few issues. One has been the debate concerning whether anti-Judaism is a development to be attributed solely to the spread of Christianity in the Hellenistic world, and with the Church Fathers, or is evidence for its origins to be found in the earlier literature of the movement, i.e., the New Testament and other earlier literature usually seen as being closer to Palestinian Judaism such as the Didache? The other issue that has been the subject of some debate among those who understand Matthew’s context to be within Judaism is whether an intra-muros perspective absolves Matthew from being a harbinger of anti-Judaism at the time of its composition. This paper proposes that a reading of Matthew within a sectarian Jewish context clarifies some of these issues in such a manner that Matthew’s contribution to the development of anti-Judaism in the first two centuries can be more clearly understood.

In Judges 14:12-14, Samson initiates a battle of wits. The Hebrew word ḥîdâ, translated as “riddle,” occurs eight times in Judges 14 (see vv. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). The word appears nine more times in the Hebrew Bible, each time in prophetic and wisdom contexts that feature challenge and testing (prophetic: Num 12:8; Ezek 17:2; Habb 2:6; Dan 8:23; wisdom: Prov 1:6; 1 Kings 10:1; 2 Chron 9:1; Pss 49:4, 78:2). Many scholars discuss the possible meaning of the riddle and the motif of riddling in folklore, but the relationships between Samson’s rhetoric as a gendered humor performance with violence as its aim remains underexplored. When Samson proposes a ḥîdâ contest, he disarms the defenses of the thirty Philistine male companions assigned to him (14:11-12). They are further lured into the game by the favorable terms of Samson’s wager (14:12). A riddling contest presents the opportunity to assert superior intellectual skill and verbal agility on a public stage. Why not take the opportunity to teach Samson, a youthful swaggering outsider from the hills of Zorah, a lesson? But over the course of some days, the Philistine men find themselves confounded by Samson’s seemingly straightforward saying: “Out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet” (14:14). Samson’s killing of a young lion, whose carcass became host to a beehive full of honey, was not known—even to his parents (Judg 14:6, 9). By weaving a heretofore secret story into his riddle, Samson forces men who occupy a position as the ruling cultural elite into a position of helplessness and, at the same time, ensures that his own reputation for raw strength and the ability to fight wild beasts becomes widely known. Through a game of rhetoric that employs humor, Samson subverts an existing power dynamic and negotiates social standing while also issuing a veiled threat against his Philistine overlords. Using postcolonial concepts alongside insights from masculinities and humor studies, this paper draws attention to Samson’s strategic use of wit and humor in public performance as a “weapon of the weak” (James C. Scott), and a means of asserting social and masculine dominance over and against a ruling cultural elite.

The exploration of narrative dynamics within early Christian apocryphal texts provides a unique lens through which the variegated landscape of early Christian Christological thought can be viewed. Among these texts, the Acta Pilati, integral to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, stands out for its complex narrative structure and its nuanced portrayal of Jesus Christ. This paper seeks to delve into the intricate role of the author/outer narrator in the Acta Pilati, examining how this narrative voice shapes the presentation of Jesus through the interweaving of embedded character narratives. Central to this investigation are several pivotal questions: How does the author/outer narrator navigate and influence the multitude of embedded narratives delivered by characters within the text? To what extent do these narrative interventions—through framing, commentary, and selective emphasis—contribute to the construction and understanding of Jesus' figure? Moreover, how do these narrative strategies affect the theological discourse of the text, particularly in relation to early Christian perceptions of Jesus' identity and mission? In response to these inquiries, this paper proposes a focused examination of the Acta Pilati's narrative techniques, specifically the use of an overarching authorial voice to guide and shape the reader's engagement with the text. By analyzing the interactions between the author/outer narrator and the embedded character testimonies, this study aims to highlight the sophisticated narrative mechanisms at play in shaping Christological perspectives. This approach not only sheds light on the Acta Pilati's contribution to early Christian narrative art but also underscores the significance of narrative voice and perspective in crafting theological identities within the Christian apocryphal tradition.

The latter part of Psalm 110.3 contains two unique words warranting the familiar Masoretic note ל̇, namely משחר ‘dawn’ and ילדתיך ‘your youth’. While the former is a true hapax legomenon, the latter is marked as such in part due to the correlation of its particular vocalization with its particular ketiv. While past scholarship has made use of various ancient versions, transcriptions, and medieval sources to elucidate the interpretation of this complex verse (see, e.g., Gentry 2021), more attention could be afforded to the rich diversity of Biblical Hebrew reading traditions of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, particularly with respect to the words משחר and ילדתיך. After all, between the Tiberian vocalization tradition, the Babylonian vocalization tradition, biblical allusions in the piyyutim, and the Hebrew reading tradition reflected in the Greek transcriptions of the second column of the Hexapla (i.e., Secunda), there are multiple vocalizations (with different interpretations embedded therein) attested for each of these two words. In this paper, then, after surveying the various vocalization traditions of these words attested in medieval biblical manuscripts, biblical allusions in piyyutim, and the Secunda—and the interpretations implied thereby—I will demonstrate how this rich diversity of reading traditions is already attested in various ancient versions. As such, this paper will serve not only to provide us with insight for interpreting the verse but also to demonstrate the historical depth and ancient roots of medieval vocalization traditions of Biblical Hebrew.

Enslaved persons rarely appear more than once in documentary contexts from Egypt. Usually, their first and only attestation is in the document recording their sale or selfsale. But in the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, the enslaved woman Ta(pa)met daughter of Patu appears in six documents ranging over 47 years, both as an enslaved woman and after her manumission. These texts—along with those recording the lives of her children—demonstrate the convergence between bonds of family and bonds of enslavement. Tamet’s marriage contract to a free man named Anani son of Azariah (449 BC) noted that her son Pilti, fathered by her owner Meshullam, would be adopted by her new husband. A second child, a girl named Jehoishma also fathered by Meshullam, is first mentioned when Anani bequeaths an apartment to his “two children” (434 BC); her true paternity is made plain when Meshullam signs a contract to manumit both Jehoishma and Tamet (427 BC) upon his death, wherein Jehoishma is explicitly referred to as a child borne to Meshullam by Tamet. In Jehoishma’s marriage contract (420 BC), it was not her self-styled father Anani who signed the contract and paid her dowry, but rather her biological half-brother Zaccur son of Meshullam, naming Jehoishma as his “sister”. Zaccur himself possibly fathered a child with an enslaved woman, a child only noted when he was adopted and subsequently manumitted by a third party (410 BC). This paper presents the documentary record of the life of Tamet and her children as a case study of both family and enslavement at Elephantine in the Late Period, with a focus on the flexibility and complexity of the relationships borne of those systems. This, in turn, leads to a broader discussion of social systems of subordination, protection, and reciprocity in Late Period Egypt.

The pre-Samaritan texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls display a separate text-type with a distinct theological profile. The Samaritan Pentateuch employs this text-type and develops it with a new theological profile. This presentation will discuss these theological characteristics in relation to current scholarship on the development of the Pentateuch. In particular, the idea that the Pentateuch was a common enterprise between Jerusalem and Samaria will be in focus.

The two very oldest surviving iconographic artifacts to depict people at a church altar are a late fourth or fifth-century ivory box today in the Venice Archeological Museum and an early fifth-century limestone chancel screen in the Istanbul Archeological Museum. Both came into view after excavations in the twentieth century, and both depict gender parallelism at the altar, with men on the left side of the altar and women on the right. (Kateusz and Badini Confalonieri, “Women Church Leaders in and around Fifth-Century Rome,” in Patterns of Women’s Leadership in Early Christianity, edited by Joan Taylor and Ilaria Ramelli [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021], 228–260, esp. 233–48). The first unexplained gap in the archeological record is the absence of any similarly dated artifacts that depict men, and only men, at a church altar. The second gap is the absence of Christian liturgical manuscripts prior to the eighth century. This second gap may be due to deliberate destruction, given the sudden proliferation of liturgical manuscripts in the eighth century, all describing an all-male ritual purportedly handed down by the apostles, an origination story most scholars agree is later fiction. Excavations of Roman-era churches in Rome demonstrate the presence of a walled aisle in the nave, architecture consistent with a gender divided nave. This architecture also could be consistent with the gender parallelism in the altar area depicted on the two artifacts, one of which represents the altar area of Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The walled aisle and a gender divided nave also is potentially consistent with Philo’s account of the sanctuary of the Therapeutae, where he said the sexes were divided by a wall. Likewise, the gender parallelism depicted on the two artifacts, as well as certain details on the ivory box, are consistent with Philo’s account of the gender parallel sacred ritual of the Therapeutae. Stone plaques around the Mediterranean memorialize Jewish women with gender parallel synagogue titles, suggesting a gender parallel ritual in some Jewish communities, and the Jesus followers may have been one of those communities. In any case, Eusebius of Caesarea claimed that the apostles handed down the Therapeutae ritual and that it was still practiced in the gender divided churches of his day (Hist. Eccl. 2.17.21.3). If indeed men and women flanked the altar during early Christian (Jewish) ritual, that could explain the ritual depicted on the two oldest artifacts. It also could explain why there are no early artifacts that portray solely men at church altars, and further, why a later church that wished to promote the false imagination of an originally all-male clergy might favor the destruction of earlier manuscripts that described a liturgy in which women also officiated.

Samuel is a remarkably complex figure. He is one of two named nazirites (1 Sam 1:11, 22) – alongside Samson, of course. He is, more or less, the last judge (1 Sam 7:15ff). He is, more or less, the first prophet (1 Sam 3). And he is, more or less, a priest, insofar as he is raised by Eli the priest (1 Sam 2:11). As such, he wields both charismatic and traditional authority, to borrow Weber’s terms. Such hybridity is highly unusual, as Weber himself observed: “It is no accident that almost no prophets have emerged from the priestly class” (SoR, 46). But the early chapters of 1 Samuel recount a transitional period in Israel’s early history. The period of the judges is about to give way to the age of the kings. In parallel fashion, the tent of meeting (1 Sam 2:22), now temporarily stationed at Shiloh, will eventually be permanently installed in the temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 8). Insofar as Samuel’s life is thus intertwined with the tent of meeting and the priesthood – not to mention other matters of interest to biblical law, for example, vows made by women – it is instructive to read his life’s story against various legal texts regarding priesthood, tent, and so forth, within the Torah or Pentateuch.

This paper presents a newly established international research network, the Septuagint within the History of Greek (SHG), and its own newly established book series, Studies in the Septuagint within the History of Greek (SSHG), published through De Gruyter. In April 2018, James Aitken organized a one-day seminar in Cambridge, entitled “The Septuagint within the History of Greek.” The aim of the seminar was to further our linguistic and social understanding of the Septuagint. Out of this seminar, James Aitken and Trevor Evans established the network, in collaboration with Mark Janse and Klaas Bentein at the Department of Greek Linguistics at Ghent. The network is dedicated to contextualizing the Septuagint within its historical, linguistic, and social environment, engaging recent advances in the study of postclassical Greek, while also showing how the Septuagint can, in turn, contribute to our understanding of the development of the Greek language. In this paper, we introduce the network, its research and activities; with the proposed panel, we wish to showcase some of the work that the Network fosters.

Although Second Clement does not overtly engage in debates about correct doctrine, the work expresses great concern about the addressees’ ethical conduct in relation to their eschatological salvation. A case in point is 2 Clem. 16–17, where a list of pious practices precedes a scene of the final judgment. Possibly picking up on the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:1–18), 2 Clem. 16.4 commends the practices of “charitable giving” (ἐλεημοσύνη), prayer, and fasting. Among those practices, charitable giving is the most important. It even brings about “an alleviation of sin.” Previous scholarship (e.g., David J. Downs) has shown that the charitable giving in 16.4 applies to all believers, not just to the wealthy in the community. This paper argues that ἐλεημοσύνη is not an “invitation” (so Downs) but an imperative that is commensurate with the orthopraxis required for withstanding the final judgment. Another aim of this paper is to place charitable giving in relation to 2 Clement’s central contention—namely, that divine-human reciprocity is a requirement for redemption. Within ancient patron-client relationships, ongoing mutual giving and receiving were needed to sustain and deepen the relationship. Apparently, some in the community held that to place one’s trust in Christ guaranteed salvation. A refutation of such confidence is given in 2 Clem. 17, which distinguishes between “the just” (οἱ δίκαιοι) and “the unbelievers” (οἱ ἄπιστοι). Startlingly, the latter group includes some who saw themselves as Christian: they had heard the elders’ admonitions but did not put them into practice, and for that reason will suffer eternal torment with other unbelievers. The paper concludes that 2 Clement’s soteriology does not fit within the theoretical paradigm of “orthodoxy vs. heresy.” Rather, if the work takes issue with any “heresy,” it does not concern incorrect beliefs but, rather, inadequate orthopraxis—the failure to acknowledge, and live in accordance with, the fact that reciprocity towards God is imperative for eschatological redemption. A question meriting further discussion is how ἐλεημοσύνη towards one’s fellow believers functions within the economy of salvation. Note to program unit chairs: this paper would fit within panel 2 (“Beyond Orthodoxy/Heresy”) and has for that reason also been sent to the Development of Early Christian Theology Section. The paper would also work in panel 4 (“Open Call”).

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Paul, and other biblical figures have long been recognized and analyzed as tricksters in their respective narratives. Female characters like Rebekah are occasionally acknowledged for their trickery, but have not received the same degree of attention. Narratives of royal and matriarchal women are full of tricksters, and these narratives have strong intertextual links. For this paper, I examine two sets of stories which have major intertextual links. First, Genesis 27, where Rebekah tricks Isaac into giving Esau’s blessing to Jacob, and 1 Kings 1, where Bathsheba and Nathan manipulate David into naming Solomon his successor. Then I discuss 1 Samuel 25, where Abigail intervenes between her first husband Nabal and her eventual husband David, and 1 Kings 21, where Jezebel intervenes on behalf of her husband Ahab to acquire Naboth’s vineyard. The narratives of Rebekah and Bathsheba begin by emphasizing their husbands’ old age. Both mothers undertake a deception on behalf of their sons, Jacob and Solomon, to promote them over their older brothers. Rebekah takes advantage of Isaac’s blindness to trick Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob rather than Esau, while Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan take advantage of David’s failing memory to cajole David into proclaiming Solomon his heir instead of Adonijah. Both fathers pronounce blessings upon their sons which include dominion over their brothers. In the end, Jacob flees from his brother’s wrath to save his life, while in an inverted ending, Adonijah flees Solomon’s wrath and ultimately loses his life. Meanwhile, Abigail and Jezebel take deceptive roles on behalf of their (in Abigail’s case future) husbands. David demands food for his soldiers from Nabal while Ahab pursues Naboth’s ancestral vineyard. Both kings are refused, so Abigail and Jezebel act without their husbands’ knowledge to prevent—or cause—violence. Abigail slips into David’s camp by night and urges him to spare Nabal; Jezebel secretly frames and executes Naboth for treason. As a result of their actions, divine judgement strikes Nabal and Ahab. Moreover, David and Elijah the prophet utter the same oath almost word for word, promising to destroy “everyone who pisses against the wall.” The intertextual relationship between these passages heightens the role of women acting in secret on behalf of their sons and husbands. Royal women used trickery to act as the guiding hand of providence or as the ruinous hand that brings divine judgement. The Bathsheba and Rebekah parallel might grant legitimacy to Solomon’s succession by using a revered matriarchal model. The Abigail and Jezebel parallel, however, casts doubt on the legitimacy Abigail’s and David’s actions by connecting them to Jezebel and Ahab. Perhaps, then, we are not supposed to see the Davidic monarchy in a positive light.

The examination of the Hexapla's influence on the textual transmission of the Septuagint becomes of particular interest when focused on the Minor Prophets: 1. in the Syrohexapla, the Minor Prophets is followed by a colophon that references Hexapla, Tetrapla, and Origen’s successor Eusebius as well. 2. Within the commentaries of Malakhia 2:13 and Osea 11:1-4, fragments of Hexapla are found in Catena manuscript Ra86. 3. Variant readings in the margins of Syh and Ra 86 are accompanied by references to Hexapla, Hexaselidon and Eusebius. 4. Alternative readings of the Hexapla//Octapla are denoted by their respective authors: α’, σ’, θ’, ε’, ς (to the editor - στιγμα) ζ, οἱ ο’, but also λο (to the editor – o subscripted and centered), οἱ γ, οἱ λ, παντες, ο εβρ’, ο συρ’. The textual transmission of the Dodecapropheton is also peculiar because: 1. the revised, ‘Hexaplaric’ text attributed to Origen is nonexistent. Instead, Ziegler ascribes the sources of ‘Hexaplaric recension’ not to the contiguous, ‘revised’ text of the MSS, but rather to the marginal scholia of Syh and Ra86 containing ‘Hexaplaric’ material. 2. The MSS of the Minor Prophets (among others the MSS within the L and C groups) are less influenced by the Jewish readings compared to other books. In this paper I will present analysis of the distribution of readings from Jewish translators known from the scholia within manuscripts. Based on these findings, I will draw upon two prospectives for the post-Origen evolution of the Septuagint: one stemming from standard texts – ‘Hexaplaric’/ ‘Lucian’ recensions, and another – from the ‘Caesarian’/’Antiochian’ Ecdosis, i.e., the manuscripts containing the text with marginal scholia.

The amount of attention given to the Artemis cult in Ephesus by New Testament scholars is prodigious. Only last year, Sandra Glahn captured the attention of many New Testament scholars by arguing that “a conflict existed between [Artemis’] followers and the struggling sect of Judaism known as the way” (2023). However, the numismatic evidence continues to be neglected—a state of affairs I pointed out over 10 years ago (Kidson 2012/13). Since then I have been working on methodological concerns: how do images on coins as “texts” relate to the texts of the New Testament? The answer I propose lies in the identification of the imagery on the coins as political propaganda and or as a reinforcement of ideologies. Few NT scholars have considered the cult as a focus of colonization by the Romans that led to a subtle shift of priorities to the Imperial Cult. This renegotiation of priorities, I will argue, is evident in the disappearance of Artemis’ image and her Greek name on the state coinage minted in Ephesus. Using this evidence, I will argue that Roman colonization had implications for the Ephesians in their political, social, and spiritual lives, which is evident in the description of events in Acts 19 and reformulates the supposed conflict between early Christians and the Artemis cult.

Eirene, the goddess of peace, has a long Greek history of positive associations; she watches over the works of the people, and she has a close association with wealth, which is noted frequently in literature and material culture. A play from Aristophanes reflects her popularity around the fifth century BCE, and, unsurprisingly, her cult is established a few decades later. The positive view of Eirene was likely a factor to her Roman equivalent, Pax, appearing so prominently in the Roman empire. The ideal of peace became important because of prior perceptions of the Romans as oppressive and unjust. In the newly conceptualized pax Romana (Roman peace), the underlying message touted a promise of tangible and intangible forms of prosperity and contentment. The cult of Augustan Peace became a radical development because it linked peace so closely with the emperor. Pax retained the standard cornucopia imagery often attached to Eirene to reflect connotations of plenty, but in the coins of multiple emperors, Pax is associated with Roman military imagery, indicating that peace was accomplished and maintained in the empire because of Roman military might. The implicit encouragement is that people should be grateful for this time of military peace and economic prosperity and continue to contribute toward this ideal. The establishment of prominent monuments like the Ara Pacis and Flavian Templum Pacis further reflect the glorification of peace. Admittedly, not all were positive toward this propaganda, and critics identified pax Romana as vis Romana (Roman power). Yet, even the critics recognized that the message of divine peace was effective in garnering favor toward the emperor throughout much of the empire. Considering this background of peace in the Greco-Roman world, the emphasis on peace in the Gospel of John begins to make more sense. In speaking about peace to his disciples, Jesus, who is given similar titles to the emperor (Son of God and Savior of the World), declares a divine peace over his disciples, but he distinguishes his peace from the peace that the world gives (John 14:27). If peace is indeed so prominent a message in the culture, the disciples would be familiar with the idea of the world giving peace, and thus, Jesus feels the need to clarify and distinguish his message of divine peace.

In the intricate tapestry of human cognition, touch and olfaction serve as silent artisans, shaping the very fabric of our understanding and enriching the levels of knowledge we attain. Through the senses of touch and smell, the narrator of John 12:1–8 communicates Mary’s knowledge of who Jesus is by depicting her actions as exuded from her enculturated self. Mary’s act of anointing Jesus’s feet with aromatic perfume and wiping them with her hair reflects her recognition of Jesus as a person of honor as demonstrated through the senses. In antiquity, the act of anointing often symbolized the selection, consecration, or empowerment of kings, leaders, and priests, as well as the followers’ expression of thanksgiving. Similarly, in religious ceremonies and rituals, the spreading of fragrance symbolized the presence of divinity, divine favor, or the creation of a sacred atmosphere. Such inherited cultural knowledge highlights the pivotal role of touch and aroma in the anointing scene. This presentation uses a cognitive model based on Roy G. D’Andrade’s work on cognitive anthropology as an analytical tool to explore the social values of touch and fragrance in light of selected Greco-Roman and Jewish texts ranging from 200 BCE to 200 CE. In light of this historical background, the sensory richness and social values conveyed by Mary’s gestures in John 12:1–8 invite us to appreciate how genuine actions shown in the text can be illuminated by connecting with the culturally-embedded knowledge.

The story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21 projects a narrative world in which care, labor, relations, access to water, and sustainable living environment are structured and ordered according to class, gender, racial/ethnic, geographical/geolocational differences. This paper examines the material milieu of Hagar’s intersectional class/race/gender struggle and her back-and-forth movements between the land of Canaan and the wilderness (16:6b-15 and 21:14b-20), and interrogates them through the lens of multiethnic and Asian American “environmental entanglement.” In the 2023’s thematic issue of Journal of Asian American Studies, the co-editors, Simi Kang and Lisa Sun-Hee Park, invite the readers to reflect upon the ways in which AAPI critique, inquiry, and resistance can bear on the contemporary social understanding of environment and environmentalism. Their invitation to discuss the “Asian American environmental entanglement” not only highlights the necessity of engaging with ecological and ecojustice issues within Asian American scholarships and communities but also directs one’s attention to the particular predicaments of the AAPI individuals and communities affected by the “environmental racism.” In an attempt to explore Hagar’s story in such environmental/racial entanglement, I read it alongside the contemporary experiences of the Asian and Latine urban migrant workers in care labor occupations in the local context of Queens, New York. Using Rachel Aviv’s biographical essay on a filipino migrant care worker named, Emma (featured in New Yorker on April 2016), and Allan Punzalan Isaac’s theoretical exposition of her story in Filipino Time: Affective Worlds and Contracted Labor (2022) as intertexts, this paper discusses how the affective labor of migrant care workers, as well as their bodily movements between their homes in the inner city area and different domestic spaces in the suburb, produce particular relationalities between them and their environment, as well as among themselves as they forge new ways of bonding and belonging in the shared living/commuting spaces “beside” the normative time of the national society. The embodied and emplaced context of the migrant care workers in Aviv’s and Isaac’s works might reveal issues and meanings in and beyond Hagar’s story that are less visible in the conventional modes of biblical criticism.

We live in an extremely complex world locally and globally. Our postcolonial and neocolonial world has shifted the demographics of religion, race, and ethnicity and created religious and racial conflicts, hate-crimes, continuing colonial invasions resulting in regional and international wars. This situation challenges Christian preachers to think about a new paradigm of preaching that will be theologically more appropriate, culturally more relevant, and homiletically more effective to the contemporary context for preaching. As a response to this challenge, I will share some homiletical insights gained from the interpretation of Luke 24:13-35, which is the story of encountering the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. The first section will explore the text through a postcolonial lens, focusing on the following questions: (1) What does the story tell us as the good news of God? (2) What are the homiletical strategies implied in the story? In the second section, I will propose “meta preaching” as a new homiletical paradigm in a postcolonial and pluralistic context. The postcolonial interpretation of Luke 24:13-35 suggests that contemporary Christian preaching should be “meta,” going through and beyond traditional preaching in its substance and methodology. Meta preaching is grounded in the theology of friendship that understands the relation among God, humans, and other creatures on the planet as authentic friendship. The goal of meta preaching is to bring peace to our multicultural, multiracial, and multireligious world through the renewal of our identity as true friends to God, other human beings, and non-human creatures. For this purpose, the last section explores two concrete homiletical strategies for meta preaching implied in the text. The first is the contextual approach through which the preacher deals with critical social issues emerging from our complex realities. The second strategy is the conversational approach that utilizes the art of rhetorical developed not only for public speaking, but also for private talk. Moreover, the text implies that eating at the table with God and others is crucial in practicing meta preaching.

The traditional interpretation of Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42, where Martha is critiqued for focusing on domestic tasks over spiritual listening like Mary, has reinforced pressures on Korean women to fulfill traditional roles quietly while also being spiritually enlightened. This expectation has marginalized Martha's vocal resistance, contrasting it with Mary's silent compliance, upholding rigid gender norms. Leveraging "sassiness" from womanist biblical scholarship (Smith 2016, 2018), this paper reexamines Martha's outspokenness not as weakness but as a stand against gender and social inequities, highlighting her empowerment and pursuit of justice. It also interprets Mary's silence as embodying a form of non-verbal resistance or "sass." Consequently, this analysis positions Martha and Mary's approaches as inspiration for Korean women to voice their rights and seek self-realization, i.e., to find our "good part" on their own space and time.

Jesus Confronting Rudeness: Johannine Missional Ethics in light of Asian and Ancient Politeness

In On the Death of the Persecutors, Lactantius relates a now relatively well-known story: the emperor Constantine, arrayed against Maxentius in Rome, received a Christian “heavenly sign” (the Chi Rho) which, painted upon the shields of his soldiers, would lead him to victory. (DMP 44) Afterward, Lactantius relates a parallel but lesser explored story. The “pagan” emperor Licinius, arrayed against Maximinus Daia in the eastern empire, received, in a dream, “a prayer to the supreme god” (summus deus) that would assure his victory: “Summus deus, we beseech thee… unto Thee we commend our empire.” This prayer, which Licinius, upon waking, immediately commanded be taught to his soldiers, was accompanied by a ritual: the soldiers placed their shields upon the ground along with their helmets, stretched their hands toward the sky, and three times repeated the prayer after the emperor in call-and-response fashion. (DMP 46) Since, at least according to thinkers like Pliny and Sallustius, prayer and “sacrifice” go hand in hand, Daia’s opposing forces seemingly provide the offering for the prayer themselves, “not as combatants, but as men devoted to death.” (DMP 47) Following his victory, Licinius promulgated the so-called “Edict of Milan” agreed upon with Constantine, granting all people “freedom of religion” under the auspices of the supreme god. (DMP 48) Remarkably little analysis has been written about this prayer other than to say that it “neutrally” elides the difference between late ancient Christians and “pagan” monotheists. Informed by methods of intellectual history and theories of performance, I provide a close reading of Licinius’ prayer and its related rituals and offerings, as related by Lactantius. I assess the elements of Greco-Roman and early Christian tradition in the prayer’s language and performance, arguing that theurgical Neo-Platonism provide the prayer’s philosophical scaffolding and energy. The prayer, I argue, while tenuously holding open a theoretical space in which monotheists (“pagan,” Jewish, and Christian) and polytheists tolerantly dwell together, ultimately produces a liturgy of empire that paves the way for the making of Christian empire.

This paper presents phonetic documentation of the heretofore undocumented Hebrew reading tradition of the Romaniote Jews of Chalkida (Chalcis) Greece, which is not only severely un(der)studied, but also provides a fascinating entryway into understanding the dynamic transmission of Hebrew within the Greek-speaking world. This in turns can shed light on our understanding the historical pronunciation of Hebrew underlying the transliterations of Origen’s Secunda and the LXX. Based on the recordings available in the Hebrew University Language and Tradition Project (HULTP) archive, complemented by recordings of Romaniote poetry readings and original fieldwork, I rely extensively on formant readings to map the 5-vowel system of Biblical Hebrew reading present in Chalkida and its relationship to other Hebrew reading traditions around the Mediterranean. The continuities and discontinuities between the phonological system of spoken Greek and the phonetic realia of Hebrew reading help to uncover parts of the complex transmission of Hebrew within this community, with influences spanning from the medieval period to the 20th century. Additionally, the granularity of data that can be obtained from studying a reading tradition allows for the careful study of speech errors and unintended and marginal realizations. Analyzing these data allows for a comparison between speech errors and typologically common textual variations letters, potentially helping to isolate whether textual variation is likely to be caused by acoustic similarity. The fundamental linguistic orientation of this paper is the phonetic documentation of the reading tradition of Chalkida, with a special emphasis on the acoustic phonetics of vowels and their formant structures. However, the paper also touches on more theoretical linguistic questions, such as the extent to which reading traditions can be described as having a phonology, the interaction between the musical nature and phonetic elements of a reading tradition, and the relationship of language-contact to the transmission of Hebrew reading traditions. Ultimately, the documentation of the Hebrew reading tradition of Chalkida is an exciting exercise in the documentation of an endangered tradition of Hebrew, the study of which enriches our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew, both in the past and the present.

When the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies recounts the tale of the Watchers, the novel portrays the giants’ initial consumption of animal flesh as “contrary to nature” (παρὰ φύσιν). While this perspective can be explained by appealing to religious and philosophical trends in fourth-century Syria, in this presentation I look back through the Enochic tradition to determine whether there is precedent for this position in those texts. I argue that in both the Book of the Watchers and Jubilees, violence against and consumption of animals forms a part, albeit a small part, of the “violence” that results in the Flood. These texts, then, may be operating under the assumption (informed by the differences between God’s commands in Genesis 1 and Genesis 9) that antediluvian humanity observed a vegetarian diet. Thus, by consuming animal flesh, the natural order was overturned in such a way that the world needed to be purged via the Flood.

The classical theory about the composition of the Books of Kings states that there were several redactions of this literary corpus, at least one in the monarchic period and at least one, most probably two, redactions in the exilic and post-exilic times. Moreover, several recent studies provide evidence for the ongoing revisions, (re)touches and/or expansions in the text of Samuel–Kings, traced up to the Hasmonean period, when an alternative account of the monarchic history was published in the Books of Chronicles. These revisions are occasionally described as Priestly-like additions and/or adjustments introduced to the biblical texts by the temple priest-scribes in post-exilic Jerusalem. The author’s research leads to the conclusion that the final edition of 2 Kgs 21 and 24 is a product of late priestly touches in the respective narratives, combining the Deuteronomic(-istic) theology on the fall of Judah and the exile with the priestly worldview concerned with the land’s blood defilement and the people’s being dispossessed of the land. The charge that king Manasseh shed innocent blood is crucial to understanding the destruction of Judah in 2 Kgs, but this feature is not intelligible if read against the background of 1–2 Kgs only. The Deuteronomic(-istic) theology fails to explain fully why Judah must have been destroyed on account of Manasseh’s bloodshed but the theology concerning blood, cult and rituals, based upon, e.g., the defiling/purging power of blood, does. Therefore, 2 Kgs 24:3-4 is best understood if interpreted in the light of Num 35:33-34 and Lev 18:25-30, the priestly (H) post-exilic texts concerned with the power of blood to defile the land and the dispossession of the land on its account. This induces us to think that the temple priestly scribes in Persian Yehud Jerusalem were involved in the final shaping of 2Kgs 21 and 24 narratives. Such a statement adds yet another argument to the discussion about the composition history of Samuel–Kings in relation to the classical theories.

This presentation explores the probable role of disgust as an impediment for pity and compassionate charity towards the needy in the Gospel of Luke. It thereby not only contributes in previously unrecognized ways to our understanding of Luke’s concern for the poor and the powerless but also shows what new fields emotion theoretical approaches are able to explore in Biblical scholarship. Drawing on cognitive emotion theories (Nussbaum, Illouz) as well as psychological studies on disgust (Rozin/Haidt/McCauley), emotional habitus (Gould) and emotional scripts for textual analysis (Kaster), I aim to show that many objects of (denied) compassion (σπλαγχνίζομαι, ἐλεέω) in Luke’s Gospel contain features regarded as disgusting in the author’s Roman-Hellenistc context, and as unclean or disgusting in Second Temple Judaism. Firstly, the leprous men in Luke 17:13, who “stood at a distance,” were presumably considered unclean (Lev 13:42–46) and therefore had to be excluded from community (Num 5:2). The Hansen’s disease (probably the ancient λέπρα) like other violations of the bodily envelop such as wounds and ulcers are said to cause revulsion in many literary texts. Wounds are attributed to the robbed man in Luke 10:30, 34, who, first, is seen but, then, ignored by a Levite and a priest, before being seen and pitied by the compassionate Samaritan. The juxtaposition of these three characters strongly suggests that purity norms play a decisive role in the moral evaluation of the situation by the Temple elite here. In other words, they are repelled by the unclean “half-dead” body and fail to prioritize the love command over purity regulations. Like the Samaritan in Luke 10:30–35, Jesus himself has to overcome disgust of an unclean corpse in order to fulfill his compassionate action towards the widow in Luke 7:11–17, for he touches the dead body (Num 19:16; m.Ohal. 1:1–3; Plato, Rep. 439e–440a; et al.). Apart from these explicit references to compassion, there are two scenes of implicitly denied compassion that also contain features of disgust: In Luke 15:16 the prodigal son—destitute, “longing to be fed” and therefore being a "persona misera", a classical object of compassion in ancient Judaism—is depicted in the midst of pigs (Lev 11:7; Dtn 14:8). In Luke 16:20–21, the poor Lazarus is described with the same words (ἐπιθυμῶν χορτασθῆναι) and, equally, does not receive compassion from the rich man. While previous scholarship has almost unanimously attributed his ignorance to greed, it is likely motivated, additionally, by repulsion, since ulcers/wounds (Lev 13,18—27; Columella, Rust. 2,7,5,22; et al.) and scavenging dogs (Lev 11:27; Martial, Epigrams 5,44; et al.) are seen as unclean or disgusting in the Hebrew Bible and the Roman-Hellenistic world. To conclude, the emotional habitus of compassion that Luke shows as a model and accordingly wants to implement in his audience contains a moment of overcoming disgust.

Rabbinic manipulations of architecture in such matters as purity or sabbath observance have long been regarded in modern scholarship as legal fictions, which are conceptual or theoretical in nature. Scholars of rabbinic law have generally held that, when the sages prescribe “seeing” (ro’in) a gap in a crossbeam as closed, or “declaring” (‘amrin) that the ceiling’s edge descends to form an imaginary wall, they do so as part of an abstract discussion of the law. By examining architectural and legal conventions in rabbinic and Roman texts, this paper argues that spatial manipulation in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the Talmudim, should be understood in the realm of ritual action rather than solely in the realm of law and its theory.

The locus classicus of negative theology can be considered to be the late antique Neoplatonism (cf. Proclus and Plotinus). However, if we look at the language forms and the concept of Negative Theology, we can find evidence for approaches to Negative Theology much earlier and in very different traditions. Negative theology is a way of speaking about God that reflects on the finiteness of human beings and the limits of language and knowledge associated with this. It establishes a categorical difference between God and the created world and does so linguistically through forms of negativity and negation. This paper aims to show how such a conceptual approach to Negative Theology contributes to determining the relationship between esotericism, gnosticism and mysticism on the basis of their linguistic impact, without the terms becoming arbitrary or having to be reduced to a single tradition or a narrow historical context (such as Neoplatonism). This hermeneutical, historical and linguistic approach to the topic of knowledge, secrecy and religious mystical praxis will be based on the cross-traditional narrative form of the heavenly journey narratives with particular emphasis on Paul’s descriptions in 2 Cor 12:2-4. Such narratives can be found in Ancient Judaism, especially in apocalypticism, in popular philosophy, in Platonism, but also in literary contexts such as Lucian. Heavenly journey and rapture narratives can legitimize revelations and disclosures of secrets and be related to religious experiences, such as out-of-the-body experiences. Then the affirmative content of the form predominates, the experience can be processed cognitively, understood logically and communicated verbally. As a narrative linguistic form of Negative Theology, in contrast, stories of heavenly journeys emphasize what cannot be described about heavenly reality, what is forbidden or impossible to communicate. Negations, α-privativa, paradoxes and open-semantic metaphors play a role particularly in the context of heavenly encounters with God and audiences at his throne. In different contexts, long passages unfold what cannot be unfolded. Paul’s narrative of ambiguity in 2 Cor 12:2-4 is a critical part of this tradition. Strategically, he offers a narrative in which it remains open as to who exactly, in what way, in what state of consciousness and body, reaches where, what is heard there and whom the person actually encounters. In this way, Paul achieves a religious emphasis and highlighting of the unavailability of experience for his narrative, which, however, at the same time demonstrates its uselessness for the worldly discourse in the here and now to legitimize claims to authority and truth.

In the ancient Near East, humanity’s innate desire to encounter the divine was satisfied by rendering gods and goddesses as anthropomorphic, physically resembling humans, and anthropopathic, displaying human emotions and personality traits. As a result, creation narratives, such as Atraḫasīs and Enuma eliš, depict divine deities who reflect gender roles constructed on the basis of biology and society. Because gods and goddesses served as examples for humanity, these creation narratives not only reflected, but reinforced, traditional conceptions of gender. In contrast, Gen 2–3 is free of the gender roles that characterize its ancient Near Eastern counterparts until after the Fall. This is because the God these chapters portray transcends gender and is not described using anthropomorphic or anthropopathic means. As humanity perfectly reflects the image of a non-gendered God prior to the Fall, no gender roles are present as man and woman participate in the same work and share equal social status. Before the Fall, man and woman are primarily distinguished by name. The current paper compares childbirth as it appears in Gen 3, Atraḫasīs, and Enuma eliš to evince anthropomorphic and anthropopathic portrayals of the divine in the ancient Near Eastern as well as argue that such portrayals yield creation narratives that reflect and reinforce human gender roles. I intentionally decided to exclude Gen 1 from the discussion due to its lack of detail regarding the creation of male and female and Gen 2's greater consideration of gender. Discrepancies between the creation narratives mean they need not be assessed in tandem. Ultimately, it is my goal to demonstrate the egalitarianism inculcated by a God without gender. To be gained through this research is a greater understanding of how Israel viewed the Lord, how Gen 2–3 relates to other creation narratives, and how religion and society were interrelated in the ancient Near East.

It is well known that the manuscript tradition of Sirach (in Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac) testifies to a complicated transmissional process. Unknown to scholars until the early twentieth century, the Hebrew manuscript tradition is unfortunately incomplete, and the witnesses that do exist vary substantially. Benjamin G. Wright’s systematic comparison between the Hebrew and Greek traditions has also demonstrated the unreliability of the latter for reconstructing the former. This paper will look at two examples of textual variation. First, it will compare the appearance of divine names and titles for God used in the different witnesses and traditions. It will suggest that the Masada Scroll, usually a more reliable witness, shows signs of editing where Cairo Geniza manuscripts generally do not. Second, the readings in Sirach 10:4-5 differ dramatically between the Hebrew witness (MS A) and LXX tradition. After exploring the nature of the variations, this paper will offer an explanation for the shift from political/military power to scribal authority. In both cases, it will be shown that the interventions were “exegetical” in nature, that is, they were intentional changes that reflected a new historical context.

Early African American biblical scholars sought to locate a Black presence in the Bible, frequently focusing on identifying Black or African characters and ascertaining their contributions to and in the life of ancient Israel. They argued that there was a tendency in Hebrew Bible scholarship to erase the contributions of African nations in the Hebrew Canon. This de-Africanization ultimately opened the door for the creation and perpetuation of racial myths, the seizure of land, and the displacement and enslavement of African people. The Exodus story and the body of scholarship that emerged from it contain elements of such de-Africanization. Exodus’ Egyptian characters are rarely described as African, and Egypt, the site of a large portion of the narrative, is placed in the Near or Middle East rather than in Africa. In other words, Exodus scholarship produced by non-Africana scholars is often guilty of rhetorical de-Africanization. At the core of Exodus scholarship to date is a narrative built on Israel’s escape from Egypt- physically, economically, ideologically, and religiously. This systematic distancing was more than a rhetorical strategy to provide context to the narrative. By continually remembering and rehearsing her escape from Egypt, Israel developed a collective identity that dissociated it from Egyptian (African) identity in biblical scholarship and in the minds of most Bible readers. In “A Mixed Multitude: An African Reading of Exodus 12:38,” David Tuesday Adamo questioned the cultural and ethnic identity of the multitude under Moses’ leadership arguing that “while they were in Africa for many generations, they ate African food, wore African clothes, practiced African culture, married African women, and worshipped Egyptian gods for those years.” Both Charles Copher and Cain Hope Felder would have affirmed Adamo’s thesis that the mixed multitude that departed Egypt was indeed an Afro-Asiatic group. However, defining African identity is complex, contextual and challenging, but not impossible. This paper explores three distinct types of African identity in the exodus narrative and in light of Adamo’s observation, argues that the nation of Israel, upon departure from Egypt, constituted an African diaspora.

What types of media do we trust to tell the truth? How can cinematic technique promote or wear down such trust? As they re-tell ancient stories about Jesus, both Son of Man (Dornford-May, 2005) and Das neue Evangelium (Rau, 2020) call into question our assumptions regarding the ability of different types of visual media to represent the past accurately. The films themselves are hybrid productions that incorporate into the Jesus film genre elements of musical theatre (Son of Man) and political protest (Das neue Evangelium). Such hybridity provides an effective context for exploring expectations of cinematic re-tellings of the past – as we are forced to make sense of what we see we are newly aware of what we have come to expect. In addition, both films contrast visual media traditionally designated “high trust” such as documentaries and news reports with more “subjective” forms such as folk art and political protest and skew our expectations. This paper will look at the ways in which Dornford-May and Rau interrogate traditional assumptions and experiment with technique in the Jesus film genre to comment on what we think we know.

The interpretation of Paul’s ethics has historically unfolded in various forms, involving uncovering its origins, studying its social implications, exploring Paul’s logic within it, or delving into its close relationship with Paul’s theological thoughts (Hays 2006, 3–19; Gupta 2009, 336–61; Zimmermann 2018, 13–21, 231–66). In this paper, I will adopt a different approach. Drawing on metaphor theories, I will focus on the four passages of Paul’s clothing metaphor in his ethical teachings (Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). I will demonstrate how these clothing metaphors serve as Paul’s conceptual framework for structuring his ethical teachings. In other words, Paul understands the diverse aspects of believers’ ethical living in terms of putting on clothes and effectively communicates his various theological thoughts implied in his ethics within this framework. When viewed through metaphor theories, the clothing metaphors are “novel” rather than “conventional,” employing a personal entity as an article of clothing. They can depict or construct reality in a fresh way, having a high degree of cognitive impact on the reader’s conceptualization of their ethical conduct. Building upon the concepts of conceptual metaphor theory developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their seminal work Metaphors We Live By (1980), I will advance the interpretation of the passages through exegesis. First, I will briefly introduce the concept of metaphor from metaphor theory that can be applied to my exegesis. Then, by connecting these concepts to the exegesis of each passage, I will demonstrate how each passage “highlights” or “subtly implies” the distinctive meaning of clothing metaphor’s semantic ranges, depending on its individual context. For example, the garment metaphor in Romans 13:14 highlights the idea of “adopting power.” This examination will further demonstrate that Paul’s clothing metaphors are not used spontaneously but were created within the progression of his thought. Their meanings are “elaborated” through other conventional metaphors of clothing (Rom 13:12; Col 3:12, 14; Eph 4:25, 6:11, 14). Additionally, it will reinforce the idea that Paul’s ethics is Christ-centered and grounded in his eschatology. In that regard, this paper offers a modest contribution to how the understanding of metaphor facilitates the interpretation of Pauline ethics. Grounded in Janet M. Soskice’s Metaphor and Religious Language (1985) and other scholars on metaphor (Kövecses 2010, 2017; Gibbs 2019), I will interact with NT scholars who have incorporated metaphor theory into exegesis such as Erin M. Heim’s Adoption in Galatians and Romans (2017) and Trevor J. Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (2006), as well as studies on Paul’s ethics through clothing imagery such as Michael Thompson’s Clothed with Christ (1991) and Jung Hoon Kim’s The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (2004).

Research in the Elohistic Psalter has focused on various aspects of the exegesis of the Psalter. A particular focus is repeatedly placed on the attestation of the tetragrammaton within the Elohistic Psalter. This phenomenon raises puzzles and questions. Different explanatory models attempt to show why there are 45 instances of יהוה in Psalms 42-83. Some scholars even doubt the existence of the Elohistic Psalter on the basis of this evidence. In my paper, however, I will argue that the use of the Tetragrammaton and other names of God need not cause a problem for the theory of the Elohistic Psalter as a collection within the Book of Psalms. According to my suggestion, a solution to this problem lies in the redaction history of the psalm collections as I will demonstrate through an analysis of Psalm 46 as an example. As part of the Book of Psalms, Psalm 46 belongs not only to the first collection of Korah, but also to the Elohistic Psalter. However, not only אלהים and יהוה are used as names of God in the 12-verse text. Psalm 46 also mentions the longer variation of the Tetragrammaton יהוה צבאות as well as the terms אלהי יעקב and עליון. The psalm thus contains the greatest abundance of names of God in the Elohistic Psalter. Nevertheless, the use of varying divine names and epithets is an elementary component of the text with its focus on the city of God and God's world-encompassing reign of peace. In my paper, I will use linguistic and literary-critical analyses to show that only parts of Psalm 46 are a genuine component of the Elohistic Psalter. In addition to linguistic and syntactic peculiarities, the multitude of names of God points to a literary growth of the psalm postdating the Elohistic redaction. These observations provide new insights into the place of Psalm 46 within its various compositional arcs and might indicate a fruitful new perspective on the Elohistic Psalter as a collection within the Book of Psalms.

The rabbis divided the Jewish people into classes based on their lineage and organized them hierarchically. Lineage determines marital permissibility, since Jews of inferior, or “blemished,” lineage are prohibited to marry Jews of “fit” lineage. Scholars of ancient Judaism have discussed the topic of lineage since the nineteenth century. They examined the sources through a dichotomic prism of “stringent” versus “lenient,” and highlighted discussions of lineage in the Bavli, which includes many statements on the superiority of Babylonian lineage, in contrast to other geographical areas. Scholars took these statements at face value and concluded that in Babylon, rabbis, or Jews in general, were more stringent with regards to lineage. The dichotomy of “stringent” and “lenient”, however, does not fit the sources themselves, as I have shown elsewhere. Both Babylonian and Palestinian sources voice stringent and lenient approaches towards lineage. I suggested moving beyond this dichotomy towards a larger examination of terminology and discourse. In this lecture I will build on this work and suggest a way to approach the Amoraic statements regarding Babylonian superiority of lineage. Examining the lineage discourses current in the Talmuds, reveals that it is specifically Babylonian sages that draw a connection between lineage and geographic origin or identity. Moreover, I will show how Babylonian statements that tie lineage and geography transform Tannaitic and Palestinian Amoraic sources and divert them to the context of geography. Instead of asking about rabbinic attitudes towards lineage, I will propose that we ask how the rabbis talk about lineage. Specifically, why Babylonian Amoraim tie lineage to geography and how does this rhetorical move enable them to employ lineage for their own ideologies. Addressing these questions will reveal the malleability of lineage itself and add new dimensions for the understanding of Jewish identity in antiquity.

While the reception of the Gospel of Mary is an area of burgeoning interest in academic studies, as evidenced by this conference, the role that this enigmatic second century gospel itself plays in the reception history of the Jesus tradition has been largely overlooked. What makes this so remarkable is the fact that the Gospel of Mary is one of the only surviving texts from early Christianity that explicitly describes a debate about the authenticity of statements attributed to the Historical Jesus. In its final fictive narrative about James and Peter disputing Mary’s account, and Mary’s tearful rebuttal, readers are invited to hear the polemical echoes of arguments lost to time. In this short paper, I will outline the hermeneutical division that the Gospel of Mary paints and specifically what sort of arguments are employed. A cross-analysis with the gospels of Mark and John will demonstrate that Mary’s portrayal sheds new light on canonical intertextual discussions about disputed sayings of Jesus. The result of this study is that by noting these connections, scholars will be able to recognize the complex discussions early Christians were having about the authenticity of various statements attributed to Jesus. This will both lend support to the antiquity of the modern desire for Historical Jesus quests, while also questioning whether the project has always been plagued by subjectivity.

The Greek version of the law of deposit in Exodus 22:6–14(7–15) has been previously claimed to include adaptations to the legal language of Ptolemaic Egypt. One such adaptation is found in the phrase ἐφʼ ὅλης τῆς παρακαταθήκης τοῦ πλησίον (“in the entire deposit of his neighbor”) which appears to translate במלאכת רעהו (in the business of his neighbor”; 7[8], 10[11]). The translation of מלאכה (“work,” “business,” or “wares”) with παρακαταθήκη (“deposit”) has been noted to be anomalous and a more semantically specific translation situated within the legal vocabulary of Ptolemaic Egypt. In addition, it has been presumed that ὅλης is also an interpretive and contextual plus which emphasizes that the entire deposit was protected. This paper suggests that, while the translator does appear to draw on current legal vocabulary, it might be on account of a different Vorlage. במלאכת could have been read and/or heard as בכל עבט, “in all the deposit.” עבוט, “deposit” or “pledge” is graphically and phonetically similar to אכת and likewise בכל is graphically and phonetically similar to במל. This reading would entail that there was graphical confusion at some point between מ/כ and כ/ב, which are both common. It would also assume a defective spelling of עבוט. Defective spelling for this term is attested alongside its full spelling in the biblical corpus (cf. Dt. 24:10–13). If this proposal is correct, it would explain the presence of ὅλης not as a plus but as a translation equivalent to (the postulated) כל. ὅλη is in fact always represented by כל or cognates in G. עבוט is also a far more understandable translation equivalent to παρακαταθήκη. Finally, it is possible that בכל עבט is an earlier representation of the Hebrew text and מלאכת is a later corruption. This would help explain why מלאכה appears here in an (ostensibly early) law when referring to animate and inanimate objects, the latter of which seems to be a semantic trait of מלאכה only in Late Biblical Hebrew.

This paper explores some ancient travel narratives (a novel, a medical text, a pilgrimage story) in which a figure seeks or undergoes bodily and/or other deep personal change (see for instance Sylvia Montiglio, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture). I will address these narratives through some recent work in Trans, Queer, and Disability Studies, and do so with attention to colonial geographies. In these ancient stories, foreignness figures large in the narrative of change, whether the change is characterized as fake or temporary, as when protagonists arrive home (ideally) returned to their true selves (as in Apuleius' The Golden Ass); or whether it is characterized as real, as in Thessalos’ On the Virtues of Herbs, in which he arrives at his exotic destination (Egypt) receiving the knowledge he had long sought through an encounter with the god Asklepios, thus saving him from suicide. In either case, the promise and danger of change accompanies “elsewhere,” even as that promise can be elusive. We see this in the travels of Egeria, in which the act of visiting places saturated with biblical significance does and does not deliver the kind of encounter Egeria is seeking. The shared thematics of these three texts, which are to some extent generalizable, will be put in conversation especially with Aren Aizura’s work (Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment) on modern metaphors of gender transition as a “journey” in which one arrives at their true identity. Aizura notes that those undergoing transition have historically had to travel internationally for gender reassignment or confirmation surgery, and that both the metaphor and the reality of the journey can be fraught. Following Aizura, I ask how these ancient stories of journey and arrival try to spatially contain changes that are ongoing, uncertain, and necessarily ambiguous – or already “here.” Without questioning the significance of the lived experience of “at home-ness” that can accompany bodily healing, return, or self-alignment, I ask how ancient travel narratives and the way they depict change are inflected with colonial power relations that “straighten” or stabilize such changes by locating them “elsewhere,” and as permanent truths that erase complexity and can never be undone. As such, they not only enact and retrace colonial mappings, but also tend to quell an uncertainty much closer to home. Indeed, they might stabilize what is a larger unsureness, or even deny a precious ongoingness, at the heart of homeland and self.

Submitting to 4: "Reaching Far and Wide: Elite Values and Wider Social Interactions in Religious Settings across the Ancient Mediterranean" Historical research on the imperial cult of the Roman Empire has traditionally focused on areas marked by prominent political and economic interactions with the ruling center in Rome. The periphery of the empire is often flattened into a passive absorber of the imperial cult from the ruling center, without enough attention paid to its unique social and religious context. Thus, the distinctive nature of the imperial cult in places such as Cyprus has often escaped the attention of historians and archaeologists. This paper examines the development of the imperial cult based on Ptolemaic royal worship that once prevailed on the island through epigraphic evidence. A diachronic analysis of the cultic transition from the Ptolemaic to the Roman period is conducted using Greek inscriptions on statues and public buildings from major cities such as Salamis, Paphos, Kition, and Amathous. Priesthood titles, royal and imperial epithets, and associations of the rulers with traditional deities reflected by epigraphic evidence provide valuable information on how the organization and practices of ruler worship shifted over time. The result offers new insights into the localization of cultic practices introduced by political hegemony to peripheral areas. During this process, local elites accommodated the different modes of ruler worship brought by the Ptolemies and Romans, which left a far-reaching influence on the original social and political relationships among the local communities.

Between 1909 and 1913, four major studios released films retelling the story of Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 11. Interestingly, no major studio has produced another film on this biblical narrative ever since. The surviving information about these films indicates that all four films depict the biblical tale as a melodrama—a classic genre in film studies. This paper maintains that despite the common genre, these films feature different ideological perspectives. Focused chronologically on the first and last films, namely Vitagraph’s Jephthah’s Daughter: A Biblical Tragedy (1909) and Warner Pictures’ Jephthah’s Daughter (1913), the paper examines the melodramatic surface and deep structure elements within the two films as they depict the biblical story. Three sections structure my analysis of these two films. First, this paper surveys how film scholars Ben Singer and Steve Neale define melodrama. Second, the paper presents the various melodramatic surface and deep structure elements within these films to show how the ideological perspectives of the films differ in presenting the plight of the female protagonist in the patriarchal story world. Third, the paper examines how these film depictions of the daughter's sacrifice moderate the patriarchal critique within each film. In sum, this paper argues that these films offer depictions of the biblical story that diverge significantly from the biblical scholarly exegesis of the period.

Jesus predicted his resurrection „after three days“ (Mark 8:31; 10:34) or „on the third day“ (e.g., Matt 16:21; Luke 9:22). But what did he actually do in the time between his death and resurrection? In order to answer this question, some NT passages are usually discussed (above all 1Petr 3:19 and Ephraim 4:8-10). In addition to a brief encounter with these, the paper tries to fulfil a threefold task: (1) to present critically the account given in the Descensus Christi ad Inferos (as integrated into the Gospel of Nicodemus) and (2) to interpret its interrelations with other texts. By doing so, the paper will interact with Paul’s encounters with prominent figures from the Old Testament as narrated in the Apocalypse of Peter and with relevant passages of Dante Alighieri’s Divine comedy. (3) Finally and without providing clearly chronological dependencies, the paper will prove that and how interrelations between the texts discussed fill narrative gaps left and questions provoked by them (e.g., how come that prominent figures of the OT are already present in heaven before the Last Judgment will take place.

The use of the term προσευχή for early synagogues has caused historians of religion considerable consternation. This term, commonly translated as ‘prayer house’, is regularly used in relation to specific assembly spaces that are sufficiently similar to ancient synagogues that the terms are considered synonymous, though some differences seem to remain. However, the connection to prayer practices are less clear, especially in the pre-Rabbinic period that lacked any pervasive or normative prayer cycles. Thus, many scholars have argued that this is merely an appropriation of the term from non-Jewish associations that was simply utilized by diasporic communities prior to the rabbinic standardization of synagogues in the third or fourth centuries CE. I will argue, however, that significant evidence exists for this term being utilized for spaces that are presented as existing for community and individual prayer, and thus is a rhetorically meaningful designation for such assembly spaces. I will draw on evidence from texts such as 3 Maccabees and Josephus’ Life, and various inscriptions, papyri, and graffiti to argue that there was a meaningful, if not normative, connection between these spaces and community-specific prayer practices during this nascent period of synagogue development.

This paper considers the challenges and benefits of analysing the valency patterns of BH verbs, using שׁאל in the Qal binyan as a test case. As a verb of speaking, שׁאל appears to exhibit monovalent (she inquired), bivalent (she asked him), and trivalent (she requested x of y) patterns. This paper questions whether all three patterns are operative, or if the monovalent and bivalent patterns have been misinterpreted due to the presence of null constituents. In order to engage with this question, the paper surveys both crosslinguistic and BH-specific studies of verbal valency in order to clarify the ways in which verbal valency can be discerned in BH, using Qal שׁאל as a test case.

In his essay on “Why the Johannine Jesus Weeps at the Tomb of Lazarus” Stephen Moore comments on the “[o]ceans of ink” that “have been spilled on the inner lives of paper people,” including the “ascription of inner lives to biblical characters” in the studies devoted to emotions and the Bible (Moore 2017: 300). Moore opts for affect theory in his interpretation of the tears of the Johannine Jesus, yet ascribing interiority to the emotional lives of people from a different culture and historical period is equally problematic in the light of contemporary anthropological and psychological perspectives on emotions. Monique Scheer’s concept of emotions-as-practice, similarly to Margaret Wetherell’s notion of “affective practice,” and Batja Mesquita’s OURS (OUtside the person, Relational, and Situated) model of emotions, all point to the priority of how emotions function in human relationships (thus between people, not inside), and how they are conditioned by specific social, cultural and historical contexts. These approaches are thus well suited to what I propose to focus on in my paper, namely what the emotions do in, and to, the relationships between Jesus and those whom he “loves” (Martha, Mary, Lazarus, Simon Peter, and the unnamed disciples) in the Gospel of John. As opposed to affect in the sense of impersonal force, unmediated by discourse, representation and interpretation, Scheer’s, Wetherell’s, and Mesquita’s approaches presuppose a body that is “socially situated, adaptive, trained, plastic, and thus historical” (Scheer 2012: 193). Besides bodily movements, postures and secretions, as well as interactions between bodies, emotional regulation and language used to communicate emotions will be considered. This includes the notoriously difficult verses in John 11:33.38, but also the recurring metaphor of joy as/to be “fulfilled.” The container metaphor of joy echoes the references to “the Scripture” being fulfilled, as well as drawing attention to the role of exulting Abraham as an affective witness (John 8:56), who in turn complements Jesus’s earthly affective encounters.

The authors of the Samson stories employ sophisticated wordplay through a variety of literary and rhetorical devices, including irony, puns, repetition, riddles, and rhyme. Accordingly, the biblical scribes were able to preserve their textual traditions and display mastery of their native tongue in the shadows of imposing empires. Other creative markers found throughout the Samson stories are the intertextual connections shared with other biblical texts and traditions. Among those are the ones between the Samson stories and the Song of Songs, especially the salacious themes surrounding the strained relationship between Samson and his Philistine bride-to-be in Judg 14–15. This paper focuses on the many intertextual connections shared between these two texts, with a particular emphasis upon the destruction of vineyards by foxes in Judg 15:4–5 and Song 2:15. This paper will argue that this unique feature found in these two biblical texts, which surprisingly has rarely been explored, suggests an intentional connection drawn by the authors of the Samson stories.

In explorations of the cultural and social worlds of the earliest Christ followers, age as a social category has been largely neglected. While some studies grapple with topics related to issues of age within Christ groups (such as elders, parent-child relationships, and children), very few have focussed on the importance of age as a critical element of social identity and interaction. While other aspects of social identity such as gender and social status are often readily apparent and largely fixed, age is not always obvious, and, of course, ages of individuals shift over time. However, age structure, the culturally determined norms given to certain ages and stages of life, is relatively stable and was a pivotal factor in social relationships and negotiations around honour in the ancient Mediterranean world (LaFosse, /Honouring Age/ 2023, 10-11, 25-38). One crucial factor in studying age structure is an understanding of demography—the study of population trends. Demography enables us to see a “big picture” of the population in the ancient Mediterranean. This involves an assessment of which age groups made up the largest portions of the population, the longevity of kin relationships (e.g., how likely is it that a twenty-year-old man had a living father?), and average life expectancies. Demography does not sketch the minutiae of individual lives. However, it can provide valuable data for considering how we might answer age-related questions in a historically and culturally sensitive manner. In this paper, I suggest that familiarity with demography in the ancient Mediterranean, including its limitations, is critical to understanding age structure and avoiding, as much as possible, anachronistic and ethnocentric understandings of the experience of age and age structure in early Christ groups.

After colonialism in different parts of the world, local people have continued to raise questions about theology, religion/religious practices, and cultures. Among non-European cultures and practices, there have been concerns and questions about how Christianity relates to non-Western cultures and whether one can remain true to their culture, history, and tradition and still be a Christian. These questions have received many responses from European and non-European scholars. In Nigeria and West Africa, scholars were divided on how much African cultures and traditions relate and apply to indigenous Africans. Scholars like Bolaji Idowu believe that African cultures and traditions are very much relevant to every aspect of the Christian faith; on the other hand, Byang Kato, an African evangelical scholar, has cautioned that there is a limit as to which culture and traditions apply to the Christian faith. Added to many non-Western concerns is the translation and interpretation of the Bible initiated and sometimes done by early Western missionaries who had little to no knowledge of some indigenous languages and cultures. Scholars of biblical studies in the former colonial states today face questions on the former translations of the Bible to local languages. In Northern Nigeria and some parts of the Middle Belt, one of the most debated topics among churches and indigenous Christians due to their long experiences with their Muslim neighbors is whether or not the former translation of the Missionaries of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible to Allah in the Husa Bible is accurate. Many assume that since Allah is the Arabic name for the Muslim God, it cannot be used for the Christian God. Therefore, those who critique the translations with Allah suggested the Hausa language name for God, “Ubangiji” (Lord), which is beginning to appear in some newer Hausa translations. On the other hand, those who still hold onto the translation with Allah argue that Ubangiji does not fit well into the Hausa translation of Yahweh because Ubangiji means Lord and not God. Scholars like Yusufu Turaki and Timothy Palmer have opined that the usage of Allah in Hausa does not negate the biblical name for God; therefore, Christians in Northern Nigeria can continue using it. Although the complexity of using Yahweh, Allah, or Ubangiji is big in the Hausa Missionary translated Bible, the church in Northern Nigeria wrestles with many more translation issues. This paper aims to problematize the existing arguments on Yahweh, Allah, and Ubagiji in the Hausa Bible by raising newer and relevant questions. Secondly, the paper seeks to suggest possible solutions to the Problems.

The abundance of Latinisms and Semitisms, scholars argue, can help determine not only Mark’s provenance of writing and the locale of his audience, but also his primary language (Aramaic) and subsequent languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Latin), i.e. such linguistic evidence might reveal a cultural milieu for which one can ultimately situate the author and his audience with precision. The presence of multiple Latinisms, some scholars argue, can help locate Mark in the city of Rome, i.e. where Latin functioned most naturally as the lingua franca in the west. Martin Hengel notes, for example, “such an accumulation of Latinisms is unusual” and “point[s] to an origin in Rome”. In addition, the presence of Semitisms might, for example, underline the author’s first language, Aramaic. In some instances, scholars attempt to import an entire history of Mark based on his language use. Ben Witherington, for example, speaks of Mark’s “Jewish family” and “Jerusalem” upbringing! And while general linguistic patterns in Mark’s gospel may certainly be discerned—and provide information potentially relevant to the author’s identity and background—I argue that such phenomena cannot locate Mark with the type of precision scholars sometimes suggest. In particular, the quest for degrees of “Romanization” in Mark’s gospel are increasingly problematic. In the Roman Empire, terms such as “Greek” and “Roman” were neither monolithic nor mutually exclusive, but reflected an ever-evolving diversity of identity, which changed and adapted through time and space.

Typically, scholars view/read the enigmatic apostle Paul monolithically—that is, through either a Greco-Roman or Jewish socio-cultural lens. The traditional Lutheran (Greco-Roman/Western) lens was criticized in the mid-/late-twentieth century by scholars highlighting Paul’s Jewish-ness—resulting in the so-called, “New Perspective on Paul” and “Paul within Judaism” move-ments. This paradigmatic post-Shoah shift within Pauline interpretation begs the questions, “Should we abandon Greco-Roman readings of Paul?” and “Should we continue to read Philip-pians and Paul through a singular (Jewish) lens?” Building upon the work of Markus Bockmuehl, Abraham Malherbe et al., I argue for an “eclectic and pragmatic” approach. I explain how “mo-nocular” (Greco-Roman or Jewish) and even “binocular” (Greco-Roman and Jewish) approaches flatten Paul’s complex thought world and Sitz im Leben as an in-Christ church-planting missionary. The purpose of this study is to read Philippians and Paul “kaleidoscopically”—considering the distinct Romanitas, juxtaposed and colliding cultures, worldviews, and religions that Paul likely encountered in the cosmopolitan colonia of first-century Philippi. This paper transcends the Greco-Roman/Jewish debate surrounding Paul—highlighting the literary and archaeological evidence of competing pagan, Jewish, and Pauline Christ cults in first-century Philippi—thus, encouraging scholars to read Philippians and Paul through a “kaleidoscopic” rather than a mon-olithic lens.

Spanning back more than a hundred years, Assyriologists have noted the presence of strange gods in the Ancient Near East: crowns that give blessings, standards that texts mark with DINGIR, and beds that receive sheep offerings. As a result of her decades-long engagement with these strange phenomena, Barbara N. Porter (2009) has proposed three criteria for identifying when a text indicates that a certain unexpectedly divine object is, in fact, a god. Though biblical scholars have become aware of her criteria, they have yet to apply them to the biblical text. An application of her criteria to the Ark Narrative (1 Samuel 4–6) can help to deepen the sense that YHWH does not just reside on top of the ark but acts through it: the inhabitants of Ekron fear that the ark will kill them; the Philistine priests and sorcerers discern the working of the ark in what has befallen them; and the unfortunate residents of Beth-Shemesh die for glancing at the ark. Porter’s criteria may help to further the work against the prejudice against YHWH’s (near) identification with material objects in the Hebrew Bible, and 1 Samuel 4–6 serves as an exemplary test case.

The catena manuscript tradition has been the subject of increased study in recent years. However, there are still significant lacunae in our understanding of the relationship of these manuscripts to one another and the wider tradition of the Greek New Testament. Based on my recent thesis work (A Critique of the Teststellen Method of Manuscript Classification in the Light of Evidence from the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method: The Epistle of Jude as a Test-Case. (STM, Dallas Theological Seminary, Prof. Daniel B. Wallace, 2023)) in which I collated 566 continuous text manuscripts of Jude, transcribed by Tommy Wasserman, and constructed a global stemma of Jude with the CBGM, there is a unique opportunity to take advantage of this data and research to assess the relationship of the catena tradition in Jude in order to understand the relationship of these texts both as a group as well as to the rest of the tradition. In this paper, I will use a combination of textual flow diagrams and the global stemma to identify strong catena clusters, assess their textual character within the Jude tradition, and present the data and preliminary findings.

The books, characters and traditions of Esther and Judith have often been studied and contrasted. They are both texts with a female protagonist, after whom they are named. Moreover, they share similar themes and motifs such as the potential destruction then salvation of the nation (e.g. Fox). In her commentary on Judith, Barbara Schmitz proposes an overarching narrative arc developed by the major prayers and dialogues which make up almost one third of the text. This helps to create a unified picture in a text often divided by a variety of critical lenses and brings out Judith 8-9 as the high point of the narrative (49-50). Thus, analysing a narrative and its structure through the presence, use, and placing of dialogues and prayers can shed new light on meaning and function of the story. What might be the findings from a similar analysis applied to other texts of the same period such as Esther, which has prayers added to its Greek versions that are contemporaneous with Judith? How do these prayers restructure the narrative or shift its focus? I propose to apply this idea to analyse the narrative tradition of Esther in its Greek forms (LXX, AT), in contrast with MT Esther, and explore what the prayers and speeches might illuminate or obscure within the story. Prayer has been the source of many complex studies, but for the sake of this paper will be broadly defined as ‘divine-human dialogue’ (Balentine). As such, it mirrors and works alongside other speeches. Though the prayers of Judith and Esther have been studied together, the focus has mostly been on the form, content and theologically significance. (e.g. Efthimiadis‐Keith). I compare how they are used, mainly structurally, within the narrative and what this might reflect. Where the prayers and speeches occur within the narrative, who is addressing or being addressed, and how they relate to each other will be considered. Significantly, it is the female protagonists to whom long prayers are attributed and they occur around defining times of trial, even facing the threat of death! Moreover, the prayers seem to be looking forward, with hope or perhaps certainty, but also using much scriptural language and imagery from the past. It may be consequential that the prayers occur in what scholars have classed as “later” texts, for which the historical dating would follow Newman’s observations of increased interest in prayer post-exile and in the 2nd Temple Period. I will also explore how early translations may consciously or unconsciously be differentiated from the Hebrew text. Furthermore, I will consider whether it matters that although, in the narrative a female protagonist is speaking, it is likely to have been composed by a male author.

In this paper, the Temple discourse in the Ignatian letters in the middle recension is analyzed through the lens of leadership theories stemming from Social Identity Theory (SIT). Especially important is the way that Ignatius is portrayed as a prototypical leader, that is, the way Ignatius embodies Christ Group values. As a prototypical leader, he gains the possibility to alter the understanding of what a Christ follower is. Thus, the Ignatian letters are examples of Identity Entrepreneurship. The writer of the letters provides a self-understanding of the Christ groups in which an old identity as Ἰουδαϊσμός is obsolete. Instead, the way Christ followers can gain access to the lifegiving community with the father is through the ἐκκλησία, if gathered in subjection to the ἐπίσκοπος. In this case, the congregation has access to an effective temple, exceeding the now obsolete old temple of Jerusalem, and the now obsolete old identity as Ἰουδαϊσμός. The way that Ignatius portrays the emerging church, gathered around the ἐπίσκοπος, provides additional impulses for our understanding of the Parting of the Ways. Key words: Ignatius of Antioch, Temple theology, Parting of the Ways, Bishop, Social Identity Theory, Prototypicality, Identity Entrepreneurship.

"The foreigner is within me; hence we are all foreigners", writes Julia Kristeva. "Strangely, the foreigner lives within us; he is the hidden face of our identity..." In this paper, I would like to think of the foreignness within, the sense of uncanniness and unknowability that haunts the YHWHistic unconscious. My example is "good" king Hezekiah. Why does he fail? There are two parallel accounts about Hezekiah in the Hebrew Bible, one in the book of Kings, the other in Isaiah (ignoring the Temple-oriented one in Chronicles).. I am fascinated by the difference as well as similarity between them. There are three major variations: i) their setting in the books of Kings and Isaiah respectively; ii) the account of Hezekiah's reign in 2 Kings 18.1-16, including his submission to Sennacherib; iii) Hezekiah's poem in 38.9-20. I contend that these result in divergent characterizations of Hezekiah, which nonetheless reverberate with each other. In Kings, Hezekiah is the ideal Deuteronomistic king, even better than Josiah. His reign contrasts with the fall of Samaria in the previous chapter, the first of the catastrophes to befall YHWH's people. Henceforth Judah is already a remnant. Hezekiah is an iconoclast, removing the high places, smashing the sacred pillars, cutting down the Asherah, and even destroying that icon of Mosaic orthodoxy, the bronze serpent. Why does he do this? Puritanism suggests repression, of folk religion, and hence of the other within, the persistence of the allegedly indigenous culture in an increasingly monothetic world. Perhaps, like Saul, Hezekiah protests too much. He is modelled after David, his "father", and like David, YHWH is "with him" and he succeeds in all he does (18.7) - until the Assyrians come! In Isaiah, the story of Hezekiah marks the climax of First Isaiah, and the apex of the fortunes of the Davidic dynasty. It is schematically contrasted with the pusillanimity of Ahaz in ch.7. But the portrait is strange. For an ideal king, Hezekiah does absolutely nothing, until he makes the fatal mistake of showing his treasures to the Babylonian emissaries. All he does is pray. He is the David of Psalms rather than of martial prowess, already in exile. In Kings, the Assyrian threat results in abjection, and an experience of non-birth, of the children being stuck in the birth-canal. It is either the mother Jerusalem who cannot give birth to her children, or it is Hezekiah himself. In the story with the Babylonian emissaries, Hezekiah exposes all the treasures of his kingdom, resulting literally in castration. In Isaiah, Hezekiah's illness makes us aware of his mortality; even the best of kings dies. The poem, however, expresses his experience of grief. Life is on the edge of death. There is a strange reversal. Instead of death as an exile from life, life is an exile from death. The king experiences all his friendships and commitments as remote, and uncanny. He has become the stranger within.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

In the ancient Mediterranean world, first public appearances were agonistic display windows for up-coming young men. The bioi/vitae took advantage of the ancient fascination with spectacular debuts and turned it into a literary topos (the parodos). This presentation investigates this largely overlooked topos, arguing that Mark’s Gospel contains both a Jesuanic debut summary (1:14–15) and a debut scene (1:21–28). Both scenes employ motifs from the conventional debut topos in Markan ways (debut timing, patronage, famous first words, characteristic deed, etc.). Jesus’s debut in Mark, moreover, contains militaristic power language comparable to the debut of Moses in Exodus and the foreign generals in, for example, Cornelius Nepos. In Mark, as in Plutarch and Suetonius, the main character’s debut serves a programmatic function in the literary work as a whole.

This paper argues in conversation with discussions in legal anthropology that legalities were one way that ancient Jewish scribes conceptualized and articulated “nature” (for which there was no single word/phrase in Hebrew). Legal writings are thus instructive for philologically grounding conceptions of nature as well as virtues such as justice that shape it. This paper will begin with hellenistic and early Roman period texts to identify legal conceptions of selfhood (4 Macc 1:13–17; 2:18–23; also the Scrolls), according to which the self ought not be “bent” (4 Macc 3). From here, the paper will suggest how these ideas continued motifs from contemporaneous and significantly earlier legalistic writings that warn against “bending” mishpat as a term used in ethical and taxonomical considerations (e.g., 11Q19; Deuteronomy; Covenant Code). It will be suggested that legal terminology such as mishpat belonged to scribal vocabulary of nature, which complicates claims not only that “nature” is a distinctly “Greek” concept but also that natural law was a distinctly “Greek" concept.

In the city of Rome, the cult of Mater Magna remained strikingly visible into the fifth century CE. On top of that, some Roman aristocrats continued to patronize the Great Mother, while participating in Metroac rituals in notable, new ways. In particular, some aristocrats offered a taurobolium (a bull sacrifice)—some as a standard sacrifice for the health and safety of the emperor/s and the empire; others as a kind of initiatory rite, evoking “mystery cult” rhetoric, aiming to secure individual safety (even salvation). These ritual offerings and their commemorative altars were, as Neil McLynn has argued, high-profile acts aimed to secure honor and prestige—not relics of some private, terrifying rite as Prudentius would have it. In addition, members of the aristocracy joined in public rites once stigmatized as foreign, in the first centuries BCE/CE at least. Barefoot aristocrats seem to have participated in a purificatory ritual procession (lavatio) and other rites in the March mourning ritual. A fragmentary sarcophagus depicts an unidentified procession of what appear to be the sacred stone of the Mater Magna led by two aristocrats in a carriage. Some aristocrats may even have begged alms for the goddess and not just in Christian verse polemic, which lampooned “pagan” aristocratic religiosity as part of an urgent campaign against traditional forms and gestures of aristocratic honor. Such novel ritual performance suggests a two-fold explanation: first, aristocrats may have been responding to the changing definition of what it meant to be religious, a development Jörg Rüpke assigned to the second and third centuries CE. By the fourth century, religion, as Daniel Boyarin and Carlin Barton as well as Brent Nongbri have argued, began to be understood more along the lines of what we, modern scholars, mean by the term—something like a deeply felt commitment to deity/-ies demonstrated by ritual praxis. And second: novel forms of participation may also have been a soft-footed response to the increasingly heavy hand of imperial Christianity. Christianity may have been a form of “careerism” as the eminent “pagan” rhetor Symmachus noted, but some non-Christian Romans resisted by dedication to the goddess.

The “He Gets Us” Campaign, including commercials in the 2023 and 2024 Superbowls provide an opportunity to reflect on the interplay of the Bible, Religion, and Popular Culture. The images, music, and artistic style engage viewers and have prompted extended conversations about how to interpret them, particularly in their treatment of current conflicts and debates. This paper will examine the 2024 Footwashing ad, looking at the particular conflicts depicted in it in light of the Biblical Allusions and other cultural references embedded in some of the scenes. For instance, Mr. Rogers and Norman Rockwell offer some interesting parallels to these scenes. It will also compare this ad to other ad campaigns, including the “Keep America Beautiful” and “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” ads from the 1970s, United Church of Christ ads from the early 2000s, and Bruce Springsteen’s “Meet in the Middle” ad from 2021. It will conclude with a consideration of the statements by the ad’s creative team and sponsors and the varied responses to the ad.

What age and aging mean in different contexts is socially constructed. How aging is connected and entangled with themes of disability is also various. Different cultures imbue childhood, youth, maturity and old age with diverse cultural values. Drawing on recent critical work on Childism, Adultism, and Ageism, in conversation with disability studies, here selected characters from Luke-Acts will be reviewed to critically explore views on ageing, longevity, lifespan, health, and disability.

In February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a decision in LePage, et al. v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C. The court holds that embryos generated through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and frozen before implantation can be regarded as unborn “children” and the companies producing these embryos can be held liable for their damage or destruction. The ruling relies on Alabama statutes and applies only to claims brought within its home state, but its broader implications have prompted nationwide scrutiny, sometimes eliciting scathing criticism of a “theocratic” turn in jurisprudence. This paper will examine the portion of the decision that has generated the sharpest objection—the concurrence of Chief Justice Tom Parker. Parker employs Christian interpretations of Genesis 1:26-27 to argue that a 2018 Alabama constitutional amendment recognizing the “Sanctity of Life” requires the state to “treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made them in His image” (slip opinion at p. 48). Applying textualist interpretive canons, Parker reasons that the phrase is understood by the citizens of Alabama through Gen. 1:27 to signify that human life is “sacred” because it bears the image of God. When Parker concludes, “we believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness” (ibid.), the pronoun “we” designates the Alabama public. I will focus on two points of the concurrence. First, Parker fails to consider the use of the term “Sanctity of Life” by biomedical ethicists. I will briefly trace the history of the term in this domain and address its significance for a textualist interpretation. Second, Parker suggests that the imago Dei is something like a genetic marker in human DNA. This stands in sharp tension with the Christian reception history, which despite its diversity regards the image as a potentiality humans can exercise rather than as a static essence. Parker leans particularly on Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. But Thomas, consistent with preceding exegetical practice, describes human nature as created “to” the image of God, that is, as a capacity by which humans can participate intentionally in God’s being. While Calvin might be read as more congenial to Parker’s essentialist position, he emphatically declares that the image has been “lost” through the originating sin of the protoplasts and has not been passed down to subsequent generations. Parker employs Genesis to embed Christian terminology as a public, constitutional discourse. It is urgent for us to engage with the historical trajectory of the “image of God” because the court advances far-reaching claims about the application of theological language to American public discourse and legal usage.

Scholars like Edward L. Greenstein highlight the interpretive complexity of the Book of Job, arguing that it relies on "guesswork" with no single consensus on its interpretation. In this context, how should we read the enigmatic and inconsistent of Job? Greenstein proposes that the intricate and contradictory nature of the Book of Job can impact how readers perceive it. Katharine J. Dell and Carol Newsom consider this to be a literary element that permits a variety of interpretations. More specifically, Dell views the discrepancy as a "misuse of genre" that sparks curiosity and generates fresh significance and Newsom views the contradiction as a "polyphonic text" with multiple voices contributing to a "dialogic truth”. Furthermore, Newsom describes the Book of Job's inconsistencies as 'cognitive dissonance,' causing readers to experience psychological distress and rogez (רֹגֶז, turmoil) which represents a violent narrative fluctuation within Job's Zusammenhang des Lebens (‘coherence of life’). A reader engaging in close reading of Job's rogez experiences Job's pain, which can be understood through Yosef Raz's perspective. According to Raz, Job's pain is a subjective experience resulting from the interaction between cultural factors and the constantly changing sense of self and mind. Therefore, what Raz refers to as suffering could be identified as Job's rogez, emerging from the interplay between Job's changing sense of self and reality. If, as Newsom and Raz suggest, through rogez, Job's cognitive dissonance in Zusammenhang des Lebens is demonstrated, how can a reader engaging with Job's suffering through rogez in the Book of Job reinterpret it? This paper argues that approaching Job 28:28 as Job's voice could lead to an understanding of Job's rogez as a form of his theological reflection. When Job 28:28 is heard in Job's voice, readers experiencing psychological dissonance can interpret the stubborn and angry portrayal of Job in his conversations with his three friends in chapters 29-31 as an endeavor to uphold the narrative that supports the coherence of his life: ‘feared God and turned away from evil.’ Thus, this paper argues that by interpreting 28:28 within the narrative of Job's coherence of life, readers can better understand Job's rogez formed through psychological dissonance. Through this, it aims to understand Job 28:28 as a conclusion to Chapter 28 or even as a conclusion to the entirety of the Book of Job, following the journey led by Job's rogez. Like Eve Sweetser’s argument, the sequence of 'to' and 'from' in dialogue implicitly carries 'directionality,' representing the 'journey of thought' formed through metaphorical mappings. Hence, the inconsistency within Job invites readers not only to experience Job's rogez but also challenges them with 'a fresh hunch' about humans and God through the thought journey guided by Job's rogez.

Apart from questions of its origins and its relationship to the rest of the Gospel, the Johannine prologue (Jn 1:1-18) has a number of puzzling problems in its structure and contents. Overall, the movement is clear enough: from creation to incarnation to revelation. But within its folds, the prologue at various points seems awkward and fragmented, with disorderly jumps and disconnections, and moments of semantic clumsiness where, for example, the subject of the sentence is itself unclear (e.g. Jn 1:9, 16). This paper focusses on four particular areas of disjunction within the prologue. It begins with the most obvious puzzle for the reader or hearer: the apparent intrusions of John the Baptist in two different sections of the prologue (Jn 1:6-8, 15) where his somewhat prosaic presence seems to come from nowhere, shifting significantly the poetic tone of the prologue. It then examines moments where the meaning seems confusing or unclear. Take, for example, the bewildering relationship between θεός and λόγος in the opening verses: how can these two entities exist as both separate and yet also as one (Jn 1:1-2)? Or how do we grasp the shifting dynamic between light and darkness which starts as literal within creation itself and then moves unexpectedly to themetaphorical (Jn 1:4-9)? Another area of confusion is where the same word can have two, even contradictory, meanings such as σάρξ in one context, where it is more negatively understood (Jn 1:13), and σάρξ a little later, where it is entirely positive (Jn 1:14). From a literary perspective, this paper argues that these disjunctions are not caused by external factors within the tradition history behind the Gospel, or clumsy syntax and muddled thinking on the part of the evangelist but have, on the contrary, literary and theological significance essential for comprehending the prologue. To effect a renewed understanding of these bewildering factors and illuminate their meaning, this paper explores theories of disambiguation, ancient temporality, intricate narration and poetic diction. Overall, the paper seeks to argue that the points of dislocation serve a significant literary function, confirming the coherence of the prologue as a literary unit within the wider theological framework of the Fourth Gospel.

Since the 1970 publication of Robert Markus’s Saeculum, scholars of Augustine have claimed he rejected a theology of tempora christiana conflating the conversion of the Roman empire with the culmination of human history. According to Markus’s reading of Augustine, the era from incarnation to Christ’s return is a time of historical and institutional ambiguity, when nothing of redemptive significance occurs and no community can be identified with the earthly or the heavenly cities. For Markus, these ambiguities legitimated a public sphere that could embrace individuals of different ultimate commitments. This presentation challenges Markus by examining Augustine’s interpretation of Ps 72:11. According to Augustine, this verse prophesied the Roman emperors’ conversion to Christianity following the reign of Constantine. Their conversion extended Christ’s liberation throughout the empire by releasing the Romans from captivity to the demons of traditional religion. It also justified the coercion of schismatic “Donatists” back into “Catholic” communion. Augustine’s arguments pose severe challenges for the appropriation of his political theology. By applying Old Testament prophecy to post-biblical events, he legitimated the exploitation of imperial power for allegedly Christian purposes. Augustine’s example illustrates the dangers of interpreting Scripture to uncover God’s will behind contemporary developments.

This paper examines the tradition of Mosaic songwriting and how the tradition is used exegetically in Tobit and David’s prayer writing. According to Deuteronomy 31, God commands Moses to write down a song as a testimony against the Israelites since God already knew the future of the Israelites after entering Canaan (19-20). Under the words of God, Moses writes down the song, which seems to refer to Deut 32:1-43, known as the Song of Moses. Beyond the provenance and function of the Song, its position in Deuteronomy 32 allows it to take on the role of a witness represented in Deuteronomy 31, predicting not only the future of Israel’s suffering caused by their stubbornness and wickedness but also the future of their restoration based on God’s mercy. Interestingly, the Mosaic act of songwriting is represented in several traditions. First, LXX Deut 32:44, which immediately follows the Song of Moses (32:1-43), contains a phrase not found in the Masoretic text: "And Moses wrote this song that day, and taught it to the children of Israel. The phrase is a repetition of Deut 31:22, reinforcing the connection between the act of songwriting by Moses and the text of the Song. Next, the tradition of songwriting is found in Tobit. Many studies have shown similarities between the book of Tobit and Deuteronomy. In particular, the framework of Tobit 12-14 shows a structural and thematic similarity to that of Deuteronomy 31-34. Tobit 13 presents Tobit's prayer of praise focusing on the future of Jerusalem and its restoration, which structurally corresponds to Moses' song in Deuteronomy 32. It is noteworthy that, the LXX BA in Tobit 13:1 indicates that “Tobit wrote a prayer of rejoicing” before this prayer of Tobit began. 4Q200 of the Dead Sea Scrolls also holds the same tradition of Tobit's act of writing. I will argue that, by using the figure of Moses as songwriter, the tradition of Tobit’s prayer-writing functions to bring conviction to the future of Jerusalem’s restoration as a prophecy to be fulfilled. Finally, I will also focus on the prophetic function of David’s psalms in 11Q5. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, many textual witnesses demonstrate that not only the Song of Moses but also the psalms of David were interpreted as prophecy. By examining the phrase “he[David] wrote psalms” in 11Q5 Col.27, I will argue that the prophetic understanding of David’s psalms is related to the Mosaic tradition of songwriting. This tradition would provide one of the exegetical foundations for the prophetic understanding of David’s psalms.

In this paper, I examine Noah as a healing hope who survives an ecological exile. The Bible presents the flood Noah’s generation encounters as an unprecedented natural disaster that submerges the entire world and destroys humans and animals alike. Noah’s family and the animals in the ark suffer extreme alienation from their environment, i.e., “solastalgia,” a sense of homelessness while one is at home. Noah is a man of the Sabbath, as his name connotes “rest.” In the flood story interwoven with natural catastrophes and rest, Noah emerges as a sign of hope. While ecological disasters disrupt the natural world profoundly, they also create space that allows rest, restoration, and healing. Ahad Ha’am’s famous saying, “More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews,” may also be true of humanity in the face of impending ecological disasters.

The Use of Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8 has been a textual unit that perplexed the letter’s readers because it appears that the order or the action of the Psalm’s character has been reversed either deliberately or mistakenly. Some scholars say that Ephesians’ use of Psalm 68:18 is misapplication or misuse. Others have tried to harmonise the use of Psalms by way of typological interpretation among other things. However, if one examines the eschatological flow of thoughts in Ephesians, as well as biblical allusions and quotations, there is a pattern of reversal in this epistle. Thus, this paper will study how Ephesians use the First Testament (Hebrew Bible, Septuagint) and examine how apocalyptic eschatology appears in early Jewish literature. Then, the study will argue that Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8 is the same pattern of reversal, understanding the Christ event as the apocalyptical eschaton within which the ekklesia depicted in Ephesians takes part.

My paper examines the gendered heresiology of Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 310/320-402/3), the fourth-century bishop of Constantia (Salamis), who enumerated eighty hairesēs in his Panarion. The core premise of his heresiological work was to compile these heresies, all of which stemmed from five “mother-heresies”: Barbarianism, Scythianism, Hellenism, Judaism, and “Christianity” (Anaceph. I. 4.2; Pan. 1.9, 80.10.2-4; De Fide, 1.6, 6.1, 6.4-8, 18.1). By intertextually engaging with both Colossians 3:11 and Song of Songs 6:7-9, the Panarion demonstrated a gendered framework of heresies by mapping eighty “concubines” and their respective “mother-heresies,” in contrast to the Church as “bride” of Christ (Proem I, 1.3). My argument has two points: (1) First, the Panarion in its structure, themes, and content drew on the discursive context(s) of ancient compilatory or encyclopedic works (e.g. Pliny’s Natural History, Dioscorides’s Materia Medica, Oribasius’s Medical Collections); (2) Second, the Panarion capaciously understood heresiology to encompass various somatic and familial imagery, including that of “concubines” and “mother-heresies.” In other words, for Epiphanius, heresies had bodies: they reproduced, (d)evolved, had families or groupings, and were literary representations of what certain theorists call “monstrous.” While I briefly discuss the compilatory framework of the Panarion and its significance within a broader context of late antique Christianity, the paper will address various examples within Epiphanius’s compendium that illustrate the workings of gendered logic. In many of his refutations, Epiphanius presented the body of that heresy as an animal (or multiple animals). The so-called Gnostics, for instance, were portrayed as illicit children, genetically estranged and sexually other. They were simultaneously also “monstrous” or sub-human and presented as deadly reptiles and insects (Pan. 26). Positioned within Epiphanius’s taxonomic logic, the “Gnostics” were dangerously capable of reproducing (books and forgeries) and were themselves “begotten by [Nicolaus]” (Pan. 26.1.3). In addition, the “Gnostics” were like the “pangless viper” whose own gory process of reproduction (i.e. the female viper severs the head of the male viper during intercourse; at birth, the twins kills their own mother) highlighted the sexual degeneracy and monstrosity of the hairesis. Portraying the “Gnostics” as sexual deviants allowed him to rhetorically highlight his opponents’ lack of self-mastery, while ensuring his own. Examples like these illustrated the interplay between gender, power, and group competition in late antiquity. Epiphanius incarnated heresies and portrayed them as unruly bodies that needed to be controlled. The various discursive features taken from medical and compilatory works highlighted the anomalous and invasive nature of heresies as bodies that needed to be written and researched, yet provoking negative emotions such as fear, disgust, and an

This paper provides a computational and statistical methodology to assess which Septuagint manuscript families lie behind different books of the Ethiopic Old Testament. It draws upon the latest technologies of Natural Language Processing and AI to tag words with parts of speech and morphology which can then be aligned with the Greek Septuagint. Different Greek manuscript families can then be statistically compared against an Ethiopic text to find the best matches for each book. Scholars have long been aware of different Greek textual families underlying the Ethiopic text, such as Lucian, hexaplaric, and pre-hexaplaric (Rahlfs: Septuaginta-Studien, I, 85-87; Knibb: Translating the Bible), but we now know the pre-hexaplaric text was far more diverse than imagined with texts such as kaige revision inconsistently occurring in manuscripts (cf. Judges B and Kingdoms. Kreuzer: Septuaginta und äthiopischer Text). This approach complements research on the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament Project (THEOT), because – rather than looking between Ethiopic manuscripts – it looks backwards to the Greek texts that lie behind the original translations.

There has been widespread criticism of the sexual aggression and incest of Lot’s daughters (Gen 19), sparking debates about moral and ethical issues. This paper offers a positive perspective on their actions, highlighting the significance of self-directed and proactive female behavior. Firstly, their illicit sexual act can be understood as an unavoidable decision resulting from their father Lot depriving them of their right to motherhood, as he chose to live in a cave in the mountains. This can be interpreted as the marginalized and victimized daughters' pursuit of social justice for their economic and social stability, typically secured through marriage in a male-dominated society. Secondly, their sexual initiative can be seen as a counterattack against their father's past mistreatment, as he offered his virgin daughters to the men of Sodom as surrogate victims for sexual assault The language and expression used in the text emphasize female-led physical sexual intercourse, suggesting that they not only influenced their father's mind by intoxicating him but also physically dominated his body. This reverses the typical dynamic of male dominance and female subordination in sexual relationships. Thirdly, they autonomously take charge of rebuilding the family after the destruction to ensure the continuation of the family line during a time of crisis. Through their sexual self-determination and subsequent childbearing, they expand the family unit, laying the groundwork for the creation of their own community. This challenges traditional gender hierarchies, undermining both male dominance and authority over female submission. In essence, a new family phase is established through the empowerment of women—daughters who assume the role of household heads, representing not only a generational shift but also a genderquake.

In Biblical Hebrew, unlike other Semitic languages with the exception of Ugaritic, there are two productive first-person singular independent pronouns:ʾānî and ʾānōkî. In Late Biblical Hebrew, usage of ʾānōkî drastically declines, which has led some scholars to utilize the relative prevalence of these pronouns as a periodization tool, including for the Priestly texts of the Pentateuch. However, an evaluation of the semantic content of the pronouns should precede any determination of their import to diachronic analysis. The persistence of both pronouns, sometimes in the same verse, in Archaic and Classical Biblical Hebrew, and, to a lesser extent, in Late Biblical Hebrew needs to be accounted for. In not doing so, scholars have undermined the utility of their diachronic linguistic analyses as a means of dating texts. In this paper, I will provide a comprehensive account of the semantic differences between ʾānî and ʾānōkî through careful analysis of the Biblical data and comparative Ugaritic texts such as the Ba’al Cycle. In doing so, I will argue that the usage of the ʾānōkî is more syntactically constrained than ʾānî and that the usage of the pronouns in Ugaritic texts should inform our analysis of the Biblical data.

In Genesis 29, we encounter the first example of an employer-employee dynamic featuring Jacob and his uncle, Laban. Jacob, smitten by Laban's younger daughter Rachel, proposes to work for seven years as a condition for marrying her. Laban accepts the offer, but upon the completion of the term, he deceives Jacob by giving him his older daughter, Leah, instead. In response to Jacob's objections upon discovering the deception, Laban proposes another seven years of service, and Jacob accepts without further discussion. In this paper, we explore how this particular biblical negotiation maps onto contemporary negotiations. We argue these cases share enough major similarities that it’s useful to discuss them together, for we can better understand certain contemporary intuitions concerning exploitation of labor and the free market by showing that they may have roots in biblical representations of free market negotiations. Specifically, establishing a similarity between these cases can help explain why many feel there is a distinction in the blame that we allot to individuals who fail to successfully advance their own interests in their negotiations, versus the blame we allot to those who attempt to manipulate and take advantage of others in their negotiations.

Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER) and Zuta (SEZ) are two multifarious works or sibling traditions which can most probably be dated to early Geonic times (ca. 9th-10th c.). The texts cleverly combine with literary skilfulness different genres (meshalim, maxims, micro-exegesis, ‘retold Bible’, exempla etc.), discursive structures and strategies which could have make the texts function for different audiences. Being mainly concerned with questions of ethical lifestyle, righteous conduct, and identity, both works display a unique, though hybrid, character between a moral guidebook, learned exposition (i.e. Midrash), and biblical reconfiguration. Despite its very distinct, rather non-Midrashic character the author(s) of Seder Eliyahu were well versed in all the exegetical methods and strategies that were salient features of the “classical Midrash”. This paper seeks to discuss the varied, and at times surprising figurations of exegesis and rabbinic discourse in Seder Eliyahu by concentrating on the subtle or more obvious shifts that distinguish the text’s approach to biblical interpretation from earlier works. This includes the adoption and adaptation of the hermeneutical rules (middot) as well as the application of other, unusual exegetical techniques for its own agenda. In addition, on finds a creative and primarily non-exegetical usage of biblical narratives, figures and elements as an important characteristic feature of Seder Eliyahu’s discourse. On a second level, Seder Eliyahu makes strong references to or even ‘recycles’ exegetical takes on particular Biblical verses or episodes that feature in earlier (Amoraic Midrash, Bavli) and roughly contemporary rabbinic works (Tanhuma-Yelamdenu/ Pesikta Rabbati/ Kohelet Rabba and Zuta). I argue that Seder Eliyahu navigated a shared discursive space of a ‘mixed multitude’ of Jews (e.g. proto-Karaites, Scripturalist, rabbinic or geonic circles) and equally diversified Christian and Muslim communities in this period of accelerated change. The authors sought to reach this goal by a two-tier discursive strategy. On the one hand, the text stages a dissociation from or keeps a safety distance to traditional rabbinic/geonic learning (texts, practices and institutions), while through multiple markers and references it anchors its discourse firmly in rabbinic and still more biblical tradition. Simultaneously, Seder Eliyahu exhibits various structural similarities with contemporary texts (e.g. PRE and so-called “late midrashim”), new Geonic literary types and various Arabic-Persian, Muslim, or Syriac Christian forms of discourse. Consequently, the text should be understood as an important bridging tradition that sheds light on the formative phase between late antique rabbinic literature and the complex rise of Geonic-Talmudic Judaism in the medieval period.

This paper argues that although Thomas is clearly the main character of the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (ATh), it is less clear who the ethical focal point of the text is. One would expect Thomas to be the “perfect” ethical example of what a Christian is supposed to be. However, he refuses to travel to India, even when Jesus specifically asks him to do so (§ 1), and a speaking wild ass calls Thomas out for standing there idle and resting instead of spreading Christianity to the Indians (§ 78). The aristocratic woman Mygdonia, on the other hand, is only portrayed negatively when the text introduces her: she has her slaves push away the crowd in order to get closer to Thomas (§ 82). After Thomas rebukes her behavior and converts her to Christianity, her conduct changes: She does not want to have sex with her husband anymore (e.g., § 89), spends as much time as possible listening to Thomas, and only receives criticism from her husband, who is clearly portrayed as a character with a lack of self control. Mygdonia, on the other hand, shows this self control. By means of a character analysis of Mygdonia and a comparison with Thomas, this paper argues that from an ethical perspective, the aristocratic woman Mygdonia can be understood as just as good an ethical example as Thomas – maybe even better.

Despite the prominence of Corinth in the field of Christian Origins, there is no secure evidence of a Corinthian Christ assembly in the third to fourth centuries. Tertullian and Origen's mentions that Corinthians were orthodox may refer to Paul's church, and funerary inscriptions epigraphically dated to the late fourth century are found exclusively in secondary contexts. However, there is robust evidence of active Christ assemblies on either side of this evidentiary gap. The letters of Paul, 1 Clement, and Bishop Dionysius of Corinth attest to the city's integration into the broader Christ network in the first to second centuries, and monumental basilica churches proliferated across the landscape in the fifth and sixth centuries. Is the evidentiary gap evidence of Christianity's absence in the third and fourth centuries, as argued by Rebecca Sweetman for the entire Peloponnese, or did archaeological formation processes erase the ephemeral material practices of Christians in the "missing period?" In this paper, I argue that examining the "object itineraries" of surviving Corinthian Christian material provides a method for observing the processes of material erasure of the otherwise invisible "missing" Christians. I use the largest known basilica in the Mediterranean world at the time of its construction (ca. late fifth to early sixth century), the Lechaion Basilica, to demonstrate how tracing an object's itinerary through time and space makes earlier Corinthian Christ assemblies visible in the archaeological record. First, I present object itinerary, as advanced by Rosemary Joyce and Susan Gillespie, as a methodology that conceives of objects as temporary assemblages of things-in-motion, in contrast to discrete "births" and "deaths" of the related "object biography." Thus, the archaeological record forms through processes of people and things co-producing each other, thus leaving traces of their actions on each other. I then introduce the Lechaion Basilica and demonstrate how the seemingly stationary monument is usefully understood as a bundle of objects— marble from distant quarries organized into semi-standardized architectural forms, two Byzantine coins under the floor, and graves of the faithful— that moved temporally and spatially and, thus, appropriately possesses an "object itinerary." I then present its itinerary and interpret the basilica as an assemblage that formed from the confluence of imperial investment in the region following the reign of Theodosius II and an existing Christ network that, on the edge of the eastern empire, had been an insular local network that did not produce durable, distinctive material culture. In other words, the existence of the Lechaion Basilica is better explained by the persistence of Corinthian Christianity in the third and fourth centuries than by imperial agents creating an entirely new Christ network to plan, construct, administer, attend, maintain, and renovate the church dominating the Corinthian shore.

Historical reconstructions of ancient Israel have transformed significantly in the past thirty years, driven largely by advances in archaeology. As Ido Koch, Oded Lipschits, and Omer Sergi highlight in “From Nomadism to Monarchy,” the focus of historical research has shifted during this time from relying primarily on biblical texts to prioritizing archaeological findings. While this change has reshaped historical research of the southern Levant, it does not necessarily indicate progress in the field of biblical studies. This presentation will engage with the articles in this volume to examine the current state of historical research of the southern Levant, with a particular emphasis on methods related to textual evidence. The aim is to address ongoing methodological challenges and debates related to historical methods in biblical studies and to suggest constructive paths forward in the study of ancient Israel's history.

Traditionally, scholars researching the historical John the Baptist have factored the hypothetical Q into their reconstructions alongside material from the canonical Gospels and Josephus’ Antiquities (e.g. Webb’s John the Baptizer and Prophet; Taylor’s The Immerser; Tatum’s John the Baptist and Jesus; McGrath’s John of History, Baptist of Faith; Marcus’ John the Baptist in History and Tradition; Murphy’s John the Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age). Even when the focus is literary, Q has been presented as an authoritative source for preserving traditions about the Baptist (e.g. Wink’s John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition; Rothschild’s Baptist Traditions in Q). Recently though, Q’s existence has been questioned with vigor. The minority “L/M hypothesis,” known also as the “Farrer-Goulder” or “Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre hypothesis,” has emerged/reemerged to challenge the once firm dominance of the “Two-source hypothesis”. Scholars such as Francis Watson (e.g. Gospel Writing), Mark Goodacre, and others have done work that has eroded the consensus that Q existed, arguing instead that Matthew knew Mark’s Gospel and that Luke knew both Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels, so that no hypothetical source is needed to explain the similarities between Matthew and Luke. Their work has begun to influence their colleagues in the field. This paradigm shift will influence future research on the Baptist. This paper will consider the implications of the “L/M hypothesis” for our understanding of the Baptist (though it will not be a defense of the “L/M hypothesis, per se), asking how this shift in Synoptic studies might impact how we reconstruct the Baptist from a historical perspective. It will revisit the aforementioned scholarship to ask how the removal of Q would affect those reconstructions. We will consider two pericopae as case studies: (1) John’s prediction of the one coming after him from Mark 1:7-8/Matthew 3:11-12/Luke 3:15-17 (Q 3:16-17?) and (2) John’s warning of a coming judgment from Matthew 3:7-10/Luke 3:7-9 (Q 3:7-9?). The first saying has been interpreted as an example of how Mark and Q may have differed (“and fire”) but the “L/M hypothesis” would suggest that the extended version in Matthew and Luke was Matthew’s invention or from an oral or written source available to Matthew but not to us. The second pericope has been interpreted as a unique contribution to our understanding of John that comes to us because of Q but again, the “L/M hypothesis” suggests that the genealogy of this material may be unrecoverable, being anything from Matthew’s own creation to content from a lost and non-reconstructable source. We will conclude with some remarks about the potential impact of this shift in Synoptic studies upon our understanding the historical Baptist, at least as it was shown to influence our interpretation of these case studies.

This study explores the role of gender and familial identity in the construction of royal personas in and through monumental inscriptions. First-person memorial inscriptions are well attested in the corpus of Iron Age Northwest Semitic and Hieroglyphic Luwian monuments from southern Anatolia and the northern Levant. Most of these inscriptions are written in the voice of a royal agent, usually a king. Writing, particular monumental writing represented a powerful locus for performing royal identity by enumerating the great deeds of the royal speaker. This study explores four memorial inscriptions that sit uncomfortably within this corpus. Inscriptions from Karatepe-Aslantas (Azatiwada) and Zincirli (Katumuwa) illustrate how the form can be exploited by non-royal individuals to claim a quasi-royal identity or proximity to royal power. At the same time, inscriptions from Zincirli (Bar-Rakib) and Sidon (Eshmunazor) illustrate how royal writing facilitates the performance of familial piety and gender amidst the ruination of dynastic trouble. Both inscriptions explicitly memorialize royal individuals who experienced untimely death. By manipulating the form, rhetoric, and materiality of the first-person memorial inscriptions these text-artifacts allow sons and mothers to fulfill expected familial roles while performing their own royal identities.

In Isaiah 34, Edom is destroyed, and all human life is wiped out. While from an anthropocentric perspective a dystopian space succeeds the once thriving human kingdom, from a non-human point of view, things unfold quite differently. Far from being made unhabitable, Edom is now given by YHWH to wild animals, up to twelve non-human species, possibly including even a few demons. Christophe Nihan highlights the “almost idyllic scenes” (2017, 110, transl.) in Isa 34:14-15; indeed, the new dwellers create their own community and kinship, devoid of any human contact. Many biblical scholars primarily discuss verses 11-15 to try to pinpoint the animals in the Masoretic Text, as well as the Septuagint and other versions. However, in this paper, I wish to focus on a sole individual from Isa 34:14, Lilith. This creature – a hapax legomenon in the Hebrew Bible – is often compared to Mesopotamian Lilitu, as well as identified to the famous demoness of later Judaism. Nonetheless, some recent scholarship has challenged this identification in the MT and suggested “de-demonising” our translations. Lilith would then be rather understood as a type of (night) bird (Blair 2009, 94). I contend that there is no absolute need to solve this dilemma, since as Atkins notes, “the distinction between zoological and mythological categories is a modern construct” (2016, 49). In this presentation, I choose to stay with the ambivalence and consider how Lilith – demoness and/or bird – is part of this larger utopian community where Haraway’s notion of “companion species” must be reassessed in strictly non-human terms. This paper asks: How will a bird-demoness “do” gender in this new society? The verbs of verse 14 clearly reveal the creature’s feminine gender, as well as the fact that rest is at the center of her characterization. The new Edom is a space of respite for her. While other animals gather, socialize, and pair up in multispecies spaces, some starting families (cf. Berkowitz 2023), Lilith embodies another way of life. I suggest understanding the bird-demoness as a queer figure finding solace in her own company, outside of reproductive futurism (Edelman 2004). Lilith is not a (human) woman and will not be a mother, contrary to her neighbour, the qippôz, laying eggs in the following verse (v.15). Queer theory as well as feminist animal studies will guide this exploration of Lilith, a creature who is part of a vast non-human Edomite kinship and embodies other ways of doing life and gender, at the margins of human societies. I suggest that her brief appearance in verse 14 can indeed be appraised as a queer ethics of solitude and rest.

In the second half of chapter 47, Ezekiel traces out the boundaries of the future Land of Israel as he envisions it. As is widely recognized, this boundary is based on the Priestly boundaries of the land as described in Num. 34:1-12, with various “adjustments” in order to make it relevant to Ezekiel’s contemporary audience. One of these is the replacement of Numbers’ “by the border of Edom” with the toponym “Tamar”. Tamar, as a place-name, is quite obscure. It appears, besides here and in the repetition of this boundary in Ezek. 48:28, in the ketib of 1 Kings 9:18 (the qere and the parallel in Chronicles read “Tadmor”). A “Hazazon-tamar” is mentioned in Gen. 14:7 and in 2 Chr. 20:2. This paper will attempt to explain why Ezekiel chose to delete Edom, why he chose the obscure Tamar in its stead, and what we can learn from this on the reality behind his “updating” of the boundaries of the land.

In Amandry’s Roman Provincial Coinage nearly 50 coin types represent the minting activities in the Judaean province that may have been available to the historical Jesus and to his followers. While circulation of coins can never be correlated with the specific finds or hoards, the evidence may suggest the kinds of images that were likely familiar to a Judean audience in the beginning of the first-century AD. The iconography on Judaean coins provides an interesting backdrop to the ministry of Jesus as described in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Crosses, palm branches, anchors, grapes, and cornucopia abound on coins that almost certainly circulated during Jesus’ ministry, and yet, the images seem to be at odds with the way the gospels use these same images. This paper will investigate the iconography on Judaean coins against specific literary pieces in the gospel that depend on the same basic material. We will ask questions about the coins that were minted in the province leading up to the Jewish revolt in 66AD to ascertain what, if any, impact the illustrations on such coins may have had on the development from oral tradition to written gospel. The specific gospel materials that will be investigated include Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the parable of the vineyard, the feeding stories, and the miracles on the sea. Other passages may come into view as the paper develops.

Biblical scholarship on Romans 4:16-25 tends to focus on the same few issues in Pauline studies: justification, the nature of faith, the role of the law and of circumcision. But often ignored in this passage is the imminence of death and the hope Abraham and Sarah exhibit in the face of death. In my years of working with elderly folks in a retirement home church setting, their acknowledgement of human mortality and honesty in approaching death has helped me see more clearly the theme of hope despite death’s nearness. Instead of centering debates over justification, the hermeneutic brought by seniors brings the focus on this passage to having trust in the God who can grant life even when death is approaching. This paper will approach Romans 4:16-25 from this perspective, drawing attention to the repetition of language about death and hope. First, I will look at the character of God as one who gives life to the dead (τοὺς νεκρούς; 4:19), both through God’s action in granting the elderly Abraham a son and by raising Jesus from the dead (ἐκ νεκρῶν; 4:24). Second, I will examine the ways this passage discusses Abraham’s body as being “as good as dead” (νενεκρωμένον) and the “deadness” (τὴν νέκρωσιν) of Sarah’s womb (4:19). Despite their proximity to death, Abraham and Sarah hold trust in God. Lastly, I will draw connections between this passage and the introduction of death as a power in Romans 5, showing how this passage serves as a transition to a longer discussion of death in Romans 5-8. Pauline scholarship has recognized the role of death as a power in Romans 5-8, but the insight brought by people close to Abraham’s age draws out the theme of holding on to hope despite death’s nearness in Romans 4:16-25. While we are all mortal, the awareness of this among elderly folks helps draw out important themes from this passage.

Within three of the scenes of Jesus’s appearance to the disciples in John 20, he displayed the marks of nails in his hands and his side, first to the disciples and then specifically to Thomas, who remained skeptical until he witnessed the marks on his body. Recent scholarship on the resurrected body of the Johannine Jesus has increasingly focused on the implication and significance of the resurrected body of Jesus as the wounded body. Candida Moss proposes a compelling perspective, suggesting that the body marks of the resurrected Jesus are more aptly considered as scars that form a bump on the skin instead of open wounds. This interpretation leads to multiple functions of scars in the Johannine narrative: a sign of identification, a witness to Jesus’s character and manliness, and a testimony of the resurrected Jesus as an alive person. Seeing the wounds of Jesus as symbols, Dorothy Lee, while viewing the marks as wounds, contends that Jesus’s wounds symbolize salvation and peace, drawing possible parallels to the symbolism of childbirth. This paper further explores the possibility of interpreting Jesus’s scars as maternal images in the context of childbirth. Through an examination of birth/childbirth images in John, this paper argues that the scarred and resurrected body of Jesus as paradoxical imagery, representing both crucifixion and death, as well as childbirth and life. The blood and water flowing from Jesus’s side in the Passion scene, as scholars suggested, have a deeper connection to a mother’s childbirth, emphasizing the life-threatening nature of both ancient childbirth and crucifixion. Furthermore, after seeing the scars on Jesus's resurrected body, the evidence of "birthing," Thomas’s proclamation is an active acceptance of his identity by claiming the Lord and God as his own, embracing his identity as a child born of God. Interpreting Jesus’s scars as symbols of childbirth offers an avenue for liberatory and reassuring messages, especially for those who have experienced or witnessed suffering, trauma, and death, akin to the challenges faced in childbirth. Additionally, the image of Jesus as a mother giving birth challenges the paternal image of God. The resurrected body of Jesus with scars not only acknowledges the brutal past of suffering and death, but also transforms the healed wounds as scars into marks of a resurrected identity, marks of lived trauma and suffering, and marks of hope and new life.

While it is decidedly unorthodox to begin any abstract in this manner, my reasons for doing so, I trust, will become clear. I am a biophysicist, who wrote a body of algorithms that I then licensed to IBM. Quite unexpectedly, this led me into a thirty-year career in data science, solving product optimization issues for F100 companies — largely using machine leaning approaches. More recently, in my doddering old age, I earned a Ph.D. in NT studies applying computational linguistics to issues of introduction in the GNT. If nothing else, a trajectory this peculiar has sensitized me to some latent (and not so latent) problematics in applying AI to lexicography. I argue that while these problems are tractable, they are decidedly not trivial. They require both a modicum of cross-disciplinary humility and deep content expertise in modern linguistics, modern biblical lexicographic theory, and AI pragmatics. As such, I argue that three significant barriers to AI-enabled biblical lexicography exist: 1) cultural / theoretical barriers in traditional diachronic Biblical lexicography, 2) gaps in traditional semantic domain classification (e.g. Louw and Nida, etc.) and 3) certain pragmatic issues including interdicting positivistic design oversimplifications so that the semantic assignment engine handles exceptions intelligently. (Note: Due to the novelty of the problem, I will include more than the traditional level of detail in the remainder of this abstract.) First, (and not to put too fine a point on it) traditional diachronic biblical lexicography lacks a modern synchronic/linguistic theory of semantics. And why wouldn’t it? On the one hand, Chomskyan (read North American) linguistics is built on a biological model, was birthed in the cybernetic ebullience of the 1950’s, reductively viewed language as a finite state machine, and trafficked in language universals. Functional linguistics, on the other hand, especially of the Firthian stripe asserts the essential opposite: language as a tri-stratal socially-construed semiotic derived upwards from language in-use. Which is right? Second, semantic domain determinations in biblical lexicography lack a neural theory of semantics. Functionalists may celebrate this lacuna as providential, but even if we grant that social groups change the semantic content of the linguistic sign (even up to the rank of the word group), like it or not, the only learning-based mathematics capable of this exchange is a neural model. Third, pragmatically, a robust corpus of iso-chronometric extra-biblical literature must exist to allow the calculation of semantic domains with enough degrees of freedom to reduce the uncertainty of the gloss. This leaves Hebrew lexicography at a substantial disadvantage compared to the NT. Last, the paper will conclude with a dozen recommendations for an AI-based lexicography generation engine, including what some deep learning practitioners will doubtless consider as a blindingly obvious way forward.

The Psalms of lament attest to a human condition of vulnerability and unstable existence outside of society, often in relation to experiences of illness and pain felt on physical, emotional, and social levels. The Psalms’ first-person descriptions of the speaker’s suffering sometimes equate the experience to the life of an “unclean” animal, such as a worm (Ps 22:7) or itinerant bird (Ps 102:7-8). They describe a person who is not able to conduct basic social practices such as eating and drinking (Ps 22:18; 69:11, 22; 102:5-6, 10) or living in a home (Ps 102:7), who is rejected from human society (Ps 22:8; 38:12; 69:5, 9, 13; 88:9, 19), and/or who feels as if they are already dead (Ps 88:5-7). Yet despite these dehumanizing portrayals of suffering, the Psalms of lament do something uniquely human. They give detailed and poetic expression to the experience of pain and attribute it with meaning: namely, Yhwh’s punishment (Ps 38:2-6; 69:20; 88:8) or neglect (Ps 22:2-3, 12; 102:3). While machines with Artificial Intelligence cannot feel pain, animals cannot communicate it beyond a wordless cry. Only humans have the need and ability to provide pain with meaning by positioning it within a (religious) metanarrative. But the Psalms of lament do this (in part) by equating the ordinary experiences of animals with the most negative experiences of humanity, thereby asserting an anthropocentric worldview. As climate change and the development of AI prompts increasingly extra-human or even post-human concerns in research, this paper asks whether scientific disciplines might present the most productive way forward in terms of new and important insights into the (until-now) primarily humanistic study of the Bible. In other words, is the “social” in “social-scientific approaches” still decisive, or does it contribute to anthropocentric worldviews that are becoming progressively less tenable?

After the Republic of China (ROC) lost the civil war to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and then escaped to its colony, Taiwan, in 1949, the ROC imposed the “coloniality of gender” on the Taiwanese. To defeat the PRC, the ROC colonizers forced the Taiwanese to recognize “counterattacking the mainland” as the universal logic. According to this logic, on the one hand, the ROC transformed Taiwanese anatomic males into Chinese men who had to join the military for 2 to 3 years. On the other hand, the government disciplined Taiwanese anatomic females to be Chinese women who needed to sacrifice themselves to support their husbands and children and enable them to fight. To regain the lost lands, the ROC required the Taiwanese to fight for the abstract Chinese homeland, which the Taiwanese had never seen. Reading the Matthean “feeding of the multitude” from the perspective of the Taiwanese context and decolonial feminist theory, this paper investigates how the Matthean Jesus imposes the coloniality of gender on his followers to achieve his political purpose. According to the leading decolonial feminist theorist María Lugones, the White colonizer imposed the binary gender system on the colonized, which separated the colonized into men/women and deprived women of power. In Matthew, to fulfill the Heavenly Empire’s colonization, Jesus and his ambassador, John the Baptist, ask people to believe “the Empire of Heaven has come near” (Matt 3:2; 4:17). After hearing John was murdered (14:13), Jesus invites what I will argue is a 5,000-man legion for dinner (14:16) to prepare for his nationalist/imperial project─to build an empire which subjugates all nations (28:19-20). Before this event, Jesus never performs any food miracle or concerns himself with people’s hunger. However, when Jesus prepares food for his military, only men can eat, as I will also argue (14:21). Instead of using masculine generic language, Matthew 14:20-21 clearly removes women from πάντες because women cannot join the legion. Thus, this paper argues, how the Matthean Jesus imposes a binary gender system on the crowds that corresponds with Lugones’s concept of the coloniality of gender, and so analysis of the feeding miracle will bring us to a deeper understanding of how the coloniality of power operates in Matthew’s Gospel. However, right before the story of “feeding the legion,” in another banquet, Herodias’ daughter, an anatomic female, becomes the antimodel of the colonized women and offends the men’s power. She is unmarried, she is welcome to join a banquet, she has the power to speak, and her words are powerful enough to persuade Herod Antipas to kill the heavenly ambassador. Thus, she not only disturbs Jesus’ nationalist/imperial project, but also threatens the binary gender system.

As more children’s storybook Bibles are published that represent Jesus’ embodiment as a Brown-skinned, black-haired man typical of the phenotypes of first-century Judea, pernicious racial stereotypes continue to linger just under the surface of such “diverse” representations. Specifically, representations of “good” and “evil” in the forms of angels and demons/the devil, tend to follow phenotypic stereotypes that envision White skin as blessed and Black skin as cursed. Although associations of light with good and dark with evil can be traced back to the text of the Hebrew Bible itself, such associations were not commonly applied to skin color until the rise to prominence of the White (Pseudo)-Supremacist myth of the “Curse of Ham.” In most cases, contemporary children’s Bibles do not tell the story of Noah’s sons’ interactions upon disembarking the ark, from which the supposed “Curse of Ham” is derived. This, however, does not mean that the impact of the “Curse of Ham” is forgotten. Indeed, by not depicting Noah’s immediate descendants in any embodied form and then depicting evil and good as embodied in Blackness and Whiteness respectively, many contemporary children’s Bibles are, whether intentionally or not, perpetuating the racist ideologies embedded in the supposed curse. In this essay, I will briefly summarize the ideological components of the “Curse of Ham” as it came to prominence in colonial era Europe and then examine a selection of otherwise racially diverse 21st century children’s storybook Bibles with attention to their racialized depiction (or lack thereof) of Noah’s descendants and their subsequent racialized depiction of angels, devils, and demons in order to assess the degree to which each storybook Bible supports, counters, or remains neutral to the perpetuation of this fallacious curse.

The account of Elisha, the youths, and the bears in 2 Kings 2:23-25 is not surprisingly absent from most children’s Bibles, storybooks, and other media. Yet quite a few do make the decision to include this story, presumably because they feel it has a valuable lesson to impart to the children who comprise their intended audience. This paper will consider children’s Bibles, storybooks, coloring and activity books, Sunday school and Bible class lesson plans, and other media such as films, cartoons, and videos oriented towards children that depict, relate, and/or explain the story in 2 Kings 2:23-25. It will assess who is choosing to convey this story to an audience of children, how they are interpreting it for them, and what lesson for their young audience they ascribe to it. When one examines the various Bibles and Bible themed media directed towards children that choose to include this story, certain commonalities begin to appear.

Little is known of the circumstances that occasioned the Letter of James. The prescript presents a literary context in which a certain James writes to Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian communities “in the diaspora” (Jas 1:1). We do not know where or under what circumstances these diaspora communities were established, but from the letter we can reasonably infer that James’ readership faced challenges of both social integration and social liminality: the letter addresses participants in the assembly who act deferentially towards the rich to secure status and benefaction (2:1–7); merchants who look to their own entrepreneurial prowess rather than to the will of God for their security (4:13–17); and rich landowners who oppress and defraud the poor labourers who harvest their fields (5:1–6). In this paper, I contextualise James’ concerns by considering the particular social, economic, and political pressures of Greek poleis in the Roman East. On this basis, it will be suggested that the Letter of James is best read (pace Dibelius) as addressing an actual epistolary situation, namely, negotiating community life and socio-economic disparities in the diasporic polis.

Studying the biblical prophets can be a daunting task, especially for students who do not have much prior knowledge of the Bible. This paper will introduce a group assignment that has been used at two liberal arts universities in Washington, DC, whereby students are challenged to write a prophecy set in the modern day that is modeled on the rhetoric of the Book of Amos. As a result of the assignment, students are better able to understand who the biblical prophets were and how they engaged the culture around them. Due to the collaborative nature of the assignment and the way that it is structured, students must work together to discover points of commonality among themselves and what shared, modern-day issues they want to address in their prophecy. The assignment has been used both in physical and virtual classrooms, and students report an increased level of connection with their peers as a result.

The Egyptians used perfumes extensively. In their religious worship they used a formula called Kyphi to produce scent. Three surviving temples from the Ptolemaic period, at Edfu and Philae record formulas for Kyphi. We can see the survival of the use of incense in Egypt at St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, where incense has been used continuously at least since the sixth century, with myrrh, the same basic ingredient of Kyphi and Mendesian perfume. Excavations at Tell Timai, in the Nile Delta, the southern extension of the ancient Egyptian city of Mendes, revealed a Hellenistic kiln complex associated with the manufacture of perfume bottles dominated the northeastern portion of the tell (Approximately 20 kilns and ancillary structures (wells, aqueducts, basins, and ovens) were identified. Perfume bottles (lekythoi) were one of the main products. This possible manufacturing area was in operation during the third century BCE, with a second incarnation running from ca. 175 to 55 BCE. Likely this was a location of fragrance manufacturing. Residue samples were taken from the exposed amphorae. Preliminary analysis of these organic compounds suggests that both Mendesian perfume and Kyphi were produced at this site. Further analysis into the nature of the ingredients should reveal the ingredients of both Mendesian perfume and Kyphi. Written descriptions of Mendesian perfume and Kyphi have survived, for Mendesian in the Classical writers, and for Kyphi in the Pyramid texts(2300 BCE) and the Papyrus Ebers (1550 BCE) and most extensively on the walls of the temple of Edfu, ancient writers disagree about what were the ingredients of both. These samples from Tell Timai are the only discovery of actual remains, and their analysis will tell us much about what went into Mendesian perfume and Kyphi.

In my July 2024 book The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Cambridge University Press), I advance the argument that the seven “authentic” Pauline letters, like all the other NT letters attributed to Paul, are pseudonymous and literary (letters-in-form-only), and likely date to the mid-second century. One among many arguments the book advances is that their earliest interpreters considered Pauline letters as scripture-like, an evaluation also reflected in the much later mid-twentieth-century work of John Knox (Marcion and the New Testament, 2). Drawing from various parts of the book, this paper will highlight some of the book’s findings, indicating, in turn, what drew me to a conceptual shift in the understanding of Pauline letters as fictive and pseudonymous. Epistolary scholarship that founded and continued to advance the genuine-correspondence perspective was variously flawed and made unverifiable ahistorical claims. When tested against common Greco-Roman letters (assessed as genuine correspondence), Pauline letters fail by nearly every metric of evaluation (form, formulae, length, and content). The letters fare equally poorly by the criterion of external verifiability of letter parties. The more recent argument undergirding their determination as genuine correspondence—namely, that they address specific needs of actual communities—is likewise insufficiently theorized. With these bases of evaluation, the Pauline letters as genuine correspondence are rendered a genre to themselves. On the other hand, Pauline letters conform well and fit comfortably into a known, extant, and popular contemporaneous genre of the mock pseudonymous variety. Letters of this genre were staged as originating from known individuals (whether factual or fictive) and served to extend the “life” and “thoughts” of the figure. Known also from ancient philosophical circles, fictive letters afford numerous rhetorical advantages for teachings. Pauline letters most likely date to the mid-second century for several reasons, but primary among them is a lack of assured evidence of Pauline letters prior to that time. Their first recognized emergence is as a collection dated to c. 144 CE. Another factor that plays a role in their dating is that they concern topics that resonate with texts and social-political issues of the second century.

One of the more contested textual variants in the earlier sections of Mark’s Gospel is σπλαγχνισθείς/ὀργισθείς in Mark 1:41. Was Jesus’ healing of the λεπρός motivated by compassion or anger? Bruce Metzger, and most English translations (e.g. KJV, ESV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NET) with him, prefer σπλαγχνισθείς despite ὀργισθείς being the more difficult reading, whereas Bart Ehrman makes the case for ὀργισθείς—but the state of the question is far from settled. Peter Williams, for example, expresses reservations about the quality of the external textual attestation for ὀργισθείς, which only come from Codex Bezae and several Old Latin manuscripts. The question of whether ὀργισθείς really is the lectio difficilior is also open to debate, as numerous interpreters have attempted to view Jesus’ anger in a positive light. For example, Karl Kertelge suggests that Jesus exhibits a “righteous anger” that is grieved by the work of the Evil One in the sick and the possessed. Robert Guelich and others believe ὀργισθείς to be original, but similarly understand Jesus’ anger to be directed not at the leprous individual but the forces of evil at work. This paper will begin by providing a summary of the state of the question and by exploring the implications of both options for the portrayal of Jesus in Mark, who is depicted as displaying both compassion (6:34; 8:2; 9:22) and indignation (3:5; 10:14) throughout the narrative. This paper will also discuss possible theological connections to the Hebrew Bible with regard to these emotions, especially Isaiah, which contains numerous references to both Yahweh’s compassion and anger, and Psalm 2, which describes the king as one who shares the righteous anger of Yahweh in his rule over the nations. In Mark’s prologue, the citation of Isa 40:3 links the good news of Jesus Christ with the coming of Yahweh. Throughout the gospel, Jesus is portrayed as sharing Yahweh’s authority: authority over demonic entities, authority to forgive sins, authority over nature. Perhaps the emphasis on Jesus’ emotions, be it anger or compassion, also contributes to this overarching portrayal of Jesus as God’s Son.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

We will present the Virtual Manuscript Room digital workspace and workflow used for a pilot project on Psalm 22 for the Hebrew Bible: a Critical Edition (HBCE) volume on Psalms 1-50. We will demonstrate how existing digital editing tools can be used for the production of critical editions of the Hebrew Bible in both digital and print formats, with minimal software development. This computational infrastructure entails heavy, up-front, data-entry requirements in the form of fully checked and standardized manuscript transcriptions and editing of automatically generated collations, which is nevertheless not appreciably more labor-intensive than equivalent traditional analog methods of collation. But once the data is input into the system, it becomes a very powerful and transparent tool for more efficient and less error-prone storage and recall. It also opens up new avenues for quantitative research and allows creative new approaches to the digital presentation of manuscript and textual data, all the while facilitating the production of industry-standard print editions. It is our hope that such tools will finally allow us to bring textual scholarship on the Hebrew Bible and its manuscripts and versions fully into the digital age.

In recent years, growing attention has been given to how popular readers engage with the Bible in Latin America. For instance, the field of empirical hermeneutics has helped academia understand how the regular reader interprets, approaches, and appropriates the Biblical text, sometimes at a subconscious level. While studies have included countries like Colombia, El Salvador, Brazil, and others, little reflection has been done in the Dominican Republic, where the Bible is intimately connected to the history and symbols of its people. This paper provides a preliminary profile of Dominican Bible readers by surveying sociological literature and reflecting on the statistical data on religious groups in the country. Pentecostals, as a major religious group nationwide, will be given special attention. As a result, this paper furthers the scholarly discussion on the Bible in Latin America by providing an analysis of the Dominican context and evaluating how this analysis interacts with academic literature on popular Bible readers.

Habakkuk 3 has a complex compositional history. The use of mythological imagery that shares language with some of the oldest texts of the Hebrew Bible (3:3–15) combined with the framing that contextualizes the theophany in the experience of the prophet Habakkuk (3:1–2, 16–19) makes this text challenging to assign a particular situation and outlook. This study will argue that Habakkuk 3 leverages the vision in Hab 2:2–4 to implore the people to trust that YHWH will eventually act to destroy their captors and reverse the devastating effects of the Babylonian destruction announced in Habakkuk 1–2, even if they must wait a long time for the vision to take place. Additionally, in the context of the shaping of the Twelve, Habakkuk 3 tempers the message of destruction in Zephaniah 1, as Habakkuk 3 shifts the perspective past Zephaniah’s pronouncement of complete destruction because Habakkuk is depicted as waiting in the situation described by Zephaniah. Elements of Habakkuk 3 are picked up in Zeph 3:14–17 as the people are directed to rejoice in YHWH, their warrior king, indicating the realization of Habakkuk’s vision. For these reasons, this study will argue for a late captivity context for the inclusion of Habakkuk 3 in the book of Habakkuk and the Twelve.

In the 1982 issue of the Archiv für Papyrusforschung, Kurt Treu published a short letter on a damaged papyrus from the Berlin collection, P.Berol. 8508, now SB XVI 12304. It involves a Christian letter of introduction, a genre with which Treu was very familiar. The letter is a circular, from a “papas Heraklites” to fellow clergy. Treu’s succinct edition, covering just two printed pages, needs adjustment on multiple issues. For one, Treu did not discuss the possible identity of the sender of the letter, nor have subsequent scholars when they referred to this piece. In this paper, I present an updated edition of the papyrus and investigate who the sender may have been. I also return to the interpretation of the title papas, and the isopsephisms at the end of the letter.

John the Baptist is a popular character in the Coptic literary tradition. With descriptions spanning from “ruler of the womb” and “demon” in the Nag Hammadi Codices, to the reincarnation of the soul of Elijah in the Askew Codex (Pistis Sophia), to heavenly ferryman, “king of Israel,” and Christ’s beloved minister in the later Coptic homiletic literature. Not content with the canonical accounts alone, Egyptian monastics copied and read a multitude of additional apocryphal accounts of John the Baptist. These apocryphal expansions dealt with John’s entire biography, including his parents, conception, birth, childhood, baptismal activities, death, and heavenly afterlife, as well as his relationship with Christ. Among the themes explored are parallelisms between John and other biblical characters, his time living with his mother in a cave in the mountains, which is said to have been like “a quiet monastery,” and the agency of the devil in inciting “the Satanic Herodias” and her “harlot daughter” to conspire to have John killed. This paper will explore these various treatments of John and discuss how he and other characters who appear together with him, such as Herod, the devil, and the archangel Gabriel, and John’s parents Zechariah and Elizabeth, function as transnarrative characters inhabiting a biblical storyworld based on multiple apocrypha in addition to the canonical biblical accounts, and how they thus get more elaborate and important roles than in the canonical accounts alone. These apocryphal traditions will moreover be situated in the context of the Coptic communities in which these stories circulated, as they can be found in manuscripts from all across Egypt, from the Nag Hammadi Codices and the Askew Codex to the later homiletic literature from the White Monastery, the Monastery of the Archangel Michael at Phantoou, the Monastery of Macarius at Scetis, and the Monastery of Mercurius at Edfu. This paper is based on a survey of all apocryphal texts attested in Coptic manuscripts, spanning the entire period of Coptic literary production.

This is an approved proposal of the Institute for Biblical Research

Recently I published Must the Synoptics Remain a Problem? in which I argued at length for my Q+/Papias solution to the Synoptic Problem and Mark's mimesis of the Homeric epics. I am proposing a paper that develops the primary argument: Luke knew Matthew and Mark knew Q, but the Two-Document Hypothesis is not the only way to reconstruct this lost Gospel. Better than a solo presentation would be a paper with rebuttal and discussion or a panel.

Is the argument from editorial fatigue as a method for solving the Synoptic problem reversible, or is it rock solid? This paper will investigate whether criteria can be established to determine, in a given parallel text, whether evangelist A created difficulties in using Gospel B as a source, or whether evangelist B removed difficulties while using Gospel A as a source. This paper is an abbreviated version of a contribution to the forthcoming collected volume on Editorial Fatigue.

Considered by art historians and archeologists as a symbol of piety, a metaphor for the church, an image representing the deceased or the wife of the deceased, Orante figures can also represent specific biblical figures, especially in a continuous frieze narrative alongside other biblical characters. In this paper I argue for identifying some early Christian female Orante figures in the Languedoc Region as representing Mary Magdalene. Naming Mary Magdalene in this context addresses the deliberate or accidental erasure of the most prominently named woman in the Gospels and one of the most commonly represented figures in Early Christian Art. This paper demonstrates that the Orante figure had significantly more meaning for early Christian church members in Languedoc than credited in the modern church or scholarship. Linda Sue Galate’s 1997 dissertation, Evangelium: An Iconographic Investigation of an Ante Pacem Image, concurs with this finding. Drawing on Galate’s dissertation, I argue that by focusing on the Languedoc region of southern France and northern Spain, an area historically known for its reverence for Mary Magdalene, the Orante represents not a generic image but a significant character set among the gospel miracles of Jesus. I contend that the Orante in this region represents Mary Magdalene. Unlike Galate’s broad analysis, my specific geographic focus makes a solid case for naming an otherwise generic character in art history. Three specific sarcophagi from the Languedoc region were identified during a research trip in the fall of 2022. Despite representing different craftsmanship and materials, all three reflect similar iconographic images of Jesus’ miracles, drawing heavily from the Gospel of John. In each, the Orante, “a praying woman” flanked by two men, is displayed in the center or just off-center in a series of stories, reflecting both spatially and proportionally the importance of this figure to early Christians. This expanded interpretation coheres with the historical and cultural reverence for Mary Magdalene by the people of the Languedoc region. It is especially relevant when viewing biblical characters in context with specific gospel stories, such as Mary Magdalene proclaiming the resurrection in John 20:18. The historical and cultural context of Mary Magdalene in the Languedoc lays the groundwork for what Robin Jensen identifies as a necessary component of interpreting early Christian art. The visual and theological analysis of Old Testament scriptures, all with specific names for the Orante, further support the case for this expanded interpretation of the Orante represented in the sarcophagi in the region. Offering the interpretation that the New Testament Orante figure is not generic but a particular character, Mary Magdalene, fills an essential gap in interpreting late 3rd and early 4th century sarcophagi in the Languedoc.

No other local ceramic type is more distinctive of Galilee in the Roman and late Roman periods than a type of cooking ware called Galilean Bowls (Kefar Hananya Forms 1A-1E). In this paper, I propose that Galilean bowls were used mainly for the preparation of Roman-style quiches and frittatas (patinae and patellae) and should be identified with vessels called a lifsa or ilpas in rabbinic literature. I then consider the absence of analogous local vessels in Judea in the light of ancient evidence for chicken raising.

Cyprian of Carthage has left an indelible mark on the way church historians have come to describe early Christianity. His responses to those who sought to avoid imprisonment, exile, or execution during the reigns of the emperors Decius (249-251 CE), Gallus (251-253), and Valerian (253-260) have become classic set pieces in the description of early Christianity. This is in part a consequence of the survival and transmission through several centuries of his letters, the largest Christian epistolary corpus in the pre-Constantian period. Less commented upon is that Cyprian numbered amongst the top 3% of economic elites of the Roman Empire and that his wealth allowed him to act as a patron of Christ assemblies across North Africa. It also facilitated the sending of letters across vast distances across the Mediterranean Basin at significant personal cost to forge or nurture allegiances with Christ followers and to establish hubs of opposition to others. A combination of wealth, social networks of allies, and letters enabled him to withstand challenges to his authority arising from differing positions concerning discipline of those who had submitted (in varying ways) to imperial demands to show allegiance to the empire through sacrifices and religious oaths to Rome’s deities. Yet, even as Cyprian used letters to create consensus and reject opposing points of view, his opponents also engaged in strategic campaigns of letter writing to promote their own allegiances that were also supported by alternative wealthy patrons. This paper uses Social Network Theory (SNT) to consider the establishment of networks, the costs associated with creating them (travel, scribal production, etc.), and the way networks connected through letters functioned in religious competition and rivalry. Although SNT has been used to understand other aspects of Christianity in Antiquity it has surprisingly not been deployed to describe and explore the connectivity of North African Christians. SNT further helps to recognize and analyze the fluidity of allegiances and counter allegiances in a formative period of Christian origins, thereby breaking down monolithic accounts of the “rise” and “success” of early Christianity in the Roman Empire. The paper will show that SNT theory furnishes insights into the social hubs of Cyprian’s and his opponents’ connections, the strong and weak ties of Cyprian and his allies as well as those of his opponents, and how such ties functioned. The paper will thus demonstrate the value of SNT in redescribing Christian origins especially as it relates to developments in third century Christ religion in North Africa and the western Mediterranean.

During the Renaissance, scholars learned Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament in its original language and to critically confront the existing Latin translations, especially the Vulgate. Although Renaissance Catholic Hebraists continued to respect and revere Jerome’s translation, they began to produce their own versions, the first of which was Manetti’s Latin rendering of the Psalms in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, Hebrew grammar and lexicography became firmly established among Christian scholars with the publication of Reuchlin’s De rudimentis Hebraicis libri III, which contained both a grammar and a lexicon of the language. Reuchlin had relied extensively on medieval Jewish scholarship, particularly the “Compendium” (Mikhlol) of the Provençal grammarian David Kimchi. Reuchlin’s grammar-cum-dictionary wielded considerable influence on translators of the Biblical Hebrew text who wished to emulate and emendate the Vulgate, such as the Latin renderings of the Psalter by Felix Pratensis (1515) and Xantes Pagninus (1527), and the German Bible translation by Martin Luther (1534). In this presentation, I will visualize this influence of Reuchlin’s philological scholarship on these Hebraist translations by examining a problematic Hebrew lexeme, namely the noun אֶזְרָח (ezraḥ). This word, which commonly means “indigenous”, “native”, recurs in Ps 37:35 in a somewhat different context, where it would indicate a kind of tree. The Septuagint has “cedars” (κέδρους), which points to a transmission error in the Masoretic version – and Jerome translates as “a native tree” (indigena [arbor]). Reuchlin, however, translated this word in his lexicon as “bay tree” (laurus), which seems to be the first time anyone proposed this specific translation. The bay tree subsequently appeared in the Latin translations of Pratensis and Pagninus and was also accepted by Luther, who had learned Hebrew through Reuchlin’s work. Via Luther’s influential German translation of the Bible, this peculiar translation choice has spread to this day in Bible translations into various vernacular languages, yet apparently without anyone realizing that this translation originated in Reuchlin’s lexicon. As I will argue, this translation can be explained by a Jewish intermediation that was not explicitly acknowledged by Reuchlin.

The legal status of the ger in the Pentateuch has been a subject of scholarly inquiry for decades. The Holiness Code (HC) presents a particular challenge in this regard, as it explicitly equates the status of the ger with that of the native Israelite, or ezrach, with respect to many legal obligations, while also emphasizing the ger's status as an outsider to the Israelite community. This dual attitude poses a challenge, especially if one assumes that Israelite ritual is intended solely for Israelites. Some scholars attempted to solve this puzzle by viewing the HC’s attitude towards the ger as based on the theme of the holiness of the land (Weinfeld). Others have proposed that the ger in the HC is seen as a partial member of the Israelite ritual community, akin to an early form of proselyte (Olyan). This paper proposes a new perspective on this issue, focusing on the applicability of the law. In political systems, laws are typically understood to apply locally, to the inhabitants of a specific political territory. If this principle also applies to ritual law in the HC, then the law must extend to all residents of the Israelite territory, including resident aliens. This perspective is consistent with the perception of the Israelite God as the deity of the land, as was common in Ancient Near Eastern societies.

This panel aims to showcase some of the recent investigations into the Septuagint vocabulary that are conducted according to the methodology of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint (HTLS). HTLS is a collective and interdisciplinary project, a multi-volume dictionary on the most significant terms or word groups attested in the Septuagint Bible. Each term is analyzed within six sections: Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greek; papyri and inscriptions; the Septuagint and its Hebrew equivalents; Jewish literature in Greek; the New Testament; and early Christian literature. The aim is to investigate meanings, usages, and possible semantic evolutions of these significant words. Therefore, HTLS is a useful tool for the in-depth study of the Septuagint from both philological, historical, and exegetical perspectives. HTLS plans to release four volumes for the Mohr Siebeck publishing house in Tübingen. The first volume, which includes over 150 articles on terms beginning with the letters from alpha to gamma, was made available in 2020. The second volume, which includes the letters delta to iota, is in preparation.

Recent archaeological applications of monumentality theory have explored the monumentality of spaces, things, and texts that defy the classic assumption that bigger is better (Osborne 2014, 1-3). The varied archeological evidence from the ancient world suggests that monumentality could be expressed in different material and spatial ways, though monumentality is ultimately conferred by audiences. Timothy Hogue’s 2023 description of the Decalogue as an “I am” monument demonstrated how monumentality can transverse forms that we commonly separate into discrete modes and genres. The Decalogue drew upon the monumentality of formulae, the intersection of text and object, and the spatial dynamics the location of such monuments, and their use in the performance of kingship in different arenas of royal power. As Hogue writes, “Monuments, to be monuments must provoke a reaction on the part of communities. They are focal points of engagement and interpretation that prompts groups of people to reconstruct what they remember and believe” (Hogue 2023, 1). Such studies highlight the need for an audience-centered understanding of monumentality, yet also one that considers how monumentality can be transducted and transformed in new modes and contexts. However, many ancient objects lack a clear and/ or stratified architectural context, or robust evidence for the arenas of their display or use. Another challenge arises in the study of the small or scaled down (and portable) objects with architectural features and iconography, which seem to emulate larger scale-monuments, yet which also present as highly unique objects that potentially do their own work. The present paper seeks to contribute to ongoing discussions of Iron Age Levantine monumentality with a focus on the (potential) monumentality of miniature cultic structures. Iron Age material culture is rich in evidence of the small things of Levantine religion. Yet is it not always clear how and why these things were used and valued, and what they represented. In this paper, I will evaluate the two “cult stands” from Tel Taanach as miniature cultic spaces and demonstrate how, in spite of their fraught contexts of discovery and use, we can still harness the different modes of these objects to evaluate how they might have served as “focal points of engagement and interpretation” at this site. My paper will focus on their construction and design as sacred spaces that both deconstructed elements of cultic spaces and compressed them into a smaller scale structures which could be used to presence deities in a small community setting.

The Book of Judith displays the complex intersection of colonialism, patriarchy, and slavery. Throughout the narratives, readers can find representative figures of the three themes, such as the king of Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar, the chief of the general army Holofernes, the Israelite high priest Joakim, the elders, Judith, Judith’s husband Manasseh, and Judith’s favorite female slave (ἅβρα), etc. What makes the book more complex is that its protagonist figure degraded herself as a δουλή or παιδισκη in front of Holofernes in 11:5, 16, 17. How did she become the enslaved of Holofernes while having her enslaved with her in that situation? What did she imply? Regarding the knotty intersectionality, reading Judith and the favored slave merely from a master-slave perspective or analyzing them solely from a postcolonial lens or feminist approach will only circumscribe the complex issue in the Book of Judith. As such, while considering the textual analysis of the text, I suggest examining the position of Judith and her female slave and their relationship amidst and after colonialism through an intersectional approach, such as postcolonial feminism, masculinity, slavery, and queer theories. I argue that centering women in dealing with the horror of colonialism accentuates the imagination of the colonized as the penetrated body. Nevertheless, instead of deploying the imagination as the drawback to Judith, the narrator positively utilizes it to champion Judith as she decapitates Holofernes’ head; thus, the narrator turns her into a queer figure, a masculine female, who successfully penetrates and mocks Holofernes and Assyrians and maintains her masculinity by continually penetrating her power over her female enslaved (ἅβρα). Hence, Judith is a queering figure, blurring the masculinity and heteronormativity. To support my argument, I divide this paper into several parts. First, to understand the context of colonialism, I will discuss the conditions of life in the book, which will serve to elucidate its pivotal figures. Second, I will survey the interpretation of the book to see how other readers analyze the book. Third, I will explore the narrator’s portrayal of Judith, who defeats Holofernes and saves her nation. Fourth, I move to evaluate the female enslaved in her service to Judith. Fifth, I will close this paper with a conclusion.