Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism

Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism
Author: Jeffrey H. Tigay
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2005-10-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1597524379

Modern critical scholarship has concluded that the books of the Hebrew Bible have not reached us in their original form but are the products of lengthy evolution. Many of these books are thought to combine the works of more than one author or age and to have undergone considerable revision. Tigay and the other contributors use comparisons of various texts from ancient Mesopotamia and post-exilic Israel. Such comparisons show that the sort of development of biblical literature that nineteenth-century critics were led to postulate from close study of the texts alone is characteristic of many ancient Near Eastern texts. 'Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism' is of value to scholars interested in the Old Testament, as well as religion, theology, Jewish studies, Near Eastern studies, and comparative literature.

Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism

Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism
Author: Raymond F. Person
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2016-09-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0884141497

Cutting edge reflections on biblical text formation Empirical models based on ancient Near Eastern literature and variations between different textual traditions have been used to lend credibility to the identification of the sources behind biblical literature and the different editorial layers. In this volume, empirical models are used to critique the exaggerated results of identifying sources and editorial layers by demonstrating that, even though much of ancient literature had such complex literary histories, our methods are often inadequate for the task of precisely identifying sources and editorial layers. The contributors are Maxine L. Grossman, Bénédicte Lemmelijn, Alan Lenzi, Sara J. Milstein, Raymond F. Person Jr., Robert Rezetko, Stefan Schorch, Julio Trebolle Barrera, Ian Young, and Joseph A. Weaks. Features: Evidence that many ancient texts are composite texts with complex literary histories Ten essays and an introduction cover texts from Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Genesis Forty-nine in Its Literary and Historical Context

Genesis Forty-nine in Its Literary and Historical Context
Author: Raymond De Hoop
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 724
Release: 1972
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004109131

This book deals with the so-called Blessing of Jacob" (Genesis 49) in all its aspects, discussing philological, literary and historical problems.After an introductory chapter a thoroughly discussed translation of Genesis 49 and an analysis of its poetical structure are presented, followed by the discussion of the genre-definition "tribal saying" (Stammesspruch), and a synchronic and diachronic analysis of Genesis 49 in its literary context (Gen. 47:29-49:33). The remarkable results of this analysis are finally discussed in relation to Israel's history.It is suggested that only part of the "Blessing" functioned within the (originally much shorter) deathbed account (Gen. 47:29-49:33*), reflecting the historical situation of the time of origin. Afterwards it was thoroughly worked up into its present shape to meet the conditions of later political development."

מקדש, מקרא ומנורה

מקדש, מקרא ומנורה
Author: Menahem Haran
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
Total Pages: 632
Release: 1996
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781575060033

Professor Menahem Haran is honored in this volume by a chorus of colleagues, disciples, and friends from Israel, Europe, North America, and the Far East. The diversity of Haran's expertise is reflected in the table of contents of this collection, organized around the topics: "Priests and Their Sphere," "The Torah," "The Prophets," "The Writings," and "Language and Writing.

Reading the Fractures of Genesis

Reading the Fractures of Genesis
Author: David McLain Carr
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780664220716

Historical and Literary Approaches

Pretensions of Objectivity

Pretensions of Objectivity
Author: Jeffrey L. Morrow
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781532657399

Modern historical biblical criticism, while having many strengths, often operates under the pretensions of objectivity, as if such scholarship were neutral and disinterested. Examining the history and roots of modern biblical scholarship shows that such objectivity is elusive, and was never intended by the method's earliest practitioners. Building upon his earlier work in Three Skeptics and the Bible and Theology, Politics, and Exegesis, Morrow continues this historical investigation into the political and philosophical roots of modern biblical criticism in Pretensions of Objectivity, in the hope of developing a criticism of biblical criticism and of making space for theological exegesis. ""One would think that in a postmodern environment, scholars would have learned to be suspicious about any claims to intellectual neutrality and objectivity, but there remains a large pocket of unreformed 'modernism' within the discipline of biblical studies. Morrow helps unmask the covert agendas of this intellectual tradition."" --John Bergsma, Professor of Theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville Jeffrey L. Morrow is Associate Professor at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University. He is the author of Three Skeptics and the Bible (2016) and Theology, Politics, and Exegesis (2017).

God and His People

God and His People
Author: Ernest W. Nicholson
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1988
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780198267270

God's covenant with Israel has been a central theme in understanding the Old Testament from ancient times, but in the last hundred years it has been a particularly prominent issue in critical biblical study. In this book Professor Nicholson argues that, while in some important respects theposition today regarding the covenant is much the same as it was for leading scholars a century ago, in other ways the intervening debate has made it possible to see far more clearly just how crucial the covenant idea was in the development of what is distinctive in the faith of Israel.

Scribal Memory and Word Selection

Scribal Memory and Word Selection
Author: Raymond F. Person Jr.
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2023-07-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1628373342

What were ancient scribes doing when they copied a manuscript of a literary work? This question is especially problematic when we realize that ancient scribes preserved different versions of the same literary texts. In Scribal Memory and Word Selection: Text Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Raymond F. Person Jr. draws from studies of how words are selected in everyday conversation to illustrate that the same word-selection mechanisms were at work in scribal memory. Using examples from manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, Person provides new ways of understanding the cognitive-linguistic mechanisms at work during the composition/transmission of texts. Person reveals that, while our modern perspective may consider textual variants to be different literary texts, from the perspective of the ancient scribes and their audiences, these variants could still be understood as the same literary text.

Abraham and Melchizedek

Abraham and Melchizedek
Author: Gard Granerød
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2010
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110223457

This book, emphasizing Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, contributes to the history of composition of the patriarchal narratives in the book of Genesis and to the history of theology of the Second Temple period. Genesis 14 was added on a late stage and in two steps: first, Genesis 14* and later, the so-called Melchizedek episode (ME, vv. 18-20). Genesis 14 is the result of inner-biblical exegesis: both Genesis 14* and the later ME originated from scribal activity in which several earlier biblical texts have served as templates/literary building blocks. As for Genesis 14*, in particular three text groups were important: the Table of Nations, the wilderness wandering narratives and annals from the Deuteronomistic History. As for the ME, it is an example of haggadic exegesis presupposing and without any prehistory independent of its narrative framework. ME is the result of an assimilation between two texts, Genesis 14* and Psalm 110, which assumedly at one point were read as a narrative and a poetic version respectively of Abraham's war with the kings. Genesis 14 has no value as a source to the history of the patriarchal era and to the religion of pre-Israelite Jerusalem. In contrast, it shows how post-exilic scribes' painstaking study of biblical texts resulted in the creation of new biblical texts.

The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies
Author: J. W. Rogerson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 915
Release: 2006-03-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191568996

The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Biblical studies is a highly technical and diverse field. Study of the Bible demands expertise in fields ranging from Archaeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, and Linguistics through textual, historical, and sociological studies to Literary Theory, Feminism, Philosophy, and Theology, to name only some. This authoritative and compelling guide to the discipline will, therefore, be an invaluable reference work for all students and academics who want to explore more fully essential topics in Biblical studies.