In the Shadow of Bezalel. Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten

In the Shadow of Bezalel. Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten
Author: Alejandro F. Botta
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2012-12-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004240845

Twenty nine scholars from Israel, Europe and the Americas came together to honor and celebrate Prof. Bezalel Porten's (Emeritus, Dept. of History of the Jewish People, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) academic career. Covering a wide variety of topics within Aramaic, Biblical, and ancient Near Eastern Studies, In the Shadow of Bezalel offers new insights and proposals in the areas of Aramaic language, paleography, onomastica and lexicography; ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, Hebrew Bible, and social history of the Persian period.

Historical and Biblical Israel

Historical and Biblical Israel
Author: Reinhard G. Kratz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2015-12-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191044490

At the center of this book lies a fundamental yet unanswered question: under which historical and sociological conditions and in what manner the Hebrew Bible became an authoritative tradition, that is, holy scripture and the canon of Judaism as well as Christianity. Reinhard G. Kratz answers this very question by distinguishing between historical and biblical Israel. This foundational and, for the arrangement of the book, crucial distinction affirms that the Israel of biblical tradition, i.e. the sacred history (historia sacra) of the Hebrew Bible, cannot simply be equated with the history of Israel and Judah. Thus, Kratz provides a synthesis of both the Israelite and Judahite history and the genesis and development of biblical tradition in two separate chapters, though each area depends directly and inevitably upon the other. These two distinct perspectives on Israel are then confronted and correlated in a third chapter, which constitutes an area intimately connected with the former but generally overlooked apart from specialized inquiries: those places and "archives" that either yielded Jewish documents and manuscripts (Elephantine, Al-Yahudu, Qumran) or are associated conspicuously with the tradition of the Hebrew Bible (Mount Gerizim, Jerusalem, Alexandria). Here, the various epigraphic and literary evidence for the history of Israel and Judah comes to the fore. Such evidence sometimes represents Israel's history; at other times it reflects its traditions; at still others it reflects both simultaneously. The different sources point to different types of Judean or Jewish identity in Persian and Hellenistic times.

Allusive Soundplay in the Hebrew Bible

Allusive Soundplay in the Hebrew Bible
Author: Jonathan G. Kline
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2016-10-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0884141705

The first study to focus exclusively on the use in the Hebrew Bible of soundplay to allude to and interpret earlier literary traditions This book focuses on the way the biblical writers used allusive soundplay to construct theological discourse, that is, in service of their efforts to describe the nature of God and God's relationship to humanity. By showing that a variety of biblical books contain examples of allusive soundplay employed for this purpose, Kline demonstrates that this literary device played an important role in the growth of the biblical text as a whole and in the development of ancient Israelite and early Jewish theological traditions. Features: Demonstrates that allusive soundplay was a productive compositional technique in ancient Israel Identifies examples of innerbiblical allusion that have not been identified before A robust methodology for identifying soundplay in innerbiblical allusions

Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period

Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period
Author: Gard Granerød
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2016-07-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110454319

What was Judaean religion in the Persian period like? Is it necessary to use the Bible to give an answer to the question? Among other things the study argues that • the religion practiced in the 5th c. BCE Elephantine community and which is reflected in the so-called Elephantine documents represent a well-attested manifestation of lived Persian period Yahwism, • as religio-historical sources, the Elephantine documents reveal more about the actual religious practice of the Elephantine Judaeans than what the highly edited and canonised texts of the Bible reveal about the religious practice of the contemporary Yahwistic coreligionists in Judah, and • the image of the Elephantine Judaism emerging from the Elephantine documents can revise the canonised image of Judaean religion in the Persian period (cf. A. Assmann). The Elephantine Yahwism should not be interpreted within a framework dependent upon theological, conceptual and spatial concepts alien to it, such as biblical ones. The study proposes an alternative framework by approaching the Elephantine documents on the basis of N. Smart’s multidimensional model of religion. Elephantine should not be exotified but brought to the very centre of any discussion of the history of Judaism.

Contextualizing Israel's Sacred Writings

Contextualizing Israel's Sacred Writings
Author: Brian B. Schmidt
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2015-07-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1628371196

An essential resource exploring orality and literacy in the pre-Hellenistic southern Levant and the Hebrew Bible Situated historically between the invention of the alphabet, on the one hand, and the creation of ancient Israel's sacred writings, on the other, is the emergence of literary production in the ancient Levant. In this timely collection of essays by an international cadre of scholars, the dialectic between the oral and the written, the intersection of orality with literacy, and the advent of literary composition are each explored as a prelude to the emergence of biblical writing in ancient Israel. Contributors also examine a range of relevant topics including scripturalization, the compositional dimensions of orality and textuality as they engage biblical poetry, prophecy, and narrative along with their antecedents, and the ultimate autonomy of the written in early Israel. The contributors are James M. Bos, David M. Carr, André Lemaire, Robert D. Miller II, Nadav Na'aman, Raymond F. Person Jr., Frank H. Polak, Christopher A. Rollston, Seth L. Sanders, Joachim Schaper, Brian B. Schmidt, William M. Schniedewind, Elsie Stern, and Jessica Whisenant. Features Addresses questions of literacy and scribal activity in the Levant and Negev Articles examine memory, oral tradition, and text criticism Discussion of the processes of scripturalization

Elephantine Revisited

Elephantine Revisited
Author: Margaretha Folmer
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-03-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1646022084

The Judean community at Elephantine has long fascinated historians of the Persian period. This book, with its stellar assemblage of important scholarly voices, provides substantive new insights and approaches that will advance the study of this well-known but not entirely understood community from fifth-century BCE Egypt. Since Bezalel Porten’s pioneering Archives from Elephantine, published in 1968, the discourse on the subject of the community of Elephantine during the Persian period has changed considerably, due to new data from excavations, the discovery and publication of previously unknown texts, and original scholarly insights and avenues of inquiry. Running the gamut from archaeological to linguistic investigations and encompassing legal, literary, religious, and other aspects of life in this Judean community, this volume stands at a crossroads of research that extends from Hebrew Bible studies to the history of early Jewish communities. It also features fourteen new Aramaic ostraca from Aswan. The volume will appeal to students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism, as well as to a wider audience of Egyptologists, Semitists, and specialists in ancient Near Eastern studies. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Annalisa Azzoni, Bob Becking, Alejandro F. Botta, Lester L. Grabbe, Ingo Kottsieper, Reinhard G. Kratz, André Lemaire, Hélène Nutkowicz, Beatrice von Pilgrim, Cornelius von Pilgrim, Bezalel Porten, Ada Yardeni, and Ran Zadok. Moreover, a video recording of an interview conducted with Porten on his long career in Elephantine studies accompanies the book through a link on the Eisenbrauns website.

Becoming Diaspora Jews

Becoming Diaspora Jews
Author: Karel van der Toorn
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: Arameans
ISBN: 0300243510

Based on a previously unexplored source, this book transforms the way we think about the formation of Jewish identity

The Second Book of Samuel

The Second Book of Samuel
Author: David Toshio Tsumura
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467457248

Second Samuel includes some of the most well-known and theologically layered episodes in the Old Testament, such as the Lord’s establishment of an eternal covenant with David, David’s sin with Bathsheba, and the subsequent account of Absalom’s rebellion. In this second part of an ambitious two-volume commentary on the books of Samuel, David Toshio Tsumura elucidates the rich text of 2 Samuel with special attention to literary and textual issues. Tsumura interprets the book in light of the meaning of the original composition, and he provides a fresh new translation based on careful analysis of the Hebrew text.