Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism
Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism

Author: Jeffrey H. Tigay

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2005-10-21

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1597524379

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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

Published: 2016-09-21

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 0884141497

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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

Published: 1972

Total Pages: 724

ISBN-13: 9789004109131

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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

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 9781575060033

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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.

Pretensions of Objectivity
Pretensions of Objectivity

Author: Jeffrey L. Morrow

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781532657399

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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

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780198267270

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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

Published: 2023-07-21

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1628373342

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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

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 3110223457

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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 Formation of the Hebrew Bible
The Formation of the Hebrew Bible

Author: David M. Carr

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-10-12

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 0199908206

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In The Formation of the Hebrew Bible David Carr rethinks both the methods and historical orientation points for research into the growth of the Hebrew Bible into its present form. Building on his prior work, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (Oxford, 2005), he explores both the possibilities and limits of reconstruction of pre-stages of the Bible. The method he advocates is a ''methodologically modest'' investigation of those pre-stages, utilizing criteria and models derived from his survey of documented examples of textual revision in the Ancient Near East. The result is a new picture of the formation of the Hebrew Bible, with insights on the initial emergence of Hebrew literary textuality, the development of the first Hexateuch, and the final formation of the Hebrew Bible. Where some have advocated dating the bulk of the Hebrew Bible in a single period, whether relatively early (Neo-Assyrian) or late (Persian or Hellenistic), Carr uncovers specific evidence that the Hebrew Bible contains texts dating across Israelite history, even the early pre-exilic period (10th-9th centuries). He traces the impact of Neo-Assyrian imperialism on eighth and seventh century Israelite textuality. He uses studies of collective trauma to identify marks of the reshaping and collection of traditions in response to the destruction of Jerusalem and Babylonian exile. He develops a picture of varied Priestly reshaping of narrative and prophetic traditions in the Second Temple period, including the move toward eschatological and apocalyptic themes and genres. And he uses manuscript evidence from Qumran and the Septuagint to find clues to the final literary shaping of the proto-Masoretic text, likely under the Hasmonean monarchy.