Homer, the Bible, and Beyond
Homer, the Bible, and Beyond

Author: Margalit Finkelberg

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-28

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 9004496386

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As distinct from the extant studies of ancient canonical texts, which focus either on literary (Greco-Roman) or religious (Judeo-Christian) canons, the present volume aims at bridging between these two fields by proposing the first comparative study of canon. An international team of experts discusses the processes of canon-formation in societies of the ancient world, addressing such issues as canon and the articulation of identity; the hermeneutical attitude toward canonical texts; textual fixity and openness; oral and written canons; methods of transmission, and more. Among the topics discussed are Mesopotamian canons; Zoroastrianism; the Bible; Homer; literary and philosophical canons in ancient Greece and Rome; the New Testament; the Roman law; Rabbinic Judaism and Kabbalistic literature. The future of the so-called Western Canon is one of the most hotly debated issues of the day. There is reason to believe that what is perceived today as a unique crisis, can be put into perspective by students of ancient societies, for the simple reason that the ancient world offers us the historical perspective of civilizations as a whole and allows us to study cultural phenomena in the longue durée.

Homer, the Bible, and Beyond
Homer, the Bible, and Beyond

Author: Margalit Finkelberg

Publisher: Jerusalem Studies in Religion

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13:

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An international team of experts discusses the processes of canon-formation in the ancient world, addressing such issues as canon and the articulation of identity; the hermeneutical attitude toward canonical texts; textual fixity and openness; oral and written canons; methods of transmission, and more.

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths
The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths

Author: John Heath

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-29

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0429663749

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The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility – almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible—for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh’s Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don’t live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer’s polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer’s tragic world – an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad – one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have – especially between disciplines – about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.

Open-Mindedness in the Bible and Beyond
Open-Mindedness in the Bible and Beyond

Author: Marjo Korpel

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-06-18

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0567663795

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The contributions to this volume reflect upon changing paradigms within biblical scholarship, and in how biblical scholarship is taught. Taken together, they offer a multifaceted and informative indication of how open-mindedness in one's approach can yield fascinating results across the study of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. The range in topic of the contributions is exemplified in the difference between the first chapter, which works from the personal anecdote of the changing opinion of its author to make a wider point about models for Pentateuchal formation, and the third chapter, which comments on the current state of the study of ancient Israel in universities today. Other contributions include; an essay on the subject of space as a social construct in Isaiah 24-27; civil courage and whether the Bible allows room for protest; the question of monotheism in Persian Judah; the historical Ezra, and the telling of the story of Joseph (Genesis 50: 15-21) in children's Bibles in the Netherlands. The contributors include Hugh Williamson, Ehud Ben Zvi, Rainer Albertz, Karel von der Toorn, and Christoph Uehlinger.

Homer and the Good Ruler in Antiquity and Beyond
Homer and the Good Ruler in Antiquity and Beyond

Author: Jacqueline Klooster

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 9004365850

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Homer and the Good Ruler in Antiquity and Beyond focuses on the important question of how and why later authors employ Homeric poetry to reflect on various types and aspects of leadership. In a range of essays discussing generically diverse receptions of the epics of Homer in historically diverse contexts, this question is answered in various ways. Rather than considering Homer’s works as literary products, then, this volume discusses the pedagogic dimension of the Iliad and the Odyssey as perceived by later thinkers and writers interested in the parameters of good rule, such as Plato, Philodemus, Polybius, Vergil, and Eustathios.

Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters
Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters

Author: Maren Niehoff

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-03-06

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 9004221344

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The present collection of articles brings together scholars from different fields and offers pioneering essays on the Alexandrian scholia, Philo, Platonic thinkers and the rabbis, which cross traditional boundaries and interpret Biblical and Homeric readers in light of each other.

The Gospels and Homer
The Gospels and Homer

Author: Dennis R. MacDonald

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2014-11-05

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1442230533

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These two volumes of The New Testament and Greek Literature are the magnum opus of biblical scholar Dennis R. MacDonald, outlining the profound connections between the New Testament and classical Greek poetry. MacDonald argues that the Gospel writers borrowed from established literary sources to create stories about Jesus that readers of the day would find convincing. In The Gospels and Homer MacDonald leads readers through Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, highlighting models that the authors of the Gospel of Mark and Luke-Acts may have imitated for their portrayals of Jesus and his earliest followers such as Paul. The book applies mimesis criticism to show the popularity of the targets being imitated, the distinctiveness in the Gospels, and evidence that ancient readers recognized these similarities. Using side-by-side comparisons, the book provides English translations of Byzantine poetry that shows how Christian writers used lines from Homer to retell the life of Jesus. The potential imitations include adventures and shipwrecks, savages living in cages, meals for thousands, transfigurations, visits from the dead, blind seers, and more. MacDonald makes a compelling case that the Gospel writers successfully imitated the epics to provide their readers with heroes and an authoritative foundation for Christianity.

The Formation of the Biblical Canon: Volume 2
The Formation of the Biblical Canon: Volume 2

Author: Lee Martin McDonald

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-01-26

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0567668851

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Lee Martin McDonald provides a magisterial overview of the development of the biblical canon --- the emergence of the list of individual texts that constitutes the Christian bible. In these two volumes -- in sum more than double the length of his previous works -- McDonald presents his most in-depth overview to date. McDonald shows students and researchers how the list of texts that constitute 'the bible' was once far more fluid than it is today and guides readers through the minefield of different texts, different versions, and the different lists of texts considered 'canonical' that abounded in antiquity. Questions of the origin and transmission of texts are introduced as well as consideration of innovations in the presentation of texts, collections of documents, archaeological finds and Church councils. In the first volume McDonald reexamines issues of canon formation once considered settled, and sets the range of texts that make up the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) in their broader context. Each indidvidual text is discussed, as are the cultural, political and historical situations surrounding them. This second volume considers the New Testament, and the range of so-called 'apocryphal' gospels that were written in early centuries, and used by many Christian groups before the canon was closed. Also included are comprehensive appendices which show various canon lists for both Old and New Testaments and for the bible as a whole.

Beyond What Is Written
Beyond What Is Written

Author: Timothy Milinovich

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2013-08-16

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1608999920

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This book engages the structure and message of 1 Corinthians within its most relevant context of late Western antiquity's oral culture. Using a text-centered methodology, Timothy Milinovich demonstrates and analyzes a series of concentric patterns (or ring formations) through which Paul develops his arguments to the Corinthian church. Such patterns were ubiquitous in oral cultures and their literature. These structures, which are defined by objective lexical repetitions, aid the interpretation of an overall concentric pattern of three sections (A, 1:1--4:21; B, 5:1--11:1; A, 11:2--16:24), nine ring sets (a, 1:1-17; b, 1:18--3:3; a, 3:4--4:21; a, 5:1--6:20; b, 7:1-40; a, 8:1--11:1; a, 11:2--14:40; b, 15:1-58; a, 16:1-24), thirty-five ring units (e.g., 5:1-13; 10:1-17; 15:12-24), and numerous micro-rings (e.g., 4:6-8; 8:1-4). Analyzing these lexical repetitions presents a demonstrably coherent message as it progresses through the concentric portions of the text. These findings represent a departure from previous treatments of the letter as if it were a modern, linear essay. As shown throughout this work, many linear treatments view the units like wooden blocks, only to build a single, unbalanced tower, and thus can miss important rhetorical connections in the concentric textual units. Milinovich treats the units and sets like interlocking pieces to present the inherent cohesiveness of the complex yet integral exhortation to grace, love, and unity that Paul wished to convey to this community on the verge of collapse. Among the conclusions drawn in this book, Milinovich argues that many parallel ring sets together present an anti-imperial message, and that both 11:3-15 and 14:34-35 are likely later interpolations. Scholars, pastors, and students alike will find many useful elements for interpreting or preaching 1 Corinthians in the modern world.