Lying and deception in the Biblical and post‐Biblical Judaic tradition

Abstract

A great variety of cuneiform texts have been found within the precincts of the high priest's building complex in ancient Ugarit. Some of the texts are letters, others are lexical texts and others again are ritual texts. The great epics of aqht and krt are best described as literary texts. Some of the texts, however, do not unambiguously belong to one group only: Some scholars would construe the Baal‐cycle as a ritual text or at least a text somehow connected with the cult performed in the temples; others would describe the Baal‐cycle as pure literature. Similarly the enigmatic text about Shachar and Shalim (abbreviated SS) apparently contains cultic and literary elements. Is this text then a cult‐text or a piece of literature? The aim of the article is to investigate if from the archaeological evidence we can add an argument to the on‐going debate about the Sitz im Leben of the Ugaritic Baal‐cycle: Were the clay tablets in the high priest's building distributed according to their content? The answer seems to be yes. The Baal‐cycle was in fact stored with other literary texts in the high priest's building whereas SS has been kept in the room of the ritual texts. This fact might give us a hint as to how to interpret these two texts.     

Historical writing? – Richard Wilton’s “Booke of particular remembrances”, 1584–1634

ABSTRACT

Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Knowledge shaped contemporary and modern conceptions of historical writing and culture which historians have only begun to re-examine more recently. This case study of the “notebook” of Sir Richard Wilton demonstrates the fruitfulness of considering non-narrative texts as “historical”. Wilton self-fashioned his identity from the ideals of gentry culture and his Protestant faith. Wilton’s personal memory was influenced by the Reformation which led to forms of commemoration in texts. He also used elite knowledge networks to negotiate historical networks that were fundamentally oral and local. Finally, early modern historical writing found in personal accounts, commonplace books, and remembrance books could be fluid and dynamic, and it appropriated forms of writing that were highly accessible in the day-to-day lives of the writers that compiled them. The decision to use particular forms of writing was intrinsically associated with the utility and meaning of these forms.     

Bild und text: Mediale und historische perspektiven auf das alttestamentliche bilderverbot

This essay is trying to shed new light on the prohibition of cultic images in the Hebrew Bible. The first part shows the relationship between written texts and images when viewed as media of the divine or the divine will. It is important to note that the prohibition of cultic images in the Pentateuch is closely related to the concept of Moses'/Gods' writing down the divine revelation. In the second part the paper is dealing with the main function of cultic images in the society's system of religious symbols, i.e. as representations of Gods in a full sense. The third part tries to outline how the written text more and more replaces cultic images as manifestations and media of God and his commandments. The fourth part concludes with the assumption that public reading, recitation and enactment of holy texts generate a new mystery - the mystery of the divine body and form.     

Speaking for the past in the present: Text,authority and learning in archaeology museums

Abstract

This paper examines the development of debates surrounding the nature of curatorial authority and of public education in archaeology museums, with particular reference to texts accompanying exhibitions of prehistoric material in England and Scotland. Traditionally, such texts have been conceived of as authoritative aids to museum education and communication. However, since the late 1980s, they have been criticised, particularly on the grounds of curatorial bias and inaccessibility. As a consequence, a new ‘cultural approach’ to museum texts was developed in the 1990s, based upon curatorial principles of critical awareness and public responsibility. The resultant texts have received mixed responses from museum archaeologists and visitors, whose perspectives reflect contemporary political tensions in Britain. They also highlight the fundamental question of the future status and role of text in museums. The answer proposed here is that texts, although not entirely popular with visitors, will remain key elements of archaeology museum displays, and that differences of curatorial approach and opinion, as expressed through texts, are beneficial to learning in archaeology museums.     

Whispered Utopia: Dreams,Agendas, and Theocratic Aspirations in Yehud

ABSTRACT

To provide collective meaning to displacement and subsequent immigration, the authors of the Persian-period Hebrew texts such as Ezra-Nehemiah construct a schema of theocratic utopia. To be clear, however, the expressed theocratic aspirations of the golah community can only be de-scribed in utopian terms because a theocracy had never existed previously in the histories of Israel or Judah. Using Thomas More's model of Utopia this article compares the agendas and aspirations recorded in relevant Persian-period Hebrew texts to selected components or structures of Utopia. It will al-so express a working definition of theocracy and explain why it should be read in utopian terms. While the similarities will be informative, the differ-ences will reveal different visions of utopia; More's will stem from a more social-economic base while that portrayed in the Hebrew texts will stem from a particular religious base. For both, visions of a utopian society are encour-aged by circumstances in which conflict appears to balefully outweigh con-sensus.

A utopia is literally a “nowhere land,” an ideal society in another place, where justice prevails, where people are perfectly content, and from which sadness, pain and violence have been banned. Utopias, although fictions, are characterized by a conviction that the envisioned society will in fact be with-out problems. Other distinguishing features of utopias are that they are ex-tremely critical in regard to the present society, and contain the “blueprints” for a completely new state. (Marius de Geus)

The trebling of the population in this small and impoverished country, flowing with milk and honey but not with sufficient water, rich in rocks and sand dunes but poor in natural resources and vital raw materials, has been no easy task: Indeed, practical men, with their eyes fixed upon things as they are, regarded it as an empty and insubstantial utopian dream. (David Ben Gurion, NY Herald Tribune 28 Apr 63)

Vtopia priscis dicta, ob infrequentiam, Nunc ciuitatis aemula Platonicae,

Fortasse uictrix, (nam quod illa literis Deliniauit, hoc ego una praestiti, Viris & opibus, optimisque legibus) Eutopia merito sum uocanda nomine. (Anemolius [in T. More, Utopia])     

Visual and aural intellectual histories: an introduction

ABSTRACT

If the subject matter of intellectual history is the study of past thoughts, the intellectual history of the visual arts and music may be characterised as the study of past thoughts as they were expressed visually and aurally. Yet this is not always how an intellectual history of art and music has been practiced. More attention is often paid to verbal texts about art or music, rather than to the visual or the aural per se. If we accept that ideas can have visual and aural, as much as verbal form, then the histories of art and music are significant repositories of thoughts of individuals and networks of individuals (creative artists, patrons, institutions) within a given culture and period. But the ways in which those thoughts are articulated as aural or visual “texts”, and the ways in which they can be accessed by those who seek to understand them, will be specific to each art form, and represent a distinctive kind of intellectual activity in each field.     

Meaning in a Changing Context: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Authorial Revision

Summary

In this article, I seek to develop a genetic/diachronic approach to the phenomenon of authorial revision, and to the interpretation of texts that exist in multiple versions. In all such cases, the reconstruction of textual meaning cannot be separated from the reconstruction of the process through which the text in its ‘final’ form came into being; furthermore, an understanding of the author's intentions in (re)writing cannot be entirely separated from an understanding of his/her motives for (re)writing. This article is divided into three sections. In the first section, I consider recent trends in editorial and literary theory that aim at characterising texts in terms of processes rather than products, in order to uphold the equal dignity of each version without losing sight of its connectedness to other stages in the history of the text. In the second section, I discuss how Quentin Skinner's views on meaning and context apply to cases of authorial revision, and I suggest that some key aspects of Skinner's contextualism need to be reconsidered. In the concluding section, I focus on a case study in order to demonstrate the operational value of such a genetic and motive-based approach to authorial revision: more particularly, I seek to show how a close examination of Jean Bodin's rewriting practices in the Methodus (1566–1572) and the République (1576) can throw new light on his shift from a concept of limited sovereignty to one of absolute sovereignty.     

The playful mode of writing in Psycharis's To Tαξíδι μoυ (1888)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the literary qualities of Psycharis's To Tαξíδι μoυ, in particular, to analyse specific examples that demonstrate its playful mode of writing. Firstly, it will attempt to place the text in the literary context of its period by discussing its conception and significance for Modern Greek literature. Secondly, it will focus on the element of humour in the text, which can best be described as a playful mode of writing. The playfulness can be explained as raising false expectations in readers in a way that does not become obtrusive or unpleasant, but aims to entertain through the effects of surprise. This mode of writing is created mainly through intertextual allusions, incongruous juxtapositions, and comical, satirical or parodic undertones.     

Eduard Nielsen's Oral Tradition Sixty Years After

ABSTRACT

When Eduard Nielsen’s Oral Tradition appeared in 1954 the author’s main motivation for writing it was frustration with what was felt to be serious shortcomings in current methods of Old Testament research. Influ-enced by “Scandinavian” scholarship (above all Pedersen, Nyberg, and Engnell), Nielsen wishes to replace historical critical approaches with more adequate, updated methods. In particular, he wants to integrate insights into the oral processes that lead to the creation of the literature of the Hebrew Bi-ble into his exegetical techniques. For comparative purposes, Nielsen utilizes texts from ancient cultures where orality was predominant. He discusses above all Greek, Mesopotamian, and Old Norse sources. In view of the huge interest in orality and memory in academia today it is obvious that Nielsen was far ahead of his time. It is more than regrettable that so little attention has been paid to this pioneering work.     

Unfortunate trends in the popularisation of science

Abstract

A panorama of books on science for the general public is dismal. It shows a landscape grey and flat, monotonous, with repetitious features looking all the same. Formulaic and regurgitative writing has become the norm. Only a few areas of science are deemed worthwhile. Yet the public is thirsty for a taste of knowledge in the making, even for erudition. Some authors continue to create original and magnificent texts. Thus there is hope for the present bleak situation to improve. This essay review feeds on the twin virtues of lucidity and guarded optimism.     

Biblical Archaeology: a Plea for its Continuation

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to propose a ritualistic reading of Old Testament ritual texts based on the theory of Roy A. Rappaport. ² 2. Rappaport's ritual theory as it is expressed in Rappaport's major work, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). One of Rappaport's more or less overlooked views is that in order to be able to “understand” a certain ritual, one will have to become acquainted with this ritual's liturgical orders, its encoded message. In other words to understand a ritual it is necessary in some way to be informed of this ritual's particular worldview.

As I focus on the ritual texts of the so called P material in the Pentateuch, and in particular on the law of the Nazirite in Numbers 6,1–21, I use this notion of Rappaport's as a hermeneutical key to the reading of the ritual texts.

It is my claim that when we try to answer the questions posed by a ritual text, if we limit our search to the worldview of the ritual in question, we will not only be using an approach which is methodologically sound and appropriate, we will also receive better answers.     

Writing in wartime China: Chongqing,Shanghai, and Southern Zhejiang

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of the full-scale Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) brought an end to the printing and publishing industry centered in Shanghai in the 1930s. Chongqing then emerged as a nerve center of information and opinion. Writers everywhere worked under wartime conditions of social dislocation, economic dependency, and political control. This article examines the writing and publishing of three notable pieces of work completed in wartime Chongqing, Shanghai, and southern Zhejiang, respectively. The article explores the context in which each work was written and then evaluates the broader significance of the texts with regard to a historical assessment of the Chinese intellectual experience during wartime.     

J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and intellectual history

ABSTRACT

Recent thinking about Intellectual History has moved beyond studying only verbal texts, to encompass other kinds of visual and aural texts that can be vehicles for generative thought. Where might music fit into this expanded conception? If ideas are defined purely as concepts that can be expressed in words, music can be no more than an “epiphenomenon”, a consequence or representation of ideas that lie behind it, but not capable of embodying those ideas in itself. Yet to many musicians, it seems obvious that music can function as a way in which ideas are developed and worked out. What kinds of knowledge might be embodied in music, then, and how do its meanings change over time? In this paper, I examine some of these issues through consideration of one of the key texts of Western art music, J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, exploring how it was conceived in a liturgical context in Bach’s time, how its meaning changed when transposed to the very different milieus of concert performance in nineteenth-century Berlin and colonial Sydney, and as it has been re-imagined in a variety of recent staged and recorded versions.     

'Political' personae: the poem from prison of Michael Glykas: Byzantine literature between fact and fiction

Abstract

Byzantine vernacular literature, much of it in verse, has long been seen as material for Quellenforschung into the historical or social conditions of its time. Following the precepts for literary history set down by such pioneers of Byzantine studies as Karl Krumbacher, the study of these texts has concentrated on authors rather than on the texts themselves as autonomous objects of historical study, whose form and content should guide our understanding of their original intention and reception by Byzantine audiences. The 'Poem from Prison' by Michael Glykas illustrates both the shortcomings of the focus on authors and the alternative potential for renewed engagement with Byzantine texts as objects of imagination and creativity.     

Orality and the reception of late Byzantine vernacular literature

Abstract

The starting point for this paper is the belief that orality has to be understood in a wider sense than is given to the term by the oral-formulaic theory of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. This is the more important when the field of study is medieval or modern Greece, societies far removed from what Walter Ong (1982: 31–75) has termed the ‘primary orality’ of a culture from which writing is absent. The oral formulaic theory, although excellent as a tool for the analysis of materials actually transcribed from oral performance, has come to be seen in the last fifteen years or so as an unwieldy and often unreliable yardstick for assessing the interaction of oral and written types of discourse. The insistence of the theory that for a text to be considered oral, the three processes of composition, performance and transmission should be simultaneous, imposes a definition of orality which is unjustifiably restrictive, and despite the well-intentioned efforts of Albert Lord and others to address the problem of the ‘transitional’ text, the method of analysis developed through close study of one particular oral tradition in Yugoslavia has proved disappointingly inflexible in its attempt to account for texts which are neither, according to its own definitions, truly oral nor fully literary (cf. Beaton 1987).     

Universal,colonial, or Indonesian heritage? A multi-scalar approach to the historical representations and management of colonial heritage in the Old Town of Jakarta (Kota Tua) during its bid for World Heritage nomination in 2015–2018

ABSTRACT

Between 2015 and 2018 the Indonesian government unsuccessfully applied for World Heritage status for the old Dutch colonial neighborhood of Kota Tua in Jakarta. As this article aims to show, analyzing the process of writing a nomination dossier, especially in the case of a failed nomination, can be revealing in unraveling the inner workings of heritage conservation efforts and the many actors that are involved on different ‘scales’ and levels surrounding the heritage. As the project of writing the nomination dossier was delegated to a consortium of private actors from the elite circles of Jakarta, this article will finally address both the difficulties and advantages of involving the private sector in such nomination processes.     

Transgender migrations: prostitution,identity and notions of ‘home’ in contemporary France

ABSTRACT

Migrant street prostitution in France has increased since the 1990s, largely as a result of the ease of movement facilitated by political shifts in Eastern Europe opening up national borders and the arrival of greater numbers of prostitutes from Africa and China. These often precarious migrations have generally been made by cisgender females; although, a comparatively smaller (but progressively significant) number are transgender. The representation of this latter group is explored in this article through four documentary/docufiction films that respectively recount what can be described as the sequential stages of geographical mobility (i.e. pre-migration, migration, and post-migration). Motivated by the concern that more particular voices within the ‘queer community’ are insufficiently represented, the focus here will be on how this group of transgender migrant prostitutes articulate a sense of ‘home’. Analysis is framed through Sara Ahmed’s notion of ‘home’ as ‘skin’, a porous space that blends the static and the mobile, the ‘here’ and ‘there’. The selected texts disarticulate the epistemology of prostitution in gendered terms and dislocate the transgender body from material associations that link successful migration with the movement from one place and body to another.