Lions and birds as literature. Some notes on Isaiah 31 and Hosea 11

Abstract

A certain combination of animal metaphors found in two different texts, Isaiah 31 and Hosea 11, has caused considerable scholarly confusion. Additional similarities as well as dissimilarities between the texts are presented, but the intertextual question is left open. Instead an attempt is made to analyze the metaphors in their context. The analysis is based on modern metaphor theory and the concept of genre allusion (in relation to the theophany Gattung). It is suggested that the metaphors in Isaiah 31 are related to the symbol of the cherubs, while Hosea 11,10–11 contains deliberate reversals of other Hosean passages.     

Across the narrow sea: A Transnational Approach to Anglo-Dutch Travelogues

ABSTRACT

The busy traffic between England and the United Provinces in the seventeenth century produced travel literature by merchants, scholars, soldiers, and diplomats. What can these sources tell us about commonalities and differences among these travellers and between the nations?

This article provides a case study of a transnational approach, setting Dutch and English accounts side by side to enrich our understanding of how travellers sought out specific sites and institutions.

Strikingly, travellers reported on similar themes, such as royalty, universities and war, yet were also keen to draw contrasts with the visited country.

We show how these patterns of travel and imagery can throw light on Anglo-Dutch relations, providing us with the personal nuance often absent from official texts. Simultaneously, Anglo-Dutch relations affected the destinations and outlooks of travellers. The contribution of this article is its presentation of new material in an Anglo-Dutch framework.     

The Politics of Preaching the Promised Land for the Canaanites

Abstract

This paper explores issues around European Christian theological prejudice against Jews and Judaism and asks whether attempts to make amends for the wrongs done to one people have blunted the conscience of Christians to the sufferings of another. It is ironic that the division between those who attribute anti-Semitism to New Testament texts and those who blame the misuse of the texts mirrors division over colonialist ideologies in the Old Testament. Should we blame the text or its interpreters? There is irony in the fact that those who wrestle with anti-Judaic texts in the New Testament are seldom the same people who perceive problems with the land traditions in the Old—or indeed the other way round! Evangelical Christian Zionist insensitivity towards the Palestinians derives from biblical fundamentalism. Mainstream Christian Zionism derives partly from guilt over past Christian crimes against the Jews but it also reveals a residual fundamentalist underpinning.     

On the Values of Biblical Law and their Contemporary Application

Abstract

In God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2011), Jonathan Burnside sets himself a dual task: on the one hand (and primarily), to examine historically many biblical texts whose subject-matter has counterparts in modern law, and to identify their values; on the other to argue for the relevance of these texts to public debate on such issues in modern law. His semiotic methodology has much in common with my own (as he has graciously acknowledged). In this paper, stimulated by his work, I seek to sketch the academic context from which it arises, and pose some further questions prompted by reflection on his work.     

Zechariah 5 and the priestly law

The bizarre imagery of Zechariah 5, and the relationship between the two visions contained therein has long been a source of bafflement to commentators. This article argues that the content of these visions is dependent on three texts from the priestly law: Leviticus 14, 19 and Numbers 5. The first of these texts provides the legal precedent for Zechariah's attacks on theft, fraud and perjury, while the action taken by God (the entry of the curse scroll into the house of the perjured thief, followed by its destruction and the removal of ''wickedness'') makes use of Numbers 5 and Leviticus 14 respectively.     

Law and the Ruining of the Land

Abstract

In his monograph God, Justice, and Society (Oxford University Press, 2011)response to his work uses examples from Deuteronomy, Jeremiah and other prophetic texts to explore the relationship between obedience to God’s law and the wellbeing of the natural world. It concludes that given the complexity and diversity of natural law within the Western philosophical tradition, it seems unwise to draw too direct a comparison with the biblical material, which reflects a very different world view. The close study of the texts suggests that, for the biblical authors, divine law was both commanded at Sinai and written into the fabric of the universe.     

Creative Thinking and Emotion in Human Social Life: The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms

Abstract

There is debate whether The Merchant of Venice is an anti-Semitic play. However, in this debate there has been insufficient attention paid to Shylock's relationship with Tubal. In his criticisms of Shylock, Tubal represents the larger Jewish community. This criticism shows that, in Shakespeare's view, Jewish self-understanding of what it means to be a good Jew is incompatible with the character of Shylock.     

Joe Klein,The Natural

Abstract

This is a response to Slavoj ?i?ek, which carries the debate between us forward. This debate is published as The Monstrosity of Christ edited by Creston Davis and published by MIT Press, 2009.     

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.     

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.     

Need and Misery in the Eastern Periphery: Nordic Sámi Media Debate on the Kola Sámi

Abstract

This article investigates Nordic Sámi discourse on the Kola (Russian) Sámi through analysis of texts from Sámi newspapers and journals 1992–2009. Among the findings are that the relationship between Nordic and Kola Sámi is frequently discussed as a donor–recipient pattern similar to that of general Western discourse on “the [global] South” and the 1990s’ “great misery discourse” on Russia. This portrayal of the Kola Sámi is here referred to as “the discourse of need”. However, the study also finds that this most divergent subgroup of the Sámi people is accepted into the border-transcending Sámi “nation” without question – it is never challenged that they are part of a larger “us”. The article also comments on some similarities between the discourse on the Kola Sámi as a “suffering” group, and certain patterns in Nordic Sámi self-representation. In comparison, a selection of non-Sámi media texts displayed less interest in the Kola Sámi; their paying attention to the group was more dependent on its members being perceived as victims of crisis and/or injustice; and they articulated the discourse of need more often. The two decades from which texts were drawn (1990s and 2000s) differed mainly by the latter period showing a general decrease in interest in the group; and by Sámi media being less dominated by the discourse of need, and containing more texts portraying the Kola Sámi as culturally and politically active.     

The Changing Circumpolar World for Canada,Quebec, Nunavik,and the Arctic Council

ABSTRACT

Arctic Quebec is one piece of the puzzle comprising the Circumpolar World. In fact, almost one-third of Quebec’s territory lies within the Canadian Arctic. This geographic fact places Nunavik and its people squarely in economic and political affairs swirling around the Circumpolar World, but so far their political involvement has been minimal. This article explores three main themes: the Arctic nature of Nunavik; Nunavik’s place in the political corridors of the Arctic Council, Canada, and the Circumpolar World; and global warming as a link between these topics, because of its impact on the Arctic environment and peoples and because of the growing interest of non-Arctic nations in the Arctic.     

The opening of the psalter: A study in Jewish Theology

A number of Jewish and Christian sources from Antiquity into the Middle Ages testify to a tradition which counts Psalms 1 and 2 as one unit or views them as belonging closely together. A few modern scholars have emphasized elements (of language and content) that connect Psalms 1 and 2, but the scholarly majority has understood these two psalms as having very different backgrounds. This article does not address the historical question of whether Psalms 1 and 2 are originally independent units. Rather, an attempt is made to bring out the thematic relationship between the texts, and to interpret Psalms 1 and 2 as forming a redactional introduction to the Psalter. The theological implications and the subtle interplay between different levels of time in both texts are explored, and a tentative dating within the Maccabean period is suggested. Psalms 1 and 2 may be understood as representing the zeal for the Mosaic tora and the eschatological Messianic expectations as two themes of major importance for understanding the Psalter.     

Passion and compassion of god in the old testament

Abstract

The point of departure is the Kitamorian “Pain of God Theology”. However, the present survey is that of exegesis and of biblical theology. We pose the question whether the concept of the “immutability of God” is that of the OT? We believe our focal texts (Hos 11,8; Jer 31,20; Isa 63, 9+15) do challenge that notion. The righteous God of Israel is not presented as a vindictive god, who delights in judgement. Rather, the glimpses of God's “emotions”, read “passions”, suggest a more complex God‐image. The righteousness of God demands judgement, whereas his compassion finds another solution. We find that female and masculine imagery in connection with God's attitude and feelings toward his people, are frequently interchangeable. The all‐embracing motherly love of God may be seen as an expression of God's heart in tension between inevitable judgement and compassionate love. But the same aspect may also be expressed in the father/son relationship. The passion of God in OT is not a static or inherent condition of God's being. Rather, the anthropomorphic (or, anthropopatic) expressions may be glimpses of a rare “I‐You” relationship between God and his people Israel. The passion of God then becomes the most profound expression of God's dynamic response to man's fatal situation.     

Textual context in the history of political thought and intellectual history

ABSTRACT

We can easily misread historical texts if we take ideas and passages out of their textual contexts. The resulting errors are widespread, possibly even more so than errors through reading ideas and passages out of their historical contexts. Yet the methodological literature stresses the latter and says little about the former. This paper thus theorises the idea of textual context, distinguishes three types of textual context, and asks how we uncover the right textual contexts. I distinguish four kinds of textual-context error, and offer practical tips for avoiding these errors. However, the beating heart of this paper is the history–philosophy debate: in contrast to the prevailing assumption that historical and philosophical analysis are fundamentally different, I show that a commitment to textual context, which should be entirely uncontroversial, also commits one to think philosophically.     

Review

In the course of the seventeenth century, ideas concerning the beliefs of Canadian Indians underwent a slow process of modification. Chroniclers at the beginning of the century, influenced by those who, the century before, had flatly declared a number of Indian nations to be “faithless, kingless and lawless,”; continued to describe them pejoratively. However, as they gradually came to see that the Indians were not irreligious, their declarations grew increasingly contradictory. An attentive reading of documents left by missionaries and explorers reveals that towards the middle of the seventeenth century — at a time when, in Europe, conceptions of witchcraft and religion were changing — the observation of American facts became more nuanced. The discovery of a “false religion”; launched the debate as to whether or not the Indians had preserved a secret sentiment of God.

Were the Indians monotheistic or polytheistic? At the beginning of the twentienth century, Paul Radinwasto take up the question and propose a tertium quid — namely that the Indians had practised monolatry or henotheism.