From the mouth of babes,strength: Psalm 8 and the book of Isaiah

ABSTRACT

As a response to my previous article on Geshur, Nadav Na’aman has recently brought up the history of Geshur. Much is at stake concerning the methodological approach in how archaeological data and the Hebrew Bible are used to reconstruct ancient realities. Geshur is a prime example of how archaeological data should not be interpreted and used. Na’aman’s hypothesis on Geshur is built on conjectures, obscure readings, textual emendations, arguments from authority, lack of methodological discipline, and circular reasoning. The reconstruction of Geshur highlights the importance of investigating the core of the arguments concerning any proposal on ancient Israel.

Geshur may well have existed, but unless something substantial can be said of Geshur, the name is as hollow as the names of the Hivvites, Girgashites, and Perizzites. We do not know when it existed or what its culture, extent, religion, or capital was. The biblical references could well go back to a very small entity or a small town that grew in importance in the transmission of the text. In sum, we do not know much more than its name and perhaps the very approximate area, but this information amounts to next to nothing.     

The Kingdom of Geshur in History and Memory

ABSTRACT

The article re-examines the biblical, extra-biblical and archaeo-logical sources for the history of Geshur and the way it was memorialized in biblical texts. It demonstrates that archaeological research is the key to estab-lishing the location of the kingdom's capital, its territory, population, econo-my and commercial relations. The written sources complement and corrobo-rate the archaeological data. Evidently―contrary to the conclusions reached in a recently published article―we know quite a lot about this marginal Aramean kingdom.

Geshur was located on the northern border of the Kingdom of Israel, far away from Jerusalem; and yet late Judahite scribes, who operated hundreds of years after it disappeared from the political arena, still remembered that it was a separate entity, on par with Maacah, and different from all other neighbour-ing districts enumerated side by side with it. What was unclear to the scribes is the geographical reality in the far north. Hence, their geographical depic-tion of Geshur's (and Maacah's) location was inaccurate.     

Medieval Sermon Studies since The Sermon: A Deepening and Broadening Field

Abstract

Since the publication of The Sermon in 2000, the field of medieval sermon studies has matured into a well-established and growing interdisciplinary area of medieval studies. This article seeks to illustrate how we are doing our work and where our interests are taking us. Growing numbers of print and electronic resources facilitate locating, accessing, and interpreting texts and other historical sources pertinent to preaching. Via the preparation of carefully edited texts, the exploration of specific themes, and the illumination of particular preaching traditions, increased depth of understanding is being achieved. Sermonists use an expanding range of scholarly methodologies and pursue a broadening range of topics, here exemplified by memory and visual arts. Overarching much of our work is the desire to recover medieval experiences of what was fundamentally an oral and performative genre through its largely textual remains.     

History of Israelite religion or old testament theology? Jewish interest in biblical theology

Abstract

Both branches — the “history of the Israelite religion” and “Old Testament theology” — are significant and have equal merit. However, there are also distinct demarcations and deep differences between them. Thus, the research of each must be separate and follow unique clearly defined methods so as to avoid confusion. It is interesting to discover the theological guidelines of the Biblical authors, editors and canonists. There is also a necessity to be aware of the theological guidelines that control the Biblical corpora; to read the Bible for religious messages and moral values which may be derived from it. Nevertheless, it is impractical to look for or to impose one sole idea on the whole Bible. Christian theologians should not introduce any sort of anti‐Semitic or anti‐Jewish theology. Jews are interested in the theology of the Hebrew Bible and in Biblical theology. The main reasons for the limited interest of Jewish scholars in Biblical theology is inherent in the youthfulness of scholarly Jewish Biblical research; the focus of Jewish‐Israeli interest on Biblical research in the last generations; and in the formation of higher educational institutions first and foremost in Israel as well as in some Jewish institutions in America.     

Book art as historical evidence: disputation and representation in late medieval Germany

ABSTRACT

The increase in the distribution and availability of images for personal use in the late Middle Ages raises the question of their potential historical value for understanding the societies that produced and made use of them. This paper exposes the effects and the historical meanings of some woodcut illustrations of disputations between Jews and Christians: the woodcuts were widespread during the 1470s and 1480s in Swabia and Bavaria and surrounding areas, and they are still familiar and continue to play a role in shaping perceptions of Jewish-Christian relations of that period. These images do not reflect actual events: rather they are misrepresentations of polemical anti-Jewish sermons, designed as fictitious scholarly discourses. Their historical value is not limited to their ability to expose hidden angles. They can guide us to a better understanding of the written sources and to find new meanings there.     

A missing link in the history of historiography: scholarly personae in the world of Alfred Dove

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the case of Alfred Dove (1844–1916), this article contributes to an emerging line of research on scholarly personae in the history of historiography. It does so by addressing the important but so far neglected question: What exactly does the prism of scholarly personae add to existing historiographical perspectives? The German historian Alfred Dove is an appropriate case study for this exercise, because historical scholarship in Wilhelmine Germany has been relatively well studied, from various angles. Most notably, it has been studied (1) through biographical lenses, (2) from institutional points of view, (3) as the cradle of ‘scientific history’, with special attention to historical methods of the sort codified by Ernst Bernheim, and (4) in relation to religious and political fault lines that divided the German Empire shortly after the Franco-Prussian War and the Kulturkampf. The thesis advanced in this article is that scholarly personae are a missing link between these four dimensions and therefore a theme of key importance for anyone trying to understand German historical studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.     

Scolding aesthetics in biblical literature

Abstract

The leading purpose of this study is to critically introduce a textual layer in the Bible which is both ideologically intriguing and aestethically appealing. The textual, Biblical layer in focus may be entitled “Scolding Aesthetics”, Accordingly, the Biblical narrator dexterously utilizes an intricate literary mechanism while harnessing it to a morel rebuke which he aims at a certain Biblical character (usually of high fame and reputation). Hence, scolding aesthetics may also be considered an intersection where Biblical literary artistry and moral values cross, interact and mutually produce a complex textual system.

The current study demonstrate the practice of that Biblical‐literary‐moral strategy through a close reading of three Biblical texts: Genesis, 12 (Abraham descends to Egypt) 2 Samuel, 11 (King David who does not participate in the war against the Ammonites) and Genesis, 3 (Eve's Fall). All three illustrations effectively surrender and display the aesthetic‐moral mechanism under consideration while plausibly proving as well how the “epidemic” textual layer of the Bible may deliberately lead astray. Accordingly, under the seemingly simple and “innocent” narrative one may excavate underlying currents of remarkably aesthetic intricacy which operates impressively as rhetorical tool of moral lesson.     

Individual vs. collective responsibilty: From the ancient near east and the bible to the Greco‐Roman World

Abstract

The question of individual and collective responsibility and punishment in the Hebrew Bible has been discussed since the 19th century as an important indicator of the changing standards of justice present at different historical periods in ancient Israel. The question, of course, of changing standards of justice based on changing social, religious or political circumstances is itself of interest here. If one has a standard of justice mentioned in one section of the Bible and in another section of the Bible this standard is negated, one is confronting the issue of the mechanism for change of Biblical Law itself. I will for the sake of clarity during this paper be using the standard of “Poqed Avon Avot” as a short marker for individual responsibility. I realize, of course, that it is usually taken as simply intergenerational punishment, but as I will delineate, it was seen from the biblical period through the early medieval period as much more.     

Abstracts

ABSTRACT

The celestial universe and the mode of action of YHWH are sometimes depicted by metallurgy. This figuration is generally understood as a picturesque representation devoid of theological significance, introduced only for describing the infinite powers of the god of Israel using the extreme physical conditions characterizing metallurgy. This explanation is however contested by: (i) the many allusions to metallurgy encountered in Biblical theology, (ii) the detailed mention, in the divine context, of all the stages of metal production: mining, ore roasting, smelting, metal purification and even of furnace re-melting, (iii) the representation of the firmament and the earth as two giant pieces of metal, (iv) the vision of the holy domain of YHWH as a giant celestial furnace. These features attest the existence of a substantial metallurgical component in Biblical theology. Furthermore, the strong bias towards copper metallurgy suggests that these representations were anchored in Bronze Age metallurgical traditions. It is concluded that Israelite theology encompasses an important metallurgical component inherited from the pre-Israelite cult of YHWH.     

Tradition as a governing theme in the writings of John Cassian

John Cassian has been criticized in recent scholarship for historical inaccuracy – but it is not self‐evident that his works were intended as histories in the sense that is supposed by that criticism. Instead, Cassian presents himself as the promoter of key traditions. This paper describes of Cassian's own thinking about ‘tradition’ as a key theme in his works. To that end, it aims to redress scholarly misgivings about the worth of Cassian's writings by taking them as the transmission of identifiable traditions into early to mid‐fifth‐century Gaul (rather than as documentary evidence for late fourth‐century Egyptian monasticism).     

The Shock Factor of Divine Revelation: A Philological Approach to Daniel 8 and 9

ABSTRACT

This article explores the story and plot of Daniel 8 and 9, and argues that the angel Gabriel assists Daniel in handling the shock factor associated with Divine revelation concerning a seemingly successful antichrist. A comparison of the Septuagint traditions with the Masoretic text this article shows that Daniel 8 and the later part of 9 present visions of an apparently successful blasphemous king and an initially unsuccessful Messiah, rulers against and for God respectively. The perplexities of the prophet about the apparent lack of fulfilment of earlier Divine revelation are part of the literary tension of the text. This article takes a philological approach to Daniel 8 and 9 as a literary unity passed on by a Judeo-Christian tradition and recognizing a unifying role of the Angel Gabriel in Biblical literature.     

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.     

Some Evidence for Seasonality amongst Later Stone Age Hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa

Abstract

The Later Stone Age (LSA) period in Southern Africa is characterised by a succession of cultural traditions. The LSA hunter-gatherer populations were ancestral to the present-day San. They moved around in small bands, within a semi-fixed territory visiting open air and shelter sites to coincide with available resources.

The hunter-gatherers filled every niche in the environment, including the high mountains, deserts and semi-deserts, bush savanna and grass lands. They were well aware of the food sources available in their territories during the course of a year and utilized these opportunities. As winters in southern Africa are relatively mild, and most regions have foods available throughout the year, seasonality is difficult to demonstrate.

In only a few instances there is some evidence for seasonal use or seasonality. Age profiles of seals at Elands Bay Cave suggest short occupation periods during late winter and early spring. In the high mountains of South Africa and Lesotho, where winters are cold and frost and snow common, the faunal and floral remains suggest occupation during late spring, summer and early autumn. Abbot's Cave in the semi-arid central Karoo was used as a hunting lodge during September, relating to the lambing season and migratory behaviour of springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis).     

George Thomson and the Dialectics of Hellenism

Abstract

When I think of G. Thomson one question which immediately springs to mind is: why was he, and why is he still, so popular in Greece, a country he visited only four or five times? Was it his scholarly work, his Marxist beliefs or his emphasis on the continuity of Greek culture that bestowed on him respect and acclaim among Greeks? It seems to me that it was a combination of all these three factors which resulted in the fact that Thomson is one of the few classical scholars whose major studies have been translated into Greek and enjoyed wide publicity. He is now considered in Greece not only an exception among classicists but an exception among those who have studied the historical development of Greek culture and vehemently stressed its continuity. Despite the fact that his views were largely ignored during the debate of the 1960s and early 70s concerning the question of continuity, and which centred around Byzantium, Thomson's views on the subject must seriously be taken into account.     

Comparative History and Ethnography in William Ellis’s Polynesian Researches

ABSTRACT

This article develops recent scholarly efforts to take seriously the scientific work of evangelical missionaries in the South Pacific. Ellis’s Polynesian Researches gives us an insight into the broader issue of the way in which theological concepts could inform the framework of missionaries’ observations of the traditions, manners and functioning of human societies. Central to Ellis’s observations was the idea of idolatry. I argue that Ellis brought together a theological definition of idolatry – in which idolatry represented the sinful worship of created things rather than the creator God – with an Enlightenment idea that polytheistic idolatry was a universal stage in the historical development of civilization. Ellis’s Polynesian Researches gives us a point of entry into understanding some of the ways that European theological ideas were put to new uses in the South Pacific, against the backdrop of the increasingly global exchange of people, goods and ideas.     

Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on Southern Africa's Late Cold War Conflicts

Abstract

Over the last fifteen years Karel Schoeman, Afrikaans author of well-esteemed novels, described the history of the Cape Colony during the years of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in an ongoing series of historical studies, narratives, non-fiction, biographies and monographs. This article is an attempt to evaluate Schoeman's contribution to South African historiography: his approach and presentation, the subjects emphasised and interpretations given, and the scholarly quality and significance of his work. Characteristic of Schoeman is his ability to capture the character of the past enabling the reader to really understand it. The past is a country, far away, difficult to enter but there is a road to understanding: Verstehen, a mind open to historical sensation, listening to the voices from the past, seeing the past in its heritage. In his historical novels, Schoeman adapts history to the fictional world he creates. In his historiography, popularising scholarly knowledge with literary skills, Schoeman remains critical of many traditional stories and portraits a new, non-fiction Cape – a refreshment station for the maritime VOC empire situated halfway between Europe and Asia on African soil; a struggling colony of people of various backgrounds, poor people without history mostly; a colony full of problems, contrasts and contradictions, but also a surprising society, multiracial, multicultural, open, and full of possibilities.     

An alternative hypothesis for a historical exodus event

The biblical tale is a product of nearly random telling, retelling, revision and redaction over a period of centuries, which resulted in a narrative framework that is not intended to be reliable in the modern sense. Nevertheless, four details in the evidence suggest that the Bible may preserve the memory of a historical exodus from Egypt. From these data, it might be suggested that the biblical Exodus tale is a combination of traditions from three distinct ethnic groups, whose stories were merged at Jerusalem during the Iron II period. These three groups were: (a) ethnic Israelites residing in Judah, (b) descendants of the LB-IA 1 Shasu living in Judah, and (c) the Jerusalemites.     

David Alfred Woodward (1942–2004)

Summary

In the documentation of historical phenomena and facts, maps and charts share their place with written records, objects, pictures, coins and some other material. In this paper, the graphic presentation in map form is compared with the written documentation.

As a contribution to the discussion about the rôle of maps and charts in the attribution of historical evidence, their rôle has been graded into six levels. The confusion about and the mistrust in the value of maps and charts as pieces of historical evidence may be remedied by dividing them into six categories of decreasing value.     

The History of Cartography in Brazil in the 1940s: Jaime Cortesão's Lecture Courses

Abstract

During the Napoleonic Wars the military croquis, or sketch map, played an important role in the spatial management of the various campaigns. Presumably, many of these sketch maps were destroyed or discarded after their immediate use. Those that survive have received little scholarly notice. Attention is drawn in this article to a large and well-documented collection produced during the campaign in Russia in 1812 and subsequently amassed by the Saxon cartographer Ferdinand Heinrich August von Larisch. The operational value of the military croquis is examined and the relationship between cartographic poetics and historical representation considered.     

A Content Analysis of Imago Mundi, 1935–2010

ABSTRACT

The 592 research articles in the first 62 volumes of Imago Mundi, from 1935 to 2010, are analysed to discern trends in the scholarly approaches, biases and interests of historians of cartography. Particular attention is paid to map historians’ preferred historical periods and topical subjects of study, to their nationalistic tendencies and to the shifting importance of traditional, internal and socio-cultural approaches to map history.