FORGOTTEN MEANING

ABSTRACT

In a recent article Steven McKenzie argues for the priority of the account of David sparing Saul's life in 1 Sam 26 over that of the parallel account 1 Sam 24. To do this he uses one of the categories of evaluating interdependence of biblical texts, namely, that of “ungrammaticality” as set forth by Cynthia Edenburg in SJOT, 1998. Thus McKenzie opposes my own view for the priority of chap 24, as argued most recently in The Biblical Saga of King David (2009). In this article I critically evaluate the use of his examples of “ungrammaticality” as well as the possible application of the other four Edenburg categories of evaluating evidence for interdependence and priority, as they apply to these parallel texts. Contrary to McKenzie, I conclude that these principles of comparison confirm the priority of 1 Sam 24 over that of 1 Sam 26, and I argue that chap 26 was a later supplementation of the David story for the purposes of polemic and a parody of the earlier account.     

The Aramaic Levi—Comparing the Qumran fragments with the Genizah text

ABSTRACT

Among the extra-biblical texts from Qumran we find the so-called Aramaic Levi, which can be described as a somewhat different variant of the “Testament of Levi,” a part of the larger Greek text “The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.”

Aramaic Levi, however, was already known from the Cairo Genizah. The following article is a linguistic comparison between the Qumran text and the version from the Cairo Genizah.

As Klaus Beyer has noticed, there are a lot of non-Hasmonean spellings and words in the Genizah text, but most of Beyer’s examples are from parts of the text that are not preserved in the Qumran fragments. Comparing the two versions, we now note that the deviations are of two kinds. As expected, the Genizah text often follows a later language than Qumran. This applies in particular to orthographic features and the use of status emphaticuswithout the definite sense. But in other places the Genizah text represents a language older than Hasmonean Aramaic, which we interpret as an adaptation to Bibli-cal Aramaic and sometimes to Hebrew.     

The Significance of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue and Holocaust Studies for Catholic Ethics

Abstract

When I survey the vast field of literature on social ethics, including that from progressive Christian scholars, I find little, if any, recognition that the positive development in the understanding of the Christian-Jewish relationship these past forty years have any relevance for shaping Christian perspectives on social ethics today. In this presentation I share some reflections on various areas of study within the context of the Christian-Jewish dialogue, especially the experience of the Holocaust, which in my judgment do make an important difference in the way we present Christian thinking on social ethical questions. The positive impact of the Hebrew Scriptures is one important area as is the enhanced understanding of law in the Hebrew Scriptures and in Judaism generally. Also of significance is the growing body of literature linking Jesus positively to the Jewish tradition of his time, including in terms of his moral teaching. The same holds true for new studies on Paul's positive relationship to Judaism. Finally the Holocaust provides us with important links to contemporary moral issues such as genocide and human rights.     

Defending the Concept of Time in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

Due to the scarcity of reflection on time as an independent subject in the Hebrew Bible, there has been a scholarly tendency to consider biblical time conception more limited than our own_perhaps even nonexistent. This article confronts the scholarly skepticism regarding the ability of the biblical authors to think about time, defending the presence of time conceptualization in the Hebrew Bible. In the article I discuss central research contributions to the subject of biblical time, in particular Sacha Stern’s thesis that the concept of time is entirely absent from the Hebrew Bible and from ancient Judaism more widely. I explore linguistic and anthropological assumptions which underpin large parts of the discussion on time within biblical studies, arguing that one cannot assume on the basis of either that the biblical authors lacked a concept of time. Finally, I suggest that the ability of the biblical writers to coordinate unrelated processes according to a temporal axis is a strong argument in favour of their awareness of time.     

Resisting mothers,making gender: teenage girls in the United States and the articulation of femininity

Much of the feminist literature on teenage girls in the west has tended to polarize around the issues of girls' gendered agency and victimization. In contrast, this article explores the ambiguous relationship between gender resistance and compliance. I argue that while girls clearly articulate their own agency, they do so through a reliance on gendered and heterosexual norms, identities, and categories. The article draws on examples from my research with girls in South Carolina, USA, in particular girls' narratives about their mothers. I suggest that girls situate their gendered practices and evaluate femininity in part via evaluations of their mothers' gender, sexual and nurturing practices. Mothers often stand in as representatives of normative and traditional femininity for the girls; yet girls do not realize that they reproduce, rather than resist, aspects of femininity, even as they criticize generational differences and their mothers' versions of feminine and gendered behaviors.     

Spinoza’s translation of Margaret Fell and his portrayal of Judaism in the Theological-Political Treatise

The English Quaker Margaret Fell worked hard to have her conversionist pamphlets to Dutch Jews translated into Hebrew, and Richard Popkin has suggested that Spinoza was Fell’s translator. This article offers further evidence for Popkin’s claim by suggesting that Fell’s influence can be seen in chapters 4 and 5 of Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise. Fell’s and Spinoza’s remarks about Judaism and Jewish ceremonies bear significant similarities, as do the biblical passages they use to support their statements. Spinoza also challenges Fell’s arguments, though, by resisting her Pauline method of reading the Hebrew Bible and reading with a historicist method instead. Spinoza’s apparent use and revision of Fell’s arguments are significant because they speak to the role of the Quakers – and, notably, of a Quaker woman – in early modern intellectual history and because they sharpen our view of Spinoza’s opinions of Judaism.     

The Classification of Models A Proposal

Abstract

It is here proposed to classify models into seven categories: the pure physical, the physical geometric, the interpretive geometric, the interpretive analogue, the computational analogue, the computational mathematical and the pure mathematical models. A certain overlap is diagrammatically demonstrated in a spectrum of models and examples of each category are presented and discussed. Certain assumptions have to be made and it is hoped that the classification will be of benefit to users of models.     

Divided sisterhood? Nationalist feminism and feminist militancy in England and Ireland

ABSTRACT

The generally accepted story is that British militant suffragists performed an unexpected and abrupt move away from the feminist movement and towards a fiercely jingoistic nationalist campaign once the war began in 1914. Yet, given the nature of exchanges between Irish and British militant feminists, Irish feminists should not have been surprised by this turn from gender solidarity to English nationalism. In this article, I argue that Irish-British militant feminist entanglements worked to expose the powerful role that English nationalism played in suffrage politics at a time when nearly all the focus was on the disruptive influence of Irish nationalism.     

Instructions for contributors

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the application of Claude Lévi-Strauss's structural analysis of myths to the Hebrew Bible. By comparing the stories of Abraham and Moses with the epic of the Argonauts, and by comparing Plato's ideal State in the Laws with the laws and organisation of biblical Is-rael, I suggest that the books from Genesis to Kings were written by one sin-gle writer living during the Hellenistic era.     

Three Paradoxes Concerning Causality and Time: Parmenides,Leibniz, Einstein/Schrödinger

Abstract

Parmenides’ Poem on Nature contains a proof that the world could not have come into being in time, because no explanation could be given for why it would do so at a given time. This same proof reappears in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, where it is directed against Newtonian absolute time. Newtonians, Leibniz explains, believe that time is homogeneous and absolute, but this makes it inexplicable how God could have chosen to create the world on a given day. Similarly, in his correspondence with Schrödinger in the 1930s, Einstein suggests that certain quantum mechanical occurrences, such as the spontaneous decay of a radioactive atom, are absurd, because they cannot be assigned a definite location in time. In Schrödinger’s version on Einstein’s argument, we must say that the cat dies twice: first, inside the box; yet, second, when we open the box. But both accounts cannot be true. Since each of the authors discussed was aware of the approach of his predecessors, they share a structure. In this article, I develop a unified account of all three.     

Conservation of the sacred at Angkor Wat: further reflections on living heritage

Abstract

This article reflects on and complements the paper 'Conservation of a “living heritage site”: a contradiction in terms? A case study of Angkor World Heritage Site', published by Keiko Miura Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 7(1), (2005) 3–18. It develops further the notion of conserving sacred heritage in the light of a case study of Angkor Wat within the World Heritage site. Heritage management is always a balance between preserving different values – historic, aesthetic, use, spiritual, etc. Each of these categories of value has its own set of needs which are often not fully compatible with one another. Heritage management originally stemmed from the desire to protect the aesthetic and historic values of tangible heritage. Yet an over-emphasis on preserving these values alone is not tenable in a 'living heritage site'. At Angkor Wat it causes spiritual degradation and secularization. Highlighting instances in which this phenomenon has been apparent, this article suggests a way forward.     

The Bible and Leo Strauss

According to Leo Strauss, the Hebrew Bible is to be regarded as being in “radical opposition” to philosophy and as its “antagonist.” This is an influential view, which has contributed much to the ongoing omission of the Bible from most accounts of the history of political philosophy or political theory. In this article, I examine Strauss's arguments for the exclusion of the Bible from the Western tradition of political philosophy (i) because it possesses no concept of nature; (ii) because it prescribes a “life of obedient love” rather than truth-seeking; and (iii) because it depicts God as “absolutely free” and unpredictable, and so without a place in the philosophers' order of “necessary and therefore eternal” things. I suggest that Strauss's views on these points cannot be accepted without amendment. I propose a revised view of the history of political philosophy that preserves Strauss's most important insights, while recognizing the Hebrew Bible as a foundational text in the Western tradition of political philosophy.     

Rachel and Lea. or: On the survival of outdated paradigmas in the study of the origin of Israel,II

ABSTRACT

Reader-oriented intertextuality opens perspectives to see the in-terpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament and in rabbinic litera-ture in a new light. This article discusses possible readings of the crux inter-pretum Leviticus 12,2 in the New Testament (Hebrews 11,11) and in rabbinic literature. It shows that both play with manifold meanings and facets of texts from the Hebrew Bible in a sometimes associative way, linking different con-texts with one another and creating a new intertextual network.     

Anglo-Saxon charms in the context of a Christian, world view

The following article explores aspects of a Christian world view found in late Anglo-Saxon England, seeking to put such phenomena as magic, miracles and charms in their proper Christian perspective. Previous criticism has had a tendency to accentuate the pagan aspects of the charms and to confuse a modern definition of magic with that of the early medieval Christian view. The view of nature found in Ælfric's sermons, for example, reveals a particular attitude towards magic, miracles and natural remedies such as charms. Magic and miracles are at opposite extremes, while charms are part of an intermediate category of practices not specifically condemned as develish magic, nor fitting into the Christian interpretation of miracles as signs from God.The second part of the article turns to an examination of the charms themselves to demonstrate how they do fit into a Christian view. Charms having to do with elves, as found in the Leechbook, contain large amounts of Christian material. There is an especially strong correlation between these charms and the use of the mass to counteract the influence and effects of elves. Thus the charms, far from being examples of the remnants of paganism, are evidence of the integration of popular material into a Christian view of the world.     

Is there any interest in Nehemiah 5?

Abstract

It is generally held that the issue addressed by Nehemiah in Neh 5, 6–11 was that the wealthy of the restored community were charging interest or usury from their poorer fellow Jews. This article contends that a better sense is gained by understanding the Hebrew roots na?a and nasah as meaning “to have (or “press") a claim on” instead of “to lend”. It can then be seen that the situation facing Nehemiah was one of the wealthy making inappropriate demands for repayment of loans in a time of financial stringency, demands which were causing severe hardship to the less fortunate members of the community.     

Experiencing Authenticity at Heritage Sites: Some Implications for Heritage Management and Conservation

Abstract

This article summarizes the results from recent research focusing on the experience and negotiation of authenticity in relation to the historic environment. I argue that approaches to authenticity are still hampered by a prevailing dichotomy between materialist approaches (which see authenticity as inherent in the object) and constructivist approaches (which see it as a cultural construct). This dichotomy means that we have a relatively poor understanding of how people experience authenticity in practice at heritage sites and why they find the issue of authenticity so compelling. Drawing on ethnographic research in Scotland and Nova Scotia, I show that the experience of authenticity is bound up with the network of tangible and intangible relationships that heritage objects invoke with past people and places. I argue that it is these inalienable relationships between objects, people, and places that underpin the ineffable power of authenticity, and this also explains why people use ideas about authenticity as a means to negotiate their own place in the world. A summary of the main thesis developed out of this research is provided with short case examples. The article then highlights the implications for practices of heritage management and conservation.     

The Theophany and Meal of Exodus 24

ABSTRACT

The Hebrew Bible may give the impression that there was a clearly definable area called Geshur. The Biblical view is often adopted in scholarly literature. The kingdom of Geshur plays a role in the reconstruction of the political situation during the early monarchic period, especially during the reign of King David.

However, historical sources for Geshur are shaky. These Biblical traditions may contain an early core that may even preserve an ancient memory of Geshur, but their historical value is much smaller than what scholarly discussion would implicate. They do not justify many of the views found in scholarly discussion. Scholarship has also sought to corroborate the Biblical traditions with two external sources but the evidence is very problematic, and, in the worst case, its use is reminiscent of Biblicism, where the main function of external sources is to corroborate Biblical texts.     

IMAGINATION AS A CATEGORY OF HISTORY: AN ESSAY CONCERNING KOSELLECK'S CONCEPTS OF ERFAHRUNGSRAUM AND ERWARTUNGSHORIZONT

Reinhart Koselleck is an important thinker in part for his attempt to interpret the cultural changes resulting in our modern cultural outlook in terms of the (meta)historical categories of experience and expectation. In so doing he tried to pay equal attention to the static and the changing in history. This article argues that Koselleck's use of “experience” and “expectation” confuses their metahistorical and historical meaning, with the result that his account fails to do justice to the static, to continuity in history, and mischaracterizes what is distinctive of the modern era. As well as reconfiguring the categories of experience and expectation, this essay also introduces a third category, namely, imagination, in between experience and expectation. This is done to render intelligible what is obscure in Koselleck's account, and as a stimulus to a study of history that divides its attention equally between the static and the changing. In fact, it is argued that the category of imagination is pre‐eminently the category of history, on the concrete historical as well as the metahistorical level.     

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.