Hebrew Inscriptions

Abstract

In the light of the ceramical evidence it is clear that a small settlement was built here during the Hyksos period. It was abandoned during Late Bronze and Early Iron, but rebuilt and flourished during the period of the Hebrew monarchy. It was again rebuilt during the Persian period, but permanently abandoned afterwards. The neglect of aqueducts and springs probably led to the swamping of the region.

Several facts are interesting in this story. Firstly, that the periods of habitation attested here are just those when security in the country was good, so that it was possible to live in an unfenced village sited in undefended ground in the lowland. Secondly, in the conditions obtaining prior to the reclamation work undertaken by the Jewish settlers, the site, situated in swamp ground, could hardly have been inhabited. Yet the archaeological evidence indicates occupation here up to the Persian period. The changes in environment leading to the present state of things could thus, at the earliest, have begun after that time. The site thus furnishes dated evidence about geographical changes in the country of which it seems worth while taking cognizance.     

Early? Late? A reply to F.H. Cryer

Abstract

The article clarifies the position taken in the author's 1990 doctoral dissertation vis‐'a‐vis the distinction between Early and Late Biblical Hebrew. This distinction functions as a frame of reference for what is essentially an effort to detect linguistic similarities and differences between the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.     

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.     

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.     

REVIEW

Mogens Müller, Kirkens f?rste Bibel — Hebraica sive Graeca Veritas? Forlaget ANIS, Frederiksberg 1994, 152 pp.

Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours. The Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies. Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia 1993, 29 + 425 pp.     

Samson: The Only Nazarite in the Hebrew Bible and His Women!

Abstract

Since the publication of Eißfeldt's study in 1935, it has been doubted by some scholars that a Hebrew god named Moloch or Molekh has ever existed. Recently, however, two studies have been published, one by George Heider (1985) and the other by John Day (1989), in which the existence of the god Molekh is defended once again. Especially Day's arguments seem convincing. Nevertheless, considering the Carthaginian archaeological evidence (in 1991 gathered by Shelby Brown), and also considering the ideological bias of the biblical passages concerned, the existence of a separate god of human sacrifice in Israel remains uncertain. By a new analysis of the biblical passages, arguments are given that the god Molekh is an invention from the Persian period in an attempt to conceal that Judahite worship of YHWH in the eighth and seventh century B.C.E. also included child sacrifice.     

Competing Traditions and the Birth of Texts

Doctor Ingrid Hjelm's new book, Jerusalem's Rise to Sovereignty: Zion and Gerizim in Competition. Ingrid Hjelm . T&T Clark International, New York: 2004, raises a number of interesting issues concerning the relationship between the Samaritans and the inhabitants of Judea during the Hasmonean period. Though her intention is to demonstrate the conflict origins of the literature treasured by those respective communities, and the divergent paths taken by those tradents, her ideas have further reaching implications for interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and the dates to be assigned to those materials. This essay probes Hjelm's new book, enquiring after its wider implications, especially for those interested in the rise of Biblical texts.     

Drei versionen von carions chronica in dänemark‐norwegen 1554–1606

Johannes Carion's Chronica was first published in German in Wittenberg in 1532. It is a short world‐chronicle which continues the Christian tradition of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It encompasses the period from the Creation to AD 1532 and builds on the idea of four world‐monarchies and a well‐defined period of the existence of the world. History is interpreted as a collection of ethical illustrations and as the concrete proof of the truth of the Biblical prophecies. Philip Melanchthon and Caspar Peucer later rearranged the Chronica, and their whole work was published in Latin in 1572. Both the 1532 and the 1572 editions became extremely popular throughout Europe and were translated into several languages. In Denmark‐Norway alone they gave rise to two translations into Danish and a versified Latin version in the 16th century.     

Determination of the noun in Biblical Hebrew

The two comprehensive reference grammars for Biblical Hebrew, Gesenius/Kautzsch and Joüon/Muraoka, in addition to the more or less generally accepted categories of use of the definite article, make use of a category which they describe as not having to do with definiteness in the sense that we know it. In this category they group the instances of use of the article that do not seem to fit into the generally accepted categories, instances where the Hebrew definite article, in German and English respectively, is said to be expressed by an indefinite article. In the present article, I analyse the 67 examples given to substantiate the existence of the proposed category. I argue that this category probably does not exist and I contend that most of the examples, when carefully analysed, are examples of regular article usage. When the nouns in question are perceived as nondetermined and translated as such, it is because we are not sufficiently familiar with ancient Hebrew language and culture and hence do not possess the contextual information the articles refer to.     

Parallelism in Biblical Hebrew verse

Abstract

Parallelism is one of the best known features of Biblical Hebrew verse, yet, until recent years, work on this topic was usually content to repeat or elaborate Lowth's analysis. This paper explores the phenomenon of parallelism as a feature of rich potential implicit in all writing and fully activated in literary discourse, especially poetry. After a linguistic analysis using the seminal work of Jakobson on the syntagmatic (chain or sequence axis) and paradigmatic (choice or overshadowing axis) dimensions of text, the insights of a variety of artists are used to identify the dynamics of the device.     

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.     

Amorite names and old testament onomastics 1

Abstract

Amorite personal names, particularly those attested in texts from the Old Babylonian period, provide most valuable evidence for research in dia‐chronic aspects of Old Testament onomastics. The paper presents a general introduction to research on these names and to their grammatical structure. It further discusses possible Amorite parallels to the divine name Yahweh and lists a large number of names and name elements paralleled in the Hebrew Bible. Most prominent among the Hebrew cognates are names appearing in narratives with reference to the so‐called proto‐history and the Patriarchal period.     

Images of Uncertainty: some thoughts on the meaning of form in in the art of Late Antiquity

Abstract

My concern is with the change in style in the visual arts which occurred with the emergence of Late Antiquity. The discussion is intended to fall into three parts; in the first part I review how art historians have approached Late Antique art and examine some of the theoretical positions that have arisen through attempts to explain style in art; in the second part I shall endeavour to formulate my own theoretical explanation and I shall go on, in the third part, using some examples, to consider how this theoretical formulation is particularly valuable in the analysis of the art of the Late Antique period.     

"For it shall be a witness between us" a literary reading of josh 22

ABSTRACT

Eusocial species form societies in which subordinates, which belong to an obligately sterile caste, help raise the young that dominants produce. As in any eusocial species, reproduction was strongly “skewed” in the Ancient Near East: kings assembled harems of thousands of women, and fathered hundreds of children; but their families were provisioned and protected, in part, by eunuchs. As early as 4th-millennium Uruk, “beardless” subjects waited on bearded monarchs; large numbers of eunuchs were commanding imperial armies and administering imperial palaces by Ashurbanipal's time. Assyrian emperors, on the other hand, left records of hundreds of harem governess and weavers, servants and singers; and Artaxerxes II, the Persian king, is supposed to have fathered 115 bastards, along with 3 legitimate sons. So it went in Ancient Israel and Judah. Hebrew kings from David to Zedekiah grew dependent on eunuch messengers, eunuch stewards, eunuch army commanders and eunuch palace guards—who served as workers and soldiers for their hundreds of concubines and wives, and their housefuls of daughters and sons.     

The Water Pools and the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Late Second Temple Period

A significant number of water pools existed in Jerusalem in the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman periods. The pools constitute an archaeological phenomenon that should be analysed in its own right. No other city in the region had so many stand-alone large pools in its urban landscape. This paper offers an explanation of this phenomenon based on its cultural, historical, and archaeological context. The article discusses the corpus of pools, including the dating, the methods of water collection and their possible use in light of similar water installations that were common in this period. In the analysis of the pools' appearance in Jerusalem, the paper examines the broader context of the phenomenon—water utilisation by Jewish society in the time of the Second Temple before 70 AD. The conclusion drawn is that the pools are a manifestation of the wide-scale pilgrimage movement to Jerusalem that emerged in the Late Second Temple.     

Some reflections on religion and nationalism

The metamorphosis undergone by Jewish women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the result of modernization, secularization, and education. Similarly, the offspring of the new Jewish woman, the “new Hebrew woman” was the embodiment of various schools of thought, in particular the liberal and the socialist, which were prevalent at that time. The new Hebrew woman offered a feminist interpretation of the malaise of the Jewish people in general, and of Jewish women in particular, challenging the roles designated to her by her male peers and offering her own alternative interpretation. She chose Eretz Yisrael and Zionism, to “auto-emancipate” herself rather than waiting passively for her emancipation by others. In this sense, the new Hebrew woman collaborated with and reflected the hegemonic Zionist ideals and priorities. This article aims to analyze the discourse of the new Hebrew woman, as manifested in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael in the first half of the twentieth century in order to shed light on the link between gender and nationalism in the Zionist context. In particular, it considers how men and women envisioned the new Hebrew woman; how class, political affiliation, and gender shaped their interpretation; and how the new Hebrew woman differed from her counterpart, the new Jewish woman.     

Hebrew Literature and Jewish Nationalism in the Tsarist Empire 1881–1917

Abstract. After 1881, Hebrew literature in the tsarist empire became an integral part of the rise of Jewish nationalism, and it created literary norms which were transplanted to mandatory Palestine. This literature, in contrast to most pre-1881 Hebrew literature, is aesthetically on a very high level. Led by Mendele Mocher Sefarim in prose fiction and by Chaim Nachman Bialik in poetry, it asserted Jewish national feeling even when not overtly nationalistic. In doing so, it subverted tsarist authority and indirectly declared the Jews to be independent of the empire. Yet, in many of its main concerns this literature shows the influence of Russian literature, especially of the Reform Era, but also afterwards (Chekhov, in particular), and itmight even be regarded as an ethnic branch of Russian literature. Both literatures depicted the failings of their society with the aim of achieving social change. However, while Russian literature pointed to revolution, Hebrew literature after 1881 pointed to Palestine where most of the Hebrew writers of that period eventually emigrated.     

Beyond Orientalism: When Marceline Desbordes-Valmore carried Saʿdi’s Roses to France

This article follows a thread of translation and intertextual dialogue, taking us from the thirteenth-century Persian poet Sa?di to the nineteenth-century French poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. It reads Desbordes-Valmore’s poem ‘Les roses de Saadi’ (1860) with the two passages from Sa?di’s Golestān from which it was inspired, shedding new light on the poem’s metapoetic subtext. The original Persian text is compared to two French translations that were circulating at the time when Desbordes-Valmore was writing. This analysis of the Golestān’s reception forms the basis for the argument that Desbordes-Valmore recast in secular terms Sa?di’s discourse on poetic language, emphasizing the continuity, rather than difference, between her concerns and Sa?di’s. The case of Desbordes-Valmore thus reveals a forgotten facet of nineteenth-century French engagements with Middle Eastern culture: one of identification and literary influence, which existed alongside the processes of “othering” for which the period is better known.     

The Cure of Elf-Shooting in the North-West of Ireland

In this article the study of literary and oral versions of ‘The Tree Demon’ (ATU 1168B) relates to the broader issue of the oral versus written transmission of folktales, which was raised in the late nineteenth century and is still relevant today. It examines three literary versions in compilations from the Middle Ages: a Hebrew version from the tenth century and two Muslim versions from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in Persian and Arabic. These are compared with three oral variants from Burma and Cambodia. The development of the ‘Tree Demon’ tale type as a test case is demonstrated through an analysis of the versions' different religious, cultural, and social functions, which reflect their different channels of transmission and historical settings.     

Thoughts on Yoram Hazony's The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture

This article focuses on two claims in Yoram Hazony's book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture: (1) that Hebrew Scripture contains a philosophy and (2) that this philosophy renders the conventional distinction between Jerusalem and Athens untenable insofar as it is a distinction that falls outside the purview of Hebrew Scripture.