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 or: On the survival of outdated paradigmas in the study of the origin of Israel,II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

Das problem der Apokryphen∗

Abstract

The Problem of the Apocrypha. In modern discussions of the problem of the Canon scholars are reluctant to talk about an early canonization of the Hebrew Bible and of the Scpluagint. In both cases it is rather a question of the history of text and history of tradition. Only in later rabbinic literature and in the patristic epoch do we meet with a notion of Canon similar to our understanding. The discussion of Scptuagint and the Apocrypha in the Greek and Latin Fathers, not least between Augustin and Jerome, is treated, and lines are drawn from here to the position given to the Apocrypha in the protestant churches. The weak position of the Apocrypha in these churches is hard to change, and modern suggestions to translate the OT as church‐Bible from the Septuagint do not seem to further the issue.     

The Fate of Jewish Historiography after the Bible: A New Interpretation

What caused the eventual decline in later Jewish history of the vibrant historiographical tradition of the biblical period? In contrast to the plethora of historical writings composed during the biblical period, the rabbis of the early common era apparently were not interested in writing history, and when they did relate to historical events they often introduced mythical and unrealistic elements into their writings. Scholars have offered various explanations for this phenomenon; a central goal of this article is to locate these explanations within both the immediate historical setting of Roman Palestine and the overarching cultural atmosphere of the Greco‐Roman Near East. In particular, I suggest that the largely ahistorical approach of the rabbis functioned as a local Jewish counterpart to the widespread classicizing tendencies of a contemporary Greek intellectual movement, the Second Sophistic. In both cases, eastern communities, whose political aspirations were stifled under Roman rule, sought to express their cognitive and spiritual identities by focusing on a glorious and idealized past rather than on contemporary history. Interestingly, the apparent lack of rabbinic interest in historiography is not limited to the early rabbinic period. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Jews essentially did not write their political, diplomatic, or military history. Instead, Jews composed “traditional historiography” which included various types of literary genres among which the rabbinic “chain of transmission” was the most important. The chain of transmission reconstructs (or fabricates) the links that connect later rabbinic sages with their predecessors. Robert Bonfil has noted the similarity between this rabbinic project and contemporary church histories. Adding a diachronic dimension to Bonfil's comparison, I suggest that rabbinic chains of transmission and church histories are not similar though entirely independent phenomena, but rather their shared project actually derives from a common origin, the Hellenistic succession list. The succession list literary genre, which sketches the history of an intellectual discipline, apparently thrived during the Second Sophistic and diffused then into both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Thus, even though historiography was not terribly important to the early rabbis or to most Second Sophistic intellectuals, the succession list schematic, or the history of an intellectual discipline, was evaluated differently. Rabbis and early Christians absorbed the succession list from Second Sophistic culture and then continued to employ this historiographical genre for many centuries to come.     

The Bible at the Local Level

In spite of the papal permission to translate the Bible into Chinese that the Jesuit China mission received in 1615, there was no complete Catholic translation of the whole Bible in China until the 20th century (1954). The task of translation was considered too difficult and tedious and, in addition, somewhat dangerous and superfluous. A prerequisite for the translation of the Bible was the arduous linguistic work of various missionaries, who faced difficult work indeed with dictionaries, questions of grammar, and the challenges of establishing a Christian terminology. It was only by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century that Catholic missionaries in China again focused on the idea to combine the Bible with catechism. The translations from and works on the Bible published by the Divine Word Missionaries in Shandong (1882–1950) were without any doubt a partial, but important contribution to the complete Chinese translation of the Bible. This project can be understood as a distinctive achievement in the Bible apostolate at the local level. This article focuses on a wide variety of aspects and levels of this apostolate. Readers find here that the translation of the Bible accomplished much in the dissemination of Biblical knowledge, certainly not only in South Shandong.     

Demythologizing the Satan Tradition of Historical-Criticism: A Reevaluation of the Old Testament Portrait of שָׂטָן in Light of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

This book continues the excellent work begun in Thompson's first book, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives. In trying to find a context for the Bible, T. rightly focuses on the literary, theological, and ideological content of the biblical text. He well illustrates how recording history (from a modern point of view) is not the concern of the biblical writers. On the other hand, as he shows, to deny that the Bible is true historically is not to deny its truth in other areas. Although often agreeing with T. and applauding much that is in the book, the reviewer found certain areas of concern or disappointment. He feels that T. is often inconsistent, sometimes seeming to reject the use of literary sources almost altogether, yet still quietly using them when it suits his purpose. For example, the sources for the conquests of Alexander the Great have some of the same weaknesses as Josephus, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and even some of the narrative texts of the Bible, yet T. seems to accept that these still tell us something about Alexander. An area of weakness is T.'s grasp of the Hellenistic and Roman period where the sources andscholarship have not been mastered, and certain original sources are both explicitly rejected and then covertly used as a basis for many assertions. This is not a main part of T.'s argument, but it has implications for trying to put the writing of the Bible in the Hellenistic/Roman period. An area judged to be actually tendentious is T.'s argument that ''Jews'' and similar terms are only religious designations and carry no ethnic content. Despite these criticisms (which do affect T.'s approach and conclusions in crucial areas) the reviewer nevertheless accepts much that T. says and appreciates the attempt to give a holistic argument on this complex question. Especially appreciated is T.'s positive reconstruction of the history of Palestine based primarily on archaeology in a central section of his book.     

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.     

The Norwegian 9/11: In the Church Without a Bible

The article identifies roles and conditions for the Bible within modern politics in the West. By comparing the official Norwegian response to the terror attack in Oslo July 22, 2011, with the similar response in the US on September 11, 2001, it is explained why the Bible is nearly absent in the official discourse of Norwegian Prime Ministers. While religion resurfaced in the process of national recuperation with the Cathedral of Oslo as a center for mass ritualization and national grief, the biblical legacy played no part in the Prime Minister's speech. The primary political leader of the Norwegian state has rarely bolstered his argument with the Bible, although this state has officially adhered to a Protestant confession from its Constitution in 1814. The Liberal Bible that appears to be operative in US presidential discourse is not playing a major role on a comparable political level in Norway.     

《斜阳》与太宰治的基督情结

昭和22年太宰治发表的《斜阳》在描写二战战败后的日本社会的同时,融入了《圣经》思想来歌颂女性的解放,并结合了《圣经》来塑造人物形象。本文将深入考察《斜阳》这部作品与《圣经》的关系,并进一步探讨太宰治对《圣经》的独特理解,以及所受的影响。     

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.     

Scripture beyond Common Sense: Sentimental Bible Study and the Evangelical Practice of “the Bible Reading”

This article examines the Bible study method known as the Bible Reading, which became popular among a segment of conservative evangelicals in the late nineteenth century. Scholars have closely identified it with the Common Sense approach to Scripture and have attributed its popularity to a conservative response to attacks on this approach. This article argues, however, that the Bible Reading is best understood as a devotional exercise that should be examined independently of these controversies. Exploring the devotional aspects of the Bible Reading nuances the standard portrayal of evangelicals in this period as being reactionary in their use of Scripture. In particular, it sheds light on the use of sentimental Bible study in the revivals of the late 1850s as well as the transatlantic holiness movement in the decades that followed. Ultimately, it argues that the exercise's popularity was due not simply to changes in the Bible's cultural status, but to changing conceptions of the Christian life.     

Nuclear science and the story of a preserved leaf from a copy of the Great Bible

Three pressed leaves of Ulmus glabra (Wych Elm) were found within the pages of a copy of the Great Bible in the Library of the University of Western Australia. The Bible dates from AD 1540 and was originally housed at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire. A radiocarbon age on one of the leaves found it was about as old as the Great Bible itself, and stable C and N isotope and neutron activation analyses were carried out on the same leaf. The δ¹⁵N values were elevated and the content of iron, arsenic, bromine, silver, gold and mercury were relatively high. These analyses are consistent with an environment where water logging is present, as at Ely at the time, and the silver and gold content are probably consistent with the cathedral setting. The mercury was found to be associated with the red ink in the Bible. It is intriguing to ponder why Wych elm leaves were placed in the Bible, especially in the light that a copy of an original edition of the King James version of the Bible from Ely, also in the library in Perth has many dozens of U. glabra leaves also preserved within in its pages.     

There was No More Sea: the supersession of the ocean,from the bible to cyberspace

In considering the particular nature of the ocean as an object of western thought, sources to consider include the Hebrew Bible and some of its Eastern Mediterranean and Semitic antecedents, all of which posit the ocean as an antithetical element or object. This relationship to the ocean—and comparisons with other traditions show that the West's is distinctive—appears to inform a range of visions of the ocean, up to the present. Philosophical texts suggest that there may be particular difficulties inherent in the ocean as an object of embodied knowledge.     

The Will to Exist: Reflections on Desire and the Good in Western Culture

In my essay I argue that the critical distinction that Spinoza makes between two concepts of desire, as also between two concepts of the good, captures the distinction that Tertullian makes in posing the question: What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? In identifying the good with desire—desire with the good—and in denying that desire is dependent on the good in itself (e.g., Plato’s form of the good), Spinoza shows us that philosophy, as ethics, belongs to Jerusalem, to the Bible, and not to Athens (ancient Greek philosophy). We see, then, that the distinction between Athens and Jerusalem is not the distinction between philosophy and the Bible, between reason and faith, between the secular and the religious.     

The Use of the Bible by the Christian Human Rights Organizations Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and International Justice Mission (IJM)

Abstract

This paper explores the use made of the Bible by two Christian human rights organizations: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and International Justice Mission (IJM), identifying the particular parts of Scripture appealed to, the hermeneutic adopted, and asks whether there are other resources in the Bible which they could use to inspire and inform their work. CSW with its focus on the persecuted Church most naturally draws its inspiration from the New Testament, especially the Epistles; whilst IJM whose work principally addresses other forms of injustice, makes greater appeal to the Old Testament. The biblical framework for IJM's work could be strengthened by a more sustained attention to Jesus' ministry as a model of human rights intervention and advocacy, by reflection on the significance of the Exodus as indicative of God's purposes for those who are oppressed, and by consideration of the book of James. CSW needs to integrate its commendable emphasis on Jesus' mission as exemplary for Christian human rights action with a holistic reading of the Bible and a greater exploration of the importance of the Church as the Body of Christ.     

Nationalism and the Hebrew Bible*

Abstract. The Hebrew Bible, though generally seen mainly as a religious document, has also provided models of secular national identity. A number of biblical motifs have been revived in modern cultural nationalism: for example, the importance of moral regeneration, attacks on internal and external enemies of the nation, and the unification of disparate groups despite geographic dislocation. The Hebrew Bible also anticipates various forms of conflict in modern national identity: between the individual and the group, chosenness and egalitarianism, the narrowly national and the universal. In the two centuries after the invention of printing, the Hebrew Bible in vernacular translation had a decisive influence on the evolution of nationalism, particularly in Britain. The Bible was essential in the culture of empires but also, paradoxically, inspired defeated, suppressed and colonised people to seek freedom. A number of modern national poets, notably Whitman and the Hebrew poets Bialik and Greenberg, adopt a free verse neo‐prophetic mode of expression. The Hebrew Bible can, therefore, be read as the archetypal, and most influential, national document from ancient times to the rise of modern nationalism.     

Crisis as turning point: Chaim Weizmann in world war I

This article explores the dissonance between the radicalism of Ahad Ha'am's essays such as “Ancestor Worship” (1897) and “Moses” (1904), and his defense of the Masoretic Text as the starting point for teaching the Bible and rejection of source criticism as a pedagogic tool in the Herzliya Gymnasium debate. While Ahad Ha'am consistently deployed the Bible as a tool for promoting national revival, his polemics against Yosef Haim Brenner's attempt to divorce national identity from cultural allegiance to the Bible, and against Claude G. Montefiore's attempt to place the New Testament on a Jewish pedestal, drove him to a more conservative position.     

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.     

Yoram Hazony and Leo Strauss on the Relation between Philosophy and Revelation

This essay challenges Yoram Hazony's ostensible correction of Leo Strauss's account of the tension between philosophy and revelation in Hazony's book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. While Hazony persuasively demonstrates the value of the Hebrew Bible, notably the half that he calls the “History of Israel,” as a work of rational political theory, emphasizing the difference in function between the Torah and the Christian “New Testament” (which serves chiefly to “bear witness” to particular events, rather than account for the permanent character of human and political life), he wrongly accuses Strauss of sharing the position of the radically antiphilosophic Christian theologian Tertullian that the Bible and classical philosophy are “absolutely oppos[ed],” even though Strauss, unlike Tertullian, takes the side of philosophy rather than the Bible in this conflict. Contrary to the impression Hazony conveys, Strauss readily acknowledged that the believer, no less than the philosopher, is obliged to make use of reason in his quest for truth and noted the critical areas of agreement between the Torah and classical philosophy. He simply emphasized the conflict between philosophy's reliance on reason as the ultimate guide to truth and the dependence of the Bible on belief in divine revelation, a dependence that Hazony implausibly seems to deny. And Hazony's challenge to the very distinction between reason and revelation threatens to weaken our appreciation of both sides of this tension, which Strauss identified as the source of the West's “vitality.”     

Chiang Kai-shek’s faith in Christianity: the trial of the Stilwell Incident

Chiang Kai-shek’s faith in Christianity has long been a controversial issue. Some have held that his faith was genuine while others have claimed that it was merely a posture to curry favor with the Americans. Now that the Hoover Institution has released Chiang Kai-shek’s diaries, historians are in a better position to explore this long-ignored part of Chiang’s life. This paper will examine Chiang’s faith as it developed during the Stilwell Incident, the most serious crisis of US–China military cooperation during World War II. While facing American pressure to grant military command to General Joseph W. Stilwell, Chiang reveals in his diaries how he relied on his faith in the Bible, how he interpreted the Bible, and how he applied his understanding of the Bible to his political decision making. An examination of Chiang’s diary during this crisis will help us understand his practical relationship with Christianity, which in turn will provide insight into Chiang’s attitudes and methods in dealing with the Stilwell Incident.