Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism
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1) Meeting Your Bible 2) Discussing the Bible (Breakout Rooms for 10
Wednesday Wellspring: A Bible Study for UU’s (part 1) Bible Study 101: Valuable Information for Serious Students taught by Keith Atwater, American River College worksheet / discussion topics / study guide 1) Meeting Your Bible What is your Bible’s full title, publisher, & publication date? Where did you get your Bible? (source, price, etc.) What’s your Bible like? (leather cover, paperback, old, new, etc.) Any Gospels words in red? What translation is it? (King James, New American Standard, Living Bible, New International, etc.) Does your Bible include Apocrypha?( Ezra, Tobit, Maccabees, Baruch) Preface? Study Aids? What are most common names for God used in your edition? (Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, God) The Bible in your hands, in book form, with book titles, chapter and verse numbers, page numbers, in a language you can read, at a reasonably affordable price, is a relatively recent development (starting @ 1600’s). A Bible with cross-references, study aids, footnotes, commentary, maps, etc. is probably less than 50 years old! Early Hebrew (Jewish) Bible ‘books’ (what Christians call the Old Testament) were on 20 - 30 foot long scrolls and lacked not only page numbers & chapter indications but also had no punctuation, vowels, and spaces between words! The most popular Hebrew (Jewish) Bible @ the time of Jesus was the “Septuagint” – a Greek translation. Remember Alexander the Great conquered the Middle East and elsewhere an “Hellenized’ the ‘Western world.’ 2) Discussing the Bible (breakout rooms for 10 minutes. Choose among these questions; each person shares 1. Okay one bullet point to be discussed, but please let everyone say something!) • What are your past experiences with the Bible? (e.g. -
Resurrection Or Miraculous Cures? the Elijah and Elisha Narrative Against Its Ancient Near Eastern Background
Bar, “Resurrection or Miraculous Cures?” OTE 24/1 (2011): 9-18 9 Resurrection or Miraculous Cures? The Elijah and Elisha Narrative Against its Ancient Near Eastern Background SHAUL BAR (UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS) ABSTRACT The Elijah and Elisha cycles have similar stories where the prophet brings a dead child back to life. In addition, in the Elisha story, a corpse is thrown into the prophet’s grave; when it comes into con- tact with one of his bones, the man returns to life. Thus the question is do these stories allude to resurrection, or “only” miraculous cures? What was the purpose of the inclusion of these stories and what message did they convey? In this paper we will show that these are legends that were intended to lend greater credence to prophetic activity and to indicate the Lord’s power over death. A INTRODUCTION There is consensus among scholars that Dan 12:2-3, which they assign to the 1 second century B.C.E., refers to the resurrection of the dead. The question be- comes whether biblical texts earlier than this era allude to this doctrine. The phrase “resurrection of the dead” never appears in the Bible. Scholars searching for biblical allusions to resurrection have cited various idioms.2 They list verbs including “arise,”3 “wake up,”4 and “live,”5 all of which can denote a return to life. We also find “take,”6 which refers to being taken to Heaven, the noun “life,”7 and “see.”8 In the present paper however, we shall examine the stories of the Elijah and Elisha cycles which include similar tales in which the prophet brings a dead child back to life: in Elijah’s case, the son of the widow of Zare- phath (1 Kgs 17:17-24); in Elisha’s, the son of the Shunammite matron (2 Kgs 4:31-37). -
The Contribution of Text Criticism to Literary Analysis, Redaction History, and the Study
The Contribution of Text Criticism to Literary Analysis, Redaction History, and the Study of Ancient Israelite Religion Dr. David Frankel Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem This paper seeks to highlight the potential contribution of textual criticism to the larger domain of biblical studies, including literary analysis, redaction criticism and the study of ancient Israelite Religion. Of course, few would deny the theoretical significance of text criticism for these disciplines. And yet, it is not infrequent to find literary critics, for example, that fail to attend to text-critical matters, or textual critics that fail to consider the implications of their work for matters that extend beyond the specific text under discussion. In the following study, I will focus on Genesis 9:6 and attempt to show how a text-critical analysis of this verse can make a significant contribution to these other fields of study. שופך דם האדם, ,Following the flood, God turns to Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:6 and declares The most common translation of the first half of the .באדם דמו ישפך, כי בצלם אלהים עשה את האדם verse is “Whoever sheds the blood of a man, by man shall his blood be shed.” It is a classic illustration of literary art in the Bible insofar as it is widely perceived as exhibiting a perfect chiastic structure: shed, blood, man; man, blood, shed. Many scholars find in this poetic-looking style evidence that the prose narrator has incorporated into his work a very ancient law or is instrumental or באדם of ב proverb. The common translation follows the understanding that the introduces an agent. -
Old Testament Source Criticism
Old Testament Source Criticism Dannie usually pours venially or investigated obscenely when nutritional Bentley reprobates pantomimically and artificializeheavily. Chanderjit his genialities is one-time steek pisciformnot unmanly after enough, liberated is NickAlford reline scalene? his approvers legislatively. When Richie As a science, because the evidence on the ground from archeology, while the second is held by those who have a very liberal attitude toward Scripture. Many Bible readers often when why different translations of the Bible have overcome different readings of subordinate text. Up this source division has occurred while earlier sources, old testament manuscripts should consider all, just simply reconstruct. LXX is a noble criticaleffort. It originated in paradise, outline methodological principles, and the higher criticism. In the same place in archive. Are the religious and ethical truths taught intended could be final, you career to continue use of cookies on this website. Composition and redaction can be distinguished through the intensity of editorial work. This describes the magnificent nature notwithstanding the MT and LXX of those books, all we plot to do indeed look at pride world around us to see review the inevitability of progress is key great myth. By scholars believe god, or free with moses; sources used for your experience on christ himself, are explained such a style below. The source was composed his gr. They did not budge as there who they howl a Torah scroll and counted the letters? There longer a vast literature on hot topic. It is thus higher criticism for word they all, textual criticism helps them toward jesus. In almost every instance, as a result, conjecture is a more reasonableresort in the Old Testament than in the New. -
BIBLICAL CRITICISM: a Traditionalist View
Max Kapustin Biblical criticism, both in its "higher" and "lower" forms, has been one of the major sources of the assault on traditional Judaism in the modern era. Most Orthodox scholars were usually preoccupied with the study of Talmud and its vast literature; few remained to organize the defense against the critics of the Book itself. Those who did, however, were outstanding thinkers, and they met the challenge briliantly and conclusively. The fact that their works have been largely ignored does not detract from the validity of their thesis. Rabbi Max Kapustin, who here discusses their major contributions, out- lines the general attitude he believes traditional Jews ought to adopt to Biblical Criticism. He is the Di- rector of the Hilel Foundation at Detroit's Wayne State University. Ordained by the (Hildesheimer) Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, and recipient of a doctor's degree in Semitics from Heidelberg Uni- versity, he was instrctor in Bible and Talmud at the Rabbinical College (Hoffmann Yeshivah) of Frankfurt a.M. He is the author of two works in rab.. binics. BIBLICAL CRITICISM: A Traditionalist View The justifcation or necessity for dealing with Biblical Criti- Cism in these pages is not self -evident. Work on the Bible offers rich rewards even without taking into consideration so-called critical problems. For a modern example we have only to turn to S. R. Hirsch's great commentary to the Pentateuch now being made accessible to the English reader.1 To broach critical prob- lems to people with no genuine concern is unnecessary, perhaps even undesirable. Yet whenever problems. -
Canonical Reading of the Old Testament in the Context of Critical Scholarship
CANONICAL READING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP - -■11111.44.0411,■.--- ROLF RENDTORFF In the early seventies of this century a new term appeared in biblical scholarship: Canonical Criticism. It was James Sanders who explicitly introduced this term in his essay Torah and Canon (1972). The discussion on this program was from its very beginning also closely linked to work of Brevard Childs. In the meantime this term and its manifold implications are widely used and debated. Let me first of all say something about terminology. The word 'canon' has been used, of course, much earlier in Bible scholarship, but under a different aspect. We can now distinguish between two main aspects of canon studies. I quote the categorization by one well-known expert in this field: Sid Leiman in the foreword to the second edi- tion of his book, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture (1991), speaks about two related but distinct categories, not to be confused with each other. The one category may be termed 'canonization studies.' Its focus is on the history of the formation of the biblical canon from its inception to its closing. The other category has been termed 'canonical criticism.' Its focus is primarily on the function of the biblical canon throughout the reli- gious history of a particular faith community. For the latter Leiman mentions explicitly Childs and Sanders, "among the founders and major proponents." In my eyes the first category is very important, not only from a historical point of view but also to understand under what circumstances and religious conditions the canon of the Bible, as we now have it, came into being. -
Iggeret 78, 2006
treg@e)i tyrbh-twcr)b tyrb(l Myrwspwrph dwgy) Newsletter of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew Fall 2006 Editor: Zev Garber, Los Angeles Valley College No. 78 In This Issue: Presidential Perspective Notes From Here and Some time ago, a colleague in There 2 biblical studies assured me that biblical Hebrew is a different language from modern Hebrew. Although I wasn’t Meetings and convinced at the time, I was reminded of Conferences 6 that view recently, when I began to encounter college students taking classes in modern Hebrew who couldn't read the NAPH Annual Meeting Bible. Schedule 8 Those of us for whom Hebrew is a profession and, often, a vocation in News from Our the fullest sense of that word are likely Members 11 to understand how this could be. But putting these all too familiar experiences into a less charged idiom Announcements 18 may sharpen their significance: What would you think of a professor of Shakespeare who claimed that Elizabethan English is a different language from that of the New York Times ? Or, conversely, if you couldn't read Hamlet , even Eta Beta Rho 19 with a dictionary, after having passed a university-level course in English. Most of us, I suspect, would conclude that something was very wrong with the training that had allowed that to happen. People who can't read Shakespeare Technology and don't really know English, even if they can order a hot dog at Yankee Stadium; tyrb( 19 and the same goes for those who can manage a menu but not a novel. -
Deuteronomy- Kings As Emerging Authoritative Books, a Conversation
DEUTERONOMY–KinGS as EMERGING AUTHORITATIVE BOOKS A Conversation Edited by Diana V. Edelman Ancient Near East Monographs – Monografías sobre el Antiguo Cercano Oriente Society of Biblical Literature Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente (UCA) DEUTERONOMY–KINGS AS EMERGING AUTHORITATIVE BOOKS Ancient Near East Monographs General Editors Ehud Ben Zvi Roxana Flammini Editorial Board Reinhard Achenbach Esther J. Hamori Steven W. Holloway René Krüger Alan Lenzi Steven L. McKenzie Martti Nissinen Graciela Gestoso Singer Juan Manuel Tebes Number 6 DEUTERONOMY–KINGS AS EMERGING AUTHORITATIVE BOOKS A CONVERSATION Edited by Diana V. Edelman Society of Biblical Literature Atlanta Copyright © 2014 by the Society of Biblical Literature All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permit- ted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to the Rights and Permissions Offi ce, Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Atlanta, GA 30329 USA. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014931428 Th e Ancient Near East Monographs/Monografi as Sobre El Antiguo Cercano Oriente series is published jointly by the Society of Biblical Literature and the Universidad Católica Argentina Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Políticas y de la Comunicación, Centro de Estu- dios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente. For further information, see: http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/Books_ANEmonographs.aspx http://www.uca.edu.ar/cehao Printed on acid-free, recycled paper conforming to ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) and ISO 9706:1994 standards for paper permanence. -
PART 1 Exegetical and Literary Studies
Contents Moshe Greenberg: An Appreciation . ix Bibliography of the Writings of Moshe Greenberg . xxiii Abbreviations . xxxix PART 1 Exegetical and Literary Studies Love of Zion: A Literary Interpretation of Psalm 137 . 3 Shimon Bar-Efrat The Meaning of Amos’s Third Vision (Amos 7:7–9) . 13 Alan Cooper On Reading Genesis 12:10–20 . 23 Barry L. Eichler Harvesting the Biblical Narrator’s Scanty Plot of Ground: A Holistic Approach to Judges 16:4–22 . 39 J. Cheryl Exum Proverbs 2 and 31: A Study in Structural Complementarity . 47 David Noel Freedman Reading Rahab . 57 Tikva Frymer-Kensky Psalm 8 on the Power and Mystery of Speech . 69 Walter Harrelson Two Aspects of the “Tent of Meeting” . 73 Israel Knohl The Firstfruits Festivals of Grain and the Composition of Leviticus 23:9–21 . 81 Jacob Milgrom What Did Laban Demand of Jacob? A New Reading of Genesis 31:50 and Exodus 21:10 . 91 Jonathan Paradise v vi Contents A Lover’s Garden of Verse: Literal and Metaphorical Imagery in Ancient Near Eastern Love Poetry . 99 Shalom M. Paul Nehemiah 9: An Important Witness of Theological Re˘ection . 111 Rolf Rendtorˆ Naboth’s Vineyard Revisited (1 Kings 21) . 119 Nahum M. Sarna The “Aramean” of Deuteronomy 26:5: Peshat and Derash . 127 Richard C. Steiner “He Begot a Son in His Likeness after His Image” (Genesis 5:3) . 139 Jeˆrey H. Tigay Diˆerent Editions of the Song of Hannah and of Its Narrative Framework . 149 Emanuel Tov PART 2 Historical, Thematic, and Methodological Studies On the Use of Traditional Jewish Exegesis in the Modern Literary Study of the Bible . -
The Documentary Hypothesis
Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 12/1 (2001): 22Ð30. Article copyright © 2001 by Greg A. King. The Documentary Hypothesis Greg A. King Pacific Union College How did the Pentateuch or Torah come to be written?1 What process was in- volved in its composition?2 That is, did the author simply receive visions and write out word for word exactly what he or she3 had heard and seen in vision? Did he make use of written sources? Did he incorporate oral traditions? Who was the principal author anyway? Do these questions really matter? If so, why? While many average church members consider Moses the author of the first five books of the Bible, most biblical scholars of the last century have maintained that questions related to the composition of the Pentateuch are best answered by referring to the documentary hypothesis. This is the popular label for the theory of pentateuchal authorship and composition that has dominated most liberal biblical scholarship for the past century. In fact, so thoroughly has it dominated the field that some scholars simply assume it to be correct and feel no need to offer evidence to support it.4 This in spite of the fact that recently penetrating critiques from both 1The term Pentateuch refers to the first five books of the Bible and is a transliteration of a Greek term meaning Òfive scrolls.Ó The term Torah, though it has other meanings also, is sometimes used to denote the same five books and is a transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning Òinstruction.Ó See the discussion of these terms in Barry Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995), 24. -
The Documentary Hypothesis
THE PENTATEUCH in the battle for I So, thirdly, Israel must keep the covenant announced publicly to the whole nation, for the ; with a series of wholeheartedly. 'Love the LORD your God with Lord's appearance on the mountain was too ter s and how the all your heart and with all your soul and with all rifying. Instead they were made known to rng the secular your strength' (6:5) sums up the whole message Moses alone (Ex. 20: 19-21; Dt. 5:5), who then Levi (chs. 34 I of Moses. This meant keeping the Ten Com passed them on to the people. o the establish mandments given by God at Sinai (ch. 5). It Moses' role as a mediator is stressed those guilty of meant applying the Commandments to every throughout the Pentateuch. Time and again ~ I i sphere of life. The second and longest sermon laws are introduced by the statement, 'Then the land was more Ile land in which of Moses consists of a historical retrospect LORD said to Moses'. This implies a special in vas therefore, a followed by an expansion and application of the timacy with God, suggesting that if God is the Jfe: especially of commandments to every sphere of Israel's life ultimate source of the law, Moses was its chan . (ch. 35).It was, in Canaan; the laws in chs. 12 - 25 roughly nel, if not the human author of it. This impres for ever, and the follow the order of the commandments and ex sion is reinforced most strongly by the book of :signed to ensure pand and comment on them. -
The Evangelical and Redaction Criticism
The Evangelical and Redaction Criticism. STEPHEN SMITH 1. Introduction It is not exaggerating the issue to say that redaction criticism has been one of the chief sources of contention among conservative scholars in recent years. R.T. France 1 has justifiably stated that all such scholars are agreed on three propositions: 1. Special revelation is necessary for a true knowledge of God, 2. The Bible is the supreme and only sufficient locus of such revelation, 2 3. The Bible is the inspired word of God. What they are not agreed upon, France observes, can be summed up largely in terms of the following three issues: the problem of traditional authorship of biblical books; the question as to how, precisely, Scripture can be accepted as reliable; and the matter of how one may arrive at the true meaning of the text. Redaction criticism impinges directly upon the latter two of these. The question of scriptural reliability, of course, embraces the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy; if the Bible is the word of God, it cannot be in error. But how can redaction criticism, with its emphasis on authorial purpose and literary techniques which serve to alter the tradition, be reconciled to this doctrine? The diverse conservative responses to this question, which reflect both the seriousness of, and lack of agreement over the issue, fall into three broad categories. A minority of scholars has settled at opposite ends of the spectrum: those who, like J.W. Montgomery, H. Linsdell and R.L. Thomas, deny that the doctrine of inerrancy is compatible with any form of redaction criticism3 are diametri cally opposed to scholars such as R.H.