University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Following Moses: An Investigation Into The Prophetic Discourse Of The First Century C. E Virginia L. Wayland University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, and the History of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Wayland, Virginia L., "Following Moses: An Investigation Into The Prophetic Discourse Of The First Century C. E" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2632. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2632 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2632 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Following Moses: An Investigation Into The Prophetic Discourse Of The First Century C. E Abstract ABSTRACT FOLLOWING MOSES: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PROPHETIC DISCOURSE OF THE FIRST CENTURY C.E. This dissertation informs current discussions of the apparent transformation of the concepts of prophets and prophecy within Judaism of the Second Temple period by examining the application of the Law of the Prophet (Deut 18:15-22) within two first century C.E. texts, the Testament of Moses and the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum of Pseudo-Philo. Combining scholarly study of ancient Biblical interpretation and of legal and historical narrative, the study examines the successors of Moses as an umbrella concept in discursive competition between centers of human and textual authority. The study was designed to be comparative, identifying key intermediaries, settings, and audiences for divine communication and presence in two characteristic literary forms of the Second Temple - pseudepigraphy and rewritten Bible. Since the two texts in focus reflect significantly different pseudepigraphy and textual genre, I treat them separately, using Philo of Alexandria and Josephus' Antiquities as well as parallel canonical texts to establish a field of comparison.