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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. -
Pious and Critical Scholarly Paradigms of the Pentateuch •Fl
Author Biography Spencer is a third year History major from Martinez, California. In addition, he is perusing a minor in Religious Studies. His major research interests involve the study of the Old and New Testament, as well as military history. After graduation, he hopes to take his passion and research to seminary, where he can further his study of the field and history of Biblical criticism. Morgan Pious and Critical Scholarly Paradigms of the Pentateuch — during the 19th & early 20th centuries by Spencer Morgan Abstract This paper examines the antithesis between Christian scholarship and modern higher criticism of the Pentateuch during the 19th and early 20th centuries. During the 19th century, the popularization and eventual hegemony of the Doc- umentary Hypothesis revolutionized the field of Biblical studies. Modern criti- cal scholars claimed that Moses did not write the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) during the 15th century BC, but rather it was the product of a later redaction of at least four separate documents: J, E, P, and D. Writing hundreds of years apart and long after Moses, their authors reflect not the ancient covenantal religion of Moses, but rather various periods in the evolution of Israel’s religion. The implications of the Documentary Hypothe- sis bring into question the historicity and theological validity of not only the Pen- tateuch, but also the Christian New Testament which presupposes it. The goal of this research is to identify the foundational presuppositions, conclusions, and contextual consciousness that both the modern critics and the Reformed body of Christian scholars opposing them brought to their scholarship. -
William Robertson Smith, Solomon Schechter and Contemporary Judaism
https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2016v48.026 William Robertson Smith, Solomon Schechter and contemporary Judaism bernhard maier University of Tübingen, Germany* During Solomon Schechter’s first years in the University of Cambridge, one of his most illustrious colleagues was the Scottish Old Testament scholar and Arabist William Robertson Smith (1846–1894), who is today considered to be among the founding fathers of comparative religious studies. Smith was the son of a minister of the strongly evangelical Free Church of Scotland, which had constituted itself in 1843 as a rival to the state-controlled established Church of Scotland. Appointed Professor of Old Testament Exegesis in the Free Church College Aberdeen at the early age of twenty-four, Smith soon came into conflict with the conservative theologians of his church on account of his critical views. After a prolonged heresy trial, he was finally deprived of his Aberdeen chair in 1881. In 1883 he moved to Cambridge, where he served, successively, as Lord Almoner’s Reader in Arabic, University Librarian, and Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic. Discussing Schechter’s relations with Robertson Smith, one has to bear in mind that direct contact between Schechter and Smith was confined to a relatively short period of less than five years (1890–94), during which Smith was frequently ill and consequently not resident in Cambridge at all.1 Furthermore, there is not much written evidence, so that several hints and clues that have come down to us are difficult to interpret, our understanding being sometimes based on inference and reasoning by analogy rather than on any certain knowledge. -
H. Wheeler Robinson and the Problem of Organizing an Old Testament Theology
THE USE OF © 1972, Duke University Press THE OLD TESTAMENT L.C.C.card no. 70-185463 I.S.B.N. 0-8223-0288-8 IN THE NEW AND OTHER ESSAYS STUDIES IN HONOR OF WILLIAM FRANKLIN STINESPRING Edited· by JAMES M. EFIRD PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Composition by Maurice Jacobs, Inc. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Durham, N. C. 1!l72 H. WHEELER ROBINSON AND THE PROBLEM OF ORGANIZING AN OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY MAX E. POLLEY Old Testament theology is an historical discipline which arose from the need to show the relationship between history and revela tion in the religion of Israel. Before the rise of historical criticism there was no biblical theology; the use of the Bible in precritical times was as a "proof-text" for orthodox doctrines. The study of biblical content was a part of the discipline called systematic theology rather than one aspect of biblical studies as it is today. The material of the Bible was therefore arranged under the head ings that best suited the needs of the systematic· theologian: God, man, and redemption. The Bible was seldom allowed to speak for itself; the theologian simply listened to the echo of his own voice. l With the rise of biblical criticism tha( was dedicated to a study of literary and historical problems of the Bible, there arose also the desire to study the religious thought of the Old Testament independent of dogmatic interests. The actual beginning of biblical theology is attributed to John Philipp Gabler in a lecture published in 1787 entitled "Oratio de iusto discrimine theologiae biblicae et dogmaticae regundisque recte utruisque finisbus." 2 In this lecture I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. -
Prophets Postcolonially Initial Insights for a Postcolonial Reading of Prophetic Literature
ARTICLES PROPHETS POSTCOLONIALLY INITIAL INSIGHTS FOR A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE Steed Vernyl Davidson Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary / Graduate Theological Union This article examines the conception of the genre prophetic literature and how a postcolonial examination probes its production. A postcolonial engagement can offer more than simply anticolonial resistance dis- course as can be gleaned from the theo-political contexts of prophetic material. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s reflection on ‘the book’, other postcolonial theorists, as well as genre theory, the article traces elements that constitute a ‘prophetic book’ and interrogates the power of the canonical category ‘prophetic literature’. In the end it offers three defining features of a postcolonially resituated reading of prophetic literature. The relationship between Biblical Studies and Postcolonial Studies rests on the presumption that at multiple levels the Bible exists as a product of empire. This presumption readily leads to the application of postcolonial theory to the reading of biblical texts without a preliminary interrog- ation of the literature that constitutes the body of texts called ‘Bible.’ While biblical critics pay attention to the socio-cultural milieus that generate major portions of the Bible such as Greco- Roman society (Moore 2006; Carter 2001; Liew 1999), classification of biblical material into prophetic literature, gospel, apocalypse, and so on remain unexamined from a postcolonial per- spective. Since the synchronic/diachronic option that the general field of Biblical Studies insists on may be a false choice for most postcolonial biblical scholars, users of postcolonial theory in relation to the Bible tend to probe the Bible as literature from the perspective of what Homi Bhabha regards as ‘the edict of Englishness and the assault of the dark unruly spaces of the earth’ (Bhabha 1994, 107; Sugirtharajah 2005, 2003, 2002, 2001; Boer 2008). -
The Theological Development of the Young Robertson Smith by Donald R
81 The Theological Development of the Young Robertson Smith by Donald R. Nelson Dr. Nelson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities at Michigan State University, was awarded his doctorate by that university in 1969 for a thesis on "The Life and Thought of William Robertson Smith, 1846-1894". Here he studies the early influences on Robertson Smith's thought, and finds that these included deter minant philosophical influences as well as those of philological and historical study. RITING in 1889 of the impact of theories of higher criticism upon W the Christian's understanding of the Old Testament, Mary Augusta Ward interpreted "the present collapse of English orthodoxy" as resulting from "one cause only-the invasion ofEnglish by German thought."l Though doubtless there were believers who contested her assessment of the state of the Faith, few would have contradicted her notion that in recent decades British religious insularity had been breached by a theological barrage of Teutonic origin. The publication in 1860 of an incendiary little volume titled Essays and Reviews was a clear warning that the Channel no longer provided protection against "German rationalism." The chief intention of its seven Anglican contributors was to "break down the conspiracy of silence" that they felt had kept otherwise educated people in ignorance of the revolutionary developments that had long before occurred in German theology and biblical study.2 Essays and Reviews, its non-committal title notwithstanding, sparked two ecclesiastical trials and a literary battle of considerable magnitude. When in the eighteen-seventies and eighties the German "historical consciousness" first made its way to Great Britain on a scale sig nificant enough to warrant Mrs. -
Wellhausen, Julius (1844-1918)
Das wissenschaftliche Bibellexikon im Internet (WiBiLex) Wellhausen, Julius (1844-1918) Meik Gerhards erstellt: Mai 2018 Permanenter Link zum Artikel: http://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/34720/ Wellhausen, Julius Meik Gerhards Julius Wellhausen gilt als „Bahnbrecher in drei Disziplinen“ (Smend 2006): der Alttestamentlichen und der Neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft sowie der Arabistik. Der Artikel widmet sich Wellhausens Werk als Alttestamentler (vgl. dazu auch Kraus, 255-274; Graf Reventlow, 302-316; Smend 2013b, 436-453; kürzer: Perlitt 2. Au. 1967; Spieckermann; Smend 2006, 16-26; Kratz 2015a, 71-77; 2015b). Seine bedeutendste Leistung auf diesem Gebiet liegt in der Erarbeitung eines neuen Bildes der Geschichte Israels, das ältere Ansätze der Forschung aufnehmend auf der Abb. 1 Julius Wellhausen. Spätdatierung der Gesetzescorpora des Pentateuchs beruht. Das betrit neben dem → Deuteronomium auch die bis dahin üblicherweise früh datierten priesterlichen Gesetze (→ Pentateuchforschung). Wellhausen zeigt auf, dass das kanonische Bild der Geschichte Israels von exilischen Bearbeitungen im Geist des Deuteronomiums geprägt ist (so im Hexateuch und in Richter bis 2Könige; → Deuteronomismus) oder in nachexilischen Neufassungen im Geist der → Priesterschrift vorliegt (→ Chronikbücher). Trägt man entsprechende Überarbeitungen ab, zeigt die ältere Geschichtsschreibung und Prophetie, dass Israel bis in spätvorexilische Zeit keine schriftliche Gesetzesgrundlage hatte und weder → Monotheismus noch Kultuszentralisation (→ Josia) kannte. Wellhausens Rekonstruktion der Literargeschichte und der politisch-religiösen Geschichte Israels konnte eine Fülle von Spannungen in den Texten erklären und auösen und wurde so zu einem bis heute prägenden Meilenstein der Forschung. Der Artikel stellt auch die Frage nach dem theologischen Ansatz, der Wellhausens historische Arbeiten bestimmt. Die Frage hängt mit dem „ersten großen Problem einer Wellhausen- Biographie“ (Jepsen, 261) zusammen: den Gründen seines Wechsels von der Theologischen in die Philosophische Fakultät. -
Cotton Mather's Relationship to Science
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Theses Department of English 4-16-2008 Cotton Mather's Relationship to Science James Daniel Hudson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hudson, James Daniel, "Cotton Mather's Relationship to Science." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2008. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses/33 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COTTON MATHER’S RELATIONSHIP TO SCIENCE by JAMES DANIEL HUDSON Under the Direction of Dr. Reiner Smolinski ABSTRACT The subject of this project is Cotton Mather’s relationship to science. As a minister, Mather’s desire to harmonize science with religion is an excellent medium for understanding the effects of the early Enlightenment upon traditional views of Scripture. Through “Biblia Americana” and The Christian Philosopher, I evaluate Mather’s effort to relate Newtonian science to the six creative days as recorded in Genesis 1. Chapter One evaluates Mather’s support for the scientific theories of Isaac Newton and his reception to natural philosophers who advocate Newton’s theories. Chapter Two highlights Mather’s treatment of the dominant cosmogonies preceding Isaac Newton. The Conclusion returns the reader to Mather’s principal occupation as a minister and the limits of science as informed by his theological mind. Through an exploration of Cotton Mather’s views on science, a more comprehensive understanding of this significant early American and the ideological assumptions shaping his place in American history is realized. -
Catholic Or Catholic? Biblical Scholarship at the Center
JBL 125, no. 1 (2006): 5–22 Catholic or catholic? Biblical Scholarship at the Center carolyn osiek [email protected] Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129 Sometime in the first decade of the second century, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria, was condemned to death ad bestias, that is, by wild animals in the amphitheater. He was sent under guard with other prisoners to Rome for the games there, probably in the Flavian Amphitheater, what today we call the Colos- seum. As his party made its way up the western coast of Asia Minor, he wrote to a string of Christian communities there after he had received visits from their envoys. When writing to the Christians of Smyrna, he remarks that the Eucharist should be celebrated only by the bishop or someone he delegates, for “wherever the bishop appears, let the whole community be gathered, just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is hJ kaqolikhv ejkklhsiva (Smyrn. 8.2). A generation later, in the same city, old bishop Polycarp was about to be martyred in the amphitheater. But the narrator of his martyrdom reports that when the police came to arrest him in a country house where he had taken refuge, since it was dinnertime, he ordered food and drink to be set out for them, while he went aside and prayed aloud for two hours. In his prayer, he remembered everyone he had ever encountered and hJ kaqolikhv ejkklhsiva throughout the world. The narrator finished the report of Polycarp’s martyrdom by concluding that now Polycarp is enjoying the glory of God and Jesus Christ, shepherd of hJ kaqolikhv ejkklhsiva throughout the world (Mart. -
How to Live with Messiness: Joshua Berman on Biblical Criticism
How to Live with Messiness: Joshua Berman on Biblical Criticism 18forty.org/reader/how-to-live-with-messiness-joshua-berman-on-biblical-criticism August 6 | Weekend Reader By: Yehuda Fogel How can an Orthodox rabbi be a scholar of Biblical criticism? Can Biblical scholars determine the ‘true Bible’? Enter Professor Joshua Berman. Prolific author and scholar Rabbi Dr. Berman is no apologetic. He engages with Biblical criticism with honesty and erudition, and is a passionate critic of the excesses of scholarship. In this week’s Weekend Reader, we will consider one key critique of his thought: The ability to live with messiness. The Bible is a complicated work, and learning to live in humility with its complications can elevate all that study it. We will look at a case study in messiness — the topic of Biblical reformulations — in the hope of better understanding the Bible’s complexity. Learning to Live with the Messiness In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, economists were in a state of disarray. Much like the state of pollsters after the 2016 election, economists were stunned by their failure to anticipate such a major event occurring. New York Times and economist Paul Krugman suggested in his 2009 piece “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” that economists have been mislead by the “desire for an all-encompassing, intellectually elegant approach that also gave economists a chance to show off their mathematical prowess.” Seeking the grand narrative of economics has led economists to mistake truth for beauty, and redemption of economics can come only by learning to accept the less beautiful parts of economic realities, and “learn[ing] to live with the messiness.” Rabbi Dr. -
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.