Search

The Septuagint defies easy definition. Biblical scholars routinely use the term to designate the Greek Old Testament, though they recognize that such language is similar to talking about "the English Bible" or "the German Bible": there is no such thing, or rather there are many such things. In this article, I urge closer attention to the way ancient people described the translation, particularly its scope. While modern scholars often seem (tacitly or not) to assume that the Septuagint began as the Greek Torah and then expanded its borders to welcome new Jewish scriptural books as they continued to be translated into Greek, ancient authors did not depict the Septuagint in this way. All ancient Jewish sources that mention the translation restricted the Septuagint to the Pentateuch, whereas most patristic sources attributed a Greek version of the entire Hebrew Bible to the Seventy translators. The most significant moment in the "growth of the Septuagint" was when it suddenly swelled from five books to perhaps a couple dozen or more. These ancient ideas on the extent of the Septuagint have implications for our notions of the Septuagint canon and for the use of this Greek version in the New Testament., The apostle Paul never identified the version of Scripture that he quoted. Modern scholars have often made the identification for him: he quoted the Septuagint, though scholars also acknowledge the [...]

The journeys undertaken by the antediluvian patriarch Enoch, in 1 Enoch 17-36, engage closely with a well-known contemporary practice of Hellenistic courts: the dispatching of expeditions of exploration. Such reframing can situate this early Jewish apocalypse more fully within its third-century BCE intellectual, cultural, and political ecosystem and also make space for Judean thought in the history of ancient geography., At some point in the third century BCE, probably in its middle decades, certain Jewish writers in the southern Levant recounted a series of journeys undertaken by the antediluvian patriarch [...]

The male lover portrayed in Song 1:2-4 was once ubiquitously considered to be a king. Recent interpreters, however, have understood the word 'king' to be either a hypocorism (a nickname of affection) or an epithet for a 'bridegroom.' Earlier interpretation also recognized a group of women in the opening scene, but this too is disappearing today. To address these exclusions, I present a close analysis of the grammar and offer an alternative perspective to what is identified as enallage (a substitution of one grammatical form for another) but which also inadvertently suppresses the women's presence. Next, I investigate how the Song's 'king' became denuded of his royal meaning, including through a reliance on some dubious interpretations of Akkadian poetry. I also explore literary themes in the Hebrew Bible--women's celebratory praise and a hitherto undiscovered case of subtle soundplay called 'hidden paronomasia'--to show why the Song's 'king' should be understood as a royal personage. Finally, by comparing this scene in the Song to the Sumerian love poem Dumuzi-lnanna G, I show how the Song opens with a prominent ancient Near Eastern motif of love literature--the entrance or bringing of the royal consort into the palace, lauded by a group of rejoicing women., The inaugural verses of the Song of Songs appear to portray the male lover as a king. Even if we set aside the Solomonic nature of the inscription in the [...]

Introduction In the heady days of Enlightenment certitude, the ideal of critical objectivity was regularly asserted over against the supposedly uncritical habits of thinking that were bequeathed from the past. [...]

Luke's account of Martha and Mary of Bethany is present in the textual tradition in two versions. The majority of scholars and editors prefer the shorter reading, 'only one thing [...]

This note highlights a previously unseen paleographical error in one of H. J. M. Milne and T. C. Skeat's arguments for the dictation theory of Codex Sinaiticus (N 01). In [...]

This essay argues that Luke's strong association of Jesus with the manual-labor class in Acts 4:13b, and specifically with the disciples' 'illiteracy' and 'unlearnedness,' is out of step with a [...]

The inductive reading of Deuteronomy 34 offered in the present article suggests that the chapter is an entirely coherent, integral composition that fits well in its context on multiple levels [...]

Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, and others thought that the titulus crucis was an ironic divine decree that recalled Ps 2:6: 'I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.' Although [...]

The First Book of Maccabees (15:28-36) records a diplomatic exchange over disputed cities and territories between Simon, Judas Maccabeus's brother, and the Seleucid king Antiochus VII. In w. 33-34, Simon [...]

The participial phrase [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Mai 2:12 has been a crux interpretum since the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible. A comprehensive search reveals that at [...]

The MT of Hos 13:2a criticizes Israelites for producing idols 'according to their skill' ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). The grammatical difficulty of the Hebrew phrase, the evidence of the [...]

The book of Amos and the prophet himself continue to be interpreted in light of the Israelite wisdom tradition on the basis of proposed links to wisdom forms, vocabulary, and [...]

In recent decades, scholars have taken great care not to assume that 'the satan' of Job 1-2 and of Zechariah 3 is supposed to be the archenemy of God and [...]

This paper proposes a new interpretation of Job 5:7 (traditionally translated 'For man is born to trouble, as sparks fly upward'), one that would eliminate the fatalistic aphorism viewed by [...]

This article explores the expanded Song of Miriam preserved in the Qumran scroll 4Q365 (4QReworked Pentateuch[??]). While several scholars have discussed the significance of Miriam's Song and elucidated its vocabulary, [...]

In addressing the theological crisis of the exile, Ezekiel relies on the mythology of the divine king who goes out to battle against the forces of chaos, commonly referred to [...]

This article addresses two problems commonly discussed in recent literature on the Pentateuch: the relationship between the Sihon episodes in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and the role of Deuteronomy 34 in [...]

The issue of translating the Greek term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in the Fourth Gospel has occasioned considerable concern from English-speaking scholars in recent years. This article examines some [...]

I. INTRODUCTION The discovery in 1945 of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas among the codices found at Nag Hammadi ignited a controversy about Thomas's relation to the Synoptic Gospels that [...]

You must not present to YHWH anything with testicles that are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut off. You must not do this in your own land, nor shall you present [...]

Hapax legomena in the Hebrew Bible have posed problems of understanding ever since Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language and had to be learned as a second language. Still [...]

The prophet Samuel's declaration of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to the assembled Israelites in 1 Sam 8:11-18 has generally been understood in the history of scholarship as a catalogue [...]

Ever since Martin Noth proposed that Deuteronomy is the introduction to a Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), critics have followed his lead in attributing significant portions of Deuteronomy 34 to this document. [...]

The four-word phrase [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Gen 49:10b[alpha] is known as 'the most famous crux interpretum in the entire Old Testament.' (1) Over the centuries, it has [...]

5 Ezra is a short, early Christian writing of the second or third century that is a thinly veiled supersessionist tract. Pseudepigraphically ascribed to the biblical Ezra, the work describes [...]

John of Revelation famously introduces the woman Babylon as a [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'Come, I will show you the judgment of the great [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII],' [...]

Scholars have long puzzled over the diction and imagery that Paul employs in 2 Cor 2:14-17, where, from an attempt to account for his prior travels, he shifts abruptly into [...]

Discussions about Paul's use of Scripture have focused significant attention on the question of literacy rates and access to scrolls and other manuscripts in ancient synagogues and the early church. [...]

In 1909, Leon Gry entitled one of his series of articles on the Similitudes of Enoch with the seemingly simple question: 'Quand furent composees les Paraboles d'Henoch?' (1) In the [...]

Over the last few decades a steady stream of scholarship has argued for a mythological background to the oracles against the nations (OANs) in the book of Ezekiel. (1) Very [...]

I. LEVITICUS 24:10-23 IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HOLINESS CODE AND RELATED TEXTS Leviticus 24:10-23 is the lone narrative in the otherwise exclusively legislative Holiness Code (H; Leviticus 17-26) about [...]

In the Pentateuch, the contrast between legal or instructional material, on the one hand, and stories, on the other, is nowhere more stark than in the relationship between the story [...]

The Birkat ha-minim, the twelfth blessing in the Shemoneh Esreh or Eighteen Benedictions, has played an important role in some reconstructions of early Christian history. (1) In 1964, for example, [...]

In Rom 11:25-27, Paul triumphantly concludes his discussion of Israel's fate: I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery (lest you become high-minded yourselves) (1) that [...]

In many respects, Mark 15:39 is deceptively simple. Immediately after Jesus dies and the temple curtain is torn from top to bottom, the centurion standing opposite the crucifixion scene speaks [...]

'Look at all the works of the Most High,' Ben Sira urges his readers, 'they are two by two, one corresponding to the other' ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [33:15]). [...]

Like many feminist biblical scholars, I am challenged by the metaphor of Israel as God's sexually promiscuous wife as developed throughout the prophetic literature. (1) Much recent scholarship addresses the [...]

The present study has a dual focus. First, it explores the Rab Saqeh's first speech to Hezekiah's envoys (2 Kgs 18:19-25) using the literary-critical methods of close reading and rhetorical [...]

Narratives describing the divine election of Saul in 1 Samuel 9-10 have long been the subject of traditional source criticism. All such analyses of these chapters conclude that the story [...]

Yhwh Elohim says to the woman, 'I shall multiply your suffering and your ... pregnancies; with pain you shall give birth to sons; and your desire shall be unto your [...]

1 Corinthians 11:2-16 remains one of the most perplexing passages in the interpretation of Paul, and persuasive attempts to understand what Paul is talking about are at a premium. (1) [...]

The phrase 'am ha'ares appears in the Hebrew Bible over fifty times (in the singular form alone) throughout a number of materials including the Pentateuch (in J, E, and P), [...]

The story of the book (or scroll) discovered in the course of the temple restoration at Jerusalem holds a central place in the description of Josiah's reform (2 Kings 22-23). [...]

Scholars have long recognized that in Ezekiel 16 the prophet draws on the harlotry metaphor of his prophetic predecessors to indict Jerusalem for its idolatry and foreign relations. (1) Moshe [...]

While the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (scroll) of Rev 5:1 has attracted no small amount of attention in recent scholarship, with even a monograph devoted to its interpretation, the [...]

Over the centuries, a great number of readers have grappled with the question of whether the alternation of verbs ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) that appear in the mouths of [...]

(1) And he went in again into the synagogue. And a man was there having the hand withered. (2) And they were watching him, whether on the Sabbaths he would [...]

Acts 1:15-26 describes the election of Matthias to Judas's place among the twelve apostles, an incident to which there is no allusion elsewhere in the NT. (1) Peter, addressing the [...]

Struggling under the weight of contemporary, socioreligious demands, prevailing scholarship regarding Mark's enigmatic ending may prove nothing short of delusional. Several factors, in my view, conspire, prohibiting a clear understanding [...]