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This article analyzes the talmudic story of the first encounter between Rav and Shmuel (b. Shabbat 108a). It focuses on the structural difficulties of the plot, particularly the relationship between Ravs interview at the beginning of the story and the aggressive medical treatment he undergoes at the end. A new interpretation of Shmuel's request of his student Karna to 'sniff Ravs jar' can solve these problems. The request is here understood as a play on words, which concretizes the metaphorical idiom. This interpretation enables a new reading of the entire story, as one that centers on the relationship between metaphor and reality and, by extension, between the Torah and the body of the immigrant sage., In literary works as in everyday speech, metaphor functions on the rhetorical level; it serves as an illustrative tool, a 'figure of speech,' in the interaction between narrator and reader. [...]

The subject of this article is the reception history of biblical genres, or the metapoetics of genre-making. It argues that the seemingly fixed presentations of the genres of biblical poetry in the twentieth century--as in Robert Alter's classic guide to biblical Hebrew poetry--emerge from an eighteenth-century encounter: the English exegete Robert Lowth's dramatic attempt to fit Greek and Roman generic models to the Hebrew text. Lowth's resulting genres, or what he called the 'species' of biblical poetry, were shaped both by the parallels he discovered between classical and Hebrew traditions, and by the small and large aberrations he faced in his process of translation. The article focuses on the characterization of a poetic form that never existed: the ancient Hebrew ode. Although, in this case, Lowth fails in his biblical scholarship, his Hebrew ode demonstrates the spirit of his creative project. By fitting Hebrew poetry to neoclassical models, Lowth subtly transformed neoclassical categories and possibilities, opening up new imaginative expanses within the lyrical mode and preparing the way for a more flexible, complex, and emotionally sophisticated Romantic lyric., As part of a comprehensive, elegant project of reimaging the Bible as literature for the twentieth century, Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Poetry, published in 1985, sets out to [...]

This article reexamines the creation of the golden calf in Exod 32:4a. Though the text in question is brief, it has been a puzzle to translators and commentators since the time of the LXX and warrants reassessment in light of new inscriptional and linguistic data. Syntactical analysis and comparative Semitics show that Aaron not only produced the calf but designed it as well. This interpretation requires glossing the verb in the passage, [phrase omitted], according to its cognates in Akkadian and Aramaic as 'to draw' or 'to design.' The resulting translation solves the grammatical difficulties of the text and fits a greater cultural concern for the 'divine design' of cultic objects. I will also suggest that the implement Aaron used to design the calf was not an engraving tool but a rush pen. Artifacts from Egypt as well as from Kuntillet 'Ajrud evidence how ancient scribes sketched, played with, and practiced their craft with ink and pen before creating a final product. Understanding the tool [phrase omitted] in this manner also suits its usage in Isa 8:1 as a writing instrument used on a large piece of papyrus. In sum, the translation 'and he designed it with a rush pen and made it into a cast-metal calf' solves the grammatical and lexical difficulties of the passage while adding to our understanding of Exodus's overall polemic against the bovine image., According to Aaron's testimony before an irate Moses, the golden calf's creation was a miracle. The high priest threw the people's gold earrings into a blaze and out came the [...]

This article analyzes the talmudic story of the first encounter between Rav and Shmuel (b. Shabbat 108a). It focuses on the structural difficulties of the plot, particularly the relationship between Ravs interview at the beginning of the story and the aggressive medical treatment he undergoes at the end. A new interpretation of Shmuel's request of his student Karna to 'sniff Ravs jar' can solve these problems. The request is here understood as a play on words, which concretizes the metaphorical idiom. This interpretation enables a new reading of the entire story, as one that centers on the relationship between metaphor and reality and, by extension, between the Torah and the body of the immigrant sage., In literary works as in everyday speech, metaphor functions on the rhetorical level; it serves as an illustrative tool, a 'figure of speech,' in the interaction between narrator and reader. [...]

This essay presents a methodological commitment to rethink the presuppositions about compositional practices with respect to the assembly and production of what we have come to call the Pentateuch. Throughout the article the authors present an account of the ancient biblical writers and readers as committed to producing difference--not to produce an overall seamless linear narrative. The textual example focuses on the blood plague but considers the composition of the Pentateuch and biblical composition more generally., I This essay aims to rethink the presuppositions about compositional practices with respect to the assembly and production of what has come to be called the Pentateuch. In particular, the [...]

The relationship between the lengthy poetic middle section of the book of Job and the brief prose frame has typically been treated by scholars as a question of compositional history [...]

The identification of the biblical [phrase omitted] (millo; Millo) in Jerusalem (e.g., 2 Sam 5:9) has long been debated. Considering recent archaeological investigations in the vicinity of the Gihon Spring [...]

This article builds on earlier, more synchronically oriented studies of 'animals' in Gen 1-11 (e.g., Derrida, Strammen), exploring the related and yet distinctly different accounts of human-animal difference in the non-P and P strands of the Genesis primeval history. Diachronic isolation of the non-P primeval texts of Genesis brings into focus the way the initial depiction of animal others in these non-P stories--especially the garden of Eden story--is part of their broader construction of a species-gender-ethnic hierarchy with an implicitly male (Hebrew) subject at its top. Meanwhile, diachronically informed analysis of Priestly texts in Genesis highlights how the P source betrays a particular interest in animal agency and welfare, while also focusing particularly on a binary separating such animals from godlike humans, all of whom are destined to rule animals. Finally, diachronically informed clarification of the distinct character of each of these textual strands can help us understand the shape and later reception of the present P/non-P combined text, showing how it has P's picture of humans as godlike rulers (Gen 1:1--2:3) precede, undergird, and intensify non-P's carnophallogocentric construction of a male self who dominates others (Gen 2:4b-3:24; etc.)., Genesis 1-11 has been prominent in studies of human relations with 'animal' others from Jacques Derrida's 1997 address to the Cerisy conference through to more recent work like Hannah Strommens [...]

What and when was postmodernism, and why is the postmodernism debate now pushing up shoots in the pages of JBL decades after it has wilted, withered, and all but vanished [...]

This article is a critical engagement with the theoretical entailments of postmodernism and the implications for a more sophisticated historical-critical method. Topics include the distinction between strong and weak versions [...]

A 'scientific' interpretation of the world ... might therefore still be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it would be one of [...]

This article publishes for the first time the extant remains of a Sahidic Coptic papyrus codex containing portions of 2 Timothy 1-4 and Titus 1. The papyri are currently housed [...]

A recent trend in NT scholarship is to see Jesus' participation in actions or attributes allegedly reserved for God as indications that a writer depicts Jesus as divine. One set [...]

Hypertextual imitation means that a hypotext serves as a model for a hypertext in substantial, both qualitative and quantitative, ways: text A in a sense generates text B with regard [...]

The term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (tosab; toshav) appears in the Bible fourteen times, mostly in passages associated with the Holiness Code (H). It is typically interpreted as referring [...]

Against the reference in Q to 'crowds' generally, John the Baptists response in Matt 3:7 to 'Pharisees and Sadducees' who arrive for baptism is, 'Offspring of vipers [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE [...]

Philo of Alexandria's allegorical interpretation of the biblical account of Hannah's prayer for a son (Ebr. 143-52) is surely one of the most remarkable texts in his corpus. In this [...]

This study argues, against scholarly consensus, that the mention of 'Seleucus Nicanor' in 4 Macc 3:20-21 is not a historical error but a reasonably carefully constructed and accurate reference to [...]

The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls provide a unique window into Second Temple Jewish literature and scriptural interpretation that is only beginning to gain sustained scholarly attention. A major question regarding [...]

This article reconstructs the possible Hebrew Vorlage of a plus in 2 Kgs (4 Kgdms) 13:22 in the LXXL, which describes the extent of Hazael's conquests in the days of [...]

In recent decades, biblical scholars have shown convincingly that a key feature of the narrative depiction of Samson is the hero's liminality, his status as a character caught 'betwixt and [...]

Many scholars have pointed to the gaps in the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Over time numerous answers have been formulated, each one seemingly more plausible than [...]

The most significant realization in recent Q studies is that Q contains extensive sapiential traditions, some of which may have been collected prior to the composition of Q. This study [...]

It is widely accepted that Matthew presents Jesus as fulfilling Jewish eschatological expectations, particularly, Davidic hopes. However, although Jesus frequently speaks positively about his disciples' participation in the cult in [...]

Psalm 81 contains a divine oracle in which YHWH promises to act against Israel's enemies. The nature of that activity, however, is unclear, particularly as v. 15b describes it: [TEXT [...]

The ancient Israelite confession most fully articulated in Exod 34:6-7, the YHWH creed, recurs throughout the Hebrew Bible. Both Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2 allude to this creed, and their [...]

In the Priestly texts, holiness is understood both as an absolute and as a relative term to demarcate the hierarchy within the holy sphere. Rather than primarily redefining the term [...]

The presence of the notion of a virginal conception in Luke's annunciation story has sometimes been disputed. While arguing that this notion is indeed to be found there, this article [...]

Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardenfs third volume of Textbook of Aramaic Documents (TAD:3) provides a highly regarded edition of the Aramaic Ahiqar narrative and proverbs that has implications for how [...]

I. INTRODUCTION Missing from the canonical Gospels and out of the spotlights that have been shone on Q and the Nag Hammadi library, there exists a hardly tapped source of [...]

I. CRITIQUE AND PROPAGANDA Interpretations of Paul's Areopagus discourse in Acts 17:16-34 are often radically incongruous. They range from seeing it as a placid pantheistic sermon on natural theology all [...]

The parable of the unjust steward is widely considered the most puzzling of Jesus' teachings. Although a seemingly endless string of interpretations continues to appear in print, no single reading [...]

The last six chapters of the book of Zechariah (chs. 9-14) present numerous interpretive challenges. Though widely recognized as a product of a postexilic context, these chapters, known collectively as [...]

Recent scholarship has devoted much attention to the arrangement of the MT of the book of Psalms (here referred to as the MT Psalter). The differing arrangements found among the [...]

According to 1 Sam 13:14, David is 'a man after [YHWH'S] own heart.' Traditionally, this passage has been read in light of the full biblical witness of David, in which [...]

I. THEME AND STRUCTURE IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES Over the past two and a half decades a number of significant studies have altered the way in which the book [...]

In the narrative of 2 Samuel 11-12, after David commits adultery with Bathsheba and attempts to cover up this crime by murdering her husband, Uriah, Nathan approaches him in 12:1-4 [...]

The story of Ananias and Sapphira begins with a utopian scene of the earliest believers sharing all goods in common. A Levite named Joseph (alias Barnabas) sells his field and [...]

In recent years, much debate has centered on the status of Jerusalem during the Achaemenid period, particularly with regard to the size and composition of its population. (1) Relevant for [...]

Paul Beauchamp championed the idea that the noun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ('kind, type') introduced the concept of differentiation to the creation narrative in Genesis 1. It was his [...]

This article argues that the emergence of a 'national' consciousness in Israel and Judah was originally fueled by many factors, such as a confined and remote core territory, a history of tribal allegiances, language, culture, law, cult, and ongoing military conflicts. But more important than these factors or any institution of statecraft was the anticipation of defeat and defeat itself. When life could not continue as usual, and the state armies had been conquered, one was forced to answer the question: Who are we? The biblical architects of Israel's memories responded to this question by (selectively) gathering fragments of their collective past and using this material to construct a narrative that depicts the origins of a people and the history leading up to the major catastrophe. Much of the historical narrative treats the period before the rise of the monarchy, and portrays Israel existing as a people long before it established a kingdom--or to use later European political terminology, it portrays Israel existing as a nation before it gained statehood. This 'national' consciousness represents the precondition for the writing of Israel's history and the maturation of its rich theological and political tradition. In demonstrating these points, the article critiques two trajectories of contemporary scholarship: one that follows Julius Wellhausen in viewing the community that emerged after the loss of statehood as a form of 'church,' and another that sees the great moments of state power as the primary context for the formation of the Hebrew Bible and the rich theological-political thought contained therein., --To Susan Niditch, in high esteem. Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties and require a common effort. --Ernest Renan, What [...]

The accounts of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah in 2 Kgs 18:13-19:37 have been the subject of much scholarly debate. (1) We can discern at least two distinct accounts in the [...]

The reading dynamics of rewritten Bible or the exegetical narrative in rabbinic literature of late antiquity is investigated. Dialogical reading is created by the concurrent presence of two distinct voices, biblical and rabbinic as well as two distinct types of discourse, narrative and exegetical that navigates between these voices.

It's hard to maintain the spirit of anticipation that should mark the season of Advent when Christmas itself has become little more than an occasion for extravagance and consumption. We [...]

The first two editions of the Authorized King James Bible of 1611 feature a typographical problem. The very first edition referred to Ruth as 'he' in one line, while the succeeding edition used the word 'she.' Several explanations have already been presented to account for this situation.

A comparison of translations from Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales', the Wycliffite Bible, and other contemporary works, reveals that Chaucer was definitely influenced by the Wycliffite Bible.

A group of literal exegetes whom Philo dismissed as quarrelsome is discussed in the relationship between Homeric scholarship and Bible exegesis. It is observed that Philo's exegetes did not participate in the discourse of hard-core Homeric criticism but belonged to a milieu that was loosely inspired by the scholarly methods without rigorously applying them.