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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 [...]

Abstract What role has the 'Old Testament' played in the self-understanding of Christians over the centuries, and what can we learn from the fact that Israel's scriptures are often cited [...]

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. [...]

Immanuel of Rome, the Hebrew Dante, penned a very large collection of Biblical commentaries, mostly still in manuscript. Most of them are strongly anthological in character, pieced together from other sources, mostly Maimonidean but not only, and including a good deal of philosophical and scientific material. This is certainly the case in his unpublished commentary on Qohelet, which borrows material from Maimonides, Samuel and Moses ibn Tibbon, among others, and also Abraham Ibn Ezra, whose commentary on Qohelet also frames two extended mathematical supercommentaries. This paper publishes these two supercommentaries together with English translation and sets them in broader literary, exegetical, and scientific context., There is a long and continuous supercommentary tradition on Abraham Ibn Ezra's commentaries on the Torah. Scholars have traced this tradition from the thirteenth century, beginning with the now lost [...]

'To my knowledge,' Bruce D. Marshall notes in his foreword to this welcomed volume, 'no systematic theologian of his generation commented on the Bible as extensively as [Jenson] did.' Likewise, [...]

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 [...]

Beer and Theology--a weekly spirited theological conversation! Over the past few decades, Duane Priebe has convened a weekly Wartburg Theological Seminary tradition: Beer and Theology. The back room of the [...]

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 [...]

The Book of Jubilees is a retelling of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus in the form of an angel speaking to Moses. It was written by a Jew in [...]

AUTHORSHIP Jewish tradition assumes that the Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) was penned by Solomon. One finds in chapter 15 of Seder Olam Rabbah that Solomon wrote three books, Proverbs, Song [...]

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 [...]

The seduction of Lot by his daughters (Gen. 19:30-38) and of Judah by his daughter-in-law Tamar (Gen. 38), and the near-seduction of Boaz by Ruth the Moabite (Ruth 3), constitute the problematic background of the Davidic dynasty. In this article, I compare these three stories of female subterfuge and suggest that a 'redemptive' thread can be traced over time. Following the deployment in these texts of the Hebrew verbs 'to know' (y,d,') and 'to recognize' (n,k,r) indicates an increasing acknowledgment of the other over the course of these narratives, towards an embrace of the stranger 'under the wings of God' (Ruth 2:12). I suggest that this movement does not necessarily entail a breach of the Law--of the taboo against incest or forbidden marriage--but rather a redefinition of its line., Know you this woman? ... Carnally, she says. William Shakespeare, 'Measure for Measure,' V.i Introduction 'Probably never--or never up till then--did a woman love and desire a man so entirely [...]

One of the characteristics of Spirit language in the Old Testament is that it occurs in places that have particular significance for the literary formation as well as the theological profile of the Hebrew Scriptures. This essay examines texts from I Samuel, Ezekiel, Isaiah 40-66, and Psalm 104 and reconstructs an awareness across the biblical traditions that the experience of divine presence unfolds in and through the 'Spirit' as part of God's 'aura.' Keywords Spirit of God, Divine Aura, kabod(Glory), Servant Song, Language, Creation, Breath of life, Spirit-bearer, Psalm 104, Trito-lsaiah, Ezekiel, Introduction The notion of the 'Spirit of God' is firmly embedded in what, borrowing a phrase from Ludwig Wittgenstein, one could call the 'Sprachspiel' (language game)(1) of Christianity. Spirit language [...]

In the fall of 2009, I was introduced to a new and exciting strategy for interpreting the Bible. At the time, I was a senior theology major at Texas Lutheran [...]

My Experience as a Biblical Storyteller Over thirty years ago on my first Palm Sunday as an ordained minister, I decided to perform the Passion Narrative of Mark's Gospel (chapters [...]

The first Gospel reading I performed by heart was from Mark. Jesus was baptized and immediately driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. Then, after John was executed, Jesus began [...]

The invitation to write about my experiences while learning and telling the Gospel of Mark by heart reminds me of an invitation found in 'The Godfather': 'Let me make you [...]

This may be the year for you to begin performing Scripture! The beginning of the new church year offers an opportunity to reassess how we present Scripture in worship and [...]

I have been around 'church folk' most of my life. I have received seminary degrees twice and am now an adjunct professor at two. As a director of Christian education [...]

When I was in seminary, my first New Testament professor, David Tiede, suggested that we choose one of' the four Gospels to relate to in an on-going way throughout our [...]

This essay explores the conversion of various Christianities to an 'Earth-honoring' faith with a moral universe different from the one presently at home in most heads, hearts, and practices. Such reborn faith and morality would be new cloth, new wineskins., Thomas Berry's truth, that planetary health is primary and human health is derivative, arrives as we contemplate the end of the fossil-fuel interlude of human history. Yet planetary health as [...]

This essay examines two major biblical and theological traditions for ecological commitment: the covenantal tradition, biblical and modern, and the sacramental tradition, biblical and modern. It also asks how we need to reclaim these traditions in the practice of the churches today., Many traditional Christians feel a deep suspicion toward the ecology movement, particularly when it lays claim to theological and religious meaning. They see this as the rise of a new [...]

The Bible believes this world is our home, the primary place we live and practice our faith. It provides us ways of reinventing our role in the world and gives us reasons for human faithfulness to it even when the crisis we have created for the world looks impossibly desperate., This past year, we offered a new course at McCormick Theological Seminary that we called 'Religious leadership for an Ecological Age.' The aim of the course was to enable our [...]

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 [...]