Biblical Language Research Articles

Figuring Displacement: Spaces of Imagination in Early Modern and Postmodern Intertextual Transmissions

This essay examines, ecocritically, geocritically, and comparatively, the metaphoric spaces represented in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and in Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10½ Chapters—seas, mountains, islands, jungle—to show that these spaces allow for different interpretations, yet they are spaces of individual imagination in both the play and the novel, suggesting transformation and metamorphosis. I argue that these literary spaces show a common feature of displacement, which allows human language to re-imagine other worlds—in literature and in visual arts. The spaces of imagination proliferated through Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Barnes’ novel have suffered a transformation in time and space, as they speak to past and present audiences and readers. The sea in Barnes’ chapter entitled “Shipwreck” symbolizes danger but also hope, as does the sea in the storm scene in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The Mountain in Barnes’ eponymous chapter represents an isolated and inaccessible landscape on Mount Ararat, at the intersection of three cultures (Armenia, Turkey and Russia), but it also represents the biblical language of faith and hermitic isolation. Similarly, the island in The Tempest, which is—geologically—a mountain above the water, represents metaphorically the island of the mind. The jungle in Barnes’ chapter “Upstream” is a remote place in the forest on the Orinoco River, where Europeans and native Indians interact while making a movie; this movie is a work of visual art, represented in a novel; so is any one of the many productions of The Tempest, which reiterates the island’s imaginary space in various directorial interpretations. All these locations are metaphoric spaces of imagination, transmitted through different media, in which reality is transformed into literary representation by means of fictional description or theatrical action.

Unlocking meaning: Truth-conditional semantic and syntactic analysis in the Bible

This research focused on complex conditional sentences in the Christian bible, employing truth-conditional semantics and syntactic analysis to uncover their theological messages. A qualitative study analyzed 20 verses, categorized into four types of conditional sentences according to Ferdinand de Saussure's syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. It involved word analysis, structural classification, context correlation, synonymous exploration, and historical and theological consideration. The findings revealed several key insights. First, conditional sentences in the Christian bible predominantly featured compound-complex structures with an active voice, highlighting subjects and actions in religious verses. Second, they adhered to declarative formats, aligning with truth-telling principles in religious contexts. Third, complex structures and subordinate clauses conveyed conditional details, reasons, and situations, elaborating on the interplay between syntax and semantics. This research enriched our understanding of the relationship among verb forms, modal verbs, and diverse meanings within English conditional sentence types in the Christian bible. Fourth, this research had a significant social impact on human development from a theological perspective by enhancing spiritual growth, critical thinking, and ethical understanding. It promoted personal transformation and reflective faith, providing religious leaders with tools to interpret scripture more accurately. Additionally, the research clarified how biblical language communicated moral imperatives, supported ethical frameworks, and facilitated interfaith dialogue. Preserving theological heritage contributed to the holistic development of individuals and communities. Ultimately, this study aimed to ensure the Bible's relevance in shaping social behavior aligned with Christian teachings.

Accessing the Greek Verbal System Through the Shona Verb: Toward a Bantu Approach to Biblical Languages

Abstract As with any other language, mastering biblical languages such as Greek remains a challenge in Africa. Meanwhile, many African languages hold keys to a better experience in teaching and learning biblical languages. Accordingly, this study proposes a Bantu-based approach to teaching and learning biblical Greek for effective delivery and better mastery. In this study, by means of comparative linguistics, the verbal system of Shona, one of the numerous Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa, is used to demonstrate correspondences with the biblical Greek verbal system. Elements of special interest in the two languages’ verbal systems relate to signification codes for tense, voice, mode, person, and number. The study is premised on the understanding that the verb is the heart of any language. The basic assumption of the study is that since both Shona and biblical Greek verbal systems are conjugated in comparable ways, something which English lacks, using Shona to teach or learn biblical Greek in the Zimbabwean context should be effective. The study proposes that this method be similarly tried with other Bantu languages and the other two biblical languages: Hebrew and Aramaic. In the end, there may be a need to produce biblical language grammar written with Bantu languages as their base, especially considering there is no substitute for learning in one’s own language.

Biblical language in the songs of the soul metal band Hunter

Biblical language in the songs of the soul metal band Hunter

Semiotics of alterity and the cultural dimensions of Bible translation

Translated sacred writings from various religious traditions often retain a few selected cultural terms borrowed from the incipient sign system, while other cultural dimensions are translated in ways that can broadly be construed as domestication. By contrast, many Bible translation agencies eschew translation strategies in which cultural terms are borrowed, advocating in stead for wholesale domestication. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework for representing the alterity, but not the foreignness, of the Bible in translation. Alterity involves the incipient sign system, namely the biblical languages and their cultural contexts ranging from Iron Age Israel within the context of the Ancient Near East for the Old Testament to Roman Palestine in the first century for the New Testament. Examples from African contexts, including Afrikaans (South Africa), Lokaa (Nigeria) and Tira (Sudan), illustrate multiple approaches to representing alterity and provide an important corrective to current practice in many Bible translation projects.

UNPACKING WALTER BENJAMIN’S SOCIOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AND WAR

Conflict, violence and, ultimately, war are central to Walter Benjamin’s sociology of language. Using biblical language, his earlies work shows that after the fall of man, language becomes a vessel to be filled by the usurper, a tool, he uses that bends others to his will, as Satan does in Paradise Lost. Benjamin’s study of German Trauspiels, mourning plays similar to Hamlet and Richard III, leads him to posit that the law and constitutional structures in the Baroque period are of single importance in understanding the role of conflict and violence. In “Towards a Critique of Violence,” Benjamin makes two key arguments. The first is that a workers’ general strike” is a legitimate form of violence and that the state’s response, often military, is not. The second is that the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is misunderstood because it does not contain a penalty and, secondly, it cannot be a blanket injunction; Jewish law, he notes, allowed for self-defence. His best-known works, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” are written after his turn to Marxism associated with the Frankfurt School. In the first, in addition to showing how mechanical reproduction destroys the “aura” of art, he is concerned with how Fascist art, such a Leni Riefenstahl’s films glorifying Hitler. These performances are designed to “absorb” or overawe viewers, making them quiescent, silent participants in the power play that leads to conflict and, ultimately war. Using quasi-religious language, the Theses deconstruct “historicism,” showing how Rankian history sides with the victors, the Great Men and Women of History at the expense of the ruled. He argues that each generation can redeem the past by “brushing history against the grain” and using discontinuities to show the violence and conflict that historicists seek to hide.

Biblical Languages: Challenges for postgraduate supervision in Old and New Testament Studies

In South Africa and in many other countries in Africa and around the globe, the demand for more Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) candidates has increased. With such a demand, a number of challenges also arise. In the discipline of Theology, these challenges are becoming apparent in Old and New Testament Studies, where these fields are experiencing a declining number of students enrolling for biblical languages. This problem is enhanced as the current inherent requirement to study for a PhD in Old Testament is that one must have a knowledge of Biblical Hebrew (and Aramaic), and for New Testament, one needs Greek at an advanced level. Supervisors are challenged more and more to defend these requirements that are complicated by the developmental goals of institutions that require that the number of PhD candidates be increased. In this article, the challenges faced by PhD supervisors (and candidates) in respect of students wanting to enrol for PhDs in Old and New Testament without the necessary requirements are considered, and a case is made as to why it is essential that these students have a background in biblical languages. If students do not take the biblical languages as part of their (undergraduate) studies, immediate concerns for the future of Old and New Testament research and biblical translations (and ministry) are raised. The article concludes with possible suggestions for addressing some of these concerns.Contribution: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution based on current challenges experienced in the education and supervision of postgraduate studies in the fields of Old Testament and New Testament and on the development and training of postgraduate supervisors in practical education as to contribute to the relevance and practice of theological education today and the future.

Biblical vocabulary of the Modern Literary Hindi language and its formation methods

The article displays the derivational methods of nouns and adjectives in the modern literary Hindi languge. The determination of the productivity of word-formation processes of the modern literary Hindi language is carried out on the basis of prefix, suffix, prefix-suffix methods of word-formation and stem-formation. To cover the topic of the proposed research, the author analyzes the scientific works of Ukrainian, European and Indian linguists to reveal the concepts of «derivational processes» in language, «biblicality» in linguistic culture. The scientists conclude that the lexical system of a language, including the biblical language, reflects the mentality and culture of a particular ethnic group and its perception of the world. The paper also considers the typological features of the word-formation methods of the modern literary Hindi language and offers the comparative characteristics of suffixes and prefixes, semantic and structural features of the biblical origin vocabulary based on the works of Ukrainian, European and Asian linguistics. The author finds out that the study of the biblical vocabulary of the modern literary Hindi language determines the national and cultural patterns of the Hindi speakers in India, Christians in particular, who use the biblical origin vocabulary in everyday life. The research establishes the most productive derivatives for the formation of nouns and adjectives, as well as active word-formation methods of nouns and adjectives of the biblical origin of the modern literary Hindi language. The scientific research identifies the main derivational methods of nouns and adjectives that have a systematic functioning in the biblical text of the modern literary Hindi language. The results of the research prove that the variety of prefixes and suffixes of the Bible lexicon in the modern literary Hindi language indicates its dynamic development.

Devotion in and to Biblical Languages

Devotion in and to Biblical Languages

“The Very Valley of the Shadow of Death”

AbstractThis essay explores the Black Trinidadian revolutionary historian C. L. R. James’s little-theorized engagement with questions of the environment and natural world from the 1930s to the 1980s, situating this within his wider oeuvre as a Marxist who not only experienced colonial domination in the Caribbean but also witnessed other catastrophes endemic to twentieth-century capitalism, from the Great War to the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and the Holocaust, the Second World War, and then the use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The essay first examines how James might be seen to have helped inspire contemporary theorizing around the “plantationocene” in his classic history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins (1938). As early as 1951, James (and his fellow thinkers) noted: “It is not the world of nature that confronts man as an alien power to be overcome. It is the alien power that he has himself created.” The choice ahead, for James, was one of socialism or barbarism, rebellion or extinction. In 1958, evoking biblical language and imagery, he noted that we are already entering “the very valley of the shadow of death.”

Skin for Skin: Biblical Language in Jamaica’s Morant Bay Rebellion

AbstractIn October, 1865, Paul Bogle and a few hundred Black residents of rural Jamaica rebelled against the vagaries of an overly zealous magistrate. They set the courthouse at Morant Bay on fire and killed over a dozen people, mostly white. In the savage government reprisals that followed, over 430 Black Jamaicans were executed. Here, I observe how biblical language played a central role in public discourse about the rebellion. I focus on the rebellion’s slogan: skin for skin. I trace the interpretive history of this phrase drawn from the book of Job, showing how it became associated with advocacy for Black rights. And I examine the social context of Bogle’s use of the phrase to call for a Black alliance that crossed ethnic, religious, and class lines. I thus further a critical trajectory that has recognized the importance of biblical language to race talk in the age of emancipation.

Scott N. Callaham. Biblical Aramaic for Biblical Interpreters: A Parallel Hebrew-Aramaic Handbook

Scott N. Callaham. <i>Biblical Aramaic for Biblical Interpreters: A Parallel Hebrew-Aramaic Handbook</i>

On the Binary Principle of Biblical Texts Interpretation

Identifying the forms of Semitic literature that underlie the biblical text is still a task to be undertaken – as important as it is complicated, which even very experienced researchers, such as Roland Meynet, assert. The authoress adopts the basic tools of rhetorical analysis, formulated by Meynet, and then examines selected texts of The Old Testament in search of a few specifically Semitic features of beauty in the remarkable Book of Books. Parataxis is, according to Meynet, the most important feature of biblical language, and it is based in binary, seen – in Meynet’s terminology – at all levels of the biblical message organization: at the first level, i.e., ‘language or grammar;’ at the second level, i.e., ‘words or discourse;’ at the third level, i.e., the entire Book. Therefore, the authoress has assumed three presuppositions of rhetorical analysis, believing them to be true not only in relation to textual units, i.e., distiches or tristiches, ‘excerpts,’ pericopes, sequences, chapters, and books, but also linguistic units ranging from phonemes, through morphemes and lexemes to sentences. Through the analysis of subsequent texts, the authoress wants to prove that binary does not presuppose a simple repetition, but the interplay of doubled form and doubled content – between them, a deep sense is hidden, which should be unveiled and brought up to date.

Prevent the rise of a black messiah: Madness or revolution

In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States of America (US) intelligence agency, developed what is famously known as Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Its mission was to surveil, misinform, misdirect and subvert or destroy black ‘subversive’ militant groups. The main intention of COINTELPRO was to ‘prevent the rise of a messiah’ who could ‘unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement’. This insight is important as it reveals how those outside of black life (FBI) would invoke biblical language to define the possibility of revolution. This article through Black liberation theology seeks to present the idea of messianism as both an experience of Africans and oppressed peoples in the Global North and Global South. The idea of messianism is part of biblical reception in Africa and the African experience of colonialism. In South Africa, messianism would be observed from the perspective of African Christianity, while another form of messianism would be seen from Nat The Prophet Turner as well as the radical identity of Christ in Black liberation theology. The article will not take lightly the idea of surveillance of black militant groups in the same way as the priestly class surveillance Christ ministry. At the same time, the article would reflect on why lunacy is associated with those that seek to subvert oppression. This article seeks to discuss the role of messianism and militancy in Black or African Christianity and highlighting biblical reception and African affectivity.Contribution: This article explores the imaginative ways the Bible or its themes have been used by both the oppressor and the oppressed, often the latter using the Bible for its prerogative, namely, revolution and liberation.

Changes in the proverb formula in Finnish Bibles from 1642 to 1992

Abstract The article studies a subtype of the Finnish generalizing relative clause, referred to as the proverb formula. A generalizing relative clause refers to any person who fills the described condition. The proverb formula is used frequently in the Finnish translations of the Bible in the Book of Proverbs. The study examines two aspects that vary in this structure in Finnish editions from 1642 to 1992: the head pronoun of the relative clause and the order of the relative clause and the main clause. In the oldest of the studied translations, the most frequent one variant or the proverb formula begins with the relative clause, and the relative clause head in the main clause is a personal pronoun (hän). For the order of the structure, a clear model is found in the source texts of the translation. In later editions, personal pronoun heads were eliminated. Interestingly, they are not replaced with demonstrative heads, which would follow the most frequent proverb formula structure in Finnish vernacular and would also be recommenced by grammar guides. Instead, a variant with omission of the head pronoun gains in frequency. Variations within the proverb formula increase when the order with the main clause preceding the relative clause gains in frequency. The preference for omission of the head pronouns is not easily explainable. The article proposes that this variant was a conscious stylistic choice for solemn, biblical language.

An Orphan’s Dissent: Charlotte Brontë’s Spiritual Vision in Jane Eyre

Although often considered subversive of religion, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) employs discrete biblical language and allusions to present a dissenting feminist historicist hermeneutics. As a daughter of reverend Patrick Brontë, Charlotte’s spiritual vision is particularly significant but overlooked due to her use of what I am calling a dialectical misdirection. I show how even the subversive statements towards Christian teachings articulate the moral philosophy that guides Jane’s decisions thus weaving together plot sequences to ultimately provide autonomy. Through typological assessment and a cultural critique of mid-century Evangelical doctrines, it appears Jane’s faith emboldens her resistance to systemic oppression.

Do Bashal and Hepsō really mean ‘boil’? A preliminary study in the semantics of biblical Hebrew and Septuagint Greek

The meaning of any given lexical item emerges from an analysis of its contextual usage, but with biblical languages, often a traditional gloss will be accepted as if it were the clear meaning of a lexical item. Lexicons and dictionaries rarely go all the way back to a fresh analysis of the actual usage of a lemma, so the traditional meaning is rarely reconsidered. Those learning biblical languages accept the lexicon’s judgement without stopping to reflect on how the lexicon reached its conclusion. The acceptance of a traditional gloss as the meaning then gets assumed as more and more texts are read, reinforcing the assumption that the meaning is the gloss learned early on as the equivalent for that lexical item. This study focuses on the biblical Hebrew root בשׁל and the Greek verb ἕψω, both traditionally understood to denote the activity of preparing food by boiling in liquid. These lexemes appear in the Old Testament in some exegetically challenging texts, so clarifying the range of meaning may help to illuminate the interpretation of difficult passages. The full context of the usage of these lexical items in the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint is examined using cognitive semantics with the goal of identifying the semantic and pragmatic clues that point to the conceptual meaning evoked by these lexical items in biblical Hebrew and Greek.Contribution: The re-analysis of the data serves to re-evaluate traditional assumptions about the meanings of these words. Clarifying the meaning may illuminate some exegetical difficulties.

De opleidingseisen voor het predikantschap in het licht van de traditie

In 2021, the General Synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands decided on differentiation within the one office of the minister of the Word. It is almost certain that the hitherto strict condition of a full academic training with knowledge of the Biblical languages will be abandoned for this purpose. This means nothing less than a break with centuries of reformed tradition. This article examines the considerations that have played a role in the past in setting this hard condition. Dominant was the often not explicitly articulated view that the church of the Reformation is fundamentally the church of the Word.

Hebrew For Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving Biblical Hebrew

Hebrew For Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving Biblical Hebrew

Paul, Cochlear Implantation, and Biblical Interpretation: Expanding the Scope of Disability Hermeneutics

Abstract Recent research on disability and the Bible has made distinctive contributions to the field of biblical studies. Most work in this area focuses on representations of disability in the Bible, biblical language related to disability, or biblical themes that can be used for theologies of disability. This article proposes that scholars broaden the scope of this research by drawing on a disability consciousness to interpret texts that do not ostensibly discuss disability or disability-related themes. As a case study, this essay examines Philippians 3:2–11 in light of contemporary debates about cochlear implantation, and it argues that discourse about cochlear implants can inform debates about the ethno-religious identities of Paul and the Philippians. In so doing, the interpretive exercise supports the larger, hermeneutical thesis that a disability consciousness can yield insights into biblical passages—and related scholarly interests—that do not explicitly concern disability or themes commonly related to disability.