Crux Interpretum Research Articles

From Paratext to Epitext: Mapping the Authorial Apparatus in Early Modern Women's Writing

Our focus on Early Modern Women's Writing and the Apparatus of Authorship in this special issue of Parergon responds to emerging trends in early modern women's studies that emphasize the importance of the material text to the literary, historical, and political analysis of women's works in the long early modern period. Attention to the material contexts of women's works is not new; it has, for instance, been a staple of the invaluable critical introductions to early modern women's texts that have been produced in the past thirty years. However, it is also the case that, until relatively recently, such scholarship has remained something of a specialist concern, standing in paratexual relationship to the text proper, as an introduction to the work that follows. This relationship has been reinforced in criticism that considers the literary interpretation of early modern women's writing before, or outside of, its material and textual specificity. If there has been something of a time lag in the material turn in early modern women's studies, this might be attributed, as Sarah C. E. Ross suggests in her introduction, to the field's initial focus on the recovery of the historical woman writer and the assumption that gender provides the most pertinent interpretive crux to her text.3 While the past thirty years of scholarship has complicated this focus by incorporating analyses of rank, race, learning, sexuality, geographical location, and political and religious affiliation into the picture, the historical conditions that make a critical focus on gender valid and generative have by no means disappeared. The essays collected here share a continued focus on gender as a crucial feature of early modern women's writing, but they explore this focus in ways that attempt to unhinge it from immutable or essential associations with the body of the woman writer and insist instead on gender's shifting, contingent, productive, and performative relationships to the corpus of women's writing as we inherit it.

The Whole World or Not Quite: ΚΟΣΜΟΣ in John 16:8

ABSTRACTJohn 16:8–11 has always been a crux interpretum in Johannine scholarship. One of the difficulties in this passage is how one should read the phrase τòν κόσμον in verse 8. Recent interpretations have not given adequate attention to this phrase which is frequently understood to refer to “unbelieving world”. However, this is only one of the many connotations for the phrase ὁ κόσμος employed by the evangelist in his gospel. This article argues for an alternative reading of ὁ κόσμος in John 16:8, namely, that it should be understood as all people of the world as the theatre of salvation history. The article further suggests that the proposed reading better suits both the explicit commentary of verse 8 in verses 9–11 as well as the literary and theological contexts of John 16:4b–15. The argumentation is based on socio-rhetorical, semiotic, literary and theological contextual grounds. In addition, the article tackles two other thorny issues, namely, meanings of the verb ἐλέγχειν and ὅτι clauses, which comprise a vital place in the argument.

Biblical and Rabbinic Ideas of Female Semen? An Intertextual Reading of Lev 12,2

ABSTRACT Reader-oriented intertextuality opens perspectives to see the in-terpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament and in rabbinic litera-ture in a new light. This article discusses possible readings of the crux inter-pretum Leviticus 12,2 in the New Testament (Hebrews 11,11) and in rabbinic literature. It shows that both play with manifold meanings and facets of texts from the Hebrew Bible in a sometimes associative way, linking different con-texts with one another and creating a new intertextual network.

Die verhouding tussen “poort” en “pad” in matteus 7:13-14. ’n oorsig van die moontlikhede

The relationship between “gate” and “road” in Matthew 7:13-14 has always been a crux interpretum. There are basically three options in viewing the relationship. In the case of the first two the point of departure is that the metaphors differ in meaning; each metaphor therefore makes a unique contribution to the text. The two options are: the gate is at the beginning of the road, and the gate is at the end of the road. The third option regards the metaphors as synonyms, thus both conveying the same meaning. This option renders the relationship as of secondary importance.

Guardians, not Taskmasters: The Cultural Resonances of Paul’s Metaphor in Galatians 4.1-2

Paul’s heir analogy in Gal. 4.1-2 has traditionally been interpreted against the backdrop of Graeco-Roman guardianship laws. However, because certain conceptual and terminological incongruities in the text have not been adequately explained, a relatively new typological reading, which identifies the analogy as an allusion to the Exodus, has begun to influence many interpreters. This study will defend the traditional interpretation, first by responding to the criticisms and exegetical insights introduced by those who interpret the text typologically, and second by demonstrating that Paul’s use of έπίτροποι and οἰκονόμοι as guardians of a minor—a widely acknowledged crux interpretum—corresponds accurately to Roman legal practice.

The Scent of a Woman

At Aeneid 1.691-94, Venus sets Ascanius down to sleep on a bed of aromatic marjoram; Servius seizes the opportunity to recount the origins of perfume. Revealing that the note is no antiquarian coincidence, this article argues that the Vergilian passage and others in Greek and Latin poetry echo, to important effect, the remarkable tradition of one of antiquity's most famous fragrances. Along the way, an investigation of botanical and medical sources clarifies our picture of how perfume was used, explaining the vicious humor of a passage in Lucretius and suggesting a new solution to a famous interpretive crux regarding Catullus 13.

Local Manifestations of Yahweh and Worship in the Interstices: A Note on Kuntillet Ajrud

AbstractThe Shema (Deut 6:4) has long posed a crux interpretum in studies of early Israelite religion. Although the verse is often understood as a rejection of “foreign” deities in favor of Israel’s God Yahweh, some have understood the verse as a textual consolidation of Yahweh’s multiple identities. The present study draws attention to the specific local manifestations of Yahweh at Kuntillet Ajrud and their respective archaeological contexts, locating those expressions within the larger regional and pan-Israelite religious system. Attentiveness to the archaeological provenance of each pertinent inscription suggests that distinctions obtained between the devotional expressions towards each local manifestation of Yahweh. Insofar as it is possible to draw conclusions from the extant epigraphic and iconographic data, the expressions of devotion towards Yahweh of Teman was officially sanctioned; no such official recognition of Yahweh of Samaria existed. When no sanctioned space existed for such recognition, personal expressions of piety were expressed interstitially.

A Note on nedārî in Ex 15:6

AbstractIt is argued that a longstanding crux interpretum can be solved by analyzing the final ī in nedārî (Ex 15:6) as a relic of the feminine morpheme *ī, which is found elsewhere in the Semitic languages. This analysis provides a further piece of evidence in favor of the early dating of Ex 15:1‐18.

Elaborated Evidence for the Priority of 1 Samuel 26

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) The two stories about David's declined opportunities to kill Saul in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 constitute a long-standing crux interpretum for biblical scholars.1 No one, to my knowledge, doubts that stories are related in some way, but nature of their relationship is a matter of considerable disagreement.2 Beginning with Julius Wellhausen, many scholars have seen version in ch. 26 as older of two.3 But perhaps just as many have pointed to ch. 24 as older account.4 The arguments on both sides are often impressionistic or laced with assumptions rather than appealing to specific features of respective texts. Thus, Wellhausen asserted that ch. 26 was older because it was shorter and more pointed, and Hans Joachim Stoebe disagreed with Klaus Koch about which of two chapters preserves traces of a genuine hero saga that would have been passed on orally by David's men. A third approach, popularized by Koch's influential treatment, assumes that two stories derive from oral variants of an original, single episode.5 An exception to this general neglect of specific features was a well-crafted 1998 article by Cynthia Edenburg.6 The article laid out five categories of evidence for what Edenburg termed author devised interrelations and then argued from those categories that story in ch. 24 was dependent on ch. 26 rather than both stemming from a single older tradition. She concluded, however, that both stories were written by same author, who used them to highlight keystone tale of David's encounter with Abigail (ch. 25), which anticipates dynastic promise (2 Samuel 7) and ties it to refraining from wrongful bloodshed. In this brief article, I wish (1) to elaborate one of Edenburg's key arguments and thereby to affirm her basic conclusion about direction of dependence from ch. 26 to ch. 24; (2) to offer a text-critical explanation for an observation she makes about narrative of ch. 24 that further supports her view of direction of dependence; and (3) to demur from her conclusion regarding common authorship of two chapters and to propose a slightly different explanation for their function individually and together in larger narrative. I In ch. 26, after taking Saul's spear and water jug, David retreats to opposite hilltop, which, text informs, is far away (...), leaving a great distance between them ... [v. 13]). From there, he calls out (...) to Saul's army and to Abner, who does not recognize his voice and asks who is calling (again ...). David's scolding of Abner leads Saul to recognize voice so that he asks, Is this your voice, my son David? (v. 17). David answers in affirmative. Then, in course of his speech to Saul, David employs a pun on word for calling, alluding to himself as the calling bird in mountains (... [v. 20]). Thus, verb ... in ch. 26 serves to bring out elements that are crucial to story-the distance between David and Saul, Saul's effort to recognize David, and even David's harmlessness to Saul as a bird in mountains. In ch. 24, David also calls out (...) to Saul after he emerges from cave (v. 9). But here there is no real need for him to do so, since there is no indication of any great distance between two men. This ungrammatical (see below) use of ... becomes more apparent as one realizes that entire scene in ch. 24 assumes that David and Saul are in close proximity. David bows down and lies prostrate while speaking to Saul (vv. 10-16), showing that two are quite close to each other. In addition, story demands that missing garment piece be small, since Saul does not notice that it is missing until David points this out. Hence, David's display of garment piece to Saul (v. 12) in turn requires that two of them be close. Furthermore, David goes on to deliver a lengthy speech calling Saul his father (v. …

Cannibalistic Language in the Fourth Gospel and Greco-Roman Polemics of Factionalism (John 6:52-66)

J. ALBERT HARRILL jharrill@indiana.edu Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) This essay names elephant in room around which scholarly interpreters of John 6:52-66 have long been tiptoeing with their overly circumspect discussions of eucharistie imagery in passage. That elephant is cannibalism, of course, and ignoring it leaves fundamental exegetical questions about famous crux interpretum unanswered and even unasked. What specific connotations did idiom of cannibalism have in ancient Mediterranean world? Why did Johannine author (or redactor) ascribe cannibalistic language to Jesus in a specific scene of factionalism? Did it draw on a recognizable topos familiar from wider Greek and Roman culture and not just from Hebrew Bible alone?1 What nongustatory messages about community maintenance and regeneration could such talk of cannibalism have conveyed? What connection did anthropophagy have for ancient audiences to articulate community dissent, party division, or even civil war? An exclusive focus on sacramentalism has framed kinds of questions previous commentators have brought to John 6, a preoccupation that has often been concerned more about theological controversies between Protestants and Catholics than about text itself.2 Exegetes have debated sacramental tradition of Lord's Supper in John 6, and have repeated standby interpolation hypothesis of Rudolf Bultmann's ecclesiastical redactor, to solve crux.3 One view holds that cannibalistic language has antidocetic intent.4 But, as is well known, John's narrative departs from Synoptic Gospels on, among other things, precisely point: Lord's Supper is never instituted in Gospel of John. The exegetical debate on John 6 goes, therefore, back and forth rehashing old proposals without a resolution in sight.5 We should recognize sterility of current debates on redaction-critical issues and on place of sacraments in Fourth Gospel. The passage deserves reexamination. It provides strangest exchange between Jesus and his Jewish interlocutors in Fourth Gospel. In a series of dialogues that collapse into monologues, Johannine Jesus provides warrants for his midrash on Bread from Heaven that turn factionalism of bewildered grumbling (...) among the Jews (John 6:41-43) into an open fight (...) (6:52) in synagogue at Capernaum (6:59).6 The speech culminates in a pronouncement bewildering to audience: So Jesus said to them, Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat flesh [...] of Son of Man and drink his blood [...], you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh [...] and drink my blood [...] have eternal life, and I will raise them up on last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat [...] my flesh and drink [...] my blood abide in me, and I in them. (6:53-56) The whole dialogue is a virtual parody of a revelation discourse: what is revealed is Jesus' utter incomprehensibility. Even Jesus' own followers fail to understand what their prophet-messiah is requiring of them, which escalates divisive fray. Jesus asks his whether this (...) offends them too (6:60-61). The reaction of respondents could imply that they may simply not comprehend what Jesus is requiring, but context makes clear that they hear Jesus saying something literally obscene (disgusting to senses): to indulge in cannibalism by consuming his flesh and blood. The offense of saying triggers decision by the Jews to kill Jesus (cf. 7:1; 5:18) and desertion of many disciples (6:66). This scene is one of factionalism. In context, forms of speech that would normally provide warrants for a particular kind of instruction (midrash) serve solely to emphasize Jesus' strangeness as Other. …

Die Struktur der Jesaja-Apokalypse und die Deutung von Jes 26,19

The question of the origin, unity, structure, perspective and interpretation of the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse (Isa 24–27) continues to be subject to great disagreement among scholars. A particular source of controversy is the issue of resurrection. While a majority of exegetes interpret Isa 26,19 (some also 25,8a) as an allusion to bodily resurrection, others believe that this passage is more of a metaphorical indication of the national restoration of Israel. In my view the concentric structure of the different passages or sections is an argument for the original unity of the Isaiah Apocalypse. This should really provide the basis for an interpretation of the crux interpretum Isa 26,19 in the light of its overall context. While especially the corresponding verse 26,14 and the announcements in 26,21 support bodily resurrection, national restoration seems rather to be indicated by 26,10.15–18 and 27,2–13.

On the way to Heidegger's Contributions to philosophy

One of most significant philosophical works of twentieth century, Contributions to Philosophy is also one of most difficult. Parvis Emad, in this collection of interpretive and critical essays, unravels and clarifies this challenging work with a rare depth and originality. In addition to grappling with other commentaries on Heidegger, he highlights Heidegger's being-historical as thinking that sheds new light on theological, technological, and scientific interpretations of reality. At crux of Emad's interpretation is his elucidation of issue of the turning in Heidegger's thought and his enactment of Heidegger's thinking. He finds that only when Heidegger's work is enacted is his thinking truly revealed.

Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class, by John Kucich

Reviewed by: Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class Regenia Gagnier (bio) Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class, by John Kucich; pp. x + 258. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007, $35.00, £22.95. John Kucich has written in the past of transgression, repression, excess, and restraint in Victorian literature. With Imperial Masochism he demonstrates his command of yet another psychosocial motive of the period by applying the insights of psychoanalysis beyond the individual to recover something like the group interiority or collective psychology that has all but disappeared in contemporary critique. As he states, then, his intentions are to demonstrate the continued relevance of psychoanalysis to historicism; to elucidate the role masochistic fantasy plays in identity formation beyond the field of sexuality; to illuminate the social function of such fantasy in British culture; and to recuperate for historicist studies both the category of social class and the domain of the psychological. Defining masochism as any pursuit of physical pain, suffering, or humiliation that generates phantasmic, omnipotent compensations for narcissistic trauma, Kucich identifies four types of masochistic fantasy: of total control over others, of the annihilation of others, of the omnipotence of others, and of solitary omnipotence. Chapters on Robert Louis Stevenson, Olive Schreiner, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad then explore these fantasies in detail. Imperial Masochism contests current critical assumptions that masochism is always about sexuality; that it always organizes oedipal patterns of dominance and submission; and that, in colonial contexts, it is primarily about race, gender, or sexual orientation rather than class. To Kucich, masochism is a psychosocial language, not a fixed set of behaviors, and masochistic fantasy is an instrument for social action, not a specific act in itself. Class is a symbolic medium of conflict—rather than an economic or political category—in which conceptions of social identity are framed. Kucich successfully argues that willful self-martyrdom was central to the emergence of professional middle-class culture in the Empire at the end of the nineteenth century. [End Page 166] Against a psychoanalysis that views masochism as a sexual rebellion governed by oedipal thematics, Kucich proposes a relational psychology in which omnipotent fantasy is the compensation for narcissistic wounds. The interpretive cruxes he thereby clarifies are Conrad's stance on imperialism, Kipling's ambivalence toward social authority, the relationship between politics and decadence in Stevenson, and the relation of Schreiner's self-martyring politics to postmodern feminism. While I cannot say how professional psychoanalysts would judge it, to those of us interested in how and why the language of self-sacrifice, evangelism, and atonement functioned to secure empire, Kucich's analysis is persuasive and salutary. Each chapter in Imperial Masochism works through the relevant typology of masochistic fantasy and then turns to the emergent class dynamics. Stevenson is poignantly "perverse" (Kucich's term) in channelling evangelical authority into an anti-imperialist crusade, and Kucich links this with the author's decadent melancholy, defending the place of perversity in political radicalism. Beginning with the gang group fantasy of Stalky & Co. (1899), which Kucich calls magical, the chapter on Kipling shows how he fused a radical form of middle-class individualism with the intersubjective demands of the Tory public school in a professional code of conduct for imperial rule. Conrad, predictably the subtlest of imperialists, imported elements of masochistic self-consciousness that de-idealized the chivalric aims he hopelessly opposed to capitalism's creative destruction. Kucich argues on good grounds that Schreiner proposed a middle-class women's masochistic project to counter what she called their female parasitism. Yet his definition of masochism and discursive analysis of class do not seem adequate to the issues that Schreiner and her scholars have recognized: how much does extending freedom mean if it is merely procedural and not economic? Is altruism no more than masochism without compensatory fantasies of omnipotence? In using Matthew Arnold's categories of philistines, populace, and barbarians, Schreiner was referring to ideological machinery, labour, and manners or taste. What do these have to do with the economic stages of development, or relative distance from necessity, that distinguished the British, Boers, and Blacks? Were Boers—or for that matter, Blacks or white Europeans—in...

Zur Argumentation von Galater 3.10–12

The passage Gal 3.10–12, well embedded into its context, is important with regard to the doctrine of justification; however, it is a crux interpretum. This essay tries to settle the problems by paying attention to the quotations from the scriptures in v. 10b (see Dtn 27.6), v. 11b (see Hab 2.4) and v. 12 (cf. Lev 18.5), in which the emphasis on individual regulations of the Torah is striking (vv. 10b, 12); the particles which twice (vv. 10b–11a; vv. 11b–12) form a ‘for …, but …’ are also taken into consideration. This leads to the thesis of two syllogisms linked to each other: vv. 10a–11a (Barbara) and vv. 11a–12 (Camestres). The quotations from the scriptures here supply three arguments, and v. 11a, the propositio of vv. 11a–12, is (as praemissa of v. 10a–11a) the fourth. The objective of the argumentation is v. 10a.

Bedan: A Riddle in Context

(ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) The presence of a certain among the divinely appointed deliverers listed by Samuel 1 Sam 12:11 is an age-old crux interpretum. Already ancient translations, paraphrases, and interpretations of the Hebrew Bible wrestled with the problem. The LXX reads Barak instead; the Peshitta substitutes Deborah and Barak; Josephus drops the name altogether; and talmudic sages categorically state that Bedan is Samson.1 In modern times, most exegetes have identified with Barak,2 but some have preferred Jephthah3 or the minor judge Abdon of Judg 12:13-154 and have even mentioned Gideon and Deborah as plausible candidates.5 Diverse as they are, all these interpretations share a weakness: with minor and relatively insignificant exceptions, they strictly zero on the list of deliverers 1 Sam 12:11 and its metamorphoses ancient witnesses. A crucial upshot of such a narrow approach is the assumption that the list cannot be right as it stands: the name on it is an alias, a scribal error, a gloss, or the result of phonetic transformations and should consequently be emended or at least understood as referring to someone else. A serious consideration of the verses immediate and larger context falsifies this assumption, rendering emendations and substitutions largely redundant. Even a cursory look at 1 Sam 12:11 and the neighboring verses immediately reveals that the reference to is by no means the only odd detail of Samuel's discourse. First, v. 8 he claims that Moses and Aaron settled the listeners' ancestors in this place, seemingly disregarding the Pentateuch's insistence that both brothers failed to reach the promised land (Num 20:24; Deut 32:50-52). second, the list of foreign oppressors v. 9 does not follow the chronological order of the biblical narrative. The of Moab (presumably Eglon), one of the earliest oppressors Judges, is preceded not only by Sisera but also by Philistines, who come last Judges and are active also 1 Samuel 4-7. Third, there is little correspondence between this list and the roster of deliverers v. 11. Deborah and Barak, the vanquishers of Sisera, and Ehud, who assassinated Eglon, do not appear on the latter; instead, it mentions Jerubbaal/Gideon, who fought against Midianites; Jephthah, who triumphed over Ammonites; and the perplexing Bedan. Fourth, v. 12 Samuel asserts that the people asked him for a king when faced with Ammonite aggression (1 Samuel 11) and thus blatantly contradicts 1 Samuel 8, where the petition to appoint a monarch is motivated by abuses of his sons, and 1 Sam 9:16, where Yhwh commands him to anoint Saul as Israel's savior from Philistine oppression. It appears therefore that the mention of as a deliverer is but a relatively minor component of the massive twisting of biblical traditions that takes place Samuel's overview of the Israelite history (1 Sam 12:8-12), strategically positioned the middle of his farewell discourse (12:1-17). What is more, this twisting is by no means random. In v. 12, Samuel links the request for a king to aggressive actions of a Transjordanian ruler who threatened Jabesh-Gilead, a Transjordanian city (11:1-2). Two of four deliverers listed v. 9, Jerubbaal/Gideon and Jephthah, were of Transjordanian extraction: the former belonged to the Abiezer clan (Judg 6:11 ), which according to 1 Chr 7:18 traced its lineage to Gilead the son of Manasseh;6 the latter is introduced Judg 11:1 as a Gileadite and a son of Gilead. Both of them led the struggle against Transjordanian invaders, respectively Midianites and Ammonites. Finally, the only groups of Israelites to receive their allotments directly from Moses were the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh that settled the Transjordan (Numbers 32). Why the heavy Transjordanian bias? At first blush, it may seem to have something to do with the fact that the previous chapter Israelites led by Saul repulse the Ammonite onslaught on Jabesh-Gilead; the narrative implicitly links Samuel's discourse 1 Samuel 12 to the festivities Gilgal that immediately followed the victory and were arranged by him (11:14-15). …

Jotham's fable and the crux interpretum in Judges ix

AbstractThe article surveys the linguistic and historical data available in order to assess the identity of the plant called upon in Jotham's fable as the last of the candidates to king-ship, the 'ātād. Mesopotamian linguistics and literary tradition indicate that the interpretation of the term ed-de-tu allows one to interpret it as a thorn-tree. Although not always coherent, the historical renderings regarding this plant admit the possibility of multiple varieties of plants sharing several qualities of which the most important are extreme habitat, valuable shade, healthy fruits and green foliage, and combustible wood. Modern botanists do not exclude totally 'ātād 's interpretation as Ziziphus spina-Christi, but it is contemporary Israeli botanists who holds it as the only legitimate interpretation. Its presence in the Levant and particularly in Israel throughout the centuries is just one more reason to support such a possibility. Only such a literal rendering prompts the prophetic value of Jotham's imprecation on the irony of dilemma in which the citizens of Shechem found themselves.

History and Eschatology in Tension: A Literary Response to Daniel 11:40–45 as Test Case

Dan 11:40–45 has long been a crux interpretum in the exposition of the visions of Daniel. This is principally due to disagreement over whether to interpret the verses historically with respect to the Hellenist kingdoms of the second century BCE, or eschatologically. My proposal is Daniel 11:pression of chapter 11 and of the account of the final vision in chapters 10–12 as a whole provide us with clues that enable us to unite the temporal and the eschatological in our appreciation of these verses.

Changing Subjects: Gender, Nation and Future in Micah (review)

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 343 Reviews rather than their figs. In antiquity the sycomore was valued more for its wood than its fruit. Amos can be understood as a “nāqidu ša s .ēni u lâti who did a little farming on the side” (p. 110). Given the location of the Tekoite organization of stockmen, many of its animals were bought to be used as Temple sacrifices . Amos’ herdsman background influences images in his prophecy, as in, for example, Amos 1:2 and 3:12 (p. 117). The book’s major theme of sympathy for the poor implies that the prophet “was a traitor not only to his class but also to his collective,” referring to the organization of Tekoite stockmen (p. 118). Since their livelihood depended on the continuation of Temple sacrifices , Amos’ claim that God has rejected the sacrifices of Israel (Amos 5:22) was not “good for business” (p. 119). The monograph ends with a brief summary of its conclusions. This is a successful book. One can learn a great deal from it, and the author is to be commended for the breadth of his research. The volume is highly useful as a synthesis of earlier reflections on Amos’ occupations. The book is scrupulously devoted to the realia of Amos’ professions before his call, and the philological background of terms relevant to this issue. There is less emphasis on how the occupations of Amos impact the interpretation of his prophecy. For example, the question of why Amos brings up this topic when speaking with Amaziah is not explored. It is reasonable to link Amos’ professions involving sycomores and livestock, as Steiner and other commentators do, since the two are together in Amos 7:14. Steiner’s wide lens of inquiry shows that Amos 7:14–15 is a crux interpretum with which readers have struggled for centuries. With that in mind, the author’s conclusions can in general be understood as plausible and judicious assessments of ambiguous evidence. Matthew Goff Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA 30460 goff@georgiasouthern.edu CHANGING SUBJECTS: GENDER, NATION AND FUTURE IN MICAH. By Erin Runions. Playing the Texts 7. Pp. 295. Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Paper, $25.00. This book is a theoretical work consisting of two main parts. The main purpose of the study is “to look carefully at the shifting signs of gender, nation and future vision in the book of Micah in order to suggest that readers’ negotiation with text’s ambiguities might be able to reposition, or reconfigure, Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 344 Reviews their subject positions” (pp. 12–13). This purpose is articulated in light of textual difficulties and differences arising from the indeterminacy of text. Part 1: “Theory” is the theoretical basis of the discussion wherein Runions situates the work in biblical studies and provides the various scholarly discourses that inform her ideological and methodological concerns. Chapter 1 addresses the nature of the text and its potential for affecting its readers. While identifying various scholars who have analyzed the coherence of the text of Micah, Runions asserts that her goal is to focus on difficulties and textual differences in order to discern or construct a coherence. Her goal raises several questions such as: Since identifying difficulties and difference suggests normitivity, what is the norm in the text against which these are discerned? H. K. Bhabha’s (Location of Culture [London: Routledge, 1994]) understanding of difference is the basis of Runions’s understanding of difference (cf. p. 39 and chap. 3). Additionally, in the analysis of the nature of the text and its “indeterminacy,” Runions engages the discourse of several scholars, (e.g., P. Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Science [trans. J. B. Thompson; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1981] and T. K. Beal, “Ideology and Intertextuality: Surplus of Meaning and Controlling the Means of Production ,” in Reading Between Tests: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible, ed. D. N. Fewell [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992], pp. 27–39). The goal of chapter 2 is to understand how texts may affect a reader’s positioning in ideology. Her discussion builds on L. Althusser (Essays on Ideology [London: Verso, 1984]), S. Zizek (The Sublime Object of Ideology [Phronesis; London...

What Laws Were "Not Good"? A Canonical Approach to the Theological Problem of Ezekiel 20:25-26

20:25-26 is one of most infamous interpretive cruxes of book of Ezekiel. As Hartmut Gese put it, Die Auslegung von Ez 20,25f.,... ist schon seit den Anfangen alttestamentlicher Wissenschaft als besonders schwieriges Problem empfunden worden.1 In these two verses, writer of book, whom we will call Ezekiel without prejudice toward debates about authorship, makes shocking claim that LORD Israel that were good, which only failed to give people life but actually defiled them: 25 Moreover, them laws that were and rules by which they could live: 26 When they set aside every first issue of womb, defiled them by their very gifts-that might render them desolate, that they might know that am Lord. [NJPS]2 What were these not good laws to which refers? There has been no lack of proposals, as Daniel I. Block has shown in his recent commentary, where over a half-dozen interpretive options are ably summarized.3 On one hand, some interpreters opt to emend text, like Johann Lust, who would delete most of v. 26 as a later (erroneous) interpolation. Similarly, julius A. Bewer reverses w. 25-26 and v. 27, so that Ezekiel's shocking claim merely echoes Israel's blasphemous misconstrual of LORD'S demands.4 On other hand, most scholars accept text in its present form and explain it in terms of Ezekiel's ongoing prophetic revision of older Exodus traditions,5 regarding either Israel's moral condition6 or its deity.7 In this article we wish to suggest a new solution, which identifies Ezekiel's not good laws with Deuteronomic law code. Our approach is primarily synchronie, based on a literary reading of in its final form and canonical setting; but we will also draw on recent historical-critical and literary-critical scholarship on Ezekiel's use of Priestly and Deuteronomic traditions in ch. 20. In following, we will first establish correspondence of laws with Deuteronomic code through an analysis of literary structure and narrative sequence of ch. 20. second, we will attempt to explain why Ezekiel, who thinks and writes from a Priestly perspective, would consider at least certain laws of Deuteronomic code to be not good.8 Third, we will propose an explanation for bizarre statements of v. 26-which describe LORD defiling Israel through offering of their firstborn-in terms of conflict between Priestly and Deuteronomic laws concerning sacrifice of firstlings. I. Narrative Flow and Literary Structure In order to see how these correspondences can be made, let us start with second panel (w. 10-17) and see how events mentioned by in ch. 20 follow sequence known from pentateuchal narrative. Verses 10-12 state that LORD brought them out of Egypt, led them into and then gave them My laws. This would describe exodus event (Exod 12-18) and giving of law at Sinai (Exod 19-31). Next v. 13 insists, the House of Israel rebelled against Me in probably an allusion to incident of golden calf (Exod 32). The LORD'S wish to destroy Israel in desert, but decision to refrain for sake of his name (w. 13b-14), is recorded in Exod 32:7-14, where Moses intercedes with God on behalf of people. When in following verse describes LORD saying I swore to them in wilderness that would bring them into land, this would refer to Israel's rebellion after twelve spies scouted land (Num 13-14), when LORD did indeed swear concerning first wilderness generation that none of men . . . shall see land promised on oath to their fathers (Num 14:20-23, cf. Deut 2:14). 20:18-26 now explicitly speaks of second generation in wilderness, corresponding to pentateuchal narrative from Num 25 through end of Deuteronomy. …

Paulus se gebruik van Psalm 68 in Efesiërs 4

Paul’s use of Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4 The use of the Old Testament in the New Testament is one of the key issues in the field of intertextuality. Intertextual studies can be fascinating, but sometimes pose difficulties. Solutions are often less obvious. One difficult crux interpretum is found in Ephesians 4:8. Here the New Testament author makes a significant Christological application of Psalm 68:19. In its own context this Old Testament passage relates to the acceptance of (congratulatory) gifts by a victorious Israelite king. Ephesians 4:8, however, relates this passage to the provision of gifts by the victorious and ascended Christ. A comparison between these two verses immediately reveals certain differences. The question underlying this article therefore is: why does the New Testament citation differ on important issues from Psalms 68:19 in its Old Testament context, and what is the significance of these differences?