Hebrew Bible Research Articles

Is Jethro an Ingroup or an Outgroup? Group Analysis of the Hebrew Bible and Its Early Interpretations

A social scientific approach to the Hebrew Bible allows us to ask questions that were not central to writers of the biblical narrative. Thus, the article uses concepts from group processes in social psychology to analyse the group identity of Moses'father-in-law as he is portrayed in the Bible and early Jewish and Christian interpretations. Jethro is a particularly interesting figure as he displays characteristics of both an ingroup and an outgroup member. This analysis illustrates how tools from social sciences can contribute not only to a better understanding of group relations in the narrative of the Hebrew Bible but also in the communities of early Jewish and Christian interpreters of these texts.

"Before Him Went Pestilence" (Hab 3:5): Biblical Lexis and Semantic Field of Epidemics

This article examines the various biblical terms for epidemics and their etymologies in order to define their meanings in their literary and theological contexts. It considers the possible divine or demonic background of the lexemes for epidemics, from the triad of Hebrew terms deber, qeteb and resep, which are used in some of the mythological passages of Bible. Major works on the subject proceed from the assumption that these terms were demons in the ancient Near East or that they were deities who became demonised by the authors of the Hebrew Bible. Close attention is paid to the linguistic and semantic aspects of the texts in their immediate contexts in order to determine the function of each term. The study shows a clear difference in meaning between the terms, although in some cases their semantic contents overlap. However, their function as God's negative agents prevail regardless of their original meaning and this is a consistent phenomenon with other Hebrew concepts of mythological origins in the Bible.

Hysteron Proteron in Biblical Hebrew and Syriac Peshitta (A comparative linguistic study)

Hysteron Proteron in Biblical Hebrew and Syriac Peshitta (A comparative linguistic study)

The Concept of God as רפא in the pentateuch

The study sought to discuss the concept of God as רפא in the Pentateuch. The research will use a Diachronic/Historical Critical approach, taking Form Criticism as the specific approach. A branch of the historical-critical method pioneered by Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932) and developed by Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad, among other scholars, is applied. The design is appropriate since the research aims to trace the concept of God as the healer and its relevance in the contemporary world's pandemics and sicknesses. An outline of the Exegesis to the main text has been given using the named approaches. The text of this study is found in the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Bible's first five books. Moreover, it is found in Exodus, the second book in the Old Testament canon. The overall theme of this passage is to show God as the healer. The text is situated between two passages; the text before this text is Exodus (15:1-19), which talks about the song of the Israelites led by Miriam and Moses.

Is Biblical Studies Stuck in Antiquarianism? The Case of Behemoth and Leviathan

Abstract In this article, a trajectory is traced that demonstrates that the soft consensus that Behemoth and Leviathan are the hippo and croc, respectively, is part of a larger phenomenon whereby these originally monstrous beasts have become domesticated and demythologized or their mythological nature rationalized. The great beasts as natural Egyptian animals only goes back to a 17th century Huguenot who was an etymologist, orientalist, antiquarian, and minister. This process of/domestication/demythologization in a weak form actually can be discerned in the Hebrew Bible itself but reaches its zenith during the Enlightenment. In the article, a trajectory of protest against this process is mapped out. And, finally, monsters are shown to be important theodicean agents in the ancient world as well as representing important mechanisms of cultural identity.

Biblical Genealogy and Nationalism

The chronological/genealogical narrative structure of the Hebrew Bible points to an editorial aim: to give a history of Israel as a nation from Creation to the 6th century BCE Babylonian exile and the return to the land of Israel, and in so doing to bring to life and unite two dead Near Eastern kingdoms. This article considers the scribes and editors who created the structure of the Hebrew Bible as forerunners of modern cultural nationalists, especially of defeated or endangered peoples, who sought the survival and growth of the nation in literature. However, the monotheisms that derived from Judaism, and adopted Hebrew scripture as sacred, rarely accepted the Bible as the translation or adaptation of a Jewish work in the Jewish national language mostly on Jewish soil and under Jewish government in the 1st millennium BCE. Rather, anti-Semites taught a genealogy of Jewish guilt to the world, with extra charges based on supersessionist theology and anti-Jewish fantasies.

Beyond Controversy in the Hebrew Bible: Standing Stones as Messengers of Common Humanity

The Hebrew Bible is not only an ancient religious text, but also imbues information about the lives of people. Beyond controversial matters in the text, links can be found to common humanity with ancient roots. This renders the text not only relevant for adherents to the religions based on this text, but to all people. The exemplar followed in this article is standing stones. Biblical authors frequently refer to standing stones. These references are sharply contrasting, with some condoning and others condemning, causing contention. Archaeologically, standing stones are a ubiquitous phenomenon all over the world throughout time. They abound in the southern Levant, the region for which the Hebrew Bible is a sacred text. The meaning of standing stones is multifarious, but ultimately relates to the numinous. Among other meanings, like other vertical elements, such as mountains and trees, they play a role in shamanism, an ancient and extensive worldview. Exploration of common human traits, ascribed to inborn neurophysiological and psychological factors, divulges explanations for universal phenomena such as shamanic worldviews and the physical manifestations of such worldviews, of which the standing stone is one. Multidisciplinary evidence from archaeological, ethnographic, and textual analysis reveals that both standing stones of the southern Levant and those in the Hebrew Bible exhibit meanings related to this cosmology which flows from unconscious properties common to all people. Going beyond controversial topics allows access to common human traits linking all people, in this case adding relevance to the biblical text. This approach could elucidate the human commonality hidden behind other dissonant subjects in the Hebrew Bible.

Between Covenant and Contract: Jewish Political Thought and Contemporary Political Theory

Social contract theory has long been at the center of political theory, and one of the inheritors of the social contract tradition, liberalism, reverberates through contemporary political life. And yet, an overlooked element of liberalism are the biblical origins of social contract theory. Specifically, how the early modern political theorists were reading Hebrew Bible, and the kinds of interpretive transformations of Hebrew Bible that take place on the pages of works like Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, John Locke’s Second Treatise, and more. Covenant is the centerpiece of this entanglement. When drawn from Hebrew Bible and read in the context of Jewish political thought, covenant has a very different meaning to that which social contract theories attribute it. This Jewish understanding of covenant concretizes a practice of politics that is constitutively dissenting and agonistic, in contrast to the command–obedience model typical of social contract theory. Furthermore, covenant loses its unique conceptual framework—thus its contribution to political thought—when it is secularized into a social contract. This Jewish conception of covenant offers a new way to understand politics and democratic practice through “covenantal authority” and its constitutively dissenting, agonistic, and circulating qualities. “Covenantal authority” captures the constitutive undecidability of who has authority over the text.

Pedagogical Theory of the Hebrew Bible: An Application of Education Theory to Biblical Texts , by Adrian E. Hinkle & Pedagogical Theory of Wisdom Literature: An Application of Education Theory to Biblical Texts , by Adrian E. Hinkle

Pedagogical Theory of the Hebrew Bible: An Application of Education Theory to Biblical Texts , by Adrian E. Hinkle & Pedagogical Theory of Wisdom Literature: An Application of Education Theory to Biblical Texts , by Adrian E. Hinkle

Judaism as Flowers: The Materialized Ideology of the New Synagogue of Szeged

The greatest architectural monument of Szeged’s Jewish community is the New Synagogue (1900–1903), designed by Lipót Baumhorn (1860, Kisbér—1932, Budapest). He designed twenty-six synagogues in the former Hungarian Kingdom and was known as the most successful synagogue architect in Europe. In Szeged, his most special buildings are the synagogue, the community’s headquarters, and the Jewish cemetery’s ceremonial hall. During the synagogue’s construction, Baumhorn worked closely together with Dr. Immánuel Löw (1854, Szeged – 1944, Budapest), rabbi and scholar, who applied his immense knowledge in the decoration of the synagogue. Löw belonged to the Neolog denomination of Hungarian Judaism and designed the synagogue garden as an organic part of the building, presenting the flora of both Israel and Hungary. The Neolog movement brought a transformation in the sacred spaces of the synagogue, moving of the bimah to the Eastern end of the synagogue, introducing the use of an organ and a choir, and defining towers on the outside. The synagogue and its garden stand alone on the global stage, thanks to its extraordinary botanical decoration system that is both distinctively designed and rich in symbolic meaning, drawing inspiration from motifs found in the Hebrew Bible, all due to the remarkable botanical expertise of the rabbi, representing a unique and materialized fusion of Neolog Jewish ideals, Hungarian heritage, and architectural excellence. In our study, we present Szeged’s new synagogue and its synagogue garden from an architectural and cultural-historical point of view, summarizing the emergence of Jewish ideas in the turn-of-the-century architecture and the transformation of the use of spaces.

To what extent are sacred language practices ultralingual? The experience of British Muslim children learning Qur’anic Arabic

This article draws on qualitative data from a study of young Muslims learning Qur’anic Arabic in the UK to reveal how they engage in sacred language practices that I choose to call ‘ultralingual’. Such practices inevitably foreground linguistic form and performance over meaning, at least in the referential sense. Observable in many faith contexts, the ability to acquire a certain proficiency in an invariably ancient sacred language and then participate, actively and passively, in a range of ritual acts is demonstrated by millions of children globally. Usually attending supplementary forms of education, such children learn to access the code of their respective faiths (e.g., Qur’anic Arabic for Muslims and Biblical Hebrew for Jews) through, usually, a traditional learning approach based initially on systematic instruction in sound-letter correspondences which eventually develops into secure decoding proficiency. An important characteristic of this language practice is the ambivalent role of referential meaning. Often, performers, whether in recitation or in the words uttered in prayers, have partial or no access to the meaning of the words they utter. This article calls this ‘ultralingualism’, a language phenomenon that occurs also in non-religious contexts such as vocal music and multilingual literacy mediation, but which is particularly apparent in faith practices which centre on an ancient text and its language. The young Muslims in this article, however, do not take part in meaningless activities. Much sacred language practice (and some co-sanctified language practice) happens ultralingually, that is, form is emphasised over referential meaning. Evidence in this article argues that such ultralingual practices are accompanied nevertheless by layers of meaning often unrelated to referential or lexical meaning.

Oral Reading Traditions and Scriptural Hermeneutics: The Exegetical Significance of the Pausal Systems in the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān

Abstract The oral reading traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān have a number of affinities. Recent literature shows that these parallels include orthoepic features, the pluriformity of the oral reading traditions, as well as the representation of non-standard oral traditions in written form. The present article takes this comparative effort one step forward. It explores how pauses influence the exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān. That is, it examines the impact of the Masoretic pausal accent signs and the pausal suggestions in the Quranic waqf and ibtidāʾ (pausing and beginning) literature on exegesis. Examining several case studies, the article points out parallels in the ways both reading traditions employ pauses in exegesis. Without denying the differences between the two systems, some of which are highlighted in the article, it is found that both seem to operate in conceptually similar ways.

Exploring the feminine-masculine dichotomy in Job 1:15-19: A text-art collaboration

This article addresses the problematic nature of the traditional approach to interpreting and translating Job 1:15–19 and the conventional artistic depictions of the four calamities experienced by Job. The traditional view is grounded in an objectivistic perspective on language, which assumes that meaning is founded on historical truth and can only be established through direct correspondence between a sentence and an objective state in the world. However, this approach is problematic when viewed through the lens of experientialist language theory, and its emphasis on representational formats. This article argues that the representational format in the narrative of Job 1:15–19 is characterised by a fixed conceptual element; specifically, the dichotomy between feminine and masculine, which operates as a contested point within the narrative. To establish the boundaries and refine the theoretical principles necessary for elucidating unconscious conceptual image schemas such as feminine-masculine, this article proposes a blended text-art approach as a means of representing the perceptual system that underlies this contested concept. Collaborating with a local artist, Hennie Kruger, the aim of this article is to identify meaningful patterns in the image schema and provide a redescription of experience, by means of a process of perceptual meaning analysis within the context of art, as an ‘essentially contested concept’. This article personifies Sheba as a metonymy for the voiceless sufferer – the widow and orphan – as well as fire from God out of heaven, mantic wisdom, and wind-all in the feminine gender. By rendering abstract concepts more immediate and accessible, the image schema of feminine-masculine is made more tangible. While the image schema of feminine-masculine is inherently schematic, and therefore, more abstract in nature, the combination and flow of the four paintings embody the concordant nature of an image schema, with individual mental images elucidating the details of the schema. Ultimately, the paradox evident in each scene serves to illustrate the disruption of the divine order within the feminine-masculine image schema.Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding and translation of the calamities described in Job 1 in the Hebrew Bible.

Negative Theology as an Expression of God’s Freedom in the Torah of the Book of Deuteronomy and Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible

This paper traces the history of the negative theology of YHWH from the beginning of the integration of YHWH into the Canaanite pantheon to the post-exilic period in the Torah through the interpretation of the Shema’ Israel from its mono-Yahwistic understanding to monotheism as an expression of God’s freedom. In the second step, the development of negative theology is traced from the pre-exilic proverbs, which understand God as a limit of knowledge, to negative theology in the Book of Job and Qohelet, as well as the overcoming of negative theology in the paradise-narrative in Genesis 2–3 through the freedom of choice granted to man by God.

:Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible: From Embodied Experience to Moral Metaphor

:<i>Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible: From Embodied Experience to Moral Metaphor</i>

:Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life: Suicide and Martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible

:<i>Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life: Suicide and Martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible</i>

The Bible as Political Artifact: On the Feminist Study of the Hebrew Bible by Susanne Scholz, and: The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible by Susanne Scholz (review)

The Bible as Political Artifact: On the Feminist Study of the Hebrew Bible by Susanne Scholz, and: The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible by Susanne Scholz (review)

The Origin and Development of the Prohibition of Eating Blood

Abstract: Previous scholarship has generally assumed that all prohibitions of eating blood in the Hebrew Bible have the same basic meaning and refer to the same real practice in ancient society. This essay calls attention to the substantial differences in phrasing (blood as a direct object or with four different prepositions). There are also differences in the reasons to and not to eat blood (decorum, local altars, divine property, life force, ransom, divination, and idolatry). The consequences also differ substantially (scolding, forfeited blessing, excision, exile). In this essay, I suggest a model for how the variation could have resulted from well-studied processes of adaptation of received traditions to new theological and social contexts. Finally, it may be suggested that the reception and adaptation could have occurred entirely within the abstract tradition of legal revision. There may have been no contemporary practical social concern motivating the adaptation of the prohibition.

The Torah / Law Is a Journey: Using Cognitive and Culturally Oriented Linguistics to Interpret and Translate Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible by Ivana Procházková (review)

The Torah / Law Is a Journey: Using Cognitive and Culturally Oriented Linguistics to Interpret and Translate Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible by Ivana Procházková (review)

Book Review: Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life: Suicide and Martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible by Paul K. K. Cho

Book Review: <i>Willingness to Die and the Gift of Life: Suicide and Martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible</i> by Paul K. K. Cho