Hebrew Studies Research Articles

Hebräische Autorennetzwerke in der Breslauer Haskala. Mordechai Roch (1763–1825) und seine nachgelassene Manuskriptsammlung

Abstract While the use of Hebrew was much in decline in most parts of Germany by the end of the eighteenth century, a considerable number of modern Hebrew texts were being published in Breslau with the specific goal of promoting and maintaining the relevance of Hebrew. The article presents a group portrait of the authors who promoted this consolidation of Hebrew study and modern Hebrew writing. It focuses on Mordechai Roch, a lesser-known author whose maskilic activity spanned more than three decades and thus linked the early attempts of the 1790s with a new flowering of Hebrew writing in the 1810s.

Warning through song and legislation? An intertextual study of Hebrews 10:26–31 and Deuteronomy

Just as in the rest of Hebrews, the warning passage in Hebrews 10:26–31 contains numerous references to the Old Testament. The passage has, among others, two explicit quotations from the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 (Dt 32:35a in Heb 10:30a; Dt 32:36a in Heb 10:30b), and one clear allusion to the legislation in Deuteronomy 17 (Dt 17:6 in Heb 10:28). The current article argued that Deuteronomy plays an even bigger role in the passage than has previously been noted. Moving from the clear to the less clear by discussing quotations from, allusions to, echoes and applications of, and conceptual and intertextual parallels with Deuteronomy, the intertextual study found that there are possible traces of Deuteronomy in every verse of Hebrews 10:26–31, and strikingly, that all these traces come from Deuteronomy 17 and 32. The article concluded by reflecting on the correlation between Deuteronomy 17 and 32, and how the author of Hebrews employs words and reminiscences from these chapters in order to warn his addressees against apostasy.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article contributed to the investigation of the Old Testament in the Book of Hebrews, and more specifically, the investigation of the occurrence and use of the Book of Deuteronomy in Hebrews.

God knows all: An intertextual study of Hebrews 4:12–13 and Deuteronomy 29:28

While most scholars view Hebrews 4:12–13 as the author’s own composition which contains various parallels with Old Testament language and thought, very few consider Deuteronomy 29:28 (29:29 ET) as one of the possible conceptual backgrounds of the passage. The current article argued that Hebrews 4:12–13 contains among others a conceptual echo of Deuteronomy 29:28, which when noted, enhances the interpretation of the passage. The article started with a baseline interpretation of Hebrews 4:12–13, by discussing its content and message, and especially its proposed backgrounds. It found that of all the parallels between Hebrews 4:12–13 and the LXX, Wisdom 1:6 and 1 Enoch 9:5 forms the closest parallels, and that scholars do not view Hebrews 4:12–13 as containing an echo of Deuteronomy 29:28. Next, the article investigated Deuteronomy 29:28, particularly the meaning of the phrase ‘the hidden things’ known to God. The article argued that from the wider context of Deuteronomy 29:15–27 ’the hidden things’ refer to ’the hidden intentions’ of the human heart, which is known to God. The next section of the article indicated that this interpretation of ’the hidden things’ as the unknown intentions of the human heart, finds support in Philo’s De Cherubim 16. Revisiting Hebrews 4:12–13, the article argued that based on the similarities of thought, structure and function, Deuteronomy 29:28 forms one of the conceptual backgrounds of Hebrews 4:12–13 and indicated how this enhances the interpretation of the passage. The article concluded by very briefly reflecting on the contribution of Hebrews 4:12–13 to the biblical concept of the knowledge of God.Contribution: The article contributed to the investigation of the well-known and important Hebrews 4:12–13, as well as the investigation of the occurrence and use of Deuteronomy in the book of Hebrews.

From temporal to concessive meanings: a semantic analysis of 'still'

We develop a new proposal about the historical connection between the durative and concessive readings of English still and Hebrew ʕadain, a connection that shows striking parallels in the two languages. Building on a corpus study of Hebrew (Rubinstein forthcoming), we argue that durative 'still' precedes the concessive 'still' and that the latter first arises in bridging contexts (and earlier than previously thought). In contrast to previous literature, our proposal places the temporal-to-concessive development squarely in the semantics. We argue that concessive 'still' emerges when an originally durative 'still' gets "infected" with a concessive meaning that is expressed explicitly in the rest of the sentence.

Andrew Chin Hei Leong. A Cognitive Semantic Study of Biblical Hebrew: The Root šlm for Completeness-Balance

Andrew Chin Hei Leong. <i>A Cognitive Semantic Study of Biblical Hebrew: The Root šlm for Completeness-Balance</i>

From lack of understanding to heightened engagement: A multimodal study of Hebrew ′ATA LO MEVIN ‘You don’t understand’

Abstract This study explores the Hebrew ′ATA LO MEVIN (‘you don’t understand’) construction in a corpus of casual conversation. Employing the methodology of Interactional Linguistics and Multimodal Conversation Analysis, we show that deployment of this construction is fixed and formulaic and only rarely denotes the recipient’s lack of understanding. Based on a mostly synchronic analysis, we suggest a grammaticization path followed by this construction from a negative epistemic subject-predicate construction denoting literal lack of understanding to a discourse marker signaling the opening of a new narrative, while seeking recipient alignment with the speaker’s intensified affective stance. The path described reveals that embodied conduct, as well as prosodic, morphophonological, and syntactic features of the construction correlate with the weakening of its literal meaning. This sheds light on the uses speakers make of the construction, on how heightened engagement may be achieved in discourse, and on the dialogic nature of interaction and grammar.

Soteriological reflection on priestly Christology from an Akan perspective

The priesthood of Christ forms a key foundation upon which Christian soteriology is built. In the Akan traditional community where priesthood is a common religious institution, a proper understanding of the soteriological significance of Christ’s priesthood has the potential of making the Christian faith more relevant and meaningful. Nonetheless, there is inadequate scholarly attention given to this subject from an Akan perspective. This literature-based research was, therefore, conducted to contribute to the scholarly discourse about Christian soteriology by exploring how Akan traditional priestly tradition might enhance the Akan Christian understanding of the nature and relevance of Christ’s priesthood and sacrifice based on a theological study of Hebrews 9:11–14. This text has been chosen because it gives a clear expression the biblical perspective on the priestly sacrifice of Christ.As a work in the area of Christian theology, the article does not provide detailed exegesis of the text but explores theological themes that are relevant for the Akan appreciation of the priesthood of Christ. The main argument is that since the atonement of Christ is sufficient for holistic salvation, there can be no legitimate sacrifice for salvific purposes in any society. The article contributes to the contextualization of Christian theology in the Akan/African society.

Moses Stuart and the Unintentional Secularization of American Biblical Studies

AbstractBuilding off recent work investigating the development of modern biblical criticism, this essay argues that the broadly conservative scholar Moses Stuart (1780–1852) should be seen as playing a key but unintentional role in the secularization of biblical studies in nineteenth-century America. Stuart played this role in several ways. Hermeneutically, he imbibed and popularized naturalistic assumptions summed up in the maxim that the Bible should be interpreted like any other book. Educationally, when arguing for the curricular importance of Hebrew studies, he justified the Bible’s importance not via its role as Scripture, but primarily via its place as excellent classical literature. Stuart’s example thereby suggests that, in studying the demise of Scripture’s sacred status in the modern era, scholars must pay attention not only to the attacks of the Bible’s liberal critics but also to the methods and assumptions of its conservative defenders.

Hebrew as a Subject of Research and Teaching in Poland from the Early 16th Century to the 20th Century. A Contribution to Further Reflections

The paper explores the history of Hebrew studies in Poland from the early 16th century to the 20th century. The beginnings of academic studies and thorough research into biblical Hebrew can be traced back to the 16th century as the first lecturers of classical languages appeared at the Kraków University. They were also the first to write textbooks for learning this language, and some of tchem translated biblical books from their original languages. Jewish printing houses had a significant impact on the growing interest in Hebrew studies, both in the Jewish and Christian communities. Passion for Hebrew was still observed in Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries. In turn, the late 18th century and the 19th century were the times of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) and disputes about the shape of Hebrew. At universities theological studies included biblical Hebrew courses. The 20th century saw the emergence of numerous centres for Hebrew studies at leading Polish universities, offering full-time Bachelor and Master’s programmes, conducting interdisciplinary research, developing scholarly publications in the field and establishing organizations aiming to promote research on Jewish history, culture and language.

T. Desmond Alexander. Face to Face with God: A Biblical Theology of Christ as Priest and Mediator

T. Desmond Alexander. <i>Face to Face with God: A Biblical Theology of Christ as Priest and Mediator</i>

The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature by Marina Zilbergerts

Reviewed by: The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature by Marina Zilbergerts Wendy Zierler Marina Zilbergerts. The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022. 184 pp. It has long been acknowledged that deep knowledge of biblical and rabbinic literature on the part of early modern Hebrew poets and prose writers played a vital role in the creation of modern Hebrew literature and the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. As Benjamin Harshav notes, “Secular Hebrew poetry grew in the soil of Hebrew study in the religious society against which all Hebrew poets rebelled in their youth.”1 In light of this, Marina Zilbergerts’s new study of the yeshiva and the rise of modern Hebrew literature might seem, at first, like old news. Far from it, however. Whereas previous studies of this subject emphasized the role of Haskalah, Zionism, or secularism, Zilbergerts examines the rise of the modern yeshiva, with its elite ethos of Torah lishmah (Torah study for its own sake), as a way of explaining the seemingly miraculous rise of Hebrew literary culture. The book sets out to answer several questions from this vantage point: How and why did modern Hebrew literature come to be, and why in the setting of late nineteenth-century Russia? Given the utter impracticality of creating a literature in a language that no one actually spoke, and the ideological push in Russian culture for writing that was materially useful to society, how did these mid- and late nineteenth-century Hebrew writers make the case for their writing? Zilbergerts argues that the text-centeredness of the modern yeshiva led to an orientation where texts became more real than the physical world, where the “play and pleasure” of textual learning took on heightened importance. The result of viewing Torah as an omnisignificant literature to be interpreted and debated through a variety of hermeneutic and literary strategies was a blurring of the conventional boundary between sacred and secular Hebrew texts. All this laid the groundwork for these text-centered values to be transferred to secular Hebrew literary production once these young writers left the yeshiva. In addition to considering the autotelic value of text in yeshiva culture, Zilbergerts considers corresponding patterns of study and ideological dissent among nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox seminarians. Yeshiva and Russian Orthodox students alike experienced both the exhilaration of elite study and deep [End Page 240] despair over their lack of practical skills and economic opportunities, despite their erudition. Seminary-educated Russian nihilist writers such as Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1828–1889) and Nikolay Dobrolyubov (1836–1861) expressed deep dissatisfaction with their church education, along with a strong desire to achieve social usefulness. Nevertheless, these nihilist writers often mimicked the practices of Russian Orthodox hermeneutics in their critical writing, a cultural pattern that was reproduced by disaffected ex-yeshiva students. Indeed, even when yeshiva students abandoned their studies, they carried with them a reverence for textuality for its own sake. Under the pressures and influence of Russian nihilism, Hebrew writers such as Avraham Uri, Shaul, and Yiẓḥak Aizik Kovner attacked the maskilic Hebrew language and literature for ignoring the pressing material issues of society. Still, these same critics often resorted to the Hebrew wordplays and exegetical practices of the very rabbinic/maskilic culture they sought to critique. Even as these writers sought to detach themselves from the constraints of their yeshiva background, they kept returning to the practices and aesthetic models of Torah lishmah, redirecting these practices to the creation of their new secular Hebrew poetry and prose. Moshe Leib Lilienblum thus inveighs against the superstitions and backward practices of traditional Judaism, including kest marriage, and the failure of the yeshiva system to provide young men with a practical vocation, only to defend talmudic literature against maskilic charges of nonsense. Similarly, ex-Volozhin Yeshiva students Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky and Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik produced literary works that decry the dead-in-life nature of text study, but also revel in it with a kind of sublimated sexual energy. “The freedom to engage with Jewish texts and ideas without exterior motive,” Zilbergerts argues, “along with the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, was arguably...

The Jews and the Reformation by Kenneth Austin

Reviewed by: The Jews and the Reformation by Kenneth Austin David H. Price Kenneth Austin. The Jews and the Reformation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 288 pp. Providing substantially more than the title promises, Kenneth Austin’s The Jews and the Reformation surveys Christian theological and political reflection on Judaism, Jews, and Hebrew Scripture from the late fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century. This is a long and complex period, one that marks the nadir of Jewish fortunes in western Europe (before the Holocaust) as well as the significant, if uneven, improvement in the conditions for Jewish life in many places, a turning point that began in the final decades of the sixteenth century. The great value of this new book is its simultaneous focus on Catholic and Protestant writers and governments across central and western Europe; its impressive scope encompasses the Iberian expulsions, the inquisitions (especially in Spain, Portugal, and Rome), the humanist movement (especially the Jewish book controversy and Christian Hebraism), Luther and his movement, the radical Reformation, Reformed Protestantism (especially Calvin and the biblical scholar Immanuel Tremellius), and the Tridentine Catholic response to Judaism as well as the early history of the new Jewish communities in the United Provinces and in England during the Commonwealth. Austin, admirably, is reluctant to draw general conclusions as to which Christian denominations were more or less favorably disposed to supporting legal toleration. Nonetheless, his inclination to strike a “balanced” position occasionally results in apologetic tendencies. For example, he claims that “Portugal proved a much more hospitable home for Jews” (125), just one sentence before mentioning the traumatic bloodshed of the 1506 Lisbon massacre (which cost ca. 1,000 to [End Page 188] 4,000 Jewish lives), as if it were an inconvenient historical detail. There is also a reluctance to fully acknowledge the harshness of the end of Sicut Judeis (the medieval protection of Jewish rights under canon law) initiated by Paul IV, a transformation that ultimately resulted in censorship, expulsions, strict ghettoization, and expanding papal support for inquisitional persecution. Austin does not mention the horrifying execution of twenty-four Jewish Marranos in papal Ancona in 1556 (nor the emergence of substantial, but temporary, Jewish resistance to the papacy organized by Gracia Mendes Nasi). The overall analysis adopts Kenneth Stow’s valuable but one-sided position that papal policy changed in order to promote conversion to Christianity, and also the commonly expressed view that Jewish culture was able to thrive to a limited degree under ghettoization in Italy, at least for a while and especially in Venice. Austin sees considerable impact from Christian Hebrew studies. This is an exceedingly difficult innovation to assess because Christian Hebraists used their expertise variously to create benevolent portrayals of Judaism and also to construct anti-Jewish polemics, sometimes of great severity. One of the harshest and most substantial anti-Jewish books ever published—Johann Andreas Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judentum (1700; Judaism Uncovered)—goes unmentioned, even though the author was a major Calvinist Hebrew scholar and the text’s extreme hostility provoked intense theological and political controversy at the highest levels of power in the empire. Similarly, on the other side of the ledger, the strongly favorable and influential accounts of Judaism by the great Catholic biblical scholar Richard Simon (who also translated and promoted Leon Modena’s History of the Jewish Rituals) are not mentioned. In some cases, Austin’s optimistic portrayal of Christian Hebraism is not accurate. He claims, for instance, that Johannes Reuchlin, the founder of Christian Hebrew studies, “persuaded the emperor to reverse his position” (3) on the stunning policy initiative to confiscate and destroy all Hebrew books in the empire except the Bible. In fact, the emperor reversed his position under pressure from the Frankfurt Jewish community. Reuchlin’s defense of Jewish writings, which resulted in a heresy trial (he was convicted of being “impermissibly favorable to Jews”), galvanized Europe but ultimately contributed only modestly to a gradual shift in Maximilian’s policy of eradication of Jews back to a more traditional one of legal toleration in return for fiscal exploitation. The portrayal of imperial politics overall seems somewhat constrained. Austin does not comment on the...

Hebrew Gothic: History and the Poetics of Persecution

Hebrew Gothic: History and the Poetics of Persecution

Premises and Problems: Essays on World Literature and Cinema

Premises and Problems: Essays on World Literature and Cinema

Завершальний етап науково-організаційної діяльності індолога Стефана Стасяка на кафедрі орієнталістики Львівського університету

The article, based on archival materials from the Archives of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and the State Archives of Lviv Region, analyzes the peculiarities of the transformation of the Chair of Indian Philology with a Special Review of the History of Culture and Philosophy and the Institute of Indian Philology and Culture which were headed at Lviv University by the leading Polish Indologist Stefan Stasiak (1927–1939), to the Chair of Oriental Studies (Eastern Languages, Oriental Linguistics) under the leadership of the same scientist (1940–1941). So the author refuted the thesis present in historiography that during 1939–1941 S.&nbsp;Stasiak headed the Institute of Oriental Studies at Lviv University. The author investigated the specifics of the staff of the Chair of Oriental Studies (in particular, the influence of the national-political factor on it), with an emphasis on the characteristics of the employees of the new Oriental Studies Department, and the directions of its activities. The author emphasizes that the core of the department’s staff was made up of S.&nbsp;Stasiak’s students, in particular, Indologists-Sanskritologists V.&nbsp;Shayan and Ya.&nbsp;Kessler, expert in New Indian philology and culture E.&nbsp;Gruber. In addition, the professor recruited to the unit specialists, who were to develop traditional for the Lviv University Hebrew studies (M.&nbsp;Goliger), Arabic studies, Iranian studies and Turkology (M. Sadyk Bej Agabekzadeh, Ye. Zavalynskyi), Mongolian studies (R.&nbsp;Wilbach-Stark). Sinology became a new direction that was presented at the Chair of Oriental Studies (it was represented by M.&nbsp;Knoroz, who in the future could also develop Japanese studies). Thus, S.&nbsp;Stasiak, who had the opportunity to continue the organizational development of Oriental studies at Lviv University during the first Soviet occupation of Western Ukrainian lands in 1939–1941, tried to develop a unit focused on comprehensive training of Orientalists. However, taking into account the fact that the Indological subdivisions of Lviv University became the basis of the new department, the predominant attention was paid to the languages and culture of India.

Is the Study of Hebrew Useless for Orthodox Theologians? A Response to Some Recent Assertions Put Forward by Jean-Claude Larchet

In one of his recent books, Jean-Claude Larchet argued that the study of Hebrew is useless for those doing research in the field of Orthodox theology, since the Church fathers used the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint). There are at least two reasons that might be advanced in order to prove the invalidity of Larchet’s thesis. First, fostering an attitude of ignorance as regards the Hebrew Bible might nurture anti-Judaic beliefs among Orthodox students, considering that such attitudes could be noticed in Romania during the interwar period. Second, the Fathers of the Church had a favorable attitude towards Hebrew, despite the fact that few of them actually knew that language. They held the belief that Hebrew was the primordial language through which God spoke to mankind in the beginning and through which the Old Testament was revealed. Both the Hebrew language and the Hebrew alphabet played a significant role in their theoretical considerations on the canon of the Holy Scripture. Since Larchet published his work in Romanian, his theses and their implications are discussed from the perspective and in the context of Romanian Orthodox theology.

The Jews and the Reformation, by Kenneth Austin

A comprehensive discussion of Reformation attitudes towards Jews and Judaism is both timely and necessary. Fortunately, in Kenneth Austin’s hands, it is also masterly. His book provides a lucid, thorough and erudite introduction to almost every aspect of this subject. As Austin points out, Judaism has long been a shameful and embarrassing subject for Reformation historians of all denominations. Early modern treatment of Jews ranged from dismissive to intellectually predatory to actively persecutory. For Lutheran and Calvinist denominations, in particular, the treatment of Jews contradicted long-standing and self-congratulatory assumptions that the Reformation advanced modernity and tolerance. With this book, scholars can now take a more sober and clear-eyed view. The great strength of Austin’s approach is its breadth of perspective. The title says ‘Jews’ but in fact Austin considers all modes of Christian interaction with Judaism. This includes interactions between Christian and Jewish people and communities; theological concepts regarding the role(s) of Judaism within Christian doctrine; Christian study of Hebrew; Jews in the Christian literary imaginary; artistic motifs and the stereotypes they disseminated. In this way, Austin expands the tradition of scholarship that examines Jews as simultaneously a real and an imagined presence in Christian Europe. Austin’s view of the Reformation is similarly all-encompassing. His Reformation includes historical, political and cultural factors along with theology, and treats religious movements in comparison with each other. This by itself is no drastic innovation in Reformation history, but it is especially necessary to get it right in this case. Austin shows that Reformation-era Christians engaged with Jews on many different fronts at once, and that attitudes that arose in one sphere could have consequences or implications in another.

Harald Weinrich, Tempus: besprochene und erzählte Welt (1964)

As part of NTT JTSR’s series on Key Texts, the present article discusses the influence of Harald Weinrich’s classic work Tempus: besprochene und erzählte Welt (1964) on biblical studies. It describes Harald Weinrich’s position in the field of text linguistics which emerged in the 1960s and explores its introduction into Biblical Hebrew studies in the 1970s and its remarkable lasting influence in the field of Biblical scholarship, which appears to be more pervasive than in other fields of linguistics and textual scholarship.

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

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

Le goût de l’histoire et de l’hébreu : une aventure à deux

Born into a Catholic family, Danielle Delmaire is a specialist in the history of Jewish communities in France and Jewish Catholic relations. Her interest in these fields of research was aroused during a vacation in Israel in 1966, after which she decided to live for two years in a kibbutz and to learn Hebrew while continuing her studies in history at the University of Lille. Upon her return to France in 1968, she enrolled in a Hebrew studies program at the same university, where she met Jean-Marie Delmaire, who played a major role in her life both professionally and personally. In this article, she looks back on their careers and their contribution to the development of the history of the Jews and Hebrew in France. Notably, for example, the historian recalls her husband&#8217;s efforts to develop Hebrew studies at the University of Lille. He created the Institute of the History of Religions (IHR), where the history of Jewish communities and Judaism is taught, in the early 1990s and founded the scholarly journal Tsafon, Revue d&#8217;&#233;tudes juives du Nord in 1990.