Literature Of Ancient Israel Research Articles

Bedouin Culture in the Bible by Clinton Bailey

Reviewed by: Bedouin Culture in the Bible by Clinton Bailey Michael S. Moore clinton bailey, Bedouin Culture in the Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018). Pp. 278. $55. This book is a fascinating, well-meaning response from a layman admittedly "unfamiliar with the Hebrew Bible, which I had never formally studied" (p. ix) to the theories of George Mendenhall ("The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine," BA 25 [1962] 66-87) and Norman K. Gottwald ("Were the Early Israelites Pastoral Nomads?," BARev 4 [1978] 4) that the earliest Israelites were not desert-dwelling nomads but disgruntled Canaanite proletarians (p. 204). Concerned that the "nomadic origins" argument stands on a "sparse data base," B. here tries to shore it up by (a) providing "an in-depth ethnographic dimension" based on "observations acquired from firsthand contact with the Bedouin during forty-five years of research among them" (p. 205); and (b) juxtaposing these observations with the well-known proposal of Frank Moore Cross (From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998] 51) that earliest Israel consisted of a Moses-led group of escapees from the Sinai desert joining up with other עברים (1 Sam 14:21) among the ḫabirū already populating second-millennium Canaan. Methodologically, the book's primary presumption is that the "materials collected here constitute a cultural document that supplements material learned from other fields such as ancient Near Eastern history, biblical studies, archaeology, and anthropology" (p. 10). Adhering closely and consistently to this presumption, the bulk of the volume presents B.'s personal observations on contemporary Bedouin traditions about water, rainfall, livestock, migration, herding, agriculture, domiciles, food, locusts, quail, plants, stars, flint-stone, leather usage, nose rings, hospitality, kinship behavior, tribal behavior, clan behavior, the roles of women, matrimony, laws about vengeance/deterrence, revenge for the shedding of blood, revenge for the violation of women, conflict resolution, judges, witnesses, oaths, sentences, reconciliation, religious sacrifices involving blood, and related questions. The book's greatest strength is its absorbing discussion of Bedouin oral tradition— [End Page 302] poetry, prose, proverbs, and genealogies—much of it recycled from B.'s earlier book (A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004]). The Bedouin stories published on pp. 173-79, for example, constitute a rich resource for comparison not just with biblical stories but with Egyptian, Anatolian, Canaanite, and Mesopotamian stories preserved in epic myth. Analyzing Bedouin poetry in terms of expression, communication, and entertainment, B. first lays out the Bedouin tradition, then compares it with what the author considers to be the obvious parallels in Tanak. Nowhere, however, is any attempt made to compare or contrast these ad hoc observations with contemporary analyses of ancient Hebrew poetry such as those of James L. Kugel (The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998]) or W. P. Brown (Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002]). Nor is anything said about that species of poetry called هجا ("satirical lampoon") which the nineteenth-century Arabist I. Goldziher intuitively compares to Balaam's משלים (Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie, vol. 1[Leiden, 1896] 41-44). This is B.'s third volume with Yale University Press, the first two being A Culture of Desert Survival (mentioned above) and Bedouin Law in Sinai and the Negev: Justice without Government (2009), volumes generally well received by Arabists and other colleagues in Middle Eastern studies departments familiar with B.'s efforts to champion the needs of Bedouin trying to eke out a living in the Sinai and the Negev. Yet the problems in this third volume cannot be ignored, arising as they do from well-meaning but naive attempts to correlate contemporary Arabic observation with ancient Hebrew literature. Blissfully unaware of current debate, traditionalist commentary here replaces the academic discipline of articulating conflicting viewpoints before one's conclusions, one example being the unsubstantiated claim that "most of the Bible is written in stages somewhere between the tenth and sixth centuries BCE" (pp. 7-8), followed by Abraham Malamat's early dating of "the patriarchal narratives" (Mari and the Bible [SHCANE 12; Leiden: Brill, 1989] 4) as "proof...

A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel, written by Mark McEntire, 2015; and Interpreting Prophetic Literature: Historical and Exegetical Tools for Reading the Prophets, written by James D. Nogalski, 2015

A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel, written by Mark McEntire, 2015; and Interpreting Prophetic Literature: Historical and Exegetical Tools for Reading the Prophets, written by James D. Nogalski, 2015

Book Review: A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel

Book Review: A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel

Book Review: Mark McEntire. A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel

Book Review: Mark McEntire. <i>A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel</i>

Studying the Ancient Israelites: A Guide to Sources and Methods (review)

Reviewed by: Studying the Ancient Israelites: A Guide to Sources and Methods Kenton L. Sparks Studying the Ancient Israelites: A Guide to Sources and Methods, by Victor H. Matthews. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic; Nottingham, UK.: Apollos, 2007. 232 pp. $21.99. How can students new to the study of Ancient Israel conveniently acquire a foundational competence in the discipline? This is a problem that every instructor of ancient Israelite culture and literature has asked explicitly or pondered implicitly. One part of the solution is now this modest book from the pen of Victor Matthews, which surveys a broad range of basic facts, modern and ancient sources, and theoretical issues related to the study of Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Topics covered include historical geography (Chapter 1), archaeology (Chapter 2), literary study of the Hebrew Bible (Chapter 3), social scientific methods (Chapter 4), and Israelite history and historiography (Chapter 5). Let us consider each chapter in turn. Regarding geography, Matthews provides an overview of the various regions and geographical features in Israel, as well as an introduction to ecological factors like climate and water sources. Trade routes, political entities, and major cities and towns in the region are also described. In chapter two, on archaeology, Matthews colorfully describes the actual process of planning and carrying out an archaeological dig and helps readers understand the logic of ceramic typologies and their use in dating archaeological strata. The chapter also includes a brief discussion of Israelite architecture—both rural and urban—and of ancient textual finds that enlighten our reconstruction of ancient [End Page 183] Israelite society and our reading of its texts. Chapter three turns to the Hebrew Bible itself, focusing on the interpretive methods employed by modern scholars in their study of the Bible. On the menu are literary criticism, folklore studies, textual criticism, source criticism, form criticism, tradition criticism, narrative criticism, structural criticism, rhetorical criticism, reader-response criticism, canonical criticism, and ideological criticism (including feminist criticism). In the course of the discussion, readers are further introduced to various points of debate and discussion in the discipline, such as the vigorous dispute between "minimalists" and "maximalists" about the Bible's value as a historical source. The chapter on social sciences will probably be the densest for uninitiated readers. An assortment of sociological concepts and terms are introduced here, including ritual, liminality, socially shared cognition, emic/ etic distinctions, sociological models (e.g., Radcliffe-Brown's "structural-functionalist" approach), endogamy and exogamy, patrilineal/agnatic descent, and patron/client relationships. The final chapter on history and historiography is less theoretical, excepting the introduction to Charles Pierce's "semiotics of history." The balance of the chapter orients readers to the nature of the ancient sources available for reconstructing history. The scant but telling evidence for Israelite archives is supplemented by the Old Babylonian evidence from Mari, where thousands of contracts, receipts, and letters illustrate the kinds of materials that ancient Israelite historians may have used as sources for their work. The historical value of the Israelite historical narratives is then tested by a comparison of those narratives with archaeological sources and texts from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. This exercise, which compares the Neo-Assyrian and biblical accounts of Sennacherib's attack on Judah in 701 BCE, reveals that the biblical texts are tolerably close to events that actually took place at the time. But in both the Neo-Assyrian and biblical stories one notices the subtle ways in which political ideology shaped and distorted the historical presentation. Though Hezekiah was soundly defeated by Assyria, his version of the history accentuated the fact that Jerusalem was not sacked; conversely, in the Assyrian version Sennacherib claims to have trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage," which sounds like a victory but actually implies that the Assyrian siege of the city failed. Matthews often illustrates the theoretical discussion of his chapters by applying it to test cases from the history and literature of ancient Israel. So, for instance, chapter one applies the insights of historical geography to the story of Absalom's revolt in 2 Samuel 15–17. Similarly in Chapter 5, the methodological discussion of historiography is elucidated by applying that discussion...

Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel – Theodore W. Jennings

Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel – Theodore W. Jennings

Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel – Theodore W. Jennings

Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel – Theodore W. Jennings

Prehistory in the Call to Abraham

AbstractA common pool of primitive human values fuels the world's religions. These values are evident in classical religions and are found lying on the surface in the book of Genesis, which is among the Bible's richest archetypal repositories. The Genesis pre-history focuses on human well-being. The mythological assumptions underlying this story manifest the rudiments of human thought and experience laid down in the archaic period. A hostile natural environment evokes behaviour to overcome its hazards. The narrative explores the mythological options of agency for achieving human well-being. As in other theistic worldviews two primary agencies are envisioned. Gods and humans, each with strengths and weaknesses, are potential protagonists on the stage of human optimism. Genesis inherits a southwest Asian cosmogony in which the gods are hostile to the advanced potential of collective human agency. Divine hostility complicates agency options, leading to a devotional compromise in the form of God's covenant with Abraham. The essay suggests the value of a renewed awareness of the influence of archaic human experience on the classical literature of ancient Israel. The argument is developed with reference to the traditional figure of Abraham.

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. By Frank Moore Cross. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 262. $45.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewFrom Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. By Frank Moore Cross. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 262. $45.Dennis PardeeDennis PardeeThe University of Chicago Search for more articles by this author The University of ChicagoPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 62, Number 2April 2003 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/376380 Views: 6Total views on this site Permission to reprint a book review in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

LEARNING METHODS IN ANCIENT ISRAEL

AbstractIn the absence of actual evidence on the existence of schools and relevant literature in ancient Israel, the present study attempts to reconstruct the learning methods and stages in light of the terminology applied to study and its accompanying images in the Bible (focused on wisdom literature). The analysis of these terminology and images indicates dierent teaching methods: listening, obedience, understanding, practice, learning lessons, and searching. These methods are complementary and reect various stages in the process of acquiring knowledge, from the first passive stage to the last more active and creative stage. In addition, it shows that the ancient Hebrew educators perceived knowledge first and foremost as traditional material, to be passed down from generation to generation.

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. Frank Moore Cross.

<i>From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel</i>. Frank Moore Cross.

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient IsraelCrossF. M. From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel Johns Hopkins University PressBaltimore / London, 1998, xv, 262, $17.95 (pb.)

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient IsraelCrossF. M. <i>From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel</i> Johns Hopkins University PressBaltimore / London, 1998, xv, 262, $17.95 (pb.)

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel

Book Review| December 01 2000 From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel, Frank Moore Cross. Gerald A. Klingbeil Gerald A. Klingbeil Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Biblical Literature (2000) 119 (4): 750–753. https://doi.org/10.2307/3268529 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Gerald A. Klingbeil; From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. Journal of Biblical Literature 1 January 2000; 119 (4): 750–753. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3268529 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveSBL PressJournal of Biblical Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review: From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel

Book Review: From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel

From epic to canon: history and literature in ancient Israel

From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel, by Frank Moore Cross. Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 262. $45.00. Writing a book review of any book produced by a serious scholar is always an earnest undertaking. Writing the review of a book of one of the giants in the field of ancient Near Eastern studies is a daunting and challenging undertaking. However, it is worth the effort and extra heartbeat. twelve studies included in this work are intended to continue the discussion begun with Cross's important work Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973), although they represent mainly earlier studies published between 1975 and 1995. Two of the articles have never before appeared in print: the first chapter, entitled Kinship and Covenant in Ancient (pp. 3-21), and chapter 11, The Stabilization of the Canon of the Hebrew (pp. 219-29). essays are divided into six categories including epic traditions of early Israel (in continuation of his earlier 1973 work), two studies concerning priestly terminology and their ancient Near Eastern background, and two studies focusing on Hebrew prosody in general and specifically in Lam 1 and Jonah 2. Cross dedicates two more essays to the discussion of the history of postexilic Palestine involving a republication of his 1974 presidential address to the SBL concerning the historical reconstruction of that specific period. next two studies focus on Qumran and the history of the biblical text (pp. 205-29), seeking to pinpoint the difficult questions of the fixation of the text of the Hebrew Bible and the stabilization of the canon. final section includes only one essay, originally published in 1982 in Maarav, which deals with typology in historical and archaeological research. book includes also four useful indices. It is clear that a book review cannot do justice to a collection of such diverse studies, so my comments will be to the two as yet unpublished essays as well as to the important methodological study of typology in research (pp. 233-45) and his essays on priestly terminology and its ancient Near Eastern background. Cross's discussion of and covenant in ancient (pp. 3-21) is of particular interest for those studying the origins of the entity called Israel. He suggests that and covenant terminology is not-as suggested by J. Wellhausen and still often treated as gospel-bereft of legal connotations and mutuality, but formed the basis of the twelve-tribe league (pp. 15-16) and later on during the monarchic period functioned as a check against the arbitrary powers so often associated with monarchical states. Although Cross does not mention it, a parallel development can also be seen in Emar, whose limited kinship has been recently discussed (see D. E. Fleming, A Limited Kinship: Late Bronze Emar in Ancient Syria, UF 24 [1992]: 59-71). It is interesting to note that both the Hebrew Bible and the Emar texts seem to describe Late Bronze societal realities. Cross suggests that the neo-Assyrian ads documents from the eighth/seventh century B.C.E. do not necessarily provide the adequate analogy to Israel's early covenant institutions, since these documents borrow most of the technical terms and their formulary material from ancient West Semitic texts to be dated a thousand years earlier (pp. 18-19). I would have liked to see Cross interact with H. U. Stymans's recent comparative analysis of the ade texts and Dent 28 (see H. U. Steymans, Deuteronomium 28 and die acl zur Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons [OBO 145; Fribourg: Universitatsverlag Fribourg, 1995]). Cross's first chapter should be a basic requirement for graduate courses on the history and religion of ancient Israel. Cross has updated his comments in chapter 2, originally published in 1983. He includes an insightful two-page note (pp. 29-31) discussing John Van Seters's attempt to demote the Yahwist to the exilic period and draws upon linguistic typology of grammar, lexicon, canons, and narrative genres in order to contest this point of view. …

Tradition, uses and Biodiversity of rocket (Eruca Sativa, Brassicaceae) in Israel

Eruca sativa (rocket) is a native plant of Israel, documented in the old literature. A survey was conducted of the old literature of ancient Israel, including Jewish, Classical and Islamic sources up to the Middle ages. It was found that rocket was used as a garden crop and spice. It was also known as a medicinal plant and was used as an aphrodisiac, for eye infections, and for digestive and kidney problems. It is important to note that special attention was given in the old times to biodiversity within the rocket species. In the light of its high erucic acid content, native accessions were collected and evaluated as a potential future source of industrial oil. Ten accessions ofEruca sativa were cultivated in Bet-Dagan experimental farm during the 1995/96 growing season. Physiological as well as chemical parameters were recorded. Erucic acid (C 22:1) and eicosenoic acid (C 20:1) contents varied from 33 to 45% and from 7.3% to 9.8%, respectively. Special attention was given to the expressed biodiversity among the accessions and its relation to their origins.

The Meaning of Pršdn in Judges Iii 22

About this passage B. Halpern has recently remarked, Crowded into the space of a few verses in the highest concentration of rare and unique vocabulary in the literature of ancient Israel.1 The two verses contain three hapax legomena: hnsb, hprsdnh, and hmsdrwnh. The first of these is not problematic: it denotes the hilt or handle of a sword.2 But no satisfactory explanation has yet been put forth for the other two words.3 Our concern in this article is limited to

An Examination of a Recent Structuralist Interpretation of Genesis Xxxviii

The study of the Old Testament has benefited much from the work of specialists in other disciplines, and it would be rash not to pay careful attention to a claim by a well-known specialist in a different subject to shed new light on any aspect of the life and literature of ancient Israel. The purpose of the present article 1) is to examine the way in which an anthropologist, Professor E. R. Leach has interpreted the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis xxxviii. In an article entitled Some problems in Genesis VT 25 (1975), pp. 338-61, I argued that the story of Judah and Tamar belonged to the source J 2), and that it originated and first circulated in the eastern Shephelah near Adullam-probably at a time when memories of the settlement of Judah in the region were still fresh. I also said that I intended to discuss the story's raison d'etre in a further article or articles. Before my own view of the chapter is advanced in another article, it seems to me desirable to discuss Leach's new interpretation of Genesis xxxviii, which is of considerable interest to the Old Testament scholar and would be of considerable importance if it could be shown to be true. It is also desirable that his pioneering structuralist study of parts of the Old Testament should be tested by a detailed examination of its treatment of one story.

"Word" and Literature in Ancient Israel

medium of the literary art. What a given society or culture considers literature to be, therefore, will largely depend on its traditional assumptions and beliefs about the nature and powers of words. Such assumptions are handed down in a society or culture along with transmission of its language. Intimations of what words are, of their properties and powers, are caught and absorbed by successive generations of speakers of a language as they learn the various culturally determined modes and relationships in which words can, must, or should be used. In the case of an extinct literate culture like ancient