Scriptural Material Research Articles

Reflecting with Schmemann on the Functions of Byzantine Hymnography: The Case of the 15 Antiphons during Holy Friday Matins

Abstract Schmemann’s harsh judgement of the antiphons of Holy Friday matins invites us to consider the role of hymnography in the liturgical celebration. By analysing the historical context of the appearance of the antiphons – according to the methodology proposed by Schmemann – it is possible to consider the way in which these hymns make use of scriptural material by means of patristic intertextuality. The hymns privilege some biblical interpretations in order to encourage the believer to join in the participation in the Kingdom. This parenetic bias, however, often masks the eschatological message contained in the hymns themselves, and even degenerates into denunciatory rhetoric. It is then necessary to recontextualize the functions of hymnography to actualize it, especially by questioning its relationship to Scripture in order to refocus on the theological message.

Spreading the Word: Oral Transmission of the Bogomil Teachings, its Symbolism, and Biblical Exegesis

The oral biblical exegesis and oral transmission, or the unwritten tradition, represent pillars in the circulation of texts and ideas since the very dawn of Christianity, both in orthodox and heterodox circles. Namely, this vast topic encompasses the concepts related to the concepts of the written sources and the spoken word, and their interrelation, and, furthermore, to the symbolism of the ear, Logos, and secret teachings (arcana). The role and impact of the oral transmission will be examined on the example of the Bogomils, and this paper will re-assess the importance and function of the oral transmission of the Bogomil doctrine. Therefore, the Biblical exegesis will also be analyzed in that key, and the question of the Bogomil preachers will be addressed. More broadly, the oral transmission of the Bogomil teachings can be observed as one of the modi operandi that the Bogomils resorted to in the aim of propagating their ideas, as well as possibly their interpretative manner to approach the Scriptural material and parables.

La dimension sonore de l’écriture

Qu’est-ce qu’un roman dont l’écriture peut être qualifiée d’« antiraciste » ? Comment l’antiracisme s’inscrit-il dans le matériau scriptural d’une œuvre afin de faire entendre, dans la reformulation des énoncés du racisme ordinaire, la voix unique de celui qu’ils excluent ? Ces questions viennent immédiatement à l’esprit du lecteur qui tombe sur les premières pages d’Éboueur sur échafaud, roman d’Abdel Hafed Benotman publié en 2003. Ce récit d’enfance raconte l’histoire de Fafa, enfant de parents Algériens qui fait tout pour s’intégrer dans une société française qui l’exclut. Dans une perspective sociocritique, cet article interroge la langue, complexe et inventive, que Benotman invente à partir d’une socialité du « mal écrire » ou du « mésécrire ». Il a pour hypothèse centrale que la langue audacieuse de ce roman contemporain correspond à une langue aux origines multiples et donne forme à un rapport à la société et à la littérature foncièrement subjectif, dans lequel le lien social, fondé sur le racisme, se disloque pour faire apparaître l’immédiateté de sa violence et les exclusions dont il se paie.

Ezekiel 38–48: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary

Ezekiel 38–48: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary

The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus by Betsy Halpern-Amaru (review)

Reviewed by: The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus by Betsy Halpern-Amaru Zachary I. Levine Betsy Halpern-Amaru. The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 21. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015. 192 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000557 The bulk of Jubilees most immediately retells the narrative history of Genesis, and much of the scholarship on Jubilees has focused on the re-presentation of that material. Halpern-Amaru's topic—the exegesis and rewriting of Exodus narrative and law in Jubilees—is one that has been underresearched, and therefore a worthy endeavor from the outset. Her concentration on Exodus material provides a narrow set of case studies that imbue this book with a tight structure and focus. The case studies themselves cover a wide range of issues for the study of Jubilees. Above all, they show how the handling of material from both Genesis and Exodus are part of a coherent literary effort sustained across Jubilees as a unity. The first chapter treats the exegesis, rearrangement, and reworking of Exodus 19, 24, and 34 in the Prologue and Jubilees 1, unpacking both the literary/exegetical decisions behind the construction of Jubilees's text and how they serve to further construct the Mt. Sinai setting that "remains the constant present time throughout the angel narration" of Jubilees 2–50 (19). Chapters 2–5 focus on the representation of the "Egyptian epoch" (Exodus 1–15) in the narrative of Jubilees 46–49, each proving a different way in which Jubilees presents the "Genesis-Exodus past as a single continuous story" (21). Chapter 2 shows how the reworking of Exodus 1 in Jubilees 46—mainly, the "exegetically-rooted" "created epoch" of Amram at Hebron—fits into a larger scheme of periodization that encompasses the reworked material from Genesis in earlier chapters. (An intriguing segue explores the influence of 4Q Visions of Amram on Jubilees.) Chapter 3 shows how "scriptural material is manipulated" to create a "biography" [End Page 445] of Moses matching the same "ideal leader typology" developed in Jubilees's construction of "the personal histories of the antediluvian notables and the founding fathers of Israel" (49). Moses's biography echoes these earlier Genesis-era accounts, down to such details as the "danger-from-birds motif" signaling "the specter of Mastema's agency" (55). Discussion of divine, demonic, and human agency continues into chapter 4, which highlights how the representation of the plagues and liberation in Egypt "discloses the [divine] events 'behind the scenes'" of the Exodus text and Moses's personal human experience. Whereas Michael Segal "treats all passages that attribute the same activity to Mastema and to God as evidence of two stages of composition," Halpern-Amaru shows how Moses, Mastema, and the angels all "collaborate" and "contribute to the advancement" of God's providential redemption of the people (72, 79). Halpern-Amaru's implicit point—that the text's nuanced depictions of agency have been mistakenly labeled conceptually inconsistent—is an important one. For this reason, one would have expected engagement with Segal's source criticism beyond the footnotes. Similar assumptions regarding the mutual exclusivity of divine and human (and demonic) "agency" also fuel prevailing source-critical treatments of, for example, the Damascus Document (and, it may be noted, seem to characterize recent treatments of repentance in Jubilees in works by David Lambert and Ari Mermelstein). Had Halpern-Amaru been more direct with this point (or revisited it in a conclusion), its broader significance for the study of Jubilees and Second Temple literature would have been obvious. Chapter 5 looks at the narrative celebration of Pesaḥ/Maṣṣot and the effort to clarify and distinguish the eternal and one-time (Egypt-specific) nature of the holiday(s). Chapters 6 and 7 focus on Jubilees's reworking of Exodus legislation for Passover and the Sabbath, respectively. With these succinct but scrupulous treatments of legislation and "allusive exegesis," Halpern-Amaru conveys a fundamental truth about Jubilees, which I would paraphrase as follows: Jubilees not only reflects biblical exegesis (prior to composition), it demands its own serious exegesis and is meant to be studied. "[T]he wordiness, repetition and opacity...

Governance Egalitarianism in Jesus’ Teaching

Governance egalitarianism has been defined as a situation where all members of an organization have something approximating equal say in determining policy of the group. Nowadays, it is practiced mainly in worker cooperatives, and in some voluntary organizations, like amateur sports and recreation clubs. It has been alleged that Jesus encouraged governance egalitarianism within his movement, but this contention has been challenged. This paper revisits the matter, looks at earlier arguments, and examines scriptural material relevant to the issue. On the basis of reasssessing the arguments, and of Jesus’ alleged sayings and behavior as interpreted by Matthew, the conclusion is that Jesus did seek to mould a movement in which he expected his followers to practice governance egalitarianism among themselves. That people of different status coexisted within the Jesus movement does not tell against the conclusion. Nor do arguments that Jesus sought to foster this mode of governance in a patriarchical society undermine the judgment, although the role of women in the Jesus movement is not examined.

Revisiting the Dragon Princess: Her Role in Medieval Engi Stories and Their Implications in Reading the Lotus Sutra

This article examines how the Dragon Princess, one of the most celebrated characters in the Lotus Sutra, is represented in the noh drama Ama and the Heike Nokyo sutra set. By doing so, it debunks the prevailing consensus in understanding the Dragon Princess and her episode in the sutra, and illustrates a hitherto unnoticed intrinsic affinity between medieval Japanese engi stories and Buddhist scriptural narratives.KEYWORDS: Lotus Sutra-Dragon Princess-henjo nanshi-ryunyo jobutsu- Buddhism-gender and narrativity-Heike nokyo-ama (female diver)(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The Heike n?ky?, a twelfth-century set of thirty-three scriptural scrolls preserved at Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture, is one of the most sumptuous and elaborate examples of medieval Japanese illustrated Buddhist scriptural manuscripts. One of the scrolls, the "Devadatta" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, bears a frontispiece that features the Dragon Princess, the celebrated protagonist of the chapter (figure 1). The illustration is arguably the most sublime representation of the princess in visual art. Although recent studies of the Dragon Princess have made her famous for her sudden change of sex and transformation into a Buddha, the princess in the frontispiece simply offers her jewel to the Buddha. She shows no sign of physical metamorphosis. What sort of interpretive strategies are required to understand her act as represented in the frontispiece?Engi Literature and Buddhist Scriptural NarrativesThis article aims at illustrating an intrinsic affinity between medieval Japanese engi ... materials in textual, performative, and visual genres, and Buddhist scriptural materials. The prevailing consensus among scholars has long held that the term engi is an appropriation of the Buddhist doctrinal term "dependent co-origination" (Sk. prat?tyasa?utp?da), which is translated in the Chinese canon as innen sh?ki ... (Ch. yinyuan shengqi) and abbreviated in more common use as engi (Ch. yuanqi). However, the concept of dependent coorigination means that all things in the world are intrinsically neither rising nor ceasing; everything originates from its non-origin. Obviously such a philosophical idea would not accord well with medieval engi narratives, which are designed to account for the specific provenance of temples, shrines, or other sacred sites, the divinities worshipped there, and/or visual and material representations of those divinities.Although it is not as well known today, an alternative etymology links the word engi to another significant Buddhist term, namely, nid?na (Jp. nidana; Ch. nituona ...), which literally means origin (sho ....), provenance (hokki ...), cause (in ...), and original cause (shoin ...). More importantly for this article, nid?na is the name for one of the twelve categories of Buddhist scriptural discourse (Sk. dv?da???ga-dharma-pravacana; Ch. shierbujing; Jp. j?nibuky? ... or ...). Nid?na in this sense is translated more commonly as either engi or innen ... As a category of scriptural narratives, nid?na or engi consist of stories that aim at revealing the original cause of sermons delivered by the Buddha, vinaya rules he established, and strange and miraculous events caused or witnessed by him. In most cases, the origins of the events described are found in the former lives of the Buddha or his disciples in the distant past. In that regard, nid?na are closely linked to two other narrative categories in scriptural discourse, namely, j?taka (Ch. bensheng; Jp. honj? ...), stories of the Buddha's former lives; and itiv?ttaka (Ch. benshi; Jp. honji ...), stories of the former lives of the Buddha's disciples, both ordained and lay.1Because nid?na, j?taka, and itiv?ttaka are often employed as elaborate, didactic narrative figures within the scriptures, they often overlap with avad?na (Ch. piyu; Jp. hiyu ...), yet another narrative entity within the twelve categories, which consists of teaching by means of metaphors and parables. …

Bodies, selves, and human identity: A Conversation Between Transhumanism and the Apostle Paul

In this article I propose the initiation of a conversation between biblical interpreters and proponents of transhumanism. Transhumanists recognize that the rapid expansion of technological innovation is changing our understandings of human behavior, thinking, and physical makeup. The vitality of the post/transhumanism debate about human identity suggests that a “biblical conversation” should be part of a larger conversation not only with theologians, but also the social entities who will hold forth on the values of human/machine transformations. It becomes ever more clear that this debate about human identity will be a real issue in the near future since we will undoubtedly improve our technological capacities and geometrically increase our prosthetic capacities, leading to a possible conclusion that the body itself is best understood as a “prosthesis.” For better or worse, Scripture is and will be adduced on both sides of the debate and often in the form of proof-texting rather than actual consideration of the materials. So, it seems not only reasonable but necessary to reopen the idea of how scriptural materials conceive of the body–self relationship. This is happening in some quarters (e.g. Thweatt-Bates, Cyborg Selves), but the use of biblical materials is not particularly strong. Hence, the viability of this project. This is a first foray into that matter and Paul is a good starting place since the question of the human being as an embodied being occupies a place of importance in many of his letters, especially Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and 1 Thessalonians.

Blending Theology with Science: Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica and the Tradition of Vulgar Errors

This article investigates the nature of Thomas Browne’s method of scientific enquiry. It will make comparisons between Bacon’s experimental method and the theological and patristic traditions, with particular regard to the problem and definition of error. Browne was convinced that reason and faith, and nature and religion, were in a relation of cooperation, and shared not only the same origin but the same end, that of God and truth. In light of this, Browne’s use of mutually integrated theological and scientific sources is analyzed to shed some light on the problem of his idiosyncratic notion of experimentalism. The article ultimately attempts to demonstrate that Browne’s method for enquiry was indeed experimental because of the way he investigated theological issues through the collection of data from nature and traditional scriptural materials.

Kate Narveson Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing CultureBible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing Culture. Kate Narveson. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Pp. viii+235.

<i>Kate Narveson</i> Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing Culture<i>Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing Culture</i>. Kate Narveson. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Pp. viii+235.

Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon: Toward a Family Portrait

The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls provide a unique window into Second Temple Jewish literature and scriptural interpretation that is only beginning to gain sustained scholarly attention. A major question regarding these texts, and addressed preliminarily in this essay, is the extent to which they may constitute a coherent corpus of related works. Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon are two Aramaic compositions that have benefited from extensive individual analysis but have not been studied alongside each other. A close, comparative reading of both texts reveals a surprising correspondence in their topics of interest, scriptural source material, literary techniques, narrative structures, and idiom. These similarities suggest a close family resemblance between Tobit and the Apocryphon , which were likely written in the same or associated scribal circles during the early Hellenistic period. The relationship between these two texts makes a case for similar comparisons of other Aramaic scrolls and suggests a more tightly formed constellation of affiliated texts than has been previously recognized.

Review Article: Buddhist Sūtras in Sanskrit from the Potala

The recent publication of twenty shorter Buddhist sūtras in Sanskrit edited from a manuscript kept in the Potala Palace, with corresponding editions of Tibetan and Chinese translations, when available, is a noteworthy contribution to our inventory of Indian scriptural materials. The present contribution offers several suggestions for improvement to the edited texts in anticipation of their further future study.

Genres of Conscience in Greenes Vision, the Groatsworth of Wit, and The Repentance of Robert Greene

The bewildering variety of genres present in Robert Greene’s repentance pamphlets provide markedly different vocal environments in which the first-person narrators of these works speak. As the discourse of conscience penetrates Greene’s textual persona in successive genres of the pamphlets, a sense of mutual entanglement envelops the voices of conscience and ‘Greene.’ The rich scriptural, devotional, documentary, and literary material underwriting the generic diversity of the pamphlets modulates the competing claims that ‘Greene’ and conscience make on the narrator’s voice. In some cases, these modulations provide much latitude for Greene’s persona to speak; in other instances, they work to restrict ‘Greene’ by yoking the narrator’s voice to recited idioms of confessional prayer or to comparably restrictive formal features of precept or lament which lay claim to a type of traditionally sourced authority for the voice of conscience in the pamphlets. Ultimately, however, the dependence of conscience on assorted textual features that are mediated by genre is part of a larger bibliographic orientation to conscience in the pamphlets. Through it, the pamphlets expose how dependent written accounts of conscience are on the textual qualities that give conscience voice but also frequently change with genre.

Biblical Predictions of the Prophet Muĥammad among the Zaydīs of Iran*

Abstract Biblical predictions of the advent of the Prophet Muĥammad are rarely adduced in the theological writings of Muʿtazilite authors and those who referred to them clearly considered this to be a secondary strategy at best. Zaydī Muʿtazilites were less hesitant than their Sunnī counterparts to employ scriptural materials. This was possibly due to the influence of the Imām al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm al-Rassī (d. 246/860) who was intimately familiar with Christian theological notions and with the Bible, from which he quoted freely in some of his writings. Among the Zaydīs of Iran, scriptural passages allegedly foretelling the advent of Muĥammad have been adduced by the Imām al-Muʾayyad bi-Llāh (d. 411/1020), by his companion, the later Imām al-Muwaffaq bi-Llāh (d. after 420/1029), and by Aĥmad b. Muĥammad al-Sammān (fl. early 5th/11th century). An analysis of the texts suggests that the three authors were drawing on source(s)/translation traditions preceding or parallel to that of ʿAlī b. Rabban al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 251/865) al-Dīn wa-l-dawla and Ibn Qutayba’s (d. 276/889) Aʿlām al-nubuwwa.

AUTHORITY AND PIETY, WRITING AND PRINT: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE CIRCULATION OF ISLAMIC TEXTS IN LATE NINETEENTH- AND EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ZANZIBAR

ABSTRACTThis article is a preliminary discussion of the circulation of textual material in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Zanzibar. Three main contentions are made in the article. First, that this corpus of texts constituted a public sphere that was intimately connected with the western Indian Ocean, primarily Arabia, but with branches to Egypt where much of the material was printed. Second, that the transition from manuscript mode of transmission to printed texts upheld the same principles for circulation. Finally, the article also points to how the use of this scriptural material as a basis for Islamic learning was expanded into new types of reading, reference, interpretation and copying. The article examines cases from Zanzibar, both manuscripts and printed books, from the point of view of the lifespan of the texts.

Another Dodecade: A Dialectic Model of the Decentred Universe of Jeremiah Studies 1996—2008

In the years since the publication of Robert Carroll’s ‘Surplus Meaning and the Conflict of Interpretations: A Dodecade of Jeremiah Studies (1984—95)’, in Currents 4 in 1996, major paradigm shifts in biblical studies have resulted in an unprecedented level of innovation. Increased engagements with the element of chaos in the text and the resultant innovative encounters with this problematic scriptural material include influential contributions from philosophy, cultural and literary theories. The present review surveys the current state of the field of Jeremiah studies by tracing the impact of post-structuralist methodologies of decentring on ways of thinking about and engaging with Jeremiah. It argues that in the aftermath of the widely acknowledged end of the hegemony of historical-criticism as the dominant paradigm of biblical interpretation articulated by Perdue as ‘the collapse of history’, Jeremiah studies has taken on the shape and nature of a dialectic between the principles of order and chaos.

Once Tortured, Forever Tortured: Testimony and Autobiography in Jacob Rosenberg’s East of Time and Sunrise West

It is often assumed that Testimony and Autobiography are clearly distinct genres. On this view Testimony conveys eye-witness reports of particular tragic events, whether momentary or of longer duration (e.g. years in a concentration camp), while Autobiography is seen as more chronologically extended and more introspective. However, since many Holocaust narratives incorporate “testimony” into a larger lifenarrative which, among other things, traces the psychological effects of trauma in later years, it seems reasonable to see Testimony, at least in some instances, as an aspect of Autobiography. As always, such generic markers should be seen as heuristic indicators, not as inflexible taxonomic categories. Most serious writers agentially deploy, develop and combine generic possibilities. One such writer is Jacob G. Rosenberg, Australia's finest Jewish autobiographer and a world class figure in Holocaust writing. Born into a Bundist family in Lodz in 1922, Rosenberg is the author of two award-winning autobiographical volumes, East of Time (2005) and Sunrise West (2007), that narrate his life in the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and Ebensee, and Australia. His is a hybrid art fusing scriptural and folk materials with influences from Yiddish literature and Western modernity. His signature technique -- the imaginatively charged vignette -- is equally attuned to the description of horror and of redemptive, sometimes visionary, enchantment. Though the psychological dimension of his writing owes more to Yiddish sources than to Freudian modernity, his tracing of trauma's aftermath down the years constitutes full-blown autobiographical writing which powerfully incorporates and extends the act of testimony. Rosenberg writes: “Once you have been tortured, you are forever tortured.”

Scripture in Pauline Theology: How Far Down Does It Go?

Abstract Paul's scriptural interpretation is fundamentally important for the development of Christian readings of (what would come to be called) the "Old Testament." The question is how important scripture really is for his own theology; a long tradition of Pauline interpreters have regarded its importance as fairly minimal. This essay presents a critique of the "minimalist" case, which argues, first, that scriptural citation is for Paul merely a rhetorical strategy intended to reinforce his own apostolic authority; second, that he cites proof texts with little regard for their original contexts; and third, that his scriptural interpretation is predetermined by his own prior theological convictions. In opposition to these claims, it is argued here that the rhetorical dimension of citation is compatible with issues of theological substance; that individual citations can serve to represent larger blocks of scriptural material; and that Paul's theological convictions are themselves codetermined by his scriptural interpretation. Even as an apostle, Paul learns things from scripture that he would not know without it.

Scripture in Pauline Theology: How Far Down Does It Go?

Abstract Paul's scriptural interpretation is fundamentally important for the development of Christian readings of (what would come to be called) the "Old Testament." The question is how important scripture really is for his own theology; a long tradition of Pauline interpreters have regarded its importance as fairly minimal. This essay presents a critique of the "minimalist" case, which argues, first, that scriptural citation is for Paul merely a rhetorical strategy intended to reinforce his own apostolic authority; second, that he cites proof texts with little regard for their original contexts; and third, that his scriptural interpretation is predetermined by his own prior theological convictions. In opposition to these claims, it is argued here that the rhetorical dimension of citation is compatible with issues of theological substance; that individual citations can serve to represent larger blocks of scriptural material; and that Paul's theological convictions are themselves codetermined by his scriptural interpretation. Even as an apostle, Paul learns things from scripture that he would not know without it.

Literary and Historical Studies in the Samuel Apocryphon (4Q160)

4Q160 is a fragmentary text first published in 1968 under the title ‘The Vision of Samuel’. Following a new translation of the text and clarification of its basic contents, this study seeks to identify 4Q160’s proper literary classification and genre. Careful attention is paid to the relationship of 4Q160 to the scriptural text and story of Samuel and the often repeated classification of 4Q160 as ‘rewritten Bible’. This study then addresses the literary function of employing Samuel as the text’s pseudepigraphic voice. The final part of the article explores what can be learned about the historical context and date of the text’s composition. Based on paleographical evidence, references to earlier scriptural material and possible internal historical allusions, this study argues that the text was composed in the second half of the second century BCE.