Hebrew Text Research Articles

The Annotated Passover Haggadah ed. by Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson

Reviewed by: The Annotated Passover Haggadah ed. by Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson Joshua Schwartz zev garber and kenneth hanson (eds.), The Annotated Passover Haggadah (Denver, CO: Global Center for Religious Research, 2021). Pp. xiv + 350. Paper $14.99. Both Judaism and Christianity have roots in Passover, but Jews and Christians think about and relate to the festival differently. For Jews it is usually a festival of freedom from slavery, recalling the Exodus from Egypt as well as a time of introspection about that freedom. It was and is a family festival but also recalls its pilgrimage nature in the past. For Christians, it is associated with the last week in the life of Jesus in Jerusalem. In spite of these differences, there are some points of possible intersection between Jewish and Christian Passover beliefs and practices. One of these, for example, was the Passover seder and recitation of the haggadah, and the Last Supper of Jesus, whether the Last Supper was or was not actually a Passover seder. Seder and Last Supper was the topic of a session of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew at the SBL conference in 2018 and this served as the impetus for this book. The editors, Zev Garber, an Orthodox Jew by birth and practice and Kenneth Hanson, an Evangelical Christian by birth and a Conservative Jew by conversion, have long been involved in ecumenical academic dialogue, making Judaism and Christianity comprehensible to Jews and Christians, pointing out the elements and beliefs common to both religions as well as those that are different. The book is divided into two parts. The first part is the actual Passover haggadah with a Hebrew text, English translation, and a short paragraph commentary. In spite of the fact that there have been numerous translations and commentaries in the last few years, the editors provide in their brief commentary important analytical, philosophical, and theological [End Page 521] perspectives, especially on long overlooked sections of the haggadah. Explanatory notes stress Jewish values and concepts but also those that are intrinsically universal, uniting an assortment of religious traditions and practices. The backdrop in this part is basically in keeping with traditional Jewish law and custom. Interspersed between text and commentary are a number of excursuses by the editors on matters directly relevant to the haggadah, such as the moral sense of the ten plagues (G.), the redemption of the firstborn (G.) and the image of Elijah (H.) the prophet, invited into the seder. The final excursus by an editor (H.) is a brief (pp. 134–43) but brilliant discussion of the Last Supper of Jesus, as to whether it existed or had a connection to the Passover meal, and whether eucharistic elements were components of the Passover meal. Was the Last Supper a seder or a Pauline-inspired messianic banquet? The second part of the book is composed of seventeen "stand-alone" essays on biblical, historical, historical-philosophical, theological, liturgical, anthropological, and aesthetic elements of Passover and the haggadah impacting Judaism and Christianity. The essays on Judaism are from representatives of different branches of Judaism and from different gender frames of reference, touching on sometimes similar topics from a vast array of perspectives. The essays are the following: "Eucharist and Seder: What Should the Simple Scholar Say?," by Peter Zaas; "Inserting Shoah at the Traditional Passover Seder: Interpreting Anew the Five Cups, and What Would Jesus Say?," by Zev Garber; "Sample Haggadot and Sedarim," by Nathan Harpaz; "Romaniote and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) Passover Haggadah: Excerpts and Related Customs," by Yitzchak Kerem; "A Chassidisher Pesach: Passover Traditions and Insights from Chassidic Perspectives," by Diane Mizrahi; "Why Is This Haggadah Different? Haggadot in the Non-orthodox Movements," by Annette Boeckler; "Re-arranging Things at the Table for an Isolated and Peculiar Jewish Community at the Bottom of the World," by Norman Simms; "Select Haggadah and Exodus Topics," by William Krieger; "Exodus to Leviticus to Haggadah: The Dynamism of Torahistic Law," by Jonathan Arnold, Esq.; "The Memory of God and the Blindness of Humanity: The Four Children," by Leonard Greenspoon; "The Dawn of the Jewish Woman: Marginalization, Liberation, and the Exodus," by Roberta Sabbath; "Haggadah, Shoah, and the Exigency of the Holy...

Angela Costley. Creation and Christ: An Exploration of the Topic of Creation in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Angela Costley. <i>Creation and Christ: An Exploration of the Topic of Creation in the Epistle to the Hebrews</i>

Play Time: Gender, Anti-Semitism and Temporality in Medieval Biblical Drama

Play Time: Gender, Anti-Semitism and Temporality in Medieval Biblical Drama

The Old Testament for a Complex World: How the Bible's Dynamic Testimony Points to New Life for the Church by Cameron B. R. Howard

Reviewed by: The Old Testament for a Complex World: How the Bible's Dynamic Testimony Points to New Life for the Church by Cameron B. R. Howard Reed Lessing cameron b. r. howard, The Old Testament for a Complex World: How the Bible's Dynamic Testimony Points to New Life for the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021). Pp. ix + 142. Paper $17.49. Cameron Howard explores how to connect critical biblical scholarship with the needs of today's church. In three case studies, the author demonstrates how her interpretive strategies point a way forward for a Christian application of Israel's Scriptures. H. sets out to answer this ongoing dilemma for all who study Israel's texts: "In a world that changes by the minute, what good is the study of the Old Testament?" (p. 1). The author believes that uncovering how the Hebrew texts evolved—along with the different perspectives that shaped them—holds the key for making Israel's ancient story relevant. Undergirding H.'s methodology is the belief that OT scribes "took existing texts, themes, and even theological assumptions and reworked them to meet the needs of a new day" (p. 9). H. eschews the viewpoint that Israel's oracles were "set in stone," which misses this key interpretive insight; later generations updated, modified, and changed earlier texts. "The more we emphasize the singularity of the Bible without acknowledging and affirming the multiplicity within it, the more we risk overlooking elements of Scripture that can broaden and deepen our knowledge of God" (p. 13). Harmonizing textual differences, therefore, obscures divergent voices, and this, in turn, hampers the church from fully appropriating the biblical message. Flattening the Bible into a single coherent narrative overlooks this inner dynamic of the OT. It is a collection of books with different perspectives, theologies, and ideologies that often go unresolved. [End Page 485] Howard employs several metaphors to describe her approach. The first is to compare the Hebrew Scriptures to a musical remix, a process that takes older songs and tweaks them for today's audience. Remixing music does not seek fundamentally to change things. Instead, it looks to make music more contemporary, more relatable. Just so, OT scribes remixed earlier traditions so as to make them more relevant and applicable—putting a new spin on what was old. Additionally, H. holds that—metaphorically speaking—the OT is less like a list of directions and more like a set of painted landscapes intended to ignite readers' imaginations. With her methodology clearly and compellingly defined, H. proceeds to examine the genres of flood and court stories—paying special attention to Genesis 6–9 and Genesis 37–50, Daniel 1–6, and the Book of Esther. She presents studied reflections on pertinent ancient Near Eastern texts, thus demonstrating how Israel's tradents adapted new ways of storytelling for the purpose of conveying divine truth in their current context. In this way, "we are alerted to the Bible's many inherent multiplicities and the broadness of its thought, making us better equipped to discern for our own contexts what constitutes biblically informed innovation" (p. 65). Howard's chapter on worship highlights the Book of Ezekiel and its propensity to describe God using similes (e.g., "something like a dome," "something like a human form"). "The glory of God is at once too dazzling to comprehend and too faithful to shake off" (p. 81). Just as Ezekiel modified previous notions of God's presence in worship while living through Judah's cataclysmic events in the six century b.c.e., H. encourages the church to "reimagine new possibilities when the order of the world as we know it begins to crack" (p. 83). The chapter on Hebrew poetry reiterates H.'s theme—the OT cannot be controlled, contained, and placed into a monolithic doctrinal system. The cumulative effect of poetry is to "show" rather than "tell." It bursts the bounds of reason and logic and imagines what prose often cannot. Israel's poets present readers with tensions and contradictions that, H. maintains, furthers her thesis. "We have much to learn not only from the words they wrote but also from the struggles that gave life...

Rembrandt – Biblical Interpreter

Aim. This article seeks to show that Rembrandt is the most profound, comprehensive and reliable interpreter – not an illustrator – of the Old Testament: "His ability… makes him one of the great visual interpreters of Scripture… a theologian not by academic degree but in his very nature” (Parker, 1994, p. 28). It is the purpose of this article to demonstrate the acute difference between Rembrandt’s depictions of Old Testament events and those by other artists who merely converted the overtly stated text in the Holy Bible into the visual medium. Methods. The case for claiming that Rembrandt interpreted rather than merely depicted the Old Testament will be made by analysing five of his works and the comparison to others portraying the same events. Rembrandt’s unique methods and techniques such as adding or omitting certain figures or details, using chiaroscuro extensively and deviating from expected iconography will be demonstrated as he unearths the core significance of each event. Results. This article manifests how Rembrandt whose production of artwork relating to Old Testament scenes was prolific did not merely depict Old Testament scenes but rather interpreted the deeper, psychological meanings of the subjects involved and events portrayed, exhibiting a profound understanding of the messages in the original Hebrew text. Conclusion. The article unfolds Rembrandt’s significant artistic accomplishments surpassing those who preceded or succeeded him. It reveals the different means he used in each painting expressing its high point according to Old Testament interpretation rather than through the prism of the New Testament.

Intertestamental, Apocrypha, NT Use: Qumran

Intertestamental, Apocrypha, NT UseQumran William J. Urbrock and Christopher T. Begg William J. Urbrock University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America 1604. [DSS] Anonymous, "New Scrolls from the Judean Desert," BARev 47 (2, 2021) 17. Some parchment fragments dated to the 2nd century c.e., featuring Greek translations of the Books of Zechariah and Nahum, were recently recovered from the so-called Cave of Horrors. Photo-illustrated.—W.J.U. Google Scholar 1605. [The Origins of the Qumran Sect] Bezalel Bar-Kochva, "The Beginnings of the Qumran Sect: A Proposed Identification of Its Founders and the Circumstances of Its Formation," Zion 86 (3, 2021) 425-79 (Hebrew). My article treats the long-debated question of who founded the Qumran sect and what were the circumstances of its formation. Basing myself on data from the DSS, 1 Maccabees, and Josephus in my first section, I attempt to determine when the sect was formed. I propose that this happened between 170 and 166 b.c.e., during the period of the forced Hellenization of Judea, more specifically during the time of the religious decrees of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Section two addresses the genealogical attribution of the sect's founders by analyzing the mentions of the Sons of Zadok in the DSS. I agree with those who hold that this name was not simply a symbolic designation but rather reflects the genealogical origin of the sect's leadership group from the family of the "Sons of Zadok," who for generations held the office of high priest down to Antiochus's days. Section three treats the scattered [End Page 576] references in the Damascus Document to the severe sin of the sect's founders. I reject the theological explanations that have been advanced concerning the nature of their misconduct, such as their "innate sin," and argue that the sin(s) in question were actual, concrete misdeeds, either in the realm of human interaction or in the human–divine relationship, or sins involving ritual or sexual impurity. On the basis of the data presented in the first section, my final section seeks to identify the sect's founders, via a focus on events that occurred in Jerusalem in the years between 170 and 166 b.c.e. Through a process of elimination, I conclude that the founders of the sect were a tiny group of priests from the Sons of Zadok family who were part of the moderate Hellenizing faction and who fled from Jerusalem after Jason was deposed in 168 b.c.e. from his position as high priest. The group found refuge in the desert, where its members underwent a lengthy process of repentance which led them to embark on a path of extreme halakhic stringency. In an afterword, I briefly discuss the implications of my proposed identification of the group's founders for the understanding of the halakhot and customs of the group, in particular its overall halakhic rigidity and the ascetic aspects of its praxis. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 1606. [The DJD Series] Devorah Dimant, "Sixty Years of Publications on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Discoveries in the Judean Desert in Perspective," Hebrew Texts and Language, 52-78 [see #1691]. D.'s account of the DJD series unfolds under two main headings: (1) History of the Project (with subdivisions The Early Years [1948–1960], The Interim Period [1961–1990], and The Concluding Period [1990–2010]); and (2) The DJD Series in Perspective, subtitled Format and Contents. Her survey concludes with a listing of the titles, editors, and dates of all 40 of the DJD volumes. See also #1252.—C.T.B. Google Scholar 1607. [Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah] Jonathan Kaplan, "Putting 'the Torah' Back into 'the Book of Moses' in Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah: a new proposed reconstruction of 4Q397 14-21 6," JSP 30 (4, 2021) 228-31. In this article, I build upon observations by Émile Puech regarding the available space in 4Q397 14-21 6, one of the manuscripts of Miqṣat Maʿaśe ha-Torah (MTT), in order to propose an alternative reconstruction...

The Prophets

The Prophets Atilla Bodor and Christopher T. Begg Atilla Bodor The Biblicum Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America 1751. [Peshitta of Isaiah] Attila Bodor, The Theological Profile of the Peshitta of Isaiah (Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible 5; Leiden: Brill, 2021). Pp. xvi + 245. €108. ISBN 978-90-04-46903-7. B.'s monograph explores theological elements in the Book of Isaiah as represented in the Peshitta translation. After a review of previous research and a description of his own research method, B. analyzes sixty-three interpretative renderings in Peshitta Isaiah involving a particular theological view of God, the Messiah, and the people of God. The book discusses both the origin and theological implications of these interpretative renderings, showing that the Peshitta's divergences from the Hebrew text often have an impact on its interpretation and reception of these main Isaianic themes. The book concludes with a brief [End Page 639] excursus addressing the question of the origin of the Peshitta of Isaiah. Here B. argues that the translation originated in a Jewish background, but the interpretative renderings studied do not reveal any details about the translator's religious tradition. The book includes three indexes (modern authors; ancient sources; and passages analyzed).—A.B. Google Scholar 1752. [Isaiah 29] Boris Lazzaro, Isaia l'oscuro. Forme dell'oscurità linguistica isaiana e storia della loro recezione nell'attestazione di Is 29 (Analecta Biblica 231; Rome: G&B Press, 2020). Pp. 370. Paper €36. ISBN 978-88-7653-733-2. The style of Isaiah often lends itself to paradox, irony, and ambiguity. It is an obscure style which might well condemn ancient and modern recipients to incomprehension and hardening (see Isa 6:10 and 29:9-12). Integrating synchronic and diachronic considerations, L.'s study, his Biblicum doctorate directed by Peter Dubovský, S.J., and defended by him June 2018, investigates this aspect of Isaiah's language, exploring its concrete forms of expression as well as the impact it may have had on later tradition that crystallized in the scriptural corpus. While not ignoring the multiple marks of obscurity in the whole of Isaiah 1–39, L. focuses on a segment of this material where the above feature is especially marked, i.e., chap. 29, a passage which is, in fact, often cited for its enigmatic, contradictory, and ambiguous character. As a whole, chap. 29 thus represents a paradigmatic case of Isaianic obscurity in terms of factors that generated this, the forms in which it finds expression, the marks it left in the later tradition, and finally in the sense of strangeness which it continues to produce on readers. L.'s investigation highlights the controverted reception of the prophet's poetic expressivity, alternating as it does between acceptance and transcendence of the paradoxes of its mode of communication. At the same time, the study presents a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon of Isaianic obscurity, and in so doing calls attention to the poetic function of the prophet's ambiguity, irony, and peculiar use of metaphor. [Translated and adapted from published abstract] L.'s study consists of an introduction, followed by three main parts entitled respectively: (1) "prolegomena," with its two chapters, the obscurity of a prophet: bases of the phenomenon and history of research, and Isaiah 29: text and structure; (2) the sealed book (Isa 29:11-12) also made up of two chapters (an ancient scribal dispute and ambiguity and irony of a metaphor [Isa 29:11-12]); and (3) the obscurity of Isaiah 29 (featuring two chapters as well: coefficients and factors of obscurity in Isaiah 29 and the obscurity of Isaiah in diachronic perspective). Following a conclusion, the volume is rounded off by an appendix that deals with the treatment of Isaiah 29 by Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, and Cornelius a Lapide, C. Vitringa, and R. Lowth, a multi-segment bibliography, and three indexes: authors, passages, and general.—C.T.B. Google Scholar Copyright © 2022 The Catholic Biblical Association of America

τὸ δικαίωμα ἔμπροσθεν ἐν τῷ Ἰσραήλ (Ruth 4:7): An analysis of the Greek rendering of the Hebrew legal aspects in Ruth 4:7 for characterising the Greek translator’s translation technique

Being a literal and relatively precise translation of the Hebrew text, the Septuagint (LXX) of the book of Ruth attests divergences or variants in relation to the Masoretic text (MT) in the details of the text. These variants, if not inconsistent or linked to a different Hebrew Vorlage, could be explained as a translator’s choice to promote clarity, add a particular nuance or introduce innovation at the narrative level of the text. This is, for instance, the case in the legal process that runs through the fourth chapter of the book. Amongst all of the legal aspects illustrated in Ruth 4, this contribution presents a case study, focusing on the interjection in Ruth 4:7 that explains the legal custom. After analysing the equivalence between the Hebrew text and its Greek rendering, this article offers several new insights aimed to produce a more nuanced characterisation of the translation technique of the Greek translator of the LXX-Ruth and a clearer understanding of the nuances, innovations and specificities of the LXX-Ruth.Contribution: This article contributes to the ‘Focus and Scope’ of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies because it deals with both the textual history of the Bible – more precisely, with its process of translation from Hebrew into Greek – and the exegesis of the LXX. Indeed, it highlights new insights into the translation technique of the Greek translator of the LXX-Ruth and on the nuances, innovations and specificities of the LXX-Ruth.

Mendidik Perilaku Koruptif Berdasarkan Ibrani 13:5

The focus of this research is on corruption as a global and serious problem that causes unrest in various parts of the world. The impact is so serious and dangerous for the existence of a nation that it attracts a lot of attention and efforts to deal with it. Amid these efforts, this study aims to provide an ethical-theological offer and answer to educate corrupt behavior by referring to the text of Hebrews 13:5. The method used in this research is a literature research and hermeneutic study. The result of this research is that to prevent corrupt behaviour, character education is needed as a step to form good behaviour. In addition, efforts are needed to cultivate satisfaction to avoid greed that has the potential to encourage acts of corruption. This research offers a God-centered education as an ethical-theological basis that guarantees the fullness of human life and allows a person not to behave corruptly.

An Army Like Goats: A Semantic and Zoological Reconsideration of 1 Kings 20:27

Abstract This article examines the tendencies surrounding 1 Kgs 20:27 and ultimately proposes an alternative translation for and understanding of the phrase כִּשְׁנֵי חֲשִׂפֵי עִזִּים. We open with a survey of major English translations and commentary by salient interpreters to emphasize tendencies associated with the passage. We then examine the grammar and semantics of the passage in conjunction with ancient translations in order to highlight a disconnect between the translations and the Hebrew text. We then evaluate a proposal from Amitai Baruchi-Unna and argue that while he properly considers behavioral traits of the genus Capra to explain the imagery of 1 Kgs 20:27, his proposal is ultimately deficient. In response, we consider the phrase כִּשְׁנֵי חֲשִׂפֵי עִזִּים in conjunction with specific behaviors and physiological characteristics of certain species within the genus Capra. We propose that the description of the Israelite army may recall specific behaviors and characteristics of rutting male goats.

Images and Ideas of Debated Readings in the Book of Lamentations. By Gideon R. Kotzé

This volume was birthed out of a lecture series given by Gideon R. Kotzé in 2017 at the Institut für Altes Testament at the University of Leipzig. Its chief aim is to re-examine perpetual text-critical queries concerning Hebrew texts of the book of Lamentations in the light of images and ideas in the wider ancient Near Eastern context. In doing so, Kotzé provides a helpful aggregation of previously proposed solutions to debated texts in Lamentations. However, he is committed to attempting first to make sense of the given text by consulting cultural products of the ancient Near East, thus, setting aside suggested emendations on the basis of a number of ‘guiding presuppositions for the explanation of debated readings’ that are outlined in chapter 1. For example, he holds more confidence than has characteristically been held in modernity by biblical scholars in the possibility that seemingly impenetrable texts were intelligible to ancient audiences even if remaining mysterious to modern readers (p. 10).

Renderings of paronymous infinitive constructions in OG Exodus and implications for defining the character of the translation

This article gives insight into the world of 3rd century BCE Alexandrian Judaism by analysing one aspect of the Greek translation of Exodus and provides a detailed evaluation of the way the translator managed to express the essence of the Hebrew text of Exodus while reflecting to some degree the form of the Hebrew text. No previous study only analyses this translator’s treatment of Hebrew paronymous infinitive absolute constructions in Greek Exodus. This research contributes to the preparation of a commentary on Greek Exodus in the Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint Commentary Series. Using the Göttingen text of Greek Exodus prepared by John William Wevers, it evaluates how this translator rendered each occurrence of a paronymous infinitive absolute construction in Hebrew Exodus, defining the primary modes employed and also seeking to explain variations from these norms. The primary method incorporates a close exegetical reading of both the Hebrew and Greek texts and comparing their texts, in order to discern how the translator treated this Hebrew idiom and illustrating his translation approach.Contribution: The results contribute to our understanding of how the translator of Greek Exodus approached his task. He was more concerned to express the sense of the Hebrew text, than producing a literal translation. He generally follows the Hebrew text’s word order, but is creative in his choice of Greek equivalents, often showing sensitivity to context and Greek idiom. This translation approach differentiates this translator’s approach somewhat from those responsible for other portions of the Pentateuch.

Die Theologie der Septuaginta / The Theology of the Septuagint

Die Theologie der Septuaginta / The Theology of the Septuagint

1 and 2 Samuel

This replacement volume in the Tyndale commentary series by V. Philips Long offers a much lengthier (by nearly 200 pages) and more advanced scholarly treatment of 1–2 Samuel replacing Joyce Baldwin’s 1988 320-page earlier contribution, which was an excellent volume itself, albeit perhaps overly brief as per the previous approach of the Tyndale series. Long shows his penchant for close readings of the narrative texts of Samuel throughout this volume, including his approach to characters and characterizations as is seen in his treatments, for example, of characters such as Samuel, Saul, David, and Yahweh. While Long provides only transliterations of the Hebrew text (along with translations of such), these are far more extensive than the previous edition and could challenge readers not trained in Hebrew, even in transliterated form. The use of transliterations is a curious feature of many OT commentaries seeking a mediating position between usability and critical discussions.One of the helpful features that Long provides in his reading of 1–2 Samuel is tracing his proposed central theological theme across the books of Samuel: kbd “glory, weightiness, honor” (pp. 27–29). This thematic element helps to stitch together the many stories in the ways they are told, extending and integrating the lexical range of kbd. While there may be quibbles about potential theological themes that are in focus across these books, this approach still takes seriously the ways in which the final form of the text makes use of this element without suggesting it is the only one (p. 23). It provides a helpful, fresh reading of the texts as Long notes ways it informs the shape of the stories.Further, Long’s careful attention to notions of character and characterization assists his readings of these texts beginning with an introduction to some of the issues in the introduction (pp. 13–23). This approach allows for a contrastive reading against and benefiting from other such readings that may, for instance, depict Saul as either undone by Samuel despite his best efforts or a witless buffoon who can never seem to do anything correctly according to the editor. Long sees such readings as “revisionist” (pp. 16–17) and proposes a more complex characterization, suggesting the text is “at best, ambivalent” about the character of Saul through many of the early stories of Saul (pp. 127–28).Various critical discussions are offered throughout the commentary that have likely contributed to this much longer replacement volume. While the primary base text for the commentary is the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT), Long follows many other commentators in allowing for each individual text critical issue to be dealt with on its own basis of external and internal criteria for evaluation and proposed reading (see pp. 23–25 for his brief explanation of this.) As part of these processes, Long proposes and engages a number of textual emendations to the MT, which is not surprising given the state of the MT for 1–2 Samuel (e.g., pp. 45, 126–27, 152–53, 158–59, 176–78, 274).Another of his contributions to critical discussions of 1–2 Samuel pertains to attenuation to proposed literary structures and cues as a means of hearing the texts in relation to one another. While he notes ways, for instance, that Mephibosheth’s claims in support of David seem more likely than the counterclaims of Ziba (2 Sam 19:24–30), Long seems to miss the canonical shaping which allows the reader to hear this incident backward in light of the revealing decision of Solomon’s wisdom (1 Kgs 3), though only the later narrative voice indicates the right choice, and the Samuel narrative voice does not (pp. 425–28).This contribution to the Tyndale series points in a more nuanced and critical direction than the earlier volumes of the Tyndale series. Long provides depth of engagement in numerous critical examinations of the text and the history relative to the text of 1–2 Samuel. This work may move some parts beyond usefulness for the less educated pastor and layperson but will certainly help students and more academically geared ministers and laypersons toward understanding the text and its many nuanced complications. But this volume is still a welcome update as a potential replacement volume for the earlier Baldwin contribution. The expanded nature of Long’s contribution and the constructive and critical readings throughout provide the interpreter a welcome hearing overall of the texts of 1–2 Samuel that will provide useful tools for a more advanced study of the texts in preaching, teaching, and writing.

예언자의 위상과 정중 어법 ― 열왕기하 5:1-19 나아만 치료 사건을 중심으로 ―

2 Kings 5 is an interesting text in which a Syrian general is eventually cured of his disease with the help of several characters. There are at least 10 characters of various classes, ranging from a young girl to the king of Syria. The differences in social status between the characters are largely determined by the positions they hold. Titles such as king, general, and servant clearly state their place in society at the time. And the low-status person is expressing his humble attitude through the strategy of lowering himself to a servant and calling the other my lord. Social status is a relative concept. General Naaman is in a higher position than his servants, but in front of the king, he is just a servant. Naaman calls the king of Syria master and lowers himself as servant.<BR> In cases where the differences in status are not clear and are somewhat ambiguous, attention should be paid to the translation of the Bible. A typical case occurs in the relationship between a prophet and a king or between a prophet and a high-ranking official. In the text of this study, the relationship between the king of Syria and the king of Israel, or the dialogue between Elisha and Naaman can be translated in various ways depending on interpretation.<BR> The biblical text leaves several marks showing the difference in status between the characters. When Bible translators translate based on these marks, the message of the text will be delivered more clearly. This study intends both to point out how well the Korean Bible reflects the character’s utterances that are used according to the differences in their status and situations as revealed in the Hebrew text, and if there are any shortcomings, to suggest alternatives.<BR> First of all, it will depend on whether you want to give a more realistic representation of the social hierarchy that prevailed in ancient society, or whether you want to give more value to mutual respect like the people of today. The translation proposed by the present author tried to harmonize between these two positions, but is only a provisional, first step for further discussion and research. Above all, I remained on the suggesting a translation that focuses on honorifics in this study, and expect a translation reflecting more diverse politeness strategies to emerge in subsequent studies.

Zwei neuerschlossene Dokumente zur Frühgeschichte der Juden in Eslohe

Abstract In the chronicle of the Catholic parish of Eslohe in Westphalia there are two Hebrew manuscripts that have not yet been edited or researched. Both provide a glimpse on religious life in a small Ashkenazi Jewish community at the end of the 18th century. One manuscript, dated March 9, 1800, contains the answer written by a certain Simon ben Eljakum on behalf of Joseph Friedländer from Padberg to a request from Jacob Zander from Eslohe regarding the creation of a mikveh, i. e. a ritual immersion bath. The second Hebrew manuscript, dated September 2, 1796, contains the text of a Hebrew eulogy that begins with a song that is sung in Jewish homes on Friday evening after dinner and begins with the Hebrew words zamah nafschi l'elohim (= my soul thirsts for God). Both manuscripts are examined and commented on here for the first time. In the appendix follows a complete transcription of both Hebrew (and partly also Yiddish) texts as well as a translation into German.

Toward a Period-specific Optimized Neural Network for OCR Error Correction of Historical Hebrew Texts

Over the past few decades, large archives of paper-based historical documents, such as books and newspapers, have been digitized using the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Unfortunately, this broadly used technology is error-prone, especially when an OCRed document was written hundreds of years ago. Neural networks have shown great success in solving various text processing tasks, including OCR post-correction. The main disadvantage of using neural networks for historical corpora is the lack of sufficiently large training datasets they require to learn from, especially for morphologically rich languages like Hebrew. Moreover, it is not clear what are the optimal structure and values of hyperparameters (predefined parameters) of neural networks for OCR error correction in Hebrew due to its unique features. Furthermore, languages change across genres and periods. These changes may affect the accuracy of OCR post-correction neural network models. To overcome these challenges, we developed a new multi-phase method for generating artificial training datasets with OCR errors and hyperparameters’ optimization for building an effective neural network for OCR post-correction in Hebrew. To evaluate the proposed approach, a series of experiments using several literary Hebrew corpora from various periods and genres were conducted. The obtained results demonstrate that (1) training a network on texts from a similar period dramatically improves the network's ability to fix OCR errors, (2) using the proposed error injection algorithm, based on character-level period-specific errors, minimizes the need for manually corrected data and improves the network accuracy by 9%, (3) the optimized network design improves the accuracy by 3% compared to the state-of-the-art network, and (4) the constructed optimized network outperforms neural machine translation models and industry-leading spellcheckers. The proposed methodology may have practical implications for digital humanities projects that aim to search and analyze OCRed documents in Hebrew and potentially other morphologically rich languages.

HeBERT and HebEMO: A Hebrew BERT Model and a Tool for Polarity Analysis and Emotion Recognition

Sentiment analysis of user-generated content (UGC) can provide valuable information across numerous domains, including marketing, psychology, and public health. Currently, there are very few Hebrew models for natural language processing in general, and for sentiment analysis in particular; indeed, it is not straightforward to develop such models because Hebrew is a morphologically rich language (MRL) with challenging characteristics. Moreover, the only available Hebrew sentiment analysis model, based on a recurrent neural network, was developed for polarity analysis (classifying text as positive, negative, or neutral) and was not used for detection of finer-grained emotions (e.g., anger, fear, or joy). To address these gaps, this paper introduces HeBERT and HebEMO. HeBERT is a transformer-based model for modern Hebrew text, which relies on a BERT (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers) architecture. BERT has been shown to outperform alternative architectures in sentiment analysis and is suggested to be particularly appropriate for MRLs. Analyzing multiple BERT specifications, we find that whereas model complexity correlates with high performance on language tasks that aim to understand terms in a sentence, a more parsimonious model better captures the sentiment of an entire sentence. Notably, regardless of the complexity of the BERT specification, our BERT-based language model outperforms all existing Hebrew alternatives on all language tasks examined. HebEMO is a tool that uses HeBERT to detect polarity and extract emotions from Hebrew UGC. HebEMO is trained on a unique COVID-19-related UGC data set that we collected and annotated for this study. Data collection and annotation followed an active learning procedure that aimed to maximize predictability. We show that HebEMO yields a better performance accuracy for polarity classification. Emotion detection reaches high performance for various target emotions, with the exception of surprise, which the model failed to capture. These results are better than the best reported performance, even among English-language models of emotion detection.

Разночтения славянского текста книги Премудрости Иисуса сына Сирахова (на примере глав 44-50 в Геннадиевской, Острожской и Елизаветинской Библиях)

The purpose of the study is to identify the most striking and interesting discrepancies in the passage Sirach 44-50, using the example of the three main versions, and to make an attempt to explain them. At the beginning of the paper, a brief history of the Slavic text of the Book of Sirach is given. The text of fifteen selected verses in four versions follows: the Greek text according to J. Ziegler’s Göttingen Septuagint edition and texts from the Gennady’s Bible, the Ostrog Bible and the Elizabeth Bible. The Hebrew text of the Book of Sirach from P. Beentjes’s edition was also used when it was necessary. The study is novel in that it is the first to carry out such a detailed comparison of these texts. The results of the study are as follows: the existing discrepancies between the Slavic texts can be explained by various reasons, such as accidental errors made by scribes, errors due to poor knowledge of the Greek language, the conscious choice of one or another interpretation from the Greek manuscripts available to them, the choice of a more modern translation equivalent by editors, etc.

Multilingual Literature of the United States

Like the Russian Federation, the United States is a multilingual, multicultural society. A nation of immigrants and indigenous peoples, it has produced a rich body of literature in dozens of languages in addition to English that scholars have only in recent decades begun to pay attention to. Of particular note are texts in Spanish, Yiddish, Chinese, French, Hebrew, German, Arabic, Norwegian, Welsh, Greek, Turkish, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese and numerous American Indian languages. In this paper we observe the most significant texts of multilingual American literature. The corpus of literary works shows us, that despite Americans pervasive and enduring xenolinguaphobia - aversion to other languages - the United States, like other large countries, is a heterogeneous amalgam. Ignoring the variety of works written in languages other than English impoverishes the national culture and handicaps serious readers.