Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and its Contexts
An inter-disciplinary study of the story and history of Israel's transition from tribal federation to monarchy, covering the events described in 1 Samuel 1–16; 2 Samuel 21–24; and 1 Kings 1–4. It follows the 2018 publication of The Book of Samuel: Part One, Studies in History, Historiography, Theology, and Poetics Combined (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass).
The investigation of this book into early Jewish experiences of God begins with calls to discard any categorical and definitional approaches to the literature of early Judaism, and several enduring preconceptions about its mysticism and theology (particularly the relegation of its mysticism to particular texts and themes, and the molding of its theology in the image of medieval and post-medieval Jewish and Christian monotheisms). With this abandonment, the symbolic language of early Jewish texts gives sharper contours to a pre-formal theology, a theology in which God and divinity are more subjects of experience and recognition than of propositions. This clarity leads the investigation to the conclusion that early Judaism is thoroughly mystical and experiences a theology which is neither polytheistic, nor monotheistic, but deificational: there is only one divine selfhood, the divinity of “God,” but he shares his selfhood with “gods,” to varying degrees and always at his discretion. With some important differentiations which are also introduced here, this theology undergirds almost the entirety of early Judaism—the Bible, post-biblical texts, and even classical rabbinic literature. The greatest development over time is only that the boundaries between God and gods become at once clearer and less rigid.
The biblical apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation are, for better or worse, polarizing. Interpreters have long read and searched these books for clues about how their worlds will “end,” which each new interpreter promising to have “unlocked” how Daniel and Revelation work together to uncover a divine plan for prophetic fulfillment. Redding uses the Vision of the Fourth Beast from Daniel 7 as a case study to consider how interpretations of texts take on lives of their own, eventually wedding interpretation with text and prompting the question: what even is a text? Is it what is on the page, something interpreters put there, or a combination of both? Starting with the literature of the Levant, this work traces the use of motifs, images, and themes through Daniel, Revelation, and into pre-Enlightenment Christian thinkers to consider hermeneutical trajectories that shaped (and continue to shape) how modern readers engage biblical apocalyptic literature.
What saved Jerusalem from destruction by the Assyrian army in 701 BCE? The seemingly invincible Assyrians — the only superpower of the day — had been about to assault the city when they suddenly departed. The Bible says the “angel of the Lord” swept down on the Assyrian camp, killing 185,000 troops as they slept, obliging the survivors to retreat to their homeland in present-day Iraq. Historians for more than a century have generally agreed that if Jerusalem — the only Hebrew city that the invaders had not destroyed — had been seized and the survivors deported (as per imperial policy in such cases), Hebrew society could have been permanently extinguished. Judaism would therefore never have evolved several centuries later and neither of its two kindred monotheisms, Christianity and Islam, would have developed. As if to underscore the event’s importance to Hebrew society, the Bible tells the story of Jerusalem’s miraculous deliverance, three times — in the books of Second Kings, Isaiah and Second Chronicles. The Old Testament/Tanakh/Hebrew Bible presents no other story so often. Modern historians have proposed more down-to-earth explanations for the failure of the Assyrian emperor, Sennacherib. These include an epidemic that caused him to flee, a crisis elsewhere in the empire with which he had to deal, and a simple surrender by Jerusalem’s King Hezekiah. But now another theory — advanced in a 2002 book, The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC, by a Canadian journalist, Henry Aubin — is rallying new respectability: an army led by Africans from present-day Sudan repelled the Assyrians. The army’s commander would have been a young Kushite, Taharqo, who later became Pharaoh. After 18 years of the book’s obscurity, the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, is breathing new life into it, commissioning eight specialists in this period of history to judge the theory’s plausibility. The verdict: six of the scholars tilt in favor of the theory, one is undecided, and only one rejects it.
King Jehoiachin, the last Judahite king exiled to Babylon, became the focus of conflicting hopes and fears about a revived Davidic kingship after the exile. As Sensenig demonstrates, this conflict stemmed from a drastic oracle from Jeremiah that seemed to categorically reject Jehoiachin, while the canon records that he not only survived but thrived in exile.
While scholarship on nonverbal communication in the Hebrew Bible has traditionally focused on ritual dress, postures of worship, and related topics, there exist a number of non-ritual gestures in the text for which we have little understanding, such as occur in the book of Proverbs. As the premier source for moral pedagogy in the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs contains a number of gestures that, when properly interpreted, enhance an understanding of social values in ancient Israel. To aid in the process of decoding these literary features, Jones examines Ugaritic, Akkadian, Egyptian, and Sumerian texts, identifying similar gestures and anatomical idioms and how they are variously interpreted in their respective contexts. Though the particular religious and cultural systems of these neighboring entities are distinct, their ideology of social values—values imbedded in the fabric of daily life and indicative of the universally shared experience of all communities—comes to the fore through the medium of gesture.
Criticism, Interpretation/Old Testament
