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"biblical literature"
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What are the Ten Commandments?
\"Here is the story behind the ten laws that have been the guiding light of Judeo-Christian belief. Not just about Moses, whose origin story leaves open questions, this book looks back at the time when the commandments were written, how the belief in one all-powerful God set the Israelites apart from other ancient peoples, and the roles the Ten Commandments have played in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It also looks at what each individual commandment means and how together they form the basis of leading a moral life as well as forming a just government\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Noah's Sacrifice and the Relation between Jubilees and the Genesis Apocryphon
The similarities between the Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees have been noted since the former’s publication. Although distinct texts, both share a range of interpretative traditions in their retellings of the stories in Genesis, which suggests a genetic relationship between the two. One such shared tradition is the reworking of Noah’s sacrifices after leaving the ark, expanding the terse biblical account (Gen 8:20–22) into a detailed cultic treatise, adapted to Sinaitic law. Recently, new photographs of the Genesis Apocryphon have improved legibility and opened up new readings that shed light on the question of the genetic relationship between the texts in the passage concerning Noah’s sacrifices. In this article I present the new reading and translation of the relevant passage in the Apocryphon; assess its similarities to and differences from the parallel in Jubilees; explain why, in this particular case, Jubilees must be considered an adaptation of the Apocryphon; and, finally, demonstrate how reading each passage in light of its parallel highlights the theological motivations and literary thrust of each composition: the Apocryphon embeds the entire catalog of offerings in Noah’s archetypical sacrifice, whereas Jubilees focuses on the similarity between the covenant of Noah and the covenant of Abraham.
Journal Article
Tamar and Her Botanical Image
Two narrative episodes in the Hebrew Bible feature a character named Tamar: Judah's daughter-in-law in Gen 38 and David's daughter in 2 Sam 13. In this study, I argue that these Tamar figures can be linked to imagery evoked in the Genesis Apocryphon's reinterpretation of Sarai (1Q20 XIX, 14-16). In the Genesis Apocryphon, Sarai appears to Abram in a dream as a date palm (...) who saves Abram, a cedar, by intertwining her roots with his. Few have connected these Tamar accounts, but those who have identify fertility as the critical thematic link. This essay shows how the Tamar characters in Gen 38 and 2 Sam 13 and Sarai-as-Tamar in Abram's dream in the Genesis Apocryphon are linked not by fertility but rather by transgressive familial relations. The incestuous motif draws upon the botanical image of the date palm, which is explored in the Genesis Apocryphon's rendering of Abram and Sarai in Egypt. There, Sarai appears to Abram as a Tamar figure-one whose desirability above ground is apparent to all, but whose roots entwine fortuitously with the roots of others. Through a close reading of the texts, I demonstrate how the image of the date palm evokes the character of a woman in the family who is desirable above ground but strategic and invasive below ground.
Journal Article
Uses and abuses of Moses : literary representations since the Enlightenment
\"In Uses and Abuses of Moses, Theodore Ziolkowski surveys the major literary treatments of the biblical figure of Moses since the Enlightenment. Beginning with the influential treatments by Schiller and Goethe, for whom Moses was, respectively, a member of a mystery cult and a violent murderer, Ziolkowski examines an impressive array of dramas, poems, operas, novels, and films to show the many ways in which the charismatic figure of Moses has been exploited--the \"uses and abuses\" of the title--to serve a variety of ideological and cultural purposes. Ziolkowski's wide-ranging and in-depth study compares and analyzes the attempts by nearly one hundred writers to fill in the gaps in the biblical account of Moses' life and to explain his motivation as a leader, lawgiver, and prophet. As Ziolkowski richly demonstrates, Moses' image has been affected by historical factors such as the Egyptomania of the 1820s, the revolutionary movements of the mid-nineteenth century, the early move toward black liberation in the United States, and critical biblical scholarship of the late nineteenth century before, in the twentieth century, being appropriated by Marxists, Socialists, Nazis, and Freudians. The majority of the works studied are by Austro-German and Anglo-American writers, but Ziolkowski also includes significant examples of works from Hungary, Sweden, Norway, the Ukraine, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, and France. The figure of Moses becomes an animate seismograph, in Ziolkowski's words, through whose literary reception we can trace many of the shifts in the cultural landscape of the past two centuries. \"With Uses and Abuses of Moses: Literary Representations since the Enlightenment, Theodore Ziolkowski has delivered a magisterial account of the history of uses of Moses. Professor Ziolkowski is the preeminent interpreter of how the Bible has been received by and has shaped modern literature; this book demonstrates an encyclopedic breadth of vision as well as a concise and convincing assessment of significance. I can't think of any literary scholar who manages to combine so successfully a comprehensive view of a vast literary landscape, incisive judgment, and crisp, enjoyable prose.\" --John Barbour, St. Olaf College \"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Travel and Anxiety in Early Jewish Literature
While some early Jewish texts highlight opportunities enabled by travel, others reflect related concerns, suggesting that an encounter with the unknown moves people not only physically but also emotionally. This article addresses the latter phenomenon by investigating the blend of travel and anxiety in a selection of passages from Jubilees, Tobit, Aramaic Levi Document, and Philo of Alexandria. Drawing on affect theory, it argues that travel-related anxiety is best understood as an inclusive affect covering both explicit and more unspoken or fuzzy forms of anxiety, which can be either acute or chronic in nature. Seeking to map out a range of ancient responses to or strategies of managing apprehensions, I demonstrate that the selected sources reflect both emotional and ethical concerns. The authors of narrative texts invite their audiences to immerse themselves in “historical” events and to share the emotionally taxing aspect of relocations undertaken by ancestral figures in the past, while the authors of instructional texts address current experiences arising from their own communities: they mitigate possible worries related to encountering competing claims of wisdom on the move and instruct against trips driven by a greedy pursuit of luxurious goods.
Journal Article
Theorizing Laughter and Ethnicity in Philo's Embassy to Gaius
Philo’s Embassy to Gaius (Legat.) narrates anti-Jewish violence in Alexandria (38–41 CE) and the experiences of a Jewish embassy sent to the Roman emperor Gaius to advocate for the rights of Jews in the city. Philo repeatedly brings up laughter during key episodes, using it to characterize his figures and situations, particularly along ethnic lines. Philo suggests that Egyptians have an inherent proclivity toward derision of Jews, whereas Romans only join in this unjust mockery when they inappropriately allow Egyptians to hold influence over them. In doing so, he establishes a narrative that places the blame of the crisis in Alexandria from 38–41 CE firmly on Egyptians and Egyptianness. In this article, I take Philo as a theorist of laughter, following Eva Mroczek’s arguments for “native theory” and Mary Beard’s work on ancient laughter. Taking up Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s interrogation of theories as constructed tools with specific effects, I ask what Philo’s theory of laughter does for him. Ultimately, I argue that Philo’s theorization of laughter supports a specific ethnic reasoning, in Denise Kimber Buell’s language, that condemns Egyptianness while exonerating Romanness, perhaps in an attempt to endear his own Jewish community to the Romans who controlled Alexandria.
Journal Article
Jewish Culture and Creativity
Jewish Culture and Creativity honors the wide-ranging scholarship of Prof. Michael Fishbane with contributions of his students on subjects that cover the gamut of Jewish studies, from biblical and rabbinic literature to medieval and modern Jewish culture, and concluding with case studies of the creative application of Prof. Fishbane’s thought and theology in contemporary Jewish life. The innovative scholarship represented in this volume offers critical new perspectives from antiquity to contemporary Judaism and will serve as a stimulus for new directions in and beyond the field of Jewish studies.
eBook
Priesthood and Cult in the Visions of Amram: A Critical Evaluation of Its Attitudes toward the Contemporary Temple Establishment in Jerusalem
Abstract
This paper evaluates the attitudes toward the contemporary Jerusalem priesthood and cult on evidence in the Visions of Amram. To the extent that this issue has been treated, scholars have generally argued that the Visions of Amram originated among groups that were hostile to the Aaronid priesthood. Such treatments, however, have left some of the most germane fragments unexamined, several of which deal directly with matters pertaining to the cult, Aaron, and his offspring (4Q547 5 1-3; 8 2-4; 9 5-7; 4Q545 4 16-19). My study incorporates these fragments into the larger discussion, and in so doing demonstrates that many of the views expressed in the secondary literature require revision. My analysis shows that, though the social location of the Visions of Amram is difficult to determine, we should not be too quick to dismiss the possibility that the writer was a supporter of the contemporary status quo in the temple, given the elevated status afforded to both Aaron and his eternal posterity throughout the text.
Journal Article
Formed from the Earth
Several Jewish writings normally placed in the period between about 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. blame the biblical figures of Adam and Eve for the plight of human mortality. A well-known passage of Fourth Ezra, for example, reads, \"O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants. For what good is it to us, if an immortal time has been promised to us, but we have done deeds that bring death?\" In the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo, God likewise tells Moses, \"[Adam] transgressed my ways and was persuaded by his wife; and she was deceived by the serpent. And then death was ordained for the generations of [humanity]\". Passages like these convey that Adam and Eve transgressed God's command in Eden, and as a result God decreed that death would become an inescapable plight for all of the descendants of the primordial couple.
Journal Article