Hebrew Bible

Although few might think of Moses as a ‘leader’ in the contemporary business and political sense, Moses is not only among the most significant leaders in Western civilization but is also arguably the quintessential example of a powerful leader from whom much can be learned by anyone entering and occupying leadership positions. Various types of leadership approaches are considered that have been advocated by scholars over the past century. Moses’ example as described in the Bible is analyzed to assert why Moses’ approach makes for an appropriate and compelling form of leadership today.

While present leadership and management vocabulary might differ from the Hebrew Bible, many of the notions advocated by modern leadership theorists appear to parallel major behaviors, traits, functions, experiences and actions ascribed to Moses, especially in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Anyone can view Moses through the lens of a particular religion, whether shared or not, and still learn considerably from the experience. One will find Moses depicted as heroic, charismatic, and certainly empathic. Yet, Moses also shows transactional, transformational and visionary leadership qualities. Hence, ‘Religion and Contemporary Management’ discerns why Moses represents such an important model of effective leadership for contemporary times.

This chapter examines some of the assumptions that are typically employed when dealing with the development of the Hebrew Bible. The first part of the chapter is a critique of the very term "Jewish Bible." It points out some of the problems with the term and make a plaidoyer against being politically correct. The second part focuses on what it means to explain the "development" of the Hebrew Bible and suggests that diachronic analysis alone cannot fully explain its formation. In this author's view, proper understanding of the development of the Bible requires drawing upon intellectual and literary models more commonly associated with the period of the “reception of scripture” than with conventional composition history.

Among the many psalms that refer to creation, Pss 8 and 104 stand out in being entirely devoted to this theme. Whereas Ps 8 highlights the prominent, even exalted, human role in the created order, Ps 104 contextualizes humanity as but one creature among many in a complex intertwined cosmos. Nevertheless, upon closer study, it becomes evident that both psalms share elements of a common worldview, including a remarkably similar view of what constitutes being human, a conception of the world as a cosmic temple, and a rejection of the motif of creation-by-combat against primordial enemies. An exploration of the diversity-in-unity of Pss 8 and 104 yields insights into how their common theological vision may address the human vocation of the use of power in a world understood as a sacred realm over which God is enthroned, yet into which evil has intruded.

For all the debate in the contemporary humanities about the canon, there is little interdisciplinary dialogue on the issue, nor even meaningful input from the perspective of academic biblical studies, the one discipline that specializes in the formation and interpretation of the canon. Seeking to provide such a perspective, this article shows how cultures having a tradition of prestigious or authoritative texts address the problem of literary and legal innovation. Engaging the work of Jonathan Z. Smith on exegetical ingenuity, the study begins with cuneiform law, and then shows how ancient Israel's development of the idea of divine revelation of law creates a cluster of constraints that would be expected to impede legal revision or amendment. As a test-case, the article examines the idea that God punishes sinners transgenerationally, vicariously extending the punishment due them to three or four generations of their progeny. A series of inner-biblical and post-biblical responses to the rule demonstrates, however, that later writers were able to criticize, reject, and replace it with the alternative notion of individual retribution. The conclusions stress the extent to which the formative canon sponsors this kind of critical reflection and intellectual freedom.

[April 2024: See now the Accepted-Manuscript version: https://www.academia.edu/117750386/The_Situating_Noun_in_Ancient_Hebrew_A_New_Understanding_of_א%D6%B4יש%D7%81_Accepted_Manuscript_version_ ]

This paper integrates insights from cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, various linguistics disciplines, and biblical studies to answer the questions “What did ancient Hebrew speakers/writers mean by using the noun אִישׁ (including אִשָּׁה and their plurals)? How and when did they use it?” | Answer: Prototypically, this noun profiles its referent as an essential participant in the depicted situation, when the speaker is depicting that situation schematically. Therefore אִישׁ deserves to be called “the situational noun.” Its use made communication more efficient. | This communication-based view of אִישׁ yields a more coherent and informative text of the Hebrew Bible than the conventional one. It also explains several ways in which אִישׁ differs from other general human nouns. | The original paper for the Biblical Lexicography section of the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature summarized and updated the author’s 2020 dissertation and two previous articles. This 2023 version includes further updates, including changing the main term used from “situational noun” to “situating noun.”

For me, Bernd's great commentary evoked two contradictory sayings. The ancient Alexandrian librarian, Callimachos gave us an epigram that became proverbial, "Mega biblion, mega kakon-Big book, big evil." But Epimenides produced a hexameter line which, when emended, may be used to refute Callimachos' proverb: "Alexandrians are always liars, evil beasts, lazy guts."

Hebrew philologists disagree on how to describe the biblical Hebrew verbal system. We especially disagree about the difference in meaning between the main verb forms: yiqtol and qatal, wayyiqtol, weyiqtol, weqatal: is it tense, taxis, aspect, modality, or something else that prompts the use of one form rather than the other?
In this paper I clarify the semantic value of the finite verb forms in biblical Hebrew by identifying a model that accounts for the selection of verb forms in a limited corpus: the narrative beginning in 1 Samuel.
This study contributes to the resolution of the question of Biblical Hebrew verb form semantics by using the same method I applied to Qumran Hebrew: analyzing all the verbs in this narrative, using an empirical method of statistical correlation between form and meaning. I first produced a computer database of all the verbs in this corpus, tagged for formal features such as morphology, situation aspect, and word order on one hand, and semantic functions such as time reference, viewpoint aspect, and modality on the other. I then determined the strength of an association between each form and each function. Finally, I used the patterns found in these correlations to (1) evaluate conflicting proposed interpretations, and (2) construct a model that accounts for the ancient Hebrew author’s choice of verb forms in this corpus.
In this paper I first introduce the problem of Hebrew tense and aspect, then very briefly outline the basics of relevant theoretical linguistics, significant methodological issues, and previous attempts to explain the Hebrew verbs, synthesize statistical trends from the database into hypotheses, and describe the results of applying these hypotheses to specific verbs in 1 Samuel 1-2.

Michael Segal, “Interpreting History in Qumran Texts,” in M. Kister, M. Segal, and R. Clements (eds.), The Religious Worldviews Reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature (STDJ 127; Leiden: Brill, 2018), 212–244.

Monday 11 January 2021, 19:00 Israel Time

Sword and Buckler in Hebrew Letters: Traces of Early Illuminated German Fight Books in Jewish Manuscripts
Prof. Sara Offenberg
Department of the Arts, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Two manuscripts produced in early fourteenth-century German lands reflect similar iconography of fighting with Sword and Buckler (small round shield); one is the well-known fencing manual, Leeds, Royal Armouries, MS I. 33, produced ca. 1320, and the other is a Hebrew manuscript of the Bible, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France héb. 9, made in 1304, that will be the focus of this paper. I wish to demonstrate that the iconography of the masorah figurata was adapted from German Fechtbücher (fencing manuals), which are books of instructions, usually with illustrations, detailing the fencing arts. First, I relate to the realia of Jews bearing arms and Jewish fencing masters. Afterward I discuss the iconography of the fighting figures; subsequently, after examining the texts that make up the micrography, I reach a broader conclusion regarding the reason the patron commissioned this work and the meaning of the scene. This lecture intends to demonstrate how Hebrew illuminated manuscripts can shed more light on the study of fight books iconography.

Der folgende Wortschatz bezieht sich primär auf den TANACH, doch wird allgemein auch darge-legt, wie die betroffenen Begriffe im Neuhebräischen gebraucht werden. Grundsätzlich wird der Wortschatz der hebräischen Mosestora sowie der Schriftpropheten und des Psalters vorausgesetzt, und zwar vor allem diejenigen Wörter, die wiederholt vorkommen. Meine Dateien mit dem Wortschatz des ganzen TANACHS sowie des (neu-)hebräischen Neuen Testaments findet man auf meiner „Academia“-Seite: https://sthbasel.academia.edu/JacobThiessen/Drafts. Den Text aller Bücher der Bibel (auch mit Audio-Dateien) findet man u. a. unter dem folgenden Link: http://haktuvim.co.il.
Ich weise darauf hin, dass ich kein Philologe, sondern Exeget (Neutestamentler) bin. Das ist beim Gebrauch dieser Unterlagen zu beachten. Gleichwohl werden Experten und andere durch diese Unterlagen zu sehr spannenden philologischen Erkenntnissen gelangen.

The primary concern of this study is to understand how curse affects the power of blessing in Genesis 1–11. First, we examine the semantics of blessing and curse in light of their history of interpretation. Second, each blessing (1:22, 28; 9:1–3, 7, 26, 27) and curse (3:14–15, 16, 17–19; 4:11–12; 9:25) that occurs within reported speech in Genesis 1–11 is categorized and examined according to its linguistic pattern and performative character. Third, the role of blessing and/or curse is determined in the development of narrative tension in the various discourse units of Genesis 1–11.
Blessing and curse are shown to be intimately connected to Creation theology: blessing is given to drive Creation toward its intended telos, while curse is pronounced when that telos is threatened. Both are a central part of Yahweh's upholding of the Order of Creation. Curse affects the power of blessing both negatively and positively in Genesis 1–11. Negatively, curse causes hostility and alienation, and can also be held partially responsible for the epidemic of death. But curse does not have the final word. Positively, curse mitigates rebellion by imposing restrictions on the transgressor. Furthermore, curse carries with it a way for life to continue.
The narrative of Genesis 1–11 bespeaks of the power words have in the world. Some create, some commission, some empower; while others punish, others alienate, and others cause death. From the beginning God has intended good for his Creation. Blessings and curses are one way of achieving that end.

Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering place for a worshipping congregation, a temple served as a terrestrial divine abode. In it, the god(s) lived amid society, yet carefully sequestered from it behind walls and doors. While primarily a residence, the temple also granted people limited access, usually for the purpose of divine service. The people believed that gods dwelt outside of the realm of human experience. Temples bridged the gap between human and divine, allowing regulated access to the deity, usually present in the form of a cult statue, and giving people the opportunity to influence the gods. Through this mutually beneficial interchange, the gods received the service they desired, while the people hoped their service would elicit divine protection and blessing. Protection and blessing, though, were conditional. The gods would remain and stay favorably disposed only if they were satisfied with their accommodation and service. Temples then, at least in theory, were lavishly and fastidiously constructed and maintained in order to keep the gods happy. This article focuses on the major temples, especially those from 1500–500 BCE, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. The article also focuses on the structure and ideology of the temples, not the rituals performed within them. For the most part, biblical and Israelite references will be kept to a minimum, as they are numerous enough to warrant their own article. Too numerous to include, archaeological reports generally have been excluded, yet they are referenced in the works cited and may be found with a Google web search.

This is an abridged version of my "Counting Stars with Abraham and the Prophets" (JETS 2015). Paul’s application of the “seed” designation to both Jews and Gentiles in Christ marks a redemptive-historical shift from an age of promise to an age of fulfillment. Both the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants initially restricted “seed” language to physical descent and marked covenant membership by physical birth. Nevertheless, they also pointed ahead to a day when covenantal, spiritual adoption would replace ethnicity and biology as the foundational mark of the patriarch’s “fatherhood.” The OT’s promised royal deliver would initiate this eschatological and ecclesiological development, which by its nature supports a progressive covenantal flavor of Baptistic new covenant ecclesiology.

Genesis 18.17-33, Abraham’s dialogue with Yhwh over the number of righteous people in Sodom, is a difficulty in exegesis and interpretation.  What the passage means has long been debated.  At a literary level, there has also been no agreement on the nature of Abraham’s language.  It is common to interpret Abraham as bargaining with God in similar fashion to haggling over the price of goods in a bazaar; but proposals have been made that Abraham uses legal-like language, ‘socratic dialogue’ and midrash.  There is also no agreement on the purpose of Abraham’s dialogue.  An analysis of Gen 18.17-33 using politeness theory proposes that Abraham, as portrayed in the narrative, wants to reduce the number of people as the basis for God’s forgiveness of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is an audacious request and so considerable forms of polite language are used to assist the request.  However, this request is not Abraham’s real intention.  His intention is to have Lot spared from Yhwh’s destruction of the cities. This request is ‘off-record’; that is, the politest strategy that could be used.

The Torah's censuses of the tribal tallies in Exodus and Numbers, suggesting the flight that some three million Hebrews fled ancient Egypt in ca. 1450 BCE, is one of the major targets of scorn by deniers of Torah tradition. Meanwhile, ultra-Orthodox Torah scholars, if they are even aware of the problems with this, will either deny the science or appeal to magical thinking. Modern Orthodox thinkers might submit to the opposition, but claim that the Torah is "not a history book", tacitly agreeing that the Torah account has little historical value.

This piece was written to show the sceptic and educated religious believer alike that a solution known to and used by academia for sixty years is entirely consistent with belief in the solid logic of the Torah's wording. Plausible reasons are given as to why the Torah tallies human beings as it does.

An enormous amount of research and the synthesization of historical events and archaeological artifacts has led the author to verify Israelite residence in Egypt from 1876–1446 BC. This research is connected to the unexpected discovery of interconnecting archaeological, epigraphical, and iconographical evidence that attests to the presence of Israelites in Egypt over virtually the entire 430 years. By the sheer volume of verifiable evidence of complementary historical data—when comparing the biblical text and the artifactual and epigraphical record—the author attempts to demonstrate convincingly to objective readers that the biblical story of the Egyptian origins of the Israelite ‘nation’ is reliable as a factual account. Never again will students of the Bible have to listen to uniformed university professors denounce the story of Israelites in Egypt without a ready defense for its validity.

In this study, I argue that the literary depictions and iconographic images of wings on various hybrid creatures are a means of depicting that creature’s association with wind and the cardinal directions, and that recognizing this correlation offers greater insight into the function and meaning of these creatures in the written and iconographic records generally. As such, I intend to add to our increasing awareness of the close relationship between textual and iconographic motifs in the ancient Near East. Furthermore, I contend that attention to the number of wings a creature possesses informs our understanding of the entity’s perceived cosmological abilities.

For about 150 years, scholars have attempted to identify the language of the world’s first alphabetic script, and to translate some of the inscriptions that use it. Until now, their attempts have accomplished little more than identifying most of the pictographic letters and translating a few of the Semitic words. With the publication of The World’s Oldest Alphabet, a new day has dawned. All of the disputed letters have been resolved, while the language has been identified conclusively as Hebrew, allowing for the translation of 16 inscriptions that date from 1842–1446 BC. These inscriptions expressly name 3 biblical figures and greatly illuminate the earliest Israelite history in a way that no other book has achieved, apart from the Bible.

The books of 1 and 2 Samuel offer a three-fold thematic scheme that supports the central claim of the Pentateuch, the claim found in Deuteronomy 6:4 and known to the Jews as “the Shema,” a verse that declares the God of Israel is one, true and living God, a theme that undergirds all of the historical books as well. Thus, the foundational theme of 1 and 2 Samuel is the central claim of the Pentateuch, a theme shared by all books of the Holy Scriptures. The secondary, structural theme of the book of 1 Samuel supports the primary theme of the historical books by offering the testimony that God has called out David to establish the Davidic lineage to bring about Israel’s redemption as supporting evidence that YHWH is the true and living God. The secondary, structural theme of the book of 2 Samuel supports the primary theme of the historical books by offering the testimony that God has justified David in his role as king. The third, imperative theme of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel states that Israel loved the Lord their God with all of their strength by accepting the one whom God called and justified as their king and redeemer. The application of this third theme for today’s reader is to believe that God has called and justification the Lord Jesus Christ as King of Kings in the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. The New Testament believer should trust in Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecies concerning the Messiah coming from the Davidic lineage who will reign eternally over all nations. As believers, we have been called to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, and we are justified as members of this Kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ.

An increase of cross-cultural learning as a consequence of increased travel and migration between Egypt and the Levant during the Iron Age occurred after millennia of migration in earlier times. The result was an Egyptian-Levantine koine, often not recognized as relevant by historians due to an uncritical reproduction of ancient myths of separation. However, the cultural exchange triggered by migration is attested in the language, in the iconography of the region, in the history of the alphabet, in literary motifs, in the characterization of central characters of the Hebrew Bible and, last but not least, in the rise of new religions, which integrated the experience of otherness in a new ethos.

A volume in the Story of God Bible Commentary series (Zondervan). This work offers a new interpretation of both Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, places them on the trajectory of theological development, and offers thoughts on reading these books as Christian scripture. Ecclesiastes is identified as (mainly) the work of a Davidic descendant in the Hellenistic Era, deploring the state of the Jewish nation under wicked and foolish leaders, and agonising over why God does not seem to do anything to fix the situation. Song of Songs is viewed as a ballad that tells the story of a young woman who has fallen in love with a shepherd boy, when her brothers promise her in marriage to King Solomon. The Song is also viewed as resistance literature, encouraging Jews to be faithful to their true shepherd, Yahweh, even to the point of death during the Antiochene persecution.

By Ellis R. Brotzman and Eric J. Tully -- This accessibly written, practical introduction to Old Testament textual criticism helps students understand the discipline and begin thinking through complex issues for themselves. The authors combine proven expertise in the classroom with cutting-edge work in Hebrew textual studies. This successful classic (nearly 25,000 copies sold) has been thoroughly expanded and updated to account for the many changes in the field over the past twenty years. It includes examples, illustrations, an updated bibliography, and a textual commentary on the book of Ruth.

By K.A. Kitchen -- In a detailed, comprehensive, and entertaining manner, Kitchen draws on an unprecedented range of historical data from the ancient Near East — the Bible’s own world — and uses it to soundly reassess both the biblical record and the critics who condemn it. Working back from the latest periods (for which hard evidence is readily available) to the remotest times, Kitchen systematically shows up the many failures of favored arguments against the Bible and marshals pertinent permanent evidence from antiquity's inscriptions and artifacts to demonstrate the basic honesty of the Old Testament writers.
(This text was made available at the following website: https://www.pdfdrive.com/on-the-reliability-of-the-old-testament-d188582318.html)

All three of my books--Nimrod the Empire Builder: Architect of Shock and Awe (Ancient World Publishing 2023), Origins of the Hebrews: New Evidence for Israelites in Egypt from Joseph to the Exodus (New Creation 2021), and The World's Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-Consonantal Script (Carta 2016)--are available to purchase. Inside the uploaded document, I have instructions for purchasing any one of them.

What interests me in Job 19:25 is not just its obscurity or the intriguing attempts to identify Job’s gōʾēl. The verse raises the question of how Christians have read and can read the Old Testament. Through this work, I hope to present to Egyptian Christians different perspectives and interpretations of the Old Testament, in order to contribute to an Egyptian Christian environment in which the Old Testament can be understood in its own context.

The David and Solomon's kingdoms are no longer considered as historical by minimalist archeologists. According to Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, for example, authors of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, at the time of the kingdoms of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was populated by only a few hundred residents or less, which is insufficient for an empire stretching from the Euphrates to Eilath. They suggest that due to religious prejudice, the authors of the Bible suppressed the achievements of the Omrides. Some Biblical minimalists like Thomas L. Thompson go further, arguing that Jerusalem became a city and capable of being a state capital only in the mid-seventh century. Likewise, Finkelstein and others consider the claimed size of Solomon's temple implausible. A review of methods and arguments used by these minimalists shows that they are impostors for writing history. The historical testimonies dated by a chronology anchored on absolute dates (backbone of history) are replaced by archaeological remains dated by carbon-14 (backbone of myths). The goal of these unfounded claims is clearly the charring of biblical accounts.
https://www.lulu.com/shop/gerard-gertoux/kings-david-and-solomon-chronological-historical-and-archaeological-evidence/paperback/product-1r86w6my.html?q=gertoux&page=1&pageSize=4