Martin S. Jaffee
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195140675
- eISBN:
- 9780199834334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195140672.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Explores the role of orality and oral‐performative tradition in the written literary activities of various scribal communities in Second Temple Judaism. It points out that true literacy was rare ...
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Explores the role of orality and oral‐performative tradition in the written literary activities of various scribal communities in Second Temple Judaism. It points out that true literacy was rare among Jews in this period, and was confined to various professional scribal groups associated with the Temple and its governing agencies. Even among scribal groups who created literary works, writing and literary transmission was highly oral in character. Nevertheless, these groups did not radically distinguish oral tradition from the written tradition of books claimed to stem from prophetic revelations. Rather, books were seen to stem from a kind of oral dictation from God to the prophet, as in the Testament of Levi and 4 Ezra, who functioned as a kind of scribe in transmitting the words of a divine or angelic author.Less
Explores the role of orality and oral‐performative tradition in the written literary activities of various scribal communities in Second Temple Judaism. It points out that true literacy was rare among Jews in this period, and was confined to various professional scribal groups associated with the Temple and its governing agencies. Even among scribal groups who created literary works, writing and literary transmission was highly oral in character. Nevertheless, these groups did not radically distinguish oral tradition from the written tradition of books claimed to stem from prophetic revelations. Rather, books were seen to stem from a kind of oral dictation from God to the prophet, as in the Testament of Levi and 4 Ezra, who functioned as a kind of scribe in transmitting the words of a divine or angelic author.
Joan E. Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199554485
- eISBN:
- 9780191745911
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554485.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism, Biblical Studies
The history of scholarship on the Essenes has been one embedded within a large project to define Judaism at the time of Jesus. This was generally done with underlying assumptions about the ...
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The history of scholarship on the Essenes has been one embedded within a large project to define Judaism at the time of Jesus. This was generally done with underlying assumptions about the continuities between Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, and displayed Christian bias, so that the Essenes were considered marginal to a mainstream that stood in continuity with later developments. A new paradigm of Second Temple Judaism allows for a more balanced assessment, with the Essenes placed rightly at the centre.Less
The history of scholarship on the Essenes has been one embedded within a large project to define Judaism at the time of Jesus. This was generally done with underlying assumptions about the continuities between Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, and displayed Christian bias, so that the Essenes were considered marginal to a mainstream that stood in continuity with later developments. A new paradigm of Second Temple Judaism allows for a more balanced assessment, with the Essenes placed rightly at the centre.
F. E. Peters
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199747467
- eISBN:
- 9780199894796
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199747467.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter explores the good deal we know of the settings, Galilee and Judea, of Jesus’ life and much too of the varieties of Second Temple Judaism that shaped his message and his movement, its ...
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This chapter explores the good deal we know of the settings, Galilee and Judea, of Jesus’ life and much too of the varieties of Second Temple Judaism that shaped his message and his movement, its social, political, and religious, often apocalyptic, expectations. Not so for Muhammad. The Western Arabian background of his career and prophetic message is unclear to us since contemporary sources are either silent or nonexistent and life of his native Mecca is only uncertainly reconstructed from later sources.Less
This chapter explores the good deal we know of the settings, Galilee and Judea, of Jesus’ life and much too of the varieties of Second Temple Judaism that shaped his message and his movement, its social, political, and religious, often apocalyptic, expectations. Not so for Muhammad. The Western Arabian background of his career and prophetic message is unclear to us since contemporary sources are either silent or nonexistent and life of his native Mecca is only uncertainly reconstructed from later sources.
David Wheeler-Reed
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300227727
- eISBN:
- 9780300231311
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300227727.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter establishes that most of the sexual ethics of Second Temple Judaism are similar to the ideological sexual codes of the Roman Empire. It examines works as diverse as Tobit, the writings ...
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This chapter establishes that most of the sexual ethics of Second Temple Judaism are similar to the ideological sexual codes of the Roman Empire. It examines works as diverse as Tobit, the writings of Philo and Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contends that the dominant sexual ideology among Second Temple Jews is “Procreationism,” which maintains that sex is for reproduction and not for pleasure. Furthermore, it suggests that most of the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period upholds the same hegemonic ideology of the Augustan marriage legislation, except for the writings of the Essenes.Less
This chapter establishes that most of the sexual ethics of Second Temple Judaism are similar to the ideological sexual codes of the Roman Empire. It examines works as diverse as Tobit, the writings of Philo and Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contends that the dominant sexual ideology among Second Temple Jews is “Procreationism,” which maintains that sex is for reproduction and not for pleasure. Furthermore, it suggests that most of the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period upholds the same hegemonic ideology of the Augustan marriage legislation, except for the writings of the Essenes.
Matthew J. Grey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- June 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199348138
- eISBN:
- 9780199376735
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199348138.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter contrasts the superficial LDS perception of intertestamental Judaism as apostate with the complicated cultural reality of that historical context. It argues that historical narrators ...
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This chapter contrasts the superficial LDS perception of intertestamental Judaism as apostate with the complicated cultural reality of that historical context. It argues that historical narrators should resist borrowing binary generalizations promoted by Victorian “Lives of Jesus” and should craft nuanced narratives that acknowledge cultural complexity and diversity. After reconsidering common LDS assumptions about Jews at the time of Jesus in light of modern scholarship, it suggests ways in which Latter-day Saints can reconceptualize the Jewish world of the New Testament in light of the unique Mormon scriptural tradition.Less
This chapter contrasts the superficial LDS perception of intertestamental Judaism as apostate with the complicated cultural reality of that historical context. It argues that historical narrators should resist borrowing binary generalizations promoted by Victorian “Lives of Jesus” and should craft nuanced narratives that acknowledge cultural complexity and diversity. After reconsidering common LDS assumptions about Jews at the time of Jesus in light of modern scholarship, it suggests ways in which Latter-day Saints can reconceptualize the Jewish world of the New Testament in light of the unique Mormon scriptural tradition.
Joan E. Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199554485
- eISBN:
- 9780191745911
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554485.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism, Biblical Studies
This final chapter sums up the argument of this book and considers the whole picture of the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls within the world of Second Temple Judaism, which is important as then the ...
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This final chapter sums up the argument of this book and considers the whole picture of the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls within the world of Second Temple Judaism, which is important as then the Scrolls can be properly situated as cultural artefacts within their own time. It is important, this conclusion states, to define the Essenes accurately because of the confusion as to whether the Scrolls can be attributed to them. The conclusion ends by stating that this book has been just the beginning of other lines of enquiry.Less
This final chapter sums up the argument of this book and considers the whole picture of the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls within the world of Second Temple Judaism, which is important as then the Scrolls can be properly situated as cultural artefacts within their own time. It is important, this conclusion states, to define the Essenes accurately because of the confusion as to whether the Scrolls can be attributed to them. The conclusion ends by stating that this book has been just the beginning of other lines of enquiry.
Eva Mroczek
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190279837
- eISBN:
- 9780190279851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190279837.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Through a case study of psalms, this chapter shows how the Bible sets the agenda for the study of early Jewish literature, and how removing biblical lenses reveals a new picture of the literary ...
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Through a case study of psalms, this chapter shows how the Bible sets the agenda for the study of early Jewish literature, and how removing biblical lenses reveals a new picture of the literary imagination. Conventional wisdom has it that the book of Psalms was the most popular book among the Dead Sea Scrolls and enjoyed great authority in early Judaism. But this is a mirage: the material and literary evidence suggests there is no such thing as the “book of Psalms” in early Judaism. Instead, diverse manuscripts preserve psalmic texts, in various genres, orders, and numbers, revealing practices of collection that cannot always be placed on a linear timeline of “the making of the Bible.” The psalms are not conceptualized as a “book” before the New Testament and rabbinic texts. Instead, they are imagined as an open genre, a heavenly archive only partially reflected in the extant texts. New metaphors suggested by theoretical work in book history—including efforts to describe the unbound textual world of the digital—can help reconceptualize a literary landscape not organized around books, but imagined in terms of overlapping clusters, mosaics of fragments, and expanding archives.Less
Through a case study of psalms, this chapter shows how the Bible sets the agenda for the study of early Jewish literature, and how removing biblical lenses reveals a new picture of the literary imagination. Conventional wisdom has it that the book of Psalms was the most popular book among the Dead Sea Scrolls and enjoyed great authority in early Judaism. But this is a mirage: the material and literary evidence suggests there is no such thing as the “book of Psalms” in early Judaism. Instead, diverse manuscripts preserve psalmic texts, in various genres, orders, and numbers, revealing practices of collection that cannot always be placed on a linear timeline of “the making of the Bible.” The psalms are not conceptualized as a “book” before the New Testament and rabbinic texts. Instead, they are imagined as an open genre, a heavenly archive only partially reflected in the extant texts. New metaphors suggested by theoretical work in book history—including efforts to describe the unbound textual world of the digital—can help reconceptualize a literary landscape not organized around books, but imagined in terms of overlapping clusters, mosaics of fragments, and expanding archives.
Seth L. Sanders
Jonathan Ben-Dov (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479823048
- eISBN:
- 9781479873975
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479823048.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
Since the 1990s, Early Modern and Medieval Science in Jewish sources has been actively studied, but the consensus was that no real scientific themes could be found in earlier Judaism. This book ...
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Since the 1990s, Early Modern and Medieval Science in Jewish sources has been actively studied, but the consensus was that no real scientific themes could be found in earlier Judaism. This book points them out in detail, and posits a new field of research: the scientific activity evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Jewish Pseudepigrapha. The publication of new texts and new analyses of older ones reveals crucial elements that are best illuminated by the history of science, and may have interesting consequences for it. The book attempts to account for scientific themes in Second Temple Judaism. It investigates the meaning and purpose of scientific explorations in an apocalyptic setting. An appreciation of these topics paves the way to a renewed understanding of the scientific fragments scattered throughout rabbinic literature. The book first places the Jewish material in the ancient context of the Near Eastern and Hellenistic worlds. While the Jewish texts were not on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, they find a meaningful place in the history of science, between Babylonia and Egypt, in the time period between Hipparchus and Ptolemy. The book uses recent advances in method to examine the contacts and networks of Jewish scholars in their ancient setting. Second, the book tackles the problematic concept of a national scientific tradition. It explores the tension between the hegemony of central scientific traditions and local scientific enterprises.Less
Since the 1990s, Early Modern and Medieval Science in Jewish sources has been actively studied, but the consensus was that no real scientific themes could be found in earlier Judaism. This book points them out in detail, and posits a new field of research: the scientific activity evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Jewish Pseudepigrapha. The publication of new texts and new analyses of older ones reveals crucial elements that are best illuminated by the history of science, and may have interesting consequences for it. The book attempts to account for scientific themes in Second Temple Judaism. It investigates the meaning and purpose of scientific explorations in an apocalyptic setting. An appreciation of these topics paves the way to a renewed understanding of the scientific fragments scattered throughout rabbinic literature. The book first places the Jewish material in the ancient context of the Near Eastern and Hellenistic worlds. While the Jewish texts were not on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, they find a meaningful place in the history of science, between Babylonia and Egypt, in the time period between Hipparchus and Ptolemy. The book uses recent advances in method to examine the contacts and networks of Jewish scholars in their ancient setting. Second, the book tackles the problematic concept of a national scientific tradition. It explores the tension between the hegemony of central scientific traditions and local scientific enterprises.
David A. deSilva
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195329001
- eISBN:
- 9780199979073
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329001.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Jews have sometimes been reluctant to claim Jesus as one of their own; Christians have often been reluctant to acknowledge the degree to which Jesus' message and mission were at home amidst, and ...
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Jews have sometimes been reluctant to claim Jesus as one of their own; Christians have often been reluctant to acknowledge the degree to which Jesus' message and mission were at home amidst, and shaped by, the Judaism(s) of the Second Temple Period. This book introduces readers to the ancient Jewish writings known as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha and examines their formative impact on the teachings and mission of Jesus and his half-brothers, James and Jude. Knowledge of this literature bridges the perceived gap between Jesus and Judaism. Where our understanding of early Judaism is limited to the religion reflected in the Hebrew Bible, Jesus will appear more as an outsider speaking “against” Judaism and introducing more that is novel. Where our understanding of early Judaism is also informed by the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Jesus and his half-brothers appear more fully at home within Judaism, and giving us a more precise understanding of what is essential, as well as distinctive, in their proclamation. This study engages several critical issues. How can we recover the voices of Jesus, James, and Jude? How can we assess a particular text's influence on Jews in early first-century Palestine? The result is a portrait of Jesus that is fully at home in Roman Judea and Galilee, and perhaps an explanation for why these extra-biblical Jewish texts continued to be preserved in Christian circles.Less
Jews have sometimes been reluctant to claim Jesus as one of their own; Christians have often been reluctant to acknowledge the degree to which Jesus' message and mission were at home amidst, and shaped by, the Judaism(s) of the Second Temple Period. This book introduces readers to the ancient Jewish writings known as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha and examines their formative impact on the teachings and mission of Jesus and his half-brothers, James and Jude. Knowledge of this literature bridges the perceived gap between Jesus and Judaism. Where our understanding of early Judaism is limited to the religion reflected in the Hebrew Bible, Jesus will appear more as an outsider speaking “against” Judaism and introducing more that is novel. Where our understanding of early Judaism is also informed by the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Jesus and his half-brothers appear more fully at home within Judaism, and giving us a more precise understanding of what is essential, as well as distinctive, in their proclamation. This study engages several critical issues. How can we recover the voices of Jesus, James, and Jude? How can we assess a particular text's influence on Jews in early first-century Palestine? The result is a portrait of Jesus that is fully at home in Roman Judea and Galilee, and perhaps an explanation for why these extra-biblical Jewish texts continued to be preserved in Christian circles.
Jill Hicks-Keeton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190878993
- eISBN:
- 9780190879020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878993.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
The Introduction claims that the ancient romance Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient ...
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The Introduction claims that the ancient romance Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient Jewish debates surrounding gentile access to Israel’s God. Aseneth’s story is a tale of the heroine’s transformation from exclusion to inclusion. It is simultaneously a transformative tale. For Second Temple-period thinkers, the epic of the Jewish people recounted in scriptural texts was a story that invited interpretation, interruption, and even intervention. Joseph and Aseneth participates in a broader literary phenomenon in Jewish antiquity wherein authors took up figures from Israel’s mythic past and crafted new stories as a means of explaining their own present and of envisioning collective futures. By incorporating a gentile woman and magnifying Aseneth’s role in Jewish history, Joseph and Aseneth changes the story. Aseneth’s ultimate inclusion makes possible the inclusion of others originally excluded.Less
The Introduction claims that the ancient romance Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient Jewish debates surrounding gentile access to Israel’s God. Aseneth’s story is a tale of the heroine’s transformation from exclusion to inclusion. It is simultaneously a transformative tale. For Second Temple-period thinkers, the epic of the Jewish people recounted in scriptural texts was a story that invited interpretation, interruption, and even intervention. Joseph and Aseneth participates in a broader literary phenomenon in Jewish antiquity wherein authors took up figures from Israel’s mythic past and crafted new stories as a means of explaining their own present and of envisioning collective futures. By incorporating a gentile woman and magnifying Aseneth’s role in Jewish history, Joseph and Aseneth changes the story. Aseneth’s ultimate inclusion makes possible the inclusion of others originally excluded.
Jill Hicks-Keeton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190878993
- eISBN:
- 9780190879020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878993.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
Chapter 5 sets Joseph and Aseneth’s intervention in ancient debates about gentile inclusion alongside that of Jubilees and that of the apostle Paul—both of whom also play with the epithet “living ...
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Chapter 5 sets Joseph and Aseneth’s intervention in ancient debates about gentile inclusion alongside that of Jubilees and that of the apostle Paul—both of whom also play with the epithet “living God” as they wrestle with questions of gentile access to Israel and Israel’s God. Like Joseph and Aseneth, Jubilees depicts Israel’s “living God” as the creator God, but whereas Joseph and Aseneth exploits the theme of universal creator to universalize (potential) inclusion, Jubilees employs creation imagery to underscore the exclusivity of the relationship between God and (gentile-free) Israel. By contrast, Paul employs the epithet as scriptural warrant for gentile inclusion. Joseph and Aseneth and Paul share a discursive project: to construct a “myth of origins” for gentile inclusion. A comparison of the two myths proves productive for articulating the radical definition of insider identity that Joseph and Aseneth espouses.Less
Chapter 5 sets Joseph and Aseneth’s intervention in ancient debates about gentile inclusion alongside that of Jubilees and that of the apostle Paul—both of whom also play with the epithet “living God” as they wrestle with questions of gentile access to Israel and Israel’s God. Like Joseph and Aseneth, Jubilees depicts Israel’s “living God” as the creator God, but whereas Joseph and Aseneth exploits the theme of universal creator to universalize (potential) inclusion, Jubilees employs creation imagery to underscore the exclusivity of the relationship between God and (gentile-free) Israel. By contrast, Paul employs the epithet as scriptural warrant for gentile inclusion. Joseph and Aseneth and Paul share a discursive project: to construct a “myth of origins” for gentile inclusion. A comparison of the two myths proves productive for articulating the radical definition of insider identity that Joseph and Aseneth espouses.
Jill Hicks-Keeton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190878993
- eISBN:
- 9780190879020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878993.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
Joseph and Aseneth shows us that we need to expand our categories of inclusion if we want to capture accurately the full range of ways in which ancient Jews, including those affiliated with the Jesus ...
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Joseph and Aseneth shows us that we need to expand our categories of inclusion if we want to capture accurately the full range of ways in which ancient Jews, including those affiliated with the Jesus Movement, imagined the possibility of gentile access. “Jewishness” was not the only end goal of gentile inclusion and, correspondingly, circumcision was not the only mechanism of accomplishing incorporation. We also miss what is important about Joseph and Aseneth for conversations about shifting Jew-gentile boundaries in antiquity if we focus only on Aseneth’s own movement from the veneration of “idols” to the worship of Israel’s “living God”—that is, if we see her merely as an intended model. For Joseph and Aseneth, the heroine’s acceptance marks a moment in Israel’s story in which God-worshiping gentiles can not only see themselves but see their own mythic protector who mediates God’s mercy to them.Less
Joseph and Aseneth shows us that we need to expand our categories of inclusion if we want to capture accurately the full range of ways in which ancient Jews, including those affiliated with the Jesus Movement, imagined the possibility of gentile access. “Jewishness” was not the only end goal of gentile inclusion and, correspondingly, circumcision was not the only mechanism of accomplishing incorporation. We also miss what is important about Joseph and Aseneth for conversations about shifting Jew-gentile boundaries in antiquity if we focus only on Aseneth’s own movement from the veneration of “idols” to the worship of Israel’s “living God”—that is, if we see her merely as an intended model. For Joseph and Aseneth, the heroine’s acceptance marks a moment in Israel’s story in which God-worshiping gentiles can not only see themselves but see their own mythic protector who mediates God’s mercy to them.
Jill Hicks-Keeton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190878993
- eISBN:
- 9780190879020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878993.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
Chapter 1 addresses the disputed date and provenance of Joseph and Aseneth. The question of whether the tale is “Jewish or Christian?” is the central frame in which its provenance has traditionally ...
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Chapter 1 addresses the disputed date and provenance of Joseph and Aseneth. The question of whether the tale is “Jewish or Christian?” is the central frame in which its provenance has traditionally been sought. Yet, this formulation assumes that “Judaism” and “Christianity” were distinct entities without overlap, when it is now widely acknowledged that they were not easily separable in antiquity. This chapter suggests that the question of whether Joseph and Aseneth is Jewish or gentile is more profitable for contextualizing Aseneth’s tale and offers fresh evidence for historicizing its origins in Judaism of Greco-Roman Egypt. Placing the narrative’s concerns for boundary-regulation alongside the discursive projects of other ancient writers who engaged the story of the patriarch Joseph suggests that the author of Joseph and Aseneth was a participant in an ongoing Hellenistic Jewish interpretive tradition in Egypt that used Joseph’s tale as a platform for marking and maintaining boundaries.Less
Chapter 1 addresses the disputed date and provenance of Joseph and Aseneth. The question of whether the tale is “Jewish or Christian?” is the central frame in which its provenance has traditionally been sought. Yet, this formulation assumes that “Judaism” and “Christianity” were distinct entities without overlap, when it is now widely acknowledged that they were not easily separable in antiquity. This chapter suggests that the question of whether Joseph and Aseneth is Jewish or gentile is more profitable for contextualizing Aseneth’s tale and offers fresh evidence for historicizing its origins in Judaism of Greco-Roman Egypt. Placing the narrative’s concerns for boundary-regulation alongside the discursive projects of other ancient writers who engaged the story of the patriarch Joseph suggests that the author of Joseph and Aseneth was a participant in an ongoing Hellenistic Jewish interpretive tradition in Egypt that used Joseph’s tale as a platform for marking and maintaining boundaries.
Eva Mroczek
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190279837
- eISBN:
- 9780190279851
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190279837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible: from multiple versions of biblical texts to “revealed” books not found in our canon. But despite ...
More
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible: from multiple versions of biblical texts to “revealed” books not found in our canon. But despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, “Bible,” and a bibliographic one, “book.” The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged. Using familiar sources, such as the Psalms, Ben Sira, and Jubilees, it tells an unfamiliar story about sacred writing not bound in a Bible. In many texts, we see an awareness of a vast tradition of divine writing found in multiple locations, only partially revealed in available scribal collections. Ancient heroes like David are not simply imagined as scriptural authors, but are multidimensional characters who come to be known as great writers and honored as founders of growing textual traditions. Scribes recognize the divine origin of texts like the Enoch literature and other writings revealed to ancient patriarchs, which present themselves not as derivative of material we now call biblical, but prior to it. Sacred writing stretches back to the dawn of time, yet new discoveries are always around the corner. While listening to the way ancient writers describe their own literature—their own metaphors and narratives about writing—this book also argues for greater suppleness in our own scholarly imagination, no longer bound by modern canonical and bibliographic assumptions.Less
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a world of early Jewish writing larger than the Bible: from multiple versions of biblical texts to “revealed” books not found in our canon. But despite this diversity, the way we read Second Temple Jewish literature remains constrained by two anachronistic categories: a theological one, “Bible,” and a bibliographic one, “book.” The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity suggests ways of thinking about how Jews understood their own literature before these categories had emerged. Using familiar sources, such as the Psalms, Ben Sira, and Jubilees, it tells an unfamiliar story about sacred writing not bound in a Bible. In many texts, we see an awareness of a vast tradition of divine writing found in multiple locations, only partially revealed in available scribal collections. Ancient heroes like David are not simply imagined as scriptural authors, but are multidimensional characters who come to be known as great writers and honored as founders of growing textual traditions. Scribes recognize the divine origin of texts like the Enoch literature and other writings revealed to ancient patriarchs, which present themselves not as derivative of material we now call biblical, but prior to it. Sacred writing stretches back to the dawn of time, yet new discoveries are always around the corner. While listening to the way ancient writers describe their own literature—their own metaphors and narratives about writing—this book also argues for greater suppleness in our own scholarly imagination, no longer bound by modern canonical and bibliographic assumptions.
Jill Hicks-Keeton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190878993
- eISBN:
- 9780190879020
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878993.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
Arguing with Aseneth shows how the ancient romance Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient ...
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Arguing with Aseneth shows how the ancient romance Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient Jewish debates surrounding gentile access to Israel’s God. With attention to the ways in which Aseneth’s tale “remixes” Genesis, wrestles with Deuteronomic theology, and adopts prophetic visions of the future, Arguing with Aseneth demonstrates that this ancient novel inscribes into Israel’s sacred narrative a precedent for gentile inclusion in the people belonging to Israel’s God. Aseneth is transformed from material mother of the sons of Joseph to a mediator of God’s mercy and life to future penitents, Jew and gentile alike. Yet not all Jewish thinkers in antiquity drew boundaries the same way or in the same place. Arguing with Aseneth traces, then, not only the way in which Joseph and Aseneth affirms the possibility of gentile incorporation but also ways in which other ancient Jewish thinkers, including the apostle Paul, would have argued back, contesting Joseph and Aseneth’s conclusions or offering competing strategies of inclusion. With its use of a female protagonist, Joseph and Aseneth offers a distinctive model of gentile incorporation—one that eschews lines of patrilineal descent and undermines ethnicity and genealogy as necessary markers of belonging. Such a reading of this narrative shows us that we need to rethink our accounts of how ancient Jewish thinkers negotiated who was in and who was out when it came to the people of Israel’s God.Less
Arguing with Aseneth shows how the ancient romance Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient Jewish debates surrounding gentile access to Israel’s God. With attention to the ways in which Aseneth’s tale “remixes” Genesis, wrestles with Deuteronomic theology, and adopts prophetic visions of the future, Arguing with Aseneth demonstrates that this ancient novel inscribes into Israel’s sacred narrative a precedent for gentile inclusion in the people belonging to Israel’s God. Aseneth is transformed from material mother of the sons of Joseph to a mediator of God’s mercy and life to future penitents, Jew and gentile alike. Yet not all Jewish thinkers in antiquity drew boundaries the same way or in the same place. Arguing with Aseneth traces, then, not only the way in which Joseph and Aseneth affirms the possibility of gentile incorporation but also ways in which other ancient Jewish thinkers, including the apostle Paul, would have argued back, contesting Joseph and Aseneth’s conclusions or offering competing strategies of inclusion. With its use of a female protagonist, Joseph and Aseneth offers a distinctive model of gentile incorporation—one that eschews lines of patrilineal descent and undermines ethnicity and genealogy as necessary markers of belonging. Such a reading of this narrative shows us that we need to rethink our accounts of how ancient Jewish thinkers negotiated who was in and who was out when it came to the people of Israel’s God.
Jill Hicks-Keeton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190878993
- eISBN:
- 9780190879020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878993.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
The divine title “(the) living God” in Joseph and Aseneth is used in conjunction with the narrative’s other language and imagery of “life” and “living” to construct a totalizing paradigm of ...
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The divine title “(the) living God” in Joseph and Aseneth is used in conjunction with the narrative’s other language and imagery of “life” and “living” to construct a totalizing paradigm of life-versus-death that initially excludes Aseneth but ultimately, because of her shift in cultic loyalty and subsequent transformation by God, embraces her. Chapter 2 presents manuscript evidence in order to show that each of the earliest families of witnesses to Joseph and Aseneth employs creation language and imagery from Genesis 1–2 LXX to represent Aseneth’s transformation as a re-creation by the life-giving, creator God. Aseneth’s story draws on the inaugural Genesis creation narratives as it constructs an ideology of Israel’s “living God” which allows for, and even hopes for, gentile inclusion in the people of this God.Less
The divine title “(the) living God” in Joseph and Aseneth is used in conjunction with the narrative’s other language and imagery of “life” and “living” to construct a totalizing paradigm of life-versus-death that initially excludes Aseneth but ultimately, because of her shift in cultic loyalty and subsequent transformation by God, embraces her. Chapter 2 presents manuscript evidence in order to show that each of the earliest families of witnesses to Joseph and Aseneth employs creation language and imagery from Genesis 1–2 LXX to represent Aseneth’s transformation as a re-creation by the life-giving, creator God. Aseneth’s story draws on the inaugural Genesis creation narratives as it constructs an ideology of Israel’s “living God” which allows for, and even hopes for, gentile inclusion in the people of this God.
