Search results for "Hebrew Bible"

More Dubious Dead Sea Scrolls

2021

Abstract In the course of the last eighteen years more than 75 new “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market. These are commonly referred to as post-2002 Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments. A growing number of scholars regard a substantial part of them as forgeries. In this article, we will discuss four more dubious fragments, but this time from the 20th Century—or at least from pre-2002. Two of the fragments have been known since the late nineties and are published in the DJD series. One was published in Revue de Qumran (2003), and one in Gleanings from the Caves (2016). All four are today accepted as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls dataset even though they are unprove…

The Earliest Reference to Israel and Its Possible Archaeological and Historical Background

2017

Manfred Görg proposed to read the name Israel on a broken Egyptian inscriptionäm21687, which is now kept in the storage facilities of the New Museum in Berlin. New research during the last number of years has confirmed this reading, although the writing of the name is different from that of the Merenptah inscription. Some characteristics appear to demonstrate that this inscription is older than the Israel stela of Merenptah and may likely date to the 14th or earlier 13th centurybce. The paper will present some ideas about an earlier beginning of the formation of what is generally called Israel and about the way, how this early Israel came about.

Literary-Stylistic Metathesis in the Hebrew Bible

2020

Abstract Biblical scholarship has concentrated almost exclusively on cases of unintentional metathesis, particularly as a tool of textual criticism. But metathesis is not only a result of accidents and mistakes; it can also be deliberately employed as a literary-stylistic device. Accordingly, this study addresses all three of these categories of metathesis in the biblical literature, but focuses particularly on Literary-stylistic metathesis that is an intentional form of metathesis, in which an author or editor has deliberately chosen to use two or more words that share the same characters in inverse order.

Ritual Experts and Participants in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible

2020

AbstractThe chapter summarizes the roles and tasks of ritual experts and participants within the Hebrew Bible and its cultural environment. The first part reflects on the responsibilities of the kings, the priests, and the priestesses within the ancient Near East (Mesopotamia, Mari, Hittite Anatolia) and ancient Egypt. Then the chapter turns to the concepts of the Hebrew Bible. The second part demonstrates how the priests and Levites take care for the rituals, the sacrifices, purity, teaching, and administration. Cult prophets and the king have their limited and special functions. Third, at certain points lay people may participate in the cult: the offering person, women, children, and the …

Das jhwh-Heiligtum am Garizim: ein archäologischer Befund und seine literar- und theologiegeschichtliche Einordnung

2018

AbstractNo later than the midst of the 5th century the recently discovered sanctuary on Mt.Gerizim was the cultic center of the SamarianYhwh-worshippers, later known as the Samaritans. The sanctuary was in every way comparable to its counterpart in Jerusalem. The author investigates the question why there is so little mentioning of the sanctuary in the Bible at all; only the location “Mount Gerizim” is mentioned a few times in the Tora. Albeit its obvious absence in the texts, there seem to be several, enciphered mentions of the Samaria sanctuary in the later part of the (Judean) canon (Ketubim and Nebi’im). Altogether they criticize the cult on Mt.Gerizim in this very indirect way. The aut…

The Firstborn of Death: Monotheism and the Mythology of Death in Job 18

2019

AbstractJob 18 depicts the destruction of the wicked as a kind of ambush by “the firstborn of death.” Much of the discussion of this passage has centered on this figure’s identification, and whether one should look primarily to Ugaritic or Mesopotamian mythological traditions for its background. Yet the passage as a whole concludes with a reference to a single “God,” knowledge of whom is determinative for human fate. This raises a basic question concerning the relation between “God” and the “firstborn of death.” Through a close comparison with the Ugaritic Baal Cycle and the Neo-Assyrian Underworld Vision on the one hand, and Job 5 and Deuteronomy 32 on the other, this paper argues that “th…

Nine Dubious “Dead Sea Scrolls” Fragments from the Twenty-First Century

2017

Abstract In 2002 new “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments began to appear on the antiquities market, most of them through the Kando family. In this article we will present evidence that nine of these Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments are modern forgeries.

Aristóteles, los sabios judíos y Salomón en una colección de sentencias inédita, <i>Palabras breves: dichos de sabios</i>

2008

This article presents an edition of an unpublished collection of sayings, of Jewish origin, to be found in Manuscript 5644 of the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, on folios 78 V (lxxx v ) to 84 V (lxxxvi v ). The contents are to be found in the Libro de los buenos proverbios (translated from Arabic into Spanish and Hebrew in the 13th century); in the Pirque Abot , the only wisdom tractate in the Mishnah ; and in the Proverbs of Solomon, part of the Tanakh , i.e. the Hebrew bible. The compilation of the work involved selecting and reorganising materials from various sources, following the editor’s tastes and interests, and giving rise to a new literary product which is a perfect example of the…

Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments in the Museum Collection, written by Emanuel Tov, Kipp Davis, and Robert Duke

2017

Economic utopia of the Torah. Economic concepts of the Hebrew Bible interpreted according to the Rabbinical Literature

2004

Hebrew Bible offers alternative Economic utopia for building Theocratic society. In this paper, various economic concepts and themes are presented, as found in the Hebrew Bible. These economic concepts include taxation, property rights, labor market, social policy, banking, years of Sabbath and Jubilee, and business cycles. Most economic issues of the Bible are found in the texts of Torah, also known as five Books of Moses. These texts are analyzed by using classical Rabbinical commentaries for better insight. Contrary to the modern Economic theory which is based on the assumptions of scarcity of resources and unlimited needs of consumers, Economics of the Torah is based on God’s resources …