Winter Meeting 2020
Walter Houston (Manchester), ‘What is “Work”? Reception and Theology the Sabbath Commandment in the Decalogue’
John Day (Oxford), ‘What Does it Mean that Humanity is Made in the Image and Likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27; 5:1; 9:6)?’
Sarah Nicholson (Glasgow), ‘All Sex (Work) is Rape? Judges 19 and the Politics of Intercourse’
Jonathan Stökl (London), ‘The Making of a Priest: Pre-conditions of the Priesthood in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern Texts’
Hilary Marlow (Cambridge), ‘”As I Looked”: Visionary Experiences and Conceptions of Place in the Book of Ezekiel’
Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (Aberdeen), ‘Jonah in 20th Century Literature’
Avraham Faust (Ramat Gan), ‘Is Israel to Judah as Ammon is to Moab? Shedding new light on the affinity between Israel and Judah’
Joachim Eck (Eichstätt), ‘Divine Titles, Creation and Torah as Interacting Elements in Ps 19 (MT)’
Marieke Dhont (Cambridge), ‘Jewish Poets, Greek Poetry: The Bible in Jewish-Greek Literary Traditions’
Iona Hine (Sheffield), ‘Bible Translator as Theologian: The Praxis of Miles Coverdale (1488-1569)”
Abstracts Winter Meeting 2020
Walter Houston (Manchester), ‘What is “Work”? Reception and Theology the Sabbath Commandment in the Decalogue’
This paper explored the implications of the Sabbath commandment in the Decalogue for a theological understanding of work, partly via its reception in a variety of Jewish and Christian contexts; it was argued that wherever in Christian texts Sunday rest is justified by the Decalogue, we are dealing with the reception of the commandment. It was argued that the three main elements of the texts, the commandment itself common to both Exodus and Deuteronomy, the motivation in Exodus, and the motivation in Deuteronomy, each in its own way conveyed the sense that God’s purposes for creation as a whole and for human beings took priority over all human work. The commandment itself implied that the working week was a preparation for its culmination in the Sabbath when the rest offered by God is enjoyed, and only God’s work might be done. The motivation in Deuteronomy implied ultimately the liberation of all slaves, and the end of alienated labour in the modern economy; this issue was explored through a study of Ford Madox Brown’s painting Work and its ideological context. The motivation in Exodus demanded the subordination of the human economic project as a whole to the enjoyment of creation and the adoration of its Creator. This meant the end of indefinite economic growth.
John Day (Oxford), ‘What Does it Mean that Humanity is Made in the Image and Likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27; 5:1; 9:6)?’
This paper began by noting that for the last half-century a majority of biblical scholars have held that P was envisaging neither a spiritual nor physical likeness between God and humans, but rather a functional role for the image. By that is meant that human beings in the image of God refers to their God-given role to have dominion over the creatures of the earth. Here it was suggested that P envisages human rule over the world as a consequence of the divine image, not what the image itself denotes. This is demonstrated by the fact that although God made humans in his image in Gen 1:27, it is only after he blessed them, told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth in v. 28 that God instructed them to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. It is therefore difficult to believe that this last is simply identical with the earlier creation of humans in God’s image. The paper argued for a return to the idea that humans in the image and likeness of God denotes a similarity in being, not function and that both a physical and spiritual likeness are implied. The paper concluded by arguing against the popular suggestion that P’s image language was borrowed from Assyria.
Sarah Nicholson (Glasgow), ‘All Sex (Work) is Rape? Judges 19 and the Politics of Intercourse’
The paper began by noting that in recent years questions of choice and agency have become increasingly important in debates about sex work and policy. Given that this is so, the paper argued that it is important to understand how the intersections of sex work and violence are conceptualised in the literary and cultural foundations of the societies in which these policies are debated, and the Bible is an important foundational text. In response to the abolitionist argument that prostitution is inherently violent (e.g. Nordic Model Now) the paper investigated the relationships between prostitution and violence in Judges 19, an undeniably violent story of a woman forcibly prostituted by her partner. Noting that the ‘extravagance of violence’ (Trible, 1984) conceals other modes of violence that may be explored in conversation with Andrea Dworkin’s assertion that ‘violation is a synonym for intercourse’ (Dworkin, 1987), the paper drew attention to the way in which the violence in Judges 19 emerges not from וַיִּתְעַלְלוּ־בָהּ (v. 25) nor even from וַתִּזְנֶה עָלָיו (v.2) but from וַיִּקַח־לוֹ אִּשָה (v. 1). The paper suggested that assertions of the inherent violence in sex work might be understood as the inherent violence in social constructions of heterosexual intercourse, highlighted by Dworkin in her analysis of the politics of ‘fucking’ and seen in Judges 19 in the progression from אִּישָהּ (v. 3) to אֲדוֹנֶיהָ (v. 26).
Jonathan Stökl (London), ‘The Making of a Priest: Pre-conditions of the Priesthood in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern Texts’
It was noted that the physical preconditions for ordination to the priesthood in biblical texts have long been studied and that almost identical conditions are also mentioned in ancient Near Eastern texts –especially those which create an idealised image of the priesthood. But the paper also noted that we can see from Neo-Babylonian period administrative texts minuting the decisions of temple committees that potential priests had to undergo checks of ancestry and physical fitness. This implies that far from being only an idealised construction of the priesthood, such conditions were also enforced in practice. It also suggests that in this respect, the ancient Israelite and Judean priesthoods reflected a wider common priestly culture in the Middle East in antiquity.
Hilary Marlow (Cambridge), ‘”As I Looked”: Visionary Experiences and Conceptions of Place in the Book of Ezekiel’
It was observed that the book of Ezekiel juxtaposes an earth-bound, temporal account of the exiles in Babylon with the ahistorical depiction of YHWH, the God of Israel and his judgement of and future promises for his chosen nation. It was also noted that this interplay contributes to Ezekiel’s unique role as a bridge between prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and apocalyptic eschatology from the Second Temple Period and thus warrants further study. Rather than examining the book from a historical critical perspective, this paper adopted a cross-disciplinary approach in reading Ezekiel through the hermeneutical lens of critical spatiality. The paper examined the three visions of YHWH’s glory (chapters 1, 8-11 and 40-48), asking how notions of space and place in the text, as well as the sensory and bodily experiences of the prophet, shed new light on these visions and their purposes within the book
Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (Aberdeen), ‘Jonah in 20th Century Literature’
This paper began by noting that the biblical book of Jonah is regularly alluded to in literature and has been the subject of many literary retellings, ranging from individual poems to whole novels and theatrical dramas. In focusing on interaction with the book of Jonah in 20th century world literature, the paper highlighted three common tropes in the retellings: First, several retellings use the character of Jonah to express a person’s failure to escape God’s calling. Others use him to explore the Jewish experience of never being able to run away from being chosen by God. Second, some retellings turn the trope of ‘the fleeing Jonah’ into ‘Jonah the refugee’: Jonah is a man whom God abandoned. These retellings stem from Jonah 2:5 (Eng. 2:4] where Jonah expresses how he is cast out from God’s presence. These approaches draw further inspiration from the affinity of the dialogue between God and Jonah in Jonah 4 to that between Cain and God in Gen 4. This intertextuality fashions Jonah as a type for the ‘wandering Jew’. A third set of retellings employs the figure of Jonah to discuss God’s justice and his perceived failure to be unmerciful. Read this way, Jonah’s flight sought to ensure that God would have to carry out his punishment of Nineveh. Alternatively, Jonah refused to obey God because there would be no point in obeying him.
Avraham Faust (Ramat Gan), ‘Is Israel to Judah as Ammon is to Moab? Shedding new light on the affinity between Israel and Judah’
This paper sought to explore the following questions: Did Israel and Judah have more in common than other ancient peoples? Did they really share a common identity? Or is this a later perspective, invented by the authors and editors of significant portions of the biblical texts, striving to legitimate later territorial and political claims by Judahite or Jewish rulers by claiming an “Israelite” identity for themselves? The paper sought to answer these questions by (1) offering a more systematic study of the nature of collective identities and their relational nature in space and time, (2) exploring the potential material expression of such identities, and (3) systematically examining the detailed material evidence at our disposal. The lecture reexamined, within an anthropological framework, the distribution of ‘sensitive’ traits (material and others) in an attempt to identify differences, commonalities, and mainly patterns of separation and/or inclusion which might reveal how the ancients negotiated and renegotiated identities at multiple levels. It argued that the data at our disposal reveal a number of sharp boundaries in the distribution of specific traits, exposing boundaries between groups. When Judah and Israel are examined, however, the relevant traits were widely used in both (with a few instructive exceptions), and practically avoided outside them, creating sharp boundaries that incorporate (most of) the population of both kingdoms.
Joachim Eck (Eichstätt), ‘Divine Titles, Creation and Torah as Interacting Elements in Ps 19 (MT)’
This paper on Psalm 19 began by suggesting that the silent praise of God by cosmic elements of the creation in the first part (vv. 2-7), the eulogy of YHWH’s Torah in the second part (vv. 8-11), and the psalmist’s concluding confession in the last part (vv. 12-15) speak to each other in various ways. For example, the lack of words and voice in v. 4 finds its antithesis in the reliable presence of the word of YHWH in vv. 8-10 and is remedied by the voice of the psalmist in v. 15, whose song of praise breaks the silence of the cosmos. The dynamic developed by such correspondences moves from the impersonal glorification of God implicit in creation to the praise of YHWH’s name by humans who follow the path of righteousness revealed by his Torah. The psalm culminates in the psalmist’s concluding confession to YHWH as personal God and saviour. This development from anonymous divine presence to personal relationship with YHWH, the God of Israel, is also mirrored in the psalm’s use of divine titles.
Marieke Dhont (Cambridge), ‘Jewish Poets, Greek Poetry: The Bible in Jewish-Greek Literary Traditions’
This paper began by observing that Hellenistic Jewish poetry in Greek, located at the crossroads of the Jewish and Greek traditions, offers insights regarding what happens when Judaism and Hellenism are embodied in a text and thus when Jewish tradition meets Greek literary culture. It noted that this encounter has not always been understood positively, but often in terms of opposition or dichotomy — a framework of thought which goes back to the tight association of language and worldview in nineteenth century philosophy and which is often imposed onto the textual evidence at our disposal. The paper went on to discuss what Jewish poetry in Greek itself is able to tell us about Jewish identity in the Hellenistic era by looking at how Jewish-Greek poets engage with the biblical text. After analysing how Ezekiel the Tragedian’s Exagoge uses the Septuagint of Exodus, the paper compared Ezekiel’s compositional techniques with those found in the works of other Jewish-Greek poets, including Theodotus, insisting finally that such analyses provide a helpful point of departure for reflecting on Jewish identity and the nature of Hellenistic Judaism.
Iona Hine (Sheffield), ‘Bible Translator as Theologian: The Praxis of Miles Coverdale (1488-1569)’
This paper began by noting that in the preliminaries of his 1535 Bible, Miles Coverdale (1488–1569) openly declared his dependence on five sundry sources. Building on a systematic study of the book of Ruth, which highlighted the core role of the 1534 Zurich Bible as Coverdale’s favoured source, this paper explored theological and political dimensions of Coverdale’s translation choices which illustrate not only his dependence on others but also his independent agency, exemplified by his treatment of the genealogy at the close of Ruth, which is harmonised with the list given in the gospel of Matthew (based on a 1534 Tyndale edition). The paper encouraged the recognition that while the combination of select interpreters and interpretations on which Coverdale depended may have been unique, there is nonetheless a similar step required in any attempt to interpret what “the Bible” says. It also noted that it was Coverdale’s work on his 1535 Bible which earned him the commission for England’s first authorised Bible, leaving us with the question: what are we authorising?