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From Ark Of The Covenant To Torah Scroll: Ritualizing Israel’S Iconic Texts, James W. Watts
From Ark Of The Covenant To Torah Scroll: Ritualizing Israel’S Iconic Texts, James W. Watts
Religion - All Scholarship
Torah scrolls are the central icon of Jewish worship. Interpreters usually regard such ritual uses of physical Torah scrolls as a consequence of the Pentateuch’s textual authority and canonization. However, the traditions about tablets of commandments carried in a reliquary ark show that ritualization of texts in the iconic dimension began early in Israel’s history. Was the Pentateuch itself developed with such iconic uses in mind? That is, was the Pentateuch shaped to replace the tablets and the ark? Evidence for such shaping appears in ambiguities surrounding Pentateuchal traditions about the tablets and scrolls of the law. These passages equate …
Performing Religiously Between Passion And Resistance, William Robert
Performing Religiously Between Passion And Resistance, William Robert
Religion - All Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Three Dimensions Of Scriptures, James W. Watts
The Three Dimensions Of Scriptures, James W. Watts
Religion - All Scholarship
This article proposes a new model for understanding the ways that scriptures function. Several big media stories of recent years, such as those surrounding controversies over Ten Commandments monuments in U.S. courthouses and Qur’ans desecrated at Guantánomo Bay, involve the iconic function of scriptures. Yet contemporary scholarship on Jewish, Christian or Muslim scriptures is ill-prepared to interpret these events because it has focused almost all its efforts on textual interpretation. Even the increased attention to the performative function of scripture by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and his students does not provide resources for understanding the iconic roles of scriptures. This paper …
Performing The Torah: The Rhetorical Function Of The Pentateuch In The Second Temple Period, James W. Watts
Performing The Torah: The Rhetorical Function Of The Pentateuch In The Second Temple Period, James W. Watts
Religion - All Scholarship
The Torah comes equipped with instructions for its own performance: a public reading of the entire scroll before the assembled people of Israel (Deut 31:9-11). The books of Kings and Nehemiah portrays similar ceremonies occurring in 7th and 5th century Jerusalem (2 Kgs 22-23; Neh 8). Yet later liturgical readings have rarely presented the entire Torah scroll at one time. Juxtaposition of biblical depictions of public readings with rhetorical analysis of the Pentateuch’s contents as well as evidence for its uses in the Second Temple period provides a test case for evaluating the possibilities and limitations of performance criticism of …