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The Desecration Of Sacred Spaces In The Dead Sea Scrolls And Pre-Nicene Latin Christianity: A History Of Interpretation Of The Eschatological Motif Of The Defiling Enemy In Apocalypticism, Rodrigo De Galiza Barbosa

Dissertations

Problem

The motif of the polluting enemy in the sanctuary is an important point of departure in the articulation of community boundaries in Hebraic-Christian culture. This particular motif has the potential to explain, at least in part, how Jewish and Christian communities would have understood the apocalyptic evil other and, from this understanding, set boundaries for their holy communities. Texts such as Dan 8 and 2 Thess 2 have been the locus classicus of the so-called antichrist, and ever since their interpretation has shaped how Christians and Jews have understood the enemy to their respective communities. In the history of …

Perspectives On Cognitive Psychology In Ktu 1.40: Moral Implications And Prescribed Emotional Responses To Foster Unity, Richard Jarvis Iii

Studia Antiqua

This paper examines the Ugaritic ritual text KTU 1.40 through the framework of cognitive psychology to explore its moral implications and prescribed emotional responses. While earlier scholarship has debated whether this ritual carried moral weight, my analysis demonstrates that it prescribes the removal or amelioration of five moral emotions—disgust, fear, anger, empathy, and a sense of justice—to promote unity within the community of Ugarit. Building on Thomas Kazen’s approach and Gregorio del Olmo Lete’s translation, this study argues that the repeated structure and inclusive nature of KTU 1.40 reflect an intentional effort to bridge emotional divides among the many groups …

Fear, Trembling, And Wonder: Psalms Of Awe, Solomon Aleph

University Honors Theses

This thesis proposes an expansion of genre form criticism within the Book of Psalms to include an additional category: Psalms of Awe. Building on scholarship that emphasizes the Psalms as expressions of religious experience, it draws from philosophical, theological, and critical scholarship to define the experience of awe as a distinct religious experience not fully captured by form critical scholarship. The thesis argues that awe is reflected in the Psalms through the combination of three key Hebrew roots: ירא (fear/reverence), פחד (fear/dread), and פלא (wonder). This is done by analyzing several psalms to explicate how each term captures a different …

Front Matter & Editorial, Editorial Board, Assaf Nativ

'Atiqot

No abstract provided.

Dwellings From The Byzantine Period At Pi Maẓuva In The Western Galilee (With A Contribution By Danny Syon) (Hebrew, Pp. 31*–39*; English Summary, Pp. 182–183), Gilad Cinamon, Yoav Lerer

'Atiqot

The excavation at Pi Maẓuva revealed building complexes, some separated by an alley, dating from the Byzantine period. The finds at the site included a bronze cross, an ashlar limestone lintel with a cross engraving, and pottery dated to the sixth–seventh centuries CE, which comprised local types, alongside many imported ones, some adorned with crosses. An interesting find is a high-quality, colorful, seventh-century CE mosaic floor adorned with floral motifs, animal and human figures, and two fragmentary Greek inscriptions. The finds at the site point to the existence of a rural Christian settlement, probably destroyed during the Persian conquest of …

Front Matter & Editorial, The Editorial Board

'Atiqot

No abstract provided.

New Paths In Jewish And Religious Studies: Essays In Honor Of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Glenn Dynner, Susannah Heschel, Shaul Magid

Purdue University Press Books

The work of Elliot R. Wolfson has profoundly influenced the fields of Jewish studies as well as philosophy and religion more broadly. His radically new approaches have created pioneering ways of analyzing texts and thinking about religion through the lens of gender, sexuality, and feminist theory. The contributors to New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars, hearken from diverse fields. Each has learned from and collaborated with Wolfson as student or colleague, and each has expanded the new scholarly directions initiated by Wolfson’s groundbreaking …

"Get Me The Girl For A Wife": Feminist Readings Of Genesis 34-35, Jacqueline Sanchez-Small Osb

Obsculta

This essay, originally written for “The Hebrew Scriptures: History, Theology, and Controversy,” considers the story of the rape of Dinah, exploring the text’s history and its traditional interpretations. Drawing on the work of Phyllis Trible’s Texts of Terror, the piece proposes a feminist and liberatory reading of the passage, one that centers the personhood of Dinah and the other women of the story.

Exodus Allusions In The Midsection Of The Gospel Of Matthew, Cedric E. W. Vine

Faculty Publications

Matthean scholarship is divided as to whether the first recipients of the Gospel considered themselves to be part of early formative Judaism. Within the context of this debate, this study calls for the recognition of multiple exodus allusions in the midsection of the Gospel. These allusions reveal an Evangelist who either anticipated the possible need for withdrawal from hostile host communities or, equally plausibly, affirmed an ongoing separation process.

“Nebuchadnezzar, My Servant”: A Reexamination Of The Honorific Title “Servant Of The Lord"”, Ian S. Reyes

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Moses, David, and Joshua are all designated the honorific title “servant of YHWH” in the HB. Even a cursory reading of the HB texts involving these figures would leave little surprise as to why they are bestowed this exclusive moniker. There are only ten individuals who are given this title in the MT, and of these ten, the majority of them do not raise questions, except one—the sixth-century Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. Some have argued that his inclusion in this list is a result of a scribal error, or that it is limited in scope, as only a description of function. …

Divine Speeches In The Book Of Psalms: Their Role, Placement, And Implication For The Message And Structure Of Selected Psalms, Dragoslava Santrac

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

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Exodus 14–15 As An Anti-Baal Polemic And Its Implications For Interpreting Exodus 15:17 And Dating These Chapters, Brent Olson

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Olson, Brent, M. “Exodus 14–15 as an Anti-Baal Polemic and Its Implications for Interpreting and Dating These Chapters.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2020. 257 pp.

This dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: What is the relationship of Baal-zephon worship and its governing narrative, the Baal Myth, to the accounts of the Sea Event in Exodus 14–15? Secondly, what are the implications of this relationship for interpreting and dating these chapters? Building upon scholarship’s engagement with these questions since the Ras Shamra discoveries, the dissertation makes the case that Exodus 14–15 function in part as an anti-Baal polemic. Four pieces …

The Glory Of The Lord Whose Likeness Is As The Appearance Of A Human Being/Adam: A Study Of Ezekiel’S Son Of Man/Adam Anthropology, Timothy R. Schmeling

School of Theology and Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses

Ezekiel has often been criticized as a dehumanizing book. Still it is alternative humanisms that have done so much to dehumanize mankind with the totalitarianism of self-deifying individualism or the totalitarianism of collectively-imposed manmade metanarratives. Far from being a dehumanizing book, the objective of the son of man/Adam is certainly to purge his hearers of all anthropologies of autonomy and license, but this Adamic priestly prophet does this to eschatologically resurrect in them an anthropology of dependence and true freedom. Reasserting the creation theology and anthropology of Genesis, Ezekiel insists that authentic humanism, Edenic humanism (i.e., the original humanism), is …

Luke Was Not A Christian: Interdisciplinary Perspectives On The Jewish Authorship Of Luke And Acts, Joshua Paul Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation challenges the long-held assumption that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by a gentile Christian, arguing instead that the author of these texts was an educated follower of “the Way” who was raised and enculturated within a Hellenistic Jewish context. Advancing from a consciously interdisciplinary perspective, it probes the question of Lukan authorship variously from reception history and social memory theory, intertextuality studies, thematic analysis informed by historical and literary criticism, and incorporates emerging insights from the field of cognitive linguistics. It concludes with a reflection upon some of the potential ethical …

On Vias Negativa And Positiva In John’S Dialectical Theology—Apophatic And Kataphatic Thrusts In Philo And Within The Johannine Tradition, Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

The Vias Negativa and Positiva are evident in Jewish Scripture and Philo, but they also come across dialectically in the Fourth Gospel.1 Indeed, connections between these writings and the Fourth Gospel abound, as Peder Borgen and others have shown over the years, but this particular subject of overlap is an intriguing one. 2 Of special interest here are the apophatic and kataphatic thrusts of John’s historical, theological, and compositional interests with relation to the 9LD 1HJDWLYD and the 9LD 3RVLWLYD , as played out within histories of John’s situation and composition. Put simply, John’s presentation of Jesus and his ministry …

Immortal Combat: Iconoclasm And The Hebrew Bible, Albert L. Mcclure

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biblical iconoclasm is any biblical text that describes the disruption of religious observances by physical violence against cult materials. This can include removing cult objects from their appointed places, god-napping divine bodies, outright destruction, cult reform, etc. Biblical iconoclasm, understood this way, is one component of the Hebrew Bible’s iconic politics. Other components of biblical iconic politics – like Idol Parodies, Bildersverbot, and aniconism – have been well studied in the past thirty years. Biblical iconoclasm has not shared the popularity of its collaborators in this respect. This dissertation is necessary because no extended study of iconoclasm in the Hebrew …

A Re-Examination Of Pentateuchal Hamartiology And Atonement As A Hermeneutical Framework For Interpreting The Laying On Of Hands, Slavisa Milodar Jankovic

Dissertations

The ritual gesture of laying on of hands in Scripture has generated significant interest among theologians from rabbinic times until now. Still today, scholars assign various meanings to the ritual. In the second half of the 20th century, the fresh interest that put forward new meanings for this gesture came primarily through the introduction of the new sub-discipline of Ritualistics within Old Testament studies. This relatively new discipline is not founded upon premises found in biblical texts, but rather, upon those found in various secular social, philosophical sciences, and other disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, anthropology, literary criticism, and the …

Repatriating The Canaanite Woman In The Gospel Of Matthew, Cedric Vine

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

This study argues that Matthew’s replacement of Mark’s “Gentile of Syrophoenician origin” with a “Canaanite woman” (Mark 7:26; Matt 15:22) is part of a wider narrative strategy to portray the land of Israel and its cities as a new Sodom, a new Canaan, a new Egypt, and a new Babylon. The study employs Dale Allison’s six intertextual devices (explicit statement, inexplicit citation or borrowing, similar circumstances, key words or phrases, similar narrative structure, and word order, syllabic sequence, and poetic resonance) to demonstrate a consistent authorial intention while identifying contemporary or near contemporary sources that would affirm the likelihood that …

“Visiting Iniquity Of Fathers Against Sons” In Exodus, Thomas Egger

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Egger, Thomas J. “‘Visiting Iniquity of Fathers against Sons’ in Exodus.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2018. 665 pp.

In two of the most important passages in Exodus (20:5 and 34:7), Yahweh describes himself as “visiting iniquity of fathers against sons, even against members of the third and fourth generations.” Missing in nearly every treatment of this phrase has been any sustained consideration of the phrase within the context of the Exodus narrative itself. Apart from such interpretive grounding, “visiting iniquity of fathers against sons” has shown itself susceptible to widely varied and contradictory readings and, especially, maximally problematizing readings which …

Motivation For The Sharing Of Material Possessions In Acts, Philo's De Vita Contemplativa And The Didache: A Comparative Study, Lena V. Toews

Dissertations

Luke, in the book of Acts, depicts the sharing of possessions as a practice in the Jerusalem community of the first century. Several pericopes, occurring primarily in the first part of the book of Acts, embody the idea of shared property and seem to have important parallels to other sources of the time, including the Jewish author Philo’s work De vita contemplativa, where he describes a group he calls, “Therapeutae,” and in the Jewish Christian document Didache. This study seeks to identify beliefs correlated with the material sharing practices in the community of Acts and compare them with De vita …

God’S Library: The Archaeology Of The Earliest Christian Manuscripts [Review] / Nongbri, Brent., Christopher R. Chadwick

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Book Review

Zondervan Handbook Of Biblical Archaeology: A Book By Book Guide To Archaeological Discoveries Related To The Bible [Review] / Price, J. Randall And H. Wayne House., Elizabeth Emswiler

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

Book Review

Redefining The Roles Of The Rural Levites In Deuteronomy, James Douglas Wilson

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Insights Into The Translation And Interpretation Of The Targum To The Book Of Jeremiah, Meng Loeng Yip

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Psalms Of The Spirit: A Study Of The Divine Use Of Ruach In The Book Of Psalms, Charles H. Gaulden

Selected Faculty Publications

dissertation is a theological study of the divine spirit (רוּ חַ ) in the bookof Psalms, more specifically within Psalms 51; 104; 139; and 143. By the expres-sion “divine use of רוּ חַ ,” the theological focus is narrowed to רוּ חַ in close lan-guage connection to Yahweh himself with various personal expressions such as “his spirit, your spirit, your good spirit, your holy spirit, and your noble spirit.” The research begins in division one with an analysis of all non-divine uses of רוּ חַ in the Psalms that have been variously translated in connection with “an-gels, breath, human disposition, …

Exodus As New Creation, Israel As Foundling: Stories In The History Of An Idea, Christopher Evangelos John Brenna

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study surveys the development of two literary phenomena in early Jewish and Christian tradition. The first is the birth story of a portentous child, exemplified by the birth stories of Moses, Noah, Melchizedek, and Jesus in biblical and Second Temple period literature. The second is the mythical expansion of the exodus tradition, which interprets the crossing of the Red Sea as a recreation of the people of Israel. I examine the appropriation of these two phenomena in the late antique Hellenistic story, Joseph and Aseneth. I contend that (1) the early Jewish birth story paradigm is influenced by the …

The Moral World(S) Of Malachi, Robert Alan Cope

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

What Is The Golden Calf?, Michael B. Hundley

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

The golden calf episode in Exodus is both popular and perplexing. While it has a shared ancient Near Eastern heritage of understanding divine presence, it chooses to undermine that heritage to promote its particular agenda. This study clarifies the text by situating it more firmly in its ancient Near Eastern context and by addressing the biblical adaptations that emerge when we address each of the chapter’s distinct voices. I also consider the importance of perspective—what each character sees and how that vision affects the character’s viewpoint—and the importance of divine visibility both in Exodus 32 and in the larger non-Priestly …

Peder Borgen’S Bread From Heaven—Midrashic Developments In John 6 As A Case Study In John’S Unity And Disunity (A Foreword To Bread From Heaven), Paul N. Anderson

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Among the weighty treatments of the Gospel of John over the last half-century, one of the most incisive has been Bread from Heaven, by Peder Borgen. As the unity and disunity of the Fourth Gospel had been debated extensively among Johannine scholars for the previous half-century, approaching this issue from a text-based comparative standpoint posed a new window through which one could assess key issues and contribute to the larger discussions. Whereas Rudolf Bultmann and Wilhelm Bousset had envisioned the context of John’s composition as Hellenistic Christianity leading into Gnostic trajectories, Borgen focused on particularly Jewish writings as John’s primary …

Judgment For The Saints: The Justice Of God In Psalms 3–14, Jerome Skinner

Papers

No abstract provided.