Classics Commons^™

Wyclif’S Trinitarian And Christological Theology, Stephen E. Lahey

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Anyone familiar with amateur photography can imagine standing in a darkroom, watching the slow resolution of a picture as it sits in its chemical bath. First the main outlines of the image emerge from a blank background, and only gradually do the details follow. Frequently the content of the picture is only recognizable when all the details are clear, when what appear as large, oddly shaped objects resolve into distinct, recognizable ones. Such is the case with understanding of Wyclif’s earlier, theological works. Without a familiarity with the details of fourteenth-century Oxford theology, its main players and positions, and their …

Review Of C. D. Elledge, The Statutes Of The King: The Temple Scroll’S Legislation On Kingship (11q19 Lvi12-Lix21), Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

C. D. Elledge has presented a thorough study of the section of the Temple Scroll known as “The Statutes of the King” (cols. 56-59 of 11QTemple^a). Since Yigael Yadin’s magisterial edition of the most complete manuscript of the Temple Scroll, 11Q19, in 1977 (rev. Eng. ed. 1983), two or three further manuscripts of the Temple Scroll have been published: 11QTemple^b and 11QTemple^c? by Florentino García Martínez et al. in 1997, and the important 4QRouleau de Temple (4Q524) by Emile Puech in 1998. E. uses all the available manuscript evidence for cols. 56-59 to construct a …

The Third Qui, And Six Ways To Recognize It, Or “Who Happens, Maecenas?”, Thomas Nelson Winter

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

All Latin students eventually have a problem with qui. To solve it, they need a third qui in their quiver. The problem shows up when they advance into third year, transitioning from Caesar to Roman Comedy, or to the poets. The familiar “who” often leads to nonsense, and they are at a loss. There are three qui’s: the relative pronoun, the interrogative adjective, and the old ablative instrumental, e.g.
1. qui dixit, who spoke
2. qui vir, which man
3. illud qui, that thing by means of which

It is the third that causes problems. …

Reading Deuteronomy In The Second Temple Period, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The book of Deuteronomy was one of the most popular religious texts in the Second Temple period. The finds from the Judean Desert present us with a wealth of manuscripts of Deuteronomy from the late Second Temple period, and the literature of Second Temple Judaism attests to the importance of Deuteronomy in Jewish thought in the period, quoting, alluding, and reusing the text in numerous ways. This paper presents some of the evidence for the popularity of Deuteronomy through a look at some of the texts found in the caves at Qumran. It begins with manuscripts of Deuteronomy itself, then …

Review Of The Texts From The Judaean Desert: Indices And An Introduction To The Discoveries In The Judaean Desert Series, By Emanuel Tov Et Al., Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

As the official publication process for the texts from the Judaean Desert, or the Dead Sea Scrolls, has drawn to a close, Emanuel Tov, the Editor-in-Chief of the project, has prepared a volume meant to serve as an introduction to and a guide through the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. Such a volume is necessary given the complicated nature and protracted time span of the series. The first volume was published in 1955, while the last one to contain original editions was just published in 2005. Eight volumes were written in French, the other thirty-one in English. Four different …

Johannes Buxtorfs Charakterisierung Des Judentums: Reformierte Orthodoxie Und Christliche Hebraistik, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Die wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit dem Judentum erhielt durch Johannes Buxtorf (1564-1629) eine neue Perspektive. Obwohl sein Zugang durch die Theologie der Orthodoxie geprägt war, zeigte er sich augerordentlich gut informiert über das Judentum. Seine regelmäßigen Kontakte zu Juden und seine tiefe Vertrautheit mit der jüdischen Literatur gehen zurück auf seinen Lehrauftrag als Hebräisch Professor an der Baseler Universität, auf seine Tätigkeit als Zensor der Stadt Basel für Hebräische Druckwerke und auf seine Vertretung der Waldkirch-Druckerei von 1596 bis 1612. Buxtorf lebte und wirkte in einer Zeit, in der jüdisch-christliche Kontakte einen “Zweck” haben mussten, wie Jacob Katz herausgestellt hat. Dennoch …

Christian Aramaism: The Birth And Growth Of Aramaic Scholarship In The Sixteenth Century, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Jewish historians have marveled at the vigorous growth and vitality of Christian Hebrew scholarship in early modern Europe. Ludwig Geiger and Moritz Steinschneider chronicled parts of this astonishing and unexpected phenomenon. During the past 50 years, Karlheinz Burmeister, R. Gerald Hobbs, Bernard Roussel, Gerard Well, and Jerome Friedman have provided biographies and analyses of the achievements of some of the most important Christian and Jewish scholars who made this possible. In my own research I have sought to quantify the growth of Hebrew learning among Christians through analyzing the Christian Hebrew printing industry as it developed. …

"Spokesmen For Judaism": Medieval Jewish Polemicists And Their Christian Readers In The Reformation Era, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

When Christian Hebraists reprinted Jewish polemical works they served as "Spokesmen for Judaism" in two different ways. While it is true that Christian Hebraists did report authentically Jewish opinion when they ppblished Jewish polemical texts or excerpts from them, they did so in ways, which reflected Christian standards and expectations. All of the scholars who served as editors and translators of medieval Jewish polemics were university professors, who were obligated by law, oath and conscience to defend the Christian confession of the state, which supported their university. They were sometimes required to enforce the censorship ordinance of their locality as …

Reginald Pecock On The Authority Of Reason, Scripture And Tradition, Stephen E. Lahey

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Bishop Reginald Pecock (c. 1390–1461) is remembered for vernacular works formulated to combat Lollardy using reason, not the force of ecclesiastical authority. He argued that Scripture’s teachings are true not because they are in Scripture, but because they are evident to unassisted reason. While scholars have explored his arguments in ecclesiastical and historical context, little analysis exists of the scholastic background to Pecock’s conception of the relation of reason to faith. This article suggests that Pecock’s arguments are grounded in the thought of Aquinas and Scotus, and illustrates how his understanding of reason’s capabilities directs his conception of the authority …

Gendered Interpretations: Two Fourth-Century B.C.E. Performances Of Sophocles' Electra, Anne Duncan

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

While the evidence for theatrical practice in the ancient world is admittedly spotty, we are fortunate to have anecdotal evidence concerning two different performances of Sophocles' Electra, both from the fourth century B.C.E., by two of the most famous tragic actors in ancient Greece, Theodorus and Polus, who apparently played Electra. The evidence suggests that their performances may have differed widely; it is even conceivable that the role was something of a yardstick for measuring great actors of the day (a la Hamlet). I will argue that these two "star" actors gave radically different interpretations of the character of Electra, …

Johannes Buxtorfs Charakterisierung Des Judentums: Reformierte Orthodoxie Und Christliche Hebraistik, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Die wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit dem Judentum erhielt durch Johannes Buxtorf (1564-1629) eine neue Perspektive. Obwohl sein Zugang durch die Theologie der Orthodoxie geprägt war, zeigte er sich außerordentlich gut informiert über das Judentum. Seine regelmäßigen Kontakte zu Juden und seine tiefe Vertrautheit mit der jüdischen Literatur gehen zurück auf seinen Lehrauftrag als Hebräischprofessor an der Baseler Universität, auf seine Tätigkeit als Zensor der Stadt Basel für Hebräische Druckwerke und auf seine Vertretung der Waldkirch-Druckerei von 1596 bis 1612. Buxtorf lebte und wirkte in einer Zeit, in der jüdisch-christliche Kontakte einen ,,Zweck" haben mussten, wie Jacob Katz herausgestellt hat. Dennoch besaß …

Women In Wisdom Tradition: Review Of Carol Fontaine, Smooth Words: Women, Proverbs And Performance In Biblical Wisdom, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Smooth Words is a well-researched and entertaining, if somewhat uneven, book on women in the Wisdom tradition in ancient Israel. Fontaine, a faculty member at a small Protestant seminary in Newton, MA, writes with her students constantly in mind, her interactions with them informing her scholarship throughout the book. She is also in dialogue with other scholars in the fields of Wisdom literature and feminist scholarship, a dialogue that gives the book academic rigor and depth.

Romans, Greeks, And Jews: The World Of Jesus And The Disciples, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

From a special issue on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ:

All contemporary moviegoers are aware of the difficulties of adapting a book, the written word, to film, a medium that relies on visual and aural sensations to convey its meaning. How often do we hear the following comments about a film: “the book was different,” or “the book was better,” or, most damning of all, “they changed the book!” When the book is an ancient book, such as a gospel from the New Testament, the problem is compounded by the fact that the book is for us …

Reassessing The "Basel-Wittenberg Conflict": Dimensions Of The Reformation-Era Discussion Of Hebrew Scholarship, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The study of Reformation-era Christian Hebraism has benefited from increased scholarly attention over the past fifty years. Sebastian Münster, Paul Fagius, Wolfgang Capito, and Conrad Pellican have all been the subjects of biographies. Luther scholars have analyzed not only Luther's use of Hebrew but to a lesser extent the Hebrew scholarship of Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and Goldhahn. Historians of the book trade have provided analytic bibliographies and studies of prominent Christian Hebrew printers, including Heinrich Petri, Thomas Anselm, and Robert Estienne as well as studies of the Hebrew book trade in Augsburg and Basel. The role of Jewish scholars in facilitating …

Review Of Jodi Magness, The Archaeology Of Qumran And The Dead Sea Scrolls, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

This volume by Jodi Magness is part of a series entitled Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, edited by Peter W. Flint, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., and Florentino Garcia Martinez. The purpose o f the series is "to make the latest and best Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship accessible to scholars, students, and the thinking public" (i). Magness has designed her book with that general readership, not the specialist in the field, in mind. It contains no footnotes, very few quotations from the scholarly literature, and its bibliography is gathered and annotated at the end o f each …

Review Of Duane L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 21:10–34:12, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

This commentary, which covers Deut 21: 10-34:12, is the second volume of Duane Christensen’s massive work on Deuteronomy (the revised first volume. WBC 6A, encompasses 1:1–21:9) in the WBC series. The series is written from an evangelical Christian perspective, and each volume follows the same format, presenting an exposition of the text in the original language (Hebrew or Greek). Each volume contains an original translation by the author, with explicating notes and commentary. ... On the whole, however, C. has done a marvelous job distilling the vast field of Deuteronomic research into a usable commentary. This volume, along with its …

Review Of Greek And Roman Actors: Aspects Of An Ancient Profession, Edited By Pat Easterling And Edith Hall., Anne Duncan

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

This is an excellent collection of essays, and an important one for anyone interested in performance, theater history, literature, cultural studies, gender, and a host of other fields. Ancient actors, as real individuals who engaged professionally with literary texts, provide a point of interdisciplinary contact between literature and history, as well as novel avenues of approach into archaeology, epigraphy, rhetoric, philosophy, textual criticism, and other subfields of Classics. The twenty essays in this volume stretch from Classical Greece to the Byzantine era and beyond, and cover a wide range of evidence and methodologies. They are divided into three groups: The …

Rolling Around: Paris By Night, Thomas Nelson Winter

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Riddle: What’s the difference between Lincoln, Nebraska and Paris, France?

1 In Paris, you're can skate in the streets!
2 If you see police on rollerskates in Lincoln, you're dreaming!
3 The Louvre is in Paris, and the whole block north of it is an asphalt plaza open to skating every night of the summer.
4 In Paris every Friday night at 10, a river of skaters floods through a 20-25K course, leaving the occasional misplaced motorist cowering by the curb.

A Mathematical Commentary On Xenophon, Hellenika 2.1.25, 5.3.5 And Thucydides 3.2, Thomas Nelson Winter

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

In Greek antiquity, gravity, actuated by archers on city walls, turned many a tide, as victorious besiegers routed a city's land forces, but in the excitement of pursuit, got too close to the city walls! Xenophon presents one such instance as but the most recent of many cases, in relating the death of Teleutias.

The bow, among the Greeks, was the principal weapon for the city besieged. The bow being so effective in this situation explains why the an early advance in ancient siege machinery was the movable tower. It is an anti-gravity machine! Its purpose was to zero out …

Review Of Schiffman & Vanderkam, Eds., Encyclopedia Of The Dead Sea Scrolls, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The aim of the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, according to its editors, is “to encompass all scholarship on the scrolls to date, making use of the research of many scholars of international reputation” (x). The word “scrolls” is used here in its broad meaning to refer to all the collections of ancient manuscripts found in the region of the Dead Sea and the Judaean wilderness in the twentieth century. These collections include the Qumran Scrolls, the Samaria Papyri, the Bar Kokhba texts, Masada and Khirbet Mird. Thus, although the Encyclopedia is more limited in geographical and chronological …

Mothers, Sisters, And Elders: Titles For Women In Second Temple Jewish And Early Christian Comunities, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

In this paper I will investigate two fragmentary texts from the Qumran scrolls, each of which gives us a tantalizing glimpse of women, first as part of the community presupposed by each text, and second as having a particular role or status within that community. That role or status is indicated by the use of particular titles, which, according to their grammatical forms, are applied only to women. I will then trace the use of these same titles in later Jewish inscriptions and texts, in order to suggest a wider context in which the Qumran titles might be understood. Finally, …

Not According To Rule: Women, The Dead Sea Scrolls And Qumran, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Until very recently, the juxtaposition of the words “women,” “Dead Sea Scrolls” and “Qumran” in the same title would have seemed like an oxymoron. From the beginning of Dead Sea Scrolls research, the people who lived at Qumran and stored the manuscripts in the eleven surrounding caves were identified with the ancient Jewish sect of the Essenes. This identification was based on the descriptions of the Essenes provided by the ancient writers Josephus, Philo and Pliny the Elder. Philo and Pliny are unequivocal in their description of the Essenes as an all-male, celibate group. Josephus also focuses his description of …

Traditions About Miriam In The Qumran Scrolls, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The collection of manuscripts recovered from the caves surrounding Khirbet Qumran, popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, contains a wealth of previously unknown literary compositions from the period of the Second Temple, many adding to our knowledge of the traditions surrounding these familiar biblical characters. It is especially pertinent, given the theme of this volume, to note that there is new material concerning female biblical characters to be gleaned from the fragmentary remains of the Qumran collection. This paper focuses on two or three Qumran texts that mention the biblical character Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, who, …

Review Of The Dead Sea Scrolls, Fifty Years After Their Discovery: Proceedings Of The Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997, Edited By Lawrence H. Schiffman, Emanuel Tov, And James C. Vanderkam; Executive Editor Galen Marquis, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Occasionally a volume appears that is almost impossible to review, whether because the material it presents is completely new, the subject matter is so esoteric, or the material is so eclectic that it cannot be absorbed in a single review. The latter is the case with the present volume, which contains over 100 articles by scholars from the United States, Israel, Canada, and Europe. The subject matter is the finds from the Judaean Desert—not only the written remains but also the material, biological, and architectural remains as well. The written remains include the Qumran scrolls (popularly referred to as the …

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Retrospective And Prospective, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The Dead Sea Scrolls—in the popular imagination, the very name conjures up scandal, intrigue and mystery. Tales of illicit excavations, clandestine purchases, and midnight trips to Beirut, all with the sound of gunfire crackling in the background, abound in the lore of the Scrolls and the scholars associated with them. While visions of Roland de Vaux as a French Indiana Jones may be the product of an overheated imagination, the actual story of the discovery of the Scrolls is nevertheless an exciting one in the annals of archaeology.

To say that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has revolutionized …

Johannes Buxtorf Westphalus Und Die Erforschung Des Judentums In Der Neuzeit, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Wenn vom "Anfang der Erforschung des Judentums" die Rede ist, geht es meistens um die Wissenschaft des Judentums im 19. Jahrhundert. Leopold Zunz, Abraham Geiger und andere Gründerväter der Wissenschaft des Judentums haben es als ihre Aufgabe angesehen, die Religion, Geschichte, Literatur und Sprachen der Juden und deren Erforschung auf eine neue Basis zu stellen. Das bedeutet auch, dass sie einen neuen Wissenschaftsapparat schaffen mussten, vor allem Lexika, Nachschlagewerke, Bibliographien und Monographien zu bestimmten Themen wie z. B. dem jüdischen Gottesdienst. Diese Arbeit war notwendig, nicht nur weil sie manchmal "politische" Zwecke erfüllen (etwa Leopold Zunz' Gottesdienstliche Vorträge der Juden …

The Canoe Curve, Thomas Nelson Winter

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

y = n/x seemed a very useful curve. You could use it to guide any business decision whether to rent or buy any piece of equipment.

Every such equation is not only symmetrical, it is symmetrical about the square root of the cost! That's the big bend. The business decision comes to this: would you use the equipment the square root of the dollar cost and thus get round the big bend to the shallow end of the curve?
If not, rent. If yes, buy. How very practical a square root can be.
Since then, I've seen y = n/x …

The Whole Scroll Story: Review Of The Meaning Of The Dead Sea Scrolls By James Vanderkam And Peter Flint, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

James VanderKam and Peter Flint set out to write, in their own words, “a new, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction” to the Dead Sea Scrolls. They have accomplished that goal admirably, especially when it comes to comprehensiveness. The volume touches on every area of scroll scholarship, and presents a synthetic account of the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls, their importance as a collection of ancient primary texts, and their impact on our understanding of Second Temple Judaism and the roots of Christianity.

Review Of The Bible At Qumran: Text, Shape, And Interpretation, Edited By Peter W. Flint, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

Review of The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation, edited by Peter W. Flint. Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Pp. xv + 266. Price: $22.00. ISBN 0-8028-4630-0.

This volume is another contribution to the Eerdmans series Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. The essays are loosely gathered around the topic "The Bible at Qumran," and the editor has divided the articles into two groups. Part 1, "The Scriptures, the Canon, and the Scrolls," includes articles by J.A. Sanders, B.W. Waltke, E. Ulrich, C.A. Evans, and the …

Review Of Timothy S. Laniak, Shame And Honor In The Book Of Esther, Sidnie White Crawford

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

This book, a study of the anthropological categories of “shame” and “honour” in the Book of Esther, represents an excellent new contribution to the field of Esther stud­ies. It is new because, as Laniak observes, the significance of the categories of “hon­our” and “shame” have diminished in the modern west (p. 1), and contemporary readers of the Book of Esther may be unaware of the operation of these categories on the plot and characters of the book. Laniak’s book, a basically unrevised form of his 1997 Harvard Divinity School dissertation, sheds important light on this ne­glected aspect of the Book …