Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity PDF Author: Bob Becking
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161501111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The post-exilic of Persian period showed a transition in the religion in ancient Israel from Yahwism(s) to Judaism(s). The events of exile and return made it impossible to completely fall back on the traditional religious identity. The essays in this volume try to reconstruct the path taken in that transition. The characters of Ezra and Nehemiah are generally seen as playing a formative role in this process. By reading texts from the biblical books supposedly written by Ezra and Nehemiah in a religio-historical context, new light falls on the process of change.

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity PDF Author: Bob Becking
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161501111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The post-exilic of Persian period showed a transition in the religion in ancient Israel from Yahwism(s) to Judaism(s). The events of exile and return made it impossible to completely fall back on the traditional religious identity. The essays in this volume try to reconstruct the path taken in that transition. The characters of Ezra and Nehemiah are generally seen as playing a formative role in this process. By reading texts from the biblical books supposedly written by Ezra and Nehemiah in a religio-historical context, new light falls on the process of change.

Prayers and the Construction of Israelite Identity

Prayers and the Construction of Israelite Identity PDF Author: Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher
Publisher: SBL Press
ISBN: 0884143678
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Substantial insights into various identity discourses reflected in the biblical prayers This collection of essays from an international group of scholars focuses on how biblical prayers of the Persian and early Hellenistic periods shaped identity, evoked a sense of belonging to specific groups, and added emotional significance to this affiliation. Contributors draw examples from different biblical texts, including Genesis, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Psalms, Jonah, and Daniel. Features Thorough study of prayers that play a key role for a biblical book’s (re)construction of the people’s history and identity An examination of ways biblical figures are remodeled by their prayers by introducing other, sometimes even contradictory, discourses on identity An exploration of different ways in which psalms from postexilic times shaped, reflected, and modified identity discourses

Judaism, the First Phase

Judaism, the First Phase PDF Author: Joseph Blenkinsopp
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802864503
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Most studies of how early Judaism related to the non-Jewish world and how it was perceived by others start no earlier than the Hellenistic period. Joseph Blenkinsopp argues that we must go further back, to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and the liquidation of the political and religious infrastructure monarchy, priesthood, scribalism, prophecy which had sustained the Judean state for centuries. / Moving beyond the ideologically driven approaches of scholars over the past two centuries, he explores such pragmatic issues as the emergence of a distinctive group identity in the aftermath of the fall of the Judean state, the degree of continuity-discontinuity between national identity before the exile and competition among distinct group for legitimacy after it, and the historical realities behind the idea of a restoration in a fundamentally different world, with neither monarchy nor statehood and a much-diminished temple. / Judaism, the First Phase is a fresh and potentially stunning look at Jewish origins, tracing the legacy of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ideal for scholars and students.

Men, Masculinities and Intermarriage in Ezra 9-10

Men, Masculinities and Intermarriage in Ezra 9-10 PDF Author: Elisabeth M. Cook
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000968391
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Offering a reading of the intermarriage debate and expulsion of the foreign women in Ezra 9-10, this book engages with the production and performance of masculinities in this biblical text, shifting the focus away from the 'foreign women' to the men who are the primary actors in this work. This approach addresses the diversity of masculinities and the ways in which they are implicated in the production of power relations in the text. It explores the ‘feminized’ masculinity of the peoples-of-the-lands, the unstable masculinity of the golah, Ezra’s performance of penitential masculinity, and the rehabilitation of divine masculinity. The rejection of the marriages and the call for the expulsion of the women and children are addressed as sites on which masculinities and power relations are configured. In doing so, this book sheds light on how women and the traits and performances culturally ascribed to women, femininity and inferior masculinities, are appropriated to produce masculinities and negotiate power relations between men. It posits that the debate in Ezra 9-10 is not, ultimately, about the women themselves, but about bringing the masculinities, bodies and practices of dissenting men under the ‘management’ of those who wield the Torah in the narrative world of the text. Men, Masculinities and Intermarriage in Ezra-9-10 is of interest for scholars and students working on the Book of Ezra specifically, as well as the Hebrew Bible and its world more broadly. It is also a valuable study for those working on masculinities and gender in the biblical world and ancient Near East.

On Her Account

On Her Account PDF Author: Anne-Mareike Wetter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567664317
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Anne-Mareike Wetter investigates how the books of Ruth, Esther and Judith contribute to the discussion about Israel's ethnic and religious identity in the formative period following the Babylonian Exile. Although each of these narratives deals with variations of the theme of survival in a hostile world, the question underlying them is a different one: “Who are we, and who is our 'other'?” The narratives are presented as sequels to Israel's history as put forward in other (now biblical) texts, and presuppose God's continuing involvement with his people. However, they subtly modify the way in which Israel can or should relate to her God by suggesting alternatives for official Temple worship or bypassing the latter altogether. While older prophetic texts make use of metaphoric language portraying Israel as YHWH's unfaithful wife, grieving widow, or ravaged virgin, Ruth, Esther and Judith can be construed as embodiments of Israel of a different kind. Wetter argues for a revisioning of Israel in and through the bodies of the three female characters, as a community which is simultaneously vulnerable and inviolable, marginalized and empowered. Their tricksterism, in all its comicality, underlines the precarious situation in which the women and the community they represent are caught. Yet it also has the power to both defeat threats from outside and amend Israel's self-perception on the inside. Israel no longer has to perceive of itself as a battered wife but as one who can deploy her qualities – seductive and otherwise – for the survival of the community.

The Torah Unabridged

The Torah Unabridged PDF Author: William A. Tooman
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 164602219X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
The Torah Unabridged is a detailed examination of legal reasoning in the Hebrew Bible. Focusing on the exegetical operations by which biblical laws related to intermarriage were applied to circumstances and persons that lie outside the sphere of their explicit content, this book reconstructs the ways in which laws regarding intermarriage evolved, were interpreted, and were applied across time and place. William A. Tooman argues that the “exegetical impulse” to expand upon the gaps left by laws relating to marriage in the Torah is expressed in several distinctive ways in later texts in the Hebrew Bible. Adopting a diachronic approach, Tooman examines the techniques biblical writers used in their appropriation, expansion, and manipulation of legal ideas within earlier biblical texts in order to apply the laws to more situations, circumstances, and people. Tooman’s analysis reveals that from Exodus to Ezra-Nehemiah, legal reasoning on intermarriage moved in a singular direction: toward an ever-greater restriction of marriage between Israelites/Jews and gentiles. The final chapter sums up the ways that this was accomplished, summarizing the logical and exegetical operations executed in the process of expanding the relevance of these laws, and describing the hermeneutical assumptions that motivated the process. Grounded in a detailed philological analysis of the Hebrew texts, this tightly argued monograph is an important impetus to further debate in the field. It will be welcomed by biblical scholars and by specialists in the history of law.

The Bible, Qumran, and the Samaritans

The Bible, Qumran, and the Samaritans PDF Author: Magnar Kartveit
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110580373
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Discoveries on Mount Gerizim and in Qumran demonstrate that the final editing of the Hebrew Bible coincides with the emergence of the Samaritans as one of the different types of Judaisms from the last centuries BCE. This book discusses this new scholarly situation. Scholars working with the Bible, especially the Pentateuch, and experts on the Samaritans approach the topic from the vantage point of their respective fields of expertise. Earlier, scholars who worked with Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies mostly could leave the Samaritan material to experts in that area of research, and scholars studying the Samaritan material needed only sporadically to engage in Biblical studies. This is no longer the case: the pre-Samaritan texts from Qumran and the results from the excavations on Mount Gerizim have created an area of study common to the previously separated fields of research. Scholars coming from different directions meet in this new area, and realize that they work on the same questions and with much common material.This volume presents the current state of scholarship in this area and the effects these recent discoveries have for an understanding of this important epoch in the development of the Bible.

Jerusalem and the One God

Jerusalem and the One God PDF Author: Othmar Keel
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506425615
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Jerusalem, with its turbulent history, is without doubt one of the best-known cities of the world. A long line of foreign powers have ruled over it, from as far back as biblical times. But the city owes its importance not to them but to the fact that it is the birthplace of the monotheistic currents that shape Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Othmar Keel sketches in broad brush strokes the historical development of Israelite-Jewish monotheism in and around Jerusalem, arguing that monotheism is “a product of the city, not of the desert,” and describes its integration of polytheistic symbols and perceptions into its worldview. Keel relies on biblical and extrabiblical texts as well as the rich iconographic evidence of archaeological discoveries. Abundant maps and sketches of archaeological artifacts enhance his argument.

Prophecy and Prophets in Stories

Prophecy and Prophets in Stories PDF Author: Bob E.J.H. Becking
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900429113X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
The fifth meeting of the Edinburgh prophecy network focussed on the presence of prophets and prophecy in narrative texts. The papers in this volume scrutinize the image of prophecy through the analysis of narrative processes. The papers deal with a great time span: from the Hittite Empire, via the Hebrew Bible, Judaism and Islam, up to the early Modern Period. Although all sorts of variations could be detected - especially due to the variety of temporal contexts, some features are recurring especially in view of the anthropological phenomenon of prophecy and its function in narratives.

Reconsidering Nehemiah's Judah

Reconsidering Nehemiah's Judah PDF Author: Deirdre N. Fulton
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161538810
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In this work, Deirdre N. Fulton examines the differences in the MT and LXX texts of Nehemiah 11-12. She portrays the rebuilding of Judah by focusing on the people who settled in Jerusalem, a catalog of settlements in Judah, a list of temple personnel, and a narrative of the dedication and procession around the walls of Jerusalem. In this systematic study the author analyzes the textual divergences and changes these chapters underwent over time. While both traditions cast Nehemiah 11-12 in Persian period Judah, the textual divergences between the MT and LXX reveal intentional changes that occurred during the Hellenistic period.