"To Teach" in Ancient Israel

Author: Wendy L. Widder
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110372924
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book employs cognitive linguistics to determine the foundational elements of the ancient Israelites’ concept of teaching as reflected in the text of the Hebrew Bible and Ben Sira. It analyzes four prominent lexemes that comprise a lexical set referring to the act of teaching: ירה-H, למד-D, ידע-H, and יסר-D. The study concludes that, in its most basic form, the concept of teaching in ancient Israel was that a teacher creates the conditions in which learning can occur. The methodology employed in this project is built on a premise of cognitive studies, namely, that because teaching is a universal human activity, there is a universal concept of teaching: one person A recognizes that another person B lacks knowledge, belief, skills, and the like (or has incomplete or distorted knowledge, etc.), and person A attempts to bring about a changed state of knowledge, belief, or skill in person B. This universal concept provides the starting place for understanding the concept of teaching that Biblical Hebrew reflects, and it also forms the conceptual base against which the individual lexemes are profiled. The study incorporates a micro-level analysis and a macro-level analysis. At the micro-level, each lexeme is examined with respect to its linguistic forms (the linguistic analysis) and the contexts in which the lexeme occurs (the conceptual analysis). The linguistic analysis considers the clausal constructions of each instantiation and determines what transitivity, ditransitivity, or intransitivity contributes to the meaning. Collocations of the lexeme, including prepositional phrases, adverbial adjuncts, and parallel verbs, are evaluated for their contribution to meaning. The conceptual analysis of each lexeme identifies the meaning potential of each word, as well as what aspect of the meaning potential each instantiation activates. The study then determines the lexeme’s prototypical meaning, which is profiled on the base of the universal concept of teaching. This step of profiling represents an important adaptation of the cognitive linguistics tool of profiling to meet the special requirements of working with ancient texts in that it profiles prototype meanings, not instantiations. In the macro-analysis, the data of all four lexemes in the lexical set are synthesized. The relationships among the lexemes are assessed in order to identify the basic level lexeme and consider whether the lexemes form a folk taxonomy. Finally, the profiles of the four prototype meanings are collated and compared in order to describe the ancient Israelite concept of teaching. The study finds that the basic level item of the lexical set is למד-D based on frequency of use and distribution. In its prototypical definition, למד-D means to intentionally put another person in a state in which s/he can acquire a skill or expertise through experience and practice. In contrast to this sustained kind of teaching, the prototypical meaning of ירה-H is situational in nature: a person of authority or expertise gives specific, situational instruction to someone who lacks knowledge about what to do. The lexemes יסר-D and ידע-H represent the most restricted and the most expansive lexemes, respectively: the prototypical meaning of יסר-D is to attempt to bring about changed behavior in another person through verbal or physical means, often to the point of causing pain; the prototypical meaning of ידע-H is that a person of authority causes another person to be in a state of knowing something from the divine realm or related to experiences with the divine realm. The study determines that while the four lexemes of the Biblical Hebrew lexical set “to teach” have significant semantic overlap, they cannot be construed in a folk taxonomy because the words are not related in a hierarchical way.

Education in Ancient Israel

Education in Ancient Israel PDF Author: James L. Crenshaw
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300140118
Category : Education, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this new study, distinguished biblical scholar James L. Crenshaw investigates both the pragmatic hows and the philosophical whys of education in ancient Israel and its surroundings. Asking questions as basic as "Who were the teachers and students, and from what segment of Israelite society did they come?" and "How did instructors interest young people in the things they had to say?, " Crenshaw considers the institutions and practices of the ancient Israelite educational system. He also examines the beginnings of literacy in the Ancient Near East, explores how Israel and its neighbors made the transformation from an oral to a written culture, and explores the literary works that constituted the canon of this distant culture.

Ethics in Ancient Israel

Ethics in Ancient Israel PDF Author: John Barton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199660433
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This book considers ethical thinking in ancient Israel in the period from the 8th to the 2nd century BC.

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel PDF Author: Marc Zvi Brettler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134649843
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
The Creation of History in Ancient Israel demonstrates how the historian can start to piece together the history of ancient Israel using the Hebrew Bible as a source.

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel PDF Author: Benjamin D. Sommer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521518725
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Sommer utilizes a recovered ancient perception of divinity as having more than one body, fluid and unbounded selves.

Education in Ancient Israel

Education in Ancient Israel PDF Author: Fletcher Harper Swift
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description


How the Bible Became a Book

How the Bible Became a Book PDF Author: William M. Schniedewind
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521829461
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
For the past two hundred years biblical scholars have increasingly assumed that the Hebrew Bible was largely written and edited in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. As a result, the written Bible has dwelled in an historical vacuum. Recent archaeological evidence and insights from linguistic anthropology, however, point to the earlier era of the late-Iron Age as the formative period for the writing of biblical literature. How the Bible Became a Book combines these recent archaeological discoveries in the Middle East with insights culled from the history of writing to address how the Bible first came to be written down and then became sacred Scripture. This book provides rich insight into why these texts came to have authority as Scripture and explores why Ancient Israel, an oral culture, began to write literature, challenging the assertion that widespread literacy first arose in Greece during the fifth century BCE.

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus PDF Author: Ann Spangler
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310350417
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A rare chance to know Jesus as his first disciples knew him. What would it be like to journey back to the first century and sit at the feet of Rabbi Jesus as one of his Jewish disciples? How would your understanding of the gospel have been shaped by the customs, beliefs, and traditions of the Jewish culture in which you lived? Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus will change the way you read Scripture and deepen your understanding of the life of Jesus. It will also help you to adapt the rich prayers and customs you learn about to your own life, in ways that both respect and enrich your Christian faith. Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus takes you on a fascinating tour of the Jewish world of Jesus, offering inspirational insights that can transform your faith. Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg paint powerful scenes from Jesus' ministry, immersing you in the prayers, feasts, history, culture, and customs that shaped Jesus and those who followed him. In these pages, you will: Hear the parables as they must have sounded to first-century Jews, powerful and surprising. Join conversations among the rabbis of Jesus' day. Watch with new understanding as the events of Jesus' life unfold. Experience new excitement about the roots of your Christian faith. This expanded edition includes a discussion guide for both individuals and groups, and instructions for a simple home Passover Seder celebration.

Meet the Rabbis

Meet the Rabbis PDF Author: Brad H. Young
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441232877
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Meet the Rabbis explains to the reader how rabbinic thought was relevant to Jesus and the New Testament world, and hence should be relevant to those people today who read the New Testament. In this sense, rabbinic thought is relevant to every aspect of modern life. Rabbinic literature explores the meaning of living life to its fullest, in right relationship with God and humanity. However, many Christians are not aware of rabbinic thought and literature. Indeed, most individuals in the Western world today, regardless of whether they are Christians, atheists, agnostics, secular community leaders, or some other religious and political persuasions, are more knowledgeable of Jesus' ethical teachings in the Sermon the Mount than the Ethics of the Fathers in a Jewish prayer book. The author seeks to introduce the reader to the world of Torah learning. It is within this world that the authentic cultural background of Jesus' teachings in ancient Judaism is revealed. Young uses parts of the New Testament, especially the Sermon on the Mount, as a springboard for probing rabbinic method. The book is an introduction to rabbinic thought and literature and has three main sections in its layout: Introduction to Rabbinic Thought, Introduction to Rabbinic Literature, and Meet the Rabbis, a biographical description of influential Rabbis from Talmudic sources.

Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?

Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? PDF Author: Lester L. Grabbe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567670449
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
In Ancient Israel Lester L. Grabbe sets out to summarize what we know through a survey of sources and how we know it by a discussion of methodology and by evaluating the evidence. The most basic question about the history of ancient Israel, how do we know what we know, leads to the fundamental questions of Grabbe's work: what are the sources for the history of Israel and how do we evaluate them? How do we make them 'speak' to us through the fog of centuries? Grabbe focuses on original sources, including inscriptions, papyri, and archaeology. He examines the problems involved in historical methodology and deals with the major issues surrounding the use of the biblical text when writing a history of this period. Ancient Israel provides an enlightening overview and critique of current scholarly debate. It can therefore serve as a 'handbook' or reference-point for those wanting a catalogue of original sources, scholarship, and secondary studies. Grabbe's clarity of style makes this book eminently accessible not only to students of biblical studies and ancient history but also to the interested lay reader. For this new edition the entire text has been reworked to take account of new archaeological discoveries and theories. There is a major expansion to include a comprehensive coverage of David and Solomon and more detailed information on specific kings of Israel throughout. Grabbe has also added material on the historicity of the Exodus, and provided a thorough update of the material on the later bronze age.