#biblicalscholarship

[ladyfingerpress]

Tough Crux

Zine XV. Goddess erasure, volume ii.

[theradicalscholar]

Unveiling the Mysteries: An Introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls - TheRadicalScholar.com

Imagine stumbling upon ancient manuscripts that have been hidden for centuries, waiting to reveal their secrets. Such a discovery happened i

🔍✨ Discover the remarkable tale of the Dead Sea Scrolls! 📜🗝️ Unearthed in hidden caves, these ancient manuscripts have unlocked secrets of the ancient world.

Join us as we delve into their profound impact on biblical scholarship, explore the beliefs of the Essenes, and unravel the mysteries of our past. 🌍🔍

[christianornot]

Do You Know the Difference Between Intelligence and Wisdom?

We use the words intelligence and wisdom like they mean the same thing—but they don’t. You can be brilliant and make foolish choices. You can be ordinary in knowledge but act with incredible insight. Intelligence is what you know. Wisdom is what you do with what you know. Sometimes, the difference shows up in the smallest moments. A child reading a Bible verse carefully can outwit an adult who…

Do You Know the Difference Between Intelligence and Wisdom?

[ninurtaturtle]

Twin narratives

A stick-in-the-mud responds to two shocking proposals

There are two major twin narratives in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, there is a major one, that of Jacob and Esau, about which much has been written. And there is a minor one, concerning the birth of Peretz and Zerah to Tamar. The unfortunate barrenness of scholarship on Genesis 38 has been recently made more fertile with a pair of brief exegetes, mutually extending plumed hands. (Boy, am I glad that metaphor's over.)

The first is by Dr M. The very next month, in the same journal, a response by Dr C. The month after that, same place, this response by me. You can almost hear the board splitting.

Sanity requires plain speaking: Dr M's proposal is full of absurdities. If you've been lucky enough to avoid the paper, you may wish to retain your ignorance and weed your garden or prepare a meal for your partner.

I see you're still with me.

Dr M wishes to do away with aeons of exegesis and shoehorn a spanner in the scroll. The basic proposal is that the twins, Peretz and Zerah, in their newborn infancy, were characterized by the physical effects of the adult pairing instinct. Yes, you heard right. Specifically, Zerah's membrum is virile, claims Doc -- and its extension would be better termed an erection.

How can that be when the text doesn't contain the word penis? The claim may be facially farcical, but it depends on a reality of the Hebrew language - which is that almost any area below the chest can euphemistically refer to genitalia. Here, יד (yad) is said to mean punningly or solely "penis" rather than the typical interpretation of "hand." I can't deny yad can mean either, but it's not enough to publish on. (To be clear, I'll be retracting my subscription to and support of Journal Name Monthly when the issue containing this rebuttal is in my yad.)

The widest breach in the hypothesis is ignorance of the central word. שני (shni) means "double-dipped crimson thread." (HALOT.) So far everyone has agreed on this simple interpretation. Dr M doesn't suggest another meaning of שני. Rather than finding a wrong yet reasonable option in similar words in similar languages, he has introduced an entirely new method to the academy, which surely none will repeat. Dr M wishes to leave the word a variable, like in high school maths, solve for X! It seems ignorance not willful, but gleeful. Truly I ask you, doctor, Is this a prank?

At least one thinker didn't take it that way. An entirely serious-seeming response followed from Dr C. She accepted the phallic view, and added to it. She solved for שני. Since tying a ribbon on the penis doesn't seem practical for twin discernment, and is without parallel anywhere, she suggests the shni was not a band of fabric but a ribbon of blood!

Yes, she legitimizes the clownshow--sorry, lively dialogue--with something less surprising in the Biblical tradition: circumcision.

Is the rite of the prepuce without etiology? Does it need an origin story? No; Zipporah at the Inn serves this mythical purpose satisfactorily. It is not a "missing piece" that's "curiously underaccounted for" that the author should be "pleased with [her]self… for" solving. At least, I'm not pleased with her.

The puns claimed by Dr M continue with Dr C's egging on. She says that "יצא ראשנה (gen 38 28)" means not "he came (to be born) first", but "his head (glans of the penis) was exposed." This magic trick requires no emendation, even. I admire the incision-free surgery; it's an example of her ingenious creativity.

I suggest a different approach. Rather than the algebraic or wordplayful approach, let's consider the comparative.

KTU 1.23, one of the Ugaritic texts that revolutionized Biblical scholarship in the earlier 20th Century (nobody noticed), has a twin birth narrative of its own. "Dusk and Dawn," or "Shahar and Shalim."

Who are Shahar and Shalim? Minor deities for minor aspects of creation: the dawn and dusk. What happens in "Dawn and Dusk?" El (God) shoots birds out of the air, has a barbecue, seduces two women, and has "twins" by them. Life contains death in miniature in the tale, featuring a persona "Death-and-Master," and El's phallic (Pardee claims, in Context of Scripture) "Staff of widowhood." An old man reproducing, like Abraham, perhaps.

To access full paper via your institution, click here.

[alevv-cas]

Jesus and Christmas - Origins

The exact date of Jesus’s birth is not stated in the gospels or in any historical sources. Most biblical scholars generally accept a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC, the year in which King Herod died1. The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating1. Some research done by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints generally places the birth of Jesus at some point in early to mid April1.

The common Christian traditional dating of the birthdate of Jesus was December 25, a date first asserted officially by Pope Julius I in 350 AD1. The church in Rome began formally celebrating Christmas on December 25 in 336, during the reign of the emperor Constantine2. As Constantine had made Christianity the effective religion of the empire, some have speculated that choosing this date had the political motive of weakening the established pagan celebrations2. The decision to celebrate Christmas on December 25 was made sometime during the fourth century by church bishops in Rome3.

It’s important to note that while December 25 is celebrated as Christmas day, it may not be the actual birth date of Jesus. The selection of this date has more to do with Christian history and tradition rather than historical accuracy.

Learn more:

1. en.wikipedia.org2. britannica.com3. gty.org4. christianity.com5. bibleinfo.com6. history.com7. fee.org

The relationship between Jesus’s birth and Christmas day is largely based on tradition and historical context, rather than specific biblical or historical evidence. The Bible does not specify the exact date of Jesus’s birth12.

In the fourth century, Pope Julius I chose December 25 as the date of the Feast of the Nativity2. This date was not immediately universally accepted and it took some time for it to be widely recognized. For instance, Christmas wasn’t celebrated in England until the end of the sixth century, and didn’t reach northern Europe until the end of the eighth century2.

One theory as to why December 25 was chosen is that it coincided with existing pagan festivals. In Rome, Saturnalia – a festival honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture – began just before the winter solstice and continued for seven days2. In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated ‘Jul’ (Yule) from the winter solstice for about 12 days2. By choosing this date, it’s suggested that Pope Julius I may have intended to appropriate these pagan celebrations and transform them into a Christian occasion2.

However, it’s important to note that while December 25 is celebrated as Christmas day, it may not be the actual birth date of Jesus. The selection of this date has more to do with Christian history and tradition rather than historical accuracy.

Learn more:

1. newsweek.com2. theguardian.com3. ucg.org4. washingtonpost.com5. crosswalk.com

[spiritualparadigm]

Post #2 on Old Testament Manuscripts and Textual Analysis

"All reliable translations of the Old Testament (OT, frequently called the Hebrew Bible - HB) into any language used today must be based on the ancient manuscripts that have survived to the present day. The important task of determining the Hebrew (most of the OT) and Aramaic (portions of Daniel, Ezra, and a few other verses) text most faithful to the original writings is a complex one because there is no document that dates to its biblical author (the autograph), but only carefully crafted, but not perfect, copies from later periods. Much of the prophetic writings, for instance, date from the 9th to the 6th centuries B.C., but the very oldest fragments of copies in Hebrew and Aramiac that exist come from the 2nd century B.C. It was in the 3rd century B.C. that the Hebrew Bible was first translated into Greek; this so-called Septuagint is the oldest and most important indirect witness from that era for the wording of the Hebrew/ Aramaic text. Further ancient translations were later added, above all the translation into the common (“Vulgata”) Latin, the Syrian “Peshitta” and the Aramaic “Targum”. The oldest direct witnesses for the text of the Hebrew Bible are the manuscripts found in 1947 and thereafter in the Judean Desert that had been hidden in caves near Qumran on the western edge of the Dead Sea. These ancient manuscripts include the remains of some 200 transcriptions of individual books of the Bible from the period between 150 B.C. and A.D. 70. Apart from one single transcription of the Book of Isaiah preserved in its entirety, the biblical texts from Qumran are mere fragments, on which in most cases a very limited number of legible words, often only a few characters, can be made out. The oldest complete copy of the entire Hebrew Bible as we know it today is the Codex Leningradensis from the year A.D. 1008. Another ancient copy, the Aleppo Codex, dating from almost a hundred years earlier (A.D. 930), is unfortunately no longer complete. The Codex Leningradensis and the Aleppo Codex are two prime examples of the so-called Masoretic text." - Dr. Rolf Schäfer und Dr. Florian Voss Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft https://www.sbl-site.org/…/Intro-ScholarlyEditions-GBS_2.pdf

[spiritualparadigm]

Post #1 on Old Testament Manuscripts and Textual Analysis

by Aaron Logan It's becoming more and more well known among modern Christians (thankfully) that the Bible was not originally written in King James English. What is still NOT very well known, however, are the sources that translators use to derive our modern translations. The assumption is often that translators simply take "the original" Hebrew manuscripts and translate them to English (or Spanish, or whatever modern language), and they take "the original" Greek manuscripts and do the same. One problem...."the original" manuscripts (called the autographs) didn't survive. We don't have them. Translators don't have them. What they are working with are copies....thousands of copies of manuscripts and manuscript fragments (which contain some variations - hence the need for deep textual analysis and research), and reconstructed texts that were previously compiled through their own process by scholars (also based on manuscript copies). We’ll get into the New Testament Greek sources soon (generally the Nestle Aland/UBS or Textus Receptus being the primary sources), but for now I'll discuss the Old Testament. The Old Testament in modern translations, for example, is generally compiled using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (which was developed through a century of textual research), as well as the Septuagint, The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, and various other sources. There is a tedious process of textual research and analysis (generally called Textual Criticism) that goes far beyond just translating a word or phrase from Hebrew to English. Scholars have to deal with thousands of textual variants, scribal errors, which vowels may be the most appropriate (since ancient Hebrew in general did not have most vowels in its written form....they were inferred by the reader according to tradition, but were added later in the Masoretic text - which is now the base source text), and the overall task of constructing the best possible translation using all the tools, expertise, and research available to them. The Codex Leningradensis was discovered in the 1800's (it is the oldest Masoretic text found in its complete entirety, dated around 1008 A.D.) and included in later editions of the Biblia Hebraica. My point is there are many more layers than just simply translating from Hebrew to English (as if that were simple anyway). There's not simply an "original" Hebrew manuscript to translate from. Multiple sources for the Hebrew text are consulted, some of which went through their own previous process of textual research and compilation. None of this is to discount the Scriptures as something to be thrown out. I just think it helps to know a little bit about what we're reading, and we often don't know much about it. This also helps to explain the rule many of us have probably frequently heard.....that you shouldn't develop an entire doctrine based off of just one verse.  ________________________________________ Some Resources:

Textual Research On The Bible https://www.sbl-site.org/…/Intro-ScholarlyEditions-GBS_2.pdf

Foundations of the Bible http://www.lakesideministries.com/…/Found…/OldTestament.htm…

The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Introduction and Annotated ... By Page H. Kelley, Daniel S. Mynatt, Timothy G. Crawford https://books.google.com/books…

Searching for the Original Bible by Randall Price https://books.google.com/books…

Codex Leningradensis http://biblemanuscriptsociety.com/…/Bible-m…/Leningrad-Codex

NKJV (preface) http://www.bible-researcher.com/nkjv.html NRSV (preface) http://www.bible-researcher.com/nrsvpreface.html 

ESV (preface) https://www.esv.org/preface/

NASB (preface) http://www.bible-researcher.com/nasb-preface.html http://www.lockman.org/nasb/nasbprin.php

NIV (2011) (preface) http://www.bible-researcher.com/niv2011-preface.html