JAN 10
Chronicles→ second era temple, apocalyptic prophecies are written, driven by need for justicr, that today god has not done anything
malachi 4
is “sun of righteousness” a personification?
christian interpretation: old testament is alinged to lead into the old testament sooo…..elijah is john the baptist,sun of rughteousness is jesus
new living translation is translated entirely by christians
sun of righteousness as a personification in nlt was personified by christian
hebrew has no uppercase or lowercase letters
malachi 4 doesnt exist in the hebrew tanach, but the texts exists in malachi 3 in the tanach
greek is either all capital or all lowercase (septuigant)
in hebrew the word is clearly thr ball of fire, you dint have the same ambiguity as in English, sun vs son
sun of righteousness over time in the christian perspective changed to son if righteousness as a title for Jesus
is sun of righteousness a title that existed in that historical period?
jew vs christian interpretation
other notes:
the translation presupposes the ideals of the translator, they make interpretation decisions
translation is interpretation
Jesus tells the disciples to read the bible in a way that refers to himself
historical jesus vs the way jesus was written in thr Gospels
textual criticism
error gets introduced because scribing went from oral to written down and there may be differences between the texts, this kind of error is common in historical texts
there are parameters to what a text may mean when it comes to textual ambiguity, but there are options
what the author intended → historical context
hebrew mesoretic tradition, lennigran codex, authoritative forms
texts written in middle east: egypt, babylon, mldern day iraq, israel, palestine
when did the bible actually come into existence?
Chronicles some parts are plagiarized from Samuel and kings
Earliest Witnesses
earliest witness to the text in the bible, silver scrolls, found in a burial chamber, its an amulet with pastiche of phrases which can be found all over bible like exodus 20:6, numbers 6:24-26, Deuteronomy 5:10 & 7:9, daniel and nehemiah. has language that is biblical but is not biblical texts
aaronic benedict
3rd century → full texts in jars in Qumran caves, Nahal Hever, and surrounding textsdead sea scrolls, 11 caves, includes all hebew texts except for esther, extra-biblical texts, and sectarian texts in hebrew, aramaic, and greek
community was active in mid 2nd bce to 1st century ce
additional witnesses
septuigant + greek manuscripts and codices, 2nd century → lots in 3rd and 4th centuries
study hermeneutics
JAN 15
Genesis 1 & Job
Job explores the limits of human knowledge
combat metaphor → in order for god to create he had to fight monsters, leviathan, theobat, in job. this metaphor used
greater and lesser lights vocabulary ensures that the reader does not view the sun and moon as deities that god fought but objects that god created
in genesis the face of the deep is set up to fight
polemic → combating other near Eastern myths of deities fighting monsters
god does not fight beasts he creates them
in order ancient religion deities give birth to other deities and elements of creation
in the ancient near east it was common to speak of creationism stories as genealogies and genesis 1 plays with that and it is most likely the genre it belongs to, but using the form to show that what God created weren't deities and they didn’t copulate to create other things, its dissonance
this genealogy genre comes from their understand of how things are created, reproduction, sex, but divine reproduction and sex….eg. the Egyptian creation story
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Genesis 1:26-27
synonimus parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry
Us -
in the image of god he created HIM (not them), male and female He created THEM
this parallelism is making the point that the image of god exists in relationship, male AND female → this is stunning because it privileges both genders, the image of god is in their genderness and that their purpose is to live in relationship
verse 26 is the first time we hear gods inner thoughts and he expresses himself in plurality
CLASS NOTES - FEBRUARY 3
in ancient near eastern governing it was rare to say that you were divine, (it was hard to say that you are god when you are mortal) hats what made the pharoah unique → in egyptian mythology they believed the pharoah to be god → Osiris/Horus cycle
Gods are just as much a part of the cycle of life as human beings are
pharoahs death is necessary
Osiris were always painted green - cause he’s dead! (teacher)
tradition of pyramids → pharoahs needed to have all their things that go along with their rule in the afterlife
osiris always had a son → horush,
female dieties protected horus until horus could fight seth
Horus was hidden in a basket and hidden in the papyrus thicket
snake → nahash
tanin → sea monster, dragon, or crocodile → pharoahs magician turns into snakes, aarosn turns into crocodile (serpent, dragon, monster)
Parallels between horus and moses → horus is the wielder of snakes and crocodiles (horus holds them by the tail → narrrative in exodus four (thrown down the staff and pick it up by the tail → very exolicit)
egyptology - don redford → exposed infant motif article in u of a library
CLASS NOTES - FEBRUARY
The Plagues
Turning The Nile into blood
The Nile is the life blood of egypt → the water provides agricultural life to egypt and without it, there are problems (so Moses attacking it (it directly or the divinity represented by it)
One interpretation → so the magicians “fake” do it → but its NOT supported by the texts, the egyptian magicians had that same power too (kind of beats this modern religious narrative that there is only one God who has true powers) → this interpretation assumes that it is solely monetheistic and assumes that its history/literal (they have to interpret it this way in order for the text to be consistent with their beliefs, when in reality, the text does not support that)
Historical narrative does not hold, the text does not say that, people assume it is
The Lord instructs Moses and Aaron (Moses using the staff that’s in his hand and Aaron did it too) (two instructions, like the flood)
There’s two different plagues going on → Moses miracle → Nile river, the fish die, in Aarons → all the water in Egypt turns to blood
Two sources → Moses is primary and Aaron acts, Moses speaks eg. Gnats and boils don’t appear in one of the accounts
In Psalm 78 and Psalm 105, you have different sequence of plagues, in Psalm 78 there are 8, Psalms 105 there’s 7 (to possibly 20).
What we see in the exodus is evidence that it existed in various different variations and various different traditions because it was important and valuable, but they didn’t say it the same way every time (in exodus itself there’s 2 versions, and 2 other versions in Psalms) so there’s at least 4 versions within the biblical narrative that is proof this is not historical
Hardening of the heart
His heart is literally getting hard, like its getting heavier and heavier, this is because in egyptian mythology in the underworld osiris measures the heart against a feather, if your heart is heavier than that feather you will have to pass the trials and tribulations that are written in the book of the dead
Moses representing Horus → you’re getting battle of the gods, pharoah vs. moses, who is the true Horus? → Moses is the true Horus and has power, pharoah is not because he is evil (his heart is heavy)
other plagues
will cover the face of the land (comes from eye)
The Battle with Ra
The eye of Ra (one of the powers of the pharaoh) → is how the pharaoh sees his kingdom and domain, eye of ra is all seeing and knowing
So when YHWH sends the locusts and tissues says it will cover the ‘eye’ of the land → refers to the eye of ra, its in a penultimate positioin and is meant literary, showing that not only do they not have control over the nile, over the insects/animals that they worship (personified dieties), but the pharaoh cannot even see his own kingdom and cannot rule them
Raa is used as evil but also refered to Ra
10:10 → asserting his own divinity over and against Moses, he’s being stubborn so they have to darkness
Taking the life of the firstborns → Taking revenge (when the egyptians took the life of hebrew firstborns), and so now God is saying i can do that too → coming full circle. But what targets pharaoh is that his first born is killed, not only is it his kids but its also undermining the rule of pharaonic lineage (He’s osiris passing on his lineage to Horus → his firstborn)
Moses has a horn (has also led to antisimetic trope of jews having horns)
face shined → face horned (actually) its about the egyptians pharoah also had horns, so even alexander the great issued coins depicting himself with coins when he conquered egypt → moses has horns, proves his deification, he proved himself to be god (hebrew god embodied in moses vs. the egyptian gods) → relates to the god
ridley scott movie
FEB 12
tension in the text: did they already know
contradictions (genesis 4:26, ) → or acknowledge instead that there are different traditions and groups of texts in the pentateuchs
plagues are divided into a way into 2 separate traditions, one focusing on the narrative of Moses and the other emphasizing the role of Aaron, which reflects the varying perspectives and theological emphases present within the source material.
the pentateuch should be considered a library of texts
JEPD sources → differences in the torah have been long since recognized (four different sources compiled into the pentateuch → walhousen (had antisemetic agenda, believed the P source corrupted everything and P is the basis judaism)
jacop milgrom
the torah is not a single document written by one hand (moses), you will only find this in conservative religious tradition → all biblical scholars acknowledge JEPD as straightforward and obvious in the text
geographical differnece → the patriarchs travel in different places (d source is its own separate book) → exclusively interested in Moses, deuterist theology is not reflected in genesis
priestly source is in charge for genesis 1 and for geneologies (geneologies organized the narrative → seen as final narrative)
J source → Yahweh → souther kiingdom,
J SOURCE
vivid concrete style
anthrompomorphic view of god
mount sinai is sacred
__________-
ORIGINS OF THE ISRALITES
Amorites Westerners
late third and earlys econd millenium BCE, Amorites from the Syro-Arabbian steppes infiltrated/migrated into the Fertile Crescent, amid the collapse of the Ur III Sumerian dynasty, which had succeeded the collapse of the Sargonid and Gutian dynasties
In the West, Amorties came to rule Ugarit, Byblos, and Aleppoo in modern Syria and Lebanon
In Northern Mesopotamia, Shamsi-Adad I, an Amorite came to rule Ashur, conquered Mari, and established the first kingdom of Assyria, in southern mesopotamia, Amorties came to rule Larsa and founded the city of Babylon
Decline of the middle kingdom in Egypt → Amorite migrations into the Delta reflected in extant sources and amterial culture, they came as laborers and professioinals, it coincided with the dicline and ultimately collapse of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt
Amorite depictioins in egyptian have very colorful cothes (joseph)
get new oxford annotated bibles
Hyksos
Hyksos Dominaton
means foreign rulers, assumed control of lower and middle egypt
established avaris as capital
kingdom extended into the engev and S palestine
cultural contacts with minoan civilations in crete and levantine coastal cities
worshiped the god Apophis and the Canaanite deity Ba’a'l which they associated with Seth (now considered a good guy)
progressively egyptiezed
Hyksos and Biblical Tradition
were eventually kicked out
biblical story recounts the descent into edypt of the trybal leader, jacob, with his clan and their subsequent settlement on the eastern fringes of the Delta, the central area of Hyksos domination
For a time, with one of their one in the office of vizier, they lived peacefully with the “Egyptians”
After four generatins the “egyptians” turned hostile and “enslaved” them and, by divine intervention and the help of a propher mmoses, they were delivered
donald redford saw very strongly related exodus tradition is late, hyksos are hebrews
Yawhweh from Shasu-land
according to biblcal tradition after leaving egypt the hebrews travelled in sinai peninsula and to midian to meet their god yhwh and receiving instriction from a priest named jethro=reuel
egyptian texts refer to much of this are as the land of the shasu and note among them, the shasu Srr (“seir”) and the Shasu of Yhw (“Yahu”) → there seems to be a group of seminoadic groups that come from an area called yahu, its not rare that divine names of place name and
best guess that yahu comes from shasu-land (thats where the name yahweh comes from)
if you were claiming that a land is yours, would it not be better to find your god there? Biblical scholars “find” their deity in another territory (he comes up form that territory to the new territory) → wilderness of sin vs. modern-day palestine, Israel met its god int eh wilderness far below its promised land , this highlights that it is literature is an auntentic historic cultural legacy → these are not the kind of things you invent to make yourself look good in order to defend religious view (its messy) → there’s something significatn historical cultural going on inthis literature and why this is and why ther'e’s different threads, different traditions, is somethign that is not easily answerable
how and when does israel actually emerge into this la'nd that was promised to them…the pentateuch ends with this authentic push for promsied land is just moses dying and the people in thhe wilderness → ultimate cliff hanger
Joshua, judges, ruth, samuel → only in samuel that they finally do ‘posses’ the land
israel finally shows up in history (the first time) → israel is laid waste, his seed is not’ canaan is become a widow for Egypt (Egypt has commited genocide and wiped them out → terribly ironic, first appearnce in historical artifacts, they are victime of genocide )1205 BCE
Password: canaan (no caps, for quiz)
March 7 lecture notes - Ruth 3
uncover his feet → feet is a euphimism, and potentially means genitals, so essentially uncover him, and lie with him (he’s going to be drunk) → (everyone who’s reading this understands perfectly clear her instructions) → but ruth literaly uncovers his feet and lay at it (there’s no suggestion that she laid with him), so the audience would laugh because ruth didn’t get the euphimism, makes ruth seem innocence and extreme positive characterization, and so devoted to her mother and law that she follows them verbatum, literaly goes and follows this silly instruction to uncover his feet, and then asks for protection with it (theory 2, where she didn’t have sex with boaz, which the professor believes) → but boaz tells her to stay there until morning??? boaz doesn’t want her to leave and be seen to protect her honour so he tells her to stay with him until the morning
ruth instruction: dress your best, washed annoitnment, and wait until he finishes eating and drinking and goes back to hisi tent, observe where he is laying down and lie down (he’s going to take advantage and have sex with her)
did they have sex or not? theory 1 (boaz insists that she stays the whole night, so far men in the bible don’t really reject sex, she sneaks out (leaves before anyone could recognize him), sex as a form of marriage) boaz still kind of asks to check in with another man, to respect who has priorities, in all the previous narratives he is someone whos is upright, and torah following, his termonology is very religious elevated language (law-related)
narrative the ruth is this very faithful and very innocent person, which adds a comedic effect to the story
moabite identity
trickster, positive character trait, boaz concerns in taking ruth is that there’s property involved, boaz doesn’t want to perceive as enriching himself, so he offers it to someone else, other man already has another woman, boaz is unnattached and wealthy
man gives up his claim in front of everyone
sandal custom ??? → making it very official and legal and fair, uncertainty of previous night → certainty, everything was done right → huge emphasis
interesting blessing that mentions women: “May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you produce children in Ephrathah and bestow a name in Bethlehem; and, through the children that the Lord will give you by this young woman, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.’” → appeal to tradition and authority, matriarchs of israel, women who gave birth to all of israel (12 sons, between Rachel and Leah, Ruth the moabite, elevating Ruth up to these hierarchical matriarchal models, allusion to the story of Tamar,
finished judges and ruth is elite propaganda (problem david is descende moabit, but do you know who the moabite was, she ties herself to her mother law (israelite) with such incredible loyalty and innocence that there is none like her to the point where the people around her compared her to rachel and leah, thats who ruth the moabite was and yes she was in the line of david, but she was righteous → who ought to be the next king of israel? david → his ancestors where righteous. → stories of the benjaminites, so suspicious they can’t even procreate properly, slander towards them in Judges (condemns them), especilly judges 19, Saul came from Gibead where the men raped men and men raped women in order to replenish their rank, horrible people → Saul shouldn’t be the king of israel
Polemic against Saul → abimelech, the anti king, as a type of saul (evil spirit and parallel deaths), gibeah of benjamin worse than sodom (Genesis 19:1-21:25), Levite’s dismembering of the concubine is reminixcent of Saul cutting up the oxen into 12 pieces in 1 sam 11, Jabesh Gillead and Saul → allusion between those two narratives
Ruth: an apology for david, story of this beautiful portrait of Ruth doing everything right and Boaz, doing the right thing in the worst of eras were the best of people because everyone else was being evil, counter-argument towards targeting David’s lineage
should already be reading samuel
very good argument that judges and ruth must be fairly early literature because whenw ould be the best time period for this particular issue to be raised in scribal writing → when the issue is actually happening, to persuade somenody of righteousness of your cause (assuming david and civil wars in samuel are historical)
other scholars say that in the book of chronicles taken all the way down to the persian period, and the site of benjamin becomes geopolotical important because of the babolyninan destruction of jerusalem so possible that it happened later and lineage of saul trying to claim the throne, showing that david is the true royal lineage → tension betweein saulite and davidic house
biblical history (patriarchs 220,1550, exodus 1300, conquest and settlement 1200-1000, united kkingdom golden age 1030-922, two kingdoms 922-721, judah alone 721-567, babylonian exile 567-509, babylonian exile 567-539, return and restoration 539-333BCE)
judges 5 → old poetic hebrew story, folkloric elements
in ancient world politics and religions are synonimous ideas and concepts, davids and sauls concepts tie into religion questions (which temple and where should you worshop) political and religious question → you can see the tension between different groups in the text in israel, implies that the text is contextual, meta-narrative that is realizing itself, whoeve'r’s version of these texts, they got the last say and crafted it in a certain direction, goes back to right the beignning of the course, samaritans also have a version of the bible → its different, they privilege different sites and evolves in a slightly different perspective → from a historical critical perspective is that these texts where a conversation / dispute between different groups of people who saw their relatopnship in god in different ways and then it eventually involved in a interisting interpretation to judaismm and christianity
CLASS NOTES MARCH 10
Kingship and Kings, The United Moarchy
The Question of Kinship
Tension → 1 Samuel, anti and pro monarchical passages
samuels warning against kingship
The problem of kingship
conscript for sons for a standing military
conscript your daughters for service in the palance (mundane to harem)
introduce taxation (kings are costly, palaces)
request for a king equated by yahweh to a rejection of his divine kingshop: 2 sam 8:7-8, interesting picture, leading towards the idea that israel needs a king and that would lead to them being faithful to god and successful, samuel says that its not true, and yahweh says that well if you’re asking for a king, you’re rejecting me (literature builds you up to accept it and believe it to be a right thing to do but yahweh disagrees, change in dynamic, tension)
The Rise and Demise of Saul
almost as soon as he takes power, he loose his kingship but why?
saul was not a chosen and annoitend king
saul annointed as pring (nagid) by samuel
saul selected by lot (ilk) and acclaimed as king (melek) before all the tribes of israel
saul reaffirmed as king after routing the ammonites in 1 sam 11:1-12:25 (or 13:1)
Saul is rejected as king because of his disobedience
before enganging the philistines saul doesn’t wait for samuel to perform the sacrifice
does not utterly destroy the amalekites
nagid vs melek
text is corrupted 1 samuel 13 (…)
canadian system does not provide the prime minister with a national vote (he’s not a nationally elected leader, he’s the leader of the elected party) → still democratic → political language is different
Samuel is a baddieeeee (waiting behind a rock until sauls screws up to condemn him)
Samuel doesn’t come until after Saul did the sacrifice (he waited the appointed time and Samuel never came) so he did what he believed he needed to do in order to get the favour of yahweh, and samuel says no you screwed up, god doesn’t love ya anymore (in Professor Ken Ristau’s words)
within 11 verses saul is condemend and told he’s not the kind of israel anymore
who’s in the wrong, who’s not acting in the will of yahweh → samuel personal feelings, samuel 8 (samuel is a whiner - professor), who’s wrong samuel, yahweh, or saul? the narrative isn’t straight forward or gives you an easy solution to what is right and what is wrong
The Lord says this isn’t about you, they’ve rejected me
God tells Saul to commit a genocide, and yahweh does not utterly destroy them, but he leaves some captives and livestocks, and samuel condemns themm for not utterly destroying them or commiting the genocide he was told to to → what is right and what is wrong, is yahweh right or is saul right? the narrative doesn’t give you an easy out
Saul a tragic hero
a tragic hero, according to aristotle, is the protaganist in a drama who’s misfortune is borught not by vice or depravity but by some sort of error or frailt in his or her character that they can’t avoid or circumstance. This tragic flaw in the hero expresses itself either through a definite action or through failure to perform a definite action
Within a canonical context, judges and ruth condition readors to expect Saul’s demise and the rise of David
The Question and problems of Kingship
The rejection of Saul (ironically even the accession formula in 13:1 is corrupt)
The Rise of David
Chronicles reports only his death and rejection
1 and 2 samuels, 1 and 2 kings, 1 and 2 chronicles
David’s narrative
accession narrative (1 sam 16 - 2 sam 8, sometimes inclusive of 1 sam 15 and/or exculsive of 2 sam 6-8)
court or succession narrative (2 sam 9 - 1 kgs 2, sometimes exculsive of 2 sam 21-24)
a majority of scholars say that the david accession narrative believe it was early writing because the literature seems to honerate david, with a level of detail, it seems to be very specific to its time and setting (if it wasn’t, than why all the details) → Joel Baden, Ruth Kalmpur
David as King
Political Consolidation (cf. 1 Ch 11-12, 18-20):
Civil war
capture of jerusalem → insipient formative moment where jerusalem begins to be considered a holy city
marriage and progeny (strengthening of his house and lineage)
defeat of the philistines → great enemy of israel
Religious consolidation (cf. 1 Chr 13, 15-17, 21-29):
transfer of the ark of the covenant to jerusalem (2 sam 6)
temple and covenant (2 sam 7)
Davidic Covenant
Perpetual Support, David’s descendants rule on God’s throne → 2 Sam 7:16, 1 Chr 17:14
Nature of the Covenant Relationship, Divine sonship, 2 Sam 7:14a, 1 Chr 17:13a, 1 Chr 29:23a
Samuel → Davidic kings ruling during the time the text was written
Even if David commits sin, I will continue to support him and his kingship (Yahweh), your son will build me a house (1 Chr 22:7 → David shed a lot of blood) → Davidic Covenant
Chronicles → davidic kings no longer ruling and so covenants have loser definition during the time the text was written
Victory Stele (ancient near-eastern monument that can range in height, inscribed tablets of stone, often put a boundary points of a kingdom or in a capital city to describe the victory of the kings) 2 Sam 8, 1 Sam 14:47-48, 1 Kgs 11:14-35 vs. The Annals of Thutmose
Stele’s had to be written in an element of truth, but how you described the significance of that → a certain amount of exageration was allowed (border skirmishes described as “conquests”)
Claims of davidic empire need to be taken with a grain of salt
Merneptah stele (if that was true we wouldn’t have had the Bible)