Papers

Professor Philip Davies (Sheffield): ‘Apocalyptic’: An Otherworldly Tour through the Hebrew Bible (and Beyond) (Presidential Address)

Dr Eric Christianson (Chester): ‘Lights, Camera, Achsah!’? On Comparing the Hebrew Bible to Film

Dr Ian Wilson (Cambridge): Central Sanctuary or Local Settlement? The Location of the Triennial Tithe Declaration (Deuteronomy 26:13-15)

Dr Dwight Swanson (Manchester): The Qumran Bible: A Brief Survey of the Manuscript Evidence, with Some Implications for Biblical Studies

Dr Deborah Rooke (London): A Gender Agenda: Deborah in Holy Writ and Handel

Professor Athalya Brenner (Amsterdam): Michal and David: Love between Enemies?

Professor Ronald Clements (Cambridge): The Enduring Value of the Old Testament: An Interesting Quest

Dr David Stec (Sheffield): David the Prophet

Abstracts

Professor Philip Davies (Sheffield): ‘Apocalyptic’: An Otherworldly Tour through the Hebrew Bible (and Beyond) (Presidential Address)

In 1972 Klaus Koch’s Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik was (significantly) translated into English as The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, for H.H. Rowley and D.S. Russell had disposed of the problem: it was a product of prophecy born of persecution, originating with the book of Daniel, and with several distinctive features. But the elements in this definition have since been challenged or overturned: it is now 1 Enoch that seems more central than Daniel, and wisdom more helpful than prophecy; however, the relationship between ‘apocalypse’, ‘apocalyptic’ and ‘apocalypticism’ remains confused. A fresh attempt to explain apocalyptic literature and its cultural matrix employed the device of two ‘journeys’. The first explored the ancient Near Eastern culture of manticism, a priestly-scribal enterprise developed from the practice of divination that sought an empirical basis for prediction that also veered into the speculative. Astrology and dreams were used as examples. This culture was a major and mainstream current that must have been present also in ancient Israel and Judah. However, the biblical literature largely rejects divination. A second journey, comparing the figure of Enoch and traditions connected with him in Genesis and 1 Enoch, revealed an underlying dispute within early Judaism about mantic speculation and its claim that the divine will was foreseeable. The paper concluded that it was not ‘apocalyptic’ that constituted a peculiar cultural development, but the Hebrew Bible itself.

Dr Eric Christianson (Chester): ‘Lights, Camera, Achsah!’? On Comparing the Hebrew Bible to Film

A growing number of scholars are relating the Hebrew Bible to cinema in a comparative mode. The comparative step is at least in part enabled by a natural affinity between the media of Hebrew Bible and of film. This paper explored a number of those affinities and surveyed recent approaches to the topic as a whole. It was suggested that comparison is emerging in two modes of analysis: (1) intertextual conversation and (2) intertextual hypothesis. Both draw on the well established discipline of intertextuality, but have different end points. While the former seeks to see what ‘conversation’ emerges through the act of comparison, the latter has an explicit and determined historical dimension. It seeks to locate a dimension of correspondence between some historical or social aspect of the Bible and that of the mainly American cinema. A number of examples of this approach were offered in relation to the Deuteronomistic History, particularly where scholars had compared elements of it to the film genres of the Western and of film noir. An intertextual ‘hypothesis’ approach was also developed through a comparison of Judges 4 and film noir, with several film clips being played.

Dr Ian Wilson (Cambridge): Central Sanctuary or Local Settlement? The Location of the Triennial Tithe Declaration (Deuteronomy 26:13-15)

This reading of the text argued for the eventual presence of the Israelite farmer at the central sanctuary in connection with the triennial tithe. It derived from two curious and largely unremarked features of the pericope: first, the Israelite’s declaration that he has ‘not eaten of the tithe while [he] was mourning’ (v. 14), meaningful if he has partaken of the tithe but pointless if he had indeed set aside the whole of it for the poor; and secondly, his designation of what he has given away as the ‘sacred portion’ rather than the ‘tithe’ (v. 13). These features can be understood on the basis of the implied direct object pronoun in v. 12 (‘I have given to the Levite’ etc.). Such an omission is fairly common in Biblical Hebrew, the identity of the missing object generally being inferred from the preceding context. Here, modern translations assume that the whole tithe is intended. There are cases, however, involving an uncountable noun, where the omitted object refers not to the whole of such an antecedent, but only to part. This syntactical feature of Biblical Hebrew thus allows the possibility that, while setting aside most (the ‘sacred portion’) of the tithe for the disadvantaged, the Israelite farmer retained some for his own consumption. The latter was not allowed in his home town (or while he was mourning), but, according to Deuteronomy 12:17, must have taken place at the central sanctuary.

Dr Dwight Swanson (Manchester): The Qumran Bible: A Brief Survey of the Manuscript Evidence, with Some Implications for Biblical Studies

This study attempted an inductive approach to the questions ‘What is “Bible” at Qumran?’ and ‘What does this tell us about the status of “Bible” in Second Temple Judaism?’ The starting point was the biblical manuscripts at Qumran (i.e. those texts that are recognised by us as ‘biblical’ or ‘scriptural’), and then some non-biblical manuscripts (texts which may have been considered ‘scripture’ by the Qumran community or by the wider Judaism of the time) were considered. The study pointed to the need to shift from thinking of ‘Bible’ as a fixed text to seeing it as an interpretative tradition which is a living corpus for a living community. The Qumran evidence reflects that relation to the text which went before the existence of that community. It was not a ‘free and lazy’ approach to the text. Texts such as 4QReworked Pentateuch^c (4Q365) are as ‘biblical’ as 4QNumbers^b (4Q27). The Temple Scroll continues in the tradition of exegetical updating of scripture that is seen within the biblical book of Leviticus. The fixing of the biblical text took place slowly, and was co-extensive with the increasing process of ‘canonization’ of texts which extended well into the first centuries of the Common Era.

Dr Deborah Rooke (London): A Gender Agenda: Deborah in Holy Writ and Handel

The biblical narrative of Deborah has generated considerable interest among feminist scholars because of its reversal of traditional gender roles, particularly in Judges 4, and a gendered reading of Judges 4 and 5 demonstrates how Deborah is shown as a brave, authoritative initiator in contrast with a weak and cowardly Barak, while Sisera is emasculated by his death at the hands of the independent-minded and assertive Jael. However, in the libretto of Handel’s 1733 oratorio ‘Deborah’, the biblical gender roles are reworked, so that the way in which the characters play out their functions (prophetess, man-killer, soldier) coheres with contemporary upper-class notions of appropriate gender roles. Rather than a treacherous deceiver, Jael appears as a woman who craves nothing other than safety and solitude, but who seizes a God-given opportunity to rid Israel of a despicable foe; and the prophetess Deborah ‘mothers’ the whole people by her guidance and support, without needing to dominate a Barak who is bursting with patriotic fervour to fight for his country and who is her social and psychological equal. In addition to being influenced by contemporary gender models, the portrayal of Deborah and her relationship to Barak may be linked to the relationship between Caroline of Ansbach, Queen of England, to whom the libretto is dedicated, and her husband George II: Caroline was well known for having more political savvy than her blustering military-minded husband, just as the libretto’s portrayal allows Deborah a subtly dominant role that nonetheless does not impinge upon Barak’s manliness.

Professor Athalya Brenner (Amsterdam): Michal and David: Love between Enemies?

In order to construct an ongoing sketch of Michal and David’s relationship, we have to bring together passages that are variably placed within the books of Samuel. These texts are: 1 Samuel 14:49; 18:20-28; 19:11-17, 25, 44; 2 Samuel 3:12-17; 6:15-23 (to be compared with the shorter version of 1 Chronicles 15:25-29). A biographical or semi-biographical ‘story’ of Michal is even more difficult to construct, since information about her is fragmentary; and the fragments are embedded within a larger context whose subject is David. To use an idiom coined by Cheryl Exum, Michal is a ‘fragmentary woman’, whose story is an incidental component of the dominant histories recounting the men in her literary life. Those men are Michal’s father, King Saul; Michal’s brother, Jonathan; Michal’s husband, King David; Michal’s second husband, Palti[el]; and finally, once again, Michal’s first husband, King David. Biblical authors seem not to have lent her much significance for her own sake: they present her mainly as relational to the lives and ambitions of her male blood- and societal kin. In order to construct a Michal-story, the fragments have to be brought together and somehow arranged in a way that will make sense for ‘her’, not for her male kin. This paper traced Michal’s biography in the Bible and in some western visual art.

Professor Ronald Clements (Cambridge): The Enduring Value of the Old Testament: An Interesting Quest

In this 90th year of SOTS (and the 50th year of membership of the speaker), this paper reflected on one of the key themes promoted by some of the Society’s founding fathers — concerns about the Old Testament’s ‘abiding value’ (Arthur Peake), ‘religious value’ (Robert Kennett), ‘truth’ (Stanley Cook), or ‘relevance’ to the modern world (Harold Rowley). The introduction in the early 20th century of defensive promotions about the uniqueness of the contribution of the Old Testament to human culture was due to the disturbing effect that modern critical explanations for the origin of the biblical literature had had upon Christian and Jewish communities over the preceding half-century. The idea of ‘enduring value’ replaced more explicit theological language concerning divine revelation, dispensed with the distinctive hermeneutical strategies through which comprehensive Christian and Jewish doctrines had been linked to the biblical literature, and sought to appeal to both religious and non-religious readers of the Bible by affirming its role as the formative groundwork of modern Western culture. Yet the ‘enduring value’ was defined rather narrowly under the influence of contemporary apologetic concerns, as evidenced by more recent publications that have looked at the immense variety of ways in which political, cultural and artistic achievements have built upon themes with a biblical origin. Many of the features associated with this theme are also apparent in literary discussion concerning the qualities and criteria that have been used to define a particular writing as possessing ‘classic’ status. Since both ‘openness’ and ‘human interest’ are appropriate qualities to expect within a literary work, the theme of ‘continuity’ may be suggested as a useful way of embracing the extraordinary variety of ways in which the reception history of the Hebrew Bible belongs to its essential character as a work possessing ‘enduring value’. Its merit lies in drawing attention to the manner in which literature functions in a social context, frequently breaking the restraints imposed by traditional hermeneutical strategies that tend to become unduly authoritative and moribund.

Dr David Stec (Sheffield): David the Prophet

In the New Testament David is described as a ‘prophet’ at Acts 2:30, and he is closely linked with the prophets at Hebrews 11:32. The Hebrew Bible, however, never refers to David as a נביא, nor does it ever clearly and unambiguously present him as having engaged in prophetic activity, if by this one means anything that might be represented by the verb נבא. It is in literature that perhaps dates from about the first half of the first century ce (11QPs^a and MS 798 of the Antonin Collection from the Cairo Genizah) that prophetic activity is first explicitly attributed to him. The roots of the belief that he exercised a prophetic role are, however, to be found already in the Hebrew Bible itself. In the passage concerning David’s Last Words (2 Samuel 23:1-7) we apparently have an (early?) example of a prophetic oracle attributed to David. But is it really as a consequence of the later development of the link between music and praise and prophecy that ultimately the whole of the Psalter came to be regarded as in effect representing the prophetic oracles of David? There are just a few hints that music and the ecstatic kind of prophecy were linked since an early date (1 Samuel 10:5; 2 Kings 3:15), though this link is not connected with David. But in the work of the Chronicler prophecy by means of music became a formal institution, and David is presented as being responsible for this (1 Chronicles 25:1ff.), and is even given the prophetic title of ‘man of God’ (Nehemiah 12:24, 36; 2 Chronicles 8:14). This perhaps explains the origin of the connection found in Targum Jonathan between prophecy and praise. The strong association of David with the Psalter meant that by the turn of the era the psalms came to be regarded as representing the word of prophecy.