Papers

Prof. John Sawyer (Perugia): The divine hinneni ‘Here I am’ in the Book of Isaiah (Presidential Address)

Prof. Bernhard Lang (Paderborn): Voltaire, Goethe, and Joseph in Egypt: An Essay on the Bible in the Eighteenth Century

Dr Walter Houston (Manchester): The Scribe and his Class: Ben Sira on Rich and Poor

Dr Wilfred G. E. Watson (Newcastle): Always Read the Label: Pottery and Hebrew Philology

Prof. Johannes C. de Moor (Kampen): The Silent God in Modernity and Antiquity

Dr Máire Byrne (Dublin): What’s in a Name? Naming God and Interfaith Dialogue

Dr David Baker (Perth): The Fifth Commandment in Context

Dr Richard Briggs (Durham): Reading Daniel as Children’s Literature

At the Winter Meeting, a panel discussion was also held on the question Reception History: Essential Part of Biblical Studies or Optional Extra? with Prof. John Barton (Oxford), Dr Katie Edwards (Sheffield), Dr Andrew Mein (Cambridge), and Dr Deborah Rooke (Oxford).

Abstracts

Prof. John Sawyer (Perugia): The divine hinneni ‘Here I am’ in the Book of Isaiah (Presidential Address)

Isaiah’s ‘Here I am’ (6:8) in Jewish tradition has become a familiar symbol of commitment, loyalty and courage, both in the New Year Liturgy (hineni he‘ani mi-ma‘as) and on the internet (e.g. www.hineni.org; www.hineni.org.au). If it represents such a memorable moment in Isaiah’s life, then qal va-?omer, how much more are we to interpret the divine ‘Here am I’, which is unique to Isaiah and appears three times later in the book (52:6; 58:9; 65:1), as something quite extraordinary. In these three passages, although few commentators have made the connection, it seems that ‘the Lord our God, King of the Universe’ is saying to his people, even when we ignore him and turn our backs on him, hinneni ‘Look, I’m here. I am at your disposal if you need me. I will do anything for you’. The striking anthropomorphism is omitted by the Targum but explained by Rashi and others as ‘I am ready (to help)’, and perhaps Maimonides picked up something of the unusual force of the words in his ‘I offered myself …’
This third divine hinneni is even more striking than the other two, not only because the word is repeated twice, but because it is accompanied by, what one commentary calls, ‘an extraordinary gesture’ (Jewish Study Bible 2004): God stretches out his hands to his people, like a devout worshipper in the act of prayer (1 Kgs 8:22, 38), or, as the 18th century Jewish commentator David Altschuler puts it (Metzudat David), followed by Samuel David Luzzatto (‘Shadal’) in the 19th, like someone waving to a friend. A more recent Jewish commentator notes that in Isaiah 40-66 there is ‘a tendency to portray the Lord God as voluntarily accepting human roles out of his love for his people’ (B. Sommer). Christian commentators identify the speaker with Christ who comes into the world with the words ‘Here I am’ (Gk. pareimi; cf. parousia) (52:6), and then, in the end, his hands stretched out on the Cross (65:2) says ‘Here I am’ (Gk. idou eimi; cf. idou ho anthropos = Ecce homo). The connection was made by the German Jewish poet Hilde Domin in her poem Ecce Homo (1970), while Martin Buber described the divine ‘Here I am’ in Isaiah as nothing less than ‘a definition of salvation … not described as a state of bliss, but as the constancy of the dialogical relationship between humanity and God’.

Prof. Bernhard Lang (Paderborn): Voltaire, Goethe, and Joseph in Egypt: An Essay on the Bible in the Eighteenth Century

In eighteenth-century Europe, biblical stories were generally well known, and often loved, by members of all social classes. This article studies the role of one Old Testament story—that of Joseph, slave, interpreter of dreams, and first minister of Egypt—in the education and early life of both Goethe and Voltaire, and shows how the story continued to interest them in later life. In the year 1763, we find Wolfgang Goethe, then fourteen years old, writing his first novel (now lost) about Joseph, while Voltaire, at the age of sixty-nine, penned a literary and philosophical evaluation of the Joseph tale for his Dictionnaire Philosophique, to be published the following year. Voltaire also suggested a daring alternative interpretation of the Joseph story as a fictional echo of the career of a historical character—a Jewish tax farmer of the third century BCE. This example demonstrates how biblical stories could, and did, shape eighteenth-century cultural life because they figured in the education of children, in debates about the historical background of the Bible, and in literary criticism.

Dr Walter Houston (Manchester): The Scribe and his Class: Ben Sira on Rich and Poor

The paper makes an initial attempt to fill a gap in the author’s Contending for Justice, which dealt only with the Hebrew Bible, although there is extensive material in Ben Sira on the subject of social justice; the paper of course deals only with a selection from it. I attempt to place this material in its social context, discussing Ben Sira’s own social position and that of his envisaged audience, with especial attention to the book’s construction of its social world. In dialogue with recent work on the book, I argue that Ben Sira offers a radical critique of the inhumanity of the rich in Jerusalem society, and warns his students against similar injustice. I also argue that his treatment of the practice of credit has been misunderstood through failure to take into account the growth of the economy in the Hellenistic era. Ben Sira encourages the giving of alms and wishes judges to defend the poor against their oppressors, but like his predecessors has no prescription for the lasting elimination of oppression.

Dr Wilfred G. E. Watson (Newcastle): Always Read the Label: Pottery and Hebrew Philology

To some extent, the meanings of most known Hebrew names for pots, containers, vessels and the like can be established from the written contexts in which they occur. The type of vessel can also be determined from its shape, from the derivation of its name or from comparison with the name for a similar pot in a neighbouring culture. It would be preferable if the name of any of these had been written either on it or on an attached label. Unfortunately, very few examples of either category are known for classical Hebrew. In any case, ambiguities would remain because names can vary over time or within different dialects of the same language or even between cognate languages.

Prof. Johannes C. de Moor (Kampen): The Silent God in Modernity and Antiquity

The concept of the silence of God is a recurring theme in modern reflection. It is not only addressed in theology, religious studies and philosophy, but also in literary fiction, film and theatre. The critical nature of many of these public treatments unchained quite a number of apologetic reactions. Apparently the presumed silence of God is a hot topic. However, what has mostly gone unnoticed is how deeply the concept of a silent deity is rooted in the religious literature of the ancient Near East and early Greece. On the basis of a cursory discussion of this evidence—a full treatment will shortly be published in book form—a number of consequences will be passed in review.

Dr Máire Byrne (Dublin): What’s in a Name? Naming God and Interfaith Dialogue

This paper seeks to address the ‘usefulness’ of biblical studies and biblical theology outside of the academic sphere, primarily by assessing the role it plays in informing or aiding the conversation between world religions in a pluralist society. By using the method of comparative theology, a method predominantly used by Christian systematic theologians, this paper will assert that biblical theology needs to actively engage in interfaith dialogue and begin to adapt methodologies to the needs of society where increasingly sacred texts and those involved in their study need to dialogue. This paper adapts the methods of comparative theology to highlight how even at a simple level of learning and adopting languages of other faiths, biblical theology can be useful and helpful outside of the academic classroom. By using the working example of the names of the deity and the naming practices of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (in particular the name and image of the deity as Creator or Maker), this paper will demonstrate the practical, and simple process of broadening the world view of our particular theology, a process which involves broadening both the understanding of one’s own theology or biblical understanding and also the knowledge of another world religion.

Dr David Baker (Perth): The Fifth Commandment in Context

The fifth commandment has been considered by some rabbis to be the most important of all, and there is little doubt it has moulded Jewish traditions of family life over the centuries and continues to do so today. It has been seen as an exhortation to filial piety, comparable to the teaching of Confucius; and in the New Testament it is described as ‘the first commandment with a promise’ (Eph. 6:2). Some have treated it as a rule addressed to children, instructing them to respect and obey their parents. Others have questioned its relevance to those with absent or abusive parents. In order to obtain a better understanding of its meaning, this paper will examine the fifth commandment in context, specifically the cultural context of the ancient Near East and the canonical context in which Jews and Christians have read it throughout the centuries.

Dr Richard Briggs (Durham): Reading Daniel as Children’s Literature

This paper proposes a major thesis and a minor thesis. The major thesis is that reading the book of Daniel as a children’s text offers hermeneutical insight into aspects of the text’s dynamic and overall coherence. The minor thesis concerns the historical plausibility or otherwise of positing a context of reception in which how children respond to the text might have been a part of the text’s design. Depending on one’s overall interpretive goals, pursuing the major thesis as a reading strategy may stand or fall independently of such historical plausibility, and may be assessed instead by a measure of the interpretive light it sheds on one’s experience of the text. The link between the two theses is also complicated by the well-known difficulty of defining children’s literature in any case. The paper therefore proceeds in three steps: the question of what it means to read a text (and in particular a biblical text) as children’s literature; the project of reading the book of Daniel this way; and then some reflections on what is at stake in adopting such a reading strategy. It is suggested that there is considerable interpretive gain from such a reading strategy in the case of Daniel.