Ring composition is a literary form found throughout the ancient world. In it, a series of elements advances, one after the other, until it reaches a center point, whereupon the sequence is reversed and returns to its beginning in inverted order. Hence, the first element is paired with the last, the second with the second to the last, and so on, with the second half of the ring a mirror image of the first half. Although ring compositions occur throughout the ancient world, the practice of writing in rings fell out of literary fashion and faded from collective memory. Later readers, unfamiliar with its conventions, found ring compositions difficult to recognize, leading to misinterpretations of numerous ancient texts. Such confusion is evident with the Elijah-Elisha cycle of stories in 1 Kgs 16:23--2 Kgs 13:25. Biblical scholars have routinely maligned these stories as a nonsensical jumble of prophetic tales. This dissertation demonstrates that the stories are not disorganized. Rather, they have been redacted in the formal structure of a ring composition with six rungs. The dissertation follows the lead of the late Mary Douglas, who brought new insights to bear on the problems inherent in identifying and interpreting ancient ring compositions--most critically, in helping to establish what constitutes a parallel correspondence. When we recognize the chiastic structure of the Elijah-Elisha cycle of stories, we discover a carefully crafted work of propaganda that promotes the religious, political, and social reforms of King Josiah of Judah (7th century BCE). These tales had their origins in the traditions of northern Israel, but they were later appropriated and recontextualized by a Judean redactor. Retold, transformed, and arranged in the form of a ring composition, the stories of Elijah and Elisha were employed to build northern support for a neo-Davidic kingdom ruled from Jerusalem. Championing the rallying cry of holy war, Josiah and his party sought to reunite the divided kingdom by capitalizing on the misfortunes of the Assyrian Empire. Under the leadership of Josiah, the chariots and horses of fire--the heavenly army of YHWH--would once again battle for Israel.

Scholarship on the onomastics of the ancient Near East typically evaluates a single text corpus or collection of names from a specific region, with a focus on names of a variety of linguistic origins from either alphabetic or cuneiform source material. This dissertation serves as a compilation of Aramaic names from both alphabetic and cuneiform sources geographically delimited to Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Levant (excluding Egypt and Anatolia) during the first half of the first millennium BCE. The product of a methodic evaluation of ancient Near Eastern texts and inscriptions, utilizing both linguistic and conceptual criteria in its selection, this compilation of names is analyzed according to the established taxonomic systems that have been developed in the study of Hebrew, Akkadian, and other Semitic names throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Additional analyses in this volume include a comparative anthroponomy, a study of theophoric elements, an overview of names based on their morphological features, and various explorations of the elements found within them. Ultimately, this study serves to catalog the individuals with Aramaic names leading up to the time when Aramaic was the lingua franca of the greater ancient Near East, / 2021-09-07T00:00:00Z

This project is a narratological study of the border between fiction and reality, and the traversing thereof. I postulate that the permeability of this border is the consequence of textual acts: Cataloged Fabulations, Second-tier Fictionals, and Rhizomatic Fabrications. These are akin to speech acts in that fictional entities gain nonfictional status by means of an implicit contract at the heart of the textual act. Having laid out the narratological foundation of the textual acts' power, I argue that the narratological bears on the ontological through performative speech acts, as portrayed in J. L. Austin's tripartite model. I use two lenses in my analysis: the work of Jorge Luis Borges and the Hebrew Bible and its commentaries. The Borgesian trifecta is encyclopedia, mirror, and labyrinth, referents that are synonymous with the three textual acts noted above. In terms of the biblical lens, my analysis focuses on a metaphor family in Jewish mysticism. This family includes the World as Book, The Torah as Blueprint, God as Author, and Letters as Building Blocks. The resulting conceptual system is narratological in nature. Consequently it is useful to draw on this system so as to elucidate the field of narratology. The binoculars offer a parallax view, which provides a unique perspective on narratology: the combination of modernist/postmodernist fantasy and the urtext of the Western literary canon.

<p> The barrenness narratives of the Hebrew Bible are not only theological but also cultural in nature. A reading of these texts highlights the fact that in the Hebrew culture, and larger ancient Near Eastern context, childbirth was central to a woman's identity. Since beliefs regarding fertility and infertility are similar in the Akan culture, this dissertation proposes that an African (Akan) perspective may be the bridge needed between the Western readings, in which infertility is not viewed so tragically, and the original ANE context, in which infertility is a shameful and tragic condition for a woman. In addition to examining biological infertility this dissertation will also explore "social barrenness." "Social barrenness" is an original term in this dissertation that seeks to categorise other kinds of barrenness circumstances described within the Hebrew Bible. An awareness of the cultural reality, and varieties, of infertility further elucidates the desperation and lengths to which women in the biblical narratives will go in order to have children. Additionally, an appreciation for the cultural dynamics of the narratives will illuminate the theological message(s) of the story. Since this study employs a cultural-narrative approach, it is appropriate to coin the word "wom(b)an," to underscore the centrality of the womb to a woman's identity in the Hebrew and Akan cultures.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis advisor: Andrew Davis / Thesis advisor: Ernesto Valiente / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

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It is often left unquestioned that women in the Hebrew Bible desired children. Though this is highly probable, many scholars make the assumption that all women necessarily wanted children. Universalizing the desire for children reduces complex characters to stand-ins for a supposed motif. This also essentializes the role of a female character to that of child-bearer, when actually these women have many different roles. Furthermore, many scholars make the claim that having children is the only way for a woman to improve her status in ancient Near Eastern societies. Yet women did not always receive a change in status because of childbirth. Therefore, the reasons why women desire children are quite varied. / Religion

Cette thèse a pour objectif de faire une lecture génétique de ce que consiste l’hostile hospitalité en Amérique et de ses prismes au cœur des littératures autochtones. J’y analyserai que l’histoire de l’hospitalité, dont la racine signifie à la fois hospes pour hôte et hostis pour ennemi, est une dialectique complexe lors du topos de la rencontre et témoigne d’une économie de l’échange qui au fil de ses transformations aura une incidence sur les tensions au sein de la littérature autochtone. J’étudierai comment dans cet échange fondé sur l’hospitalité le pôle étymologique de l’hostilité illustre que sous couvert d’hospitalité des lois sourdes d’équivalence, de compensation travaillèrent l’exclusion en des stratégies qui passeront par l’herméneutique, la mise en mythologie de ses cultures et d’insidieuses lois logocentriques religieuses. Différentes œuvres telles Ulysse et la Bible hébraïque poseront les fondements de ces traces au cœur des textes de la colonisation mexicaine et de la littérature autochtone nord-américaine afin d’illustrer l’empreinte patriarcale et hostile qui habite et transcende toujours les littératures actuelles. Les chapitres un à trois sont à entrevoir comme des fondements de cette trace transhistorique. Le premier chapitre esquissera une ligne de l’exclusion fondamentale entre le logos et le muthos depuis la Grèce archaïque, les circonvolutions du mythe de Thanksgiving et ses déviations historiques reverront les constructions hégémoniques de cette histoire de la survivance en Amérique. Le chapitre deux questionnera particulièrement l’économie de la transcendance au cœur de l’hospitalité, présence souvent habitée de diktats religieux et procédant d’une économie insidieuse d’exclusion. J’y montrerai à partir des scènes fondamentales de l’hospitalité dans l’Odyssée et la Bible hébraïque que ces histoires mettent en forme une hospitalité de plus en plus limitée devant prendre les traits du même et de l’équivalence au contraire de la tradition du potlatch dont l’économie est disruptive. Le chapitre trois se tournera essentiellement sur le corps des femmes dans les rites de l’hospitalité : de la Bible hébraïque à la figure de la Malinche, autochtone aztèque ayant été la traductrice de Cortes, les femmes furent des objets discriminés dans les rituels de l’hospitalité, des outils d’échanges et d’expropriation. Le dernier chapitre, éclairé des trois chapitres précédents, fera un bond dans le présent. À partir de textes de Leslie Marmon Silko, de Thomas King et des archives de la psychose du windigo, j’aborderai particulièrement la question de la langue et de l’exclusion épistémologique. Cette longue trace de l’hostilité au cœur de l’hospitalité dévoilera les sourdes lois régulant l’échange et montrera donc que si le texte et la lettre instituent cette première violence, ils ont aussi la possibilité de par leur dialectique, de proposer un dire de l’hospitalité et de renverser et se réapproprier une parole, le texte étant donc travaillé en miroir des mêmes paradoxes que le phénomène de l’hospitalité. / The objective of this thesis is to undertake a genetic reading of what hostile hospitality in America consists of and its prisms at the heart of indigenous literature. I will analyze that the history of hospitality, whose root means both hospes as host and hostis as enemy, is a complex dialectic at work in the topos of the encounter and testifies to an economy of exchange that, as it changes, will affect the tensions at the heart of indigenous literature. I will study how in this exchange based on hospitality, the etymological basis of hostility illustrates that under its guise, muted laws of equivalence and compensation elaborated exclusion into strategies that will run through hermeneutics, the mythology of its cultures and insidious religious logocentric laws. Various works such as The Odyssey and the Hebrew Bible laid the foundations for these traces in the texts of Mexican colonization and North American indigenous literature, patriarchal and hostile traces trace that still inhabits and transcends current literature. Chapters one to three are to be seen as the foundations of this transhistorical trace. The first chapter will outline a line of fundamental exclusion between the logos and the muthos from archaic Greece, the convolutions of the myth of Thanksgiving, and its historical deviations will consider the hegemonic constructions of this history of survival in America. Chapter two will focus on the economy of transcendence at the heart of hospitality, a presence often inhabited by religious diktats and stemming from an insidious economy of exclusion. I will show from the fundamental scenes of hospitality in The Odyssey and the Hebrew Bible that these stories shape an increasingly limited hospitality that must take on the same and equivalent features and differs from the potlatch tradition whose economy is disruptive. Chapter three will focus mainly on the bodies of women in the rites of hospitality: from the Hebrew Bible to the figure of La Malinche, an Aztec native who was the translator of Cortes, women were discriminated against in the rituals of hospitality, tools of exchange and expropriation. The last chapter, illuminated by the three previous chapters, will jump into the present. Based on texts by Leslie Marmon Silko, Thomas King, and the archives of the windigo psychosis, I will focus on the question of language and epistemological exclusion. These extensive traces of hostility at the heart of hospitality will show the muted laws regulating the exchange and will therefore show that even if the text and the letter institute this first violence, they also have the possibility, through their dialectics, to propose a way of saving hospitality by subverting the hostile part of its dialectic, the text being therefore elaborated as a reflection of the same paradoxes as the phenomenon of hospitality.