The Aramaic Book of Ahiqar, an ancient instruction that combines a novella and set of wise sayings, was discovered among a cache of papyri dating to the 5th c. B.C.E. belonging to a community of Judeans on the southern Egyptian Nile-island of Elephantine. The text describes a court scribe named Ahiqar who is betrayed by his nephew and successor Nadan and sentenced to deathy by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon. Ahiqar is saved, however, by his friend Nabusumiskun, the very person who is supposed to execute him. At this point the text breaks off, but it picks up again in the middle of a series of instructions, presumably from Ahiqar to his son. The content and form of these sayings share significant stylistic, thematic, and contextual similarities to the biblical wisdom corpus, particularly the book of Proverbs and the Egyptian instructions. Much of the past century of research on Ahiqar has centered on philological, paleographical, and lexical matters in an effort to determine the text's original language, provenance, and date. There are some very large methodological gaps. In particular, very little analysis has been done with respect to Ahiqar as a piece of literature. What is the overall message and character of Ahiqar? What is its underlying ethic? What does Ahiqar say about the divine, humanity and the cosmic order? How do the answers to each of these questions relate to the text's material context and readership? Three primary impulses will guide this study in trying to answer these questions: (1) the Book of Ahiqar will be treated as is, thus the narratve and sayings will be interpreted together and not separated according to some diachronic-redactional analysis; (2) comparison with external sources will feature the Egyptian materials, especially the instructions, which have been largely ignored in previous studies; and (3) the message and characteristic features of Ahiqar will be measured against the backdrop of the Judean community at Elephantine. After a survey of previous scholarship and methodological response (Chapter 1), I begin with a literary and formal analysis of Ahiqar (Chapter 2). Narratological and other recent approaches to the Ahiqar narrative reveal a complexity in plot movement and character. Two significant aspects come to the surface: the ambiguous role of the king and the opposition drawn between Nadan and Nabusumiskun. A survey of the formal and stylistic features among the sayings demonstrates a tremendous amount of variety and yet at the same time a significant amount of coherency and overlap, indicating that a saying's context is integral to understanding the nuances of its meaning. The overall structure, content, and function of Ahiqar suggest that its generic background lies within the ancient instruction tradition, particularly those from Egypt. In Chapter 3, I find that the primary message of Ahiqar revolves around the power and danger of the spoken word. Discretion is generally advised. A pervasive ethic of caution undergirds this message. The text also extols the virtues of contentment and humility. In Chapter 4 I take a rhetorical approach that centers on the financial and economic advice. In contrast to several other instructions, the social outlook in Ahiqar typically appropriates the perspective of someone in financial distress or from a lower socio-economic position. Shifting to the socio-political sphere, I determine that the narrative and sayings blur ethnic boundaries, resulting in a reimagining of community that no longer depends on strict ethnic or familial ties. Finally, I turn to anthropological and theological issues (Chapter 5). Here, I argue that Ahiqar evinces a negative anthropology, a conclusion supported by the ethic of caution and a few sayings that speak to human nature and its limits explicitly. Ahiqar's portrayal of the divine contributes to a pervasive tone of anxiety, whereby the gods are symbols for justice but at the same time are inscrutable in their benevolence and wrath. The king, who symbolically stands at the intersection of humanity and the gods, is a similarly ambivalent figure, and, like the gods, can be terriblly and unpredictably destructive. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 10, 2015. / Ahiqar, Egypt, Elephantine, Instruction, Judaism, Wisdom / Includes bibliographical references. / Matthew Goff, Professor Directing Dissertation; Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, University Representative; David Levenson, Committee Member; Nicole Kelley, Committee Member.

This dissertation examines the role of musical training in scribal education and its implication for Ben Sira’s pedagogy. Chapter One surveys the scholarship regarding the function of hymns in the book of Sirach and their role in Ben Sira’s pedagogy. I contend that answers to the former has been too textually oriented, and the latter has discounted the pedagogical value of hymns. I propose that one should take seriously Ben Sira’s command for his students to sing and the predominance of hymns in the book as indicative of the education he provided. I suggest that a comparative study with ANE and Greco-Roman education models and hymns from the Dead Sea Scrolls will accentuate the role of hymnody in ancient education. Chapter Two, “Singers of Wisdom in the Ancient Near East and Greco-Roman World,” explores the role of music in scribal education in the ancient world in general. In particular, I examine the evidence for scribal training in songs in Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian scribal practices, the use of chanting and “verse points” in scribal singing in Ancient Egypt, and the equation of musical acumen with education in fifth-century Athens. Utilizing Hadot’s concept of “spiritual exercises” in philosophical schools, I suggest that hymnody as a pedagogical tool for sophists and presocratic sages provides a helpful model for songs in Ben Sira’s pedagogy. Chapter Three, “Singers of Wisdom in Israel and the Second Temple Period” narrows the exploration of music in ancient education to ancient Israel. This chapter utilizes music archaeology and a close textual analysis of the Hebrew Bible and Dead Scrolls. Particularly important is the predominance of the lyre and double-pipe in Iron Age II and the Greco-Roman period and the emergence of the Levites as singers and teachers in the Second Temple period. This tradition of singing teachers carries over in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the office of the maskil and allusions to singing teachers in the Teacher Hymns of the Hodayot. Chapter Four, “Ben Sira as a Singer of Wisdom” turns to Ben Sira’s construction of the teacher in which the depiction of the scribe as a singer is quite pervasive. I explore the implications behind Ben Sira’s command for the reader to sing with a lyre and stringed instruments in Sir 39:15, the allocation of praise to the wise in Sir 14:20-15:10, and the touting of his prophetic authority in the wisdom hymn in Sirach 24. These passages have much in common with the singing office of the maskil, the Teacher Hymns in the Hodayot, the Levitical scribes in Chronicles, and the scribal depiction of David in Sir 47:8-10 and 11Q5. These parallels suggests that Ben Sira is drawing on a common model of the teacher in the Second Temple period. I also demonstrate the possibility that the hymn in Sir 39:12-35 functioned as a school exercise whereas the hymn in Sirach 24 functioned as a public demonstration of Ben Sira’s wisdom in order for him to attract new followers/students. Chapter Five, “Singing Teachers, Singing Students,” explores the role of hymns in the composition and reception of the book of Sirach. I contend that the Hymn to Creation (42:14-43:33) and the Praise of the Ancestors (44:1-50:24) function teleologically and are mosaics of terms from previous passages in Sirach. Whereas the Hymn to Creation represents the composition of a new hymn by Ben Sira’s disciples based on older hymns, the latter is an imaginal liturgy that influenced later Jewish poetic traditions, particularly the ʿAvodah poetry, through its performance in a festival setting. The continued use of hymns by Ben Sira’s students also explains the additional hymns and colophons in Sirach 51, particularly in MS B from the Cairo Genizah, in which the Hymn of Divine Names in Sir 51:12a-o utilizes the Amidah. Chapter Six, “Did Ben Sira Sing in Class” offers a concise conclusion to my dissertation along with its broader themes. This dissertation as a whole demonstrates: (1) the importance of music in ancient pedagogy; (2) the influence of the Levitical scribal singers on Jewish pedagogy in the Second Temple period; (3) the pedagogical use of hymns in the Second Temple period in general, in which comparisons between Ben Sira and the Dead Sea Scrolls often demonstrate shared rhetorical strategies, and (4) the centrality of music in Ben Sira’s pedagogy and the depiction of his sagely persona. Overall, I contend that the hymnic and didactic discourse flourished together in Ben Sira’s pedagogy, which helps explain his reception as both a proto-rabbi and singer in later Jewish tradition. This dissertation also demonstrates a cross-pollination between Hellenistic and Hebraic thought at the level of pedagogical practice and forces us to rethink ancient learning in a more embodied and less text-focused way. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / June 12, 2017. / Ben Sira, Dead Sea Scrolls, Hymnody, Levites, Music, Pedagogy / Includes bibliographical references. / Matthew Goff, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles Brewer, University Representative; David Levenson, Committee Member; Nicole Kelley, Committee Member.

This thesis explores the experiences of a South Florida klezmer ensemble known as the Holocaust Survivor Band. The group was co-founded by Saul Dreier, then an 89-year-old resident of Coconut Creek, Florida, and Reuwen "Ruby" Sosnowicz, 85 years old at the time, a Delray Beach, Florida, resident, in April 2014. Dreier was inspired to form a musical ensemble of Holocaust survivors after reading about the death of pianist and fellow Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer. Ruby's daughter Chana Sosnowicz joined the band as lead singer, and Holocaust survivor descendant Jeff Black joined as a guitar player. In sum, I tell the story of the Holocaust Survivor Band, a contemporary musical ensemble representative of a historically significant era. I emphasize the group's ability to represent the Holocaust era to present-day audiences. To demonstrate this, the ensemble's experiences are portrayed through statements and information from the band members themselves, through descriptions in various articles and media, through my observations of their performances and rehearsals, and through my interpretations of all these source materials. Based on this content, I present some generalizations about the band's significance. One of my more obvious conclusions is that the band serves as musical witnesses to the Holocaust by using their performances to remind people of the period and to share their life stories. As a result, the group contributes to the historical and collective memory of the Holocaust. This in turn can evoke nostalgic feelings within the band and audience, thus further establishing connections to the past. In addition, the band seeks to prevent genocide from happening again by promoting a message of peace in their music, particularly through their song "Peace for the World." Most importantly, Dreier and Sosnowicz are finding joy in music again after not playing or performing for a long time. All of this exemplifies how the ensemble has impacted both its members and those around them. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the Master of Music. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 1, 2016. / Florida, Holocaust, klezmer, music, musicology, oral history / Includes bibliographical references. / Frank Gunderson, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Bakan, Committee Member; Douglass Seaton, Committee Member.

Having been a male dominated pursuit, Bible interpretation has long reflected a male bias and encouraged sexual stereotyping in the study of biblical characters. The history of Jewish Bible interpretation and the traditional Jewish emphasis on works of specific exegetes have, in turn, colored the educational materials used in Jewish school curricula and stereotypes have been perpetuated as elementary school children study the Bible. This thesis focuses on eight women in Scripture. After examining the Bible, selected rabbinic exegetical works are studied to see how this literature reflects or changes the Bible's image. A review of textbooks and teaching tools used for Bible study follows to see how these educational materials present the biblical women, whether or not they mirror classical Jewish perspectives on biblical women, and if they offer a varied portrait of the figures.

No description available.