This thesis explores the theme of time in the book of Qohelet. Throughout his work Qohelet depicts the temporal reality as intensely problematic for human attempts to fashion a meaningful existence, even in the present. A tension is established in the book between the temporal realities of the world and human time-experience. This tension becomes especially apparent in relation to the field of human cognition: our ability to understand and respond properly to our temporal conditions is drawn fundamentally into doubt by Qohelet. The lacking correspondence between temporal reality and human experience of time affects every temporal area in our existence. Qohelet does not allow the human being any meaningful access to either past or future because of the reality of oblivion. Unable to appeal to a meaningful human continuity, individual human beings are unable to make sense of their present existence too. In addition to analysing Qohelet’s conception of time, the thesis investigates the consequences which this time-conception has for the author’s own philosophical endeavour. Significantly, Qohelet aims to describe an area of reality which he considers fundamentally inaccessible to the human mind. This results in an ongoing tension between statements of knowledge and statements of ignorance; between wanting to investigate human life in time and being unable to do so. This dichotomy is especially apparent in Qohelet’s discussion of the lost temporal horizons of past and future. Past and future cannot be approached directly, but must either be discussed through an examination of their influence on the present or established negatively, simply by stating their inaccessibility. Qohelet’s three main narrative texts demonstrate this particularly clearly. A final chapter uses the analysis of Qohelet’s time conception to undertake a comparative analysis of Qohelet and early layers of 1 Enoch.

The thesis begins with an overview of views concerning the dating of Isa 24–27 and its place within the genres of apocalyptic and eschatology, before stating its aim as showing how Canaanite myths were used by the author to give future hope rooted in cultic ideals. The second chapter looks at the image of the divine warrior, with particular emphasis on the chaos enemy as the dragon/serpent/sea, and the remarkable similarities between Isa 27:1 and the Ugaritic KTU 1.5.i.1–5. A possible cultic setting of the combat myth is examined, together with the question of why the myth appears here in an eschatological manner. The following chapter discusses the Israelite and Canaanite traditions concerning the holy mountain and divine banquet. Zion motifs are compared with those of Mt. Zaphon, and the nature of cultic feasts considered in Israelite and Canaanite literature, as well as later traditions. Chapter Four argues that the verses concerning death and resurrection represented exile/oppression and restoration, at a time when ideas of resurrection and judgment after death were emerging. The Israelite imagery of Mot/Death and Sheol are examined in relation to the nature of Ugaritic Mot, showing how Canaanite traditions were used to demonstrate Yahweh’s might and the possibility of individual and universal restoration. The following chapter places Israelite religion within the context of Canaanite fertility cults and popular practices. That myth and cult are connected is the basis for the view that the themes in Isa 24–27 were passed down to the post-exilic era via cultic activities and the reuse of myths to promote Yahweh, whether the author was aware that he was using ancient, mythological ideas or not. The sixth chapter gives a short overview of hope in the Hebrew Bible, before demonstrating how the universalism of Isa 24–27 combines with the ancient mythic themes to provide an eschatological hope in an all-encompassing deity. The paper concludes that the author of these chapters deliberately used Canaanite mythology to show how the final victory, rule, and celebration of Yahweh would bring about a personal and moral victory for all nations.

<p>In his important work, The Beginnings of Jewishness, Shaye J. D. Cohen has argued that what it meant to be a Jew underwent considerable revision during the second century B.C.E. While previously a Jew was defined in terms of ethnicity (by which Cohen means biological descent), in the wake of Judaism's sustained encounter with Hellenism, the term Jew came to be defined as an ethno-religion--that is, one could choose to become a Jew. Nonetheless, the recent work of scholars, such as Christine E. Hayes, has demonstrated that there continued to exist in early Judaism a strain of thinking that, in theory at least, excluded the possibility that Gentiles could become Jews. This genealogical exclusion, found in works such as Jubilees, was highly indebted to the "holy seed" theology evidenced in Ezra-Nehemiah, a theology which defined Jewishness in genealogical terms.</p> <p>This dissertation will attempt to contribute to a greater understanding of differing conceptions of circumcision in early Judaism, one that more accurately describes the nature of Jewish thought with regard to Jewishness, circumcision, and conversion. In terms of methodology, my dissertation will combine historical criticism with a literary approach to the texts under consideration. The dissertation will focus on texts from the Hebrew Bible as well as Jewish texts from the Second Temple period as these writings provide windows into the various forms of Judaism from which the early Christian movement arose.</p> <p>Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, I will argue that there is no evidence that circumcision was considered to be a rite of conversion to Israelite religion. In fact, circumcision, particularly the infant circumcision instantiated within Israelite and early Jewish society excludes from the covenant those not properly descended from Abraham. In the Second Temple period, many Jews did begin to conceive of Jewishness in terms which enabled Gentiles to become Jews. Nonetheless, some Jews found this definition of Jewishness problematic, and defended the borders of Jewishness by reasserting a strictly genealogical conception of Jewish identity. Consequently, some Gentiles who underwent conversion to Judaism in this period faced criticism because of their suspect genealogy. Our sources record such exclusion with regard to the Herodians, Idumeans who had converted to Judaism. </p> <p>Additionally, a more thorough examination of how circumcision and conversion were perceived by Jews in the Second Temple period will be instrumental in better understanding early Christianity. It is the argument of this dissertation that further attention to a definition of Jewishness that was based on genealogical descent has broader implications for understanding the variegated nature of early Christian mission to the Gentiles in the first century C.E.</p> / Dissertation

Isaiah, along with Psalms and Zechariah, is one of the most quoted OT books in the Fourth Gospel (FG). There are thorough studies regarding the citations from Psalms and Zechariah in the FG. However, a monograph-length study on the use of Isaiah in that book is still lacking. The present research aims to fill this gap. This study proposes not only to research into Isaianic citations in the FG (Is 40:3; Is 54:13; Is 53:1; Is 6:9-10), but also to complete a comparative study of their other occurrences in the NT. This is done by analysing eleven citations in total, of which nine are found in the FG and Synoptics, while the other two are found in Acts and in the Letter to the Romans (one citation in each). This comparative study leads to the conclusion that the same citation, even with the same Vorlage, can be used with two different meanings in two different places in the NT. Indeed, even where similar meanings are to be inferred, the exact uses of the citations have some nuances. Moreover, the deviations in the form of the citations should not be understood simply as due to defective memory: they may be explained by “application of exegetical techniques and devices” (Menken) or they may not. It seems rather that the Fourth Evangelist crafted them well, according to his genuine theological aims/agenda. In fact, he is much freer in the composition of his citations than the Synoptics. In common with the Synoptics, however, he mentions Isaiah in order to gain prophetic authority for some difficult claims and not merely to indicate the source of the citation. Finally, it is observed that all of the Isaianic quotations in the FG have one pattern in common: where the OT writer refers to the God of Israel, the Fourth Evangelist refers to Jesus Christ.

Previous research has shown that 80% of college students have reported they are interested in spirituality. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of female students while studying Old Testament scriptures as part of their required liberal arts curriculum and to describe how their experiences affected their lives, spiritually or in other ways. While there is a small but growing body of survey data about students' interest in spirituality, a gap exists regarding how or in what ways required biblical curriculum affects students spiritually at Christian liberal arts universities. Fowler's faith stages, Gibson's model for spiritual development, and Thayer's spirituality scales, derived from learning theory, provided the conceptual framework and guided the interpretation of findings. Thirteen female students, the class professor, and his classroom manager participated in face-to-face interviews. The constant comparative method was used for content analysis to identify, code, and group meaningful statements into salient themes and organize them into 5 primary domains. Students reported the study of scriptures increased their faith in and spiritual connection to God, helped them internalize and articulate their Christian beliefs, and eased their transition into college, because they applied biblical lessons to their everyday lives. The results of this study have implications for positive social change by adding to the knowledge of spirituality in Christian higher education. At the student level, the implications for social change are positive attitude and lifestyle changes, improved relationships with family, and having meaning and purpose in life. At the institutional level, the results provide insight for developing effective curriculum that meets the needs and expectations of students, which can lead to greater student retention and persistence to graduation.

<p>The first-person Hebrew narrative of the Persian courtier sent to be governor of Judah, the "Nehemiah Memorial" (or NM: Neh 1-2:20; 3:33-7:3; 13:4-31), is a crucial text for understanding how elements within ancient Judaism conceived of their relationship to the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which ruled over Judah from the 6th to the 4th centuries BCE. This dissertation investigates NM via the issue of genre. Scholarship on NM in recent years has reached an impasse on this topic, suggesting that NM resists identification with any one genre. Newer developments in genre theory, however, offer resources for understanding genre not simply as a classificatory matter but also as a malleable relationship between writers and readers that can be exploited for rhetorical effect. NM makes use of two main genres: a "foreign court narrative" (cf. Daniel, Esther, and the Joseph narrative) slowly transforms into a biographical inscription or "official memorial", a genre attested throughout the ancient Near East. The subtle combination of these different genres suggests that Nehemiah's pious advocacy for his people and his city carries over from his role as Judean courtier before the Persian king to his role as governor over the Persian province of Judah. It also, however, ultimately underscores the ideological incompatibility of these genres, just as the goals of the subversive courtier at the mercy of the Persian king are at odds with the goals of the governor representing that king. Early readers of NM responded to these contradictions. A literary investigation of Ezra-Nehemiah reveals that editors of that book incorporated Nehemiah's story, but subtly corrected it, whether by reframing his actions in terms of the work of community as a whole and the Torah (Neh 10, Neh 12:44-13:3) or by contrasting him to the superior reformer Ezra (Ezra 7-10). The book of Ezra-Nehemiah thus mutes the signals sent by NM's use of genre indicating that the authority for Nehemiah's reforms, which were essential to Jerusalem's restoration, derived not from Israelite tradition or from the will of the people, but from the power of Judah's imperial masters.</p> / Dissertation

<p><p>In the first book of the Bible, every patriarch and many of the matriarchs have significant encounters with anger. However, scholarship has largely ignored how Genesis treats this emotion, particularly how Genesis functions as Torah by providing ethical instruction about handling this emotion's perplexities. This dissertation aims to fill this gap in scholarship, showing both how anger functions as a literary motif in Genesis and how this book offers moral guidance for engaging this emotion.</p></p><p><p>After an introductory chapter outlining the goals, methods, and limitations of this study (ch. 1), this dissertation draws on works in translation theory, anthropology, and cross-cultural psychology to lay a theoretical framework for analyzing emotion described in another language by another culture (ch. 2). Next, it appropriates the findings of cognitive linguistics to analyze the terminology, conception, and associations of anger in the Hebrew Bible (ch. 3). The following chapter evaluates the advances that have taken place in the field of Old Testament ethics in recent decades, supplementing them with insights from philosophical, literary, and critical theorists to formulate an understanding of ethics and narrative that aligns with the contours of Genesis (ch. 4). The next chapter employs a rhetorical-literary approach to examine how texts in Genesis provide a conversation with one another about anger and its moral perplexities (ch. 5). Various themes from this study are then collected and summarized in the concluding chapter (ch. 6).</p></p><p><p>This dissertation concludes that understanding Genesis' message about anger requires laying aside traditional Western assumptions about both emotion and ethics. Genesis does not, for example, provide a set of ideal principles for engaging anger. Rather, readers who experience Genesis' narratives view anger from a variety of perspectives and in different lights, gaining wisdom for diverse encounters with anger they may face. They acquire a deep sensitivity to human frailty, an acute awareness of anger's power, and a realistic range of possibilities for engaging this emotion.</p></p> / Dissertation

<p>It is fair to identify the motive of this dissertation with the paradoxical formulation of Gerhard von Rad, to the effect that the essence of biblical Wisdom is disclosed where the sages articulate this wisdom as inherently limited. This coincidence of opposites has been widely embraced by commentators and read as evidence for the sages' encounter with an infinite divine transcendence, to which they responded in humility, and by which their epistemological certitudes were rebuked. Proceeding from these assumptions, the interpretation of Proverbs has widely concerned itself with two nodal points: (1) the fear-of YHWH as the central concept in Proverbs' articulation wisdom as a finite human operation, conducted in the presence of an infinite divine; and (2) the figuration of this sublime experience in the iconic form of Woman-Wisdom. </p><p>The hypothesis of von Rad lends itself to another trajectory that prioritizes immanence over transcendence. On this reading, the limit of Wisdom lies not between its mere appearance for us (i.e. finite human subjects) and its essential being in itself (corresponding to a noumenal, divine beyond) but rather runs through the field of appearance, which cannot be rendered coherent by the sages' discursive intervention. This non-symbolizable yet immanent check on the sages' wisdom is analyzed in terms of Lacan's Real, a kernel of being (in psychoanalytic terms, jouissance) entirely beyond the signified that nevertheless arises out of the operations of signification. If discourse is thus intrinsically self-defeating, the status of transcendence should re-evaulated with respect to "limit." Transcendence is not the site that disturbs the Symbolic field, but rather the aporetic conditions of linguistic meaning rely on an externalizing process--what I have called a "poetics of making transcendent"-- for a given discourse to maintain its own coherence, i.e. as that which would be coherent if not for the contingent, impossible object. The fear-of YHWH and Woman-Wisdom, whose importance no one disputes, are re-read from this perspective: the former according to Lacan's concept of the Master-Signifier, the latter according to object (a), the object cause of desire.</p> / Dissertation

<p>Unusually for the Hebrew Bible, the book of Jeremiah contains a high number of references to writers, writing, and the written word. Written during the exilic period, the book demonstrates a key moment in the ongoing integration of writing and the written word into ancient Israelite society. Yet the book does not describe writing in the abstract. Instead, it provides an account of its own textualization, thereby blurring the line between the narrative and the audience that receives it and connecting the text of Jeremiah to the words of the prophet and of YHWH. </p><p> To authenticate the book of Jeremiah as the word of YHWH, its tradents present a theological account of the chain of transmission from the divine to the prophet, and then to the scribe and the written page. Indeed, the book of Jeremiah extends the chain of transmission beyond the written word itself to include the book of Jeremiah and, finally, a receiving audience. To make the case for this chain of transmission, this study attends in each of three exegetical chapters to writers (including YHWH, prophets, and scribes), the written word, and the receiving audience. The first exegetical chapter describes the standard chain of transmission from the divine to the prophet to the scribe, demonstrating that all three agents in this chain are imagined as writers and that writing was a suitable conduit for the divine word. The narrative account of Jeremiah's textualization is set forth, with special attention to the way in which the narrative points beyond itself to the text of Jeremiah itself. The second exegetical chapter builds upon this argument by attending to the written word in Jeremiah, pointing especially to Jeremiah's self-references (e.g. "in this book," "all these words") as a pivotal element in the extension of the chain of transmission beyond the words in the text to the words of the text. Finally, the third exegetical chapter considers the construction of the audience in the book of Jeremiah, concluding that the written word, as Jeremiah imagines it, is to be received by a worshipping audience through a public reading.</p> / Dissertation

<p>This dissertation lays the groundwork for a reevaluation of early Protestant understandings of salvation in the sixteenth century by tracing the emergence of the confessional formulation of the doctrine of justification by faith from the perspective of the history of biblical interpretation. In the Introduction, the author argues that the diversity of first-generation evangelical and Protestant teaching on justification has been widely underestimated. Through a close comparison of first- and second-generation confessional statements in the Reformation period, the author seeks to establish that consensus on this issue developed slowly over the course over a period of roughly thirty years, from the adoption of a common rhetoric of dissent aimed at critiquing the regnant Catholic orthopraxy of salvation in the 1520's and 1530's, to the emergence of a common theological culture in the 1540's and beyond. With the emergence of this new theological culture, an increasingly precise set of definitions were employed, not only to explicate the new Protestant gospel more fully, but also to highlight areas of divergence with traditional Catholic teaching.</p> <p> With this groundwork in place, the author then examines the development of several key concepts in the emergence of the confessional doctrine of justification through the lens of biblical interpretation. Focusing on two highly contested chapters in Paul's epistle to the Romans, the author demonstrates that early evangelical and Protestant biblical exegesis varied widely in its aims, motivations, and in its appropriation of patristic and medieval interpretations. Chapter 1 consists of a survey of pre-Reformation exegesis of the first half of Rom 2, and the author demonstrates that this text had traditionally been interpreted as pointing to an eschatological final judgment in which the Christian would be declared righteous (i.e., "justified") in accord with, but not directly on the basis of, a life of good deeds. In Chapter 2, the author demonstrates that early evangelical exegetes broke away from this consensus, but did so slowly. Several early Protestant interpreters continued, throughout the 1520's and 1530's, to view this text within a traditional frame of interpretation supplied by Origen and Augustine, and only with Philipp Melanchthon's development of a rhetorical-critical approach to the text were Protestants able to overcome the traditional reading and so neutralize the first half of Rom 2 as a barrier to the emerging doctrine of justification by faith alone.</p> <p> Chapters 3, 4, and 5 all deal with the reception history of what is arguably the central text in the Reformation debates concerning justification by faith, Rom 3. Chapter 3 turns once more to patristic and medieval interpretation, and here it is argued that that two major strands of interpretation dominated pre-Reformation exegesis. A "minority view" contrasted justification with works of the ceremonial law, arguing that Paul's assertion of justification "apart from works of the law" was aimed at highlighting the insufficiency of the Jewish ceremonial law in contrast with the sacraments of the Catholic church. In contrast with this view, the "majority view" (arising again from Origen and Augustine) argued that the contrast was properly viewed as one between justification and works of the moral law, thus throwing into sharp relief the problem of justification in relation to good works. This tradition generally followed Augustine in drawing a contrast between works of the law performed prior to, and following upon, the initiation of justification as a life-long process of transformation by grace, but at the same time insisted that this process ultimately issued in the believer fulfilling the demands of the moral law. In Chapter 4, I turn to Luther's early exegesis of Rom 3, as seen in his lectures from 1515. In contrast with Luther's own description of his "Reformation breakthrough" later in life, I argue that Luther did not arrive at his new understanding of justification in a flash of inspiration inspired by Augustine; rather, his early treatment of Romans is unimpeachably Catholic and unmistakably Augustinian, although there are indications even in this early work that Luther is not entirely satisfied with Augustine's view. In Chapter 5, I consider the ways in which Luther's followers develop his critique of the Augustinian reading of justification in the first generation of the Reformation. Throughout this period, it was unclear whether Protestant exegesis of Paul would resolve itself into a repristinization of patristic theology, inspired in large part by Augustine, or whether it would develop into something genuinely new. The key turning point, I argue, came in the early 1530's with Melanchthon's rejection of Augustine's transformative model of justification, and his adoption in its place of a strictly forensic construal of Paul's key terms. Many of Melanchthon's fellow reformers continued to operate within an Augustinian framework, however as Melanchthon's terms passed into wider acceptance in Protestant exegesis, it became increasingly apparent that the Protestant reading of Paul could not ultimately be reconciled with patristic accounts of justification.</p> / Dissertation