Introduction to “Priests, Scribes, and Interpreters”

Abstract

This special issue of the Journal of Ancient Judaism offers distinctive approaches and innovative assessments of texts associated with a historical season often designated the second temple period. Five articles explore the engagement of priests, scribes, and interpreters with Torah and sacred texts, though they employ diverse methodologies in taking up this common theme. Readers of this issue will learn about ancient Judaism from the vantage of: (1) the history of scholarship on textual traditions that are ripe for reevaluation; (2) paleographic study and its import for understanding scribal transmission; (3) reconstructions of texts and new conceptional examinations; and (4) intertextuality and interpretations within texts labeled pseudepigraphal. The articles in this issue were first presented at “Studies in Second Temple Judaism: A Global Enterprise,” an international conference sponsored by the Enoch Seminar and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, held on January 10–13, 2022. This conference was dedicated to exploring contemporary methodologies that illumine ancient Judaism from an intentionally global scope, an aim facilitated by the meeting’s online modality. While it goes without saying that scholarship is a global enterprise, too often our scholarly communities are isolated or divided by geography, language, tradition, and other boundaries artificially imposed. As to the latter, one thinks of heuristic labels that often divide our discipline artificially. Texts classified, for example, as belonging to the “Hebrew Bible” or the “New Testament” are, in fact, early Jewish texts that could as easily be examined alongside contemporaneous writings not included in a canon. Our categorizations lead to our scholarship being siloed. If undertaken from an isolated vantage, though, the study of ancient Judaism would be impoverished, reflecting a narrow slice of methodologies, perspectives, and voices. The organizers of the meeting sought to remedy such a scenario by reaching out to scholars of ancient Judaism from around the world to present their work and engage in a conversation about the status and prospects of the field. Scholars from all hemispheres – from, for example, Argentina, Australia, Brazil,