Christina Synowiec, Erin Fletcher, Luke Heinkel, Taylor Salisbury
The field of global development has embraced the idea that programs require agile, adaptive approaches to monitoring, evaluation, and learning. But considerable debate still exists around which methods are most appropriate for adaptive learning. Researchers have a range of proven and novel tools to promote a culture of adaptation and learning. These tools include lean testing, rapid prototyping, formative research, and structured experimentation, all of which can be utilized to generate responsive feedback (RF) to improve social change programs. With such an extensive toolkit, how should one decide which methods to employ? In our experience, the level of rigor used should be responsive to the team's level of certainty about the program design being investigated-how certain-or confident-are we that a program design will produce its intended results? With less certainty, less rigor is needed; with more certainty, more rigor is needed. In this article, we present a framework for getting rigor right and illustrate its use in 3 case studies. For each example, we describe the feedback methods used and why, how the approach was implemented (including how we conducted cocreation and ensured buy-in), and the results of each engagement. We conclude with lessons learned from these examples and how to use the right kind of RF mechanism to improve social change programs.
{"title":"Getting Rigor Right: A Framework for Methodological Choice in Adaptive Monitoring and Evaluation.","authors":"Christina Synowiec, Erin Fletcher, Luke Heinkel, Taylor Salisbury","doi":"10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00243","DOIUrl":"10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00243","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The field of global development has embraced the idea that programs require agile, adaptive approaches to monitoring, evaluation, and learning. But considerable debate still exists around which methods are most appropriate for adaptive learning. Researchers have a range of proven and novel tools to promote a culture of adaptation and learning. These tools include lean testing, rapid prototyping, formative research, and structured experimentation, all of which can be utilized to generate responsive feedback (RF) to improve social change programs. With such an extensive toolkit, how should one decide which methods to employ? In our experience, the level of rigor used should be responsive to the team's level of certainty about the program design being investigated-how certain-or confident-are we that a program design will produce its intended results? With less certainty, less rigor is needed; with more certainty, more rigor is needed. In this article, we present a framework for getting rigor right and illustrate its use in 3 case studies. For each example, we describe the feedback methods used and why, how the approach was implemented (including how we conducted cocreation and ensured buy-in), and the results of each engagement. We conclude with lessons learned from these examples and how to use the right kind of RF mechanism to improve social change programs.</p>","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10727457/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90562967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.9
Margaret Aymer
Abstract Scholarship on the Ethiopian eunuch focuses heavily on his foreign otherness, identifying him as the first gentile convert in the Acts of the Apostles. Such a reading tends not only to exoticize the Ethiopian but also to vilify the temple and, by extension, first-century Judaism, for their imagined rejection of this man. Using Saidiya Hartman’s work on “critical fabulation,” I propose instead that the Ethiopian be read as a Jew and, moreover, as an embodiment of the Jewish experiences of exile and enslavement to which his castrated body points. Such a reading supports the theme of the ingathering of dispersed Jews within the nascent Christian movement, which is central to Acts 1–8.
{"title":"Exotica and the Ethiopian of Acts 8:26–40: Toward a Different Fabula","authors":"Margaret Aymer","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.9","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholarship on the Ethiopian eunuch focuses heavily on his foreign otherness, identifying him as the first gentile convert in the Acts of the Apostles. Such a reading tends not only to exoticize the Ethiopian but also to vilify the temple and, by extension, first-century Judaism, for their imagined rejection of this man. Using Saidiya Hartman’s work on “critical fabulation,” I propose instead that the Ethiopian be read as a Jew and, moreover, as an embodiment of the Jewish experiences of exile and enslavement to which his castrated body points. Such a reading supports the theme of the ingathering of dispersed Jews within the nascent Christian movement, which is central to Acts 1–8.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.3
Mahri Leonard-Fleckman
Abstract This article is an experiment with irresolution as methodology in historical re-presentation. The focus is identity irresolution in Timnah, an Iron Age site in the Shephelah of the southern Levant. In biblical narrative, Timnah is brought to life in the stories of an unnamed woman in Judg 14–15. In archaeology, the site has been identified with Tel Batash (Tell el-Batashi in Arabic). The purpose of this article is twofold: to write a counterhistory of the unnamed woman that emphasizes the mystery of her identity and to articulate how irresolution can expand the scope of the historical practice in biblical studies. After an introduction and a discussion of irresolution as methodology, I offer a deep reading and re-presentation of the textual evidence, followed by an examination of the archaeological interpretations at Tel Batash. I conclude by considering the ethics of history writing in biblical studies.
{"title":"Irresolution as Historical Practice and the Case of the Unnamed Woman in Timnah","authors":"Mahri Leonard-Fleckman","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.3","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article is an experiment with irresolution as methodology in historical re-presentation. The focus is identity irresolution in Timnah, an Iron Age site in the Shephelah of the southern Levant. In biblical narrative, Timnah is brought to life in the stories of an unnamed woman in Judg 14–15. In archaeology, the site has been identified with Tel Batash (Tell el-Batashi in Arabic). The purpose of this article is twofold: to write a counterhistory of the unnamed woman that emphasizes the mystery of her identity and to articulate how irresolution can expand the scope of the historical practice in biblical studies. After an introduction and a discussion of irresolution as methodology, I offer a deep reading and re-presentation of the textual evidence, followed by an examination of the archaeological interpretations at Tel Batash. I conclude by considering the ethics of history writing in biblical studies.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.2
Anthony Ellis
Abstract This article reassesses the expression of jealousy and envy in the Hebrew Bible as well as their ethical status. Through a systematic analysis of the Hebrew root קנא, I argue that קנאה arises exclusively in scenarios involving a relative loss in status to a rival and that its closest English counterparts are therefore envy and jealousy. While some sort of link between קנאה and envy/jealousy is widely acknowledged, communis opinio has it that קנאה in the Bible regularly refers to other emotions and states, from anger and fury, to devotion and love, to vaguer feelings of passion, emotional excitement, zeal, or the desire for vengeance. Likewise, קנאה is widely considered to be ethically neutral—an emotion that might be positive or negative, good or bad. I challenge these views through new readings of several passages (esp. Song 8:6, Prov 14:30, Num 11:29, 2 Sam 21:1–2) and close with a brief discussion of the significance of these findings for biblical theology, religious zealotry, and the lexical expression of jealousy in cultures that evolved in contact with the Hebrew Bible and its translations.
{"title":"The Rot of the Bones: A New Analysis of קנאה (“Envy/Jealousy”) in the Hebrew Bible","authors":"Anthony Ellis","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.2","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article reassesses the expression of jealousy and envy in the Hebrew Bible as well as their ethical status. Through a systematic analysis of the Hebrew root קנא, I argue that קנאה arises exclusively in scenarios involving a relative loss in status to a rival and that its closest English counterparts are therefore envy and jealousy. While some sort of link between קנאה and envy/jealousy is widely acknowledged, communis opinio has it that קנאה in the Bible regularly refers to other emotions and states, from anger and fury, to devotion and love, to vaguer feelings of passion, emotional excitement, zeal, or the desire for vengeance. Likewise, קנאה is widely considered to be ethically neutral—an emotion that might be positive or negative, good or bad. I challenge these views through new readings of several passages (esp. Song 8:6, Prov 14:30, Num 11:29, 2 Sam 21:1–2) and close with a brief discussion of the significance of these findings for biblical theology, religious zealotry, and the lexical expression of jealousy in cultures that evolved in contact with the Hebrew Bible and its translations.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.7
James M. Neumann
Abstract Markan interpreters have long observed that the words of the voice from heaven at Jesus’s baptism in Mark 1:11, “You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased,” recall one or more passages from the LXX, most often Ps 2:7 and Isa 42:1. Yet few interpreters note that Mark 1:11 also bears remarkable similarity to another verse—Jer 38:20 LXX (31:20 MT)—in which God calls Israel his “beloved son.” On closer inspection, there are reasons to believe that Mark alludes to this verse as well as to Ps 2:7 and Isa 42:1. In addition to the fact that Israel is the only entity known as God’s “beloved son” in ancient Jewish literature outside the New Testament, Mark’s prologue and Jer 38 are united by a common remembrance of Israel’s exodus and the expectation of a new one. If this reading is correct, then Mark simultaneously identifies Jesus as God’s royal son and the embodiment of God’s original son, Israel, in one breath.
{"title":"Remembering God’s Beloved Son: Jeremiah 38:20 LXX and Mark 1:11","authors":"James M. Neumann","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.7","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Markan interpreters have long observed that the words of the voice from heaven at Jesus’s baptism in Mark 1:11, “You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased,” recall one or more passages from the LXX, most often Ps 2:7 and Isa 42:1. Yet few interpreters note that Mark 1:11 also bears remarkable similarity to another verse—Jer 38:20 LXX (31:20 MT)—in which God calls Israel his “beloved son.” On closer inspection, there are reasons to believe that Mark alludes to this verse as well as to Ps 2:7 and Isa 42:1. In addition to the fact that Israel is the only entity known as God’s “beloved son” in ancient Jewish literature outside the New Testament, Mark’s prologue and Jer 38 are united by a common remembrance of Israel’s exodus and the expectation of a new one. If this reading is correct, then Mark simultaneously identifies Jesus as God’s royal son and the embodiment of God’s original son, Israel, in one breath.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.8
Matthew J. Klem
Abstract This article explores meanings floating in the space between John 21:15–19 and 2 Kgs 2:1–18. Against the background of Kings, the threefold conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 functions as a loyalty test in a prophetic succession—Jesus passes on his prophetic role to Peter after the pattern of Elijah and Elisha. Against the background of the gospel, the threefold conversation between Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kgs 2 functions as a restoration, which suggests that Elisha may be the unnamed prophet in 1 Kgs 19:3. These experimental intertextual readings provoke a reassessment of prophecy in the gospel, provide interpretive insights into the Farewell Discourse (John 13–17), and open up a metaleptic possibility: reading the gospel might be like coming upon the cloak of Elijah along the riverbank, freshly fallen from heaven, and hearing the invitation to pick it up and strike the water.
{"title":"John 21:15–19 as a Prophetic Succession: A Reading in Light of 2 Kings 2:1–18","authors":"Matthew J. Klem","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.8","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores meanings floating in the space between John 21:15–19 and 2 Kgs 2:1–18. Against the background of Kings, the threefold conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 functions as a loyalty test in a prophetic succession—Jesus passes on his prophetic role to Peter after the pattern of Elijah and Elisha. Against the background of the gospel, the threefold conversation between Elijah and Elisha in 2 Kgs 2 functions as a restoration, which suggests that Elisha may be the unnamed prophet in 1 Kgs 19:3. These experimental intertextual readings provoke a reassessment of prophecy in the gospel, provide interpretive insights into the Farewell Discourse (John 13–17), and open up a metaleptic possibility: reading the gospel might be like coming upon the cloak of Elijah along the riverbank, freshly fallen from heaven, and hearing the invitation to pick it up and strike the water.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.4
Cynthia R. Chapman
Abstract Ruth’s decision to glean in a field where she might find favor (Ruth 2:2) sets in motion a transformation of Ruth from Moabite outsider to Judean insider. When Ruth happens upon the “field belonging to Boaz,” a servant identifies her as a nameless foreigner: “a Moabite woman . . . from the fields of Moab” (2:6). By the end of the book, the village elders compare her to “Rachel and Leah who together built up the house of Israel” (4:11). Crucial to Ruth’s incremental transformation are three directives that Boaz gives Ruth when he meets her in his field and greets her as “my daughter” (2:8): stay in my field; drink water from my vessels; and sit with my reapers and eat bread. Anthropological and archaeological studies of agriculture, foodways, and the materiality of food-related objects shed light on the kinship dimensions of each of these three directives. The back-and-forth interactions between Ruth, Boaz, the land, and its produce over two months of harvesting gradually lace Ruth into the “clan of Elimelech,” the father of her dead husband, and place her under the protective “cloak” of the Israelite god.
{"title":"The Field Belonging to Boaz: Creating Kinship through Land, Labor, Food, and Feeding","authors":"Cynthia R. Chapman","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.4","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ruth’s decision to glean in a field where she might find favor (Ruth 2:2) sets in motion a transformation of Ruth from Moabite outsider to Judean insider. When Ruth happens upon the “field belonging to Boaz,” a servant identifies her as a nameless foreigner: “a Moabite woman . . . from the fields of Moab” (2:6). By the end of the book, the village elders compare her to “Rachel and Leah who together built up the house of Israel” (4:11). Crucial to Ruth’s incremental transformation are three directives that Boaz gives Ruth when he meets her in his field and greets her as “my daughter” (2:8): stay in my field; drink water from my vessels; and sit with my reapers and eat bread. Anthropological and archaeological studies of agriculture, foodways, and the materiality of food-related objects shed light on the kinship dimensions of each of these three directives. The back-and-forth interactions between Ruth, Boaz, the land, and its produce over two months of harvesting gradually lace Ruth into the “clan of Elimelech,” the father of her dead husband, and place her under the protective “cloak” of the Israelite god.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.1
Eric J. Harvey
Abstract Disability has often been conflated with adjacent and overlapping topoi in the reception and scholarship of the Hebrew Bible in ways that have compounded ableist tendencies in some texts and manufactured them outright in others. The point is demonstrated here through various meanings of the couplet “they have eyes but do not see; they have ears but do not hear,” which in context can convey several reasons why seeing and hearing do not happen: unwillingness to accept a message (Jer 5:21, Ezek 12:2) and inanimacy (Pss 115:5b–6a, 135:16b–17a) in addition to the disabilities of blindness and deafness (Isa 43:8). Disability plays no conceptual or rhetorical role in the first four passages, as Hebrew biblical texts generally avoid the pitfall of equating disability with rebelliousness or lifelessness. Isaiah 43:8 uses blindness and deafness as metaphors for the condition of the exiled Judeans, but a careful reading in the context of Second Isaiah reveals that they serve as metaphors for captivity, not obduracy or immorality. Appreciating these distinctions produces more historically plausible readings of the five passages and opens the way to less ableist interpretations of other disability texts in the Hebrew Bible.
{"title":"Not Seeing, Unseeing, and Blind: Disentangling Disability from Adjacent Topoi in the Hebrew Bible","authors":"Eric J. Harvey","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.1","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Disability has often been conflated with adjacent and overlapping topoi in the reception and scholarship of the Hebrew Bible in ways that have compounded ableist tendencies in some texts and manufactured them outright in others. The point is demonstrated here through various meanings of the couplet “they have eyes but do not see; they have ears but do not hear,” which in context can convey several reasons why seeing and hearing do not happen: unwillingness to accept a message (Jer 5:21, Ezek 12:2) and inanimacy (Pss 115:5b–6a, 135:16b–17a) in addition to the disabilities of blindness and deafness (Isa 43:8). Disability plays no conceptual or rhetorical role in the first four passages, as Hebrew biblical texts generally avoid the pitfall of equating disability with rebelliousness or lifelessness. Isaiah 43:8 uses blindness and deafness as metaphors for the condition of the exiled Judeans, but a careful reading in the context of Second Isaiah reveals that they serve as metaphors for captivity, not obduracy or immorality. Appreciating these distinctions produces more historically plausible readings of the five passages and opens the way to less ableist interpretations of other disability texts in the Hebrew Bible.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.5
Rebecca W. Poe Hays
Abstract In the book of Isaiah, the “Song of the Vineyard” (5:1–7) merges garden imagery and love-song language together in a distinctive way. In Isa 61, garden imagery and marital language appear side by side, and the concluding hymn (vv. 10–11) sets the two images in explicit parallel. I argue that the imagery in Isa 61 is a reversing echo of the imagery of Isa 5:1–7 and communicates a message of restoration in keeping with the rest of Isa 60–62. By reversing the imagery of Isa 5:1–7, the author of Isa 61 depicts the fulfillment of the hopes that horticultural and relational destruction will not be the end of the story of God’s people. Recognizing that Isa 61 contains an intentional echo of Isa 5:1–7 lends support to compositional models for Isaiah that view the authorship of the final section(s) of the book as being a conscious development of an existing Isaianic corpus.
{"title":"Love, Marriage, and a Delayed Harvest: Isaiah 61 as the Reversal of the Song of the Vineyard (5:1–7)","authors":"Rebecca W. Poe Hays","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.5","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the book of Isaiah, the “Song of the Vineyard” (5:1–7) merges garden imagery and love-song language together in a distinctive way. In Isa 61, garden imagery and marital language appear side by side, and the concluding hymn (vv. 10–11) sets the two images in explicit parallel. I argue that the imagery in Isa 61 is a reversing echo of the imagery of Isa 5:1–7 and communicates a message of restoration in keeping with the rest of Isa 60–62. By reversing the imagery of Isa 5:1–7, the author of Isa 61 depicts the fulfillment of the hopes that horticultural and relational destruction will not be the end of the story of God’s people. Recognizing that Isa 61 contains an intentional echo of Isa 5:1–7 lends support to compositional models for Isaiah that view the authorship of the final section(s) of the book as being a conscious development of an existing Isaianic corpus.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-15DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.6
Elisa Uusimäki
Abstract While some early Jewish texts highlight opportunities enabled by travel, others reflect related concerns, suggesting that an encounter with the unknown moves people not only physically but also emotionally. This article addresses the latter phenomenon by investigating the blend of travel and anxiety in a selection of passages from Jubilees, Tobit, Aramaic Levi Document, and Philo of Alexandria. Drawing on affect theory, it argues that travel-related anxiety is best understood as an inclusive affect covering both explicit and more unspoken or fuzzy forms of anxiety, which can be either acute or chronic in nature. Seeking to map out a range of ancient responses to or strategies of managing apprehensions, I demonstrate that the selected sources reflect both emotional and ethical concerns. The authors of narrative texts invite their audiences to immerse themselves in “historical” events and to share the emotionally taxing aspect of relocations undertaken by ancestral figures in the past, while the authors of instructional texts address current experiences arising from their own communities: they mitigate possible worries related to encountering competing claims of wisdom on the move and instruct against trips driven by a greedy pursuit of luxurious goods.
{"title":"Travel and Anxiety in Early Jewish Literature","authors":"Elisa Uusimäki","doi":"10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1423.2023.6","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract While some early Jewish texts highlight opportunities enabled by travel, others reflect related concerns, suggesting that an encounter with the unknown moves people not only physically but also emotionally. This article addresses the latter phenomenon by investigating the blend of travel and anxiety in a selection of passages from Jubilees, Tobit, Aramaic Levi Document, and Philo of Alexandria. Drawing on affect theory, it argues that travel-related anxiety is best understood as an inclusive affect covering both explicit and more unspoken or fuzzy forms of anxiety, which can be either acute or chronic in nature. Seeking to map out a range of ancient responses to or strategies of managing apprehensions, I demonstrate that the selected sources reflect both emotional and ethical concerns. The authors of narrative texts invite their audiences to immerse themselves in “historical” events and to share the emotionally taxing aspect of relocations undertaken by ancestral figures in the past, while the authors of instructional texts address current experiences arising from their own communities: they mitigate possible worries related to encountering competing claims of wisdom on the move and instruct against trips driven by a greedy pursuit of luxurious goods.","PeriodicalId":15251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Biblical Literature","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135486479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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