Abstract:This article argues that narratives about the loss and (potential) recovery of biblical texts can reveal a previously neglected genre of "biblical theology" in premodern Jewish sources—a religious discourse about the sometimes unstable transmission of Scripture in history. This discourse is less concerned with the specific contents of biblical texts than it is with the concept or motif of Scripture as a player in its own narrative about revelation, loss, and renewal. We discuss medieval sources associated with the Khazars, which relate the discovery of forgotten texts in a cave and their legendary role in establishing a new Jewish kingdom; a related motif in early Jewish and rabbinic sources about the temporary concealment of sacred texts and objects to safeguard them from the Babylonian invasion; and other examples where a rupture in the transmission of Torah becomes an occasion for new revelatory moments and renewed communities. Attention to how Jewish sources speculate about the transmission, contingency, damage, loss, and salvage of biblical texts also help us reconsider any simplistic binary between modern, historical-critical scholarship about the history of the text and "traditional" religious approaches to Scripture. Premodern writers knew their texts were damaged by time and political upheaval, and that their divine origins did not always safeguard them from damage and loss. But tales of loss—particularly traditions that identified the Babylonian Exile as a period of rupture in the transmission of sacred texts—were reconfigured in ways that did not challenge, but instead revitalized biblical tradition and authority by making the revelation of the Torah an endlessly repeatable moment. Tales of rupture and concealment were not only sources of anxiety and doubt about the reliability of Scripture: they were themselves key episodes in expansive biblical interpretation and in reflection about continuing revelation and community renewal.
{"title":"\"Without Torah and Scripture\": Biblical Absence and the History of Revelation","authors":"Eva Mroczek","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article argues that narratives about the loss and (potential) recovery of biblical texts can reveal a previously neglected genre of \"biblical theology\" in premodern Jewish sources—a religious discourse about the sometimes unstable transmission of Scripture in history. This discourse is less concerned with the specific contents of biblical texts than it is with the concept or motif of Scripture as a player in its own narrative about revelation, loss, and renewal. We discuss medieval sources associated with the Khazars, which relate the discovery of forgotten texts in a cave and their legendary role in establishing a new Jewish kingdom; a related motif in early Jewish and rabbinic sources about the temporary concealment of sacred texts and objects to safeguard them from the Babylonian invasion; and other examples where a rupture in the transmission of Torah becomes an occasion for new revelatory moments and renewed communities. Attention to how Jewish sources speculate about the transmission, contingency, damage, loss, and salvage of biblical texts also help us reconsider any simplistic binary between modern, historical-critical scholarship about the history of the text and \"traditional\" religious approaches to Scripture. Premodern writers knew their texts were damaged by time and political upheaval, and that their divine origins did not always safeguard them from damage and loss. But tales of loss—particularly traditions that identified the Babylonian Exile as a period of rupture in the transmission of sacred texts—were reconfigured in ways that did not challenge, but instead revitalized biblical tradition and authority by making the revelation of the Torah an endlessly repeatable moment. Tales of rupture and concealment were not only sources of anxiety and doubt about the reliability of Scripture: they were themselves key episodes in expansive biblical interpretation and in reflection about continuing revelation and community renewal.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"93 1","pages":"122 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83004525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Ever since the invention of the printing press and moveable type in the late fifteenth century, the Bible has been perceived as a very physical and unified book, THE book of all books. Between two covers, the church (and notably not the synagogue) now had the word of God in objective tangible form. Most important, this book was reprinted in exactly the same form with essentially the same text tens of thousands of times, so that this one book provided a point of unity for churches and largely Christian cultures alike. Over the next five centuries, the Bible came to be the most widely distributed book in history, from family rooms to hotel nightstands. The physical Bible was ubiquitous, reinforcing its authority as the tangible word of God bound in one book. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, digital technology made it possible to download the Bible as a digital file that could be read on digital displays. In this essay, I will examine how the digitized Bible has resulted in an unbound intangible book displayed one screen at a time. The Bible has become a fragmented book in its digital form that has profound implications for perceptions of its authority, content, and interpretation.
{"title":"Bible as Book in the Digital Realm","authors":"Jeffrey S. Siker","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Ever since the invention of the printing press and moveable type in the late fifteenth century, the Bible has been perceived as a very physical and unified book, THE book of all books. Between two covers, the church (and notably not the synagogue) now had the word of God in objective tangible form. Most important, this book was reprinted in exactly the same form with essentially the same text tens of thousands of times, so that this one book provided a point of unity for churches and largely Christian cultures alike. Over the next five centuries, the Bible came to be the most widely distributed book in history, from family rooms to hotel nightstands. The physical Bible was ubiquitous, reinforcing its authority as the tangible word of God bound in one book. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, digital technology made it possible to download the Bible as a digital file that could be read on digital displays. In this essay, I will examine how the digitized Bible has resulted in an unbound intangible book displayed one screen at a time. The Bible has become a fragmented book in its digital form that has profound implications for perceptions of its authority, content, and interpretation.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"35 1","pages":"173 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82449163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Metaphor and the Study of Job","authors":"Dominick S. Hernández","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"391 - 415"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79688952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:מְאֹד is one of Biblical Hebrew's most frequently used words. "Very" is considered the general sense of מְאֹד by scholars, and "strength" is the other slightly less popular alternative. Qumran scribal analysis of מְאֹד reveals eight different orthographic forms, which suggests diverse pronunciations. The scholars hitherto regarded מְאֹד orthographic variations as simple use of matres lectionis, specifically connected to the Qumran scribal tradition. Dealing with this issue, this paper re-examines מאד's senses in the Qumran context and considers them as grounds for its various pronunciations. The obtained results show that the forms can be divided into three orthographic categories, each in correspondence with a specific sense, which could hint at three dissimilar words that have close phonic similitude in common but are derived from partly diverse roots. By converging those three words into a single shortened form, מאד, this fact went unnoticed by later copyists.
{"title":"Multiple Orthographies of מאד Demystified","authors":"Hadi Taqavi, Hadi Sabouhi, Soroush Nasseri","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:מְאֹד is one of Biblical Hebrew's most frequently used words. \"Very\" is considered the general sense of מְאֹד by scholars, and \"strength\" is the other slightly less popular alternative. Qumran scribal analysis of מְאֹד reveals eight different orthographic forms, which suggests diverse pronunciations. The scholars hitherto regarded מְאֹד orthographic variations as simple use of matres lectionis, specifically connected to the Qumran scribal tradition. Dealing with this issue, this paper re-examines מאד's senses in the Qumran context and considers them as grounds for its various pronunciations. The obtained results show that the forms can be divided into three orthographic categories, each in correspondence with a specific sense, which could hint at three dissimilar words that have close phonic similitude in common but are derived from partly diverse roots. By converging those three words into a single shortened form, מאד, this fact went unnoticed by later copyists.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"21 - 7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86587063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bible as Book, Anthology, and Concept Introduction","authors":"Frederick E. Greenspahn","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"76 1","pages":"45 - 47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74638204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In this essay I adapt the category of "paratext" first proposed by Gérard Genette and refined by book historians to explore particular questions about the translated Tanak. Paratext suggests itself as an analytical category because Targums, for example, typically appear in manuscripts and in print editions alongside (para) the Hebrew text, making the visual relationship between source and target language a paratextual one. What can we learn from such paratextual presentation of the translated Hebrew Bible, about biblical translation as a portal or threshold—as Genette's Seuil? Does it bring the anterior source to the reader's linguistic world or does it bring the reader to the linguistic world of the source? A historical overview of premodern Bible translations and of the discourse applied to these translations (another paratextual dimension) highlights the fact that translated texts and their readers are always embedded in and reflecting various social locations. Thus the translated Bible is properly understood broadly as a flexible social concept, not simply as a rigidly linguistic one. We see that the variously translated Tanak has always taken shape as a context-specific hermeneutical (para)textual entity, manifesting the pluriformities that characterize multiple-context hermeneutics. I conclude that, whatever else the Hebrew Bible is in its translated forms, it is a social phenomenon that roots its existence in the interstices of the translation's textual and paratextual characteristics.
{"title":"What is the Translated Hebrew Bible? A Paratextual Reflection","authors":"William Yarchin","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0026","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this essay I adapt the category of \"paratext\" first proposed by Gérard Genette and refined by book historians to explore particular questions about the translated Tanak. Paratext suggests itself as an analytical category because Targums, for example, typically appear in manuscripts and in print editions alongside (para) the Hebrew text, making the visual relationship between source and target language a paratextual one. What can we learn from such paratextual presentation of the translated Hebrew Bible, about biblical translation as a portal or threshold—as Genette's Seuil? Does it bring the anterior source to the reader's linguistic world or does it bring the reader to the linguistic world of the source? A historical overview of premodern Bible translations and of the discourse applied to these translations (another paratextual dimension) highlights the fact that translated texts and their readers are always embedded in and reflecting various social locations. Thus the translated Bible is properly understood broadly as a flexible social concept, not simply as a rigidly linguistic one. We see that the variously translated Tanak has always taken shape as a context-specific hermeneutical (para)textual entity, manifesting the pluriformities that characterize multiple-context hermeneutics. I conclude that, whatever else the Hebrew Bible is in its translated forms, it is a social phenomenon that roots its existence in the interstices of the translation's textual and paratextual characteristics.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"5 1","pages":"143 - 171"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73264678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article discusses Yitzhak Gormezano Goren's Señora Quartet. The four novels, published between 2010–2019, present Dona Gracia Nasi and her dedicated efforts to help the Jews of Spain and Portugal, who were persecuted by the Catholic Church. The Quartet is reviewed in light of the characteristics of the historical novel, with an emphasis on the genre's role in the postmodern age as one that seeks to challenge the hegemony. The Quartet presents a counter-narrative to the classic Zionist narrative and positions alternative Sephardic elements in place of each of the classic Zionist cornerstones: the visionary of the state, the political vision, the perception of the Jewish ghetto, and negation of the Diaspora. The article also examines the manner in which carnivalesque poetics serves the "narrative coup" proposed by the Quartet.
{"title":"The Señora Quartet, by Yitzhak Gormezano Goren: A Restructuring of Zionism in the Sephardic Style","authors":"Batya Shimony","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article discusses Yitzhak Gormezano Goren's Señora Quartet. The four novels, published between 2010–2019, present Dona Gracia Nasi and her dedicated efforts to help the Jews of Spain and Portugal, who were persecuted by the Catholic Church. The Quartet is reviewed in light of the characteristics of the historical novel, with an emphasis on the genre's role in the postmodern age as one that seeks to challenge the hegemony. The Quartet presents a counter-narrative to the classic Zionist narrative and positions alternative Sephardic elements in place of each of the classic Zionist cornerstones: the visionary of the state, the political vision, the perception of the Jewish ghetto, and negation of the Diaspora. The article also examines the manner in which carnivalesque poetics serves the \"narrative coup\" proposed by the Quartet.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"89 1","pages":"333 - 357"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81601572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:The paper investigates the Hebrew speech act conditional אם כבר ‘if already’ from a constructionist perspective, suggesting that the construction represents a form-function pairing which associates a syntactic structure with a pragmatic function. On the formal side, the construction inherits semantic and syntactic properties of other conditionals. On the functional side, speech-act orientation (namely speaker, hearer, and discourse-orientation) motivates diverse scalar relations between the protasis and the apodosis which are interpreted to a great extent based on pragmatic factors. The analysis shows for example that a speaker-oriented perspective introduced in the protasis by the pattern אם כבר regarding the issue of flying as in אם כבר לטוס אז בסטייל ‘if already to fly then in style’ (= if it came to the point of flying, then it would be better to do it with style) sets the background for the speech act of recommendation in the apodosis. The entire sentence is associated with a suggestion for an alleviation of a subjectively inconvenient situation thereby giving rise to an upward scaling. This interpretation relies on pragmatic knowledge shared by the interlocutors such as the speaker’s identity, personal experience, and attitude toward flying.
{"title":"The Case of Hebrew \"If Already\": A Constructionist View","authors":"Hagit Shefer","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2020.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2020.0022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The paper investigates the Hebrew speech act conditional אם כבר ‘if already’ from a constructionist perspective, suggesting that the construction represents a form-function pairing which associates a syntactic structure with a pragmatic function. On the formal side, the construction inherits semantic and syntactic properties of other conditionals. On the functional side, speech-act orientation (namely speaker, hearer, and discourse-orientation) motivates diverse scalar relations between the protasis and the apodosis which are interpreted to a great extent based on pragmatic factors. The analysis shows for example that a speaker-oriented perspective introduced in the protasis by the pattern אם כבר regarding the issue of flying as in אם כבר לטוס אז בסטייל ‘if already to fly then in style’ (= if it came to the point of flying, then it would be better to do it with style) sets the background for the speech act of recommendation in the apodosis. The entire sentence is associated with a suggestion for an alleviation of a subjectively inconvenient situation thereby giving rise to an upward scaling. This interpretation relies on pragmatic knowledge shared by the interlocutors such as the speaker’s identity, personal experience, and attitude toward flying.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"52 1","pages":"277 - 298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78645709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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