Pub Date : 2023-09-19DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10145
Marshall A. Cunningham
Abstract I argue that the Levitical Prayer offered in Neh 9:5–37 ( LP ) offers a version of Judean history that does not include the Babylonian exile. Instead, it narrates an unbroken chain of possession of Judean territory that spans from the conquest and settlement of Canaan to the post-monarchic context of the prayer’s composition. Drawing insights from the study of cultural trauma, I make the case that the interpretive importance of such a catastrophic event cannot be assumed for subsequent Judean communities who sought to form a sense of cultural identity through the retelling of a shared past. Potentially traumatic events like the Babylonian exile are not actualized naturally; communal trauma is instead the product of social processes in the present that serve the needs of present and future communities. An elision of the Babylonian exile from a piece of post-monarchic period literature like the LP does not, therefore, require the interpretative conclusion that the prayer was written by the descendants of Judeans who avoided exile and remained in Judea during the sixth century ʙᴄᴇ. Importantly, neither does it exclude the possibility that the LP was produced by a community whose ancestors were displaced and resettled in Babylonia during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II . Through this analysis I invite scholars to explore a broader range of interpretative possibilities in their study of Ezra-Nehemiah as a composition and the understanding of the defining elements of Judean identity in the post- monarchic period.
{"title":"Decentering Exile","authors":"Marshall A. Cunningham","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10145","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract I argue that the Levitical Prayer offered in Neh 9:5–37 ( LP ) offers a version of Judean history that does not include the Babylonian exile. Instead, it narrates an unbroken chain of possession of Judean territory that spans from the conquest and settlement of Canaan to the post-monarchic context of the prayer’s composition. Drawing insights from the study of cultural trauma, I make the case that the interpretive importance of such a catastrophic event cannot be assumed for subsequent Judean communities who sought to form a sense of cultural identity through the retelling of a shared past. Potentially traumatic events like the Babylonian exile are not actualized naturally; communal trauma is instead the product of social processes in the present that serve the needs of present and future communities. An elision of the Babylonian exile from a piece of post-monarchic period literature like the LP does not, therefore, require the interpretative conclusion that the prayer was written by the descendants of Judeans who avoided exile and remained in Judea during the sixth century ʙᴄᴇ. Importantly, neither does it exclude the possibility that the LP was produced by a community whose ancestors were displaced and resettled in Babylonia during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II . Through this analysis I invite scholars to explore a broader range of interpretative possibilities in their study of Ezra-Nehemiah as a composition and the understanding of the defining elements of Judean identity in the post- monarchic period.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"110 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135108957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-19DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10144
Richard S. Hess
Abstract Esther 1 tells us that Xerxes had a special garden that he used for his weeklong celebration given on behalf of the residents of the citadel of Susa. The description of the pavement in verse 6 indicates that this provided a foundation for an opulent decorated garden, drawing upon the many cultures over which the Persian empire of the fifth century BCE ruled. The purpose of this study will be to examine the material composition of that pavement, in particular the bahaṭ, a noun often translated as “porphyry.” Following a review of proposals and analyses of this term, a new suggestion will apply both comparative philology, place name analysis, and the archaeology of Persian period northeastern Africa to argue an alternative understanding of the noun bahaṭ , “colorful granite.” The goal of this study will be to provide a more accurate perspective on the overall composition of the pavement and its garden.
{"title":"In the Garden of Xerxes’ Palace","authors":"Richard S. Hess","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10144","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Esther 1 tells us that Xerxes had a special garden that he used for his weeklong celebration given on behalf of the residents of the citadel of Susa. The description of the pavement in verse 6 indicates that this provided a foundation for an opulent decorated garden, drawing upon the many cultures over which the Persian empire of the fifth century BCE ruled. The purpose of this study will be to examine the material composition of that pavement, in particular the bahaṭ, a noun often translated as “porphyry.” Following a review of proposals and analyses of this term, a new suggestion will apply both comparative philology, place name analysis, and the archaeology of Persian period northeastern Africa to argue an alternative understanding of the noun bahaṭ , “colorful granite.” The goal of this study will be to provide a more accurate perspective on the overall composition of the pavement and its garden.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"208 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135108972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-19DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10136
Samuel Hendrick Wessels
Abstract Septuagint Kingdoms, the Greek translation of Samuel-Kings, has an ambiguous linguistic reputation. While scholars sometimes note natural linguistic features, its isomorphic and literal translation style is typically emphasised. This ambiguity has apparently caused several scholars to misinterpret LXX 1 Kgdms 3:2, which uses the verb βαρύνω in reference to the failing eyesight of the priest Eli. When examined against other evidence, notably Euripides’ Alcestis , Kingdoms is shown to use a natural though poorly attested Greek expression meaning “go blind.” This paper demonstrates the natural idiomatic use of βαρύνω in 1 Kgdms 3:2 and shows its value in refining our understanding of “heavy eyes” in other non-translation Greek texts. More broadly, it promotes the reading of the LXX against the wider history of the Greek language.
{"title":"Eli’s “Heavy Eyes” in LXX 1 Kingdoms 3:2 and Euripides’ Alcestis","authors":"Samuel Hendrick Wessels","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10136","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Septuagint Kingdoms, the Greek translation of Samuel-Kings, has an ambiguous linguistic reputation. While scholars sometimes note natural linguistic features, its isomorphic and literal translation style is typically emphasised. This ambiguity has apparently caused several scholars to misinterpret LXX 1 Kgdms 3:2, which uses the verb βαρύνω in reference to the failing eyesight of the priest Eli. When examined against other evidence, notably Euripides’ Alcestis , Kingdoms is shown to use a natural though poorly attested Greek expression meaning “go blind.” This paper demonstrates the natural idiomatic use of βαρύνω in 1 Kgdms 3:2 and shows its value in refining our understanding of “heavy eyes” in other non-translation Greek texts. More broadly, it promotes the reading of the LXX against the wider history of the Greek language.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"185 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135108960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-16DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10137
Francisco Martins
The book of Kings offers a detailed description of Hezekiah’s reign. Among the episodes recorded, there is the visit of a Babylonian embassy to whom the king shows the treasures of his palace. This act prompts the prophet Isaiah to announce that all these riches will be carried away to Babylon (2 Kgs 20:12–19). Although the plot is relatively straightforward in its broad contours, scholars have struggled to make sense of the relationship between the king’s gesture and Isaiah’s reaction. This article argues that a semantic-pragmatic phenomenon observed in Akkadian offers a path towards a new understanding of the text’s inner logic and meaning. Hezekiah’s “showing” and the Babylonian envoys’ “seeing” of the royal treasures acquire, in light of the parallel evoked, unexpected “legal overtones”: the king’s actions constitute a kind of legal symbolic act, whose dire consequences are fully explicated by Isaiah’s pronouncement.
{"title":"Hezekiah’s “Showing” and the Babylonian Ambassadors’ “Seeing” of the Royal Treasures","authors":"Francisco Martins","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10137","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The book of Kings offers a detailed description of Hezekiah’s reign. Among the episodes recorded, there is the visit of a Babylonian embassy to whom the king shows the treasures of his palace. This act prompts the prophet Isaiah to announce that all these riches will be carried away to Babylon (2 Kgs 20:12–19). Although the plot is relatively straightforward in its broad contours, scholars have struggled to make sense of the relationship between the king’s gesture and Isaiah’s reaction. This article argues that a semantic-pragmatic phenomenon observed in Akkadian offers a path towards a new understanding of the text’s inner logic and meaning. Hezekiah’s “showing” and the Babylonian envoys’ “seeing” of the royal treasures acquire, in light of the parallel evoked, unexpected “legal overtones”: the king’s actions constitute a kind of legal symbolic act, whose dire consequences are fully explicated by Isaiah’s pronouncement.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83892433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-16DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10141
M. Yurovitskaya
It has long been recognized that the syntactically incorrect phrase in the MT of Isa 2:6b (כִּי מָלְאוּ מִקֶּדֶם וְעֹנְנִים כַּפְּלִשְׁתִּים “for they are full from the east and soothsayers like the Philistines”) suffers from a textual error involving the omission of a word. According to the commonly accepted conjecture, a derivative of the root קסם must be reconstructed, which, being graphically similar to מִקֶּדֶם, may have been dropped out due to haplography. Contrary to previous research that viewed Justin’s version of the verse (ὅτι ἐπλήσθη ἡ χώρα αὐτῶν, ὡς τὸ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, µαντειῶν καὶ κληδονισµῶν, Dial. 135.6.5) as a reflection of inner-Greek development, I argue that it may provide support for the emendation, being the only surviving witness to the original Hebrew text of Isa 2:6b.
{"title":"Isaiah 2:6b and the Bible of Justin Martyr","authors":"M. Yurovitskaya","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10141","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000It has long been recognized that the syntactically incorrect phrase in the MT of Isa 2:6b (כִּי מָלְאוּ מִקֶּדֶם וְעֹנְנִים כַּפְּלִשְׁתִּים “for they are full from the east and soothsayers like the Philistines”) suffers from a textual error involving the omission of a word. According to the commonly accepted conjecture, a derivative of the root קסם must be reconstructed, which, being graphically similar to מִקֶּדֶם, may have been dropped out due to haplography. Contrary to previous research that viewed Justin’s version of the verse (ὅτι ἐπλήσθη ἡ χώρα αὐτῶν, ὡς τὸ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, µαντειῶν καὶ κληδονισµῶν, Dial. 135.6.5) as a reflection of inner-Greek development, I argue that it may provide support for the emendation, being the only surviving witness to the original Hebrew text of Isa 2:6b.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78381525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-16DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10142
Joseph L. Justiss
Alphabetic acrostics (AA s) are a known phenomenon in the Hebrew Bible (HB). Recently, scholars have argued that other poems in the HB evidence “alphabetic thinking”, or some kind of consciousness of alphabet in their composition. Peter C. W. Ho has argued for what he calls alphabetic compositions (AC s), i.e., poems that are not proper acrostics but share common poetic devices with acrostics. In this article, I attempt to refine Ho’s list of common features of AA s and regroup them into macro-level and micro-level alphabet-imitating devices. With a clear understanding of these devices I test whether certain poems attempt to imitate the alphabet in their overall shape at macro-level as well as in their choice of words at micro-level. I argue that only when clear alphabet-imitating devices are present in both the form and the linguistic content of a poem can it be reliably identified as an AC. Finally, I problematize the use of AC s as a set of cross-referring poems designed to carry Psalter motifs by dealing with the possible presence of reworked and repurposed alphabetic poems in the Psalter.
{"title":"Identifying Alphabetic Compositions in the Hebrew Bible","authors":"Joseph L. Justiss","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10142","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Alphabetic acrostics (AA s) are a known phenomenon in the Hebrew Bible (HB). Recently, scholars have argued that other poems in the HB evidence “alphabetic thinking”, or some kind of consciousness of alphabet in their composition. Peter C. W. Ho has argued for what he calls alphabetic compositions (AC s), i.e., poems that are not proper acrostics but share common poetic devices with acrostics. In this article, I attempt to refine Ho’s list of common features of AA s and regroup them into macro-level and micro-level alphabet-imitating devices. With a clear understanding of these devices I test whether certain poems attempt to imitate the alphabet in their overall shape at macro-level as well as in their choice of words at micro-level. I argue that only when clear alphabet-imitating devices are present in both the form and the linguistic content of a poem can it be reliably identified as an AC. Finally, I problematize the use of AC s as a set of cross-referring poems designed to carry Psalter motifs by dealing with the possible presence of reworked and repurposed alphabetic poems in the Psalter.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"295 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79573128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-16DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10139
John Tracy Thames
Discussions of the prehistory of the rituals Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread have frequently held that they stem from distinct origins and purposes. In part, this claim corresponds with the biblical presentation of the rituals as distinct and separable. But in an academic tradition reaching back to the early 19th century, scholarly reconstructions have additionally assumed that the rituals suggest sociological details about the putatively distinct populations that observed them—that Passover was a rite associated with nomadic pastoralists and Unleavened Bread served an agrarian populace. This article challenges such notions based on ritual texts from Emar. Emar’s ritual writings—especially those detailing the zukru festival—demonstrate that Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread share a structure for equinoctial ritualizing that suggests a history of those rites as integral to one another and refutes notions of their separability based on equation with social lifestyles.
{"title":"Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread as a Single Ritual Complex","authors":"John Tracy Thames","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10139","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Discussions of the prehistory of the rituals Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread have frequently held that they stem from distinct origins and purposes. In part, this claim corresponds with the biblical presentation of the rituals as distinct and separable. But in an academic tradition reaching back to the early 19th century, scholarly reconstructions have additionally assumed that the rituals suggest sociological details about the putatively distinct populations that observed them—that Passover was a rite associated with nomadic pastoralists and Unleavened Bread served an agrarian populace. This article challenges such notions based on ritual texts from Emar. Emar’s ritual writings—especially those detailing the zukru festival—demonstrate that Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread share a structure for equinoctial ritualizing that suggests a history of those rites as integral to one another and refutes notions of their separability based on equation with social lifestyles.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"114 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79445445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-16DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10143
Fabrizio Marcello
Following a study by Robertson (1885), Old Testament scholars have attempted to resolve the difficult reference to oil in Isa 10:27d by means of emendations, generally of a geographical nature. In this way, the verse becomes the opening line of the following war oracle (10:28–32). The study of royal inscriptions from the Neo-Assyrian period reveals instead the existence of covenant-making rituals in which oil was employed, especially as an image of the curse associated with covenant transgressions. Since in Assyrian propaganda, the yoke was an image of the king’s lordship over the conquered peoples, with the prophecy that “the yoke before the oil will be destroyed,” the prophet alludes to the termination of the treaty obligations stipulated through the ritual, as well as any form of curse associated with it.
{"title":"“The Yoke Before the Oil” (Isa 10:27d) in the Light of Neo-Assyrian Covenant-Making Rituals","authors":"Fabrizio Marcello","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10143","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Following a study by Robertson (1885), Old Testament scholars have attempted to resolve the difficult reference to oil in Isa 10:27d by means of emendations, generally of a geographical nature. In this way, the verse becomes the opening line of the following war oracle (10:28–32). The study of royal inscriptions from the Neo-Assyrian period reveals instead the existence of covenant-making rituals in which oil was employed, especially as an image of the curse associated with covenant transgressions. Since in Assyrian propaganda, the yoke was an image of the king’s lordship over the conquered peoples, with the prophecy that “the yoke before the oil will be destroyed,” the prophet alludes to the termination of the treaty obligations stipulated through the ritual, as well as any form of curse associated with it.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84310831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10133
Or Liber, Ariel Seri-Levi
The hapax legomenon קֻבָּה, which seems to appear out of context in the account of Phinehas killing an Israelite man and a Midianite woman in Num 25:8, has long puzzled commentators, scholars, and translators. This paper presents a new, text-critical explanation, suggesting that the original text read ויבא אחר איש ישראל וידקר את שניהם את איש ישראל אל הקבה ואת האשה אל קבתה, not including קֻבָּה at all: Phinehas pierced the man אֶל הַקֵּבָה, “through the belly,” and the woman אֶל קֳבָתָהּ, “through her belly.” The corruption occurred when the words אל הקבה were moved six words back in the text due to homoioteleuton and a partially successful correction. This unintentionally created the extant sentence ויבא אחר איש ישראל אל הקבה, in which קבה must denote a location, not an organ. Rather than קֵבָה, it was therefore read as קֻבָּה.
{"title":"The Meaning(lessness) of qubbâ and the Original Text of Numbers 25:8","authors":"Or Liber, Ariel Seri-Levi","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10133","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The hapax legomenon קֻבָּה, which seems to appear out of context in the account of Phinehas killing an Israelite man and a Midianite woman in Num 25:8, has long puzzled commentators, scholars, and translators. This paper presents a new, text-critical explanation, suggesting that the original text read ויבא אחר איש ישראל וידקר את שניהם את איש ישראל אל הקבה ואת האשה אל קבתה, not including קֻבָּה at all: Phinehas pierced the man אֶל הַקֵּבָה, “through the belly,” and the woman אֶל קֳבָתָהּ, “through her belly.” The corruption occurred when the words אל הקבה were moved six words back in the text due to homoioteleuton and a partially successful correction. This unintentionally created the extant sentence ויבא אחר איש ישראל אל הקבה, in which קבה must denote a location, not an organ. Rather than קֵבָה, it was therefore read as קֻבָּה.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82763542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1163/15685330-bja10131
Mark Sneed
This paper will demonstrate that the best descriptor of Qohelet is divine hedonist, not absurdist, skeptic, pessimist, realist, nihilist or “Preacher of Joy.” This will be done by examining the relationship between Qohelet’s hebel-judgments and his carpe diem ethic and comparing Qohelet’s strategy with that of philosopher David Hume. Qohelet’s hebel-judgments serve to deconstruct the traditional formulation of the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang, opening space for legitimating his preferred ethic: the carpe diem. In other words, Qohelet rhetorically paints a dark and dreary world in order to buttress his main ethic, the carpe diem, an ethic that is both hedonistic (using philosophical classification) in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain (reflected in his God-fearing motif), and divine in that this ethic must align with God’s mysterious decrees.
{"title":"Qohelet as Divine Hedonist","authors":"Mark Sneed","doi":"10.1163/15685330-bja10131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685330-bja10131","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper will demonstrate that the best descriptor of Qohelet is divine hedonist, not absurdist, skeptic, pessimist, realist, nihilist or “Preacher of Joy.” This will be done by examining the relationship between Qohelet’s hebel-judgments and his carpe diem ethic and comparing Qohelet’s strategy with that of philosopher David Hume. Qohelet’s hebel-judgments serve to deconstruct the traditional formulation of the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang, opening space for legitimating his preferred ethic: the carpe diem. In other words, Qohelet rhetorically paints a dark and dreary world in order to buttress his main ethic, the carpe diem, an ethic that is both hedonistic (using philosophical classification) in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain (reflected in his God-fearing motif), and divine in that this ethic must align with God’s mysterious decrees.","PeriodicalId":46329,"journal":{"name":"VETUS TESTAMENTUM","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85889777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"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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