You can now read about linguistic dating of biblical texts over at Bible and Interpretation here. Well worth a read because it calls into question many of the assumptions frequently made about dating texts…
Category: old testament
now’s the time to buy!
For all of you who’ve been holding off buying a copy of The End of Wisdom, now’s the time to buy. Eisenbrauns have a great sale on an array of titles including The End of Wisdom, and for international customers, shipping is half price!
job’s perfection and paul’s objection
Job, we are told in the opening verses of the book which bears his name, was תם וישר וירא אלהים וסר מרע — “blameless and just, fearing God.” Much of the point of the book rests upon the veracity of this assertion. Job did not deserve to suffer as he did. David Clines claims that…
the verb ברא in genesis 1
It appears that Ellen Van Wolde’s article about the meaning of ברא in Genesis 1 has appeared in JSOT (link to the reference is here). There has already been some discussion over her claim on other blogs, so I’m hoping to get a copy of her article soon (if anyone feels motivated to send me…
the shape of the ark
A recent article in the UK paper The Guardian reports that a newly translated by Irving Finkel (although not, apparently, newly discovered) tablet of Atra-hasis makes reference to the Mesopotamian ark as being “circular” (I assume it means more cylindrical than spherical). Although the provenance of the tablet seems unclear, there has been no doubt…
translating אמן “amen”
Working through some of Jeremiah lately I was prompted to think about the translation of the term אמן (“amen”). By way of reference I decided to see how a number of English translations rendered the term in two places — Jer 28:6 and Matt 5:18 (the latter uses the Greek transliteration ἀμήν). Here are the results:…
the prayer of job?
Andrew Barry has suggested that Job 42:7, which reads: חרה אפי בך ובשני רעיך כי לא דברתם אלי נכונה כעבדי איוב ought to be rendered thus: My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken to me what is right, as my servant Job has. The significant difference to…
does the story of job reflect a national tragedy?
The book of Job contains no explicit dating information and so determining its precise historical context is difficult. Although the implied date of the story is widely acknowledged to be in patriarchal times (when wealth was measured in goods and chattels, where people reputedly lived well past 100 years of age, and where there was…
speaking tenderly — or not?
I have an abiding interest in the significance of the historical, social, cultural, and linguistic context of biblical literature for understanding its meaning. As such, I was compelled to grab a copy of The Social Sciences and Biblical Translation (SBL, 2008) (available from many places, including Eisenbrauns). There’s much of interest in the slender volume,…
washington on the end of wisdom
A new review of The End of Wisdom has recently appeared in RBL. I felt that the review, by Harold C. Washington, warranted a few comments. Washington’s words are block-quoted and italicised, followed by my own comments. The “end” of wisdom in the book’s title signifies not wisdom’s aim but its demise. This is not…