{"title":"Internal Focalization in 1 Samuel – a new perspective on Jonathan’s love for David","authors":"R. Hakvoort","doi":"10.1177/03090892221149045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221149045","url":null,"abstract":"The narratological instrument of internal focalization offers a hitherto unexplored perspective on the narratives in 1 Samuel, in general, and on the Jonathan narratives, in particular. Internal focalization means that, in the narrative, the viewpoint of a character in the story is chosen, though not necessarily that of the main character. It appears that in contrast to most of the Old Testament (OT) prose, the book of 1 Samuel is abundant in the varying use of internal focalization. Applied to the David-Jonathan narratives, it is Jonathan who is the internal focalizer. This means we read about Jonathan’s thoughts, emotions, and perceptions instead of David’s. David, however, acts as focalized object, which means the focus of attention of the internal focalizer (Jonathan) is on David. This new perspective on the David-Jonathan narratives leads to fresh insights into the issue of the seemingly one-sided love of Jonathan for David. This may very well be explained by the fact that Jonathan is the internal focalizer. Hence, we read about his feelings for David. It does not necessarily mean that David has no similar feelings for Jonathan, but the narrator simply does not highlight these.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"343 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44043880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Battle with Amalek (Exod. 17.8–16): When God Trusts in Man","authors":"Tomer Greenberg","doi":"10.1177/03090892221149048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221149048","url":null,"abstract":"The battle with Amalek (Exod. 17.8–16) is among the most enigmatic stories in the book of Exodus. Commentators have particularly struggled to understand the meaning of the iconic scene at its heart: Moses raising and lowering his hand(s) (holding God’s staff?). In this essay, I argue that the scene should be envisioned differently from how most commentators have imagined it. A literary analysis of Exod. 17.8–13 shows that Moses raises the staff horizontally using both hands, which are in turn supported by Aaron and Hur’s hands. This portrayal is further reinforced in light of evidence from Egyptian iconography. The proposed understanding of the scene entails a reinterpretation of the story: it is not about using the staff but about supporting it. This conclusion has unusual theological implications, which are further sharpened in light of the role our story plays within the broader wilderness narrative.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"304 - 321"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42451819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Restructuring the Symbolic Universe”: Resilience through Literary and Ideological Reframing in Isaiah 2.2–4(5)","authors":"Brent Nessler","doi":"10.1177/03090892221149051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221149051","url":null,"abstract":"This paper elucidates the ways in which the composition and redaction of Isa. 2.2–4(5) function to both exhibit and impart resilience to hearers/readers based on the congruity between Nissinen’s appraisal of scribal activity as “restructuring the symbolic universe” and the process of cognitive behavioral therapy. To begin, I discuss the redactional placement of Isa. 2.2–4(5), delineating its role in reframing earlier judgment texts, along with its overall purpose through comparison with Mic. 1.1–5. Next, I demonstrate how the imagery of Isa. 2.2–4(5) co-opts and reframes the political ecosystem actively perpetuated by the Achaemenid Empire. Finally, through the work of Clemens Sedmak and Robert J. Schreiter, I (1) define resilience as “a capacity to resist” and (2) display the ways in which both the literary and ideological reframing of Isa. 2.2–4(5) likely signified and produced resilience in a manner akin to cognitive reframing for the postexilic community of Yehud.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"259 - 276"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46866406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Royally Enticing, Royally Forgetting: The Contribution of Psalm 45 within Its Canonical Context","authors":"Collin Cornell","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116919","url":null,"abstract":"What is the contribution of Psalm 45 within its canonical context? What is Psalm 45 doing in, and what is it doing for, the First Korahite Collection (Pss. 42–49)? These are the questions this article engages. In common with scholarship on the “shape and shaping” of the Psalter, the article seeks a form of coherency across the First Korahite Collection. But instead of framing such coherency in terms of a unified drama or running characters, the article takes a rhetorical approach; it attends to imperative verbs as well as to each psalm’s metareferences (i.e., self-descriptions). On the basis of these features as well as the psalm superscriptions, this article suggests that the First Korahite Collection exhibits a sustained pedagogical interest and summons its readers to practice memory-work. Psalm 45 encourages the receipt of instruction through its desirable kingly persona and, uniquely in the Collection, it calls for the negative counterpart of remembering, that is, forgetting.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"223 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42765631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the tedious and monotonous repetitions in the Tabernacle accounts: a reassessment","authors":"A. Friedberg, Juni Hoppe","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116917","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116917","url":null,"abstract":"Modern scholarship and medieval commentators have generally viewed the execution of the Tabernacle and the priestly ordination described in Exodus 35–40 and Leviticus 8 as the fulfilment of the earlier commands contained in Exodus 25–31, following the command-fulfilment pattern that is so common in priestly writings. We challenge this reading and conclude, on form, thematic, and narrative considerations, that we are in the presence of two alternate versions and that the skillful placement of the second version harmonizes these versions and creates a novel and largely ignored account. Priestly versions, when read in isolation, could have presented two competing (ideological) depictions of the Tabernacle.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"161 - 188"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41682097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Did Lot Get His Just Desserts? Trauma, Revenge, and Re-enactment in Genesis 19.30-38","authors":"Kirsi Cobb","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116921","url":null,"abstract":"In Genesis 19.30-38, Lot’s daughters commit incest with their father to save his seed. Earlier in Genesis 19.6-8, Lot offered his daughters to be raped by the men of Sodom to save the honour of his male guests. Reading these stories together, in the latter, we observe an inverted world where victims become perpetrators and vice versa. If read through trauma theory, the inversion could imply that the daughters’ rape of Lot was motivated by revenge; however, traumatic re-enactment, where the daughters repeat their earlier trauma but also invert it, could also suit the textual evidence. Verses 30–38 could be read as an attempt to master previous trauma through repetition, where the recurring descriptions of design and act of rape are central to the interpretation of the narrative. This reading does not lessen the horror of the passage but rather adds to our understanding of trauma in Genesis 19.30–38.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"189 - 205"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43195632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rejection Realized: Saul, the Evil Spirit and the Loss of Kingship","authors":"R. J. Balfour","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116918","url":null,"abstract":"In conversation with tragic readings of Saul’s career, the present article attempts to outline a parallel between the presentation and role of the spirit of YHWH and the evil spirit which afflicts Saul in 1 Samuel. By highlighting the parallel between the two spirits, the following argument suggests that they fulfil similar roles in confirming election and rejection respectively and either empowering or debilitating their recipients. The suggestion is that this analogy offers an appropriate way to understand the wider presentation of the evil spirit which afflicts Saul and has important implications for how we think about Saul’s rejection and his presentation more broadly.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"206 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46562142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultic Images of Jerusalem in Lamentations 2:1–8","authors":"Gregory Goswell","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116911","url":null,"abstract":"Lamentations 2.1–8 depicts the attack of God on Jerusalem and the temple. God is the subject of almost every verb in the unit, and this heightens the theological dimension of the crisis compared with chapter 1. This perspective is reinforced by the many images of the city as a centre of worship. The focus on the cult is not limited to the mention of feasts, sabbath, altar and sanctuary in 2.6–7 but is in evidence from verse 1 with the city described as ‘under a cloud’ and called ‘the beauty of Israel’ and God’s ‘footstool’. This way of viewing Jerusalem is bolstered by the images of ‘the tent of the daughter of Zion’ (2.4), and God’s ‘booth’ (2.6a). God’s action against Zion signals the breakdown of the relationship between Yhwh and his people, and it also disables the usual cultic mechanisms for mending that relationship.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"145 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43249972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moses, the Lifter of the Sky: A Novel Reading of Exodus 17:8–16 in Light of the Heliopolitan Cosmogony","authors":"Sanghwan Lee","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116909","url":null,"abstract":"Exodus 17.8–16 contains a number of exegetical puzzles, including the placement of Moses upon an anonymous hill, the cryptic gesture of Moses, the gesture’s direct influence on the battle, the appearance of two assistants (i.e., Aaron and Hur), the function of מטה האלהים, the number of Moses’ raised hands, the name of the altar (i.e., יהוה נסי), and the depiction of Amalek as a perpetual enemy of YHWH and Israel. To account for these puzzles, scholars have searched for traditions that could have influenced the Israelite author when composing the text. Unlike previous attempts, this article approaches the text in light of the Egyptian Heliopolitan cosmogony. This methodology coherently accounts for almost all the elements that appear in the Amalek narrative.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"56 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41725876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Other laws’: Haman’s accusation against the Jews in the book of Esther","authors":"J. Thambyrajah","doi":"10.1177/03090892221116908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03090892221116908","url":null,"abstract":"This study seeks to explain Haman’s reference to Jewish law (דָּת) in Masoretic Esther 3.8, given the lack of any obvious manifestation of the law in the book, or even of religious practice. The question of Jewish law in the book of Esther is closely related to the much more widely discussed question of God’s absence. This paper suggests that the book of Esther uses Haman’s accusation to invite its readers to question whether Jewish דָּת exists, and if so, whether it conflicts with Persian (or royal) law. This question persists with the reader throughout the whole book. Ultimately, we argue that the (Masoretic) book of Esther paints Jewish identity as fundamentally compatible with Persian law.","PeriodicalId":51830,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament","volume":"47 1","pages":"43 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43301368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}