HIPHIL NovumPub Date : 2024-02-13DOI: 10.7146/hn.v9i1.143407
A. G. Elrod
{"title":"Uncovering Theological and Ethical Biases in LLMs","authors":"A. G. Elrod","doi":"10.7146/hn.v9i1.143407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v9i1.143407","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores theological and ethical biases in LLMs through a novel approach involving creative text generation tasks based on biblical texts, specifically the Ten Commandments and the Book of Jonah. Utilizing models such as GPT-4 Turbo, Claude v2, PaLM 2 Chat, Llama 2 70B, and Zephyr 7B, the study employs a combination of qualitative hermeneutical analysis and quantitative textual analysis. Findings reveal a prevalent progressive bias in these models, evident in their interpretations of foundational ethical guidelines and narrative texts. This bias aligns with contemporary socio-political and environmental concerns, especially in themes of environmental ethics, social justice, and inclusivity. In the narrative task involving the Book of Jonah, a dominant interpretive trend is observed, reflecting the models' tendency to mirror historical and prevailing interpretations. This study highlights the need for multidisciplinary research into LLMs' biases, particularly their impact on religious and ethical narrative interpretation and broader societal implications.","PeriodicalId":518680,"journal":{"name":"HIPHIL Novum","volume":"144 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140527744","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}
HIPHIL NovumPub Date : 2020-03-05DOI: 10.7146/hn.v6i1.142745
Christian Canu Højgaard
{"title":"Structure, Rhetoric, and Application: Modern Approaches to the Book of Leviticus","authors":"Christian Canu Højgaard","doi":"10.7146/hn.v6i1.142745","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v6i1.142745","url":null,"abstract":"The ancient, priestly texts of Leviticus have not always been among the most popular of the books of the Bible. At times, however, these texts attracted renewed attention, scholarly as well as spiritually. This volume offers three peer-reviewed papers, each of which sheds new light on important matters in Leviticus. Together, the authors of this volume demonstrate how an arsenal of modern exegetical and hermeneutical tools help to analyze and appreciate the old priestly texts, even as we enter the 2020s.","PeriodicalId":518680,"journal":{"name":"HIPHIL Novum","volume":"204 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141224762","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}
HIPHIL NovumPub Date : 2020-03-05DOI: 10.7146/hn.v6i1.142754
David Instone-Brewer
{"title":"Are there two types of men in Leviticus 20:13?","authors":"David Instone-Brewer","doi":"10.7146/hn.v6i1.142754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v6i1.142754","url":null,"abstract":"The law of Leviticus 20:13 contains a curious non-symmetry: “a man [’ish, אִישׁ] may not lie with a male [zakar, זָכָר]”. If the purpose of the law was to forbid sexual activity between two people of the same sex, we would expect two identical terms for “man” to emphasise their similarity. The paper looks at two possible ways to account for this non-symmetry: it may be due to merging legislation from two sources, or the two terms may be synonymous. While surveying the concept of homoerotic inclination in the large corpus of Akkadian texts, the cognate term zikaru is found in two of these texts where its meaning of “male” implied heteroerotic inclination. If this meaning existed also in Hebrew, the two types of male who must not lie together may refer to “any male” (’ish) and a “heteroerotic male” (zakar). In this case, sexual activity between two homoerotically inclined males may still be regarded as immoral, but it was a capital crime only if a heteroerotic male was involved. The possibility of this interpretation means it is no longer certain that Leviticus condemned all homoerotic activity.","PeriodicalId":518680,"journal":{"name":"HIPHIL Novum","volume":"218 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141224734","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}
HIPHIL NovumPub Date : 2020-03-05DOI: 10.7146/hn.v6i1.142751
G. G. Harper
{"title":"\"Do Not Eat the Owl\"","authors":"G. G. Harper","doi":"10.7146/hn.v6i1.142751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v6i1.142751","url":null,"abstract":"Christian appropriation of OT legal material is a perennial crux interpretum. Evident, is a spectrum of approaches, from Marcion-like dismissal on the one hand through to theonomist appeals for re-enactment on the other. Within Western Christianity, the Reformation served to enshrine one approach in particular: a threefold division of the Law that distinguished between civil, ceremonial, and moral commands. However, while undoubtedly neat, such compartmentalization is highly problematic and has resulted in a myopic view of OT legal material. Leviticus 11 is a case in point. While regulations regarding the eating and touching of (un)clean animals remain determinedly central to Judaism, Christian tradition since the early church has sidelined the pericope with equal determination. Even though the Reformation sparked a renewed interest in the reading of Scripture, the designation (and, arguably, dismissal) of Leviticus 11 as “ceremonial” merely served to perpetuate a lacuna regarding the enduring relevance of this text as Christian Scripture. In this article I tease out how Leviticus 11 might be better appropriated by employing tools derived from the fields of speech act theory and intertextuality. These tools allow for greater precision in describing what Leviticus 11 as a text is doing. It becomes apparent that while some illocutions performed by Leviticus 11 are supervened when read in light of the NT, other illocutions persist. These illocutions may be legitimately appropriated by Christian readers of the text with benefits for both faith and practice.","PeriodicalId":518680,"journal":{"name":"HIPHIL Novum","volume":"225 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141224716","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}
HIPHIL NovumPub Date : 2020-03-05DOI: 10.7146/hn.v6i1.142749
Paul Hocking
{"title":"Repetition Indicating Form and Function","authors":"Paul Hocking","doi":"10.7146/hn.v6i1.142749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v6i1.142749","url":null,"abstract":"It has long been observed that the repetition of literary devices has been used in the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literature for the purpose of structuring the text and connecting related pericopes. The work done more recently under the TAPJLA project, labels the structuring aspect of repetition: “Repetitions as markers of architecture.” Also, the innovative work of Moshe Kline suggests that literary repetition has been used systematically in two-dimensional structuring of the Torah. This paper builds on these insights, together with elements of my own thesis on the rhetoric of Leviticus. It models an inductive, synchronic case study of a literary unit (Leviticus 23), to show how repetitions have been used both in the form and in the function of the unit, for composition and for suasion.","PeriodicalId":518680,"journal":{"name":"HIPHIL Novum","volume":"219 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141224731","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}