Pentateuch
- Pentateuch
B.'s monograph on the interplay between the Torah and prophetic texts is a revision of his 2018 dissertation at the Seventh-day Adventist Seminary at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
This study is divided into three parts. In part one I address the phenomenon of repetition with variation in reuse between the Torah and the Latter Prophets. … This first part consists of three chapters, reviewing and reflecting on three issues that have a particular bearing on the analysis of the evidence for reuse and attempting to conceptualize the appropriation of normative texts in the HB. The first part, and the topic of the first chapter, is a brief survey of the scholarly debate on the question of reuse between Torah and the Prophets. The second chapter raises the question of how the Torah itself is to be characterized. The third chapter asks how the scribal culture in which both of the above complexes participated may help us understand the reuse of text. I argue that this reuse seems to have part of a text-supported memorized reuse, where memorization and embodiment of revered texts constituted a cultural backbone. …
For the second part, I have selected four cases of parallels between the Torah and the Prophets: (1) Divorce and Remarriage in Deut 24:1-4 and Jer 3:1-10; (2) Sabbath Instructions in Exod 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15; and Jer 17:19-27; (3) Manumission Instructions in Exod 21:2-11; Lev 25:10, 39-46; Deut 15:12-18; and Jer 34:8-22; and (4) Fasting in Leviticus 16; 23; 25 and Isa 58:1-14. To me, these texts appear to be relatively clear cases of reuse between the Torah and the Prophets where the direction of dependence can be established satisfactorily. In my view, they illustrate well the phenomenon of repetition [End Page 628] with variation in proto-halakhic reuse and appropriation. Having provided textual arguments for a case of reuse and the direction of dependence in the given instance, I proceed to an analysis of how the normative text is appropriated by the later biblical author in that instance. …
My third part is a hermeneutical reflection on reading as a disclosure of the thoughts of the heart, in which I draw on more contemporary authors, Søren Kierkegaard and Ludwig Wittgenstein in particular, in seeking to uncover resonances with my reflections in the previous chapters. [Adapted from author's introduction, pp. 2-4—C.T.B.]
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L. S.'s monograph is a revision of his Biblicum dissertation directed by the late Stephen Pisano and defended in 2018. The focus of the work is the passage Exodus 35–40, which relates the carrying out of Yhwh's instructions concerning the establishment of a sanctuary for Israel's time in the desert as prescribed by him in Exodus 25–31. The former passage exhibits noteworthy differences between its MT and LXX versions with regard both to what material—the MT is considerably longer than the LXX in Exodus 35–40—and the arrangement of the two versions in those portions of the segment they have in common. In seeking to account for this state of affairs, L. S. examines Exodus 35–40 from both a text-critical and a literary- and redaction-critical perspective. On the textcritical question, he concludes that the longer MT represents a version of the passage that is secondary vis-à-vis the shorter LXX, which itself postdates the still briefer Vetus Latina version of the six chapters as attested by the manuscript designated as...
