Project MUSE®: Journal of Biblical Literature - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Journal of Biblical Literature.daily12026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 130 (2011) though current issueLatest Articles: Journal of Biblical LiteratureTWOProject MUSE®Journal of Biblical Literature1934-38760021-9231Latest articles in Journal of Biblical Literature. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Legal Thinking and Notions of the Self: Why Biblical Studies Needs an Anthropology of Law
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982573
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In studies of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism, law and selfhood should be taken as conceptually interrelated, despite their alleged separateness in much of the history of research. Legal traditions and theories of the self have a lengthy entangled history. But practices in historical-critical scholarship as well as strands of modern theology that have shaped historical criticism prevent law’s contribution to ideas of the self from being recognized as fully as they should be. Premodern legal reflections can help our engagement with premodern legal texts.This article addresses three questions that future studies will engage more fully. First, in studies of ancient Jewish literature, why should we think that law
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallLegal Thinking and Notions of the Self: Why Biblical Studies Needs an Anthropology of Law2026-02-10text/htmlen-USLegal Thinking and Notions of the Self: Why Biblical Studies Needs an Anthropology of Law2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1432972026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10The Origins of “In the Beginning …”: Genesis 1:1 in Light of the Biblical Hebrew Reading Traditions
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982574
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The Hebrew story of creation, recited in synagogues, shared around campfires, and passed down for millennia from parent to child in the home, opens with the following enduring words:
In (the) beginning God created the heavens and the earth.1 The next verse goes on to describe how the earth was
(“formless and void”); there was darkness over the face of
(“the deep”), and
(“the Spirit of God”) was hovering over the waters. This all leads into the first declarative act of creation, in which God says,
(“Let there be light!,” 1:3). The relationship between these first three monumental verses of the Bible and their implications for Jewish and Christian creation theology—from ancient times through to the present
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallThe Origins of “In the Beginning …”: Genesis 1:1 in Light of the Biblical Hebrew Reading Traditions2026-02-10text/htmlen-USThe Origins of “In the Beginning …”: Genesis 1:1 in Light of the Biblical Hebrew Reading Traditions2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1662232026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Abigail and Her Honor Culture Wisdom
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982575
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David’s decision to forgo vengeance against Nabal in 1 Sam 25 is often credited to the remarkable intervention of Nabal’s wife, Abigail. Had David taken matters into his own hands, he would have risked undermining the legitimacy of his future kingship.1 Abigail, however, deftly redirects him, not by direct rebuke but by offering a new theological framework through which to interpret the situation. Her speech (1 Sam 25:24–31), the longest delivered by any woman in the Hebrew Bible, is rightly celebrated for its rhetorical mastery, as she skillfully guides David toward a reconsideration of his intended course of action.2 While this account enjoys broad consensus, it masks deep and unresolved issues concerning
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallAbigail and Her Honor Culture Wisdom2026-02-10text/htmlen-USAbigail and Her Honor Culture Wisdom2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1218252026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Creative Imitation in the Story of Josiah
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982576
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Second Kings 22–23 tells the story of a book that was found in the eighteenth year of King Josiah of Judah during a restoration of the temple. The king consulted a prophet called Huldah about the book. Following the book-find there was a cult reform and the celebration of Passover. The story ends with Josiah being killed in Megiddo by Pharaoh Necho II. There is much disagreement about the historicity of the story, in particular the cult reform.1 In this essay I will try to show that most of the story is a creative imitation of the story of King Jehoash of Judah.2 Therefore, there is no historical evidence for a temple restoration during Josiah’s reign or for a book having been found in the temple or for a prophet
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallCreative Imitation in the Story of Josiah2026-02-10text/htmlen-USCreative Imitation in the Story of Josiah2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1171502026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Exegeting God: Prophetic Sign Acts and Inner-Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jeremiah
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982577
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In the Hebrew Bible, prophets are depicted as mediating divine knowledge not only through the verbal utterance or the written word, but also by means of dramatic nonverbal performances. The prophetic repertoire of sign acts traverses the outré gamut, from peculiar sartorial choices (Jer 13:1–11) and outright nudity (Isa 20:1–6) to martial displays (Ezek 4:1–3) and marital difficulties (Hos 1).Such prophetic symbolic actions have long held a fascination for modern biblical scholarship.1 In the judgment of numerous influential studies, sign acts brokered a degree of historical recollection, as the layers of redaction peeled away to reveal a preserved residue of the deeds and words of a historical prophet.2
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallExegeting God: Prophetic Sign Acts and Inner-Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jeremiah2026-02-10text/htmlen-USExegeting God: Prophetic Sign Acts and Inner-Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jeremiah2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1165672026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Always Two There Are? The Combined Dragon in Job 40:15–41:26 LXX
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982578
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Scripture is full of paired figures: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Sodom and Gomorrah. In the same category, we find the megamonsters Behemoth and Levia-than in Job 40–41. But are Behemoth and Leviathan a pair in every version of Job? Certainly, most scholars of the Septuagint of Job (LXX Job) have assumed so, as have most ancient commentators on the book.1 The apportionment of verses for each creature—Behemoth (
) spanning Job 40:15–24 and Leviathan (
) Job 40:25–41:26—has not been very critically examined in the past.2 Major commentaries utilize the Septuagint text as a handmaiden to the Hebrew text, sometimes emending on its basis, but more frequently dismissing its idiosyncratic linguistic offering.3A much more
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallAlways Two There Are? The Combined Dragon in Job 40:15–41:26 LXX2026-02-10text/htmlen-USAlways Two There Are? The Combined Dragon in Job 40:15–41:26 LXX2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®963682026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Responsibility for Murder: The Background of Judith’s Legal Argumentation
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982579
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In this article, I argue that Judith uses a legal concept of responsibility in her address to the leaders of Bethulia. She claims that, should Bethulia surrender, her audience will be responsible for the murder of those in Jerusalem. This is based on a legal notion that can be summarized thus: a person has a degree of responsibility to prevent the murder of others. This observation intersects with previous scholarship that has characterized Judith as a morally ambivalent character.1 While Judith may be critiqued and her actions questioned, I argue that Judith’s assassination of Holofernes is not a moral outrage against an alternative of surrender. Instead, the threat of “murder” implicates the in-text audience in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallResponsibility for Murder: The Background of Judith’s Legal Argumentation2026-02-10text/htmlen-USResponsibility for Murder: The Background of Judith’s Legal Argumentation2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1125452026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Revisiting Sabbath Observance during the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73/74 CE)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982580
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The earliest documented discussions concerning the extent of Sabbath restrictions, and the circumstances under which these prohibitions might be violated, can be traced back to the end of the Second Temple period. Reflection on this matter was deemed necessary because, although the biblical Scriptures establish the general principle of refraining from work on the seventh day, they do not provide an exhaustive list of specifically forbidden activities.1 The first recorded discussion regarding permission to breach Sabbath prohibitions during wartime is documented in 1 Macc 2:39–41. That passage recounts how, at the onset of the revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ca. 167 BCE), Mattathias the Hasmonean permitted
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallRevisiting Sabbath Observance during the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73/74 CE)2026-02-10text/htmlen-USRevisiting Sabbath Observance during the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73/74 CE)2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1077032026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10The “Teachings of Demons” as “Magical” Practices in 1 Timothy 4:1
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982581
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In his 2001 commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy, Luke Timothy Johnson writes in reference to 1 Tim 4:1–7: “Little useful scholarship has been devoted to this section of 1 Timothy. Perhaps nowhere is the consequence of scholarship’s historical fixation more obvious than in its disinterest or disability in engaging Paul’s moral discourse.”1 While it may be true that the “moral discourse” of the section has received little attention, it is also true that other aspects of that text have likewise received little attention, including the language of spirits and demons. Verse 1 reads, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will renounce the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits [πνεύμασιν πλάνοις]
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallThe “Teachings of Demons” as “Magical” Practices in 1 Timothy 4:12026-02-10text/htmlen-USThe “Teachings of Demons” as “Magical” Practices in 1 Timothy 4:12026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1005252026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10The Text of 1 Peter in Polycarp and Irenaeus
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982582
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The editorial goal of the new Editio Critica Maior (ECM) is to provide “the full range of resources necessary for scholarly research in establishing the text and reconstructing the history of the New Testament text during its first thousand years.”1 Among these resources are “all the variants found in the selected Greek manuscripts and in citations by the Greek Fathers.”2 For the second source of variants, “quotations of all the Greek Church Fathers were thoroughly reviewed to the time of John of Damascus (7th/8th century), i.e., all the Fathers listed in the Clavis Patrum Graecorum.”3 The ECM is a project whose goal is as significant as it is ambitious, unmatched in its scope since the efforts of von Soden and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallThe Text of 1 Peter in Polycarp and Irenaeus2026-02-10text/htmlen-USThe Text of 1 Peter in Polycarp and Irenaeus2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®1234102026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10Volume 144 (2025)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/982583
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Allen, Garrick V., and Kimberley Fowler, “The Story of Codex H (GA 015): Manuscript Migration and Primary Sources in Biblical Studies,” 167–96Basher, David E., “Saul and the Not-So-Holy Ghost: 1 Samuel 16:14–23 and Ghost-Induced Illness,” 431–51Bediako, Daniel Kwame, “Light and Luminaries: A Study of Genesis 1:3–5 and 14–19,” 413–29Beers, Holly, “The ‘Teachings of Demons’ as ‘Magical’ Practices in 1 Timothy 4:1,” 763–81Ben Zvi, Ehud, “Introduction to the Presidential Address, 3–5Berman, Joshua, “Abigail and Her Honor Culture Wisdom,” 637–56Bourgel, Jonathan (Yonatan), “Revisiting Sabbath Observance during the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73/74 CE),” 741–62Carlson, Stephen C., “The Text of 1 Peter in Polycarp and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/513/image/coversmallVolume 144 (2025)2026-02-10text/htmlen-USVolume 144 (2025)2026-02-102026TWOProject MUSE®60672026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-02-10