Books in the Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft series

Der Band enthalt 24 Beitrage zur Geschichte und Sprache des Alten Testaments sowie zur hebraischen und griechischen Uberlieferung des alttestamentlichen Textes. In chronologischer Hinsicht erstrecken sich die Beitrage von der Mitte des 2. Jt. v. Chr. (Archaologie und Texte von Taanach; Religionsreform von Pharao Echnaton), uber die altere Konigszeit (Saul und David) bis in die Makkabaerzeit. In den Beitragen zu Religion und Sprache werden die Bedeutung und Etymologie von Zebaoth und von histahawa sowie die Weiterfuhrung der Schwurformel in prophetischen Redewendungen und Grundzuge der Religion der Aramaer dargestellt. Die textgeschichtlichen Beitrage bieten einen Uberblick zum Stand der Forschung und thematisieren einzelne Fragen wie die Standardisierung des hebraischen Textes, die Entstehung der Septuaginta, die Bedeutung des antiochenischen Textes. Schlielich werden mit Papyrus 967 und dem Kodex Vaticanus zwei wichtige Textzeugen in ihrer Bedeutung fur die Textgeschichte sowie fur die buchtechnische Entwicklung und fur die Kanongeschichte vorgestellt.

Drawing among others on new materials from cuneiform texts, the contributions study how Judean and other exiles interacted with the host society and vice versa, this book explores new ways of understanding the Babylonian Exile and the return to Yehud - a formative period in ancient Judaism.

Whilst prophetic oracles in late prophetic books evidence tensions about the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood, MacDonald demonstrates that the relationships between prophetic oracles have been incorrectly appraised. Employing an interpretative method attentive to issues of redaction and inner-biblical interpretation, MacDonald show that Ezekiel 44 is a polemical response to Isaiah 56, and not the reverse as is typically assumed. This has significant consequences for the dating of Ezekiel 44 and for its relationship to other biblical texts, especially Pentateuchal texts from Leviticus and Numbers. Since Ezekiel 44 has been a crucial chapter in understanding the historical development of the priesthood, MacDonald's arguments affect our understanding of the origins of the distinction between Levites and priests, and the claims that a Zadokite priestly sept dominated the Second Temple hierarchy.

Ezekiel is one of the best-structured books in the Old Testament. It is commonly recognized that the strongly interrelated vision accounts (Ez 1:1-3:15; 8-11; 37:1-14; 40-48) contribute greatly to this impression of unity. However, there is a marked lacuna in publications focusing on the vision accounts in Ezekiel as an interconnected text corpus. The present study combines redaction-critical analysis with literary methods that are typically used in a synchronic approach. Drawing on the paradigm of Fortschreibung, it is the first to present a united redaction history that takes into account the growing interconnections and dependencies between the vision accounts. Building on these results, the second part follows the development of selected themes, such as the relationships between characters, the roles of intermediate figures and anthropological and theological implications, throughout the stages of redaction.The study thus represents an important step towards an understanding of the complex redaction history of the book of Ezekiel, and indeed of its theology. The combination of diachronic and synchronic methods makes it relevant for scholars of both directions and is itself a methodological statement.

In response to the growing interest in the history of biblical interpretation, this volume brings together a variety of studies exploring ways in which ancient and modern readers, Jewish and Christian, understood the Prophetic Books. It also features essays that focus on the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the New Testament.

Nachdem in den vergangenenzehn Jahren drei groe deutschsprachige Kommentare zum letzten der kleinen Propheten erschienen sind, geht dieser Band einer hermeneutischen Frage nach. Der Neuansatz der Interpretation liegt in einer Reflexion uber die prophetische Eigenart Maleachis. In der Forschungsgeschichte ist oft bezweifelt worden, dass Maleachi eine historische Prophetengestalt ist. Auch hinsichtlich der Funktion der Maleachischrift mehren sich in der Forschung die Stimmen derer, die Mal nach Sach 13 ein neues Verstandnis der Prophetie, namlich Prophetie als Anwendung und Auslegung der Tora, zuschreiben. Oft wird diese Bestimmung am doppelten Nachtrag (Mal 3,22-24) festgemacht. Dass dies die Kernfrage des Buches ist und der leitende Gedanke bei der Entstehung des Textes, ist die Grundthese dieser Arbeit. Vor dem Hintergrund der Genesisuberlieferung uber den Erzvater Jakob, genannt Israel, wird die Geschichte des Gottesvolkes fur die Gegenwart gedeutet. Jakob und Esau, Levi und Juda sind die Prototypen dieser Geschichte. Ferner wird gezeigt, dass hermeneutische Aspekte fur die Rekonstruktion des redaktionsgeschichtlichen Modells unerlasslich sind.

Die Studie nimmt in Aufnahme grundlegender soziologischer Einsichten die Beschreibungen des Fremden und des Eigenen als aufeinander bezogene situationsgebundene Konstruktionsprozesse wahr. Dabei setzt sie sich sowohl mit den juristischen als auch den narrativen Texten des Deuteronomiums, die den Umgang mit fremden Menschen, Gottern und Praktiken regeln, auseinander. Die Bandbreite der Wertung reicht in diesen Texten von der Aufforderung zur Fremdlingsliebe (Dtn 10,19) bis zum radikalen Banngebot an den kanaanaischen Volkern (Dtn 7). Durch die Verknupfung von literarhistorischen Analysen und soziologischen Erkenntnissen wird erkennbar, dass die Kategorisierung von Personen (Dtn 7 u.o.) und Praktiken (Dtn 18) als fremd ein aktiver Zuschreibungsprozess ist. Die Untersuchung zeichnet die Entstehung der deuteronomischen Fremdentexte in vorexilischer, exilischer und nachexilischer Zeit nach und verknupft die unterschiedlichen Zuschreibungen und Wertungen mit der historischen Situation der jeweiligen Verfasser. Dabei wird deutlich, dass insbesondere dann harte Abgrenzungen gezogen werden, wenn die eigene Identitat durch Krisen in Frage gestellt ist.

In the Hebrew Bible, war is a prominent topic which is dealt with in both legal and narrative texts. So far, the interplay between the two areas has received only little attention. This volume explores the impact of biblical war legislation on war accounts in the Hebrew Bible and in Early Jewish Literature.

A significant part of Biblical literature is the result of a process involving the reception and revision of earlier texts and traditions contained in the Bible itself, among them the historical psalms. An analysis of the intertextuality present in these psalms sheds light not only on their meaning and compositional purpose, but also on the redaction and composition of the Pentateuch.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

This monograph is a comparative, socio-linguistic reassessment of the Deuteronomic idiom, leshakken shemo sham, and its synonymous biblical reflexes in the Deuteronomistic History, lashum shemo sham, and lihyot shemo sham. These particular formulae have long been understood as evidence of the Name Theology - the evolution in Israelite religion toward a more abstracted mode of divine presence in the temple. Utilizing epigraphic material gathered from Mesopotamian and Levantine contexts, this study demonstrates that leshakken shemo sham and lashum shemo sham are loan-adaptations of Akkadian shuma shakanu, an idiom common to the royal monumental tradition of Mesopotamia. The resulting retranslation and reinterpretation of the biblical idiom profoundly impacts the classic formulation of the Name Theology.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

Drawing inspiration from the widely recognized parody of Ps 8:5 in Job 7:1718, this study inquires whether other allusions to the Psalms might likewise contribute to the dialogue between Job, his friends, and God. An intertextual method that incorporates both diachronic and synchronic concerns is applied to the sections of Job and the Psalms in which the intertextual connections are the most pronounced, the Job dialogue and six psalms that fall into three broad categories: praise (8, 107), supplication (39, 139), and instruction (1, 73). In each case, Jobs dependence on the Psalms is determined to be the more likely explanation of the parallel, and, in most, allusions to the same psalm appear in the speeches of both Job and the friends. The contrasting uses to which they put these psalms reflect conflicting interpretive approaches and uncover latent tensions within them by capitalizing on their ambiguities. They also provide historical insight into the Psalms authority and developing views of retribution. The dialogue created between Job and these psalms indicates the concern the book has with the proper response to suffering and the role the interpretation of authoritative texts may play in that reaction.

Sworn Enemies explains how the book of Ezekiel uses formulaic language from the exodus origin tradition especially YHWHs oath to craft an identity for the Judahite exiles. This language openly refutes an autochthonous origin tradition preferred by the non-exiled Judahites while covertly challenging Babylonian claims that YHWH was no longer worthy of worship. After specifying the layers of meaning in the divine oath, the book shows how Ezekiel uses these connotations to construct an explicit, public transcript that denies and mocks the non-exiles appeals to a combined Abraham and Jacob tradition (e.g. Ezek 35). Simultaneously, Ezekiel employs the oaths exodus connotations to support a disguised polemic that resists Babylonian claims that YHWH was powerless to help the exiles. When YHWH swears as I live the text goes on to implicitly replace Marduk with YHWH as the deity who controls nations and history (e.g. Ezek 17). Ezekiel, thus, shares the monotheistic concepts found in Deutero-Isaiah and elsewhere. Finally, using James C. Scotts concept of hidden transcripts, the author shows how both polemics cooperate to define a legitimate Judahite nationalism and faithful Yahwism that allows the exiles to resist these threatening others.

The Hebrew Bible is a product of ancient editing, but to what degree can this editing be uncovered? "e;Uncovering Ancient Editing"e; argues that divergent textual witnesses of the same text, so-called documented evidence, should be the starting point for such an endeavor. The book presents a fresh analysis of Josh 24 and related texts as a test case for refining our knowledge of how scribes edited texts. Josh 24 is envisioned as a gradually growing Persian period text, whose editorial history can be reconstructed with the help of documented evidence preserved in the MT, LXX, and other ancient sources. This study has major implications for both the study of the book of Joshua and text-historical methodology in general.

In der Reihe Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) erscheinen Arbeiten zu smtlichen Gebieten der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Im Zentrum steht die Hebrische Bibel, ihr Vor- und Nachleben im antiken Judentum sowie ihre vielfache Verzweigung in die benachbarten Kulturen der altorientalischen und hellenistisch-rmischen Welt.

Long neglected by scholars, the Dead Sea scrolls rewriting Samuel-Kings shed precious light on the ancient Jewish interpretation of these books. This volume brings all these texts together for the first time under one cover. Improved editions of the fragments, up-to-date commentary, and detailed discussions of the exegetical traditions embedded in these scrolls will be of interest to both scholars and students of Second Temple Jewish literature.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls more than sixty years ago has revealed a wealth of literary compositions which rework the Hebrew Bible in various ways. This genre seems to have been a popular literary form in ancient Judaism literature. However, the Qumran texts of this type are particularly interesting for they offer for the first time a large sample of such compositions in their original languages, Hebrew and Aramaic. Since the rewritten Bible texts do not use the particular style and nomenclature specific to the literature produced by the Qumran community. Many of these texts are unknown from any other sources, and have been published only during the last two decades. They therefore became the object of intense scholarly study. However, most the attention has been directed to the longer specimens, such as the Hebrew Book of Jubilees and the Aramaic Genesis Apocryphon. The present volume addresses the less known and poorly studied pieces, a group of eleven small Hebrew texts that rework the Hebrew Bible. It provides fresh editions, translations and detailed commentaries for each one. The volume thus places these texts within the larger context of the Qumran library, aiming at completing the data about the rewritten Bible.