Class notes on session 4

Class notes for session 4.


Study Unit 16: Israelite prophets and prophecy

Prophetic Identity and prophetic literature.
4 dividing principles, namely Precomposition, Composition, Transmission, Application.

1. Precomposition.
a. Who were the prophets, and where did they fit in?
b. With whom do the prophets compare from their own time Period and Geographical region? – Old Babilonian & neo – Assyrian texts, Aramaic Balaam document.
c. With whom do the Prophets compare from More recent times and More geographically distant regions? – Socio scientific, comparative anthropology.
d. Where do they fit in their historical and Geographical Time and place? Look into Archaeological evidence, JDEP sources.
2. Composition.
a. How did the prophets speak? Aristotle, structural criticism.
b. What kinds of messages did the prophets gave? – Form Critisism
3. Transmission.
a. How did the prophets use scripture, and what were the subsequent use of the Prophet’s original messages? Redaction criticism.
4. Application.
a. What use are the prophets to us today? – Liberation theology, feminism.

Study unit 17: Wisdom literature

1. Definition of Wisdom Literature: - a-historical character, distinctive inspiration, observation and reflection.
2. Proverbs
a. Origin and background
b. International background – The teaching of Amenope
c. Linguistic evidence
d. Setting – Royal setting, folk setting (preliterate society), law, home-school.
e. Poetics and structure
i. Denial of structure
ii. Proverb-Performance Context
f. Theology – “fear of the Lord”.
3. Ecclesiastes
a. Author and date.
Qohelet or “gatherer of people”, Solomon, royal fictional autobiography.
b. Unity
c. Teaching
4. Job
a. Textual and philological research
b. Study of past interpretations
c. Literary approaches to the book Job.
i. Prose frame and poetic core
ii. Narrative and poetic modes
iii. Literary genre
iv. Irony, satire, parody

Study Unit 18 – Recent trends in Psalms study
- Psalms being read as a whole – Literary approach.
1. Past overviews
a. Historical Critical
b. Gunkel – Sitze im Leben
c. Mowinckel – cultic background to the Psalms
d. Holistic analysis of the whole Psalter (canonical – Hymn book?)
2. Composition and message
a. Storyline in the Psalter – Macro&microstructure, narrative critisism
b. Five “books” within Psalms
i. 1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 107-145 crescendo of praise psalms
c. Message of the Psalms
i. Mitchell – Eschatology, Davidic Kingship.
ii. Millard – Tora
iii. deClaisse-Walford
1. Source book for ceremonies
2. Repository of Israel’s story.
3. Hebrew Poetry
a. Linguistic Approaches
b. Literary Approaches – Systems for reading poetry
c. Structural approaches
4. Hermeneutics
a. Reader-oriented approaches
b. Sociological & Liberationist approaches
c. Rhetorical criticism
d. Postcolonial readings
5. Form Critisism
a. Sitz im Leben
b. Prayer, Kinship, Identity in Psalms.
6. Psalms in the Context of Near East
a. Mesopotamic hymns
b. Ugaritic Psalms
7. Conclusion
a. Paradigm shift in interpretation of Psalms
b. Paradigm shift in reading Hebrew Poetry
c. Exponential growth in types of approaches.

Study unit 19 Religion in Ancient Israel

1. Trends and methodologies of the Past Three decades
a. Koch, Redtorff, Westermann, Vriezen, Ringgren, Fohrer, Schmidt
b. Cross – influence Canaanite, Mark Smith - Ugaritic religion Gods
c. Religious development divided into time frames
2. Development on central issues:
a. Origins of Yahwism – looking at the surrounding religions
b. History of Israelite Monotheism – henotheism, monolatry.
i. Petersen – evolution, revolution, devolution.
c. Kuntillet, Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom Inscriptions
i. Time of different inscriptions may differ
ii. Dealing with Graffiti
iii. Junction of Caravan routes
iv. Other more important evidence ignored
d. Cult of the dead
i. Ancestral worship.
3. Topics and suggestions for the future
a. The Canaanite Continuum
b. Attention to the Near-East sources
c. Clarification of the relationship to Old Testament Theology
i. History of Old testament religion vs. Old Testament Theology.

Study Unit 20 Applying the social sciences to the Old Testament

Opening Windows onto Biblical Worlds
Applying the social sciences to Hebrew Scripture

1. Emergence of the Social Sciences
a. Conflict model
b. Structural-functional approach
c. Materialist perspective vs Idealist orientation
2. Sociology and the Hebrew Bible: A Brief Overview
a. Max Weber – Ancient Judaism.
Household, family, tribe.
3. Towards a sociology of Biblical Israel
a. The origins of Israel and the development of Monarchy
b. Prophecy and the prophetic tradition
c. Gender and Cult in Culture
d. Exile and Identity
e. Economic Perspectives: Subsistence Strategies and Mode of Production
4. Evangelical Scholarship and Social Science Critisism
a. Evangelical scholars have brushed aside social science commentaries due to the following:
i. Theological commitment to the uniqueness of Israel, coupled with a desire to avoid cultural and religious relativism
ii. Hesitation to apply cross-cultural parallels to the biblical world, and an attempt to avoid reading modern worldviews onto ancient Israel;
iii. A concern that social science criticism will take away from the more legitimate aspects of biblical interpretation.
5. The future of Social Science Criticism
a. Discontinuity of primitive societies
b. Four elements to form a cultural overlay
i. Physical grid
ii. Cultural grid
iii. Organizational/political grid
iv. Religious grid