Heerak Christian Kim – författare

The Late Second Temple Period (c. 200 BC to 70 AD) was a period of intense social changes for the Jewish people. During this period, the Jewish people experienced a Syrian king defiling the Jerusalem Temple, the Maccabean Revolt, the celebration of Hanukkah, the establishment of a competing Jewish temple in Egypt, and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. During this time, Jews spread out all over the Diaspora. The turmoil and the lack of visible cohesion have led many scholars to argue that there was no Jewish unity and no distinguishable Jewish identity in this time period. This book argues against this trend in academia, and posits that a strong Jerusalem tradition unified the Jewish people.

Intricately Connected contains academic papers presented by Kim at various international conferences in the fields of biblical studies, literary criticism, and intertexuality. The articles examine the question of how various literatures connect to consciousness and culture at personal and collective levels. The focus is on the functionality of literature across time and space and addresses such questions as: How do later books of the Bible, such as Jeremiah, utilize consciousness and ideas from earlier times, such as those found in the book Deuteronomy? How does Toni Morrison link African-American experience of today with experience of slavery hundreds of years ago? How does the film Da Vinci Code (2006) assess and manipulate the received tradition of the Lord's Supper?

Zadokite Propaganda in the Late Second Temple Period is a monumental epoch-breaking work of scholarship in ancient history and Jewish studies. This book examines centuries of scholarship on ancient Jewish group identity and official Jewish religion in the most tumultuous period of Jewish history, namely the beginnings of the Maccabean era. Popularly known as the time period that gave the Jewish world the most famous Jewish celebration period, Hanukkah, the Maccabean Revolt was far more than a rebellion against Syrian domination. The period represented an important turning point in Jewish history, as village priests without any significant heritage or repute successfully overthrew and expelled Zadokite priests from the Jerusalem Temple and the city of Jerusalem itself. The Zadokites had been the legitimate and dominant priests of the Jerusalem Temple since the days of King Solomon, who built the First Jerusalem Temple. The physical and political displacement of Zadokite priests from their places of power, authority, and wealth produced historically significant literate communities, such as the Qumran community, and an abundance of literature, such as commentaries, creative poetry, and apocalyptic works. These writings all lamented the Zadokite displacement and prophesied a New Age, when all would be restored to the way it should be. Thus, Zadokites engaged in propaganda warfare of epic proportions with all their erudition and political savvy, creating a model for effective propaganda warfare. The Zadokite propaganda was so effective that it set the tone for the language and theme of the New Testament.