Johannes de Moor – författare

In modern literary studies intertextuality is at the centre of interest. Although the relationship between texts has always been an important aspect of Old Testament studies, especially in literary criticism, the scale of comparison has broadened, including for example the interrelationships between the First, Second and Third Isaiah, or the whole Book of the Twelve. These relatively new approaches raise a number of methodical questions which were addressed at the Tenth Joint Meeting of the British Society for Old Testament Study and the Dutch 'Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap', held at Oxford, 22nd to 25th July 1997. Did the ancient authors have a well-defined concept of a book? How did they relate to the literary work of their predecessors and contemporaries? Can we trace the theological motifs behind their use of other literary compositions? What does an ancient version reveal about the way it interpreted its source text?One of the problems confronting biblical scholars in this kind of research is the lack of controllable models. Therefore it is useful to study the work of the Ugaritic chief priest Ilimilku whose three major literary compositions provide us with a unique possibility to monitor intertextual relationships in the work of one and the same ancient author. Ugaritic and other ancient Near Eastern parallels help us to understand how the Priestly writer re-interpreted the Yahwistic account of the creation of mankind. Apparently intertextuality in Israel is a phenomenon which cannot properly be understood without taking other literature from the ancient world into account.

The Israelite prophets as historical persons, as literary characters and as anonymous artists. Whereas modern methods of literary analysis have brought the artistic qualities of the books of the Prophets increasingly into focus during the past century, various modes of deconstruction have made the historical prophets themselves an ever more elusive phenomenon. Passages in the Old Testament describing their work and experiences are not read as biography anymore, but as literary fiction intended to picture the prophets as heroes of faith. The real 'prophets' were the anonymous artists who were responsible for the final editing of the legacy of the historical prophets and who often used the authority of their predecessors to promulgate their own theological views. This volume brings together studies about this theme by members of the British and Dutch societies for Old Testament study. Attempts to recover some of the biographical data and authentic experiences of the prophets alternate with penetrating analyses of the theological depth and stylistic virtuosity of the prophetic books.The volume will be particularly useful to all those interested in the interpretation of the prophetic books of the Old Testament.

In Old Testament exegesis a gap is widening between the adherents of the "e;diachronic"e;, historical-critical approach and those who out of dissatisfaction with both the results and the methods of this "e;classical"e; approach opt for a wide variety of "e;synchronic"e; approaches. The Ninth Joint Meeting of the Dutch "e;Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap"e; and the British "e;Society for Old Testament Study"e;, held at Kampen 28-31 August 1994, brought together partisans from both camps who engaged in a most interesting and fruitful debate on one of the major methodological issues confronting modern O.T. scholarship. This volume contains the papers read as well as some reports from the workshops. With indices of texts and subjects.

Exegesis starts with the delimitation of the pericope to be interpreted. Yet the principles for selecting passages which form the part of departure for the exegete are seldom made explicit and if one compares various commentaries and Bible translations, it soon becomes apparent that this lack of methodical transparency gives rise to a lot of confusion and dissent.In this work the authors make use of text divisions found in ancient Hebrew, Greek and Syriac manuscripts of Isaiah 40-55 (Deutero-Isaiah). For the first time the poetic structure of the text is based on controllable evidence which is roughly 500-1000 years older than the medieval Masoretic manuscripts on which all modern editions are based. The results are astonishing and raise the question why this type of evidence has been largely neglected thus far.

Is it justice when deities allow righteous human beings to suffer? This question has occupied the minds of theologians and philosophers for many centuries and is still hotly disputed. All kinds of argument have been developed to exonerate the 'good God' of any guilt in this respect. Since Leibniz it has become customary to describe such attempts as 'theodicy', the justification of God. In modern philosophical debate this use of 'theodicy' has been questioned. However, this volume shows that it is still a workable term for a concept that originated much earlier than is commonly realised.Experts from many disciplines follow the emergence of the theodicy problem from ancient Near Eastern texts of the second millennium BCE through biblical literature, from both Old and New Testament, intertestamental writings including Qumran, Philo Judaeus and rabbinic Judaism.