Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments – serie

In this study, Travis Bott makes a fresh contribution to the understanding of Hebrew praise language in the Psalms. In addition, he devotes sustained attention to the neglected topic of metonymy in the Hebrew Bible. The theoretical framework for investigating both of these topics and exploring their interaction is cognitive semantics, a major branch of the cognitive movement in contemporary linguistics. Bott defines metonymy as a cognitive process in which one entity (the vehicle) provides mental access to another perceptually contiguous entity (the target). He also draws on recent theoretical developments, such as conceptual metaphor and metonymy, metonymy as a prototypical category, metonymy in lexical polysemy, and the interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions (metaphtonymy). A cognitive-semantic approach to the Psalms reveals that metonymy profoundly shapes the concepts and language of Hebrew praise. Bott considers metonymy at both the lexical and contextual levels. At the lexical level, he finds that the two most important nouns for praise in the Psalms, tehillah and todah, exhibit polysemy that is governed by conceptual metonymies. In addition, at the contextual level, he treats the objects and subjects of the four most common verbs for praise in the Psalms (hll, ydh, zmr, brk). He finds that conceptual metonymies drive figurative characterizations of YHWH, the preeminent object of praise, as well as the many praising subjects of Israel. Bott demonstrates that metonymy is both more common and more varied than scholars of the Hebrew Bible have previously supposed.

Dieses Werk von Christian Blumenthal ist von Impulsen aus dem Spatial Turn inspiriert und lotet Raum als theologischen Topos im Philipperbrief aus. Paulus legt seine Theologie in diesem Brief ungemein räumlich an und entwirft einen Heilsraum „in Christus“. Dieser Raum ist gleichermaßen entgrenzt und lokal, imaginär und greifbar. Im Leben der Gemeinde in Philippi, in ihrem Miteinander und ihrer Handlungsweise gewinnt dieser Raum eine konkrete Gestalt und erlangt sowohl gesellschaftliche als auch politische Relevanz. Mit diesem Raum-Entwurf tritt Paulus zu anderen Sinnangeboten in Philippi in Konkurrenz und sucht ihn als die bessere Alternative auf dem Markt der Sinnangebote in dieser römischen Kolonie zu positionieren. Zugleich ist dieser Raumentwurf geeignet, die realweltliche Trennung zwischen dem Apostel im Gefängnis und der Gemeinde vor Ort zu überbrücken und über Distanz hinweg persönliche Nähe herzustellen. Dies ist für Paulus notwendig, um als abwesender Gemeindegründer seine Leitungsposition innerhalb der Gemeinde zu festigen.

Critical spatial approaches — particularly those informed by the scholarship of Lefebvre, Foucault, and Soja — have significantly impacted biblical scholarship over the last twenty years. However, these spatial approaches have been limited due to the methodological challenges inherent in transposing the social-scientific approaches of the aforementioned scholars to the task of biblical interpretation. This volume adapts conceptual metaphor theory as a methodological bridge to address such constraints. The first half of the volume begins by surveying the field of critical spatiality in biblical studies, arguing for the need for fresh methodological development. Thereafter, the volume delineates a particular critical spatial approach, inspired by Lefebvre and Foucault, for which conceptual metaphor theory is proposed as a methodological bridge. The second half of the volume begins by proposing the Psalms of Ascents as a case study upon which the method could be applied. It is then argued that the proposed method – if efficacious – should provide insight on corpus’ "Zion theology" and its so-called pilgrimage character. Using the proposed method in conjunction with conventional historical-grammatical tools of poetic analysis, each psalm is analysed with regard to its metaphor and spatiality. The volume concludes that the case study demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed methods by allowing a rich reading of each psalm, especially by explicating the spatial narratives and/or spatial metaphorical conceptualisations that underlie each text, and providing fresh insight on the collection as a whole.This volume has been awarded the 2024 Rev. Dr Lien-Hwa Chow Memorial Foundation's Outstanding Theological Research Book Award. This award is “to recognize and promote outstanding theological research and publications by Chinese scholars".

Aleksander Krogevoll offers the first extensive study on El Shadday. This includes the most thorough review of all etymologies proposed for Shadday and the most extensive examination on the use and meaning of Shadday in the Hebrew Bible. The author challenges the views that Shadday was unique to the Priestly source or that Priestly source invented the epithet. He supports the etymology of Shaddai being the Akkadian šadû, “mountain.” By tracing the epithet šadû from Akkadian where it was attached to Enlil and Dagan to the Ugaritic El, Krogevoll presents a new hypothesis for how Shadday was introduced into Hebrew. This work is the first book-length study on the equation between El Shadday and Yahweh. Other scholars have proposed that their shared mountain motifs played a part in the equation, but this work is the first study to examine the equation through the lens of the shared mountain motifs at length.

One of the most powerful religious ideas that emerged from antiquity is monotheism: that there is one, true God. This idea is still with us. Indeed, numerically speaking, most religious people in the world today are monotheists. The contributors to this collection of essays explore the concept of the One God, and the cultures that birthed it in antiquity – especially ancient Israel, which itself had, and was a neighbour to, a variety of notions about divinity. The authors consider different texts and contexts. With new approaches and methods, they bring a range of skills and insights to this important and fascinating topic. In so doing, they reconceptualise monotheism. This volume of essays about monotheism grew out of a remarkably well-attended online day-long conference in 2021 hosted by the Centre for the Study of the Bible at Oriel College at Oriel College Oxford and the Chair of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at the University of Aberdeen. Monotheism is at the heart of the nexus of biblical disciplines: it is arguably the distinctive theological hallmark of the biblical cultures situated within the complex tapestries of antiquity. It has certainly generated a major legacy in the history of religious beliefs and practices since then. This volume thus speaks to scholarly but also to wider audiences. In reconceptualising monotheism, the essay’s scholars present thoughtful discussions about what is a global idea and whose roots lie deep in the past.

This study redresses the dearth of resources dealing with the sabbath in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. While focusing on a key passage in Exodus, it also incorporates comparative data from elsewhere in the ancient Near East and explores inner-biblical and other developments of the study's themes. By giving attention to the diachronic elements that come to expression in the sabbath frame and its context, as well as to the typological relations between these passages and those elsewhere in the canon, this study is able to appreciate the development and dynamism as well as the coherence of both the Exodus material and related biblical passages.

Der Mensch ist ein Gegenstand des Nachdenkens gewesen, solange es das Nachdenken gibt, in Religion und Theologie, in der Philosophie, in der Politik, der Gesellschaft und im Alltag. Aber kaum eine Zeit war in der Lage, Grenzen des Menschseins, vermeintliche körperliche und psychische Unveränderlichkeiten und Bedingtheiten so zu verändern, wie wir das heute tun können.Die Ent-Deckung der »Menschensicht« des Alten Testaments, seines expliziten Nachdenkens und seiner unausgesprochenen Annahmen über den Menschen, eröffnen in zweierlei Hinsicht Erkenntnismöglichkeiten:Zum einen gehört das Alte Testament unbestritten zu dem religiösen und kulturellen Erbe, das uns mehr bestimmt, als vielen geläufig ist. Wer sich in unserer Gegenwart über den Menschen orientieren will, muss das eigene Herkommen verstehen und die Tradition begreifen, um verantwortlich mit ihr umzugehen.Zum anderen führt die Erkenntnis des zeitlich Vergangenen und damit unweigerlich auch Fremden dazu, das eigene Selbstverständnis zu hinterfragen. Der durch diesen Dialog über die Zeiten hinweg gewonnene Freiraum eröffnet neue Denkräume, schafft Offenheiten, um auch aktuelle Fragestellungen neu begreifen zu können. Beides gilt für die jüdisch-christliche Tradition wie auch für die dadurch bestimmte Kultur.Die Aufsätze des vorliegenden Sammelbandes wollen diesem Anliegen dienen und bieten verschiedene thematische und methodische Zugänge zu folgenden alttestamentlich-anthropologischen Forschungs- und Themenfeldern: Konzepte Historischer Anthropologie; Anthropologische Begriffe, Mensch und Körper im Alten Testament, Anthropologische Positionen im Alten Testament; Anstöße alttestamentlicher Anthropologie für gegenwärtige Theologie und Philosophie; Emotionen sowie Sinne des Menschen.

The essays are dealing with central topics concerning the Corinthian correspondence with special reference to 2 Corinthians. Some of the studies present a fresh look on the much disputed Pauline pneuma/gramma-antithesis resp. Paul’s understanding of the „old“ and „new“ covenant. Other essays examine e.g. the unity of 2 Corinthians, the structure of arguments in ch. 10–13, the background and purpose of the mission against Paul, the history and theological foundation of the collection for Jerusalem, the Wirkungsgeschichte of 2 Corinthians in the New Testament writings, or shed new light on the interpretation of relevant passages within the context of 2 Corinthians.