Studia Semitica Neerlandica - Böcker

The theme of this volume in honour of Eep Talstra is ‘Tradition and Innovation in Biblical Interpretation’, with an emphasis on the innovative role of computer-assisted textual analysis. It focusses on the role of tradition in biblical interpretation and of the innovations brought about by ICT in reconsidering existing interpretations of texts, grammatical concepts, and lexicographic practices. Questions addressed include: How does the role of exegesis as the ‘clarification of one’s own tradition, in order to understand choices and preferences’ (Talstra) relate to the critical role which Scripture has towards this tradition? How does the indebtedness to tradition of computer-driven philology relate to its innovative character? And how does computer-assisted analysis of the biblical texts lead to new research methods and results?

The Book of Job in Form presents to the reader a platform for a personal and intensive encounter with a great work of art. Its bilingual centre offers the text in Hebrew and English, and shows the forty poems in their original form, in 412 strophes and 165 stanzas. The commentary points out how these proportions and the remarkable precision of the poet (who counted syllables on all text levels) affect the thematics of the book, so that the portrait of the hero can be redrawn; his stubbornly defended integrity meets vindication and his last words, generally misunderstood, require a positive understanding. The poetry and its slim framework in prose are a unified composition which deserves a synchronic approach.

In The Qumran Manuscripts of Lamentations: A Text-Critical Study, the first large-scale investigation of the topic, Gideon Kotzé establishes how the four Lamentations manuscripts from Qumran present the content of the biblical book. Kotzé takes as his point of departure the contributions of the Dead Sea scrolls to the discipline of Old Testament textual criticism and treats the Qumran manuscripts of Lamentations, the Masoretic text and the ancient translations as witnesses to the content of the book and not only as witnesses to earlier forms of its Hebrew text. By focusing the analysis on variant readings and textual difficulties, the study arrives at a better understanding of these manuscripts as representatives of both the text and the content of Lamentations.

In prophetic and poetic literature of the Old Testament references to textual participants are inconsistent with regard to their gender, number and person characteristics. Oliver Glanz for the first time provides a systematic study of the phenomenon of participant-reference shifts. The study is restricted to the book of Jeremiah and reflects upon the methodological conditions that should guide the analysis of participant-reference shifts.Focusing on computer assisted pattern recognition the research suggests that Jeremiah's participant-reference shifts should not be understood from a diachronic perspective. Understanding the origin and function of participant-reference shifts rather from the perspective of syntax, text grammar and rhetorics proves to be more consistent with the textual evidence. With this insight participant-reference shifts no longer have to distort textual coherence.

In this volume twelve contributions discuss the relevance, accuracy, potential, and possible alternatives to a literary reading of ancient Jewish writings, especially the Hebrew Bible. Drawing on different academic fields (biblical studies, rabbinic studies, and literary studies) and on various methodologies (literary criticism, rhetorical criticism, cognitive linguistics, historical criticism, and reception history), the essays form a state-of-the-art overview of the current use of the literary approach toward ancient Jewish texts. The volume convincingly shows that the latest approaches to a literary reading can still enhance our understanding of these texts.

The Peshitta Institute Leiden is fulfilling its aim of producing a critical edition of the Old Testament in Syriac according to the Peshitta version. As this critical edition becomes available, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Ezekiel 1-24: A Frame Semantics Approach takes its role in providing perspectives on the value of the Peshitta to Ezekiel in Old Testament textual studies. Godwin Mushayabasa uses the cognitive linguistics approach of frame semantics to determine what techniques were used to translate Ezekiel 1-24 from Hebrew to Syriac. He observes that the Peshitta was translated at the level of semantic frames, producing a fairly literal translation. In achieving this, the author also invokes interdisciplinary dialogue between biblical textual studies and cognitive linguistics sciences.

In The Verbal System of the Dead Sea Scrolls Ken M. Penner determines whether Qumran Hebrew finite verbs are primarily temporal, aspectual, or modal. Standard grammars claim Hebrew was aspect-prominent in the Bible, and tense-prominent in the Mishnah. But the semantic value of the verb forms in the intervening period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were written has remained controversial.Penner answers the question of Qumran Hebrew verb form semantics using an empirical method: a database calculating the correlation between each form and each function, establishing that the ancient author’s selection of verb form is determined not by aspect, but by tense or modality. Penner then applies these findings to controversial interpretations of three Qumran texts.

In this study on the kābôd of YHWH biblical texts are approached from a canonical perspective, and the synchronic approach prevails over the diachronic. Ben Sira characterized Ezekiel as the prophet who saw the appearance of the glory of God. This characterization is not based on the number of occurrences of kābôd in Ezekiel. The peculiarity of Ezekiel is that kābôd is used almost exclusively as a hypostasis of YHWH. Ezekiel’s description of the kābôd of YHWH is more elaborate than any other Old Testament writer’s, and it highlights the dual and paradoxical nature of the divine kābôd as both defying verbal description and being potentially visible. This research highlights especially the importance of the visible aspect.

Despite its centrality in mainstream linguistics, cognitive semantics has only recently begun to establish a foothold in biblical studies, largely due to the challenges inherent in applying such a methodology to ancient languages. The Semantics of Glory addresses these challenges by offering a new, practical model for a cognitive semantic approach to Classical Hebrew, demonstrated through an exploration of the Hebrew semantic domain of glory. The concept of ‘glory’ is one of the most significant themes in the Hebrew Bible, lying at the heart of God’s self-disclosure in biblical revelation. This study provides the most comprehensive examination of the domain to date, mapping out its intricacies and providing a framework for its exegesis.

English:In Die biblisch-hebräische Partikel נָא im Lichte der antiken Bibelübersetzungen Peter Juhás addresses the function of the much-debated particle -nā in Biblical Hebrew from the point of view of the most important ancient Bible translations (Greek, Syriac, Latin). His research combines textual criticism, translation technique, discourse pragmatics, and the study of politeness in language. A systematic and comprehensive investigation of the evidence shows that the pragmatic function of this particle is strongly conditioned by the context and cannot be explained by a simple unified denominator. Hence an approach applying a differentiation of various discourse levels proves oneself to be very helpful for the interpretation of this complex particle.Deutsch:In der vorliegenden Monographie untersucht Peter Juhás die Funktion der viel diskutierten biblisch-hebräischen Partikel -nā im Lichte der wichtigsten antiken Bibelübersetzungen (LXX, Pšīṭtā und Vulgata). Dabei werden Textkritik, Übersetzungswissenschaft, Diskurspragmatik und Höflichkeitsforschung kombiniert. Eine systematische und umfassende Untersuchung der textuellen Evidenz zeigt, dass die pragmatische Funktion dieser Partikel von jeweiligem Kontext stark konditioniert ist und mit einem einfachen gemeinsamen Nenner nicht erklärt werden kann. Ein Zugang, der verschiedene Diskursebenen unterscheidet, erweist sich daher für die Interpretation dieser komplexen Partikel als sehr hilfreich.

Hebrew Texts in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Surroundings offers a new perspective on Judaism, Christianity and Islam as religions of the book. Their problematic relation seems to indicate that there is more that divides than unites these religions. The present volume will show that there is an intricate web of relations between the texts of these three religious traditions. On many levels readings and interpretations intermingle and influence each other. Studying the multifaceted history of the way Hebrew texts were read and interpreted in so many different contexts may contribute to a better understanding of the complicated relation between Jews, Christians and Muslims. These studies are dedicated to Dineke Houtman honouring her work as professor of Jewish-Christian relations.

The chapters of this volume address a variety of topics that pertain to modern readers’ understanding of ancient texts, as well as tools or resources that can facilitate contemporary audiences’ interpretation of these ancient writings and their language. In this regard, they cover subjects related to the fields of ancient Hebrew linguistics and Bible translation. The chapters apply linguistic insights and theories to elucidate elements of ancient texts for modern readers, investigate how ancient texts help modern readers to interpret features in other ancient texts, and suggest ways in which translations can make the language and conceptual worlds of ancient texts more accessible to modern readers. In so doing, they present the results of original research, identify new lines and topics of inquiry, and make novel contributions to modern readers’ understanding of ancient texts.Contributors are Alexander Andrason, Barry L. Bandstra, Reinier de Blois, Lénart J. de Regt, Gideon R. Kotzé, Geoffrey Khan, Christian S. Locatell, Kristopher Lyle, John A. Messarra, Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé, Jacobus A. Naudé, Daniel Rodriguez, Eep Talstra, Jeremy Thompson, Cornelius M. van den Heever, Herrie F. van Rooy, Gerrit J. van Steenbergen, Ernst Wendland, Tamar Zewi.

Habakkuk is unique amongst the prophetic corpus for its interchange between YHWH and the prophet. Many open research questions exist regarding the identities of the antagonists throughout and the relationships amongst the different sections of the book. In A Discourse Analysis of Habakkuk, David J. Fuller develops a model for discourse analysis of Biblical Hebrew within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The analytical procedure is carried out on each pericope of the book separately, and then the respective results are compared in order to determine how the successive speeches function as responses to each other, and to better understand changes in the perspectives of the various speakers throughout.

The first half of the book of Daniel contains world-famous stories like the Writing on the Wall. These stories have mostly been transmitted in Aramaic, not Hebrew, as has the influential apocalypse of Daniel 7. This Aramaic corpus shows clear signs of multiple authorship. Which different textual layers can we tease apart, and what do they tell us about the changing function of the Danielic material during the Second Temple Period? This monograph compares the Masoretic Text of Daniel to ancient manuscripts and translations preserving textual variants. By highlighting tensions in the reconstructed archetype underlying all these texts, it then probes the tales’ prehistory even further, showing how Daniel underwent many transformations to yield the book we know today.

This volume honors the extraordinary scholarship of Prof. Gary A. Rendsburg, whose work and friendship have influenced so many in the last five decades. Twenty-five prominent scholars from the US, Europe, Israel, and Australia have contributed significant original studies in three of Rendsburg’s areas of interest and expertise: Hebrew language, Hebrew Bible, and Hebrew manuscripts. These linguistic, philological, literary, epigraphic, and historical approaches to the study of Hebrew and its textual traditions serve as a worthy tribute to such an accomplished scholar, and also as an illustration how all of these approaches can complement one another in the fields of Hebrew and Biblical Studies.