Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective

by Thomas E. Levy
Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective
Author: Thomas E. Levy
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2015-03-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 331904768X
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The Bible's grand narrative about Israel's Exodus from Egypt is central to Biblical religion, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim identity and the formation of the academic disciplines studying the ancient Near East. It has also been a pervasive theme in artistic and popular imagination. Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective is a pioneering work surveying this tradition in unprecedented breadth, combining archaeological discovery, quantitative methodology and close literary reading. Archaeologists, Egyptologists, Biblical Scholars, Computer Scientists, Geoscientists and other experts contribute their diverse approaches in a novel, transdisciplinary consideration of ancient topography, Egyptian and Near Eastern parallels to the Exodus story, the historicity of the Exodus, the interface of the Exodus question with archaeological fieldwork on emergent Israel, the formation of biblical literature, and the cultural memory of the Exodus in ancient Israel and beyond. This edited volume contains research presented at the groundbreaking symposium "Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination" held in 2013 at the Qualcomm Institute of the University of California, San Diego. The combination of 44 contributions by an international group of scholars from diverse disciplines makes this the first such transdisciplinary study of ancient text and history. In the original conference and with this new volume, revolutionary media, such as a 3D immersive virtual reality environment, impart innovative, Exodus-based research to a wider audience. Out of archaeology, ancient texts, science and technology emerge an up-to-date picture of the Exodus for the 21st Century and a new standard for collaborative research.

The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible

by Brad E. Kelle
The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible
Author: Brad E. Kelle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2020-11-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019026117X
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The Oxford Handbook of Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible is a collection of essays that provide resources for the interpretation of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The volume is not exhaustive in its coverage, but examines interpretive aspects of these books that are deemed essential for interpretation or that are representative of significant trends in present and future scholarship. The individual essays are united by their focus on two guiding questions: (1) What does this topic have to do with the Old Testament Historical Books? and (2) How does this topic help readers better interpret the Old Testament Historical Books? Each essay critically surveys prior scholarship before presenting current and prospective approaches. Taking into account the ongoing debates concerning the relationship between the Old Testament texts and historical events in the ancient world, data from Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian culture and history are used to provide a larger context for the content of the Historical Books. Essays consider specific issues related to Israelite/Judean history (settlement, state formation, monarchy, forced migration, and return) as they relate to the interpretation of the Historical Books. This volume also explores the specific themes, concepts, and content that are most essential for interpreting these books. In light of the diverse material included in this section of the Old Testament, the Handbook further examines interpretive strategies that employ various redactional, synthetic, and theory-based approaches. Beyond the Old Testament proper, subsequent texts, traditions, and cultures often received and interpreted the material in the Historical Books, and so the volume concludes by investigating the literary, social, and theological aspects of that reception.

A Theology of Justice in Exodus

by Nathan Bills
A Theology of Justice in Exodus
Author: Nathan Bills
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2021-03-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1646020693
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This book traces the theme of justice throughout the narrative of Exodus in order to explicate how yhwh’s reclamation of Israel for service-worship reveals a distinct theological ethic of justice grounded in yhwh’s character and Israel’s calling within yhwh’s creational agenda. Adopting a synchronic, text-immanent interpretive strategy that focuses on canonical and inner-biblical connections, Nathan Bills identifies two overlapping motifs that illuminate the theme of justice in Exodus. First, Bills considers the importance of Israel’s creation traditions for grounding Exodus’s theology of justice. Reading Exodus against the backdrop of creation theology and as a continuation of the plot of Genesis, Bills shows that the ethical disposition of justice imprinted on Israel in Exodus is an application of yhwh’s creational agenda of justice. Second, Bills identifies an educational agenda woven throughout the text. The narrative gives heightened attention to the way yhwh catechizes Israel in what it means to be the particular beneficiary and creational emissary of yhwh’s justice. These interpretative lenses of creation theology and pedagogy help to explain why Israel’s salvation and shaping embody a programmatic applicability of yhwh’s justice for the wider world. This volume will be of substantial interest to divinity students and religious professionals interested in the themes of exodus, exile, and return.

Dating Deuteronomy

by Josef Schubert
Dating Deuteronomy
Author: Josef Schubert
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532638744
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The Torah was recognized as a unit before the separation between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. This book challenges established biblical scholarship derived from two assumptions of the Wellhausen Fallacy: a) Deuteronomy could not have been written before the time of Josiah (650 BCE); b) The existence of a group of redactors in the fifth century BCE or later. The first premise is based on the mistranslation of the biblical text. The second is based on the unlikely assumption that the scribes of the Second Temple era felt free to edit old documents or to ascribe their own writings to Mosaic times. The Samarian version of the Pentateuch is virtually identical to the traditional (Masoretic) text. It is preposterous to assume that the Samarians would accept a fictitious Torah composed by Judean exiles of the Persian period or later as authoritative. Neither Samarians nor Judeans copied the Pentateuch from each other. The biblical text and the Samarian texts are merely different editions of the same document.

“Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?”

by James K. Hoffmeier
“Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?”
Author: James K. Hoffmeier
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2016-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1575064308
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The Hebrew Scriptures consider the exodus from Egypt to be Israel’s formative and foundational event. Indeed, the Bible offers no other explanation for Israel’s origin as a people. It is also true that no contemporary record regarding a man named Moses or the Israelites generally, either living in or leaving Egypt has been found. Hence, many biblical scholars and archaeologists take a skeptical attitude, dismissing the exodus from the realm of history. However, the contributors to this volume are convinced that there is an alternative, more positive approach. Using textual and archaeological materials from the ancient Near East in a comparative way, in conjunction with the Torah’s narratives and with other biblical texts, the contributors to this volume (specialists in ancient Egypt, ancient Near Eastern culture and history, and biblical studies) maintain that the reports in the Hebrew Bible should not be cavalierly dismissed for ideological reasons but, rather, should be deemed to contain authentic memories.

The Dawn of Israel

by Lester L. Grabbe
The Dawn of Israel
Author: Lester L. Grabbe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2022-11-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567663248
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In this companion volume to his bestselling Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? Lester L. Grabbe provides the background history of the main ancient Near Eastern peoples and empires: Babylonia, Assyria, Urartu, Hittites, Amorites, Egyptians. Grabbe's focus is on Palestine/Canaan and covers the early second millennium, including the Middle Bronze Age and the Second Intermediate Period and Hyksos rule of Egypt. Grabbe also addresses the question of a 'patriarchal period'. The main focus of the book is on the second half of the second millennium: Late Bronze and early Iron Age, the Egyptian New Kingdom, the Amarna letters, the Sea Peoples, the question of 'the exodus', the early settlements in the hill country of Palestine, and the first mention of Israel in the Merenptah inscription. Archaeology and the contribution of the social sciences both feature heavily, as does inscriptional and iconographic material. As such this volume provides a fascinating portrayal of ancient Israel and this definitive work by one of the world's leading biblical historians will be of interest to all students and scholars of biblical history.

Ancient Israel in Egypt

by Daniel Tompsett
Ancient Israel in Egypt
Author: Daniel Tompsett
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2023-02-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666741566
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This book looks back over thousands of years to explore the period in Egyptian history when the Bible identifies that Ancient Israel was resident in Egypt. It asks and answers one very simple question: What new things can we learn about this period of history if we treat the Bible as a valid historical document? Whereas this topic is often approached from either the perspective of the Bible or Egyptology, this work genuinely attempts to occupy the ground between the two. It uses Scripture like a torch carried into the deepest recesses of the established historical facts and theories concerning the late Middle Kingdom period, the Second Intermediate period, and the early New Kingdom period in Egyptian history. Along the way, it considers some of the latest discoveries, innovations, and theories from the world of Egyptology and unearths a trove of tangible points of connection. As such, the narrative forms a two-way perspective, where the biblical account illuminates stubbornly opaque moments in Egyptian history and chronology and where the meticulous work of Egyptologists provides appropriate additional background to the Bible. The result is a sharper perspective of an ancient account that has a surprisingly current application for us all.

The Exodus

by Peter Feinman
The Exodus
Author: Peter Feinman
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2021-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789254779
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Did the Exodus occur? This question has been asked in biblical scholarship since its origin as a modern science. The desire to resolve the question scientifically was a key component in the funding of archaeological excavations in the nineteenth century. Egyptian archaeologists routinely equated sites with their presumed biblical counterpart. Initially, it was taken for granted that the Exodus had occurred. It was simply a matter of finding the archaeological data to prove it. So far, those results have been for naught. The Exodus: An Egyptian Story takes a very real-world approach to understanding the Exodus. It is not a story of cosmic spectaculars that miraculously or coincidentally occurred when a people prepared to leave Egypt. There are no special effects in the telling of this story. Instead, the story is told with real people in the real world doing what real people do. Peter Feinman does not rely on the biblical text and is not trying to prove that the Bible is true. He places the Exodus within Egyptian history based on the Egyptian archaeological record. It is a story of the rejection of the Egyptian cultural construct and defiance of Ramses II. Egyptologists, not biblical scholars, are the guides to telling the Exodus story. What would you expect Ramses II to say after he had been humiliated? If there is an Egyptian smoking gun for the Exodus, how would you recognize it? To answer these questions requires us to take the Exodus seriously as a major event at the royal level in Egyptian history.

The History of Bronze and Iron Age Israel

by Victor Harold Matthews
The History of Bronze and Iron Age Israel
Author: Victor Harold Matthews
Publisher:
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190231149
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Designed as a supplementary resource for students who have an interest in the ancient Near East and biblical history, this volume provides a basic introduction to the historical, archaeological, and socio-contextual aspects of ancient Israel during its early foundation period through the end of the monarchy in Judah. Victor Matthews integrates extra-biblical information on the physical realities of geo- and super-power politics, international and interregional movement of peoples, and the evolutionary process of complex states in the ancient Near East with information from biblical narratives in order to explore the development of ancient Israelites' identity, cultural traditions, and interactions with other major cultures. In particular, he examines aspects of everyday life in both village culture and urban settings as a key to the development of social, legal, and religious traditions and practices. The History of Bronze and Iron Age Israel features an easy to navigate format, non-technical language, and a series of informative insets that highlights important methodological concepts and comparative material.