Search Results (65)

This article explores spiritual formation in Scripture through moments of divine–human encounter marked by mutual availability—what the Hebrew Bible names as hineni (“Here I am”). Through a theological and narrative reading of four representative figures, Abraham, Hagar, Mary, and Paul, it argues that formation unfolds not in abstraction but within concrete, storied contexts where divine presence meets human openness and reorients identity. While hineni is a Hebrew term, this study demonstrates that the posture it names continues across the biblical canon, moving from covenantal summons and divine initiative in the Old Testament to embodied consent and conversional surrender in the New Testament. Attending to the triadic pattern of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation, the article shows how place functions as a mediating context for encounter without displacing God as the primary agent of formation. Together, these narratives reveal a consistent biblical grammar of availability in which God’s prior “Here I am” evokes human response, shaping identity, vocation, and participation in God’s redemptive work. Full article

4E cognition offers resources supporting an anthropology and an ontology that overcome mind/body and related dualisms that contradict the original understandings of some major world religions, including the Western monotheisms and some Asian religions. 4E cognition embraces a holism with respect to the human organism, enabling a rapprochement with the Hebrew biblical, New Testament, and Qur’anic view of the human being as a psycho-somatic unity, as well as with scriptures and traditions about human nature of some Asian religions. For 4E cognition, the human organism comes embedded or emplaced in an environment with affordances, as it enacts meaning in co-constituting its lifeworld, in terms of both general orientation and particular values. The cruciality of social relationships and nature resonate with Western scriptures and with Mahayana Buddhism, Ruism/Confucianism, and Daoism. 4E cognition extends the joint project of organism and environment to evolution, with a mutual adaptation or specification of organism and environment. The fit of organism and environment finds resonance with these world religions, insofar as they uphold the goodness of creation or of the world. Moreover, the anthropology and ontology of 4E cognition provide a springboard for the analysis and affirmation of ethical values that resonate with the world religions insofar as they affirm the goodness of life. Full article

Despite uncertainties and disagreements, there is broad agreement on the heuristic value of recognizing chronologically distinct language varieties within Biblical Hebrew. The distinction between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew is based on the linguistic profiles of compositions that prototypically represent their respective categories. Not all texts are prototypical, though. Some deviate from more standard profiles in anomalous ways. One such work is Jonah. Early on assigned by critics to the post-exilic period based on certain linguistic peculiarities, disagreement over Jonah’s linguistic periodization persists. Many assess Jonah’s language as late, whereas others attribute its departures from classical style to non-diachronic factors, including dialect, literary artifice, and early contact with cognate languages. Few biblical compositions are the subject of opinions simultaneously characterized by such divergence and confidence. The present study surveys past attempts to periodize Jonah’s language, highlights methodological challenges and pitfalls in mainstream approaches, proposes a methodological refinement to distinguish between more and less probative evidence without over- or underestimating the value of the latter, and, in rigorous adherence to accepted methodology, pronounces a verdict based on a more comprehensive evidentiary basis than has hitherto been offered. Full article

This study addresses the conceptual gap between biblical prophetic traditions and contemporary sustainable church leadership models, which often prioritize managerial efficiency over spiritual–moral authority. It constructs a biblically grounded, three-dimensional model of prophetic communication—comprising ethical, transformative, and transcendent dimensions—and analyses its potential role in fostering leadership sustainability. Employing a qualitative methodology integrating biblical exegesis (semantic analysis of Hebrew nebu’ah and Greek propheteia) and theological synthesis of contemporary literature (2019–2025), the research identifies this model as a promising framework for church leadership. Findings suggest that prophetic communication may strengthen spiritual authority, foster systemic accountability, and cultivate truth-centred dialogue essential for navigating moral complexities of the digital age. However, the study acknowledges the hermeneutical challenge of moving from biblical texts to contemporary practice and calls for empirical testing of the model. The study concludes that embedding prophetic communication within leadership praxis warrants consideration as both a strategic and theological imperative for guiding ecclesial communities toward long-term health, resilience, and faithful participation in the Missio Dei. Full article

This paper examines migration from Africa as a response to shifting identities and the resurgence of nationalism, bringing biblical traditions into dialogue with contemporary realities. In many African contexts, contested identities, ethno-religious nationalism, and exclusionary state policies intensify conditions of displacement alongside poverty, conflict, and terrorism. As a result, migration becomes both a survival strategy and a negotiation of identity in an increasingly fragmented world. Biblical narratives of forced migration provide an interpretive framework for understanding these movements. The Hebrew Bible recounts exilic experiences, such as the Babylonian deportation, that reshaped Israel’s communal memory, identity, and theology. Similarly, the New Testament highlights dispersions caused by persecution, showing how migration functioned as a catalyst for the expansion of faith communities and the reconstruction of belonging. These texts illuminate how forced migration is not only a consequence of crisis but also a transformative process that redefines identity and community. By employing sociological and theological methods, this study demonstrates how African migration in the context of nationalism parallels biblical paradigms of exile and dispersion. It argues that African migrants’ narratives of identity, marked by struggle, hope, and resilience, echo biblical testimonies of displacement and offer theological resources for interpreting migration today. In doing so, this paper contributes to interdisciplinary debates on migration by showing how biblical exilic traditions can inform responses to Africa’s ongoing challenges of nationalism, identity, and forced movement. Full article

There are many stories in the Hebrew Bible that depict prominent Jews in the epicentre of a foreign imperia, and biblical scholarship essentially classifies every such narrative as court tales in terms of genre. Notwithstanding nuances and sub-categorisations (e.g., court contest and court conflict, wisdom court legend, success story of the wise courtier), to have one catch-all genre designation is imprudent and amorphous. This paper argues, using Formkritik and Gattungskritik, for three subgenres whereby foreign royal stories may be distinguished. One type of tale involves a foreign king who is either sleepless (Dan 6, Esth 6) or dreams (Gen 41, Dan 2 and 4); in the former, a king intervenes favourably for Jews in distress, while in the latter, the king’s dreams are interpreted by a wise Jewish courtier. Another type of tale is the imperial banquet, where an intoxicated gentile king orders the death of a high official (Dan 5, Esth 1, 5/7); this is wrought by a woman who exploits the king’s wine-induced disposition to effect lethal action with disastrous repercussions for the kingdom. Still another type of tale is the court tale proper; these episodes, however, are restricted to the courtly etiquette and decorum of courtiers who sagaciously advise the king, alongside its tensions with monotheism (Dan 3; Esth 3). As a result of this preliminary investigation, the typical setting of the political centre of the foreign imperium in Hebrew Bible narratives comprises three subgenres: court tales, banquet tales, and bedchamber tales. Since genres are determined by the common story forms, each distinct genre is scientifically determined by corresponding distinct narrative structures, vocabulary, and outcomes. Thus, what is proposed is a more illuminating distinction to the wide array and nebulous conglomeration of biblical stories involving Jews in prominent spaces within the foreign king’s court. Furthermore, the implications of the contended three subgenres involve calcifying religious practices, which become vital expressions of Judaism in the Second Temple period. Full article

Reception history explores how the Bible has been translated, interpreted, reinvented, and deployed by exegetes, artists, politicians, and others. Given the Bible’s historical and global significance, reception history must also include evaluating how scholars themselves have “read” the biblical literature. This article examines the work of two influential scholars of Hebrew Bible, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz and Theodore Jennings. Eilberg-Schwartz’s groundbreaking God’s Phallus: And Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (1994) and Jennings’ Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel (2005) both treated an underexplored subject: divine masculinity. In their monographs, Eilberg-Schwartz and Jennings present biblical homoeroticism—divine as well as mortal—as a valuable path for establishing intimacy among men and for “transing” the men of the Hebrew Bible. Both works, however, partake in two long-standing exegetical traditions: mitigating, ameliorating, and even attempting to redeem the Bible’s often violent deity, and reinscribing binary premises that biblical narratives typically feature. The article concludes that scholars must resist the tendency to rehabilitate a violent deity, as well as challenge the Hebrew Bible’s (and scholars’ own) binary premises. Full article

The erasure of mobile female-identified bodies amongst both biblical and migration scholars is being redressed, to a certain point. Building upon the work of both disciplines, this article attempts to provide a thorough feminist analysis of the mobility of the Hebrew Bible character Esther. The article begins with a discussion on what feminist migration studies might include, along with a critical look at the framework of forced migrations. Thereafter, the article brings together multiple scholars of the ancient world in conversation, using the work that has rightly labeled her movement by the story world regime as trafficking, along with comparative analysis to captivity studies. The article argues, however, that a feminist hermeneutic of the Bible should not only speak to the world, but also practice and model active reflexivity. Thus, a holistic account of interpreting Esther’s mobility in the Masoretic Text requires an interrogation of both the author of the biblical text and the author of the article itself. Full article

The Aramaic term psḥ(ʾ) and its possible relation to the Hebrew psḥ (recorded in the Hebrew Bible) are associated with “the Passover” feast in Judaism and Samaritanism and, by extension, with Easter in Christianity. This lexeme is exceedingly rare in extra-biblical sources and my goal with the present article is to closely examine the only two unambiguous sources available to us—both of which are found on Aramaic ostraca associated with the Yahwistic community at Elephantine and both share an acute sense of impending trepidation and anxiety. The article is divided into two parts. The first offers a new epigraphic analysis of the two ostraca on which this term appears—building upon a recent publication of one and offering a new publication: reconstruction, translation, and detailed commentary of the other. The second presents a multifaceted analysis—combining etymological and contextual data with insights from social psychology, archeology, and anthropology—supporting the connection of the term psḥ(ʾ) with apotropaic magic rituals tied to the fear of evil-eye, disease, malicious spirits, demons, curses, etc. Finally, insights from these first-hand documents are applied to the ongoing debate regarding the origins and etymology of the term psḥ(ʾ) and its use in the biblical narrative. Full article

A necessary condition for the success of the 7 October 2023 Hamas deadly incursion into Israel was the absence of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from that region. The IDF was involved in helping the settlers in their conflicts with Palestinians on the West Bank, many miles from the Gaza border. Absent the settlers, it is likely that either the Hamas attack might not have occurred or would have been blunted at the outset, yielding a much more measured Israeli response. Hence it is imperative that we understand the origins of the settler movement. It is to be found in Biblical injunctions that were to be amplified considerably by the outcomes of the extraordinarily successful Six-Day war of 1967 and its sequel the Yom Kippur war of 1973. In the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, that is, of the entire Hebrew Bible, God commands Abraham to leave his current domicile and travel to Canaan where a great nation would be formed. Effectively, this is the religious foundation of the connection between the people of Israel and the land of Israel, then called Canaan. The contrast between the outcomes of 1967 and 1973 was striking. Instead of a lopsided victory in the earlier war, the human losses in 1973 were surprising, even terrifying. This intense ephemeral gain combined with a world view defense engendered by mortality salience established the basis for later religious Zionist extremism. The vastly increased number of casualties in 1973 set the stage for the victory of Likud, much more amenable to West Bank settlements than the ousted Labor government had been. Religious Zionists leaped at this opportunity, justifying this activity by referring to God’s commandment to settle the entire land of Israel in the West Bank territories using their Biblical Hebrew names: Yehuda (Judea) and Shomron (Samaria), whatever the cost in violent Palestinian land dispossession. Full article

In Jer 15:19, Yhwh calls the prophet Jeremiah “my mouth”. This unique designation highlights his importance and finds support in several other features: Jeremiah is portrayed as the promised successor to Moses (Jer 1:7, 9), opposes all other contemporary prophets (e.g., Jer 20; 23; 26–29), and has many additional roles and activities. Furthermore, he shares traits with Yhwh’s servant from Isa 49 and 53. His ‘biography’ is extraordinary and is shown at length, unusual for the Latter Prophets, ranging from before his birth (Jer 1:5) to his disappearance in Egypt (Jer 43–44). His ‘confessions’ in Jer 11–20 testify to immense suffering and have become models for personal prayer. Like the prophet, his scroll is unique, too. No other biblical writing deals so extensively with trauma, exemplified at the downfall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, its roots, and its impact. This even leads to an uncommon structure of the scroll, ending with disaster in Jer 52, whereas all other scrolls of prophets contain hope as conclusions. Jer stands out with the analysis of guilt as cause for the catastrophe, yet it conveys also consolation, especially in Jer 29–33. In these chapters, elements for a renewed society emerge, corresponding to the name of the prophet, which signifies “Yhwh will raise up”. The real source for this change lies in the way Jer conceives the biblical God. No other writing in the Bible tells about his weeping, as a sign of helplessness vis-à-vis the continuing resistance of his people. Many prayers in the scroll, including the confessions, focus on the importance of an intimate, personal relationship with him, going beyond traditional piety in several aspects; Moshe Weinfeld has called them “spiritual metamorphosis”. The singularity of Jer applies also to its literary features. Its mixtures of poetry and prose, of divine and human speaking, of narratives about the prophet in first and third person are a challenge for every reader, as well as the ‘unordered’ chronology and retarded information. Jer excels in the use of other scrolls; the degree of intertextuality and the way of combining motifs from ‘foreign’ sources in a synthetic way are outstanding. To grasp fully its message requires familiarity with more than half of what later became the Hebrew Bible. Full article

Since the beginning of the 21st century, studies on “cultural trauma” have pushed Hebrew Bible exegesis in new directions. Although its initial focus was on the period of the Babylonian exile (6th century BC), after 25 years of research, this novel framework has shown its fruitfulness when reading a range of literature: poetic and prophetic literature, as well as narratives of sexual violence. Trauma studies also engage an inspiring dialogue with other disciplines that are already well established in biblical exegesis, such as feminist scholarship. The aim of this article is twofold: on the one hand, we will introduce the concept of “cultural trauma” and the main features that characterise the narratives responding to cultural trauma. On the other hand, we will present the main contributions of this frame of reference to recent Hebrew Bible research and the concrete contributions to a text as disturbing as the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11:29–40. Full article

The present study looks at how gentilics, usually attested in traditional biblical topoi from the Pentateuch, are re-contextualized in Ezekiel to provide a mental map of the peoples of the known Earth during the Exilic period. The basic constituents of Ezekiel’s mental map of foreign peoples recall some of the configurations known from the Babylonian mental map tradition. One known iteration of the latter is the Babylonian World Map (BM 92687). The document presents several interesting features as to how mental maps are formed in the Babylonian context. Its composition may date back to the late eighth century BCE. It is an iteration of the Babylonian mental map with a unique unmarked epicentre. Furthermore, it was probably impressed on clay on the occasion of a military campaign or itinerant work concerning specific toponyms in southern Babylonia. Finally, it was copied for scribal purposes in the Neo-Babylonian period. The present study proposes that these dynamics of the Babylonian mental map help understand Ezekiel’s mental map of foreign peoples. Aspects of Ezekiel’s mental map owe to an older Hebrew tradition partly known from the Pentateuch, although it is a unique iteration for Ezekiel’s oracles against the nations with historical references to the Exilic period. Jerusalem is the epicentre. Two main rings of foreign peoples encircle Jerusalem. The first circle comprises Judah’s neighbours from the east, south, west, and northwest. The second circle picks up from the northwest going up the coast, then south to Egypt, and finally east and northeast with Gog of Magog. Ezekiel concludes with the Temple Vision confirming Jerusalem’s central position. This case study implies that Ezekiel encountered and independently adapted aspects of the Mesopotamian mental map. Comparisons such as the one attempted here can illustrate the potential of ancient Near Eastern intertextuality and cultural hybridity. Full article

The Old Assyrian archive from Kanesh, dated to ca. 1950–1850 BCE, has yielded a letter that refers to the consultation of the spirits of the dead (eṭemmū), thus making it the world’s oldest actual attestation of necromancy. However, whereas the immediate context mentions the šā’ilātum, ‘the women dream interpreters’, and the bāriātum, ‘the women omen interpreters’, a necromantic professional is lacking in relation to the questioning of the eṭemmū. Earlier studies have explained this discrepancy by suggesting that necromancy was part of the skill set of the aforementioned female professionals, or that the communication with the spirits happened directly, without the immediate involvement of a skilled specialist. The present article rather argues that the term eṭemmu, ‘spirit of the dead’, had a wider semantic range than hitherto held. In rare cases, it could also designate a necromancer. This proposal is supported by an identical semantic phenomenon in another ancient Semitic language. The biblical Hebrew terms ʼōbôt and yidd^e‘ōnîm not only refer to the spirits of the dead but also to necromancers. The same might be argued for the apparent Hebrew cognate of Akkadian eṭemmū, the hapax legomenon ’iṭṭîm in Isaiah 19:3. On the strength of the findings presented in this study, it is concluded that the fleeting blending of the spirit with the necromancer lies at the heart of this semantic merger. Full article

The present article summarizes the research assembled in my book Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew (1990), which in turn was based on my doctoral dissertation of a decade earlier, “Evidence for Spoken Hebrew in Biblical Times” (1980). The following linguistic issues are surveyed: gender neutralization (in both verbs and pronouns), the merger of III-ʾ and III-y verbs, the adjectival clause, and the genitive exponent. Full article