Old Testaments Books

Book SynopsisLes vingt-trois publications reprises dans ce volume sont consacrées à la LXX de Jérémie et à Baruch son secrétaire. Elles visent pour la plupart à montrer que le texte hébreu reçu (TM, texte long) est une refonte d’un modèle hébreu traduit en grec et conservé dans la Septante (LXX, texte court placé sous la responsabilité de Baruch). Pour ce faire, P.-M. Bogaert a mis en œuvre une exégèse «différentielle» qui compare, analyse et explique les divergences entre les deux formes du livre. L’ouvrage commence par des contributions plus générales; les suivantes portent sur des passages choisis en fonction de leur intérêt: différence de contenu et différence d’ordre. Une dernière contribution, inédite, offre une synthèse provisoire visant à caractériser le texte court pour lui-même. Le recueil est introduit par une préface en anglais du Professeur Emanuel Tov, de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem.

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Book SynopsisThe book of Leviticus is by far the most quoted in rabbinic literature such as the Mishna or the Talmud, while it has been marginalized in the Christian tradition. Nevertheless, scholars of both traditions have again become highly interested in it for some decades now. As shown by many recent publications, the book is thoroughly studied for textual, literary, historical and reception aspects. It has often been said and written that the text of Leviticus is stable in comparison to many other books of the Hebrew Bible, and that its Greek translation is quite literal. Yet, the text of Leviticus continues to raise questions, not only regarding its content and textual witnesses, but also its interpretation, history and reception. The third international colloquium of the Dominique Barthélemy Institute, held in Fribourg in October 2015, aimed to bring together some specialists of the text of Leviticus in order to advance research on its textual witnesses and the aforementioned topics. The articles collected in this book reflect the width of current research. They deal with the witnesses to the text of Leviticus in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint. They also study the book’s Hebrew editing; its relation to other books such as Joshua, Luke-Acts and Flavius Josephus; and the challenge of its translation, with a case study in French. Le livre du Lévitique est de loin le plus cité dans la littérature juive, notamment la Mishna ou le Talmud, alors qu’il a été marginalisé dans la tradition chrétienne. Néanmoins, depuis quelques décennies, les chercheurs des deux bords se sont intéressés à ce livre. De nombreuses publications récentes montrent qu’il est étudié dans tous ses aspects textuels, littéraires, historique et dans sa réception. On a souvent affirmé que le texte du Lévitique est plus stable que celui de beaucoup d’autres livres de la Bible hébraïque, que sa traduction grecque est littérale, etc. Pourtant, ce texte continue de soulever des questions, non seulement en ce qui concerne ses témoins textuels, mais aussi son interprétation, son histoire et sa réception. Tenu à Fribourg en Octobre 2015, le troisième colloque international de l’Institut Dominique Barthélemy entendait rassembler quelques spécialistes du texte du Lévitique pour avancer dans la recherche sur ces différents sujets. Les études rassemblées dans ce volume reflètent le vaste champ de recherche sur ce livre biblique. Elles touchent à la manière dont le Lévitique apparaît dans les témoins textuels, notamment les manuscrits de la Mer Morte, le Texte Massorétique, le Pentateuque Samaritain et la Septante. Elles abordent également les défis de son édition hébraïque, ses relations avec d’autres livres comme Josué, Luc-Actes et Flavius Josèphe et enfin les enjeux de sa traduction française.

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Book SynopsisThe book of Micah provides insight into the struggle of a prophet with his vocation in an extremely difficult time. The aggressive policies of Neo-Assyrian kings which involved large-scale destruction, deportation and resettlement upturned existing social structures everywhere. Kings of Judah like Ahaz and Hezekiah had to compromise with the enemy to retain their position. Micah denounced their overindulgence. Initially, the results of his efforts were disappointing and one may certainly say that Micah was a tragic figure who towards the end of his life felt he had been a failed prophet. It is no coincidence that in the Hebrew Bible Micah 3:12 occupies the middle of the whole book of the Twelve “Minor” Prophets. In this verse Micah courageously announced the destruction of the temple on Zion because of Jerusalem’s sins -- more than a hundred years before it actually happened. His contemporaries had ridiculed him because they did not believe God would ever allow the destruction of his holy abode. Whistleblowers are never popular and it is possible that Micah has had to pay with his life for his scathing criticism of the authorities. However, history proved him right and Micah’s impressive sermons inspired later generations to complement them with consoling messages of forgiveness and hope. Prophecy, also prophecy outside Israel, was always open to future expansion. In this way the book of Micah became a cherished source of messianic expectations among both Jews and Christians. Modern research into the book of Micah denies him the authorship of more than half of the chapters attributed to him. On the basis of new textual and archaeological data from the entire Ancient Near East this commentary argues that much more can be regarded as actual fire-and-brimstone preaching of the historical prophet Micah. This conclusion was achieved among other things by collating more than a hundred Hebrew manuscripts of the book of Micah. The commentary devotes also much attention to geology, climate, flora, fauna, agriculture and art. Fifty illustrations elucidate these realia.

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Book SynopsisIn Jerusalem of the early second century, a Jewish teacher, later widely, and simply, known as Ben Sira, wrote, in contemporary Hebrew, a collection of proverbs designed to advise his co-religionists how to express and maintain their Jewishness and values in the face of a dominant Hellenistic culture. His proverbs were later translated into Greek by his grandson. Because the early Church, but not Rabbinic Judaism, included the book in its scriptural canon, the original Hebrew gradually gave way to the Greek, Latin and Syriac versions and was virtually lost in the late medieval and early modern periods. The late nineteenth-century discoveries from the Cairo Genizah restored Hebrew versions of much of the book. Academic use of Ben Sira’s work is now greatly facilitated by this scientific polyglot of all four versions, originally planned and initiated by Friedrich V. Reiterer at the University of Salzburg, and now brought to fruition by the painstaking scholarly efforts of Renate Egger-Wenzel, who has also provided a text edition of the Hebrew manuscripts and a guide to the project and to the volume.

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Book SynopsisThe study of the Septuagint (LXX), specifically the deuterocanonical books, and early Jewish prayers have gained attention in recent years. The eleven essays in this volume offer various exegetical or theological insights into select prayers known from the deuterocanonical books. Authors discuss how prayers interact with their larger literary contexts and raise text-critical questions that compare different ancient versions of various prayers. Larger questions of theological interest, such as the role prayers played in moral formation, are also treated among the essays. Most of the contributions in this volume grew out of a collaboration between the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature and Prayer in Antiquity program units of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2018.

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Book SynopsisLes livres de Samuel (1 S 1 – 1 R 2)se présentent comme un récit à prétention historiographique. Ils relatent le siècle d’histoire qui va de la naissance de Samuel à la mort de David. Pour raconter cette longue période dans la durée relativement brève du récit, le narrateur ne cesse d’opérer des choix temporels d’ordre divers. Le présent ouvrage s’intéresse à la construction du temps du récit. Il s’agit de voir comment cette construction vise non seulement à rendre compte du cours de l’histoire mais surtout à le qualifier. En effet, l’ensemble des choix temporels semble conduit par un souci mimétique mais il constitue surtout un propos implicite sur la signification des événements rapportés. Les formes et les modes de l’articulation entre le temps du récit et le temps de l’histoire se révèlent donc être un lieu privilégié pour appréhender la visée du projet historiographique de 1 S 1 – 1 R 2. Les composantes les plus significatives de cette articulation sont les indications calendaires qui balisent la narration, la prééminence donnée à l’unité du jour, l’organisation de séquences de jours, la conjugaison des ressources temporelles propres aux trois genres littéraires présents en 1 S 1 – 1 R 2: le récit, l’oracle prophétique et le poème lyrique. Chacun de ces éléments fait l’objet d’une étude systématique. Ils sont ensuite envisagés ensemble, dans leur contribution commune à la mise en valeur de ce qu’on pourrait appeler «le temps qui compte» dans ce siècle d’histoire. La tapisserie de Gleb, qui illustre la couverture, représenteles quatre lettres hébraïques du nom divin hwhy YHWH. Elles sont disposées detelle sorte qu’on peut y voir également une figuration humaine. Cette œuvreentre en résonance avec la recherche menée dans le présent ouvrage. Dansl’épaisseur du «tissu» narratif, dans sa texture où se croisent comme autant defils des voix aux temporalités distinctes, les modalités de l’articulationserrée entre l’action divine et celle des humains sont finement explorées. Ellesinvitent le lecteur à un examen attentif. Qui voit-il à l’œuvre dansl’histoire?

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Book SynopsisAmong the Dead Sea Scrolls The Community Rule (1QS) occupies a very important position. Written in Hebrew and being one of the seven documents found in the late forties of the 20th century it has attracted much attention from a host of scholars. It is not a biblical manuscript, but a document written sometime in the second century B.C.E. in Palestine, and has been read and studied in the Qumran community as we can conclude that as many as ten fragments of the document were subsequently unearthed in another Qumran cave. Because of its contents the document was sometimes called the constitution of the community. The document also throws much light on aspects of the post-biblical Hebrew. Its Hebrew, certainly reflecting Biblical Hebrew, is not merely an imitation of it. In addition, two much shorter documents, though not part of 1QS, but affiliated with it in their contents, have been included: Rule of the Congregation (1QSa) and Rule of Benedictions (1QSb). This monograph presents the entire text, largely based on a recent edition of Prof. Qimron (2020), accompanied by an English translation of our own and a linguistic and text-critical commentary. Studies published in Modern Hebrew have been consulted.

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Book SynopsisIn this monograph, the semantics of the word רַע (bad) is examined across the corpus of Ancient Hebrew and the Mishnah. The study takes cognitive linguistic theories as its theoretical base and proceeds by first examining the schematic content that רַע tends to modify (as an adjective). It moves on to map the lexical semantic domains of רַע and then examines רַע with reference to some major terms within these domains. The study concludes by presenting a thorough description of רַע derived from the analysis. It relates these findings to the previous studies on רַע as well as the lexica before suggesting how a new entry on רַע might be written. In addition to the important findings on רַע, the study points to what is likely an important difference between עָוֺן and אָוֶן which requires further investigation.

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Book SynopsisThis detailed exposition of Leviticus 11-20 focuses especially on the text’s rhetoric of pollution and purity. While engaging a wide variety of contemporary scholarship on Leviticus, it also shows the book’s historical influence on Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices from antiquity to the present day. Leviticus’s rhetoric aimed to persuade ancient listeners and readers to identify themselves as Israel by observing YHWH’s Torah, as exemplified especially by their diets and purification practices. It used prohibitions on illicit sexual intercourse to stigmatize pollution with sexual innuendo. The book makes purification and foregiveness available through personal and priestly rituals. Leviticus also emphasizes the importance of all kinds of divine commandments, including acting out of love for neighbors and immigrants. Leviticus’s rhetoric has therefore echoed in later Jewish and Christian cultures around issues of pollution, atonement, sex, and ethics, especially treatment of women and ethnic others.

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Book SynopsisFrom the Heart of a Lion is a unique combination of in-depth essays on the weekly Torah portion on the book of Genesis coupled with inspiring personal stories. The book is written in a way that readers of wide Jewish interest can comprehend and appreciate the synthesis of textual analysis. The focus upon truth and emotion can be felt in every essay and story.Trade Review"Throughout this work, the human element is demonstrated as a major factor in the destiny of Biblical personalities who would serve as role models in service to G-d's rule. This is the main contribution that Rabbi Cohen makes to Torah learning and teaching. He demonstrates to a world full of death and tears, fear and dread, how to smile and learn to be confident in the coming of a better day, with G-d's help." Alan Jay Gerber, thejewishstar.com

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