Description
Book SynopsisAncient Readers and their Scriptures explores the various ways that ancient Jewish and Christian writers engaged with and interpreted the Hebrew Bible in antiquity, focusing on physical mechanics of rewriting and reuse, modes of allusion and quotation, texts and text forms, text collecting, and the development of interpretative traditions. Contributions examine the use of the Hebrew Bible and its early versions in a variety of ancient corpora, including the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic works, analysing the vast array of textual permutations that define ancient engagement with Jewish scripture. This volume argues that the processes of reading and cognition, influenced by the physical and intellectual contexts of interpretation, are central aspects of ancient biblical interpretation that are underappreciated in current scholarship.
Table of ContentsContributors Introduction Garrick V. Allen and John Anthony Dunne Reading the Hebrew Bible in Jewish and Christian Antiquity William A. Tooman Part 1: Reading Scripture in the Second Temple Period 1 What Did Ben Sira’s Bible and Desk Look Like? Lindsey Arielle Askin 2 Creation as the Liturgical Nexus of the Blessings and Curses in 4QBerakhot Mika S. Pajunen 3 The Qumran Library and the Shadow it Casts on the Wall of the Cave Jonathan D.H. Norton Part 2: The New Testament and Practices of Reading and Reusing Jewish Scripture 4 Exegetical Methods in the New Testament and “Rewritten Bible”: A Comparative Analysis Susan E. Docherty 5 Scriptural Quotations in the Jesus Tradition and Early Christianity: Textual History and Theology Martin Karrer 6 The Return of the Shepherd: Zechariah 13:7–14:6 as an Interpretive Framework for Mark 13 Paul Sloan 7 The Hybrid Isaiah Quotation in Luke 4:18–19 Joseph M. Lear part 3: Reading Scripture in Rabbinic Judaism 8 A Single, Huge, Aramaic Spoken Heretic: Sequences of Adam’s Creation in Early Rabbinic Literature Willem Smelik 9 The Variant Reading ולא / ולו of Psalm 139:16 in Rabbinic Literature Dagmar Börner-Klein 10 Jewish and Christian Exegetical Controversy in Late Antiquity: The Case of Psalm 22 and the Esther Narrative Abraham Jacob Berkovitz part 4: Reading Retrospective 11 What does ‘Reading’ have to do with it? Ancient Engagement with Jewish Scripture Garrick V. Allen and John Anthony Dunne
