Melvin Sensenig | Albright College (original) (raw)

Papers by Melvin Sensenig

Augustinian Studies, 2023

Gorgias Press eBooks, May 18, 2020

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Dec 1, 2021

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Biblical Interpretation, May 18, 2014

Pp. xi-^ 379. Jaco Gericke and Yoram Hazony attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with... more Pp. xi-^ 379. Jaco Gericke and Yoram Hazony attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with different methodologies, that philosophy (and especially the philosophy of religion) and Hebrew Bible studies mutually inform each other. Both authors believe that such cross-pollination is possible and desirable. Both authors recognize that others have attempted this before, often with poor results, and show good awareness that they understand the magnitude of their task. Gericke creates two methodologies in the hopes that he can create a relatively neutral perspective from which both believer and skeptic can read the ancient text. Hazony, on the other hand, believes that tbe study of the Hebrew Bible has suffered greatly from what he calls the "reason-revelation dichotomy" of Christianity, and that tbe metaphor, analogy, and typology of the Hebrew Bible are ultimately an exercise in reason, not revelation (which he believes destroys the text). The problem, according to Hazony, is tbe continued dependence of both fideists and heretics on this reason-revelation dichotomy. Since the texts appeared at least five centuries before Christianity, Hazony believes that the idea of revelation in the Hebrew Bible ends up undermining much the texts attempted to say. His thesis is that one can-and should-read the Hebrew Scriptures as works of philosophy. Language that is inaccessible to contemporary readers contributes to the problem, according to Hazony. "Thus says the Lord ..." is likely to lead someone to believe that the Hebrew Scriptures are nonsense, or downright unscrupulous. Ironically, Hazony pinpoints this as a propaganda line used by French philosophes and German professors in an attempt to discredit the church and move it out of European politics. While accurate in regard to the philosophes and many German professors, it does not seem to support his assertion of a reason-revelation dichotomy as applied to all Christianity. Christian interpretation suffered, according to Hazony, from an overdependence on the idea that the ability to conduct pbilosophical inquiry was contingent or reliant on revelation from God. Contemporary interpreters address this bias either by ignoring it entirely or by not drawing any weighty conclusions from it. Hazony then traces this line to his major foil for the text: early Christian doctrine that taught that reason comes from the Greeks and revelation comes from the Jews. While intriguing, it is not certain that this applies to Christianity in general.

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Apr 12, 2019

Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Prote... more Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protestant liberal theology and the search for myth in modern Germany, lost the category of disempowered king in its treatment of one of the final kings of Judah, Jehoiachin, in the book of Jeremiah. While current scholarship has already moved beyond Protestant liberalism, it has not yet recovered the hermeneutical category of disempowered king as a way to understand Jehoiachin and later expectations of kingship. I suggest ways for contemporary critical scholars to build on the work of more recent scholarship and engage the canonical shape of Jeremiah.

Jehoiachin and his Oracle, 2020

Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture, 2019

Late 19th–early 20th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protest... more Late 19th–early 20th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protestant liberal theology and the search for myth in modern Germany, lost the category of disempowered king in its treatment of one of the final kings of Judah, Jehoiachin, in the book of Jeremiah. While current scholarship has already moved beyond Protestant liberalism, it has not yet recovered the hermeneutical category of disempowered king as a way to understand Jehoiachin and later expectations of kingship. I suggest ways for contemporary critical scholars to build on the work of more recent scholarship and engage the canonical shape of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah in History and Tradition, 2019

Jeremiah in History and Tradition, with Niels Peter Lemche, Routledge, 2020.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2021

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2021

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2018

Four oracles appear in Jeremiah 21:11-23:8 detailing the failure and future of the final kings in... more Four oracles appear in Jeremiah 21:11-23:8 detailing the failure and future of the final kings in Judah, also known as the King Collection. The final oracle against Jehoiachin (he also appears with the names Coniah / Jeconiah) precedes the announcement of the unnamed new Davidide, the Branch. The oracle against Jehoiachin appears to be unique, involving no stipulations of covenant wrongdoing, a feature of Deuteronomistic criticism of the kingship since Solomon. He is one of the most unremarkable kings in Israelite history. Yet, he is the concluding figure in both the Greek (Septuagint or LXX) and Hebrew (Masoretic Text or MT) versions of Jeremiah’s King Collection, a significant change from the accounts in Kings and Chronicles. He occupies an important place in Josephus’s attempts to sketch the ideal Israelite king, respectful of Roman rule. He is important to the rabbis in developing an atonement theory of the exile. In the New Testament, he appears in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, while the other kings from the King Collection disappear. The Epistle to the Hebrews may adopt similar ideas in developing the analogy of Melchizedek, another insignificant king in Israel’s history, as a precursor to Jesus. Ideas developed from the flow of the oracle in the text of Jeremiah, shaped by the polemics of exile, appear in the Acts of the Apostles’ casting of Jesus’ spiritual kingship on the world’s stage. Precritical Jewish and Christian exegesis adopted a harmonizing approach to the oracle, importing reasons from the Deuteronomistic History and the Chronicler for its harsh judgment. Yet discussion of the oracle and its significance in the construction of the figure of Jehoiachin in Jeremiah has all but disappeared from critical scholarship following the groundbreaking work of Bernhard Duhm. Early critical scholarship, while correcting many of the mistakes of precritical exegetes, followed the new Protestant confessionalism of the 19th century. Michel Foucault locates the loss of the theology of the cross as this decisive turn in interpretive methodology. This turn caused modern Protestant interpreters, who are mainly responsible for the foundations of modern critical studies in Jeremiah, to devalue disempowered kings in Israel’s history, one of the most important hermeneutical categories in classical Jewish literature, according to Yair Lorberbaum. Thus, Bernhard Duhm, and later scholarship that builds on his work, missed the significance of this oracle in the textual function of the book of Jeremiah and its polemical significance in the debates between post-exile groups of Judeans. Gerhard von Rad, in his revision of Martin Noth’s theory of the Deuteronomistic History, saw the importance of Jehoiachin as a source of hope for a renewed Israel. Jack Lundbom most recently observed the development of an oracular frame moving from the center outward in which the oracle against Jehoiachin appears. Yet, to date, little work has appeared on the way the canonical form of Jeremiah frames Jehoiachin and its effect on Jeremiah’s end to the DtrH. To make sense of it, we must account for what appears to be an unfulfilled prophecy in Jeremiah 22, as recorded by Jehoiachin’s treatment in Jeremiah 52 where, against the expectation of the oracle, the Jewish king again appears on the world stage. Mark Roncace has written extensively on how this type of prophecy functions in the book of Jeremiah. Speech-act theory, as proposed originally by J. L. Austin, and refined by his protégé, John Searle, provides further insight into this issue. Building on the scholarship of von Rad, Lundbom, Mark Leuchter and several other scholars of the sociopolitical forces in the production of biblical texts in exile, we will reconstruct the remarkably adaptable prophetic frame developed in exile around Jehoiachin and his oracle, which set the stage for a return of a Jewish king to the world stage.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2022

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Point of View Publishing, 2019

Biblical Theology Bulletin, 2019

Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Prote... more Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protestant liberal theology and the search for myth in modern Germany, lost the category of disempowered king in its treatment of one of the final kings of Judah, Jehoiachin, in the book of Jeremiah. While current scholarship has already moved beyond Protestant liberalism, it has not yet recovered the hermeneutical category of disempowered king as a way to understand Jehoiachin and later expectations of kingship. I suggest ways for contemporary critical scholars to build on the work of more recent scholarship and engage the canonical shape of Jeremiah.

Conference Presentations by Melvin Sensenig

SBL Northeast Region, 2020

After the exile, several interpretive options arose to explain how Israelite kingship would conti... more After the exile, several interpretive options arose to explain how Israelite kingship would continue after exile in the new age of world empire. Both Melchizedek and Jehoiachin assumed importance seemingly out of all proportion to that which they received in the canonical text. Josephus and the rabbis focused on Jehoiachin, while the Qumran community focused on Melchizedek. This seems to be of particular concern to the author of Hebrews in the New Testament, while Jehoiachin receives only one mention in Matthew's genealogy for Jesus, albeit an important one. This paper examines how Jehoiachin rises through unexplained suffering to become almost a mythical figure in later tradition, and whether or not Melchizedek fits the same mold.

Augustinian Studies, 2023

Gorgias Press eBooks, May 18, 2020

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Dec 1, 2021

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Biblical Interpretation, May 18, 2014

Pp. xi-^ 379. Jaco Gericke and Yoram Hazony attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with... more Pp. xi-^ 379. Jaco Gericke and Yoram Hazony attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with different methodologies, that philosophy (and especially the philosophy of religion) and Hebrew Bible studies mutually inform each other. Both authors believe that such cross-pollination is possible and desirable. Both authors recognize that others have attempted this before, often with poor results, and show good awareness that they understand the magnitude of their task. Gericke creates two methodologies in the hopes that he can create a relatively neutral perspective from which both believer and skeptic can read the ancient text. Hazony, on the other hand, believes that tbe study of the Hebrew Bible has suffered greatly from what he calls the "reason-revelation dichotomy" of Christianity, and that tbe metaphor, analogy, and typology of the Hebrew Bible are ultimately an exercise in reason, not revelation (which he believes destroys the text). The problem, according to Hazony, is tbe continued dependence of both fideists and heretics on this reason-revelation dichotomy. Since the texts appeared at least five centuries before Christianity, Hazony believes that the idea of revelation in the Hebrew Bible ends up undermining much the texts attempted to say. His thesis is that one can-and should-read the Hebrew Scriptures as works of philosophy. Language that is inaccessible to contemporary readers contributes to the problem, according to Hazony. "Thus says the Lord ..." is likely to lead someone to believe that the Hebrew Scriptures are nonsense, or downright unscrupulous. Ironically, Hazony pinpoints this as a propaganda line used by French philosophes and German professors in an attempt to discredit the church and move it out of European politics. While accurate in regard to the philosophes and many German professors, it does not seem to support his assertion of a reason-revelation dichotomy as applied to all Christianity. Christian interpretation suffered, according to Hazony, from an overdependence on the idea that the ability to conduct pbilosophical inquiry was contingent or reliant on revelation from God. Contemporary interpreters address this bias either by ignoring it entirely or by not drawing any weighty conclusions from it. Hazony then traces this line to his major foil for the text: early Christian doctrine that taught that reason comes from the Greeks and revelation comes from the Jews. While intriguing, it is not certain that this applies to Christianity in general.

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Apr 12, 2019

Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Prote... more Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protestant liberal theology and the search for myth in modern Germany, lost the category of disempowered king in its treatment of one of the final kings of Judah, Jehoiachin, in the book of Jeremiah. While current scholarship has already moved beyond Protestant liberalism, it has not yet recovered the hermeneutical category of disempowered king as a way to understand Jehoiachin and later expectations of kingship. I suggest ways for contemporary critical scholars to build on the work of more recent scholarship and engage the canonical shape of Jeremiah.

Jehoiachin and his Oracle, 2020

Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture, 2019

Late 19th–early 20th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protest... more Late 19th–early 20th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protestant liberal theology and the search for myth in modern Germany, lost the category of disempowered king in its treatment of one of the final kings of Judah, Jehoiachin, in the book of Jeremiah. While current scholarship has already moved beyond Protestant liberalism, it has not yet recovered the hermeneutical category of disempowered king as a way to understand Jehoiachin and later expectations of kingship. I suggest ways for contemporary critical scholars to build on the work of more recent scholarship and engage the canonical shape of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah in History and Tradition, 2019

Jeremiah in History and Tradition, with Niels Peter Lemche, Routledge, 2020.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2021

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2021

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2018

Four oracles appear in Jeremiah 21:11-23:8 detailing the failure and future of the final kings in... more Four oracles appear in Jeremiah 21:11-23:8 detailing the failure and future of the final kings in Judah, also known as the King Collection. The final oracle against Jehoiachin (he also appears with the names Coniah / Jeconiah) precedes the announcement of the unnamed new Davidide, the Branch. The oracle against Jehoiachin appears to be unique, involving no stipulations of covenant wrongdoing, a feature of Deuteronomistic criticism of the kingship since Solomon. He is one of the most unremarkable kings in Israelite history. Yet, he is the concluding figure in both the Greek (Septuagint or LXX) and Hebrew (Masoretic Text or MT) versions of Jeremiah’s King Collection, a significant change from the accounts in Kings and Chronicles. He occupies an important place in Josephus’s attempts to sketch the ideal Israelite king, respectful of Roman rule. He is important to the rabbis in developing an atonement theory of the exile. In the New Testament, he appears in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, while the other kings from the King Collection disappear. The Epistle to the Hebrews may adopt similar ideas in developing the analogy of Melchizedek, another insignificant king in Israel’s history, as a precursor to Jesus. Ideas developed from the flow of the oracle in the text of Jeremiah, shaped by the polemics of exile, appear in the Acts of the Apostles’ casting of Jesus’ spiritual kingship on the world’s stage. Precritical Jewish and Christian exegesis adopted a harmonizing approach to the oracle, importing reasons from the Deuteronomistic History and the Chronicler for its harsh judgment. Yet discussion of the oracle and its significance in the construction of the figure of Jehoiachin in Jeremiah has all but disappeared from critical scholarship following the groundbreaking work of Bernhard Duhm. Early critical scholarship, while correcting many of the mistakes of precritical exegetes, followed the new Protestant confessionalism of the 19th century. Michel Foucault locates the loss of the theology of the cross as this decisive turn in interpretive methodology. This turn caused modern Protestant interpreters, who are mainly responsible for the foundations of modern critical studies in Jeremiah, to devalue disempowered kings in Israel’s history, one of the most important hermeneutical categories in classical Jewish literature, according to Yair Lorberbaum. Thus, Bernhard Duhm, and later scholarship that builds on his work, missed the significance of this oracle in the textual function of the book of Jeremiah and its polemical significance in the debates between post-exile groups of Judeans. Gerhard von Rad, in his revision of Martin Noth’s theory of the Deuteronomistic History, saw the importance of Jehoiachin as a source of hope for a renewed Israel. Jack Lundbom most recently observed the development of an oracular frame moving from the center outward in which the oracle against Jehoiachin appears. Yet, to date, little work has appeared on the way the canonical form of Jeremiah frames Jehoiachin and its effect on Jeremiah’s end to the DtrH. To make sense of it, we must account for what appears to be an unfulfilled prophecy in Jeremiah 22, as recorded by Jehoiachin’s treatment in Jeremiah 52 where, against the expectation of the oracle, the Jewish king again appears on the world stage. Mark Roncace has written extensively on how this type of prophecy functions in the book of Jeremiah. Speech-act theory, as proposed originally by J. L. Austin, and refined by his protégé, John Searle, provides further insight into this issue. Building on the scholarship of von Rad, Lundbom, Mark Leuchter and several other scholars of the sociopolitical forces in the production of biblical texts in exile, we will reconstruct the remarkably adaptable prophetic frame developed in exile around Jehoiachin and his oracle, which set the stage for a return of a Jewish king to the world stage.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2022

Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the... more Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.

Point of View Publishing, 2019

Biblical Theology Bulletin, 2019

Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Prote... more Late 19 th-early 20 th-century German biblical scholarship, because of its connections with Protestant liberal theology and the search for myth in modern Germany, lost the category of disempowered king in its treatment of one of the final kings of Judah, Jehoiachin, in the book of Jeremiah. While current scholarship has already moved beyond Protestant liberalism, it has not yet recovered the hermeneutical category of disempowered king as a way to understand Jehoiachin and later expectations of kingship. I suggest ways for contemporary critical scholars to build on the work of more recent scholarship and engage the canonical shape of Jeremiah.

SBL Northeast Region, 2020

After the exile, several interpretive options arose to explain how Israelite kingship would conti... more After the exile, several interpretive options arose to explain how Israelite kingship would continue after exile in the new age of world empire. Both Melchizedek and Jehoiachin assumed importance seemingly out of all proportion to that which they received in the canonical text. Josephus and the rabbis focused on Jehoiachin, while the Qumran community focused on Melchizedek. This seems to be of particular concern to the author of Hebrews in the New Testament, while Jehoiachin receives only one mention in Matthew's genealogy for Jesus, albeit an important one. This paper examines how Jehoiachin rises through unexplained suffering to become almost a mythical figure in later tradition, and whether or not Melchizedek fits the same mold.

There is an oft-neglected oracle in Jeremiah 22:24-30 that announces Jehoiachin's exile and the e... more There is an oft-neglected oracle in Jeremiah 22:24-30 that announces Jehoiachin's exile and the end of the Davidic kingship line that has run throughout the entire Deuteronomic history until the time of the exile. 1 Only four verses separate it from the enigmatic promise of the Branch in 23:5, and it plays the pivotal role in the collection of oracles against the final four kings of Judah prior to this unspecified age of the Davidic monarchy in the future. Yet the oracle has generated scant attention from scholars. I've counted no more than a handful of articles and only passing mention in commentaries that deal with it. 2 Yet, while most critical scholarship is, for many important reasons, focused on the exile associated with the final deportation under Zedekiah in 587/6 B.C.E., the canonical and post-canonical tradition focuses almost exclusively on the second deportation under Jehoiachin as the marker of the beginning of the Jewish exile. 3 Thus, there appears to be a gap in scholarly literature on the theological concern of the 1 There is near-universal agreement that Jeremiah 22:24-30 is the oracle directed against Jehoiachin. Only Driver argues that 18-23 should also be included.

One of the challenges in biblical studies is understanding the differences between precritical an... more One of the challenges in biblical studies is understanding the differences between precritical and critical emphases in biblical interpretation. The topic is broad, complex, and has different answers depending on where you look. There is one illuminating case study in Jeremiah 44, where one of the two pillars of modern Jeremiah critical research, Sigmund Mowinckel (the other is Bernhard Duhm), imagines a scene that has no relationship to the text, critical reconstruction, or precritical scholarship. 1 In fact, as he himself admits, it exists only in his imagination. In Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah has a confrontation with the women of Jerusalem whom he accuses of worshiping the queen of heaven and thus incurring the wrath of Yahweh. This is the last confrontation recorded in the book and is an important climactic moment of tension after he had been forcibly taken to Egypt along with Baruch. Not surprisingly, those whom he accuses do not receive this accusation well and respond with determined resistance to his message. 15 Then all the men who were aware that their wives had been making offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: 16 " As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we are not going to listen to you. 17 Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no misfortune. 18 But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine. " 19 And the women said,b " Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands' being involved? " NRSV Jer. 44:15–19. This was the crime he had accused the people of Jerusalem of in the Temple Sermon (7:1-8:3). In that sermon, making the cakes and pouring out the libation offerings is described as women's work, although children and husbands are also described as fully involved in the idolatry. This final confrontation, however, shows the women in a more powerful position than the Temple Sermon. They have minds of their own and spiritual resources to which they hold fast. They speak for themselves. They don't hesitate to resist authority with whom they disagree, and their husbands appear weaker in comparison.

Augustinian Studies, 2023

attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with different methodologies, that philosophy (a... more attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with different methodologies, that philosophy (and especially the philosophy of religion) and Hebrew Bible studies mutually inform each other. Both authors believe that such cross-pollination is possible and desirable. Both authors recognize that others have attempted this before, often with poor results, and show good awareness that they understand the magnitude of their task.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2018

Gorgias Press, Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts series, 2020

King Jehoiachin, the last Judahite king exiled to Babylon, became the focus of conflicting hopes ... more King Jehoiachin, the last Judahite king exiled to Babylon, became the focus of conflicting hopes and fears about a revived Davidic kingship after the exile. As Sensenig demonstrates, this conflict stemmed from a drastic oracle from Jeremiah that seemed to categorically reject Jehoiachin, while the canon records that he not only survived but thrived in exile.