Richard Bautch | St. Edward's University (original) (raw)

Books by Richard Bautch

Isaiah and the Twelve: Parallels, Similarities and Differences, 2020

Richard J. Bautch, Joachim Eck, and Burkard M. Zapff, eds. Isaiah and the Twelve: Parallels, Simi... more Richard J. Bautch, Joachim Eck, and Burkard M. Zapff, eds. Isaiah and the Twelve: Parallels, Similarities and Differences. BZAW 527. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020.

This volume is the fruit of an international conference on “Isaiah and the Twelve: Jesaja und die Zwölf” held at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt from 31 May to 3 June 2018. On this occasion, both established and mid-career scholars came together for exchange and discussion in order to explore vital questions posed by the relationship between the Book of Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve. The topic is of crucial importance as the two corpora share a large number of common ideas, concepts, motifs and linguistic features although, at the same time, the questions of the development, functions and meanings of these shared phenomena regularly defy all attempts at finding simple and straightforward explanations. As a result, this field of research, while both promising and challenging, has yet to be placed in a proper and full light. There has been, for example, piecemeal exegesis of certain pericopes which invite comparison because they are strikingly similar, most famously Isa 2:2-4 and Mi 4:1-5, but few studies envisage the books of Isaiah and the Twelve as a whole. The present volume is a first step towards a more comprehensive picture of the various kinds of similarities and differences characteristic of the two corpora, and it offers a wide range of methodological approaches toward the explanation and interpretation of such phenomena. It develops insights about the theological meaning of key themes in each corpus and their respective importance and weight. It advances the discussion on questions of diachronic developments, including the presence or absence of mutual influence in certain stages of the growth of the corpora. Moreover, the studies published in this work present further knowledge about characterstics, endeavours and processes which were typical of Israelite prophecy in the relevant stages of biblical history.
It is a peculiar feature of the Book of Isaiah to unite under the name of one single prophet several different but also remarkably related parts, each of which was composed by several authors. The Book of the Twelve, on the other hand, combines twelve shorter scriptures, nearly all of them composed by more than one author, under the names of twelve different prophets, yet it simultaneously possesses a specific coherence as a whole due to recurring themes which are not only spread all over the corpus of the Twelve but also have counterparts in the Book of Isaiah. In consideration of this both fascinating and complex picture, the topics discussed in this book shed light on the envisaged field of study in basically three different ways. Some of them reflect on relationships between Isaiah as a whole and individual prophets of the Twelve. Another approach focuses on relationships between the Book of the Twelve as a whole and a part of Isaiah. A third type of questioning identifies and analyses recurring thematic threads characteristic of both corpora.
While older research, as far as it considered the question at all, assumed that similarities between prophets such as Isaiah and Micah could be due to influence exerted on the basis of a personal discipleship, several articles in this volume come to the conclusion that most of the similarities and allusions occurring in Isaiah and the Twelve have their origins in the redactional processes which gradually shaped the prophetic books. This insight is all the more interesting when the redactional processes in question are located in remarkably different contexts. Another fundamental observation is that quotations, allusions and intertextual connections tend to be dynamic in their contents, developing and transforming theological messsages by means of re-contextualization. Yet, this does not lead to religious fragmentation but rather to a multi-faceted and profound unity.
The methodological diversity mirrored in the contributions on specific problems concerning Isaiah and the Twelve calls for overarching perspectives allowing to correlate the various insights with each other. In response to this desideratum, the Festvortrag by R. Voderholzer provides a counterpoint to specialized research by developing general thoughts on the role of exegesis, in particular the exegesis of biblical prophets, for Christian faith. A synthesis draws an overall picture of converging insights and tendencies which have become visible through the individual contributions. The result of the research presented in this volume is an overview of the manifold semantic, intertextual, literary, redactional, historical and theological aspects of the relations between the Book of Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve which surpasses all one-dimensional attempts at resolving the problem of how these mutual correspondences came to exist.

In the last two decades, increasing numbers of texts have been suggested as coming from or edited... more In the last two decades, increasing numbers of texts have been suggested as coming from or edited during the Persian period, but these discussions do not always reflect extensively on the assumptions used in making these claims or the implications on a broader scale. Earlier generations of scholars found it sufficient to categorize material in the biblical books simply as »late« or »postexilic« without adequately trying to determine when, by whom, and why the material was incorporated into the text at a fixed point in the Persian period. By grappling with these questions, the essays in this volume evince a greater degree of precision vis-à-vis dating and historical context. The authors introduce the designations early Persian, middle Persian, and late Persian in their textual analysis, and collectively they take significant steps toward developing criteria for locating a biblical text within the Persian period.

Survey of contents
David M. Carr: Criteria and Periodization in Dating Biblical Texts to Parts of the Persian Period – Joseph Blenkinsopp: The Earliest Persian Period Prophetic Texts – Dalit Rom-Shiloni: What is »Persian« in Late Sixth Century B.C.E. Prophetic Literature? Case Studies and Criteria – Georg Fischer SJ: Jeremiah's Relations with the »Minor Prophets«: A Window into the Formation of the Book of the Twelve – Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer: Dating Zechariah 1–8: The Evidence in Favour of and Against Understanding Zechariah 3 and 4 as Sixth Century Texts – Yigal Levin: Why Did Zerubbabel's Adversaries Emphasize Their Foreign Origins? – Reinhard Achenbach: The 'ămānāh of Nehemiah 10 between Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code – Konrad Schmid: How to Identify a Persian Period Text in the Pentateuch – Raik Heckl: The Aaronic Blessing (Numbers 6): Its Intention and Place in the Concept of the Pentateuch – Richard J. Bautch: Dating Texts to the Persian Period: The Case of Isaiah 63:7–64:11 – Jill Middlemas: Dating Esther: Historicity and the Provenance of Masoretic Esther

The 22 essays in this new and comprehensive study explore how notions of covenant, especially the... more The 22 essays in this new and comprehensive study explore how notions of covenant, especially the Sinaitic covenant, flourished during the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and early Hellenistic periods. Following the upheaval of the Davidic monarchy, the temple's destruction, the disenfranchisement of the Jerusalem priesthood, the deportation of Judeans to other lands, the struggles of Judeans who remained in the land, and the limited returns of some Judean groups from exile, the covenant motif proved to be an increasingly influential symbol in Judean intellectual life. The contributors to this volume, drawn from many different countries including Canada, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States, document how Judean writers working within historiographic, Levitical, prophetic, priestly, and sapiential circles creatively reworked older notions of covenant to invent a new way of understanding this idea. These writers examine how new conceptions of the covenant made between YHWH and Israel at Mt. Sinai play a significant role in the process of early Jewish identity formation. Others focus on how transformations in the Abrahamic, Davidic, and Priestly covenants responded to cultural changes within Judean society, both in the homeland and in the diaspora. Cumulatively, the studies of biblical writings, from Genesis to Chronicles, demonstrate how Jewish literature in this period developed a striking diversity of ideas related to covenantal themes.

In this volume, thirteen of today's leading scholars on the Book of Isaiah contribute essays expl... more In this volume, thirteen of today's leading scholars on the Book of Isaiah contribute essays exploring distinct issues that arise with critical study of the text. The essays as a whole reflect the highest echelon of Isaiah studies. This volume is distinctive in that each essay acknowledges and comments upon, to the appropriate degree, the exegetical contributions of Joseph Blenkinsopp. In certain essays the discussion of Blenkinsopp's work is more robust, while in others it occurs largely in footnotes. Explicit or implicit, the references to this influential scholar provide coherence and distinction to the collection of essays assembled in his honor. The book as a whole provides a fresh window on Isaiah studies in the 21st century, with a focus on the contributions of Joseph Blenkinsopp.

There are distinct challenges involved in articulating a hermeneutics of biblical aesthetics in t... more There are distinct challenges involved in articulating a hermeneutics of biblical aesthetics in the 21st century. Beauty and the Bible: Toward a Hermeneutics of Biblical Aesthetics is conceived as a response to three such challenges. First, the turn to subjectivity in the philosophy of the Enlightenment must be addressed in terms of its impact on the notion of beauty, biblical and otherwise. Kant’s Critique of Judgment, for example, is crucial background for understanding modern aesthetic concepts like sublimity and for engaging approaches to the text, such as reader-response, that are informed by critical theory. Critical theory in general has decentered aesthetics and highlighted the subject’s role in the determination of beauty. These developments are traced back to Kant and his impact on modern thought.
A second challenge relates to context, the aggregate of historical factors that prevent us from ever again conceiving of “art for art’s sake.” The composition of each biblical book, along with the history of its reception, is fraught with the minutiae of politics, economics, gender and global interdependencies. These factors can create a context that is morally ambiguous with evidence of inequity, exploitation and even atrocity. How does beauty function in such circumstances? Although there are many possibilities, lest beauty become the veneer that conceals all manner of inconvenient truths, it should be viewed through the lenses of new historicism, postcolonialism and similar hermeneutics of suspicion. Such approaches attend to ideologies that may mark the biblical texts and their interpretation.
The pendulum’s swing signals a third challenge, to approach the biblical text postcritically. Increasingly, there are readers of the Bible with eyes wide open but looking beyond the learning of philosophers or critical theorists. Such reading may sidestep the epistemological turn made by Kant in order to recover a concept of beauty said to be more relevant to the ancient mind. A postcritical reading seeks, among other things, an understanding of the nature of beauty that is grounded in semantics and the language of the text. With this type of reading, beauty’s power of attraction provides the grounds for aesthetic theology.
In short, a volume on contemporary biblical aesthetics with the requisite breadth and depth will delve into modern philosophy, contextual criticism and the postcritical return to beauty’s intrinsic qualities. While these three perspectives are quite different and not to be harmonized, exploring them concurrently in this volume serves each in turn and produces a study with intriguing methodological tensions. These are the type of tensions that can be profitably explored for the insights they may yield. Beauty and the Bible: Toward a Hermeneutics of Biblical Aesthetics is designed to serve a wide readership, with each reader resonating with one or perhaps two of the challenges indicated above. Additionally, readers may have an unanticipated and uncanny engagement with that “other” approach to biblical beauty that they might otherwise discount. These essays offer new perspectives on beauty in the Bible and a range of hermeneutical tools to advance the study of aesthetics.

Articles and Book Chapters by Richard Bautch

Pp. 154-74 in Intertextual Explorations in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Jeremy Corley and Geoffrey David Miller. DCLS 31. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019

Full article available upon request. This essay offers an intertextual reading of Judith, Tobit, ... more Full article available upon request. This essay offers an intertextual reading of Judith, Tobit, and Second Maccabees as Jewish literary responses to foreign imperial power. Methodologically, this study employs intertextuality with special attention to literary form as well as postcolonial issues. Author-oriented intertextuality is defined here as reading two or more texts together and in light of each other, with an emphasis on the author as opposed to the reader. The author-centered approach allows for the decentering or even denying of one text by another, as in the case of the Jewish novellas and their counterparts in Greek literature. The three Jewish works considered here invite an intertextual reading attuned to formal contrasts and as well to social context. The three texts share a basic context, the hegemony of the Seleucid or Roman Empires, and all manifest some degree of resistance to empire and hegemony. Empire serves as a backdrop for Judith and 2 Maccabees directly, since both works describe a campaign against foreign tyranny. Although Tobit does not narrate military action, it explores how to live a Jewish life in the context of empire.

Richard J. Bautch and Mark Lackowski, eds., On Dating Biblical Texts to the Persian Period: Discerning Criteria and Establishing Epochs (FAT II 101; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 139-47. Full article available upon request, 2019

This study correlates Pentateuchal developments involving the figure of Moses with a liturgical t... more This study correlates Pentateuchal developments involving the figure of Moses with a liturgical text that dates to the late Persian period. The book of Isaiah contains an extended prayer of lament (Isa 63:7–64:11) that has perenially raised questions of historical context. With regard to dating texts to the Persian period – early, middle, or late – the case of Isa 63:7–64:11 is an enigma. Some studies date the passage very early, pre-Persian in fact. An early Persian period dating of 538–520 B.C.E. is argued by other scholars, and still others favor the middle Persian period, or the 5th century. Finally, there is the view that Isa 63:7–64:11 fits best in the context of the late Persian period, specifically the end of the 4th century when Hellenism began to have an impact in Judea. Toward resolving this impasse, this study compares data from Isa 63:7–64:11 with pentateuchal developments that took place late in the Persian period during the 4th century B.C.E. A key data point is the figure of Moses, who is featured in Isaiah’s prayer of lament and as well in Deut 34, with both texts metonymically associating his greatness with his hand. Because this and related evidence links the two texts closely, one may conclude that they belong to the same late milieu. Tracking the preeminence of Moses allows for a significant correlation between the prayer in Isa 63:7–64:11 and the Pentateuch as it came to light late in the 4th century. The second half of the study demonstrates that another distinguishing feature of the lament prayer in Isa 63:7–64:11 is the pervasive influence of Deuteronomic (D) thought and theology. A D perspective prevails in three distinct segments of the prayer (Isa 63:11,17b–18a; 64:4b–5a). Interestingly, the lament prayer in Isaiah reflects, alongside the D influence, a Priestly (P) viewpoint, and the text shares elements of both the D and P traditions. Building upon the work of Ulrich Berges, this study argues that the tradents responsible for the final form of the book of Isaiah understood themselves to be priests of Yhwh for the nations, and as such, these priestly figures are informed by Deuteronomy and its precepts. Moreover, the Priestly circles that integrated the D concepts of Moses and Sinai into Isaiah were simultaneously giving the Pentateuch its shape. Berges thus suggests that the redactional and compositional processes behind the Pentateuch and the prophetic books are closely related, and this is plausibly the case as well with Isa 63:7–64:11, a text from the late Persian period.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 18, 2018

In 2016, the SBL Annual Meeting featured a session to review Covenant in the Persian Period: From... more In 2016, the SBL Annual Meeting featured a session to review Covenant in the Persian Period: From Genesis to Chronicles. Both my co-editor Gary N. Knoppers and I have a long association with the Chronicles–Ezra–Nehemiah section of the SBL, and it was an honor to have our book reviewed in this venue. I thank the reviewers for their comments and questions that keep the discussion of covenant in the Persian period moving forward. This response has two parts. First, I take up a few of the points that the reviewers have made, and I will necessarily be selective. Second, I suggest where we go from here in terms of studying covenant in the Persian period and beyond.

Pp. 49-58 in Golden Calf Traditions in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Eric F. Mason and Edmondo F. Lupiere. TBN 23. Leiden: Brill, 2018

Full article available upon request. This study takes up the golden calf in Neh 9 and Ps 106, tw... more Full article available upon request.

This study takes up the golden calf in Neh 9 and Ps 106, two texts that provide selective yet detailed histories of Israel from a relatively late perspective. In his book Geschichte in den Psalmen, Johannes Kühlewein studied these two recitals of history and discovered points of contact, especially with regard to the function of the recitals. In both Neh 9 and Ps 106, Kühlewein observed, the recitations of history recall God’s providence in a way that intensifies the people’s self-accusation and so supports their subsequent plea for divine mercy. The interplay of providence, penitence, and divine mercy is, in fact, quite striking, and it is through these theological categories that I read Neh 9 and Ps 106, with special attention to the golden calf. Both texts present the episode of the golden calf as a significant moment in Israelite history.

Source critically, the golden calf (Exod 32:4) at the center of the idolatry that occurred at Sinai is both a pentateuchal fixture (cf. Deut 9:16, 21) and a focus in other biblical books such as Nehemiah and Psalms (Ps 106). Connecting all three accounts is the Deuteronomic lens through which the making of the golden calf and related events are viewed. Textual study, however, brings to light key differences as well, such as the report in Neh 9:18 that the people made the golden calf whereas in Exodus it is work of their leader, Aaron. Psalm 106 enhances the figure of Moses in many ways, for example by using P language from Ezekiel to describe Moses’ intercession on behalf of those involved with the golden calf (Ps 106:23). The study demonstrates that the writers of Neh 9 and Ps 106 recount the golden calf episode influenced by both the traditions associated with D/Deuteronomy and other sources, which typically have a relationship to P.

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 129: 555-567, 2017

This study examines the correlation between drunkenness and deceit as these concepts are expresse... more This study examines the correlation between drunkenness and deceit as these concepts are expressed by the words שׁכר and שׁקר in the Hebrew Bible. Salient data include the orthographic similarity of the two Hebrew words as well their proximity to one another in textual units of three prophetic books. I conclude that שׁקר and שׁכר have been conjoined literarily by those responsible for Micah, Isaiah, and Habakkuk to connote a condition of drunkenness and deceit that is associated with Israel’s corrupt leaders and its often wayward people. In this critique there is an integral connection between the two triliteral roots such that שׁקר / שׁכר become a “sound word pair,” a concept developed by Bezalel Porten in his study of Jeremiah. While the biblical texts in this study date from the time of the monarchy, there is social commentary involving שׁקר / שׁכר in 1QpHab, to indicate that the use of the sound word pair שׁקר / שׁכר is not happenstance but indeed reflective of a convention that began with the biblical writers and extended at least to 1QpHab.

"Holy Seed -- Ezra 9-10 and the Formation of the Pentateuch," pp. 525-542 in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Israel, Europe, and North America (ed. J. C. Gertz et al.; FAT 111; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016).

This study demonstrates that the combined P/non-P Hexateuch and the Ezra narrative are contempora... more This study demonstrates that the combined P/non-P Hexateuch and the Ezra narrative are contemporaneous, both dating to the first half of the fourth century. The two are comparable in other respects as well. Both are evolving constellations of literary tradition that will eventually exist as fixed units within the Bible, namely the Pentateuch and the companion books of Ezra–Nehemiah. They are especially comparable in that both incorporate in a significant way the language and ideas of the D and P sources. Textually, the combined P/non-P Hexateuch and the Ezra narrative are siblings of a sort, and their common descent from D and P is a dominant trait that they share. Moreover, Lev 20:22–26 and Ezra 9:1–5 exist within these two textual entities and replicate their parallelism on a smaller scale. Both passages employ D and P elements to exhort the Jerusalem community to refrain from mixing with people outside the ethnos. In this vein, Ezra 9:2 addresses the community as “holy seed,” but no such language is found in Lev 20:22–26. The passages align in many ways, but not in this one. An explanation for the development of Lev 20:22–26 without holy-seed language is that the companion text of Ezra 9:1–5 was so rhetorically charged that holy seed became synonymous with intergroup conflict. In the fourth century, holy seed had connotations of controversy that became more pronounced in later texts such as Jubilees and Aramaic Levi. In Jubilees especially, holy seed betrayed strong ethnic sentiment among religious and social elites. But just as there is a trajectory of writers who took up the term holy seed as a means of gaining leverage over other groups and maintaining their own status quo, there may have also been an alternative practice of non-engagement with holy-seed language, Lev 20:22–26 being a prime example. The persons responsible for this text, Lev 20:22–26, issued no bans and wrote, as we might say, more inclusively.

You may request a copy of the article from richardb@stedwards.edu

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2016

Deut. 16.21-17.1 articulates three cultic laws establishing norms for worship. Interacting with r... more Deut. 16.21-17.1 articulates three cultic laws establishing norms for worship. Interacting with recent pentateuchal scholarship, this study examines Deut. 16.21-17.1 with an eye to issues in the text. An initial observation is that the literary unit does not cohere well with the surrounding laws in Deuteronomy. To address the problem of context, the study extends to comparable cultic laws elsewhere in Deuteronomy and in Exodus (Exod. 34.13, Deut. 7.5, 12.2-3). The comparison sheds greater light on Deut. 16.21-17.1 and suggests a dating of the text to the middle of the Second Temple period. Such dating, in turn, explains why this literary unit fits uneasily into its context of Deut. 16.18-18.22. The conclusion focuses on the altar in Deut. 16.21 as a reflection of changing perspectives on cultic worship expressed within the book of Deuteronomy.

This essay deals with the columns Yachin and Boaz in the Solomonic Temple, curiously described in... more This essay deals with the columns Yachin and Boaz in the Solomonic Temple, curiously described in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. We first look at how these columns were rearticulated in Christian architecture and argue that what made the Solomonic columns especially attractive to artists of the Renaissance was that the two pillars reflected aesthetic and political dimensions of the society that created them. A broader conclusion is that history provides multiple examples of a leader seeking political gain by associating himself with a stunning architectural feature from the temple of Solomon.

This article reviews three passages in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that reflect the language o... more This article reviews three passages in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that reflect the language of covenant and that of kinship as well.

This article explores the multiple facets of penance and penitence in the psalms and the other bo... more This article explores the multiple facets of penance and penitence in the psalms and the other books that make up the Writings or kĕtûbîm.

Isaiah and the Twelve: Parallels, Similarities and Differences, 2020

Pp. 154-74 in Intertextual Explorations in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Jeremy Corley and Geoffrey David Miller. DCLS 31. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 18, 2018

Pp. 49-58 in Golden Calf Traditions in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Eric F. Mason and Edmondo F. Lupiere. TBN 23. Leiden: Brill, 2018

Full article available upon request. This study takes up the golden calf in Neh 9 and Ps 106, tw... more Full article available upon request.

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 129: 555-567, 2017

You may request a copy of the article from richardb@stedwards.edu

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2016

This article departs from the scholarly view that all post-exilic writers conducted their theolog... more This article departs from the scholarly view that all post-exilic writers conducted their theological inquiry into the divine/human relationship in light of God’s promises to the patriarch Abraham. The article demonstrates that there were two other keys to renovating the covenant: confession of sin interacting with divine mercy, and God’s power manifest in creation.

The Human Body in Death and Resurrection, Jan 1, 2009

This article demonstrates that in a passage about the afterlife in the Book of Jubilees (Jub. 23:... more This article demonstrates that in a passage about the afterlife in the Book of Jubilees (Jub. 23:29-31), the author characterizes the eternal reward of those who rise in terms of God’s covenantal favor.

Revue biblique, Jan 1, 2000

This article is an analysis of the material culture from an excavation in Jerusalem. I worked at ... more This article is an analysis of the material culture from an excavation in Jerusalem. I worked at the excavation from 1997-99 and with three colleagues published the analysis in support of broader hypotheses about the ancient monastic community that lived at the site.

Seeking the Favor of God: The origins of penitential …, Jan 1, 2006

Scholars today routinely speak of the “loss of lament.” There are, however, alternative ways to d... more Scholars today routinely speak of the “loss of lament.” There are, however, alternative ways to document lament in the post-exilic period, and this article presents one of them: lament as an influence that may be vestigial or proximate.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2010

Originally a dissertation written at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, under the direction... more Originally a dissertation written at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, under the direction of Nathan McDonald, this book takes as its point of departure the loose consensus that formed in the middle of the 20th century regarding the eternal covenant or ברית עולם. ...

Richard Bautch became General Editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series (CBQMS) ... more Richard Bautch became General Editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series (CBQMS) on Jan. 1, 2018. This series publishes books of a specialized scholarly nature in the biblical field. The series encourages work on technical, detailed subjects, even of a restricted scope. Fifty-seven volumes have been published since the inception of the series in 1969, with one or two new volumes appearing almost every year.
In 2019, the Catholic Biblical Association launched a new book series, CBQ Imprints, to complement the CBQMS. The new series features studies that range beyond the scope of a monograph on topics related to Old Testament, New Testament, and cognate fields. Readers will appreciate the series’ breadth as longstanding exegetical methods (literary critical as well as historical critical) are featured alongside hermeneutical, interdisciplinary and reception-history approaches. A forum for both single-author books and edited volumes, CBQ Imprints is the latest initiative in ground-breaking biblical research from the Catholic Biblical Association.

This handout accompanied the presentation of my research at the conference "The Function of the R... more This handout accompanied the presentation of my research at the conference "The Function of the Reader in the Formation and the Reception in the Book of Isaiah," held online Feb. 14-15, 2022, and hosted by Archibald van Wieringen (Tilburg) and Se-hoon Jang (Seoul).

Voices of Israel: Isaiah and Micah A biblical studies conference jointly sponsored by St. Edward... more Voices of Israel: Isaiah and Micah

A biblical studies conference jointly sponsored by St. Edward’s University and the Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt will be held at the St. Edward's campus in Austin. The conference will focus on the books of Isaiah (1-39) and Micah to examine issues in the religious life of ancient Israel and specifically Judah in the eighth century. A key issue across the papers will be the relationship between Isaiah and Micah, both literarily and historically. Invited speakers and respondents include Richard Bautch (Austin), Joachim Eck (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), Michael Floyd (Austin), Christopher B. Hays (Pasadena), J. Todd Hibbard (Detroit), Ndikho Mtshiselwa (Pretoria), James Nogalski (Waco) and Burkard Zapff (Eichstätt-Ingolstadt).

There will be a concurrent exhibit of art by Jenn Hassin that allows conference participants to engage questions that arise in biblical text from another perspective, that of the creative arts. Ms. Hassin is renown for a style of art that features rolled paper. During the luncheon portion of the conference, Ms. Hassin will speak about her work and her experiences creating art inspired by accounts from Israel as well as her own experiences there.

The Austin conference is one hour by car from the SBL Annual Meeting in San Antonio, which begins the next day.

For More information and Registration: www.isaiahmicah.eventbrite.com

The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, 2021

R. J. Bautch / M. Lackowski (eds.), On Dating Biblical Texts to the Persian Period, FAT II/101, T... more R. J. Bautch / M. Lackowski (eds.), On Dating Biblical Texts to the Persian Period, FAT II/101, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019, 101–118