Seth Sanders | University of California, Davis (original) (raw)
Books by Seth Sanders
Hebrew was the first successful example of a local, culturally specific form of writing, as oppo... more Hebrew was the first successful example of a local, culturally specific form of writing, as opposed to the placeless, universal lingua franca of Babylonian cuneiform. Revealing the enduring political stakes of Biblical writing, The Invention of Hebrew demonstrates how Hebrew assumed and promoted a source of power previously unknown in written literature: "the people" as the protagonist of religion and politics.
"While biblical Hebrew is naturally treated as a subject for linguistic and philological study, Sanders treats it as a political entity, too: in The Invention of Hebrew, he explores how language and especially its written form were employed in the creation of an imagined community – a nation – in the course of ancient Israel's history. Through this approach, he shows how the writing of Hebrew, and eventually the writing of the Hebrew Bible, brought Israel into being as a polity." --Eva von Dassow, University of Minnesota
Papers by Seth Sanders
Language and Religion Edited by Robert Yelle Christopher Lehrich Courtney Handman, 2019
hat we see in the construction of elite graves and royal tombs is the production of ideology in i... more hat we see in the construction of elite graves and royal tombs is the production of ideology in itself. Ideology […] has no life outside the things that give it substance and that insert it into the world of action. In this sense then, archaeology is […] a direct investigation of the real work of ideological production. (Adam Smith 2007: 165) 1 On the use of Levantine archaeology in service of biblical texts see recently and incisively Pioske (2015), with earlier bibliography. For a detailed history of ancient Israel based entirely on contemporary material evidence, including inscriptions, see the first half of Liverani (2003) (and note the problematic second half, which attempts to compensate for the field's textual bias with an allegorical reading that tends to reinscribe the very problem pointed out in the first half).
Transition, 2000
When a people in Zimbabwe have more of the "Jewish Priestly gene" than many Jewish Priests, what ... more When a people in Zimbabwe have more of the "Jewish Priestly gene" than many Jewish Priests, what does genetics tell us? Perhaps that there is more than one historical pathway to authenticity.
Grammatical analysis of the 2010 Ophel fragment of an Amarna letter implies that there was more t... more Grammatical analysis of the 2010 Ophel fragment of an Amarna letter implies that there was more than one variety of Babylonian being written in Late Bronze Age Jerusalem, and therefore more than one type of scribal training.
This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions I edited ra... more This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions I edited raises the question of long-term patterns in how religious literature was produced in the ancient Near East. Was there a common "scribal culture," as biblicists have recently argued? If not, are there cross-cultural phenomena that we can nonetheless discover? This is the first collection to address this question by scholars expert in the original languages and primary sources, and suggests a set of new or underemphasized patterns.
Hebrew personal names suggest that it was during the Iron Age IIB that ancient Israel and Judah u... more Hebrew personal names suggest that it was during the Iron Age IIB that ancient Israel and Judah underwent an unusual religious change: the pantheon was drastically reduced to focus on a relatively new god, Yahweh. The nature and origin of Israel's religious distinctiveness are hotly contested, and names do not speak for themselves, but when integrated with contemporary evidence that helps us interpret them, an onomastic approach has special advantages. Despite their limits, inscribed names provide our single clearest source of evidence for early Israelite religion because, unlike edited literary texts, they can be precisely dated and confidently connected with society beyond Judahite scholarly circles. This clear pattern compels us to rethink both the recent notion that Iron Age Levantine societies were religiously uniform and the old assumption that monotheism was part of Israel's original essence.
tRiNity college, hARtFoRD they took Absalom and tossed him into a big pit in the forest, and they... more tRiNity college, hARtFoRD they took Absalom and tossed him into a big pit in the forest, and they put a huge pile of rocks over him. then every israelite fled back to his tent.
Religion in the News, Oct 2014
What can a text's modern reception tell us about its ancient construction? Darren Aronofsky's Noa... more What can a text's modern reception tell us about its ancient construction? Darren Aronofsky's Noah movie was often pilloried in the Evangelical world for some of the same reasons it was embraced in the Jewish one. With no dialogue and a minimal plot in the biblical text, the movie contains large sections that are modern rereadings of ancient Midrash. The movie and its narrative strengths are a remarkable case study in the afterlife of a text's afterlife.
Religion Dispatches, Jun 9, 2014
based on chapter 5 of my forthcoming TSAJ volume
This is an expanded version of a review f/c in Near Eastern Archaeology
BASOR, 2013
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not danc... more My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind With the mad wings and the day moon -Robinson Jeffers, "Tor House"
in Seth Sanders and Jonathan Ben-Dov, eds., Ancient Jewish Sciences, 2013
Hebrew was the first successful example of a local, culturally specific form of writing, as oppo... more Hebrew was the first successful example of a local, culturally specific form of writing, as opposed to the placeless, universal lingua franca of Babylonian cuneiform. Revealing the enduring political stakes of Biblical writing, The Invention of Hebrew demonstrates how Hebrew assumed and promoted a source of power previously unknown in written literature: "the people" as the protagonist of religion and politics.
"While biblical Hebrew is naturally treated as a subject for linguistic and philological study, Sanders treats it as a political entity, too: in The Invention of Hebrew, he explores how language and especially its written form were employed in the creation of an imagined community – a nation – in the course of ancient Israel's history. Through this approach, he shows how the writing of Hebrew, and eventually the writing of the Hebrew Bible, brought Israel into being as a polity." --Eva von Dassow, University of Minnesota
Language and Religion Edited by Robert Yelle Christopher Lehrich Courtney Handman, 2019
hat we see in the construction of elite graves and royal tombs is the production of ideology in i... more hat we see in the construction of elite graves and royal tombs is the production of ideology in itself. Ideology […] has no life outside the things that give it substance and that insert it into the world of action. In this sense then, archaeology is […] a direct investigation of the real work of ideological production. (Adam Smith 2007: 165) 1 On the use of Levantine archaeology in service of biblical texts see recently and incisively Pioske (2015), with earlier bibliography. For a detailed history of ancient Israel based entirely on contemporary material evidence, including inscriptions, see the first half of Liverani (2003) (and note the problematic second half, which attempts to compensate for the field's textual bias with an allegorical reading that tends to reinscribe the very problem pointed out in the first half).
Transition, 2000
When a people in Zimbabwe have more of the "Jewish Priestly gene" than many Jewish Priests, what ... more When a people in Zimbabwe have more of the "Jewish Priestly gene" than many Jewish Priests, what does genetics tell us? Perhaps that there is more than one historical pathway to authenticity.
Grammatical analysis of the 2010 Ophel fragment of an Amarna letter implies that there was more t... more Grammatical analysis of the 2010 Ophel fragment of an Amarna letter implies that there was more than one variety of Babylonian being written in Late Bronze Age Jerusalem, and therefore more than one type of scribal training.
This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions I edited ra... more This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions I edited raises the question of long-term patterns in how religious literature was produced in the ancient Near East. Was there a common "scribal culture," as biblicists have recently argued? If not, are there cross-cultural phenomena that we can nonetheless discover? This is the first collection to address this question by scholars expert in the original languages and primary sources, and suggests a set of new or underemphasized patterns.
Hebrew personal names suggest that it was during the Iron Age IIB that ancient Israel and Judah u... more Hebrew personal names suggest that it was during the Iron Age IIB that ancient Israel and Judah underwent an unusual religious change: the pantheon was drastically reduced to focus on a relatively new god, Yahweh. The nature and origin of Israel's religious distinctiveness are hotly contested, and names do not speak for themselves, but when integrated with contemporary evidence that helps us interpret them, an onomastic approach has special advantages. Despite their limits, inscribed names provide our single clearest source of evidence for early Israelite religion because, unlike edited literary texts, they can be precisely dated and confidently connected with society beyond Judahite scholarly circles. This clear pattern compels us to rethink both the recent notion that Iron Age Levantine societies were religiously uniform and the old assumption that monotheism was part of Israel's original essence.
tRiNity college, hARtFoRD they took Absalom and tossed him into a big pit in the forest, and they... more tRiNity college, hARtFoRD they took Absalom and tossed him into a big pit in the forest, and they put a huge pile of rocks over him. then every israelite fled back to his tent.
Religion in the News, Oct 2014
What can a text's modern reception tell us about its ancient construction? Darren Aronofsky's Noa... more What can a text's modern reception tell us about its ancient construction? Darren Aronofsky's Noah movie was often pilloried in the Evangelical world for some of the same reasons it was embraced in the Jewish one. With no dialogue and a minimal plot in the biblical text, the movie contains large sections that are modern rereadings of ancient Midrash. The movie and its narrative strengths are a remarkable case study in the afterlife of a text's afterlife.
Religion Dispatches, Jun 9, 2014
based on chapter 5 of my forthcoming TSAJ volume
This is an expanded version of a review f/c in Near Eastern Archaeology
BASOR, 2013
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not danc... more My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind With the mad wings and the day moon -Robinson Jeffers, "Tor House"
in Seth Sanders and Jonathan Ben-Dov, eds., Ancient Jewish Sciences, 2013
in Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in the Second Temple Period
Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, 2013
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures , 2004
We will read "lost" Jewish and Christian scriptures-texts that ancient people treated as revelati... more We will read "lost" Jewish and Christian scriptures-texts that ancient people treated as revelations from God-as well as more familiar biblical texts. They deal with religious goals that we would still recognize, such as encountering God, as well as ones we might not, such as learning how astronomy, biology and history work. We will explore ancient arguments about what a religious text or revelation is, and what the boundaries of religious as opposed to scientific or historical knowledge are. How can we discuss knowledge about ultimate things in ways that are broadly meaningful and grounded in evidence available to everybody?
Office Hours: Wed 12:30-2:30 and by appointment