2013 "Janus Parallelism in Hab iii 4," VT 54 (2004) [repr. in VT IOSOT 2013] (original) (raw)

The Poetry of 4Q416 2 III 15–19

Dead Sea Discoveries, 2006

The working hypothesis of John Strugnell and Daniel J. Harrington is that 4QInstruction (4Q415-418, also known as Instruction of the Maven and, in previous literature, Sapiential Work A) is composed with that standard device of ancient Hebrew poetry, parallelism, though they only tentatively assert its existence and question the degree to which it dominates the work. 1 They do not address the nature of this parallelism, nor do they opine on the structure of any poems within the text, other than to comment briefly on common topics or themes. Although a plethora of articles and books have appeared recently treating various aspects of this text, none to date thoroughly addresses its poetry. 2 As a first foray into this realm, therefore, I have analyzed a small segment of 4QInstruction, one that Strugnell and Harrington agree treats a common theme and one which I feel deserves 1 At two points at least the editors tentatively assert that "parallelismus membrorum" exists in the text and can be used to reconstruct the sense of broken passages (J. Strugnell and D.J. Harrington, Qumran Cave 4, Sapiential Texts, part 2: 4QInstruction [DJD 34; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999] 5, 17). A greater skepticism on the presence of parallelism in the text is expressed on page 177: "Parallelismus membrorum, though not necessarily observed in 4Q415ff.. . ." Harrington, on the other hand, comments that in Sirach and in 4QInstruction "the instructions are usually formulated with the aid of parallelism" ("Two Early Jewish Approaches to Wisdom: Sirach and Qumran Sapiential Work A," JSP 16 [1997] 26). 2 Strugnell and Harrington (DJD 34) mention "parallelism" occasionally in their commentary; Harrington in "Two Early Jewish Approaches to Wisdom" speaks of "synonymous and antithetical" parallelism (26), describes the organization of the material into short paragraphs (28), and emphasizes that the admonitions in 4QInstruction are accompanied by "reasons for following the advice" (28-29). D. Jefferies, by contrast, argues that the author of 4QInstruction does not write with parallelism, but with the "Hellenistic monostich" (Wisdom at Qumran: A Form-Critical Analysis of the Admonitions in 4QInstruction [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2002] 320). His assertion is not supported by the present study that finds, in fact, much parallelism in 4QInstruction.

Some philological notes on the sons of Belial and The Septuagint

Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebraicos. …, 2011

This paper studies the Septuagint translations of the Biblical Hebrew word בליעל and derived constructions, with a focus on the term λοιμός, which I propose as the Old Greek translation in the books of Samuel. The meaning of the word (and its relevance for the study of the reading and interpretation traditions around בליעל in turn of the era Juda- ism) is examined in the context of other evidence around the time of the Septuagint, such as Dead Sea Scrolls and Pseudoepigrapha. The picture defined by this comparison seems to indicate that, among part of the Septuagint tradition and other literatures, the word did present some cosmic-supernatural features of negativity which connect with ancient Near Eastern mythological elements.

"Intentional Ambiguity in OT and Ugaritic Descriptions of Divine Conflict," UF 38 (2006): 543-57

This paper concerns the use of intentional ambiguity in poetic depictions of divine conflict in the Baal Epic and the Hebrew Bible. The focus of this paper differs from, for instance, the use of metaphor or euphemism in ancient Semitic poetry, or deliberately confusing literary expression, 1 giving attention instead to individual lines of poetry in these two bodies of literature in which more than one shade of meaning within the semantic range of a root is put in play or two distinct roots are signaled by what one finds in the consonantal text, either of which would make sense in context. 2 Although not at all exhaustive, this article seeks to show that, far from being incidental to the inner working of the poetry of these ancient texts, the ambiguous and playful use of different meanings attaching to any one root is an essential part of the way in which they communicate the cosmic significance of divine action. Such ambiguity, as will be seen, deepens the meaning of the poetry, rather than lessening or clouding it. 3 Out of many possible examples from the Hebrew Bible, two passages displaying a significant level of intentional ambiguity will be discussed: Habakkuk 3.3-15 and Isaiah 30.27-33. Both of these descriptions of Yahweh's warfare in the storm display, of course, a profound debt to a common stock of tradition in the ancient Near East about the divine defeat of chaos. With this debt in mind, we may turn to the closest extra-biblical example of the same theme—the Baal Epic—to explore whether intentional ambiguity also finds a place in ANE descriptions of divine warfare. A brief discussion on methodology in discerning the intentional use of ambiguity in Ugaritic poetry will introduce the analysis of a few passages from the Baal Epic, followed by a discussion of the texts themselves. After a potential objection to this approach is addressed, the article will conclude with a suggestion about the implications of the results of this inquiry for the study of Ugaritic.

The Underworld or its Ruler? Some Remarks on the Concept of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible

Polish Journal of Biblical Research Vol 13 No. 1-2 (25-26/2014), pp. 29-41.

The literature on the eschatology of the Hebrew Bible has adopted the assumption that she’ol means the underground realm inhabited by the dead. However, in most cases the word allows for dual interpretation: the underworld or the death deity. In favor of the latter speak the passages describing Sheol in terms of a voracious demon. This study therefore has three main objectives: (1) the reconstruction of the meaning of the word she’ol by means of the statistic linguistics; (2) the analysis of two major semantic complexes utilized in the descriptions of Sheol – the topomorphic and the anthropomorphic one; (3) the presentation of additional arguments in favor of the anthropomorphic interpretation of Sheol.