Frank Moore Cross

Shemaryahu Talmon

Šěmaryahū Ṭalmōn

The discovery of manuscripts in Qumran--the Dead Sea Scrolls--and other sites in the Wilderness of Judah has stimulated a period of unparalleled activity in the study of the biblical text. Students and teachers in this field are overwhelmed with the thousands of articles that have appeared in hundreds of journals in the last thirty years. The older handbooks surveying biblical textual criticism have become hopelessly obsolete. Frank Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon have designed a collection of essays to help the serious student find his way in this transformed field of research. Some of the essays are general surveys, some propound new theories, several publish manuscript data of revolutionary importance. The editors have contributed previously unpublished papers suggesting new approaches to the fundamental task of textual criticism. A list of published manuscripts or manuscript fragments from the Judaean Desert and a bibliography are included.

Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text

Šemaryāhû Ṭalmôn

"In the studies collected in this volume, the author aims at highlighting salient literary modes which can be identified in the books of the Hebrew Bible. The application of such modes is illustrated by analysing the biblical writers' technique of underscoring the concurrency of events by splitting a narrative account, intersplicing it with a second account, and then resuming the first. Thus they steer clear of conveying the impression of a chronological succession of the events in question which would be unavoidable in a one-line sequential presentation." "A reinvestigation of the question whether biblical literature ever knew a 'national epic' culminates in the conclusion that ancient Israel rejected this Gattung because of its intrinsic affiliation with pagan cults. In its stead it developed the genre of the 'historiographical psalm'. In a group of studies, identifiable literary traits are brought to bear on the investigation of principles and problems relating to the 'comparative approach' in biblical exegesis. Initial methodological considerations are illustrated by their application to the analysis of aspects pertaining to the spheres of religion and myth, such as 'divine kingship', 'navel of the earth', and 'repha'im/rpu(i)m', and to social and political phenomena, such as 'nomadism', 'desert ideal', and 'democratic' institutions." "In a concluding analysis, the book of Esther, is shown to be woven around a literary core which narratively illuminates the applicability of proverbial wisdom teachings to the handling of actual life situations." "These essays will be of interest to scholars and students of the Bible, theology, sociology of religion, and comparative literature."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Form and Content : Collected Studies

Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible

Collection of essays published elsewhere previously from 1954 to 2002.

Collected Studies

Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible

Jonathan Ben-Dov

Uwe Glessmer

Calendars and the celebration of feasts and holidays form an important part of religious and national movements and are sometimes the cause of schism. The Qumran community followed a solar calendar differing from the lunar calendar observed at the Temple in Jerusalem. This volume contains their texts relating to its calendar.

Shemaryahu Talmon

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