Old Testament Abstracts

896.     [Covenantal Language in the Bible and Qurʾān] Carol Bakhos, "Covenantal Language in the Bible and Qurʾān," MAARAV 24 (1-2, 2020) 207-27 [see #965].

B.'s essay explores the function and transformation of the covenant concept within Judaism, early Christianity, and Islam. As G. E. Mendenhall always stressed, covenants in the Hebrew Bible serve to maintain kinship among diverse tribes and to define the relationship between God and the Israelites. The Christian and Muslim Scriptures attest to the need to grapple with the relationship between God and God's covenanted people, whether the Jews in the case of Christianity or Jews and Christians in the case of Islam. How did these emerging communities identify themselves vis-à-vis pre-existing communities that already claimed possession of an eternal covenantal relationship with God? Covenants function to create a communal identity in the Hebrew Bible and later rabbinic literature, an identity that marks Israelites and Jews as those with whom God has a special, particular relationship. Paul extends this covenantal notion to include non-Jews and thus creates a new community, one that is multi-ethnic, but also one shaped by covenant. The NT Gospels, Paul's letters, and Hebrews refer to a "new covenant" established by Christ. In other words, in the Bible the contours of the relationship between God and believers is covenantal, but can the same be said of the Qurʾān? While covenants are important in the Qurʾān, to what extent do they characterize the relationship between God and the community of believers? B.'s essay draws attention to strategies found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts that shed light on how competing claims to the Abrahamic covenant were negotiated among the three religions in late antiquity. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]

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897.     [Birds as Removers of Negative Forces in Biblical, Egyptian, and ANE Texts] Stefan Bojowald, "Vögel als Entsorger negative Kräfte in biblischen, ägyptischen und altorientalischen Texten," Bib 101 (2, 2020) 272-76.

This short paper compares Hebrew and Egyptian texts on the role of birds as removers of negative forces. In the Hebrew Bible, Lev 14:49-53 describes the cleansing of a house from "leprosy" by letting a bird fly away. In an Egyptian example, P. Ramesseum 3 B 33, a swallow symbolically removes a childhood sickness. Comparable motifs also occur in Hittite and Babylonian texts. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]

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898.     [50 Years of Second Temple Studies] John J. Collins, "A Contested Field: Half a Century of Study of Second Temple Judaism," JSJ 50 (4-5, 2019) 437-59.

There has been an explosion of interest in Second Temple Judaism over the last fifty years. In the first half of the period under review here, the pseudepigrapha were the focus of scholarly attention. This period culminated in the publication of the new enlarged edition of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha edited by James H. Charlesworth in 1983. Beginning in the 1980s, interest shifted to the DSS, a development culminating in the rapid publication of that corpus under the editorship of Emanuel Tov. At the same time, new discoveries have shed light on the encounter between Judaism and Hellenism, both in Judea in the Maccabean period and in the Egyptian diaspora. Few scholars would now defend the notion of a "normative Judaism" during the above period, but that notion still casts its [End Page 341] shadow over the ongoing scholarly debates about the Second Temple period. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]

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899.     [Adrianus Van Selms's References to Islam in His OT Commentaries] M. A. E. (Ashraf) Dockrat, "Featuring of Islam in the Writings, Particularly Old Testament Commentaries, of Adrianus Van Selms (1906-1984)," OTE 33 (1, 2020) 60-79.

Van Selms was a prominent South African biblicist whose many publications feature recurring references to Islam. In this article, D. concentrates...