scholarly journals Race, Racism, and the Hebrew Bible: The Case of the Queen of Sheba

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 795
Author(s):  
Jillian Stinchcomb
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Skin Color ◽  
Physical Characteristics ◽  
Her Family ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Biblical Texts

The Queen of Sheba, best known for visiting Solomon at the height of his rule, is commonly understood to be one of the most famous Black queens of the Bible. However, biblical texts record nothing of her family or people, any physical characteristics, nor where, precisely, Sheba is located. How did this association between the Queen of Sheba and Blackness become naturalized? This article answers this question by mapping three first millennium textual moments that racialize the Queen of Sheba through attention to geography, skin color, and lineage in the writings of Origen of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, and Abu Ja’afar al-Tabari. These themes are transformed in the Ethiopic text the Kebra Nagast, which positively claims the Queen of Sheba as an African monarch in contrast to the Othering that is prominent in earlier texts. The Kebra Nagast has a complex afterlife, one which acts as the ground for the also-complex modern reception of the character of the Queen of Sheba.

4. New light on the Hebrew Bible

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy H. Lim
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Text Types ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Biblical Texts

‘New light on the Hebrew Bible’ investigates what the Dead Sea Scrolls can tell us about the textual diversity and canonicity of the Hebrew Bible. Before the scrolls were discovered, Hebrew manuscripts generally dated back to the medieval period. The Qumran texts, dating to between 250 bce and 100 ce, tell us what the Bible was like before its standardization. Errors from copying gave rise to different text-types, and the Dead Sea Scrolls showed that there were far more text-types than previously thought. Variations in readings of the Hebrew Bible and other ancient sources show there was greater diversity in biblical texts than previously realized.

The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Meṭaṭron in the Godhead

1994 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Abrams
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Physical Characteristics ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Jewish Mysticism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Literary Device ◽  
The One

One of the central aspects of Jewish theology, and Jewish mysticism in particular, is the conception of the nature of God's being and the appearance of the divine before humanity. No one view has dominated the spectrum of Jewish interpretations, since the biblical text is the only common frame for the wide variety of speculations. At issue is whether the one God depicted in the Hebrew Bible is manifest to humans directly or through the agency of a divine, semidivine, or created power. Even the nature of angelic figures in the Bible remains a matter of debate, both in its original context and through later interpretations. Does the angelic figure physically represent God's form, or is it a literary device that metaphorically describes God's presence? The same is true of divine anthropomorphism in the Bible. Do the descriptions of God's hands or feet imply that God possesses a definite shape similar to that of human bodies, or should these descriptions also be viewed metaphorically, reinforcing a similar view to that expressed about angelic figures: no physical characteristics can be attributed to anything heavenly or divine? Finally, how does this accord with the spatial manifestation of God in the tabernacle through hiskavodor glory?

Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Lipka
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Body ◽  
Methodological Foundation ◽  
Women In The Bible ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Biblical Texts

There was relatively little scholarship focusing on women, gender, and sexuality in the Hebrew Bible until the 1970s, when modern feminist biblical scholarship first started to emerge as an outgrowth of second-wave feminism. In the 1980s, feminist biblical criticism fully blossomed as a discipline, inspiring a large body of work focusing on issues such as the depiction, treatment, and roles of women, the interrelationship between gender and power, and views toward women’s sexuality in biblical texts, and what can be discerned about various aspects of the lives of women in ancient Israel based on biblical and other evidence. In the past few decades, as the body of scholarship on women in the Bible has continued to grow, it has also broadened its scope as new methodologies and hermeneutical approaches have been introduced. Inspired in part by the rise of third wave feminism in the 1990s, there has also been an increasing amount of scholarship focusing on the intersection of race, class, and ethnicity with gender and sexuality in biblical texts, and an increasing awareness of the need to include more voices from the “two-thirds” world in the scholarly dialogue. In addition to being subjects covered by those engaging in feminist criticism, gender and sexuality studies both emerged as discrete fields in the 1980s, as biblical scholars, building upon the methodological foundation established by theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault, began to examine the social, cultural, and historical construction of gender and sexuality in biblical texts. The last few decades have seen a flourishing of scholarship on gender and sexuality in the Bible that continues to both build on these foundations and go beyond them, as scholars incorporate new approaches and methodologies from the areas of gender theory, queer studies, masculinities studies, and, most recently, intersex studies into their work, offering innovative and incisive readings that shed a vivid new light on seemingly familiar biblical texts.

Desert Oral Traditions

2018 ◽  
pp. 167-203
Author(s):  
Clinton Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Song Of The Sea ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The Bedouin oral literary product—proverbs, genealogies, tribal stories, and poetry—shares many likenesses with these genres as they appear in the Hebrew Bible. This commonality pertains, even though some Bedouin oral traditions survived until the late twentieth century CE, when they were still heard recited, while the biblical traditions existed orally only until their ancient transcription in the Bible. This chapter brings examples from the various genres of oral tradition in both societies, comparing them in form, content, background, and initiative, and offering insights into their use in the biblical texts. Bedouin poetry also sheds light on the Bible’s oldest poems, “The Song of the Sea” and “The Song of Deborah.”

Same-Sex Relations in the Biblical World

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore W. Jennings
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Saint Paul ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Biblical Texts

While the Bible is often understood to forbid same-sex love, a closer examination reveals a wide variety of forms of same-sex love that are presupposed and even celebrated in these texts. After demonstrating that biblical texts taken to prohibit same-sex love have been misunderstood, the chapter explores multiple forms of same-sex love in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Love between women in the story of Ruth, the expressions of warrior love in the stories of David and the centurion who came to Jesus, the transgendering of Israel in the prophets and the transgendering of Jesus and Saint Paul in the New Testament, even tales of sexual awakening and violence, provide a rich tapestry of same-sex love exhibited in biblical literature giving deeper meaning to the message of divine love which for Christians is exemplified by Jesus.

Spinoza’s Biblical Criticism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Divine Election ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Way

Chapter 1 homes in on Spinoza as a Bible critic. Based on existing historiography, it parses the main relevant historical contexts in which Spinoza came to articulate his analysis of the Bible: the Sephardi community of Amsterdam, freethinking philosophers, and the Reformed Church. It concludes with a detailed examination of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, Spinoza’s major work of biblical criticism. Along the way I highlight themes for which Spinoza appealed to the biblical texts themselves: the textual unity of the Bible, and the biblical concepts of prophecy, divine election, and religious laws. The focus is on the biblical arguments for these propositions, and the philological choices that Spinoza made that enabled him to appeal to those specific biblical texts. This first chapter lays the foundation for the remainder of the book, which examines issues of biblical philology and interpretation discussed among the Dutch Reformed contemporaries of Spinoza.

Sin and Expiation

2020 ◽  
pp. 287-300
Author(s):  
David Janzen
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts

Expiation refers to a ritual attempt to deal with sin, and while in the Hebrew Bible it can include such things as prayer and acts of mourning, we most frequently find it manifested in sacrifice. Biblical texts rarely explain how sacrifice functions in relation to sin, but sacrifice is described at greatest length in the Priestly writing, particularly in Leviticus 1–7, which has been described as a manual of sacrifice. Even here, however, P does not provide a theory of sacrificial expiation—does not, that is, explain how or why sacrifice functions as the proper ritual response to sin. Jacob Milgrom’s re-creation of the worldview that stands behind P’s understanding of sacrifice claims that the Priestly tradents understood sin as creating a miasma of impurity that polluted the sancta, and saw the blood of the sin or purification offering as a ritual detergent that cleansed the sanctuary. If we read the Priestly narrative without trying to reconstruct this worldview, but look rather for the ways in which P portrays sacrifice and expiation, we see that sacrifice functions as a way for Israelites to publically acknowledge their sin and to signal that they have no intentions of violating God’s commandments again. Part of this ritual message involves honoring God as sovereign, thus also acknowledging God’s right to command and indicating the sacrificers’ awareness that they must act as loyal subjects to their divine sovereign.

Reading the Bible from Below in the Era of Globalization

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Rainer Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Asynchronous Development ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Globalized World

It is evident that the world of the Bible is pre-modern and thus distinct from the globalized civilization. This chronological gap challenges readers, whether they are feminist or not. Mainly three attitudes can be observed among scholarly and ordinary readers. For some readers, the Bible is a document of the losers of a historical process of modernization that already began in ancient Israel. For other readers, the Bible is outdated and of no use to confront the challenges of globalization. A third readerly position challenges both of these views. This essay offers four arguments to orient biblical readers in the contemporary globalized world. First, the essay posits that globalization is an asynchronous development. Thus, even today, most people living in the impoverished regions of the world face conditions similar to those dominant in the Bible. Second, the essay asserts that women are the first victims in biblical times and still nowadays. Third, the essay maintains that biblical texts display social relations that still unveil contemporary relations. Fourth, the essay suggests that intercultural Bible readings give hope, as they nurture biblical readings from “below” to strengthen people to overcome the fatal consequences of today’s globalization.

Teaching the Bible and Popular Media as Part of Contemporary Rape Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 423-439
Author(s):  
Beatrice J. W. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cultural Myths ◽  
Biblical Texts

This essay explores pedagogical strategies for addressing rape culture in biblical studies courses, employing Genesis 34 and Judges 19–21 as primary texts. The first section discusses the nature of popular culture and its impact on gender. The following four sections highlight cultural myths about sexual assault by focusing on significant biblical texts and incorporating aspects of popular media to facilitate conversations about rape culture. The conclusion summarizes the main points and encourage further studies that combine the study of popular media and biblical texts. Overall, the essay contributes to the reading and teaching of the Bible within contemporary rape culture so that students become critical interpreters of biblical texts, as they become resistant readers of past and present rape culture.

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