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Biblical Hermeneutics
Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics, which involves the study of principles of interpretation, both theory and methodology, for all nonverbal and verbal communication forms. While Jewish and Christian biblical hermeneutics have some overlap and dialogue, they have distinctly separate interpretative traditions. Jewish Traditional Talmudical hermeneutics (Hebrew: approximately, מידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן) refers to Jewish methods for the investigation and determination of the meaning of the Hebrew Bible, as well as rules by which Jewish law could be established. One well-known summary of these principles appears in the Baraita of Rabbi Ishmael. Methods by which the Talmud explores the meaning of scripture: :* grammar and exegesis :* the interpretation of certain words and letters and apparently superfluous or missing words or letters, and pref ...
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Biblical Canon
A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Ancient Greek, Greek , meaning 'ruler, rule' or 'measuring stick'. The use of ''canon'' to refer to a set of religious scriptures was first used by David Ruhnken, in the 18th century. Various biblical canons have developed through debate and agreement on the part of the religious authorities of their respective faiths and denominations. Some books, such as the Jewish–Christian gospels, have been excluded from various canons altogether, but many Antilegomena, disputed books are considered to be biblical apocrypha or deuterocanonical by many, while some denominations may consider them fully canonical. Differences exist between the Hebrew Bible and Christian biblical canons, although the majority of manuscripts are shared in common. Different religious groups include different books in t ...
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Oral Torah
According to Rabbinic Judaism, the Oral Torah or Oral Law () are statutes and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Five Books of Moses, the Written Torah (), and which are regarded by Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jews as prescriptive and given at the same time. This holistic Jewish code of conduct encompasses a wide swathe of rituals, worship practices, Godman and interpersonal relationships, from Kashrut, dietary laws to Sabbath and festival observance to marital relations, agricultural practices, and civil claims and damages. According to Rabbinic Jewish tradition, the Oral Torah was oral tradition, passed down orally in an unbroken chain from generation to generation until its contents were finally committed to writing following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, when Jewish civilization was faced with an existential threat, by virtue of the dispersion of the Jewish people. The major repositories of the Oral Torah are the ''Mishnah'', compiled between 2 ...
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Existentialism
Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and value, existentialist thought often includes concepts such as existential crises, angst, courage, and freedom. Existentialism is associated with several 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who shared an emphasis on the human subject, despite often profound differences in thought. Among the 19th-century figures now associated with existentialism are philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, all of whom critiqued rationalism and concerned themselves with the problem of meaning. The word ''existentialism'', however, was not coined until the mid 20th century, during which it became most associated with contemporaneous philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beau ...
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Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (; ; 20 August 1884 – 30 July 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early 20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic of liberal theology, Bultmann instead argued for an existentialist interpretation of the New Testament. His hermeneutical approach to the New Testament led him to be a proponent of dialectical theology. Bultmann is known for his belief that the historical analysis of the New Testament is both futile and unnecessary, given that the earliest Christian literature showed little interest in specific locations. Bultmann argued that all that matters is the "thatness," not the "whatness" of Jesus, i.e. only ''that'' Jesus existed, preached, and died by crucifixion matters, not what happened throughout his life. Bultmann relied on demythologization, an approach interpreting the mythological elements in the New Testament existentially. B ...
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Theology
Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deity, deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and to reveal themselves to humankind. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument (Spirituality, experiential, philosophy, philosophical, ethnography, ethnographic, history, historical, and others) to help understanding, understand, explanation, explain, test, critique, defend or promote any myriad of List of religious topics, religious topics. As in philosophy of ethics and case law, arguments ...
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Elohist
According to the documentary hypothesis, the Elohist (or simply E) is one of four source documents underlying the Torah, together with the Jahwist (or Yahwist), the Deuteronomist and the Priestly source. The Elohist is so named because of its repeated use of the word ''Elohim'' to refer to the Israelite God. The Elohist source is characterized by, among other things, an abstract view of God, using Horeb instead of Sinai for the mountain where Moses received the laws of Israel and the use of the phrase "fear of God". It habitually locates ancestral stories in the north, especially Ephraim, and the documentary hypothesis holds that it must have been composed in that region, possibly in the second half of the 9th century BCE. Because of its highly fragmentary nature, most scholars now question the existence of the Elohist source as a coherent independent document. Instead, the E material is viewed as consisting of various fragments of earlier narratives that are incorporated i ...
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Jahwist
The Jahwist, or Yahwist, often abbreviated J, is one of the most widely recognized sources of the Pentateuch (Torah), together with the Deuteronomist, the Priestly source and the Elohist. The existence of the Jahwist text is somewhat controversial, with a number of scholars, especially in Europe, denying that it ever existed as a coherent independent document. Nevertheless, many scholars do assume its existence. The Jahwist is so named because of its characteristic use of the term Yahweh ( German: ''Jahwe''; Hebrew: ; English: ''Jehovah'') for God. Background Modern scholars agree that separate sources underlie the Pentateuch, but there is much disagreement on how these sources were used by the authors to write the first five books of the Bible. The documentary hypothesis, that priestly editors wove several independent source narratives into the single text of the Pentateuch, dominated much of the 20th century, but the consensus surrounding this hypothesis has now broken down. ...
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Deuteronomist
The Deuteronomist, abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D, may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy, or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deuteronomistic history of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and also the Book of Jeremiah. The adjectives "Deuteronomic" and "Deuteronomistic" are sometimes used interchangeably; if they are distinguished, then the first refers to the core of Deuteronomy and the second to all of Deuteronomy and the history. The Deuteronomist is one of the sources identified through source criticism as underlying much of the Hebrew Bible. Among source-critical scholars, it is generally agreed that the Deuteronomistic history originated independently of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers (based on the Priestly source and the Jahwist), and independently of the historical Books of Chronicles. Most scholars trace all or most of Deuteronomistic hist ...
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Priestly Source
The Priestly source (or simply P) is perhaps the most widely recognized of the sources underlying the Torah, both stylistically and theologically distinct from other material in it. It is considered by most scholars as the latest of all sources, and “meant to be a kind of redactional layer to hold the entirety of the Pentateuch together,” It includes a set of claims that are contradicted by non-Priestly passages and therefore uniquely characteristic: no sacrifice before the institution is ordained by Yahweh (God) at Sinai, the exalted status of Aaron and the priesthood, and the use of the divine title El Shaddai before God reveals his name to Moses, to name a few. In general, the Priestly work is concerned with priestly matters – ritual law, the origins of shrines and rituals, and genealogies – all expressed in a formal, repetitive style. It stresses the rules and rituals of worship, and the crucial role of priests, expanding considerably on the role given to Aaron (all ...
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Supplementary Hypothesis
In biblical studies, the supplementary hypothesis proposes that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was derived from a series of direct additions to an existing corpus of work. It serves as a revision to the earlier documentary hypothesis, which proposed that independent and complete narratives were later combined by redactors to create the Pentateuch. The supplementary hypothesis was developed over the 19th and 20th centuries, primarily deriving from a dissatisfaction with the adequacy of the documentary hypothesis, and came to a head in the 1970s with the publication of works by John Van Seters, Rolf Rendtorff, and Hans Heinrich Schmid. In their book, ''An Introduction to the Bible'', Kugler and Hartin argue that "the work of John Van Seters best reflects the revival of the supplementary hypothesis." Van Seters' summation of the hypothesis accepts "three sources or literary strata within the Pentateuch," which have come to be known as the Yahwist (J), the Priest ...
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Documentary Hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Book of Genesis, Genesis, Book of Exodus, Exodus, Leviticus, Book of Numbers, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). A version of the documentary hypothesis, frequently identified with the German scholar Julius Wellhausen, was almost universally accepted for most of the 20th century. It posited that the Pentateuch is a compilation of four originally independent documents: the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly source, Priestly sources, frequently referred to by their initials.hence the alternative name ''JEDP'' for the documentary hypothesis The first of these, J, was dated to the Solomon, Solomonic period (c. 950 BCE). E was dated somewhat later, in the 9th century BCE, and D was dated just before the reign of Josiah, King Josiah, in the 7th or 8th century BCE. Finally, P was generally dated to the tim ...
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Source Criticism (biblical Studies)
Source criticism, in biblical criticism, refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the authors and redactors of a biblical text. It originated in the 18th century with the work of Jean Astruc, who adapted the methods already developed for investigating the texts of classical antiquity (in particular, Homer's Iliad) to his own investigation into the sources of the Book of Genesis. It was subsequently considerably developed by German scholars in what was known as "the higher criticism", a term no longer in widespread use. The ultimate aim of these scholars was to reconstruct the history of the biblical text and also the religious history of ancient Israel. Principles In general, the closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened. In the Bible where a variety of earlier sources have been quoted, the historian seeks to identify and date those sources used by biblical w ...
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