Scribal Discourses in Second Temple Biblical Literature

Zusatztext

The contributors to this volume investigate the scribal communities and literary practices that shaped the formation of the Hebrew Bible during the late Achaemenid-Persian and early Hellenistic periods, with particular attention to scribal activity in Yehud/Judea and the broader southern Levant. Drawing on redaction criticism, intertextual analysis, and socio-historical contextualization, the contributors collectively advance the thesis that biblical literature emerged not from solitary authorship or linear editorial progression, but from sustained negotiation among competing and collaborating scribal circles embedded in specific institutional, political, and theological contexts. The volume proceeds in two movements: methodological reflection on how scribal ideologies and practices are identified in biblical and post-biblical texts, followed by case studies examining concrete instances of scribal discourse across the Pentateuch and prophetic literature. The studies converge on a central claim: textual plurality was a structural feature of Second Temple scriptural transmission, not an aberration - as analysis of the competing redactional layers in Deuteronomy, Numbers, Genesis, the prophetic corpus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrates. The relationship between Judean and Samarian scribal circles - whether characterized by rivalry, family ties, or negotiated compromise - emerges as a generative axis of inquiry. The contributors also examine how post-exilic circumstances, including diaspora, colonial administration, and priestly competition, left identifiable traces in Pentateuchal and prophetic redaction. By bringing together specialists across previously compartmentalized subdisciplines, they model an integrative approach to Fortschreibung, theocratic redaction, and the social history of Scripture.

Autorenportrait

Jaeyoung Jeon (Herausgegeben von) Born 1972; 2004 MA from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rothberg International School; 2013 PhD from Tel Aviv University; Research Associate at Collège de France. Louis C. Jonker (Herausgegeben von) Born 1962; BA, HonsBA, MA, BTh, LicTheol and DTh from the University of Stellenbosch; Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at the University of Stellenbosch. Katharina Pyschny (Herausgegeben von) Born 1984; 2007 BA; 2009 Diplom; 2015 PhD from the University of Bochum, Germany; Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Graz, Austria.

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