Jens Schröter

Konrad Schmid

The Bible is full of ancient texts long predating the assembly of Judaism's and Christianity's sacred books. Why these texts, and how were they transformed on the journey from folk tale to holy writ? Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter unearth the history, in the process overturning assumptions about the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture

The Making of the Bible

Der Enthüllungsjournalist Bogner hat seine Geliebte an den skrupellosen Polizisten Feiler verloren und seither Material über die dilettantischen Ermittlungen in Feilers Abteilung "Leib und Leben" gesammelt. Bogners Dateien fallen einer selbstbewussten Polizistin in die Hände, die an ihrer Karriere arbeitet. Während Feiler in einer zermürbenden Ehekrise steckt, wartet Bogner auf den entscheidenden Fehler seines Kontrahenten. Eine schräge Kriminalsatire mit einer geballten Ladung Komik.

Kriminalsatire

Pseudo

Thomas Römer

Axel Bühler

Within the context of the Torah, the Joseph story can be read as a transition that explains why Jacob and his family came to Egypt. However, if one looks at other texts of the Hebrew Bible, there is no mention of the Joseph story; instead, the arrival of the Israelites is said to be the result of the decision of a "father" or of "fathers" to go down do Egypt. Indeed, there are very few references to Joseph at all in the whole Hebrew Bible. Apparently, the Joseph story is not necessary for explaining why the Israelites found themselves in Egypt. The question therefore arises: Why was this story written, when, and for what audience? This volume offers an overview of the current discussion on the origins, composition, and historical contexts behind the Joseph narrative. There is a tendency to date the story (or its original version) to the Persian period, but this volume includes divergent voices about this issue. The volume also shows that scholarly discussion about the historical location of the Joseph story requires to bring together Egyptologists and biblical scholars.

The Joseph Story Between Egypt and Israel

Thomas B. Dozeman

Baruch J. Schwartz

The present volume contains a collection of articles from an international conference in Zürich that brought together leading voices from North America, Europe, and Israel to evaluate the present state of research on the composition of the Pentateuch. The aim of the conference was to clarify differences in methodology and to identify points of convergence in the present state of pentateuchal research as a basis for further discussion. "The essays in this volume provide important insights about the way toward a better understanding of the Pentateuch's literary development."Angela Roskop Erisman in Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.3 (2013), p. 551-553

International Perspectives on Current Research

The Pentateuch

Konrad Schmid is a Swiss biblical scholar who belongs to a larger group of Continental researchers proposing new directions in the study of the Pentateuch. In this volume, a translation of his Erzväter und Exodus, Schmid argues that the ancestor tradition in Genesis and the Moses story in Exodus were two competing traditions of Israel’s origins and were not combined until the time of the Priestly Code—that is, the early Persian period. Schmid interacts with the long tradition of European scholarship on the Hebrew Bible but departs from some of the main tenets of the Documentary Hypothesis: he argues that the pre-Priestly material in both text blocks is literarily and theologically so divergent that their present linkage is more appropriately interpreted as the result of a secondary redaction than as thematic variation stemming from J’s oral prehistory. He dates Genesis–2 Kings to the Persian period and considers it a redactional work that, in its present shape, is a historical introduction to the message of future hope presented in the prophetic corpus of Isaiah-Malachi. Scholars and students alike will be pleased that this translation makes Schmid’s important work readily available in English, both for the contributions made by Schmid and the summary of continental interpretation that he presents. In this edition, some passages have been expanded or modified in order to clarify issues or to engage with more-recent scholarship. The notes and bibliography have also been updated. Dr. Schmid is Professor of Old Testament and Early Judaism at the University of Zürich.

Israel's Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible

Genesis and the Moses Story

Christoph Riedweg

The biblical story of paradise (Genesis 2-3) is probably one of the best known texts in world literature. It has had a rich reception history over many centuries. Genesis 2-3 formulates fundamental premises and problems of human self-understanding in the Western world. The biblical text of Genesis 2-3 itself has almost been buried under its traditional interpretations. In the Christian realm, it is commonly known as the story of Adam, Eve, the apple, the fall and the punishment of humankind with mortality. However, only Eve is really present in the biblical text, all the other elements are the result of a productive history of reception in later periods. The forbidden fruit is never identified in terms of botany. It was the Latin reception history that transformed it into an apple (malum), because evil (malum) came into the world through it. The so-called fall is not described in terms of sin in Genesis 2-3, since sin is mentioned for the first time in the Bible in Genesis 4:6-7, and the first human beings are made mortal from the very beginning, as their formation out of dust and the formulation of Gen. 2:16-17 as a traditional legal sentence implying death penalty indicate. Thus the penalty for eating from the forbidden fruit is death, not mortality. However, the meaning of the story has been substantially transformed in this point throughout the centuries, and it is claimed that mortality is the result of the fall. The authors of this volume explain both the theological profiles of the biblical text and its consequences. Its contributions stem from the fields of Biblical Studies, Religious Studies, Art History, Jewish Studies, Classical Studies, the History of Christianity and Philosophy.

The Biblical Story of Paradise (Genesis 2-3) and Its Reception History

Beyond Eden

Reinhard G. Kratz

Thomas Krüger

In this collection of essays the innerbiblical exegesis of the Old Testament is reexamined from various angles.

Festschrift für Odil Hannes Steck zu seinem 65. Geburtstag

Schriftauslegung in der Schrift

The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation

A Farewell to the Yahwist?

Jörg Frey

Ursula Schattner-Rieser

Die samaritanischen Überlieferungen finden in der Bibelwissenschaft nach wie vor zu wenig Beachtung. Der vorliegende Band mit Beiträgen eines 2010 in Zürich abgehaltenen Symposiums stellt daher die Geschichte der Samaritaner und die Überlieferungen über sie in den biblischen Quellen einerseits und die Perspektiven auf die biblische, frühjüdische und frühchristliche Geschichte in den samaritanischen Quellen andererseits gegenüber. Die Beiträge reichen von der Bedeutung des Samaritanischen Pentateuchs und dem Verhältnis des Garizim-Tempels zum Jerusalemer Tempel über die wechselseitigen Ursprungserzählungen, die samaritanische Geschichte in der Alexanderzeit, das Bild der Samaritaner im Neuen Testament und das Bild Jesu und der frühen Christen in samaritanischen Quellen bis hin zur antisamaritanischen Polemik der Rabbinen und den Religionsgesprächen in arabischer Zeit. Durch die wechselseitige Wahrnehmung biblischer bzw. frühjüdischer und samaritanischer Quellen sollen neue Diskursräume eröffnet und Impulse für die weitere Analyse und Auswertung der samaritanischen Quellen gegeben werden.

Historische und literarische Wechselwirkungen zwischen biblischen und samaritanischen Traditionen / Historical and Literary Interactions between Biblical and Samaritan Traditions

Die Samaritaner und die Bibel / The Samaritans and the Bible

The authoritative new account of the Bible’s origins, illuminating the 1,600-year tradition that shaped the Christian and Jewish holy books as millions know them today. The Bible as we know it today is best understood as a process, one that begins in the tenth century BCE. In this revelatory account, a world-renowned scholar of Hebrew scripture joins a foremost authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Christian scriptural histories, as well as the underappreciated contest between them, from which the Bible arose. Recent scholarship has overturned popular assumptions about Israel’s past, suggesting, for instance, that the five books of the Torah were written not by Moses but during the reign of Josiah centuries later. The sources of the Gospels are also under scrutiny. Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter reveal the long, transformative journeys of these and other texts en route to inclusion in the holy books. The New Testament, the authors show, did not develop in the wake of an Old Testament set in stone. Rather the two evolved in parallel, in conversation with each other, ensuring a continuing mutual influence of Jewish and Christian traditions. Indeed, Schmid and Schröter argue that Judaism may not have survived had it not been reshaped in competition with early Christianity. A remarkable synthesis of the latest Old and New Testament scholarship, The Making of the Bible is the most comprehensive history yet told of the world’s best-known literature, revealing its buried lessons and secrets.

Hindy Najman

Jeremiah’s Scriptures focuses on the composition of the biblical book of Jeremiah and its dynamic afterlife in ancient Jewish traditions. The papers in this volume consider Jeremiah’s scriptures from philological, interpretive and historical perspectives in biblical and ancient Jewish sub-fields.

Production, Reception, Interaction, and Transformation

Jeremiah’s Scriptures

"Wir werden sehen, was von uns nach dem halben Jahr überlebt hat." Eine junge Frau sucht ihr seelisches Gleichgewicht in Afrika. Ein enttäuschter Mann wird zum Tramper durch Mitteleuropa. Ein zufällig entdecktes Tagebuch öffnet ihm die Augen. Eine beschädigte Archenmuschel führt zu keiner Spur.

Roman

Der Glanz der Archenmuschel

Zehn Tage vor der Parlamentswahl: Umfragen sehen die neue Frauenpartei an erster Stelle. Der Spitzenkandidat der Regierungspartei verschwindet spurlos. In einem Beichtstuhl liegt nach der Wahl eine Tote. Schön wie die Sünde. Nur mit extravaganten Dessous bekleidet. Zwei Fälle, die den Tinnitus von Kommissar Julius Nidda ankurbeln. Die erste Spur führt zum mächtigsten Unternehmer des Landes. Ein Politkrimi, der in vielen Ländern spielen könnte.

Kriminalroman

Zu schön für die Fische

Matthias Krieg

Wer allein oder in einer Gruppe die Bibel liest und dabei fachliche Begleitung schatzt, kann sich an diesen Bibelkommentar halten: Im Verhaltnis eins zu eins werden die Texte der Bibel Abschnitt fur Abschnitt ausgelegt. Wissenschaftlich ausgewiesene Theologinnen und Theologen unterstutzen so die Lekture der Bibel und das Gesprach mit wertvollen exegetischen Hinweisen. Essays zu theologischen Begriffen sind am Rand eingefugt. Der Kommentar ist illustriert mit Nachzeichnungen archaologischer Funde, die Aussagen des Textes veranschaulichen.

Konrad Schmid

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