Informed by the understanding that all texts are intertexts, this work develops and employs a method that utilizes the concept of intertextuality for the purpose of exploring the history of interpretation of a biblical text. With Day One, Genesis 1.1–5, as the primary text, the intertextuality of this biblical text is investigated in its Hebrew (Masoretic Text) and Greek (Septuagint) contexts. The study then broadens to take up the intertextuality of Day One in other Hebrew and Greek texts up to c. 200 CE, moving from Hebrew texts such as Ben Sira and the Dead Sea Scrolls to Greek texts such as Josephus, Philo, the New Testament, and early Christian texts. What emerges from this is a new glimpse of the intertextuality of Day One that provides insight into the complexity of the intertextuality of a biblical text and the role that language plays in intertextuality and interpretation. In addition to the methodological insights that this approach provides to the history of interpretation, the study also sheds light on textual and theological questions that relate to Day One, including the genesis of creatio ex nihilo.

The Dead Sea Scrolls continue to shed ancient light on both the text and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible during the Second Temple period. Among the scrolls are several copies of Genesis dating from the first century BC to the mid-first century AD that contain portions of text from the creation account. These fragmentary copies have provided an unprecedented glimpse into the condition of the text in antiquity and have also provided a unique window into certain scribal practices in the copying of the text. In addition, several texts from Qumran contain the most ancient surviving interpretations of the Genesis creation account, dating from the mid-second century BC to the first century AD. A literary analysis of these texts reveals how ancient Jews interpreted and employed the creation account. These diverse texts address issues such as the creation of various entities (the universe, angels, Eden, humanity), Adam's dominion and knowledge in Eden, God's election of Israel on the first Sabbath, the prohibition in the garden and Adam's rebellion, and the Garden of Eden as an archetype of the sanctuary.

With Day One, Genesis 1.1-5, as a focus and informed by the understanding that all texts are intertexts, S.D. Giere shapes and employs a method that harnesses the idea of intertextuality for the purpose of exploring the history of interpretation of a biblical text. With a unique compilation of intertexts of Gen 1.1-5, the work explores the intertexual reach of Day One in Hebrew and Greek texts up to c. 200 CE. What emerges is a glimpse of the intertextuality of Day One that provides insight into the complexity of the intertextuality of a biblical text and the relationship of intertextuality and interpretation.

A careful and unbiased analysis of how thinkers from church history interpreted the creation narrative in Genesis How literally are we meant to take the creation week of Genesis 1? In this polarizing debate, contemporary interpreters invoke great theologians from history to support their own side, whether that be a young Earth or theistic evolution. The problem lies in trying to force ancient authors into contemporary boxes, as Andrew J. Brown shows in this thought-provoking volume. Covering Philo, Basil, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and more, Brown carefully interprets great thinkers’ readings of Genesis 1 in their intellectual contexts. He then assesses how these authors have been subject to cherry-picking and misappropriation in the trenches of the modern creation debate. By studying the intellectual history of the church in this way—to revisit rather than recruit the ancients—we can enrich our own biblical interpretation. Irenic and magisterial, Brown’s guide will interest both scholars of historical theology and anyone invested in the creation debate.

This book offers a novel approach for the study of law in the Judean Desert Scrolls, using the prism of legal theory. Following a couple of decades of scholarly consensus withdrawing from the "Essene hypothesis," it proposes to revive the term, and suggests employing it for the sectarian movement as a whole, while considering the group that lived in Qumran as the Yahad. It further proposes a new suggestion for the emergence of the Yahad, based on the roles of the Examiner and the Instructor in the two major legal codes, the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. The understanding of Essene law is divided into concepts and practices, in order to emphasize the discrepancy between creed, rhetoric, and practices. The abstract exploration of notions such as time, space, obligation, intention, and retribution, is then compared against the realities of social practices, including admission, initiation, covenant, leadership, reproof, and punishment. The legal analysis yields several new suggestions for the study of the scrolls: first, Amihay proposes to rename the two strands of thought of Jewish law, formerly referred to as "nominalism" and "realism," with the terms "legal essentialism" and "legal formalism." The two laws of admission in the Community Rule are distinguished as two different laws, one of an association for a group as a whole, the other as an admission of an individual. The law of reproof is proven to be an independent legal procedure, rather than a preliminary stage of prosecution. The methodological division in this study of thought and practice provides a nuanced approach for the study of law in general, and religious law in particular.

Based on the lives of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea and the Cairo Genizah have added immeasurably to our knowledge of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The papers collected in this volume compare the evidence of the biblical DSS with manuscripts from the Vienna Papyrus Collection, connected with the Cairo Genizah, as well as late ancient evidence from diverse contexts. The resulting picture is one of a dialectic between textual plurality and fixity: the eventual dominance of the consonantal Masoretic Text over the textual plurality of the Second Temple period, and the secondary diversification of that standardized text through scribal activity.