Lamentations Through the Centuries E-Book

Paul M. Joyce

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Blackwell Bible Commentaries
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 449

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

"I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is informative, thought-provoking, and - despite being a commentary - holds the reader's attention. It made me appreciate Lamentations in a new way. To be recommended." The Swedish Exegetical Yearbook 2014, 1 October 2014 One of the shortest books in the Bible, Lamentations exercises a disproportionately powerful cultural influence. As an unflinching account of the devastation wreaked by war, it has been called upon again and again by Jews, Christians, and others in their responses to catastrophes as varied as the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, the Great Fire of London, the Holocaust and 9/11. Covering two-and-a-half millennia of liturgy and literature, theology and psychology, art, music and film, this volume explores the astonishing variety of cultural and religious responses to Lamentations, taking in the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Yehudah Halevy, John Calvin, and Thomas Tallis, as well as the startling interpretations of Marc Chagall, Cynthia Ozick, Alice Miller, and Zimbabwean junk sculpture. Viewed through this kaleidoscope of sources, the ancient biblical text acquires a vital and resonant new life. Lamentations Through the Centuries is published within the Wiley Blackwell Bible Commentaries series. Further information about this innovative reception history series is available at www.bbibcomm.info.

Leseprobe

Contents

Series Editors’ Preface

Abbreviations

List of Figures

Introduction

The Book of Lamentations

Who Wrote Lamentations?

The Language of Lamentations: Translations and Versions

What Makes Lamentations So Generative and Fertile?

Timely Lament: Why Is Lamentations Read and Studied Now?

The Contexts in Which Lamentations Has Been Most Often ‘Received’

Reception History

Who Writes Reception History?

Who Reads Reception History?

The Ethics of Reception

Lenses for Lamentations: Types of Media and Their Implications for Reception History

Reception Exegesis

Interpretation and Context

The Structure and Method of This Commentary

The Authors of This Commentary

Lamentations 1

Gendered Lament

Naming Necessity

Alef-Bet City

Music and Church Politics

Exegetical Conversations

Lamentations in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Lamenting Intertextually

Holy Week Polyphony

Mourning Jerusalem in Tel Aviv

The Reluctant Propagandist?

Lamentations at the Races

Mourning Jerusalem in Rome

Sing-along Messiah

Unforgiveable?

Reformed and Humanist

Sacred and Profane?

Body Language

Isaiah Reading Lamentations?

Lamentations 2

Babylonians and Cossacks

Flames of Wrath

Lamenting Cities

Interfaith Lament?

Short Story, Long History

Beyond Words?

False Prophets and Precious Vessels

New Testament Perspectives

God’s Tears

In Front of the Children

Slave Trading

Backchat

History Repeats Itself

Lamentations 3

Christological Lamentations

The Soul’s Dark Night

Festivals of Darkness and Light

She’ll Sit in the Dark

Lamenting Vienna

Remembering Destruction in the Midst of Rebuilding

The Curse of Lamentations

The Afflicted Man as Proto-Martyr?

Learning How to Lose

No Widow but an Abandoned Bride

New Life in the Holy Land?

Beginning the Christian Year

Hearing the Voice of the Seeing Child

The Gospel according to Lamentations?

Metaphysical Laments

Painting Lamentations

Lamenting the War against Terror

Lamenting the Expulsion from Spain

Out of Africa

Lamentations 4

A Girl by Any Other Name

Who Really Destroyed the Temple?

Weighed in the Balance?

Balkan Laments

Worse than Sodom?

No Bread of Life

The Enemy at the Gate

The Untouchables

Queer Readings

Messianic Laments?

Charles, King and Martyr

Who Is Edom?

Lamentations 5

Forms of Lament

Laying the Blame

Found in Translation?

Cultural Memory?

Announcing Death

Protesting against God

All’s Well that Ends Well

The Bitter End

Afterword

Bibliography

Author Index

Subject index

Praise for Lamentations Through the Centuries

“In this engrossing investigation of Lamentations – a splendid addition to the Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries series – Paul M. Joyce and Diana Lipton draw on a fascinating array of visual, literary, musical, scholarly, religious and secular responses. The authors’ adoption of a midrashic organisational model and emphasis on the contribution reception can make to exegesis, together with the range of material surveyed and discerning critical treatment, make this volume an indispensable resource for scholars and students of the book of Lamentations, for those interested in the manifold ways it has been interpreted and appropriated, and for anyone curious about reception history in general and what it can teach us not only about the Bible’s influence but also about the biblical text itself.”

J. Cheryl Exum, University of Sheffield

“Mourning the physical Jerusalem is the business of the biblical Lamentations. Showing us how this is done in the book and in its reception history, over the ages, is the business of the present volume. The volume’s value as guide through mourning is greatly enhanced by its inception as a Jewish-Christian authorly cooperation. Jerusalem the symbolical is thus well served; and we, the readers, those who nurture our own Jerusalems, gain a guide to mourning – as much necessary, perhaps, as any guide for joy.”

Athalya Brenner, University of Amsterdam

Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries

Series Editors: John Sawyer, Christopher Rowland, Judith Kovacs, David M. Gunn

John Through the CenturiesMark EdwardsRevelation Through the CenturiesJudith Kovacs & Christopher RowlandJudges Through the CenturiesDavid M. GunnExodus Through the CenturiesScott M. LangstonEcclesiastes Through the CenturiesEric S. ChristiansonEsther Through the CenturiesJo CarruthersPsalms Through the Centuries: Volume ISusan GillinghamGalatians Through the CenturiesJohn RichesPastoral Epistles Through the CenturiesJay Twomey1 & 2 Thessalonians Through the CenturiesAnthony C. ThiseltonSix Minor Prophets Through the CenturiesRichard Coggins and Jin H. HanLamentations Through the CenturiesPaul M. Joyce and Diana LiptonLamentations Through the CenturiesPaul M. Joyce and Diana Lipton

This edition first published 2013© 2013 Paul M. Joyce and Diana Lipton

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Hardback ISBN: 9780631219781

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: William Blake, Satan going forth from the presence of the Lord, and Job’s charity, from the Book of Job, 1825. © Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge / The Bridgeman Art Library.Cover design by www.cyandesign.co.uk

For Sinéad and Olivia

and

For Jacob and Jonah

Series Editors’ Preface

The Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries series, the first to be devoted ­primarily to the reception history of the Bible, is based on the premise that how people have interpreted, and been influenced by, a sacred text like the Bible is often as interesting and historically important as what it originally meant. The series emphasizes the influence of the Bible on literature, art, music, and film, its role in the evolution of religious beliefs and practices, and its impact on social and political developments. Drawing on work in a variety of disciplines, it is designed to provide a convenient and scholarly means of access to material until now hard to find, and a much-needed resource for all those interested in the influence of the Bible on Western culture.

Until quite recently this whole dimension was for the most part neglected by biblical scholars. The goal of a commentary was primarily if not exclusively to get behind the centuries of accumulated Christian and Jewish tradition to one single meaning, normally identified with the author’s original intention.

The most important and distinctive feature of the Wiley-Blackwell Commentaries is that they will present readers with many different ­interpretations of each text, in such a way as to heighten their awareness of what a text, especially a sacred text, can mean and what it can do, what it has meant and what it has done, in the many contexts in which it operates.

The Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries will consider patristic, rabbinic (where relevant), and medieval exegesis as well as insights from various types of modern criticism, acquainting readers with a wide variety of interpretative techniques. As part of the history of interpretation, questions of source, date, authorship, and other historical-critical and archaeological issues will be ­discussed, but since these are covered extensively in existing commentaries, such references will be brief, serving to point readers in the direction of readily accessible literature where they can be followed up.

Original to this series is the consideration of the reception history of specific biblical books arranged in commentary format. The chapter-by-chapter ­arrangement ensures that the biblical text is always central to the discussion. Given the wide influence of the Bible and the richly varied appropriation of each biblical book, it is a difficult question which interpretations to include. While each volume will have its own distinctive point of view, the guiding ­principle for the series as a whole is that readers should be given a ­representative sampling of material from different ages, with emphasis on interpretations that have been especially influential or historically significant. Though commentators will have their preferences among the different interpretations, the material will be presented in such a way that readers can make up their own minds on the value, morality, and validity of particular interpretations.

The series encourages readers to consider how the biblical text has been interpreted down the ages and seeks to open their eyes to different uses of the Bible in contemporary culture. The aim is to write a series of scholarly ­commentaries that draw on all the insights of modern research to illustrate the rich interpretative potential of each biblical book.

John SawyerChristopher RowlandJudith KovacsDavid M. Gunn

Abbreviations

ATD

Das Alte Testament Deutsch

BCE

Before the Common Era

BEATAJ

Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des Antiken Judentums

BKAT

Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament

BZAW

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

CE

Common Era

Eng. tr.

English translation

Heb.

Hebrew

ICC

International Critical Commentary

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature

JSOT

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

KAT

Kommentar zum Alten Testament

KJV

King James Version

LXX

Greek Septuagint

LHBOTS

Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies

NCB

New Century Bible

NEB

New English Bible

NJPS

New Jewish Publication Society Version

NRSV

New Revised Standard Version

OBO

Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis

OBT

Overtures to Biblical Theology

OTL

Old Testament Library

RSV

Revised Standard Version

SBL

Society of Biblical Literature

SBT

Studies in Biblical Theology

VT

Vetus Testamentum

VTSup

Supplements to Vetus Testamentum

WBC

Word Biblical Commentary

ZAW

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

List of Figures

Michelangelo, The Prophet Jeremiah, from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican (1508–12). Image: © Bridgeman Art Library, London.Rembrandt van Rijn, Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (1630). Image: © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.Gustave Doré, The People Mourning over the Ruins of Jerusalem (1866). Image: © iStockphoto LP, Calgary, Alberta.Marc Chagall, Pleurs de Jérémie (Jeremiah’s Lamentations) (1956). Chagall ®/© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2012. Image: © RMN-Grand Palais / Gérard Blot / Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice.The Londoners Lamentation (Great Fire of London, 1666). Image: © Early English Books Online.Samira Abbassy, Lamentation (2007). Image: © Samira Abbassy.Marc Chagall, The Capture of Jerusalem (1956). Chagall ®/© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2012.Image: © Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI.Francesco Hayez, Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (1867). Image: © Bridgeman Art Library, London.David Roberts, The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under the Command of Titus (1850).Image: © Bridgeman Art Library, London.Taurai Gondo, Lamentations, wire and wood sculpture.Artist’s impression by Matan Sacofsky.Image: © 2013 Matan Sacofsky.Eikon Basilike: Two examples of title page and frontispiece, dated 1648 and 1713 (Julian Calendar in both cases).Images courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.‘The Crown of our Head has Fallen’. Photograph of public death announcements posted on the streets of Meah Shearim, Jerusalem, April 2012. Image: © Diana Lipton.

Introduction

The Book of Lamentations

The book of Lamentations stands in a long tradition of ancient Near Eastern city-laments, and responds to the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Babylonians in the sixth century BCE. In the Hebrew Bible, Lamentations is found among the five Megillot (‘small scrolls’), in the third category of the canon, the Ketuvim (‘writings’). Lamentations is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah (for more on Jeremiah as author see below and ­commentary sections on Lam 1:1–3, 6, 17, 21; 2:14, 18; 3:1, 25–30, 31–3, 41–2; and 4:20), and in the Christian canon it appears just after Jeremiah, among the books of the Prophets. It consists of five poems, four of which are acrostics based on the twenty-two letters of the alef-bet, the Hebrew alphabet (for more on acrostics see commentary sections on Lam 1:1, 6, 10, 12, 17; 2:18; 3:1, 7–9, 34–36; 4:1; and 5:1). Excellent introductions to the standard historical-critical questions may be found in the commentaries of Provan (1991), Hillers (1992) and Berlin (2002).

Who Wrote Lamentations?

The biblical book of Lamentations is anonymous: the identity of the author or authors of this book is unknown. However, the early and long-standing ­tradition, within both Judaism and Christianity, is that it comes from the prophet Jeremiah. This was encouraged by the probability of a sixth-century BCE setting, by a reference in 2 Chro 35:25 (‘Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a custom in Israel; they are recorded in the Laments’), and by some affinities with the so-called ‘Confessions’ in the book of Jeremiah. The Babylonian Talmud ( 14b–15a) reports that ‘Jeremiah wrote the book that bears his name, the book of Kings and Lamentations’, and the Targum of Lamentations opens with the words, ‘Jeremiah the prophet and high priest said …’. The tradition is reflected also in the headings of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate (a practice carried over even to the English RSV, where an introductory heading reads: ‘The Lamentations of Jeremiah’), and in the location of Lamentations in the Christian canon immediately after the book of Jeremiah.