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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE AS A SCRIPTURE IN HISTORY, CULTURE, AND RELIGION The Bible is a popular subject of study and research, yet biblical studies gives little attention to the reason for its popularity: its religious role as a scripture. Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion integrates the history of the religious interpretation and ritual uses of biblical books into a survey of their rhetoric, composition, and theology in their ancient contexts. Emphasizing insights from comparative studies of different religious scriptures, it combines discussion of the Bible's origins with its cultural history into a coherent understanding of its past and present function as a scripture. A prominent expert on biblical rhetoric and the ritualization of books, James W. Watts describes how Jews and Christians ritualize the Bible by interpreting it, by expressing it in recitations, music, art, and film, and by venerating the physical scroll and book. The first two sections of the book are organized around the Torah and the Gospels--which have been the focus of Jewish and Christian ritualization of scriptures from ancient to modern times--and treat the history of other biblical books in relation to these two central blocks of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. In addition to analyzing the semantic contents of all the Bible's books as persuasive rhetoric, Watts describes their ritualization in the iconic and expressive dimensions in the centuries since they began to function as a scripture, as well as in their origins in ancient Judaism and Christianity. The third section on the cultural history and scriptural function of modern bibles concludes by discussing their influence today and the controversies they have fueled about history, science, race, and gender. Innovative and insightful, Understanding the Bible as a Scripture in History, Culture, and Religion is a groundbreaking introduction to the study of the Bible as a scripture, and an ideal textbook for courses in biblical studies and comparative scripture studies.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
List of Boxes
List of Figures
Preface
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1: Scripture and Ritual
1.1 THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF WRITTEN TEXTS
1.2 RITUALIZING SCRIPTURES IN THREE DIMENSIONS
1.3 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
1.4 MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTING
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
PART 1: THE TORAH AS A SCRIPTURE
CHAPTER 2: Torah and Pentateuch
2.1 THE PENTATEUCH IN THREE DIMENSIONS
2.2 CRIPTURALIZING THE TORAH IN THE TIME OF EZRA
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 3: The Torah's Rhetoric
3.1 THE TORAH'S RHETORIC OF ORIGINS
3.2 AUTHORITY, SANCTIONS, AND READERS
3.3 THE RHETORIC OF THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 4: The Torah's Iconic Dimension
4.1 RITUALIZING THE ICONIC DIMENSION OF SCRIPTURES
4.2 THE PENTATEUCH'S ICONIC DIMENSION AFTER EZRA
4.3 THE PENTATEUCH'S ICONIC DIMENSION BEFORE EZRA
4.4 ANCIENT LOST‐AND‐FOUND BOOKS
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 5: The Torah’s Expressive Dimension
5.1 THE EXPRESSIVE DIMENSION OF SCRIPTURES
5.2 READING TORAH AFTER EZRA
5.3 SONGS AND POETRY IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
5.4 EXPRESSING THE COVENANT: THE PROPHETS
5.5 EXPRESSING TORAH BEFORE EZRA
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 6: The Torah's Semantic Dimension
6.1 INTERPRETING LIFE: WISDOM LITERATURE
6.2 THE TANAK AS A SCRIPTURE
6.3 PROMISES, THREATS, AND APOCALYPTIC
6.4 SCRIPTURALIZING PROPHETS, PSALMS, AND WISDOM
6.5 INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE: SCRIBES AND RABBIS
6.6 IDENTIFYING WITH ISRAEL
6.7 THE PENTATEUCH BEFORE EZRA
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
PART 2: THE GOSPELS AS A SCRIPTURE
CHAPTER 7: Rhetoric About Jesus
7.1 JESUS IN THE GOSPELS
7.2 PAUL’S TEACHINGS ABOUT JESUS CHRIST
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 8: The Rhetoric of the Gospels
8.1 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
8.2 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
8.3 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
8.4 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 9: The Gospels' Iconic Dimension
9.1 IRENAEUS AND THE FOUR GOSPELS
9.2 ICONIC GOSPELS AND BIBLES
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 10: The Gospels' Expressive Dimension
10.1 CHRISTIAN LECTIONARIES
10.2 SINGING CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
10.3 THE LANGUAGES OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
10.4 EXPERT TRANSLATORS
10.5 PORTRAYING JESUS IN VISUAL ART AND MEDIA
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 11: The Gospels' Semantic Dimension
11.1 INTERPRETING JESUS' DEATH
11.2 OTHER ANCIENT GOSPELS
11.3 WOMEN IN THE GOSPELS AND IN ANCIENT CULTURES
11.4 THE GOSPEL BEFORE THE GOSPELS
11.5 WRITING PAUL'S LETTERS
11.6 THE SEARCH FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
PART 3: THE BIBLE AS A SCRIPTURE
CHAPTER 12: The Bible's Iconic Dimension
12.1 PUBLISHING TANAKS AND BIBLES
12.2 RELIC BOOKS
12.3 DECALOGUE TABLETS
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 13: The Bible's Expressive Dimension
13.1 THE BIBLE IN ART
13.2 ILLUSTRATED BIBLES
13.3 BIBLE MAPS
13.4 THE BIBLE IN THEATER AND FILM
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 14: The Bible's Semantic Dimension
14.1 BIBLICAL LAW AND AUTHORITY
14.2 MODERN CONTROVERSIES ABOUT GENESIS
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
CHAPTER 15: The History of the Bible as a Scripture
15.1 SCRIPTURALIZATION AND CANONIZATION
15.2 UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE AS A SCRIPTURE
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
Index of Quotations and Citations of Biblical and Rabbinic Texts
Index of Authors
Index of Subjects
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1.1 The three dimensions of texts.
FIGURE 1.2 Korean wood block and a page printed with it of a Chinese Buddhis...
FIGURE 1.3 Bomberg's Third Rabbinic Bible, 1547, open to Exodus 40 and Levit...
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3.1 Barrel cylinder with a cuneiform inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II...
FIGURE 3.2 Diorite stela of Hammurabi's Laws, from Babylon, ca. 1700
BCE
. Re...
FIGURE 3.3 The beginning of the age of empires.
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4.1 A Sikh carrying Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture.
FIGURE 4.2 Miniature sutra, in the Korean National Museum, Seoul.
FIGURE 4.3 Qur'an from India, ca. 1851. In the library of the University of ...
FIGURE 4.4 A modern
mezuzah
.
FIGURE 4.5 Relief of wheeled ark, ca. third century
CE
. In the ruins of the ...
FIGURE 4.6 Golden glass bowl from Rome, ca. 300–350
CE
, showing an open Tora...
FIGURE 4.7 Torah scrolls in the ark of the Vilna Shul (synagogue) in Boston,...
FIGURE 4.8 A scribe copying a new Torah scroll. Image “Writing a Torah” from...
FIGURE 4.9 Clothed Torah scroll in the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, th...
FIGURE 4.10 Torah case in the Yosef Caro synagogue in Tzfat/Safed, Israel.
FIGURE 4.11 A Torah scroll open to Exodus 30.
FIGURE 4.12 The end of Job with masorah and micrography in a codex manuscrip...
FIGURE 4.13 This first‐millennium
BCE
version of the Egyptian Book of the De...
FIGURE 4.14 Anubis chest in the treasury of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley...
FIGURE 4.15 Stone sphinx throne supporting carved stelae; Phoenician, first ...
FIGURE 4.16 Silver amulet scrolls from Ketef Hinnom; seventh to fifth centur...
FIGURE 4.17 Scribe holding scroll over sarcophagus in a model of a funerary ...
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5.1 Buddhist monks chanting sutras at Bodh Gaya, India. Photo by Lyn ...
FIGURE 5.2 The Theodotus Inscription, Jerusalem, mid‐first century
CE
. In th...
FIGURE 5.3 Exodus 30:22–23 in a manuscript scroll (top) and a printed
chumas
...
FIGURE 5.4 Statue of a scribe with a baboon representing the scribal god, Th...
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6.1 A Megillah (Esther scroll) from Italy, ca. 1616. In the National ...
FIGURE 6.2 Psalter manuscript with calendar of readings from East Anglia, En...
FIGURE 6.3 Poster for the film
Exodus
, 1960. Artist: Paul Bass. Public domai...
FIGURE 6.4 A scribe standing before Barrakib, the king of Samal. Relief from...
FIGURE 6.5 Cuneiform tablet cataloging 68 works of Sumerian literature, prob...
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9.1 The four Gospels represented by a lion for Mark, a human‐faced an...
FIGURE 9.2 Gospel procession in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem....
FIGURE 9.3 Lectern Bible, Saint Andrews, Scotland.
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10.1 Bible translations in Bengali, Coptic, and Chinese.
FIGURE 10.2 Jerome at his desk. Detail of stained glass window, ca. 1490. In...
FIGURE 10.3 Sebastian Munster,
Dictionarium Hebraicum
, Basel, 1539. In a pri...
FIGURE 10.4 Christ in heaven supported by angels: ninth century ce mosaic in...
FIGURE 10.5 Crucifix (1997) by Juvenal Kaliki and Jeffrey Brosk in the Mothe...
Chapter 11
FIGURE 11.1 Priest at the Temple of Demeter at Pergamum. In the Bergama Muse...
Chapter 12
FIGURE 12.1 Frontispiece of the Ottonian Gospels, ca. 1000
CE
. In the treasu...
FIGURE 12.2 Some contemporary English bibles.
FIGURE 12.3 Bomberg's Third Rabbinic Bible of 1547 open to Exodus 15 in Hebr...
FIGURE 12.4 Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1517 open to Genesis 1 in Hebrew...
FIGURE 12.5 The Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
FIGURE 12.6 Moses, Solon, and Confucius on the east pediment of the US Supre...
FIGURE 12.7 Ten Commandments on a monument at the Texas State Capital in Austin...
Chapter 13
FIGURE 13.1 Floor mosaic (sixth century
CE
) of Abraham sacrificing Isaac (Ge...
FIGURE 13.2 Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Woodcut from an early sixt...
FIGURE 13.3 A horned Moses, ca. 1894, on Alexander Hall, Princeton Universit...
FIGURE 13.4 Moses receiving the law and giving it to the Israelites: an illu...
FIGURE 13.5 Illustration of Tabernacle furniture and high priest (Exodus 25,...
FIGURE 13.6 Full‐size reconstruction of the Tabernacle (Exod. 25–40) in Timn...
Guide
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
List of Boxes
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Index of Quotations and Citations of Biblical and Rabbinic Texts
Index of Authors
Index of Subjects
Wiley End User License Agreement
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UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE AS A SCRIPTURE IN HISTORY, CULTURE, AND RELIGION
James W. Watts
This edition first published 2021© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of James W. Watts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of WarrantyThe contents of this work are intended to further general scientific research, understanding, and discussion only and are not intended and should not be relied upon as recommending or promoting scientific method, diagnosis, or treatment by physicians for any particular patient. In view of ongoing research, equipment modifications, changes in governmental regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to the use of medicines, equipment, and devices, the reader is urged to review and evaluate the information provided in the package insert or instructions for each medicine, equipment, or device for, among other things, any changes in the instructions or indication of usage and for added warnings and precautions. While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication DataNames: Watts, James W. (James Washington), 1960– author.Title: Understanding the Bible as a scripture in history, culture, and religion / by James W. Watts.Description: [Hoboken, New Jersey]: Wiley‐Blackwell, [2021] | Includesbibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2020025374 (print) | LCCN 2020025375 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119730378 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119730385 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119730354 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Bible–Use. | Bible–Comparative studies. | Bible–Socio‐rhetorical criticism. | Bible–Study and teaching.Classification: LCC BS538.3 .W38 2021 (print) | LCC BS538.3 (ebook) | DDC 220.1–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025374LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025375
Cover Design: WileyCover Images: © MCCAIG/E+/Getty Images
List of Boxes
1.1 The nature of scriptures
1.2 Ritual theories
1.3 The rhetorical effects of ritualizing scriptures
1.4 Canons of biblical scriptures
2.1 Deuteronomy commands Torah’s ritualization
2.2 Ezra’s Torah reading
2.3 The Persian Empire and Torah
2.4 Ezra in history and tradition
3.1 Law and narrative
3.2 Genealogies in Genesis
3.3 Eponymous ancestry in Genesis
3.4 YHWH’s reputation in Exodus
3.5 The Pentateuch’s unstated premise
3.6 Outline of the Pentateuch’s rhetoric
3.7 Law collections in the Pentateuch
3.8 Eternal sanctions
3.9 The beginning of the age of empires
4.1 The Letter of Aristeas
4.2 Dedicatory Torah plaque
4.3 The heavenly Torah81
4.4 The eternal word of God in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures
4.5 The tablets of the commandments
4.6 The Ark of the Covenant
4.7 Finding a Torah scroll in the Temple
5.1 The power of sound, word, and scripture
5.2 Judah’s exile and restoration
5.3 Reading the Greek Torah
5.4 The Theodotus inscription
5.5 The Mishnah on reading rituals
5.6 Torah blessings in synagogue liturgy
5.7 A Hasmonean curriculum
5.8 Why do Jews, Christians, and Muslims chant scripture?
5.9 A Samnite reading ritual
5.10 Moses reads the covenant book
6.1 Outline of Proverbs
6.2 Outline of Job
6.3 The libraries of Nehemiah and Judah Maccabee
6.4 Sanctions in ancient suzerainty treaties
6.5 Sanctions in the Hebrew Bible outside the Pentateuch
6.6 Apocalyptic eschatology
6.7 Interpretive expertise in Ezra‐‐Nehemiah
6.8 Citations of the Pentateuch elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible
6.9 Citing and debating Torah in 4QMMT
6.10 Judah ha‐Nasi
6.11 The sections of the Mishnah
6.12 Rabbinic interpretation through discussion and debate
6.13 Books of more than 10 copies among the Dead Sea Scrolls
6.14 Identifying with Exodus Israel
6.15 “Go Down, Moses”: African‐American spiritual
6.16 The birth legend of King Sargon
6.17 Ritualizing Decalogue and Torah in Pentateuchal sources
7.1 Messiah/Christ
7.2 Son of God
7.3 Religious parties in late Second Temple Judaism
8.1 Matthew’s added teachings
8.2 Outline of John’s Gospel
9.1 Irenaeus on the necessity of four Gospels
9.2 Hymn, “O Word of God Incarnate,” by William W. How, 1867
10.1 Reading scripture aloud in ancient Christianity
10.2 Philo of Alexandria on the Septuagint as a miracle of translation
11.1 The Nag Hammadi Codices
11.2 “Pauline” letters in the NT
12.1 Fragment of the Aleppo Codex as an amulet
12.2 Lost Samaritan books
12.3 Forged Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC
12.4 Fraudulent sales of Holocaust scrolls
12.5 Desecrating Torah scrolls in 1 Maccabees, Josephus
13.1 Maps and religious imagination
14.1 The Letter of Aristeas on food laws
14.2 The Rabbis on offerings and Torah study
14.3 The Apostle Paul on the Law
14.4 Jewish denominations and legal interpretation
14.5 Adam’s sin, reason, and empirical science
14.6 Publication of significant ancient Middle Eastern texts
14.7 Phyllis Trible on Genesis 3:16
15.1 When Jewish and Christian scriptures changed
List of Figures
1.1 The three dimensions of texts
1.2 Korean wood block and a page printed with it of a Chinese Buddhist sutra
1.3 Bomberg’s Third Rabbinic Bible, 1547
3.1 Barrel cylinder with a cuneiform inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon
3.2 Diorite stela of Hammurabi’s Laws, from Babylon
3.3 The beginning of the age of empires
4.1 Sikh carrying Guru Granth Sahib
4.2 Miniature sutra
4.3 Qur’an from India, ca. 1851
4.4 A modern mezuzah
4.5 Relief of wheeled ark, ca. third century CE
4.6 Golden glass bowl from Rome, ca. 300‐350 CE
4.7 Torah scrolls in the ark of the Vilna Shul
4.8 A scribe copying a new Torah scroll
4.9 Clothed Torah scroll, Portuguese Synagogue, Amsterdam
4.10 Torah case in the Yosef Caro synagogue in Safed
4.11 A Torah scroll open to Exodus 30
4.12 The end of Job in a codex manuscript of the Tanak from Castile, Spain, 1300–1350 CE
4.13 Thoth in an Egyptian Book of the Dead, first millennium BCE
4.14 Anubis chest in the treasury of Tutankhamun’s tomb
4.15 Phoenician stone sphinx throne supporting carved stelae
4.16 Silver amulet scrolls from Ketef Hinnom
4.17 Scribe holding scroll over sarcophagus in a model of a funerary boat from the tomb of Djehuty
5.1 Buddhist monks chanting sutras at Bodh Gaya, India
5.2 The Theodotus Inscription
5.3 Exodus 30:22–23 in a manuscript scroll and a printed chumash
5.4 Statue of a scribe with a baboon representing the scribal god, Thoth
6.1 A Megillah (Esther scroll) from Italy, ca. 1616
6.2 Psalter manuscript from England, fourteenth century
6.3 Poster for the film Exodus, 1960
6.4 A scribe standing before Barrakib, the king of Samal
6.5 Cuneiform tablet cataloguing 68 works of Sumerian literature
9.1 The four Gospels represented by a lion for Mark, a human‐faced angel for Matthew, an eagle for John, and an ox for Luke
9.2 Gospel procession, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem
9.3 Lectern Bible, Saint Andrews, Scotland
10.1 Bible translations in Bengali, Coptic, and Chinese
10.2 Jerome at his desk. Detail of stained glass window, ca. 1490
10.3 Sebastian Münster, Dictionarium Hebraicum, Basel, 1539
10.4 Christ in heaven supported by angels: ninth century ce mosaic
10.5 Crucifix (1997) by Juvenal Kaliki and Jeffrey Brosk
11.1 Priest at the Temple of Demeter at Pergamum
12.1 Frontispiece of the Ottonian Gospels, ca. 1000 CE
12.2 Some contemporary English bibles
12.3 Bomberg’s Third Rabbinic Bible of 1547 open to Exodus 15
12.4 Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1517 open to Genesis 1
12.5 The Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem
12.6 Moses, Solon, and Confucius on the east pediment of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
12.7 Ten Commandments monument at the Austin State Capitol
13.1 Floor mosaic (sixth century CE) of Abraham sacrificing Isaac (Gen. 22:1–11)
13.2 Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Woodcut from an early sixteenth‐century design by Hans Holbein
13.3 A horned Moses, ca. 1894, Alexander Hall, Princeton University
13.4 Moses receiving the law and giving it to the Israelites, in the Moutier‐Grandval Bible from France, 835 ce
13.5 Illustration of Tabernacle furniture and high priest (Exodus 25, 28)
13.6 Full‐size reconstruction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25‐40) in Timna Park, Israel
Preface
Biblical studies is an ancient and flourishing field. Scholars put great effort into explaining the language, meaning, and history of biblical books down to their tiniest detail. They have done so for more than 2000 years and continue to do so today. The published literature on the Bible is vast, and keeps growing.
Yet little of this research focuses on how the Bible functions as a scripture. Biblical scholarship remains focused on interpretation, that is, on how people have understood the meaning of the Bible's words and utilized them in various ways. Much less research focuses on how people express those words in religious and secular contexts, and even less on how they make use of the physical books of Jewish and Christian scriptures: Torah scrolls, tanaks, gospels, and bibles.1
I think biblical scholars should give more attention to the Bible's function as Jewish and Christian scripture, because that is what attracts people's attention in the first place. Were it not for the Bible's contemporary prestige and influence, the field of biblical studies would be a minor part of the study of ancient Middle Eastern literature rather than a subject of popular and scholarly interest around the world.
Comparing the Bible's scriptural function with the scriptures of other religions reveals similar strategies for using sacred texts across cultures, even when the literary contents and theological meaning of the books differ dramatically. This book therefore positions biblical studies within research on religions generally, rather than just within the study of Judaism and Christianity.2 It illustrates the insights that come from studying the Bible as a scripture in comparison with other religious scriptures, such as the Qur'an, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist sutras, and the Sikhs’ Guru Granth Sahib.
This book takes a comparative approach to show that the Bible functions culturally and socially in many ways like scriptures in other religious traditions. I do not discount the importance of theological interpretation of the Bible for Jewish and Christian audiences.3 I simply think that a comparative analysis allows us to understand its influence and function in ways that theological interpretation does not.
This book also demonstrates how research on the Bible's scriptural function can integrate studies of its origins with its cultural history. The results illuminate its contemporary interpretation and ritual function in the academy, in synagogues, in churches, and in the wider culture, as well as its origins in ancient Israel and early Christianity.
This book's innovative approach to teaching about the Bible therefore presents an unusual sequence of topics for an introduction to biblical studies. It introduces readers to the contents of the Bible and also to its material forms and uses. It summarizes the history of liturgical recitations and manipulations of the Bible, as well as the history of its interpretation.
This book is organized around those parts of the Bible that have played the most central roles in the rituals, liturgies, art, and interpretations of Jewish and Christian congregations, namely, the Torah, the Gospels, and the modern pandect Bible. The fact that the nouns, “Torah” and “Gospel,” and the adjective, “biblical,” still get used not only for books, but also to describe a faithful way of life, points to the centrality of these scriptures in Jewish and Christian religious experience.
My discussion of the iconic, expressive, and semantic dimensions of the Torah and the Gospels starts with their use since becoming scripture before addressing questions about their origins in ancient Israel and in ancient Christianity. This sequence grounds discussion of the Bible's different dimensions in better attested periods of its history. It has the pedagogical advantage of showing readers how congregations have socialized people to focus on the original meaning of the Bible's text, before turning to discussions of those origins.
The arrangement – Torah, Gospels, Bible – includes other biblical literature as well, so this book introduces the entirety of the Jewish and Christian canons. Like the religious traditions but unlike most other surveys of biblical literature, this book describes other biblical literature within the ritual and interpretive contexts of the Torah and the Gospels. So I also discuss the historical (Sections 2.2 and 3.3), prophetic (Sections 5.4 and 6.4.2), wisdom (Sections 6.1, and 6.4.4), and poetic literature (Sections 5.3 and 6.4.3) of the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha. I survey apocalyptic literature in the context of earlier and later religious projections of the future (Section 6.3), and I also include a brief introduction to Rabbinic Judaism (Section 6.5.2).
The Torah Part is therefore the longest in the book because it includes the entire Hebrew Bible and surveys the history of ancient Israel. Many of these topics are necessary background for the discussion of early Christianity in the next Part as well. Part 2 on the Gospels begins by summarizing the story of Jesus and introduces Paul's letters (Section 7.2) before turning to the rhetoric and ritualization of the Gospels themselves. It includes a brief history of Christian doctrines of the atonement (Section 11.1), and introduces the non‐canonical gospels about Jesus (Section 11.2). This book lists the different contents of various biblical canons near the beginning (Section 1.3) and closes with a discussion of canonization and scripturalization.
The arrangement – Torah, Gospels, Bible – also has the pedagogical advantage of saving discussion of many of the Bible's “hot‐button” issues to the end. Only after readers have been exposed to the scope of the Bible's contents and its cultural history do they reach modern debates over creation and evolution around Genesis 1–2, race and gender around Genesis 3 and 9, and the influence of biblical law (Chapter 14).
Further discussion of this distinctive approach to teaching biblical studies can be found in my other textbook, Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture.4 Both books introduce innovative ways of thinking about biblical literature as well as surveying established conclusions in the field. That combination might seem strange for introductory textbooks. In the field of biblical studies, however, an “introduction” has long served to provide a critical evaluation of the state of the field. It shows how biblical studies should go forward as well as summarizing where the field has been. This book follows in that tradition by demonstrating how the study of the Bible can be re‐envisioned from a religious studies perspective on comparative scriptures. It demonstrates that research on the Bible's scriptural function can integrate investigations of its origins with its cultural history and ritual use up to the present day.
I hope this book will be read with interest by people in many different settings. It has, however, been organized with classroom instruction in mind, as a textbook in courses about Jewish and Christian scriptures. I have included many images and quotations of ancient texts for illustration. Key names, phrases, and technical terms are underlined where they are defined or described. Quotations from ancient texts appear in italics to distinguish them from modern commentary. A list of abbreviations for the names of biblical books appears on pp. 10‐11 (Box 1.4). Text boxes define key ideas and give examples referred to in the immediate context. The Table of Contents therefore provides detailed lists of boxes and figures as well as chapter subheadings to aid in constructing a course syllabus. A sample syllabus can be found at https://surface.syr.edu/rel/106/.
The literature on the Bible that this book presupposes is vast. The endnotes cite sources of direct quotations. I have also included references in the endnotes to a very small number of English‐language publications where instructors can find more detailed discussions of particular issues and fuller bibliographies. Some of these texts could serve as further reading assignments to supplement the summaries in this book.
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
1 In this book, the terms Torah, Tanak, Gospels, and Bible are capitalized when they are used as titles of specific collections of scriptures or to refer to the idealized ideas of scripture in Jewish and Christian communities. Plural nouns that refer to physical books are lower case – torahs, tanaks, gospels, bibles – because they refer to multiple manifestations of scriptures and, in the case of gospels and bibles, may refer to several different collections (see Box 1.4, Sections 10.1, 10.7, 14.2.7, 14.2.8).
2 This approach was advocated years ago by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “The Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible,”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
39 (1971): 131–140, reprinted in
Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective
(ed. Miriam Levering, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989), 18–28. See also his essay, “Scripture as Form and Concept: Their Emergence for the Western World,” in
Rethinking Scripture
, 29–57; and William A .
Graham,
Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
3 As exemplified, for example, by the canonical approach of Brevard S. Childs. See his
Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1979); and
The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984).
4 For my discussion contextualizing this approach within broader trends in biblical studies, see James W. Watts,
Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture
(Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), xvii–xx.
Acknowledgments
Many people have generously supported my work on this book and the research projects that contribute to it. I am very grateful to all those scholars who have joined me in the Iconic Books Project and in the Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts (SCRIPT). My colleagues in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University have been generous with their support. The College of Arts and Sciences of Syracuse University contributed materially to bringing this project about, as did the Käte Hamburger Kolleg in the Center for Religious Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, which granted me a fellowship for the 2015–2016 academic year.
I am most grateful to the Syracuse University students who took my course, REL/JSP 114 The Bible in History, Culture, and Religion, from 2016 to 2020. They read this textbook, notified me of errors, and gently suggested ways in which it could be improved. This book is much better because of their efforts, which I appreciate very much. Four reviewers for Wiley Blackwell also made helpful suggestions that have improved the final product. I am grateful to them, and its remaining flaws are my responsibility alone.
This book culminates and summarizes much of my previous research on iconic books, comparative scriptures, and the Bible. It therefore includes many ideas and arguments that I have published previously in articles and books. References to those works appear where appropriate in the list of “Cited Works and Further Readings” at the end of each chapter. Many paragraphs of this book have been reproduced from my other textbook, Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture.
English quotations of biblical verses are my own translations unless labelled NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) or CEB (Common English Bible). Photographs are my own unless otherwise noted.
CHAPTER 1Scripture and Ritual
Scholars of religions struggle to define the word scripture. Religious communities tend to describe their scriptures as holy or sacred, as inspired by God, and as authoritative for their beliefs and practices. They also tend to describe their own scriptures as unique, unlike any other books or texts on earth. Religious communities therefore often resist classifying their sacred texts as belonging to the same category as the scriptures of other religions.
Those who study multiple religions notice, however, that many traditions venerate some texts as sacred and distinguish them from all other texts. Scholars of religion have therefore filled the category scripture with books from many religions. They often distinguish “book religions” from traditions that do not venerate sacred texts. Already in the Middle Ages, Muslim theologians described Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as “religions of the book.” In the nineteenth century, Oxford University Press published 50 volumes of English translations of The Sacred Books of the East. The editor, Max Müller, wanted to expose Westerners to the scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Now textbook anthologies, such as Robert Van Voorst's Anthology of World Scriptures, make excerpts available from the scriptures of all these religions.
However, reading these various scriptures together shows that their contents have little in common. They contain stories, laws, oracles, moral principles, philosophical speculation, practical advice, prayers, hymns, spells, and much more. No one genre of literature describes them all. Scripture, then, is not a literary category. Instead, what these texts have in common is that religious communities venerate them (Box 1.1).1
Box 1.1 The nature of scriptures
William Graham observed: “A text becomes ‘scripture’ in living, subjective relationship to persons and to historical tradition. No text, written, oral, or both, is sacred or authoritative in isolation from a community. A text is only ‘scripture’ insofar as a group of persons perceives it to be sacred or holy, powerful and meaningful, possessed of an exalted authority, and in some fashion transcendent of, and hence distinct from, other speech and writing… . The ‘scriptural’ characteristics of a text belong not to the text itself but to its role in a community. ‘Scripture’ is not a literary genre but a religio‐historical one.”
Veneration of scriptures takes the form of public and private rituals of various kinds. Rituals draw people's attention to specific practices and ideas. They focus attention on the ritual activity itself in order to make participants more aware of their own relationship to what it represents. Studies of ritual (see Box 1.2) have revealed the central role that rituals play in human societies at every level.
Rituals, however, have a bad reputation. People associate ritual with unreality, with superstition, and with magic, which they contrast with rational, practical, and effective actions. Though this attitude feels modern, it is actually rooted in ancient religious polemics. Christians contrasted “empty rituals” and superstition with knowledge and “true faith.” Protestants used the term “ritual” to attack Catholic ceremonies during the Reformation, medieval Christians used it to disparage Jews, and ancient Christians used it to criticize and suppress pagan sacrifices.
In contrast to the reputation of rituals, scriptures have been venerated as containers of knowledge and truth. Reading has been cast as the opposite of ritualizing. It can therefore sound very odd to hear reading and writing described as rituals in some circumstances. The concept of ritualized books is so strange that scholars have done little research on this phenomenon, in contrast to the massive amount of scholarship on the interpretation of books and religions.
Nevertheless, the display, reading, and interpretation of scriptures play obvious roles in the worship services – the rituals – of Jews and Christians, as well as of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and many other religious groups. In fact, ritualizing scriptures clearly encourages people to believe that these books are authoritative and inspired texts that establish the truth and legitimacy of the religious tradition. By setting aside the polemical history of debates over ritual, we can better understand how ritualizing books promotes religious ideas and practices, and secular ones too.
Box 1.2 Ritual theories
Throughout the twentieth century, many anthropologists and scholars of religion have studied rituals and how they work. They have increasingly focused not on distinguishing rituals from non‐rituals, which can be hard to do, but rather on the activity of performing rituals or ritualizing, which can take place at almost any time and place.
“Ritualization is a way of acting that specifically establishes a privileged contrast, differentiating itself as more important or powerful.”
(Catherine Bell)
Ritualizing requires participants and audience to pay attention to what is being done, how it is being done, and who is doing it. Ritualizing involves doing ordinary activities, such as eating, entering a room, or reading a book, in a formal and regulated way.
“Ritual relies for its power on the fact that it is concerned with quite ordinary activities placed within an extraordinary setting, that what it describes and displays is, in principle, possible for every occurrence of these acts.”
(Jonathan Z. Smith)
By performing rituals and witnessing them, people identify themselves with the values represented in the rituals.
“By performing a [ritual] the participants accept, and indicate to themselves and to others that they accept whatever is encoded in the canon of that order.”
(Roy Rappaport)
So rituals identify (index) participants with the institutions and traditions that promote and perform those rituals.2
Rituals make participants pay attention to people, objects, and actions that they otherwise take for granted. Ritualized meals, for example, draw attention to the food itself, how it is prepared, and what it means: the unleavened bread of a Passover seder, the bread and wine of Communion, the tea of a tea ceremony. Ritual processions require attention to the manner and order in which people enter and leave a room. Ceremonies that mark life transitions focus attention on particular people: the bride and groom at a wedding, the graduates at a college commencement, or the recently deceased at a funeral.
Ritualizing scriptures therefore draws attention to the books themselves – their verbal contents, and also the sound of their words and their physical form and appearance. Scriptures get ritualized in three distinct ways that correspond to the three dimensions of texts.
1.1 THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF WRITTEN TEXTS
Every written text consists of three aspects or dimensions (see Figure 1.1). We usually focus on its meaning, the significance of its words and what they tell us. This interpretive act engages a text's semantic dimension.
Before we can understand the meaning of writing, we must turn the visual signs into words. The text must be read aloud or enunciated in our heads. This oral or mental presentation engages a text's expressive dimension.
FIGURE 1.1 The three dimensions of texts.
But before we can even present a text orally, we must recognize it as a written text. We have to interpret visual marks as written language (letters or signs), not as art or natural patterns, or we must recognize the shape of an object as likely to contain writing (an envelope, a scroll, or a book, for example). This act of recognition engages a text's iconic dimension.
We usually do not pay attention to the three different dimensions of texts. Consider this book that you are now reading. You instantly recognize its shape as a book that probably contains written text. You recognize its Roman letters and (if you are reading this) you turn them into English words without thinking much about what you are doing. I hope that you also understand the meaning of these sentences without too much difficulty.
We pay attention to the individual dimensions of texts only if we have difficulty – if we have trouble figuring out their meaning (the semantic dimension), if we cannot read smudged type or illegible handwriting (the expressive dimension), or if we cannot decide whether marks on paper represent written words or art or random patterns (the iconic dimension). Otherwise, the three dimensions of texts are trivial features of the experience of reading and we usually ignore them.
When texts get ritualized, however, the three dimensions become important, because texts can be ritualized in each of the dimensions.
The semantic dimension of interpretation can be ritualized by delivering lectures and sermons, by staging debates, and by writing interpretive commentaries on texts. For example, laws and national constitutions get ritualized regularly in the semantic dimension by oral and written interpretations that multiply and grow more elaborate over time. They serve the ritual function of drawing attention to the laws and they index the readers' and listeners' responsibilities under those laws.
The expressive dimension of texts can be ritualized by private and public readings and recitations. Religious worship services often focus on reading selections of sacred texts. People may memorize the text. Oral performances may be standardized as chants or set to music as songs. Theatrical scripts, for example, are designed for public presentations in ritual spaces (theaters). They expect audiences and actors to behave in conventional ways that call attention to the play being performed.
The iconic dimension of texts can be ritualized by changing how a book looks and by handling it in special ways. The text can be written in distinctive scripts or printed in unusual fonts. Its pages can be decorated and illustrated. Its binding or container can be embellished with art and valuable materials. For example, publishers produce collector's editions in leather bindings and gilt edges so buyers can show visually that they find a particular book valuable. Texts can also be displayed prominently on shelves or tables, held up for people to see, and carried in elaborate processions. Rare books frequently get displayed in museums, in libraries, and even in private homes.
Only written texts can be ritualized in these three dimensions. A visual symbol such as a cross or a flag can be ritualized in the iconic dimension: it can be displayed, elaborated in art, and paraded in processions. Visual symbols can also be ritualized in the semantic dimension: their meanings can be explained and debated, sometimes at great length. But crosses and flags cannot be ritualized in the expressive dimension: they contain no written words that can be presented as mental or oral language. On the other hand, an oral epic can be ritualized by retelling it or even staging it. Its interpretation can also be explained and debated at length. But there is no physical object to display or decorate. Therefore, oral epics and other oral traditions can be ritualized in the expressive and semantic dimensions, but not in the iconic dimension, while visual symbols can be ritualized in the iconic and semantic dimensions, but not in the expressive dimension. Only written texts can be ritualized in all three dimensions.
1.2 RITUALIZING SCRIPTURES IN THREE DIMENSIONS
Most texts do not get ritualized much in any dimension, and those that do usually get ritualized in only one or two dimensions. A distinctive feature of religious scriptures is that they get ritualized in all three dimensions.
Religious traditions that emphasize scriptures give prominent attention to their semantic interpretation. They include Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, and Jains, as well as Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. All of them sponsor speakers and literature that interpret their scriptures, and give their best interpreters positions of respect and influence. Most of them encourage all their followers to study the scriptures and their interpretations. Ritualizing the semantic dimension tends to increase the authority of scriptures and the authority of people who can interpret them convincingly. These religions therefore give respect and influence to scholars, priests, preachers, rabbis, imams, or sages who are learned in the scriptures and their interpretation.
These traditions also highlight the oral presentation of scriptures, to the point that reading or reciting scripture is a key component of their worship services. They often require that scriptures be presented orally in distinctive ways, with particular pronunciations or with prescribed chants. Verses of scriptures frequently get sung to melodies, with or without instrumental accompaniments. Some scriptures that contain vivid stories get performed theatrically. Traditions of enacting scriptural stories are thousands of years old in Europe and India. Now they frequently appear on television and in films. There is even older evidence for artistic traditions of illustrating scriptural stories and calligraphy that elaborates the written texts artistically. All these media can be used to present the words and contents of scriptures. Ritualizing their expressive dimension in these ways draws people's attention to the scriptures and inspires those who hear and see the performances. They often regard inspiration as characteristic of scripture.
Religious traditions that emphasize scripture also ritualize the physical form of their scriptures. The script or type‐face may take distinctive forms and be arranged in unusual ways. The pages may be decorated and their contents may be illustrated. The cover or binding of the book may take a stereotypical form so that people easily recognize it as that scripture, or it may be bound in expensive materials. People display scriptures in their congregations, sanctuaries, and homes. They carry them in the form of complete books or as miniature amulets. They wave them in rituals of worship or preaching, of celebration or protest. In all these ways, the visual appearance of scriptures distinguishes them from other books and emphasizes their importance. Ritualizing their iconic dimension in these ways draws attention and legitimizes the religious tradition that venerates them and the people who possess and handle them.
Ritualization plays an important role in making some texts seem more authoritative than others. Regular and repeated interpretation of the same book makes its contents seem more important for how to think and act. But the reverse is also true: displaying a book of instructions makes rituals seem more legitimate. The visible presence of authoritative books counters doubts about the competence or honesty of the person leading the rituals (Box 1.3).3
In fact, people in the ancient Middle East first began regarding some texts as normative, that is, as authoritative for how to behave, when those texts described how to conduct rituals. Kings and priests and magicians from Babylon to Egypt consulted ritual texts to tell them, for example, where to build temples, when to make offerings to the gods, and how to cast curses. But the famous law code of Hammurabi and other royal law codes were not consulted for how to conduct criminal trials, which were based on custom instead. Textual authority developed first around ritual texts.
The same pattern can be observed in the developing authority of biblical books. Many claim inspiration from God, most obviously books like Isaiah and Jeremiah that state that God gave the prophets these messages. The first Jewish scripture did not consist of prophetic books, however, but of the Torah/Pentateuch. Genesis 1 does not begin with any explicit claim of inspiration or even of authorship. The Pentateuch does contain laws spoken by God to Moses. But what differentiates it most from other biblical books is that ritual instructions lie at its center in Exodus 25–40, Leviticus, and parts of Numbers. Stories of the Torah's growing authority in the Second Temple period emphasize that it first dictated ritual behavior, especially how to celebrate the annual festivals of Passover and Sukkot (Booths). Only centuries later did its laws begin to apply in criminal courts and civil society.
Box 1.3 The rhetorical effects of ritualizing scriptures
Ritualizing each of a scripture's three dimensions makes the book's message more persuasive to those who venerate it. Theories of rhetoric, that is, of persuasion, help us understand how this works. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) described three factors necessary to make a speech persuasive. The words (logos) of the speech must, of course, make a convincing argument. The speech, however, must also appeal to the audience's assumptions and feelings (pathos). And the speaker must project an attractive and trustworthy character (ethos).
Scriptures are not speeches, but ritualizing their three dimensions increases their persuasive appeal in these same ways: interpreting them increases the authority (logos) of their contents and their interpreters, expressing their words and contents inspires audiences (pathos), and displaying and decorating them legitimizes (ethos) the communities and traditions that venerate them.4
As Jewish and Christian communities increasingly focused on ritualizing their scriptures, the Torah or the Gospels or later the one‐volume Bible began to represent the religions. The scrolls and books of scripture became visual symbols of each religion. The sounds of scriptural verses inspired devotion to the religious tradition. And interpreting their significance for directing people's personal and communal lives led people to try to embody their scriptures in themselves. The centrality of scripture to Jewish and Christian religious experience continues to be expressed by associating the words, “Torah” or “Gospel” or “biblical,” with the religions' essential teachings. These words describe not just books, but also living faithfully as Jews or Christians. In these communities, Torah, Gospel, or Bible symbolizes the ideal way of life. So the three parts of this book are organized around the parts of scriptures that, to Jews and Christians, represent the highest religious ideals.
1.3 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
Jews and Christians share parts of their scriptures. The Jewish scriptures consist of 24 books divided into 3 parts: the 5 books of the Torah “instructions or laws,” the 8 books of the Nebi'im “prophets,” and the 11 books of the Kethubim “writings.” A common name for this collection, the Tanak, is an acronym from the first letter of each section.
Protestant Christians accept exactly the same literary material as part of their scripture and call it the Old Testament. But the Old Testament books appear in a different order and some are divided into two or more books. So the Protestant Old Testament consists of 39 books. Yet its contents are the same as the Jewish Tanak. (For a neutral designation of the collection of books that Jews and Christians both regard as scripture, scholars now usually call it the Hebrew Bible.)
Ancient Christians, however, accepted more Jewish books in their Old Testament than did Jewish rabbis. These books and additions to biblical books written by Jews in the Second Temple period were segregated into a third section of the Bible, the Apocrypha, by Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians continue to reproduce them as part of their Old Testament, but sometimes call these additional materials the Deuterocanon.
Christians of all kinds also accept into their scripture 27 uniquely Christian books, which they call the New Testament. The list of books accepted by each tradition is called a canon, which is traditional Christian terminology for the contents of scripture (see Box 1.4).
Another religious tradition accepts some of this material as their scripture. The Samaritans now number fewer than 1000 people, but 2000 years ago they were a large and vibrant community. They accept only the five books of the Torah as their scripture.
For ancient and medieval Jews and Christians, “scripture” was not a single book but a collection of books. Therefore, they did not standardize the sequence of scriptural books until the invention of printing made single‐volume, pandect bibles affordable, starting in the fifteenth century.5
1.4 MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTING
From the invention of writing more than 5000 years ago to the invention of printing with movable type more than 500 years ago, all written texts were written by hand. Scribes copied and re‐copied texts to publish them and preserve them. We can still read ancient literature because of their efforts.
Scribes have used a wide variety of materials to write with and write on. In ancient Mesopotamia in the Middle East, scribes wrote mostly in wet clay with a pointed reed. The clay was then dried in the sun or fired in a kiln to produce cuneiform tablets. Because fired clay is a very durable material, more routine texts have survived from Mesopotamia than from any other ancient civilization.
Box 1.4 Canons of biblical scriptures
Samaritan
Jewish
Catholic/Orthodox Christian
Protestant Christian
Abbreviations of biblical books
Torah
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
Tanak
Torah
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
Nevi'im
(Prophets) Joshua Judges Samuel Kings Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel The Twelve Prophets
Ketubim
(Writings) Psalms Proverbs Job Song of SongsRuth Lamentations Ecclesiastes Esther Daniel Ezra‐Nehemiah Chronicles
Old Testament
Pentateuch
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
Histories
Joshua Judges Ruth 1 & 2 Samuel 1 & 2 Kings 1 & 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Tobit Judith Esther 1 & 2Maccabees
Poetry
Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Songs Wisdom of Solomon Sirach/Ecclesiasticus
Prophets
Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Baruch Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel
Old Testament
Pentateuch
Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy
Histories
Joshua Judges Ruth 1 & 2 Samuel 1 & 2 Kings 1 & 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther
Poetry
Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Songs/Canticles
Prophets
Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel Amos Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai
Gen. Exod. Lev. Num. Deut. Josh. Judg. Ruth Sam. Kgs. Chr. Ezra Neh. Esth. Job Pss. Prov. Eccl. Cant. Isa. Jer. Lam. Ezek. Dan. Hos. Joel Amos Mic. Nah. Hab. Zeph. Hag.
AmosObadiah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi
Orthodox canons usually include:
1 & 2 Esdras Prayer of Manasseh 3 Maccabees 4 Maccabees
New Testament
Gospels & Acts
Matthew Mark Luke John Acts of the Apostles
Letters
Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 & 2 Thessalonians 1 & 2 Timothy Titus Philemon Hebrews James 1 & 2 Peter 1, 2, 3 John Jude
Apocalypse
Revelation of John
ZechariahJonah Malachi
Apocrypha
1 & 2 Esdras Tobit Judith Additions to Esther Wisdom of Solomon Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) Baruch Letter of Jeremiah Additions to Daniel Prayer of Manasseh 1 & 2 Maccabees
New Testament
Gospels & Acts
Matthew Mark Luke John Acts of the Apostles
Letters
Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 & 2 Thessalonians 1 & 2 Timothy Titus Philemon Hebrews James 1 & 2 Peter 1, 2, 3 John Jude
Apocalypse
Revelation of John
Zech.Obad. Jon.Mal. 1/2 Esdr. Tob. Jud. Add. Est. Wis. Sol. Sir. Bar. Let. Jer. Add. Dan. Pr. Man. Macc. Matt. Mark Luke John Acts Rom.Cor.Gal.Eph.Phil.Col.Thess.Tim.Tit.Philem.Heb.Jam.Pet.123 JohnJudeRev.
In ancient Egypt, scribes wrote in ink using reed pens mostly on papyrus. The papyrus plant grows in the delta of the Nile River. Egyptians produced a medium for writing by splitting papyrus reeds, soaking them, and then pressing them together at right angles. Papyrus is much less durable than clay, so what has survived comes mostly from sealed containers in tombs.
The scribes of ancient Israel, like those writing alphabetical scripts in Phoenicia and Syria, wrote in ink mostly on specially prepared leather called parchment. Parchment scrolls are somewhat more durable than papyrus, which they also used. But the oldest surviving texts of the Hebrew Bible date only from the third‐to‐second centuries BCE.
Paper, which is made from rags or wood pulp, was invented in China by 105 CE. It did not reach the Middle East until the eighth century and Europe only in the twelfth century. The introduction of paper provided a cheaper material medium that enabled written documents to become increasingly common.
That was especially the case after the invention of printing. Buddhists in Korea, Japan, and Tibet printed sutras (Buddhist scriptures) from the eighth century CE on. They carved mirror images of entire pages into wood blocks (see Figure 1.2). Dipped in ink, wood blocks could produce many copies of a page before wearing out. Chinese and Korean printers experimented with movable type as early as the eleventh century.
Wood‐block printing came to Europe in the early fifteenth century. By 1456 in Mainz, Germany, Johannes Gutenberg had invented a printing press with movable metal type. His first commercial product was a printed Latin Bible. By the end of the fifteenth century, printing presses were found throughout Europe. They printed books of all kinds on paper, including many copies of Jewish and Christian scriptures.
Printing technology not only made copies of the Bible cheaper and more common. It also made it easier to reproduce elaborate page formats. In Italy in the early sixteenth century, a printer produced a Jewish Tanak that included the Hebrew text, its Aramaic translation (targum), and the commentary of medieval experts on every page. This format, known as a rabbinic bible (see Figures 1.3, 12.3), became the most popular way to print Jewish scriptures for many centuries. At the same time in Spain, printers produced multilingual bibles (the Complutensian Polyglot, see Figure 12.4) whose pages included Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and more – each in their appropriate fonts. When the Protestant Reformation broke out in northern Europe, the Reformers printed bibles in vernacular translations and distributed them as widely as possible. Religious groups of all kinds embraced the new technology to distribute their scriptures and teachings.
FIGURE 1.2 Korean wood block and a page printed with it of a Chinese Buddhist sutra. In the Korean National Museum.
FIGURE 1.3 Bomberg's Third Rabbinic Bible, 1547, open to Exodus 40 and Leviticus 1, in the Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries.
Jews and Christians continued to adopt new media technologies quickly. Whether stereotype and linotype printing in the nineteenth century, radio and television in the twentieth, or digital media in the twenty‐first, religious groups have often been the first to use new inventions to reproduce and publish their scriptures, sermons, and other texts. At the same time, such rapid technological innovations have not impeded the iconic and expressive ritualization of scriptures, often in very old‐fashioned forms. It remains to be seen whether or not that combination of rapid adaptation of new media technologies together with conservative maintenance of older ritual forms continues in the digital age.
CITED WORKS AND FURTHER READING
1 On scriptures, see William A. Graham, “Scripture,” in
The Encyclopedia of Religion
, Volume 12 (2nd ed.; ed. L. Jones, M. Eliade, and C. J. Adams ; Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005), 8194–8205, quotation from 8195; F. E. Peters,
The Voice, the Word, the Books: The Sacred Scripture of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Gerald T . Sheppard, “Canon,” in
The Encyclopedia of Religion
, Volume 3 (ed. M. Eliade ; New York: Macmillan, 1987), 62–69; and Robert E. van Voorst, ed.,
Anthology of World Scriptures
(Belmont: Wadsworth, 1997).
2 On ritual, see Jonathan Z.
Smith,
To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 90; Catherine Bell,
Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 109; Roy Rappaport,
Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 119; and Philippe Buc,
The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
3 On ritualized texts, see James W . Watts, “The Three Dimensions of Scriptures,” in
How and Why Books Matter: Essays on the Social Function of Iconic Texts
