Divided monarchy: Israel (north) &

Judah (south)

The starting point for learning about the Bible in this setting is rational inquiry (use intellect to ask questions).  The questions can be theological, historical, or sociological questions.  Theological & historical questions focus on the authors & employs comparison & analysis, but sociological questions focus on the readers.

It is different from studying the Bible in other ways like personal edification, understanding Christian doctrine, or formulating Christian theology.

Basically the Septuagint translated into Latin

Catholic: the books of the Apocrypha are interspersed throughout the Bible.

Many Orthodox Bibles separate the Apocrypha (put it between Old & New Testament)

Transmission Errors: unintentional errors and intentional variants in the text

unintentional errors include: permutation, haleography, & dittography

occurs when text is missing

Examples: Genesis 4: 8-9 (page 17 in NOAB) in the Masoretic text "Let us go out to the field" is missing; 1 Samuel 10:27 & 11:1 (page 415 in NOAB)

When a word or group of words is repeated a second time

Example: Genesis 9:10 (page 22 in NOAB) repeated phrase "every animal of the earth"

Torah: 450 BCE

Nevi'im: 200 BCE

Kethuvim: 100 BCE

Explains origins (how the world came to, how people came to be, etc.).

Protoscience: humans trying to explain what can be observed--often found in etiological myths

J (Yahwist): Judah (south), 9th century BCE

E (Elohist): Israel (north), 8th century BCE

P (Priestly): Bablyonia, 586 BCE and later

D (Deuteronomist): Jerusalem, 622 BCE

Genesis 1:1-2:4a = Priestly (P) source

Genesis 2:4b-2:5 Yahwist (J) source

Keep the Sabbath because God brought his people out of Egypt; new emphasis: covenant --> worship of Yahweh ONLY & ONLY in one place, which was first the tabernacle and later the temple in Jerusalem; consequences of covenant are retribution: God blesses now & future generations if they followed/kept covenant but also punishes now & future generations if they broke covenant; King Josiah --> centralization of the cult in Jerusalem and reinforced monotheism (high places/shrines were done away with); kings are "good" ONLY if they follow the theology of Deuteronomy otherwise regarded as wicked/bad

Examples: anything from Deuteronomy to II Kings

1. 8th century (Assyrian Crisis)

2. 7th century (Babylonian Crisis)

3. 5th century (Exile & Return)

4. [look in textbook for this]

The Chronicler believes in divine retribution similar to DH, but believes in the power of human repentance to turn aside God's judgement [1st new emphasis]

Individualistic understanding of retribution/sin, but not completely individualistic (example: David sins, but Israel suffers) [2nd new emphasis]

*in the DH, retribution affects corporate body (all the people of Israel)

defining characteristics:

-parallelism (2 or 3 lines; second line repeats the idea of the 1st line using different language)

-types of parallelism: synonymous & antithetical

[other characteristics: no rhythm, no rhyme scheme, metaphors, similes, & personification]

second line repeats the idea of the first line using either the same or contrasting structure than in the first line

Example: Proverbs 2:1 (NOAB p. 898); Proverbs 5:23 (NOAB p. 902) [chiastic structure]

Second line reinforces the idea of the first line using an opposing idea

Example: Proverbs 12:1 (NOAB p. 910)

Wisdom Lit: books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, (& sometimes Song of Songs/Solomon); also includes Wisdom & Sirach in the Apocrypha

Often written in poetic style (uses parallelism)

Main features: concerned with everyday life & how to live it well, does not appeal to revealed truth, claim to authority because of tradition/observation, Israelite Wisdom is rooted in reverence & commitment to God

A proverb is characterized as being 1) concise and memorable, 2) simple yet profound, 3)specific yet general, 4) usually expressed in poetic form, and 5) contain observations about life as filtered through biblical revelation.

Ideas in Proverbs: 1) Wisdom & Folly 2) Ethics (relations of people to each other)  3) The View of God (what God likes/dislikes, values/regards as worthless)  4) The View of the Person (what people are like & what they should be like)

Literary Characteristics: imagery, metaphor, simile, parallelism

1. vision

2. divine being (often called an angel)

3. seer (always a human being who sees the vision)

4. heavenly realm & future (immediate/near)

5. dualism (cosmic, ethical, chronological, etc.)

6. symbolism (animals, colors, numbers, substances)

7. hope (to those who are suffering)

8. universality (all of creation is affected)

9. determinism (what's happening can't be avoided)

Late Bronze Age:

Earliest mention of Israel in any text = Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah constructed a stele (wrote on it all people he had conquered)-- referred to Israel as a people (not a city-state)

Early Iron Age:

-hundreds of new settlements on unoccupied hilltops (= atypical)

-shared material culture (between Israelites and Canaanites)

-some large walled cities are destroyed because of military conquest (ex. : Bethel)

1. The Conquest Model

2. The Infiltration Model

3. The Social Revolution Model

(p. 133 in textbook)

Who were the Philistines?

Where Did the Philistines Come From?

539 BCE (Persians conquer Babylon & allow Judaeans to return to Jerusalem)

[look in the readings from Persian Period for more info]

Greek customs, architecture, language (Koine Greek = "common" Greek), education, etc.

Alexander ("The Great") of Macedon

**shift in worship of Yahweh (before Alexander):

-was originally based on temple worship

-shifted to worship of Yahweh apart from the temple (because the temple was destroyed; Israelites also moved to other areas-- turned into a diaspora religion -- religion that is in multiple places)

-before was just an Israelite religion

-after shift: was Judaism (Second Temple Judaism) -- practiced largely apart from the temple (at this point there is the Septuagint -- Greek translation of Hebrew Bible)

1. Sadducees

2. Pharisees

3. Essenes

-associated with the priests

-associated with whomever has power/aristocracy

(at this time, priests had a governing role)

-1st 5 books of the Hebrew Bible is all they believed in (Pentateuch)

-they didn't believe in life after death or resurrection

-lay group

-had no official power, yet sometimes were influential

-concerned with how to live righteously & maintain purity through day to day life

-to them the Bible = Hebrew Bible & oral traditions

-strong eschatology (final events in history, ultimate destiny of humanity, end of the world) & belief in resurrection

-Jewish Apocalyptic Separatist group

-opposed to Jewish priesthood

-God is bringing the kingdom & the Essenes believed they will come out on top (be rewarded)

-withdraw into ghettos in cities (one of these groups was in Qumran in the Dead Sea & believed to be responsible for writing the Dead Sea Scrolls)

-only men in this group (do not believe in marriage)