At the center of this book lies a fundamental yet unanswered
question: under which historical and sociological conditions and in what manner
the Hebrew Bible became an authoritative tradition, that is, holy scripture and
the canon of Judaism as well as Christianity.
Reinhard G. Kratz answers this
very question by distinguishing between historical and biblical Israel. This
foundational and, for the arrangement of the book, crucial distinction affirms
that the Israel of biblical tradition, i.e. the sacred history (historia sacra)
of the Hebrew Bible, cannot simply be equated with the history of Israel and
Judah.
Thus, Kratz provides a synthesis of both the Israelite and Judahite
history and the genesis and development of biblical tradition in two separate
chapters, though each area depends directly and inevitably upon the other.
These two distinct perspectives on Israel are then confronted and correlated in
a third chapter, which constitutes an area intimately connected with the former
but generally overlooked apart from specialized inquiries: those places and
"archives" that either yielded Jewish documents and manuscripts
(Elephantine, Al-Yahudu, Qumran) or are associated conspicuously with the
tradition of the Hebrew Bible (Mount Gerizim, Jerusalem, Alexandria).
Here, the
various epigraphic and literary evidence for the history of Israel and Judah
comes to the fore. Such evidence sometimes represents Israel's history; at
other times it reflects its traditions; at still others it reflects both
simultaneously. The different sources point to different types of Judean or
Jewish identity in Persian and Hellenistic times.
Year: 2016
Edition: 1
Language: english
Pages: 288
ISBN 10: 0198728778
ISBN 13: 978-0-19-872877-1
ISBN: 019179550X
File: PDF, 1.47 MB
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