Ancient World Seminar: Judith Newman (University of Toronto), “Time, Text, and Ancestors: A New Perspective on Engaging Israel’s Past”
| When: | Tu 27-09-2022 16:15 - 17:30 |
| Where: | Faculty of Theology and Religous Studies (Oude Boteringestraat 38), Court Room |
Abstract
A central premise of historical criticism in biblical studies is that the sources that make up texts can be identified and plotted against a single timeline whether this results in a “history of Israel’s literature,” a “Israelite history” or a “history of Israel’s religion.” In this legacy of nineteenth-century European historicism, history and time are conceived as singular, monolithic, and linear. More recent work by ethnohistorians, cultural memory theorists, and others has challenged this singularity by identifying multiple emic temporalities operative in the world, yet the results have not permeated the work of traditional biblical scholarship. If we take this temporal multiplicity seriously, we can see various pasts and futures embedded in the texts now known as the Pentateuch that reach beyond its framework and the canon itself. This perspective also sheds new light on integrating “later” so-called “reworked Pentateuch” texts from Qumran, as well as “apocrypha” and “pseudepigrapha” into our understanding of the literary world of Israel. Some cultural memories around the figure of Jacob can illustrate this new perspective of chastened historiography that moves beyond a single story of the past, present, and future.
About the speaker
Judith H. Newman is Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at the University of Toronto. She specializes in the Hebrew Bible as well as Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. Her current research interests are in the ritual performance of texts particularly as this intersects with the formation of communities in early Judaism and Christianity. She is also interested in the development of scripture, early biblical interpretation, as well as method in the study of the Bible and early Judaism and Christianity. Emerging projects include work on literature of the Hasmonean period, particularly the book of Judith; and a study of time, temporality, and liturgy.