First Glance
“The anatomy of all of the soul” was John calvin’s description of the Psalms—the 150 poems that give us the words to express sorrow and joy, to praise God, and to give thanks when despair is relieved. The Psalms achieve their passionate effects using seemingly conventional language, woven in subtle semantic patterns. BR’s spotlight on the psalms presents “The Power of the Psalms In Our Time” and Robert Alter’s “Psalms—Beauty Heightened Through Poetic Structure,” a detailed examination of four psalms. Alter’s penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of poetry influences its emotional impact is an adaptation of a chapter form his recent book, The Art of Biblical Poetry, which is reviewed by Baruch Halpern in Bible Books.
Currently professor of Hebrew and comparative literature and chairman of his department at the University of California at Berkeley, Alter has published abudantly and broadly with articles ranging from “Jewish Dreams and Nightmares,” and “The Demons of History in Dicknes’ Tale” to numerous books, including The Art of Biblical Narrative, the companion volume to his most recent work reviewed and excerpted here.
Turning to a close look at the prophet Jeremiah’s observations of nature, Herold Weiss asks “How Can Jeremiah Compare the Migration of Birds to Knowledge of God’s Justice?” Perhaps, Weiss suggests, Jeremiah’s message is that just as storks fly thousands of miles each year in response to biological orders established at their creation, so must humans follow the ways expected of them by God.
Professor at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, Weiss was born in Uruguay, but since 1954 he has lived in the United States. Weiss is the author of “News from the Field: Gold Hoard Found at Capernaum,” BAR 09:04. His outdoor interests include sailing and horseback riding; he is a birdwatcher, however, only in the biblical text.
Many Bible readers have noticed that the beginning verses of the book of Ezra/Nehemiah are identical to the last two verses of second chronicles, but why that is so is not obvious. Menahem Haran, director of the Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies at Hebrew University, explains the reasons for the so-called catchlines and makes a tight case that Ezra, Nehemiah and both Chronicles are really a single composition divided for scribal convenience (see “Explaining the Identical Lines at the End of Chronicles and the Beginning of Ezra”). Looking at the texts this way, we can better understand the account of the Persian King Cyrus’s edict permitting the Jews to rerun from exile in Babylon to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
Recently in BR, the accounts of Jesus’ infancy in Matthew and Luke have been scrutinized from two perspectives: first, in “Different Ways of Looking at the Birth of Jesus,” BR 01:01, from the narrative view point, and, second, in “From Moses to Jesus: Parallel Themes,” BR 02:02, from the viewpoint of parallels between the infancy of Jesus and the early years of Moses, as related in Exodus. In this issue, H. Neil Richardson elaborates on what he says is the main point of the story of Jesus’ birth—namely, that Jesus was begotten of God and, hence, the Messiah. Richardson analyzes “The Old Testament Background of Jesus as Begotten of God,” beginning with the begottenness of the Hebrew kings Saul and David established at the time of their anointments. He then traces the tradition of Jesus’ begottenness as it changed from its association with the resurrection, then with the baptism, and finally with the conception.
Punishable by death according to biblical law, adultery seemed to stymie the legal system that condemned it Legal stipulations made adultery essentially unprovable, but it could not be ignored. In “The Trial Before God of an Accused Adulteress,” Tikva Frymer-Kensky looks closely at judicial procedure in the Book of Numbers that requires the suspect wife to drink a potion, thereby transferring her judgment from the hands of humans to God.
Frymer-Kensky, visiting associate professor in the Program of Studies in Religion at the University of Michigan, frequently writes on the Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context, often focusing on women in antiquity and on biblical law.
In this issue, Bernhard Anderson launches “My View” a new BR department. We hope that Anderson’s essay on “The Newness of the Old Testament” will encourage other scholars to share with our readers important ideas that underlie their scholarship and their faith.
If you submitted answers to the first BR contest quiz on Plants of the Bible, see Quiz #2, Animals of the Bible to find out if your name went into the pool to win a free trip to the Holy land.