New Hebrew Studies Tee

2013 Hebrew T-Shirt:

Front reads "VTS"

Forthcoming: The CEB Study Bible

Coming this fall, October 2013, the brand new CEB Study Bible, to which I contributed the introduction and annotations to the Book of Daniel!


To see more, visit the CEB website: click here, or go to CEBStudyBible.com.

"Job" by Léon Bonnat, c. 1860

We treated the book of Job in OT-513 today. One powerful image of Job's agony that we looked at was Job by Léon Bonnat, c. 1860. 

Bonnat's figure of Job reveals a nude, older, fully vulnerable figure, who is here reduced to pure frailty. The realistic sinews and muscles, the feel of beatings by life's tempests, make the figure convincing and relatable. The figure is clearly oriented toward God in a posture and attitude of pain and questioning. Bonnat, an eminent 19th century French artist, was a painter of powerful portraits, and, as with those works, this piece isolates the subject with vivid lighting and a simple, dark background. The viewer is invited powerfully to concentrate on the figure in all his suffering humanity and to wrestle with the fundamental question of what it means to be mortal, created of dust, and thus vulnerable.

Convergence and Divergence in Pentateuchal Theory: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Israel, North America and Europe

I’ve received word from Jerusalem about what looks to be a fantastic international conference. My friend Prof. Bernard M. Levinson has  organized a research group on the formation of the Pentateuch and the group is holding an international conference on Pentateuchal studies later this month, May 2013. Given the range of topics and the goal of addressing key issues in the formation of the Pentateuch, I think this meeting and its papers will be of great interest! 

Humor

 

Ezekiel 37: 1-14 - The Valley of Dry Bones

I welcome Justin Ivatts as guest blogger today! This post is part of a project he's doing in Digital Media for Ministry and Old Testament.

A Word Study on the Hebrew Word ר֫וּחַ.

I recently taught an online class at Virginia Theological Seminary exegeting the Valley of Dry Bones narrative from Ezekiel 37: 1-14.  My argument was that Ezekiel was foretelling the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead.  You can view an archived recording of this class by clicking on the link at the end of this post.  One of the hooks that my argument hinged on was the use of the Hebrew word ר֫וּחַ, and thus I wanted to conduct a more in depth word study here than I had time to do in a 45 minute class where I also had a lot of other ground to cover.

ר֫וּחַ is a noun which can literally be translated as wind, breath or spirit.  We find all three of these translations in all the English translations that I consulted (NRSV, ESV, NIV, REB and Message).  ר֫וּחַ appears in total 378 times in the Old Testament and Ezekiel makes use of some of these meanings.  For example we see ר֫וּחַ used in the same context in Ezekiel 37:5 as in the creation narrative in Genesis 2:7.  Both verses use ר֫וּחַ as something that brings life, in the case of Genesis new life, in the case of Ezekiel returned, redeemed life. 

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament describes ר֫וּחַ as having the conceptual effect of “air in motion.” (Payne 1980, 836)  This matches up well with Ezekiel’s use in 37:9, where he speaks of “the four winds” which he uses to denote the four corners of the earth.

Interestingly the corresponding Greek word for ר֫וּחַ is πνεῦμα (Pneuma), which has exactly the same literal translation, i.e. it can mean, breath, wind or spirit.  Therefore, πνεῦμα appears everywhere in the Septuagint translation of Ezekiel 37: 1-14 that ר֫וּחַ does.  In the New Testament πνεῦμα is only used to denote spirit in the Gospels, the first appearance of its use as breath is not until the Acts of the Apostles.  I found that finding particularly useful in proving my point in the class, since I was able to argue that ר֫וּחַ as spirit is a direct reference to the Holy Spirit, even if Jewish theology did refer to the Holy Spirit.  According to the Payne article A.F.Kirkpatrick asserted that “the [ר֫וּחַ] YHWH [of the Old Testament] is the Holy Spirit ‘in the fullest Christian sense.’” (Payne 1980, 837) 

The last point I want to raise about this word is one which might be of interest to feminist theologians.  There has been a move in recent years among our feminist friends to talk about the Holy Spirit as “she.”  Interestingly neither the Greek nor the Hebrew is of a masculine gender.  πνεῦμα is neuter but ר֫וּחַ is actually feminine.  Therefore, perhaps it is right that we should talk about the Holy Spirit as she or else give “it” no gender at all.

Please do attend an archived version of the class that I taught at here

Sources:

Accordance Bible Software

Payne, J. B. (1980). Ruah. wind, breath, mind, spirit. In R. L. Harris, G. l. Archer & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological wordbook of the old testament (pp. 836-837). Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute.

The Real Meaning of Apocalyptic

HT: Facebook, R. D. Baum, via Chrissy Crosby, Colin Maltbie, etc.