Divine hiddenness in the Hebrew Bible is widely construed as the conceptual equivalent to divine absence. This article challenges this influential account in light of Psalm 88—where the hidden God is hostilely present, not absent—and reevaluates divine hiddenness. Divine hiddenness is not conterminous with divine absence. Rather, with its roots in the ancient Near Eastern idea of the royal and cultic audience, the meaning of “hide the face” (סתר + פנים) may be construed as a refusal of an audience with the divine king YHWH. Building on this insight, I argue that divine hiddenness possesses a petitionary logic and develop a distinction between the experiential and petitionary inaccessibility of salvific divine presence. Divine absence and hostile divine presence denote the former, while divine hiddenness the latter. I probe the relationships between divine hiddenness, divine absence, and hostile divine presence, concluding that the absent or hostilely present God is not ipso facto hidden.

For centuries, the lost Jewish-Christian dialogue Jason and Papiscus was known only through various quotations and summaries from Patristic sources. This changed in 2011 with the publication of a newly discovered, large fragment of Jason and Papiscus known as the Sinaiticus fragment. The current article examines the Sinaiticus fragment, compares it to the previously known remnants of Jason and Papiscus and examines the information from the fragment in relation to other texts. Several important new observations are obtained as a result. This article—for the first time—unites the Sinaiticus fragment with all of the Patristic material related to Jason and Papiscus in one appendix, with all entries newly translated by the author with updated notes. This article also contains new digital images of the Sinaiticus fragment.

Administrators in ancient Judah used schematic 30-day months and a 360-day year alongside other annual frameworks. This year was never practiced as a “calendar” for any cultic or administrative purpose, but rather served as a convenient framework for long-term planning, as well as for literary accounts that were not anchored to a concrete calendar year. Examples for such a usage are attested here from Mesopotamian texts. Material evidence for the 360-day year in Judah comes forth from a series of small perforated bone plaques from various sites in Iron Age Judah. One such item was recently unearthed in the city of David. These objects can reasonably be understood as reflecting a schematic 360-day year, serving as desk calendars for Judahite administrators. Several priestly pentateuchal texts are best understood against this background, such as the dating of some festivals and most notably the dates in the Flood narrative (Gen 7–8). The original dating system is best represented in LXX Gen 7:11, while the reading of MT is a late modification, inserted later, when calendar debates took a central place in the religious discourse. MT is thus a link in a chain of later reworking of this narrative in Second Temple literature. The 360-day year is thus a unique case where material culture dovetails with literary evidence, and may shed light on the material culture of priestly sources. This insight is significant for future studies of biblical time reckoning.

Calendar dates in Jubilees’ Garden of Eden story have led some to question the nature of the book’s presupposed calendar and others to conclude that the passage is redacted. Close reading of the text shows that the passage was carefully constructed and the work of one author who took pains not to jeopardize the calendar promoted elsewhere in the book. Confusion arises when scholars subordinate the calendar to the book’s chronological system; they should be kept distinct. The author uses the recurrence of calendar dates to connect events to each other typologically and to an underlying narrative pattern, which, like the calendar, is founded on the annual cycle of agricultural labor.

This article deals with the similarities and differences between Ben Sira and Chrysippus regarding their solutions to the tension between free will and determinism. Both Ben Sira and Chrysippus argue for compatibilism, the theory that free will and determinism are compatible. However, Ben Sira and Chrysippus have different understandings of freedom required by moral responsibility. According to Chrysippus, consent is the internal cause of persons’ actions, and, thus, they should be responsible for these actions. By contrast, Ben Sira claims that although being shaped by God’s plan, persons could have done otherwise and, in this sense, are responsible for their sins. The first section of this article examines the texts of Ben Sira and Chrysippus regarding the problem of free will. The second section discusses the positions of Ben Sira and Chrysippus on compatibilism. The last section explains the possible influence of Chrysippus on Ben Sira and the main difference between their understandings of freedom.

In early Christian culture, prophets went into ecstasies while having visions and speaking by means of a spirit (enthusiasm). With the waning of prophetic activity in the second century, enthusiasm was not seen in many communal gatherings. When enthusiasm reemerged in Montanism during the late second century, church leaders claimed that speaking in ecstasy never existed as true prophecy in early Christian culture. They argued that true prophets always prophesied with a sound mind. The ecstasy of Montanism exhibited an unsound mind and looked like demonic possession; thus, Montanist prophecy was rejected as false. This paper theorizes that enthusiasm's absence contributed to the critics of Montanist ecstasy who were not used to enthusiasm and therefore did not recognize it as an early Christian practice.

The language of Qoheleth is characterized by an awkward style and an unusual vocabulary. Past studies have assigned these peculiarities to linguistic factors, assuming that the book reflects an underrepresented dialect or register. The current study aims to expand the boundaries of this discourse by introducing extra-linguistic considerations into the discussion. Qoheleth is the only biblical book that is purely philosophical, focusing on abstract issues such as the purpose of life and the problem of free will. Such philosophical discussions require the use of an abstract terminology. The basic toolkit of any philosopher consists of conceptual phrases such as “time,” “space,” “cosmos,” “humanity,” “meaning,” etc. Yet abstract vocabulary was meager in the Hebrew at the author’s disposal. Paving a pioneering way in the realm of thought, Qoheleth’s author had to create a terminological system capable of expressing his new ideas. This article traces the ways in which the need for a personally-customized philosophical idiom shaped Qoheleth’s language. Exploring the origins of eleven key-terms in the book, this article reveals the dynamics that gave rise to Qoheleth’s personal lexicon. These include generalization and conceptualization of the extant semantic fields of certain terms in order to re-invent them as personal expressions reflecting the author’s philosophy. The author takes advantage of the “linguistic availability” of certain terms, that is, their foreignness or rareness that makes them better-suited, in his view, to bear newly created meanings. Taken together, Qoheleth’s neologisms constitute a personal idiolect, carefully designed to convey the author’s unique thought.

This article will suggest that scholars have overlooked a model plausibly lurking in the background of Col 2:15 which parallels the triumphal death of Christ: namely, the crucifixion of Regulus. Regulus was a general who achieved a near-mythic status during the First Punic War by his sacrificial death, in which his perseverance on the gibbet was seen as even greater than riding in the victor’s car. Tertullian credited Regulus as having set the precedent for enduring the torments of the cross, while others declared him as having overcome through death not only his human foes but also Lady Fortune. Regulus’ story enjoyed so much widespread popularity it was admitted in the curriculum of Roman schools by the middle of the first century CE. Because Regulus’ epic contains low-hanging fruit, ripe for comparison with Christ’s crucifixion, Christians drew upon the story of Regulus from at least as early as Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and Augustine. Nevertheless, scholars have overlooked the possible parallels with Regulus’ story and Christ’s triumphal death in Col 2:15. I will first provide a composite depiction of Regulus’ military life and sacrificial death along with its reported ramifications in order to tease out similarities and differences with Col 2:15 and finally conclude with comments concerning the significance of including the legend as additional background for the verse. In short, I will propose that reading Regulus’ story in comparison with Col 2:15 supports an anti-imperial and/or a supra-imperial reading of the letter.

This article investigates the nature of Manichaean pedagogy as expressed through the late antique codices known as the Kephalaia of the Teacher and the Kephalaia of the Wisdom of my Lord Mani. By paying attention to a range of contextual cues that frame each moment of instruction, it first argues that much like their rabbinic and Christian neighbors, Mesopotamian Manichaeans did not study in academic institutions. Rather, instruction took place on an ad-hoc, individual basis, often based on happenstance events; there is no mention of a building dedicated to learning, a standard curriculum, or a semester schedule. This article then contextualizes this form of non-institutionalized Manichaean instruction by comparing three formulae found in the Kephalaia codices that have parallels in the Babylonian Talmud: the formula of Mani “sitting among” his disciples (or of his disciples “sitting before” Mani), of Mani’s disciples “standing before” Mani, and of various people “coming before” Mani. In so doing, this article ultimately argues that the Babylonian Rabbis and Syro-Mesopotamian Manichaeans shared a common pedagogical habitus, one expressed through bodily comportment and hierarchy rather than through the imposition of institutional norms.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus declares himself to be the way to the Father; in the First Apocalypse of James, Jesus explains exactly what this way entails. This article analyzes how 1 Apoc. Jas. uses the Johannine christological themes of identity, death and ascension and makes them applicable for human salvation. The identity of Jesus as a son of the Father, as opposed to the inhabitants of the world/cosmos, his autonomous death that conquers cosmic evils, and his immediate ascension and fleshly return are all Johannine motifs that are reformulated in 1 Apoc. Jas. Jesus reveals to James that he too is a son of the Father, and James must declare this identity during his postmortem journey through the celestial toll-collectors. He must not fear his impending stoning as, like other martyrdom literature, the martyr is immune to earthly concerns, and the real challenge lies in the cosmic sphere.

Adversus haereses 3.22.4 is one of the key texts for Irenaeus’ views about the virgin Mary’s role in the “economy” of salvation. Among the many interpretative riddles of this passage, this paper discusses the function of the metaphor of the knots in Irenaeus’ argument. A close analysis suggests that the lines in question are not the conclusion of the preceding section (as implied by the Latin version—and modern interpreters), but the opening of a concluding development that sums up the role of the New Adam and the New Eve. As a result, the metaphor of knots should not be understood in exclusive connection with Mary: it applies to both Christ and her— though it is particularly fitting for expressing Mary’s role as New (and Anti-) Eve.

It has become commonplace to contrast Plotinus’s spirituality with Christian spirituality by portraying the former as solipsistic and the latter as communal. In particular, this critique has centred around Plotinus’s description of mystical ascent as a “flight of the alone to the alone” and his presentation of Plato’s Phaedrus as an exhortation to “work on your own statue.” Yet, should one understand the One as a supreme unity, it would appear that the Plotinian unio mystica renders the mystic supremely unified with the rest of being. Accordingly, this article emphasizes Plotinus’s “inclusive monotheism” in order to argue that the “flight of the alone to the alone” should be understood as a movement towards the supreme unity that underlies reality. The unificatory effects of this ascent are emphasized by the way in which Plotinus, in both his life and works, depicts teaching as a common response to henosis. This didactic turn, it is argued, is a response to glimpsing the deep unity of reality, which expands the mystic’s sphere of concern to include the “other” as another self.

The Hebrew Bible prohibits lending at interest. This is usually linked to care for the poor. A similar connection is found in post-biblical literature as well. In Deut 23:20–21, however, usury is disconnected from the poverty laws. Classical rabbinic literature (second to sixth centuries) follows Deuteronomy in sharply de-coupling usury from poverty: the usury prohibition in that corpus regulates commerce and property, and is not intended to benefit the poor. In a sharp break with classical rabbinic tradition, the usury prohibition is reassociated with the poor in piyyut and in the Tanhuma midrashim, two late antique genres of Jewish literature associated but not entirely contiguous with classical rabbinic literature. Both genres bring this tradition to the fore through the use of earlier rabbinic materials, which do not espouse it. This combination of usury and care for the poor mirrors fourth-century Christian writings on usury.

Divine names are linguistic objects that underlie the grammar of religious language. They serve as both representations and presentations of the divine. As representations, divine names carry information pertaining to God’s nature or actions, and his unique will, in a manner that adequately represents him. As presentations, divine names are believed to somehow effect divine presence in proximity to the believer, opening a path of direct connection to God. This paper seeks to analyze the interaction between presentation and representation concerning divine names in major trends within Judaism and Islam, from the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an to medieval theological debates. It aims to demonstrate how central currents within both traditions shaped the intricate relation between divine presentation and representation through the prism of divine names. Whereas positions in philosophy of language focus on either the representational or the presentational functions of proper names, Jewish and Islamic theologies suggest ways to combine the two functions with regard to divine names.

The claim that article four of Thomas Aquinas’s De unione verbi incarnati is a reversal of his consistently held single esse position is challenged in this paper. The article argues that reading all five articles of the De unione as a single-structured argument discloses a single esse understanding of the Incarnate Word. The very nature of the radically hypostatic union between God and man in Christ is at stake in this dispute. According to Thomas, positing a second esse in Christ not only contradicts the tradition, especially of the Christian East, that he appropriates, but it would also compromise the reality of the hypostatic union itself.

This article discusses Maimonides’s rationale for the incest taboo and traces its reception in Christian and kabbalistic traditions in the thirteenth century. Tracing the reception of Maimonides’s view enables recognition of the resemblance between Maimonides and Aquinas, the ambivalent stance toward Maimonides’s explanation expressed by Nahmanides, and the incorporation of Maimonides’s reasoning in one of the most systematic and enigmatic works of kabbalistic rationalization of the commandments, the Castilian Kabbalist Joseph of Hamadan’s The Book of the Rationales of the Negative Commandments. R. Joseph’s acceptance of Maimonidean principles and his integration of them in the theurgic Kabbalah reveal a conflict in the heart of its system and teach us about an important aspect of the theory of sexuality in Kabbalah. The inquiry offered here examines the inter-relations between divergent medieval religious trends in constructing the role of sexuality. Instead of the common presentation of Kabbalah as diverging from the ascetic positions of Jewish philosophy and Christianity, this analysis will elucidate Kabbalah’s continuity with them.

Robert Orsi’s argument that religion, more than a system of “meaning making,” is a “network of relationships between heaven and earth” helps us understand what is at stake in imitation for early Christians. The question for Orsi is not, “What does it mean to imitate Paul?” as much as it is, “In what kind of relationship is one engaged when one imitates Paul?” Christians argue over both what to imitate (Who is Paul?) and how to imitate (How should Christians relate to Paul in order to be like him or to render him present?). The what has received lots of scholarly attention; this paper focuses on the how. I compare the range of possibilities of how to imitate Paul by focusing on three influential accounts of mimesis: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (ekstasis), John Chrysostom (ekphrasis), and Gregory of Nyssa (epektasis).

Recent scholarship on modern Jewish thought has sought to overcome the field’s Germanocentrism by recovering diverse visions of Jewish life across eastern and western Europe. While studies typically emphasize either striking differences or surprising affinities between these settings, I use the neglected eastern European philosopher Nachman Krochmal to highlight a strategy of creative appropriation and redirection—an eastern European strategy of breaking with German-Jewish philosophy precisely by deploying that tradition’s own resources. One of modern Jewish philosophy’s early episodes, I argue, is a politically charged engagement with biblical exegesis involving Krochmal and the German-Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn. Implicitly drawing on yet revising the treatment of biblical interpretation in Mendelssohn’s Hebrew writings, Krochmal seeks to retrieve what he sees as a vital element of Jewish politics: possessing neither a shared land nor military strength, he insists, Jews have long sustained their diasporic collective through hermeneutical endeavors such as rabbinic midrash, and they should continue to do so by launching a transnational project of historically sensitive exegesis. The resulting image of a transnational Jewish collective whose fate is separate from that of non-Jewish polities breaks with Mendelssohn’s political vision, pointing to an east-west dynamic of creative repurposing—an instance of an eastern European thinker drawing on a German-Jewish predecessor to develop a sharply contrasting philosophical vision.

This article focuses on the recovery of censored Jewish texts in contemporary Orthodox rabbinic literature. I show that contemporary Orthodox scholars make use of critical methods which are close to those of the historical, philological, and biblical sciences, in order to reconstruct those portions of the Jewish tradition which were omitted or transformed in the early-modern period by Christian censorship or by Jews with an “eye” to the censor. As the censored texts were mostly omitted or changed because they were recognized as offensive to Christian sensitivities, their current recovery entails also a renewed discussion of Judaism’s attitude to Christianity. I argue that the “uncensoring” of Jewish traditions is closely connected with expressions of animosity towards Christianity. The combination of this animosity with the use of modern scientific methods brings the common cultural assumptions which relate resistance to inter-faith rapprochement with “traditionalism,” and a reactionary approach to modernism, into question.

This article traces the evolution of a kabbalistic prayer supplication that was designed to purify male Jews from pollution caused by improper seminal emission. In doing so, it focuses on the metaphysical rationale behind it, its function, and its metamorphosis from a highly technical practice into a mainstream devotional practice. It addresses how notions of sexual pollution (qeri) were contextualized in Lurianic Kabbalah and how they were later embedded in kabbalistic manuals and prayer books. Furthermore, the article examines Jewish-Christian and inner- Jewish debates that emerged in connection with the effects of spilling semen in vain. Special attention is paid to possible social factors that may have impacted the increased anxiety about male bodily fluids and “misguided” desires. In addition to the available research on the theological and general historical background of the prohibition of wasting seed, the following analysis offers a microhistory of this short yet highly influential text.