Presentation the Commentary Inner-biblical exegesis: the reuse of oracles in light of emerging apocalyptic views.

Contents The next ten minutes I shall briefly introduce to you the issue of inner-biblical exegesis. I shall will discuss various forms of inner-biblical exegesis found in the Bible, since innerbiblical exegesis will be the starting point of my paper. Considering the amount of time we have, I will mainly focus on the manifestations of inner-biblical exegesis in the Old Testament rather than discuss its features in the New Testament at length, although they are as interesting and relevant. Introduction As you all may know the Bible is a composition of various books with several authors and a long redaction history. In the many different books authors and redactors referred sometimes to passages of the same book, but also to passages of the other books. They did reinterpret, reuse and adapt older passages from these books. In other words they wrote commentaries on their own religious authorative tradition and for their turn these works became authorative as well and were consequently interpret later by other authors. Different types of inner-biblical exegesis In his book Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel Michael Fishbane discerns different types of inner-biblical exegesis. 1. First there are the scribal comments and corrections. 2. Secondly one finds a more detailed development of laws, so-called legal exegesis. 3. In the third place there is aggadic exegesis, i.e. the applying of a new context to older texts. The last form of exegesis we will discuss is found in text with a prophetic character. Exegesis of this genre is called mantological exegesis. It contains the exegesis of dreams, visions, omens and oracles. In my paper I will particularly focus on this kind of exegesis. To give you an impression of the various sorts of exegesis I will show you some examples. During this course we have been shown several ways of commenting on a text by making use of glosses, as well lexical as explicative elements. They are in fact scribal comments and corrections. It is important to note that the text passed down is closely connected to the tradition. Most of the texts, which are important to tradition, were considered to be authorative and revealed. In ancient Israel there was no school for biblical scribes to deal with these texts as there was in Mesopotamia, but nonetheless we find in the Hebrew texts a form of scribal exegesis which consists of textual adjustments and explaining lemmas. To indicate glosses the scribes made use of deictic elements, but there are also cases where they left out a deictic element. Why would they add to scripture? In their opinion they made the text more clear or contemporized it. Example 1: Josh. 18:13

Comment [GAW1]: Levert misschien een gekke tegenstelling op. Is me niet helemaal helder wat je hier wil zeggen.

Comment [GAW2]: in turn ?

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Formatted: List Paragraph, Numbered + Level: 1 + Numbering Style: 1, 2, 3, + Start at: 1 + Alignment: Left + Aligned at 0.25" + Indent at: 0.5" Comment [GAW3]: Impliceert dat je meerdere vormen eerst besproken hebt.

Comment [GAW4]: and ?

Comment [GAW5]: ...one might wonder. Anders lijkt het alsof de schrijvers zich dat afvroegen wellicht.

WTT Joshua 18:13

KJV

Joshua 18:13 And the border went over from thence toward Luz, to the side of Luz, which is Bethel, southward; and the border descended to Atarothadar, near the hill that lieth on the south side of the nether Bethhoron.

The reader is informed that Beth El is the contemporary name for the ancient city called Luz. Legal exegesis Legal exegesis consists of the adaption, revision, expansion of laws and combining laws in order to make them more clearclearer or more suitable for the tradition and maybe even for daily practice. So some laws were made more explicit, while the meaning regarding its praxis or specifications of other laws completely changed. This becomes most visible in the cases were laws are repeated and therefore can be compared with each other. It Ooccurs with and without introductory formulae. Example 2: Exodus 22: 30 (in KJV 22:31) is an isolated rule in covenant code which says Israelites are not to eat ripped carcasses, there is a second law Exodus 23:19 at the end of several cultic prescriptions (regarding pilgrimage festivals) with a prohibition against boiling a kid in its mothers milk in conjunction with the feast of ingathering, the feast of Booths. The laws occur in separate sections, but appear combined as one rule in Deut. 14:21. One is now prohibited from boiling a kid in its mothersmothers milk just as one must observe whether fish have scales and fins. It becomes a prohibition in itself.
Ex 22: 31 And ye shall be holy men unto me: neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs. Ex.23:19 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. Deut. 14:21 Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

Pseudo-prophecies, reinterpretation of prophecies and especially Daniel 7-12 and its relation to mantic oracles. The paper would concentrate on the interpretative side of oracles and the way old prophecies (not yet fulfilled) are reinterpretated in order that they can come true (and they will otherwise it wouldnt be called an oracle). Mantic oracles in biblical tradition are interesting in the light of emerging eschatological thought and authorative status of texts. Because an oracle is always a revelation, there is a tension between revelation and tradition. This is also the case with the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, though their aim is somewhat different than Daniel, but the principle of reusing old prophecies is the same. Legal exegesis: How laws were adapted, revised and expanded in order to make them more clear or suitable for the tradition and (maybe) daily practice. One legal law occurs sometimes more than once in the Bible. Consequently these textual changes can change the entire meaning of a law, its praxis or specifications. The interpretations of the psalms in the NT through Septuagint translations (e.g. psalm 16). Also possible for psalm 1 and other psalms, though they do not occurs explicitly in the NT, but the Septuagint translation might be more eschatological. Dream interpretation: about the way dreams are interpretated (e.g. the story of Josef and Egyptian dream books).

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