1. Definition: “Jew” “Judaism” The term Jew(ish) can be traced back through the Latin judaeus and Greek ‘iodaios to the Hebrew Yehudi, which once referred to citizens of the Southern Kingdom of Judah who survived the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Ephraim) in 721 B.C.E. The term gained currency, however, during the period of the Exile and the period after the return. During the pre-exilic period, we refer to the residents of Judah and Israel as “Judeans” and “Israelites.” During the postexilic period, the term Jews was used to refer to subjects of the Persian province of Judah ( Neh. 1:2) and later to the state established by the Maccabean leaders (1 Mac. 8:20) The term was not geographically limited, however, for Jews who were “dispersed” or scattered in countries outside Judah, such as Babylonia or Egypt, continued to cherish their Judean background and ties. Those who did not share this “Jewish” identity were regarded as belonging to “the nations” ( Isa. 61:5-9), that is, the gentiles.

2. Definition: “Jew” “Judaism” Nationality is not the decisive factor in being a “Jew,” as evident from the fact that many Jews today are not citizens of the state of Israel. In biblical times, the decisive factor was religion, specifically the conviction that God had entered into special relationship with the people and called them to be “separate” by virtue of their distinctive way of life. The term Judaism is conventionally applied to the religion of the Judeans or “Jews,” among whom the covenant faith came to new expression after the collapse of the nation in 587 B.C.E. The term is not found in the Hebrew Bible,; it seems to have been coined in later Hellenistic circles of the Diaspora or “Dispersion” ( see Gal. 1: 13-14). In any case, the Exile marked the beginning of a completely new chapter in the history of Israel’s faith. It is proper to reserve the terms Jews and Judaism for the new phase of Israel’s life story.

3. Definition: Tetrateuch,” “Pentateuch,” “Hexateuch” These terms, from the Greek tetra ( four), penta (five), and hexa (six), frequently figure in discussions about the first four, five or six books of the Bible, One view maintains that the book of Joshua, which deals with the inheritance of the land, constitues the climax and conclusion to the story found in the Pentateuch. Thus a “Hexateuch” give us traditions that run continuously form Genesis through Joshua. 1 Another view is that the old account of the occupation of the land has been lost, except for the fragmentary report of settlement in Transjordan (Num. 32). This gives us a “Tetrateuch” separate from Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History in Joshua through Kings. Advocates of this view argue that Deuteronomistic influence is scarcely evident in the first four books of the Old Testament, while the Deuteronomistic style and viewpoint become dominant thereafter. 2

4. Definition: “Tetrateuch,” “Pentateuch,” “Hexateuch” The importance of the argument for our study is that the Priestly Writing is essentially a “Tetrateuch” that extends from Genesis through Numbers, plus a passage at the end of Deuteronomy about Moses’ death ( Deut. 34, which resumes the story from the end of the book of Numbers). Apparently, the Priestly writers felt that the climax of the story was the revelation at Sinai, not the story of conquest of Canaan. 1 See Gerhard von Rad’s seminal essay, “The Form- critical Problem of the Hexateuch” [233]. 2 This view is championed by Martin Noth in The Deuteronomistic History [ 323].

5. Definition: “Redeemer” The special word for “Redeemer” ( Hebrew: go’el) has many nuances in the Old Testament. The word came originally from the realm of family law. It was the duty of the go’el ( next of kin) to vindicate a family member whose “justice” was threatened or violated. If the family member was forced to sell property for some reason, the go’el- the “redeemer”- was obligated to buy it and keep it in the family if at all possible. A good illustration is Jeremiah’s purchase of the ancestral estate in Anathoth during the Babylonian siege ( Jer. 32:6-12; see pp. 384-385). The story of Ruth presents another example of how property redemption worked out in practice ( Ruth 4:3-9). In the case of murder, it was the obligation of the go’el to obtain justice for the deceased family member by taking revenge; in this case the “redeemer was to be the “blood avenger” ( Hebrew: go’el haddam; compare to Num. 35:19; Josh 20:3,9).

6. Definition: “Redeemer” The practice of blood revenge was abandoned early in Israelite history, but the belief survived that, at a higher level, God is the “Redeemer” who vindicates the justice of the people. This in turn led to the larger question of theodicy; the question of whether God actually acts to vindicate the rights of the weak and oppressed. It was Job, above all, who appealed to God to be his go’el and to vindicate his justice (see Chapter 17).

7. Definition: “Rahab,” “Sea” Our study has frequently referred to the chaos monster or “dragon” that was slain by the Divine Warrior at the time of Creation. This motif is found in the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish, which tells how the young warrior-god, Marduk, overcame the powers of the Heavenly Council, resulted in the separation of the upper and lower parts of Tiamat’s body and thus the limitation of the spheres of heaven and earth. The mythical victory was not decisive, however. In the annual rotation of the seasons, the powers of chaos seemed to get the upper hand as springtime fertility was overtaken by winter barrenness. Hence the “myth of the eternal return” 1 was celebrated each New Year, when the Divine Warrior again won a victory over the powers of chaos.

8. Definition “Rahab,” “Sea” This myth was known in various forms in the ancient world. The Western Semitic name for the chaos monster is Rahab ( Isa 51:9; see also Job 9:13, 26:12; Ps. 89:10) or Leviathan (Ps. 74:14, 104:26; Isa. 27:1). Sometimes the powers of chaos are described merely as Sea ( Hebrew: Yam), or Abyss ( Hebrew:Tehom), “mighty waters,” or “floods.” Similar language is found in ancient Canaanite (ugaritic) mythology, where the sky-god Baal enters into conflict with Sea ( Yamm) or subdues Leviathan (L-t-n), described as a fleeing, twisting serpent (compare Isa. 27:1) 2

9. Definition “Rahab,” “Sea” Celebrations of this myth portrayed the divine maintenance of the ordered cosmos against the powers of disorder. As the representative of the god, the king was empowered to maintain order in the mundane realm and to put down enemies that threatened the social order. Israel also used this motif in various ways to express faith in the supreme Ruler, God, who is Creator and Liberator. 1 See Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return [173] 2 See further B.W. Anderson, “The Slaying of the Fleeing, Twisting Serpent,” in From Creation to New Creation [181], chap 12

10. Definition: “Aramaic” During the postexilic period, the Aramaic language gradually became the common tongue of the Jewish people. Keep in mind, however, that Aramaic was at least as old as Hebrew, and both belonged to a common family of Semitic languages. The differences and seminaries between them were like those between modern Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian. This kinship of language might help to explain the close relations that existed between the Aramean (Syrian) and Hebrew people, as reflected in the ancestral stories of Jacob and Laban. In the ancient Mediterranean world, Aramaic commanded great international prestige. When the Rabshakeh came to demand the surrender of Jerusalem in the time of Isaiah (see pp. 318-319) he was asked to speak in Aramaic rather than in the native tongue of the Judeans. During and after the Exile, the Persian authorities used Aramaic as an international language in addressing the satrapies, thereby enhancing its importance (Isa 36:11;2 Kings 18:26).

11. Definiton: “Aramaic” Gradually, the Jews came to thing of Hebrew as a literary or classical language. But in Palestine and throughout the Dispersion (for instance, at Elephantine) their spoken language was Aramaic. Thus, well before the Common Era, Hebrew scripture has to be accompanies by a targum- a free translation into Aramaic- to enable ordinarily Jews to understand it. Moreover, the Babylonian Talmud, a voluminous collection of writings (compiles about 600 C.E.) that set forth Jewish religious and civil law, was written in an eastern branch of the Aramaic language.

12. Definition: “Halakha,” “Haggada” The Hebrew word torah cannot be translated adequately by the English word law. Torah, we found, as two dimensions; story and stipulation. The people who have been liberated are under obligation to walk in the way that is consonant with the action and will of their redeeming God. In later rabbinic discussion, found in the comprehensive work know as the deeming God. In later rabbinic discussions, found in the comprehensive work known as the Talmud, these two dimensions were designated by the terms haggada (from a Hebrew word meaning “tell, relate”) and halakha ( from a verb meaning, “to walk, go”). The postexilic period witnessed a great development of the halakhic or legal dimension of Torah. The books of Chronicles omit the whole Exodus tradition, concentrating instead on the royal (messianic) theology with its twin pillars of kingship and Temple. The “Torah of YHWH” of the “torah of Moses” refers primarily to the “commandments” and “statutes” that guide the people in their cultic and social life ( such as 1Chron. 22:12-13; 2 Chron. 14:4, 23:18). In later phases of the Chroniclers’ Work found in Ezra-Nehemiah, the Mosaic revelation receives greater emphasis, but the accent continues to fall on the aspect of the Torah.

13. Definition: “Halakha,” “Hagada” Such a shift in emphasis is understandable in insecure times, when people needed guidance in the way that they should “walk” and the lifestyle that distinguished them as a community. Nevertheless, it is wrong to regard Judaism as a “religion of law” in the narrowly halakhic or legal sense for, as shown by the book of Ezra- Nehemiah, the narrative or haggadic side of Israel’s faith was never forgotten. Indeed, as we have seen already in the book of Exodus, the two dimensions are interrelated.

14. Definition: “Psalms,” “Psalter” The title “the book fo Psalms” actually comes from the New Testament ( Luke 20:42; Acts 1:20). The early Christian community read Israel’s scriptures in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint. There the prevailing title was psalmoi, referring to “songs” sung to the accompaniment of stringed instruments. Another title psalterion, found in one codex of the Greek Bible, refers primarily to a zitherlike instrument and secondarily to songs sung to stringed accompaniment. From this title comes the term Psalter. Whereas the Greek terms psalmoi and psalterion emphasize the musical dimension of the psalms, the Herew title Tehilim (“praise”) stresses their content. Indeed, in whatever mood or mode, these songs are praises to god.

15. Definition: “Form Criticism” The literary approach known as “form criticism” include three types of study. First, one determines the bounds of a particular literary unit of pericope (Greek: “ a cutting all around”). This suggests that a passage, when cut out of its context, ahs its own literary integrity: a definite beginning and end, internal structure and dynamic, and a self-contained meaning ( a parable would be a good example). Second, one attempts to understand the function of the literary unit in its setting in life ( German Sitz im Leben),perhaps in everyday affairs ( a wedding song or a funeral dirge) or, as in the case of the Psalms, in community worship. Third, one assumes that these literary unites which reflect general human experiences, display formulaic patterns and literary conventions evident elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible or in other literature of the ancient Near East. Therefore, a study of analogous literary forms can be illuminating. Closely related to form criticism is the method known as “rhetorical criticism,” which concentrates on the stylistic features and literary patterns of a text rather than on the social setting or historical context. 1 1 See James Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond” [103]

16. Definition: “Ascription” An “ascription” is a grammatical form in which a narrative clause follows-or even takes the place of- the divine Name, for the purpose of identifying who God is as known trough divine actions. In the Bible, ascriptions are usually formulated grammatically either by using the relative pronoun (“who”) or a participle referring to the actor ( or action), as in Psalm 136 ( translated “ the One who”). Other examples are found in Psalm 103:3-5 and in hymnic passages of Second Isaiah ( such as Isa. 44: 24-28). Ascriptions often belong to hymnic style because the hymn praises God by telling what God ahs done, is doing, or will do. A story that identifies who God is can be reduced to a single sentence, as in the prologue to the Decalouge: “ I am YHWH your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” 1 1 See futher James T. Clemons. “God, Ascriptions to’ in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [38] II, pp. 503-04

17. Definition: “Theodicy” Theodicy- the philosophical explanation of God’s ways- is an important issue in dealing with the problem of suffering and evil. Coined by the German philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716), the term is composed of the Greek words theos (“God”) and dike (“justice, righteousness”). It refers to attempts to give a rational explanation of god’s justice in allowing evil to exist I an world under divine control. Beginning with ancient Greek philosophy, human reason has attempted to justify or vindicate the ways of God. If, as in Aristotle’s philosophy, God is the summit of being ( imagine a triangle representing “being,” with God at the apex), then reason, which human beings share with the divine, should be able to achieve an intelligible and comprehensive view of the whole. The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1801) stood within this tradition but, in On the Failure of All Philosophical Attempts in Theodicy, attempted to show the limitations of reason. Not surprisingly, this work devotes considerable space to interpreting the book of Job

18. Definition: “Theodicy” The book of Job presents a challenge to rational theodicy from the perspective of Israelite wisdom. God is neither the summit of being nor a process or entity within the phenomenal world. Rather, God is the Creator who transcends the whole creation- the One who originated and sustains all being ( Aristotle’s “triangle”). In this perspective, the sense of mystery is not capable of rational explanation, but is a fundamental datum of faith that responds in amazement and wonder to the holiness of God

19. Definition: “Son of Man” Daniel 7 introduces an important motif of apocalyptic literature. The original Aramaic, bar ‘anash, literally means “ a son of man.” Elsewhere in the Old Testament a comparable expression is sometimes used to refer to “a human being.” For example, the King James Version translates Psalm 8:4 “What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” The Hebrew expression ben ‘adam, translated “son of man,” really means a mortal person for “son” is an idiomatic way of referring to a member of a class. Examples of this idiomatic usage are “sons of the prophets,” or a prophetic company ( Hebrew: benei ha ‘elohim; see Job 1:6). The book of Ezekiel frequently uses the same expression, with special emphasis, to highlight the mortal weakness and finite humanity of the prophet in contrast to the holy, majestic deity of YHWH.

20. Definition: “Son of Man” The expression has a special linguistic function in the context of Daniel’s apocalyptic vision. First, we are dealing with a similitude: “one like” a human being, in contrast to the oppressive empires that are like beasts. Second, this human-like figure is a heavenly being, one who comes transcendently “ with the clouds of heaven,” in contrast to the beasts who emerge form the sea, the locus of the powers of chaos. It would be erroneous to literalize the symbolism and think of the offspring ( “son”) of a man or even a “human one.” In an apocalyptic writing know as “The Book of Enoch,” based on a tradition reaching back into a time before the Common Era ( first century B.C.E.), there are references to a figure of the end-time, “the Son of Man,” who comes to establish God’s kingdom ( Enoch 46:1; 48:2-10). In the Jewish apocalypse called II Esdras ( or Fourth Ezra/ Fourth Esdras), found in the Apocrypha and dating from the close of the first century B.C.E., a vision is described in which Ezra sees emerging out of the sea “as it were the likeness of a man [ human being]” who flies on the clouds of heaven ( Esdras 13). This figure is understood to be the heavenly agent o fGod’s judgment in the last days. “Son of Man” or “The Heavenly Being” is often used in this messianic sense in the gospels of the New Testament ( as Mark 8:31) For the Enoch literature, see the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha editions by R.H. Charles [6] and James Charlesworth [8].

21. Definition: “Canonical Criticism” In connection with the discussion of Ezra as the architect of Judaism ( see Chapter 15), we touched briefly on the question of canon ( literally “measuring line” or “rule”). Referring to sacred writings that conform to the “rule” of a community’s faith and practice. This narrow definition, however, hardly does justice to the biblical canon or to recent discussions about “canonical criticism’ in scholarly circles. Two views of “canonical criticism” have emerged. The first, championed by Brevard Childs, 1 emphasizes the final form of a biblical book or canonical unit ( such as a Pentateuch). By “final form” Childs does not mean the form given to a writing by a redactors who revised given materials for a new situation in the life of the people. That kind of study, or other historical criticism ( such as a source, form, stylistic/rhetorical) might have value in helping us to understand the prehistory of the final text. But Childs contends that to read a book in “canonical context” is to read it as it was shaped by the community of faith through use in worship and teaching, that is, as “scripture” in which God’s word is mediated through the given written form. Thus, for example the Pentateuch ( Torah) is to be read “holistically” as a work in which the parts are related to one another and hence as a work in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

22. Definition: “Canonical Criticism” The second view, advocated by James Sanders, 2 emphasizes “the canonical process”: the whole sweep of Israel's history of traditions in which the word of God comes to the situations in history. To be sure, “canonical criticism is very interested in what a believing community had in mind at that passing moment when the final form was achieved.” But once the text is fixed in its final form, the community finds a way “ to break it down to reapply to their purposes and needs. There were “Periods of intense canonical process,” such as the period after the fist fall of Jerusalem in the sixth century B.C.E. and especially the period around the second fall of Jerusalem in the firstly century C.E. But tradition, even when fixed in scripture, always proved to be “adaptable for life” and hence was able to answer for the believing community “the two essential and existential question of identity and lifestyle” 3

23. Definition: “Canonical Criticism” Notice that the story/history approach of our study leans more toward so-called canonical process than to a hermeneutical stance that places excessive weight upon the final “scriptural” or “canonical” shape given the traditions in the late period of biblical Judaism. 1 Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture [54]. 2 James a. Sanders, Torah and Canon [ 119] and Canon and Community [ 120]. 3 Sanders, [120] pp. 28ff