Here is the schedule and text for Monday through Friday, using again the text from R.R. Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint. Ottley is also here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).
Here’s what the IVP page says about the dictionary in its book description:
The Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch is the first in a four-volume series covering the text of the Old Testament. Following in the tradition of the four award-winning IVP dictionaries focused on the New Testament and its background, this encyclopedic work is characterized by close attention to the text of the Old Testament and the ongoing conversation of contemporary scholarship. In exploring the major themes and issues of the Pentateuch, editors T. Desmond Alexander and David W.Baker, with an international and expert group of scholars, inform and challenge through authoritative overviews, detailed examinations and new insights from the world of the ancient Near East.
My first review contains an initial evaluation of the dictionary specifically in Logos Bible Software; you can read that here. In this post I summarize and briefly interact with three more articles: “Terah,” “Lot,” and “Ur.”
Terah
Terah was Abram’s father and Lot’s grandfather. He also fathered Nahor and Haran. M.W. Chavalas notes that Terah was “the family head,” since “all of the material in Genesis 11:27-25:11 is prefaced by the statement, ‘This is the family history of Terah’” (829). Chavalas considers Terah in three parts: the etymology of his name, his time in the city of Ur, and “Terah and Later Traditions.”
Chavalas considers several options for the meaning and linguistic source of “Terah,” but concludes, “An understanding of the etymology of the name Terah has proved to be difficult” (829). It does seem to have “associations with a place name in northern Mesopotamia” (830) and perhaps some associations with lunar worship (though perhaps not). Similarly, Ur, from which Terah comes, has been difficult to pinpoint. Chavalas places it in southern Mesopotamia. Chavalas finally considers the challenge that Acts 7:4 and Philo pose regarding chronology and location.
Chavalas manages to cover most of the essential territory on Terah in a short space. There is not much biblical material on Terah, but this article contains an overview of it all. There is little content in the “Terah and Later Traditions” section, and the article’s bibliography does not point to more resources to explore Abram’s father, for example, in rabbinical tradition. Detailed research on Terah would have to be supplemented with other resources.
Lot
Lot was Terah’s grandson and Abram’s nephew. J.I. Lawlor notes that Lot traveled with his grandfather Terah from Ur to Haran because his own father has died (556).
Lawlor primarily takes a literary and narrative approach to understanding Lot’s place in the Abram/Abraham material. He notes “two ‘paired sets’” of Lot material that “have been integrated, one set in each half of the Abraham story” (556). The author/compiler of Genesis does this, Lawlor notes, to “suggest and hold open the possibility of Lot as Abraham’s heir” (556), later dismissing the possibility as Isaac becomes heir (557).
Genesis 14:17-24 marks Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek, occasioned because Abram had gone to battle due to the Mesopotamian kings’ kidnapping of Lot. Abram rescued Lot in Gen. 14, then rescued him again, in a way, by interceding on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen. 18-19 (557-8).
Due to an incestuous drunken encounter with his daughters, Lot gave rise to two groups of people, the Moabites and Ammonites, which Lawlor briefly discusses.
Lawlor’s most helpful contribution is in his situating of Lot in the larger flow of Genesis 12-19, where Lot serves as a possible answer to the question, Who will be an heir to Abram and Sarai? His reading of the “two paired sets” of Lot material is illuminating.
Ur
Like Chavalas in the “Terah” article, Osborne locates Ur in southern Mesopotamia as one of its “oldest and most famous” cities (875). Today the two-millenia old city of Ur is “modern Tell al-Muqayyar, located on the Euphrates in southern Mesopotamia” (875). Osborne looks at the archaeology of Ur as well as its place in patriarchal times.
Based on an early 20th century exploration of the tell (hill/remains) where Ur once was, archaeologists think that Ur was “not…one of the most extensive cities of its time” (875), with a population of just under 25,000. Ur was a center of lunar worship in Mesopotamia, as was Haran, where Terah would go from Ur (875). Tomb excavations have shown a wealthy city, which “was most probably derived from its lucrative involvement in trade along the Gulf” (876). Osborne also explores the debate over the birthplace of Abraham, whether it was northern or southern Mesopotamia (he favors the latter). He notes that the Genesis text does not say why Terah and his family left Ur.
Archaeology is not my primary interest within biblical studies, but Osborne introduces the basic archaeological finds to the reader in a short space, and does a good job of it. The bibliography at the end of the article offers titles for further reading.
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My impression of the dictionary continues to be positive. At the same time it is becoming clear to me that it is not comprehensive in the subjects it treats. So researchers, exegetes, writers, and teachers will want to consider using it alongside other resources. However, its ability to summarize much detail in a succinct way is a strong point of the dictionary.
I’ll do at least one other installment in my review of Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, and include some concluding thoughts there. See the first part of my review here.
The Dictionary is on Amazon here (in print) and at Logos here. My thanks to Logos for the review copy.
Here is the schedule and text for Monday through Friday, using again the text from R.R. Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint. Ottley is also here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).
I’ve been admiring the above piece all week in anticipation of Easter. (Click to enlarge) It’s from Chora Church in Istanbul. The Greek is ἡ ἀνάστασις, in all capital letters=the resurrection. The letters just above Jesus are the Greek abbreviation for Jesus Christ.
Two blogs I read posted a similar icon this morning. I love how Jesus (Life) is touching Adam and Eve (death), pulling them out of their graves, from death to resurrection.
All day I’ve been trying to meditate on what Jesus’ disciples must have been feeling on the day between Good Friday and Easter.
Wait–before you go further, if you don’t think it’s too cheesy, listen to this while you read the rest of the post:
Saturday.
Many Western Christians know how to observe Good Friday and Easter. On Good Friday we call to mind our sins, the last words of Jesus on the cross, the shock and despair his followers experienced… and we try to imagine his suffering, entering in to that as best as we are able.
And then Easter is the party of all parties, when we declare the defeat of death: “Jesus Christ is no longer dead!”
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
But what about Saturday? The disciples didn’t have an “Easter” to look forward to. Jesus was done for, as far as they knew. He was really dead. When he did appear to the apostles, they were terrified and thought they were looking at a ghost. They weren’t even hopeful for resurrection–it hadn’t crossed their mind as an option.
So what some Orthodox call “Bright Saturday” was anything but bright for Jesus’ first followers. It was probably horrible. Awful Saturday. They felt as empty as the tomb was about to be. It was a Sabbath day, too, so they didn’t have any work to distract them. They were quiet. Or maybe they wailed loudly. Phillip Glass (the music you may have clicked on, above) makes a good soundtrack for trying to imagine the emptiness of that day.
In the loss of a loved one, the day of the beloved’s death is painful, and then there’s something about the second day that can be even more painful. The initial shock may begin to give way (but probably not really); reality sets in a little bit more. No, that wasn’t a bad dream–I’m still here, and my loved one really is… gone. Maybe the second day–Saturday–was even more difficult for the disciples than Friday.
At one point today I was thinking about the liminal nature of Saturday in Holy Week: it’s an often unnoticed, unmarked day that is situated between death (Good Friday) and life (Resurrection Sunday). How should I feel? Sad? Penitential? Happy? Pre-happy? Expectant? All or none of the above?
My church tradition has an Easter Vigil service on Saturday night, but just this simple offering for a Holy Saturday liturgy. We “await with him” and “rise with him” in that service’s Collect. This calls to mind Psalm 30:5, which says, “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Our Holy/Bright/Liminal Saturday is a short day, since we know of Resurrection Sunday’s shouts of acclamation and loud Alleluias.
But Saturday for the disciples was not liminal. It was not thought of as perched between death and life. That day and those men and women felt firmly ensconced in the grips of death. The closing anthem in the short Book of Common Prayer liturgy above begins, “In the midst of life we are in death….”
“We are in death.” Death Saturday. Awful Saturday.
Jesus’ followers had no clue what–or Who–was just around the corner….
Via Patheos, a beautiful Easter reflection from pastor and blogger Kara Root:
I need the Resurrection because my sister is sick and can’t afford insurance, because I’ve told a weeping Haitian mom, “No, I can’t take your son home with me.” because I’ve been rushed off a Jerusalem street so a robot could blow up a bag that could’ve blown up us. because I’ve exploded in rage and watched their tiny faces cloud with hurt. because evil is pervasive and I participate. I need the Resurrection because it promises that in the end all wrongs are made right. Death loses. Hope triumphs. And Life and Love Prevail.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be reviewing IVP’s Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch in Logos Bible Software. I’ll look at a few dictionary articles in each post, commenting on the content of each, as well as on the dictionary’s presentation in Logos.
I’ve reviewed Logos 4 and 5, looking at several packages and additional resources. Find those reviews collected here.
The dictionary is easy to lay out in Logos with other accompanying resources. Here I have it next to the Hebrew text with English translation and a Hebrew lexicon (click to enlarge):
As with all of Logos’s resources, you can hover over hyperlinked words (see “Heb 7:2” above) to see the Scripture without leaving that tab.
One solid feature so far (true of Logos resources in general): being able to use the shortcut command (Mac) or control (PC) + F to quickly find words in the entries.
One thing to critique so far: the items in the Table of Contents don’t expand to all the subpoints. In the shot above, for example, you can see that “1. Prosopography” under Melchizedek has “1.1. Name” in the entry, but not in the left sidebar Table of Contents. This makes navigating through multiple layers of detail a bit more cumbersome. (By contrast, the Accordance version of this module looks like it has the triangle that continues to expand, here.)
What about content of the dictionary itself? In this installment, I summarize and review three articles: “Sarah,” “Melchizedek,” and “Language of the Pentateuch.”
Sarah
R.G. Branch notes that Sarah and other “matriarchs of God’s people” are “equally significant” compared to the “widely recognized Israelite patriarchs” (733). Chief among these is Sarah. Even if there is not the amount of biblical material about Sarah that there is about Abraham, she remains a “pivotal character” in Genesis (733).
Branch divides the “Sarah” entry into two parts: “Sarah in the Ancestral Narratives” and “Sarah in the Later Tradition.”
In the first part Branch notes that Sarah, about 10 years younger than Abraham, is “the first matriarch of the biblical text” (733). Her childlessness in Genesis 11:30 is a key characteristic. Her first mention in that passage describes her barrenness, which “sets the tone for the stories about them that follow” (733). Sarai and Sarah (her name after God changed it in Genesis 17) both mean “princess” or “chieftainess.” Genesis records several threats to the possibility of Abraham and Sarah bearing offspring, not the least of which is two stories (in Genesis 12 and 20, which Branch understands as two separate incidents) of “marital deception,” where Abraham claims Sarah as his sister (734).
“In both cases,” Branch notes, “Abram feared for his life because of his wife’s great beauty” (734). It is this beauty that is the focus of the second part of the article, “Sarah in Later Tradition.” Branch cites various Jewish sources that extol Sarah for her immense beauty. She is also said to have been “surrounded” by miracles (735).
Branch gives a good, basic summary of biblical and Jewish rabbinic material about Sarah (as well as her importance for understanding Elizabeth in the New Testament), with citations that the reader can follow up for more.
Key statement from this article is: “Many of the issues in the stories about the couple can be understood as their struggle to come to terms with God’s promises of land, offspring, greatness and blessings” (734).
Melchizedek
Scripture contains very few references to the mysterious figure of Melchizedek. S.J. Andrews recounts Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20, which Psalm 110 (noted as a “royal Psalm”) cites. Andrews also does well in noting the book of Hebrews’ understanding and interpretation of Melchizedek.
In “Prosopography” Andrews notes the complications that arise in trying to understand the name malkîṣedeq. Hebrews reads it as “king of righteousness,” but Andrews notes scholarly disagreement on “whether it was originally a Northwest Semitic personal name (theophoric or descriptive) or a royal epithet” (563). Therefore, “The name could mean either ‘(my) Malk/Melek is just’ or ‘Ṣedeq is my king’” (563). Either way, Genesis calls him “king of Salem,” which could be Jerusalem, or just mean, “king of peace,” as in Hebrews 7:2.
The “Historical Account” section of the article delves more into the story of Abram’s victory of kings and subsequent exchange with Melchizedek, where the latter gives the former bread and wine and a blessing, and the former appears to tithe to the latter.
In the final section, “Messianic Application,” Andrews explores various possibilities for the appearance of Melchizedek, what it meant, possible connection to a Messiah, and so on.
Andrews says, “The Qumran text 11QMelch portrays Melchizedek as an archangelic figure like Michael” (564), but he could have perhaps gone into more depth about the Qumran understanding of Melchizedek. However, his basic overview serves as a solid starting point for understanding the Melchizedek figure in biblical tradition.
Language of the Pentateuch
R.S. Hess’s “Language of the Pentateuch” article consist of three sections: “A discussion of the history of languages in and around Palestine during the third and second millennia b.c., a consideration of the grammar and style of the Pentateuch’s language in comparison with Classical Hebrew, and a study of those linguistic elements within the Pentateuch that might relate it to the period in which the narratives and events recorded in Genesis through Deuteronomy claim to have taken place” (491).
He offers a survey of Pentateuchal chronology, marking the date of the exodus as “sometime between the fifteenth century b.c and the end of the thirteenth century b.c.” (492), part of the Late Bronze Age. The Hebrew language is part of a family of West or Northwest Semitic dialects. There are not immense differences between the language of the Pentateuch and the language of (presumably) later Old Testament texts, but Hess does point out research around some “distinctive elements found in the Pentateuch that might set it apart from the grammar of the remainder of biblical Hebrew” (493), though these are few. Hess holds to an “early date” for at least the initial writing of the Pentateuch.
This particular article was a bit dry at times, but the level of detail is still to be appreciated.
So far my overall impression of the dictionary is positive. I will write more about it later. UPDATE: Part 2 is here.
The Dictionary is on Amazon here (in print) and at Logos here. My thanks to Logos for the review copy.
Here is the schedule and text for Monday through Friday, using again the text from R.R. Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint. Ottley is also here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).
This week in Greek Isaiah in a Year covers Isaiah 20 and 21–two full chapters! And this time, I’m including an English translation–one that is in the public domain by R.R. Ottley.
Here is the schedule and text for Monday through Friday, using again the text from Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint. Ottley is also here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).
20 1 In the year when Tartan came to Azotus, when he was sent by Sargon king of the Assyrians, and warred against Azotus and took it,
2 Then spake the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go, and take off the sackcloth from thy loins, and loose thy shoes from thy feet, and so do, walking naked and barefoot.
3 And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot, three years there shall be signs and wonders to the Egyptians and Ethiopians.
4 For thus shall the king of the Assyrians lead away the captivity of Egypt and of the Ethiopians, young men and old men, naked and barefoot, uncovered, the shame of Egypt.
5 And the Egyptians shall be ashamed and discomfited concerning the Ethiopians, upon whom the Egyptians had trusted, for they were their glory.
6 And they that dwell in this isle shall say, Behold, we had trusted to flee unto them for help, who could not be saved from the king of the Assyrians; and how shall we be saved?
21 1 As a tempest passeth through the desert, coming from a desert, from the land. Fearful
2 is the vision, and hard, that was proclaimed to me. He that setteth at nought doth set at nought, and he that transgresseth doth transgress.
The Elamites are upon me, and the envoys of the Persians are coming against me. Now will I mourn, and will comfort myself.
3 Therefore are my loins filled with faintness, and pangs have taken hold of me, as her that travaileth; I did wrong, so as not to hear, I laboured earnestly so as not to see.
4 My heart wandereth, and my transgression overwhelmeth me; my soul turneth to fear.
5 Prepare the table, drink, eat; stand up, ye rulers, and prepare shields.
6 For thus saith the Lord to me, Go, set thee a watchman, and whatsoever thou seest, tell it.
7 And I saw two mounted horsemen, one mounted an an ass, and one mounted on a camel. Hear with diligent hearing,
8 And call Uriah to the watch tower of the Lord. And he said, I have stood continually by day, and over the camp I stood the whole night,
9 And behold, he himself cometh, mounted on a two-horse chariot. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen: and all her mages and the works of her hands are crushed into the earth.
10 Hear, ye that are left, and are in anguish, hear what I have heard from the Lord of Hosts: the God of Israel hath proclaimed it to us.
The vision of Idumæa.
11 To me ye call from Seir, Watch ye (the) battlements.
12 I watch at morning, and through the night; if thou inquire, inquire, and dwell beside me.
13 In the forest shalt thou lie down at evening, in the way of Dedan.
14 Bring water to the thirsty to meet him, ye that dwell in the and of Teman; meet ye with loaves them that flee,
15 Because of the multitude of them that flee, and because of the multitude of them that wander, and because of the multitude of the sword, and because of the multitude of the bows that are bent, and because of the multitude of them that are fallen in the war.
16 For thus said the Lord to me, Yet a year, as the year of an hireling, the glory of the sons of Kedar shall fail,
17 And the remnant of the bows of the strong sons of Kedar shall be few; for the Lord, the God of Israel, hath spoken.
See here for more resources and links to texts for Greek Isaiah.
And here are the Week 16 readings above, but in pdf form.
Here is the schedule and text for Monday through Friday, using again the text from R.R. Ottley’s Book of Isaiah According to the Septuagint. Ottley is also here in Logos (reviewed here) and here as a free, downloadable pdf in the public domain. The full reading plan for our group is here (pdf).
This week in Greek Isaiah in a Year covers Isaiah 24:6-25:12.
Words on the Word 
